US Masters/ Best of the Rest 2022

Been a long time since I updated this. I though my first trip to the Kings of War US Masters was a good enough reason. To be clear, I didn't qualify for the masters team for the PNW, but with it only 3 1/2 hours away in Seattle, I was going whether I played or not. However, since there was a Best of the Rest tournament, I was happy to bring an army to play. The bonus of only playing five games instead of six was nice. 

First, I don't know if I'll ever get to go to another one, but I certainly hope so. It was a great time and a great atmosphere. BotR was more laid back than the Masters, but even the Masters seemed pretty laid back. 

Second, I was hoping for more presence from out of region. I don't recall anyone entering other than PNW or West Coast players. Due to players getting tapped as subs in the other tournament and other issues, we only managed to have 15 players, with a ringer player. Of those 15, seven of us were from the PDX area. 

Right at the end of 2nd ed. I started building an imperial dwarf army and never got a chance to enter an event with it before Covid. Post Covid, it's the only army I've been playing. 

My List:

x2 Ironguard Regiments with throwing mastiffs

x1 Shieldbreakers Regiment with throwing mastiffs

x1 Rangers Regiment

x2 Mastiff Hunting Pack Regiments with throwing mastiffs

x1 Berserker Brock Rigers with Potion of the Caterpillar

x1 Earth Elemental Horde

x1 Greater Earth Elemental

x3 Lord on a Large Beast

x2 Stone Priests with Bane Chant and Surge

Game 1 was against Kingdoms of Men played by Chris, one of those local to me. By the end of turn seven, I held four table sections to his one, plus his center, giving me the win and five scenario points. I expected attrition to be closer, but he only had a regiment and general on winged beast, and I had a regiment and three lords on large beast. If I remember right, final tally was 24/8, putting me in 3rd place.

Game 2 was against Undead played by Paul. This was my coming back to Earth game. Paul out played me in every turn. He got all but one objective and missed tabling me by the stone priests and a lord on large beast. Final tally was 24/6, dropping me back into the middle of the pack.

Game 3 was against Salamanders played by Blake. He gambled on some turn two flank charges that didn't pay off, trying to pop my Rangers, Brock Riders, and an Ironguard Regiment. All three held, and the flanking units got flanked/rear charged and wiped out. Late in the game he managed to get a regiment of Salamander primes into the rear and another into the front of the other IG regiment and only managed 12 wounds, then rolled a 4 to waiver them. This forced him to take another turn to kill them, allowing me time to get units over there to kill both units of primes with flanks and rear charges and take the loot token they'd taken from my IG. Final tally ended up 24/7. The best way I could describe this game was that he made an early mistake and his dice and mine made him pay for it. When my late mistake let him have the front/rear charge on my IG, the dice were more forgiving. This boosted me up to 4th place. 

At the end of the day, I was sitting at 2-1 and was happy with how the army was working. 

Game 4 found me against the ringer, which was one of the TOs Trident Realms army, piloted by Rob Phaneuf in between recording for Counter Charge.  The list he'd been handed didn't have a good answer for D6 dwarves, with almost no CR or TC and low defense. There was a horde with the Hammer of Measured force, and that unit was the only unit to kill any of mine, other than the archers that shot one of my mastiff packs off the board. Getting the hordes tied up in the center, fouled by my other mastiff pack, now being wounded on 4s rather than 3s due to HoMF, the center turned into a slog letting me get flanks on the hordes, the giant, and the hero on the critter. Also, Rob was generous with advice. I took the last of his units off the board in turn seven, taking the last look tokens. Final tally 25/6, putting me into 3rd place. 

Going into turn I had no chance at first, because even if I got a max win, because only if they both lost could I catch them both. As it was I'd need a strong win and a big loss by number two to even have a shot at second. I was matched up against Vern's Varangur. I managed to use my rangers to keep Vern's flanking cavalry out of my backfield long enough to push my D6 units to the center line. At the end of turn six, he'd gotten 6 units with 14 unit-strength across the board, and I was sitting at5 units and 11 US on his side. He rolled us a turn seven and failed to kill the Lord on large beast I hadn't gotten across the board, needing a five on the dice and getting snake eyes. I managed to kill that unit, reducing Vern's score to 5/11, but needed a 4 on the over-run to get that LotLB across the line, and rolled a 2, leaving me also at 5/11. Attrition was less than 200 points different (his favor, leaving us with a 17/17 draw. Had I managed the win, I'd have pulled off second place by one point, but I am happy to have kept a hold of 3rd place. 

All in all, it was a great weekend. I've never finished a five-game tournament ranked that high. I went 3-1-1and got 96 out of a possible 125 tournament points, for my best battle finish in a two-day event ever. I'll take it. 

Long Time No Write

The last time I posted, I was still living in San Antonio. Later that week she was offered the job she'd been going for in Beaverton, Oregon. So here I am, 10 months later, living in a suburb of Portland. I managed to get some painting done, at first, but when I finally found a job, it ate my life for the first several months. Add to that the general lack of Kings of War or anything Mantic in the state of Oregon, and I really had no reason to paint. Our role-playing group was gone, I had no one to play KoW or Deadzone with, and there was little reason for me to paint, as I had no purpose for painted minis.

A series of events unfolded recently to rekindle my interest in minis. I then found the PNW KoW Facebook group, found out about Clash of Storms outside of Seattle in August. Then, to my surprise, I found out about Cascade Clash here in Portland next month. So I'm signed up. I'll be bringing the Orcs out again, and I hope to have the Elves re-based and ready for Clash of Storms in August. As of now, I need to paint up my second War Drum and finish he base for my second orcling regiment. I Might need to make a display board as well, as I don't know if my current army will fit on the old one.

A Much Better Experience

I went into Lone Wolf with trepidation. I had an abysmal experience last time I went, intent upon never returning. I now have further evidence that much of my bad experience was my fault (not all of it, but more than enough to matter).

Day One started off with a very fun game against a Forces of Nature army designed to limit others ability to do damage and heal what little damage there was. It worked well. By the time I figured it out, my army was too badly out of position and damage to do anything about it.
It was a 20-0 victory for the Forces of Nature.

The second round came against the Empire of Dust. This one hurt, not because of losing 13-7, but because I STILL regret selling my tomb kings. It was a close, fun game, but I ended up losing it in the end. Too many of my high priced units died and not enough of is died.

Game three was against the Ratkin. the final score was 17-3 rats, and it wasn't even really that close. Once again I allowed my units to be singled out and killed one by one.  I held my objective, but that was about it. he got all the other points.

In the last game of day one I played the prettiest army I saw across the table all weekend. It was a gorilla themed Herd list. My opponent won 12-8, for my closest game so far. Again, I allowed my units to be killed off piecemeal, but part of that was confusing Stampede hordes for the humans that were actually on the bases. Thinking they were cheap human regiments, I let them get into position to charge my toughest units, where they slaughtered whatever they hit. Fun yet confusing game.

Day two worked out better, starting with a 20-0 win over an Ogre force that looked to be brutal, but was unable to survive counter-charges. In the middle of my turn at the bottom of turn four, my opponent yielded, giving me a 20-0 win. We could have played it out, but I was down a troll horde and a cavalry regiment. He had a warlock and standard bearer left. The warlock had been charged by the other cavalry unit, though we had not resolved that charge yet. I held all three objectives and had all of the bonus points available.

Game six was against another Empire of Dust army, for the only repeat army race for the tournament. Bad deployment cost me dearly in the first few turns, aided by some on fire artillery on my opponent's part. I managed to pull out a 10-10 draw anyway, and I am convinced my chances to win would have been good if we'd gone to turn seven,

I need to plan my army better, for sure, and play more as well.

As to the soft scores, I got the flat rate of 64 sportsmanship, which means I had no positive or negative feedback in regard to sportsmanship. Paint is what surprised me, I scored 59 out of 80, which is by far the best score I've ever gotten. I blame the rubric the TO created to let us point out to him where we had done blending, modeling, and converting.

All in all, it was a good day.

What to Do...

Lone Wolf GT is four days away, and I have no models to paint. All I'm doing is repairing models that came off of their multi-base and throwing together a display board. I'm at a loss. I'll post a photo or two once I've got the display board together, but the army is as follows:

Krudger on a Winged Slasher
Flagger w/ Diadem of Dragon-kind
2 Godspeakers
2 Morax Regiments
Greatax Horde w/ Brew of Haste
2 Troll Hordes
War Drum

Not a very complicated list. The idea is to go forward and smash.

Bayou Battles reflection

So Bayou Battle XIII has come and gone. Despite being the army I've played the longest, my orcs were finally done Thursday night. Below is what the creaming horde looked like.

What you see above is:

a Krudger on a winged slasher

a Flaggit with the Diadem of Dragonkind

two Godspeakers

two Gore Rider regiments

two hords of Trolls

two Morax regiments

a Greatax horde with the Brew of Haste

and a Wardrum

Results varied. 

In game one I came up against shooty ogres. This was the only game all weekend where I didn't feel I even had a chance. He shot up the units with longer range than his and charged the ones that didn't once they got in range. With no shooting to speak of, I couldn't do much. Big win for him.

In game two I came up against an ogre list designed to make me come across the board at me. Terrain and disrupted charges let me soak up a couple of charges I othewise wouldn't have and I was able to cave in both flanks. Medium sized win for me.

Game three was against a really great guy with his Empire of Dust. His shooting dice hated him. He missed with 16 of 17 shots with his three catapults, and the one he hit he retracted because he realized afterward that he was shooting at an individual and should have been minus one. It was a great game, but timely break test rolls on his part changed it from a very close game that I was probably losing to a blowout for him in turn six. This was probably my favorite game of the weekend and got my my second best game vote.

After game three I was done and ready for dinner. I forgot there was four games on day one. So when pairings were posted I was not really into the game or ready to play. I drew an Orc list that was pretty but had some questionable choices that should have been easy for me to exploit. I was able to lose the game pretty much on deployment. I deployed like I was facing a shooting army, not a face bashing one and paid for it. Big loss on my part.

After day one, I was about as down on the game as I ever was on WFB. I had 26 battle points in four games. My last game should have been fun, but I just wasn't into it. Food helped, and Sunday would be a better day. 

Then there was the Giant Bash. It was a rather toned down affair as far as Giant Bashes go, as we had a couple of younger players with us. I managed to be the last giant standing with a total of 1 wound left at the end and won a Darklands Scecchus, Servile Fiend of Dis, made by Mierce Miniatures. I suspect I know where that bit of prize support came from, and if you're reading this and responsible, thanks. 

On day two, I was determined to have a better time, win, lose or draw. For game five, a scenario that involved only taking loot and getting off the board with it or holding on to it until the end of the game, I made another deployment error and let my opponents Salamanders grab three of the five objectives in turn one. I grabbed the other two on my half of the turn and then he dumped his tokens back and let a skink (or KoW equivalent) unit grab them up and head for the board edge. It very nearly worked, but on turn five I was able to make a rear charge with the Krudger and grab the tokes back. So that one went from a close loss to a complete win in the space of one turn. If I'd failed to rout the skinks, they run off the table edge on turn six. This one got my best game vote, which was a tough choice. I ended up giving this one the nod because it really game down to a single charge. I rout them, I win. I don't, and he wins.

Game six was my first game against an Undead army. I expected this one to go badly for me, but the units on my flanks out-punched the units on his flanks and my big horde in the middle out-punched his. He failed three consecutive rolls for Bane-Chant to attack one of my units with one of his. I got so disgusted that I used one of my re-rolls to make him re-roll one of his dice on the third one, which he passed, letting him wipe out that unit. (Maybe too much altruism, but If he fails that again, the game gets even uglier and more lopsided than it ended up being in the end. As it was he had only his general and the scenario dragon left at the end of turn six, and I lost a unit of Gore Riders. No one got any bonus points.

So I got 26 battle points in four games on day one and 36 in two games on day two, for a total of 56. I'm pretty happy. I finished in 21st of 48 player, for the best big tournament finish yet.  I'm not sure, but I think this may be the first GT I've finished in the top half.  The big takeaway, now that I think about it, is that in six games, there was not a single unpainted model on the table. First time ever for a ft for me.

Now my big worry is getting more practice painting so I'll feel worthy of painting a beautiful model like Scecchus.

One Down...

Orc Boar Boyz Gore Riders

So my first multi-based unit for KoW is mostly done. I've got a couple more to go for Bayou Battles. I may, at some point, add shields to the ones who don't already have them. I may not. The guy with the shield in the center was intended to be a Krudger mounted on a winged slasher, but the spear didn't work with the mount, so he became part of a gore rider unit.

Krudger on a Winged Slasher

Still needs some work, but here he is, my Krudger on a Winged Slasher. He just looks like a Warboss on a red dragon.

Restraint? The Hell You Say!

So my preorder Deadzone box came yesterday. The urge to jump in, dig out the new models and begin painting them is powerful. However, I still need three units painted for my Orcs for Bayou Battles. I also need to multi base those three units as well as some repairs to another unit. 

Any bets on how long I make it? I've opened  he box to make sure everything is there and that is it. 

Of course, I could totally play a game or two using Space Marines I already have as Enforcers...

Can't Leave Well Enough Alone.

I have the models to make a completely painted army for Bayou Battles without painting a single model. I really do. However that's not the army I want to play. I still want it to be orcs, with troll and savage/morax regiments as the bulk, but I want some cavalry, and not goblin cavalry, which means painting. And I really like how the krudger on the winged slasher played, so I need to paint that. And I need to finish up the war drum, because its pretty awesome too.

At least I can get into some looking multi-basing with the gore riders since the models I have don't rank up well at all.And you know, I've got enough savages to completely redo those units as well...

Bitten by the bug again

As usually happens, I lose interest in building and painting minis, then I go to a tournament, be it six players or 60, and suddenly I'm all fired up. In the past, it's always been seeing all the fantastic, armies that other players bring. Even at the local tournaments, some beautiful armies show up and make me want to improve my own.

Last weekend there was a local tournament with only six players, and only one fully painted army. Two of the three armies I played had little to no paint at all. I even broke my own personal rule of not putting unpainted models on the table because I wanted to see how the winged slasher worked out in play.

It took me until today to realize why I suddenly felt so enthused. It was the game itself. I started seeing places I could improve my army that I already have the models for; they just need painting. I then realized I have the models for a rather large orc army, a significant elf army, and also a decent sized goblin army. They all need painting. So much painting to do.

What started as, "All I need for Bayou Battles is to finish up the dragon and the war drum, became, "Well, I could use my black orcs as a greatax regiment, but some of them have shields and some have two weapons, but I have more black orcs with two handed weapons to replace those, they just need painting." It then became, "You know, I probably have enough two-hand black orcs to just replace the unit, and then I could multi-base them and that could look really cool."

As for the tournament itself, taking third out of six was fun. I rarely finish in the top half of these things. Knowing the tiebreaker for second came down to the 210 point head to head loss in round one was nice to know. What was great was knowing how close my games all were. A 210 point loss, a 500 point win, and a game that on paper looks like it was a blowout win for me actually turned in my favor on the last throw of the dice in the bottom of turn seven where I had to roll nine or more to get the win and rolled exactly nine on the both first roll and the re-roll.

The point is not that I played well and won two of three. The point was that each game was fun and while one game turned on a single die roll, in reality, the biggest factor in each game was decisions I or my opponents made. In that final game, I don't crush his flank if he doesn't make a mistake in allowing my trolls to flank one of his units in turn two. If I don't make a similar mistake in turn five, I win the game without needing a crazy die roll at the end.

What it comes down to is that win or lose, I like this game. So far, I have felt out of my depth against certain players who are simply better at the game than me, but I haven't felt like I have won or lost a game due to special rules or one army simply being over-powered or under-powered compared to the rest of the armies.

On Kings of War

Went to the big KoW bash at Tabletop this weekend and got in a couple of games. One was at 1000 points and one was a team up with 2000 points to a side (1000 each).

1) Wow. It's an easy system to play. The rules are simple and straight forward.
2) Movement is important. With only the chargers attacking, being the one who charges is vital.
3) Flanks and rear charges are right the hell nasty. With double or triple attacks, a horde of trolls deals our 36 or 54 attacks. On Saturday, I used a rear charge from a five elf unit of cavalry to rout a horde of beast-men with a rear charge.
4) While there are special rules, there seems to be no dominant special rule that negates whole armies.
5) As usual, I need to paint more. While I can throw down about 3000 points of painted elves in WFB, I can only get about 1500 in KoW. With orcs and goblins, I've got about 3500 points painted, but only about 1000 each in KoW as they are separate armies. With the allies rule, I can use some of one in the other, but only a quarter of the total.

Oh well. Back to the table.