ICON LD games

(re-posted here since it's now batrep time and not list discussion)

Alrighty, tournament done and dusted.

Since we had some predictions, I thought I'd make the feedback a bit more entertaining. I'll post up the scenarios and opponents I faced, and lets see how you reckon the list (and me) fared. (Irrespective of results, I should note that this list and the whole weekend were an absolute blast. Awesome playing with such differenet mechanics in the new edition)

Game #1, Ogres.

Scenario was to capture and keep a number of objective markers placed on the board, which gave random benefits. No random events rolled.

Slaughtermaster, Ward, Scroll
Firebelly, Hellheart
Ogre BSB

22!! bull ogres, ogre fists, full command
5 Ironguts, FC
4 Mournfangs, FC
10 gnoblar trappers
10 gnoblar trappers
1 Ironblaster
3 Leadbelchers
3 Leadbelchers

Game #2, WoC

Scenario gave bonus 150VP per unit in opponent's deployment zone at end of game, Deployment zone 4" shorter than usual. Random event unstable ground, makes each unit take an I-test, if failed drop Movement by 1 for turn.

Tzeentch Wizard Lord, stuff.
BSB, stuff
Throgg

24 (or 30, probably 30) Chosen Tzeentch warriors, FC, halberds, champ with Gaze of the gods.
Warshrine
Warshrine
18 Warriors, Khorne, Halberds, FC.
5 x marauder horsies, flails
5 x marauder horsies, flails
7 x chaos trolls
Hellcanon

Game #3, Lizardmen.

Scenario involved three terrain features to control at the end of the game, each worth 500 VP. Random scenario was Ambush, which did nothing to my opponent, and killed a flesh hound and some bloodletters as the game started.

Frog, BSB, Rumination, Becalming cogitation, Loremaster, Life, Cupped hands of the Cheaters.
Scar-veteran, anti-fire helm.
skink priest, Engine of the Frogs
39 x Saurus warriors, FC, hw + Shield.
21 x Saurus warriors, FC, hw + shield (frog goes in this bunker)
30 x Saurus warriors, FC, hw + shield
10 x chameleon skinks
10 x chameleon skinks
1 x Salamander
1 x Salamander

Go ahead and do some guesswork. I'll post up the next three games tomorrow sometime.

-und_ed

i would say you lost against the Ogres primarily due to your inability to deal with the iron guts big bus, and that would be the bunker where he puts all of his characters in.

I'm assuming though he didn't give fencers to his slaughtermaster, I'm sure you would have remembered to post that little detail lol.

Woc; I think you would have won although technically a draw. You would have won by being able to choose your charges and stay away from the chosen bus.

Lizardmen: Lost, chameleon skinks and the salamanders would have destroyed units peacemeal picking you off, Your LD bomb list would have only been relatively successful due to cold blooded.

Now watch in amazement as Tzeentch dismisses my 'predictions' as rank amateur and I get everything wrong completely

Hehe. I like some of the predictions so far. (although the Ogres is a bull horde, not an irongut horde, but that makes little difference to my low-toughness daemons)

Here's the next three games:

Game #4, Vampires

Scenario is an odd one that's become a yearly staple at ICON, called the "three bridges". It has the usual terrain layout, with the addition of a 6" ravine all the way across the centre of the board. The ravine has three bridges, 7" wide, that allow you to cross the otherwise impassable terrain of the ravine. Scouts cannot deploy across the ravine. Every unit that ends the gome on the opponent's side of the ravine scores VP equal to its own value in addition to normal VP. Random scenario was biting winds, which means -1 WS and -1 to armour saves across the board.

Vamp Lord, red fury, +2 attack sword, 4+ Ward, ASF.
Master neccie, something
Vamp, lvl 1, -1 Ld ability, dispel scroll
39 skeletons, FC.
40 zombies, FC
40 skeletons, FC
40 grave guard, FC, great weapons, banner of the barrows
Mortis Engine
Terrorgeist
corpse cart

Game #5, Druchii

Scenario was capture the colours, meaning each captured banner was worth an extra 100 VP, as was the general. Each retained banner was worth a bonus 50 VP. Random scenario was again Biting Winds.

Dreadlord, Pendant of cheating, Armour of Blood, +2S axe thingy.
Noble, dark pegasus, Ring of Hotek, whatever.
High sorceress, lvl 4, Sacrificial dagger (shadow).
Sorceress, lvl 2, Dispel scroll (fire)
Hag, Cauldron, BSB

24 x corsairs, FC, frenzy banner. (Dreadlord goes here)
29 x spearelves, FC. (High Sorc here)
10 x repeater xbowmen (Sorc here)
24 x Black Guard, armour-piercing banner, FC
Hydra
Repeater bolt-thrower

Game #6, Beastmen

Scenario is normal pitched battle, random event is Biting winds for a third time in a row (so same random event all of day #2).

Great bray-shaman, Dispel scroll, 4+ Ward
Doombull, axes of rage / khorgor / whatever (+1 attack, reroll to hit), armour of hittyness if he makes a save.
Gor thingy, BSB, 4+ Ward armour

39 x Gors, FC, Bus formation (BSB goes here)
7 x Minotaurs, extra hand weapon, F/C, Champ has blackened plate. (Doombull here)
Chariot
Chariot
Cygor
5 x Harpies, scouting
5 x Harpies, scouting
Pumbagor
Pumbagor
6 x ungor raiders
6 x ungor raiders
10 x ungor raiders

Alrighty, that's all of the games.

I'll answer the predictions sometime tomorrow.

Have fun

-und_ed

i think you siren songed the ironblaster on turn 1 so it didn't manage to kill any of your chariots/keeper. your speed allowed you to isolate the gutstar by killing the rest of his army (no sabretusks?!), and the gutstar failed a critical LD test allowing you to table him.

if the tzeentch lord was on a disc, you siren songed him to his doom, and without magic, you were able to punish the warriors for their puny LD 8. however, without a surefire way to take down the tzeentch unit, you got a moderate win. then when you add up the VP's for units in his deployment zone, you are way up.

Hmmmmm, it looks like the chameleons are the only thing he has that can challenge the keeper, so i'm guessing that this was a hard fought battle with him claiming 2 objectives and leaving you with one, minor loss. he had too many bodies coupled with life magic for you to make real headway.

if you were able to get the terrorgheist outside the LD bubble, you won this one. if you couldn't, i think it got your keeper and cost you the game. very dicey, i HATE terrorgheists! out of all of the games, i really want to hear about this one.

i'm not sure how but i think you lost this one by a fair bit. i think it came down to a last critical combat between the dreadlord and the keeper and the dreadlord won. big win to the DE.

LD bomb against beastmen? massacre win for the daemons here.

How horribly wrong was I und?

I've got some time later, will post up a full report.

Still waiting for your predictions for games 4-6, Feez

-und_ed

Alrighty, got some time so lets do the first three games.

Game #1, Ogres.
Feez : Loss, can't deal with Bull-star
Maynardius: Isolate and kill, Tabled the ogres.

and the prize goes to Maynardius. My speed allowed me to isolate units as needed, and by charging the Bull-star with the khornate chariot and the 'crushers I could overload combat Res and rely on the Ld-games to overcome steadfast. My Kipper took freaking ages to kill the mournfangs, and the slaaneshi herald took a canonball to the face to save the kipper from an ironblaster shot (Blaster was on the other side of the table). A couple hairy turns where two units of leadbelchers were firing on me with bloody poison from the river they were standing in, but hounds dealt with one swiftly, and the Kipper finally got the other. Magic was disappointing, miscasting in turn #1 and losing 3 levels. Embarressment of the match goes to the bloodletters, who charged the small unit of ironguts + slaughtermaster, and in 2 rounds killed only one ogre while getting completely destroyed themselves.

Ogres were eventually tabled, massacre to the daemons.

Game #2, woC.
Feez: draw / close win, avoid the chosen
Maynardius: Big win through denial and scenario VPs

and again the prize goes to Maynardius. This one turned on a dime, however. I knew I couldn't deal with the chosenstar, so I had to pick off points where I could while marching up for the scenario points. I dedicated a single fiend and a small daemonette unit to it, while setting up a refused flank to try avoid the chosen bollocks. due to terrain and crowded play, I ended up relegating the fleshies to joining the fiend and 'nettes, while the other fiend and 'nette unit played interference. Magic was going well, with half the khornate halberdiers dead from Slicing Shards, and stupidity thrown onto the chosenstar). I managed to set up a charge on the trolls with the Kipper and a flank from the crushers, and dropped their Ld to 4. Kipper beats down the troll king, and with Ld 4 cannot strike back due to Temptator blade. Then he makes his Ld - test, and passes on a bleeding 4! This leaves me about to be ruined by the chosen charging in, when they fail the stupidity-test (yay for magic! finally did something useful), leaving me to pick apart everything I could and make Maynard's prediction come true.

Game #3, Lizardmen

Feez: Loss, only marginally useful Ld-bomb
Grey Seer Maynard: Minor loss, too many bodies + life magic too resilient

and a swing and a miss for the Seer. This was the very first time I've faced down a Life frog and happily said "bring it!". He only has one buff that scares me (Flesh to Stone), and my infantry units are so irrelevant that I couldn't care less about Dwellers. I ensure I dispel flesh to stone each turn, and drop his throne of vines in my own turn to starve his power dice. I obviously cast buggerall magic during this game, but was able to isolate his big horde of saurus, and with both chariots and the kipper in it, plus Ld-shenanigans, even cold-blooded can only keep it around for so long. Fast things like throwaway daemonettes and fleshies deal with sallies and skinks in fairly short order, and the dogs and crushers take down the steggie. Those same ld-shenanigans were then applied to the frog's bunker, and that too went to dust. From there it's easy to mop up, and it's a thorough tabling of Lizards, the easiest win I've ever had over Lizardmen in 8th edition.

Righty, back to work, I'll see if I can do the next three later tonight.

-und_ed

lol this is fun, we should do this more often. i should have known better about the LM army, there's really no way for that list to compete these days. life slann and saurus blocks are so 2010! lets see the next games already!

Alrighty, on with the show!

Game #4, Vampires

Maynardius: Terrorgeist-dependant win/loss.

Oddly enough, this turned on different issues. I had been planning for this game, having minimal experience before facing a terrorgeist, and I had a perfect plan to force a failed charge with Siren Song, and let the crushers charge down the Terrorgeist. Sadly, the scenario put paid to that idea, with the chasm making the notion completely unfeasible. I tried to catch it with magic, but scrolls and dispel dice ended that idea quickly. I siren-songed the blighted thing in, but didn't know about the Vamp's Ld-dropping bollocks. The idiot thing screamed 3 wounds off my Kipper (6, 3 saved) and I hurt it in combat, and then flanked with fleshies to kill it. I also managed to miscast and plink another wound off my Kipper, leaving him on one wound. The good news is that his Master Neccie was hit by stupidity, and failed stupidity to keep my kipper alive (he was planning to Gaze him down, and I would not have been able to stop it), and I managed to Slicing Shards the master Neccie to death. The bridges proved to be both a blessing and a curse, since they prevented me from doing the combined charges that make my army work, but also allowed me to bottleneck him quite severely, keeping the grave guard out of the entire game, and the ridiculous vamp lord for most of the game. I had the crushers and a small 'nette unit cross a far bridge for bonus VP, and the crushers also (barely) killed off a skellie unit for some more, while bloodletters and the Slaaneshi Herald ground down a unit of zombies over 3 turns. Honourable mention goes to his mortis engine, who charged my dogs, did very little, got killed in the next round, and then dished out absurd damage in its dying screams. Almost killed my BSB just by dying. I sacrificed my BSB to prevent his vamp lord from crossing the chasm, keeping my Kipper far away from anything holding any implement that could even be deemed "slightly pointy", and the final result was a solid victory to the daemons.

Game #5, Dark Elves.

B. Maynard: Lost badly, epic battle between Kipper and dreadlord.

O ye of little faith! wrong on both - DE tabled in style. Kipper got into an epic duel with the dreadlord, but even he can't survive that many wounds, and eventually died. Having to suffer thunderstomps in the challenge piles the pressure on to the dreadlord quite a bit, especially in addition to the extra -1 armour save from Biting Winds. I sacrificed the fiends early to force my preferred matchups, which worked a treat. I also risked very bad events by charging both chariots through a swamp at the spearelf bunker with the supreme sorc, and even though the Masque only dropped their Ld by one (and hence they held), I assassinated the cow with ease. The my opponent (the only player to cotton on to this trick) threw a magic missile at the Masque to end my Ld-shenanigans, doing it in cheaty DE style (he had 12 power dice, and threw all 12 at the biggest Fireball) with his lvl 2 wizard. The crushers were pathetic, doing 1 wound to the Hydra and dying ignominously. A single unit of daemonettes in a building, however, managed to chip another 3 wounds off it and then hid away for the rest of the game. Hi blessed corsairs could not fail 5+ cauldron ward saves, but eventually died to bloodletters, Kipper and chariot love, but not before offing the Kipper! (2 wounds from the dreadlord, 2 from black guard that got squashed, and finally the end of the kipper came from corsairs) bloodletters finally ticked the last wound off the Hydra, and the khornate chariot + hounds finished off the cauldron.

Game #6, Beasts

Tzeentchian Seer Maynard: Ld-bomb rules the day.

Spot on the money. I used siren-song to force a failed charge from the cygor, and the charged it down with the Kipper. I used interference bollocks to control the chariots, who were then manhandled by daemonettes, and then descended on the Gor bus in fury and Ld-bollocks, easily dispatching it. I sent the Kipper after the great bray-shaman, and embarresingly only did 1 wound attacking in the challenge, (stupid 4+ Ward), but thankfully finished him off with thunderstomp. His doombull went solo, getting annoyed with my interference crap, and with a small harpy unit almost wiped out the bloodletters (who couldn't kill 5 harpies in 4 rounds of combat... for shame!), but finally died after two Pavanes made his life a misery. Notable mention goes to his minotaurs, who scared the living daylights out of me after hitting the Slaaneshi Herald, and once she died were on 6 attacks each in the front, and threatening my Kipper. I sacrificed the Masque to keep them out of my Kipper, as I can live without taking that sort of punishment, and then studiously avoided the unit of now 7-attack freaking minotaurs.

Final result - all wins, mostly massacres, and a hair-raising first place to the daemons! (I think my hair started going grey after playing without a scroll, won't be doing that again in a hurry)

A really great tourney, and an unbelievably fun list to play,so remarkably different in playstyle to the usual 8th Ed builds.

-und_ed

awesome reports, this sounded like a total blast. i'm not too tickled by the scenarios, but it must have been so much fun to use the chariots. well done on your victory as well!

Thanks.

I love the scenarios myself - this event always uses some pretty game-changing scenarios, and it really puts players on their toes. The TO is also a very good friend of minne who agrees with me about terrain, namely that it should be placed in such a way as to be important to the game, so get it central and make it annoying, which he does with vigour and gusto.

Using the chariots and the crushers was just awesome - I can never justify them in normal lists, and putting them on the table again was all nostalgic. Both my chariots are scratch-built models, so I really get a kick out of using 'em.

-und_ed

I usually am the one to set up the game boards and terrain on those rare occasions I get to play a game. Could you give some examples of how you would set up some terrain?

BTW - Congrats on all the wins! Good to see an unconventional list bring the pain!

Sure, Legion.

The objective I strive for as a TO is to make terrain as annoying as possible, without ruining gameplay. So here's some examples:

1) Do not leave the centre of the board open.
2) Include a building slightly off-centre if possible - the building rules make for excellent tactical possibilities.
3) Don't be afraid to dissect the board with a long river (although it's better if you can inclue a bridge or two if you do so)
4) try include a forest near the middle, they make infantry sweat a fair bit with their interactions with the ranks and steadfast rules.
5) Don't be shy to throw impassable obstacles in the way
6) Never leave a table barren. I recommend anywhere from 5-8 pieces on a table, usually prefer more rather than less.
7) Put walls a bit outside of deployment zones - this lets people move units up to garrison them, providing more interesting tactical and strategic options.
8 ) make sure to leave some reasonable avenues to move through all the clutter I've just suggested

A lot of people try to make terrain little more than window-dressing, something pretty to look at while still playing their usual game of rush at each other and bash. The game becomes far more nuanced when people can use terrain to their advantage, and it's a part of the game I greatly enjoy. (consider a simple example - my opponent outnumbers me on units, so I use an impassable obstacle to protect my right flank while pushing the center and my left flank. Conversely, my opponent sees I'm doing this, and backs his battle line up so that if I want to get aggressive I need to expose the flank... you see how it goes)

-und_ed

I absolutely support that 8-step list regarding terrain-deployment Und_ed. It's actually something I feel I have to bicker and argue about (with my friends) almost every time we set up a game-board: Nuanced and interesting to some, game-ruining to others.. It's really peculiar.

Enjoyed Reading this conversation you guys have been having too. A great event by the sounds of it. Congrats to the wins and thanks for sharing!

We use this way to deploy as well and I must say I always hated it.

Me being the only horde army in my gaming group (Skaven) means I'm usually the player that is screwed the most. Add to that that we have a 48 by 96 inch table which we divided into two 48 by 48 inch tables and you can understand that as soon as we go over 1000 points the Skaven are screwed.

Terrain can be fun but it can also have a bit to much impact on the game sometimes.

I hope I will be less annoyed with it when I start playing with Daemons and go from five combat blocks to 2-3 combat blocks