Today I attended a 10-man, 3-game tournament! It was frekking awesome, and would you believe it - I pulled home bronze for the Dawi Zharr!
List:
++ Characters [788 pts] ++
Sorcerer-Prophet [475 pts]
(Darkforged weapon, Heavy armour, Level 4 Wizard, General, Bale Taurus, Armour of Meteoric Iron, Talisman of Protection, Mantle of Stone, Daemonology)
Infernal Seneschal [129 pts]
(Great weapon, Heavy armour, Battle Standard Bearer, Armour of Silvered Steel)
Black Orc Bigboss [94 pts]
(Great weapon, Full plate armour, On foot, āEadbuttinā 'At)
Hobgoblin Khan [90 pts]
(Hand weapon, Throwing weapons, Light armour, Shield, Giant Wolf, Ruby Ring of Ruin)
++ Core Units [525 pts] ++
14 Black Orc Mob [207 pts]
(Hand weapon, Full plate armour, 7x Great weapon, 7x Additional hand weapon, Boss, Standard bearer, Musician)
15 Infernal Guard [258 pts]
(Hand weapons, Heavy armour, Shield, Drilled (0-1 per 1000 points), Deathmask (champion) [Hellshard], Standard bearer [War Banner], Musician)
10 Hobgoblin Cutthroats [30 pts]
(Hand weapons, Shortbows)
10 Hobgoblin Cutthroats [30 pts]
(Hand weapons, Shortbows)
++ Special Units [502 pts] ++
Iron Daemon [310 pts]
(Steam Cannonade, Hand weapons, Hellbound)
3 Bull Centaur Renders [192 pts]
(Great weapons, Light armour, Baāhal, Standard bearer)
++ Rare Units [185 pts] ++
Dreadquake Mortar [185 pts]
(Dreadquake Mortar, Hand weapons, Heavy armour, Ogre Loader)
Iāll do some highlight-style reports below, since I didnāt take nearly enough pictures to give a reliable play-by-play.
Match 1
First game was against a balanced Mountain Holds list, with a toughness 10 king, a gyrocopter and some standard dwarfen troops and war machines.
I rolled Steed of Shadows and my plan was to sort of envelop him and pick off his smaller units while his regiments scramble to keep up.
I managed to yeet Infernal Guard and Black Orcs behind enemy lines. The gyro and rangers had a bit of a skirmish with some of my units on my left flank.
Last pic.
My Bale Taurus eventually managed to break and catch the ironbreaker unit, but it would rather have caused havoc among the war machines.
The Longbeards got ganked by the Iron Daemon, Bulltaurs and Infernal Guard, but they handily fought them off.
Iron Daemon ended getting shot by various war machines.
Black Orcs were shot with 20 grapeshot hits, panicked and fled off the table, before being able to engage the war machines.
16-4 to our traitorous kin. It could have gone differently if heād rolled a bit more average on his saves and war machines, but all in all it was a deserved victory.
Match 2
Second game I faced off against a wood elf player sporting a wild hunt themed list. 2x5 wild riders, bunch of rangers and some sisters of the thorn.
I had planned to kind of hang back a little and pick my shots, since he didnāt actually have that much shooting, for a welf army. I decided otherwise when my taurus started taking poisoned wounds at an alarming rate
His wild riders got shot and broken in combat respectively.
My Bale Taurus cleaned house on the northern front, killing eternal guard, glade guard, and getting an unlikely catch on the glade riders (with lvl 4) who elected to shoot and flee, and then proceeded to roll 3 1ās on their flee roll.
The iron daemon mostly acted as an artillery piece, but did charge the wyldwood rangers at one point, to soften them up. OUPS! His elf lord had the ogre blade and rattled 5 wounds off the train! Gave ground and never looked back ^^
My Infernal Guard champion Allahu Akbarād himself and blew up the enemy shadowdancer, who was sneaking around the northern tower with their troupe,
Little bit of back and forth (mostly forth), but eventually I tabled my opponent, and with the bonuses from killing the general and taking a few banners in CC, I ended up getting a sizeable 19-1 win.
Match 3
My final match was against a sort of balanced, but maybe not super optimized Empire list. He went for 2*3 demigryph knights, a steam tank, some assorted war machines, a large unit of veteran state halberdiers with general and bsb, as well as a lvl 3 wyzzerdd on pegasus. Oh, and some normal knights, but they got obliterated.
For the third time in a row, I rolled steed of shadows, and I tried yeeting my guys behind enemy lines again, this time with a bit more of a successful outcome. Besides that, I rolled daemonic vessel, and used it to kill the steam tank in CC.
My Dreadquake completely halted the advance of one of the demigryph units, and it was eventually charged, beaten, broken, and run down by my bull centaurs (yay guys! you did something!)
The other unit deployed far from my lines, and by the time it got close, it got shot and ground up by my iron daemon.
The pegasus wizard was also a bit too far from my lines to do anything, really, and when he got in range, he was a bit easier to dispel, owing to him being only level 3.
Not much more went on in this game. In the end Iād only really lost my two hobgoblin units, and Iād killed a steam tank, his artillery, a demigryph unit (only 1 wound left on the other one, dang), and his small unit of knights.
14-6 victory to yours truly.
Tournament Wrap Up
So if you look at the overall raw victory points of all players, I ended up ranking in second! Be that as it may, with the New Recruit accounting for āplayer strengthā, I ended up in this position:
Which netted me a freaking damn bronze trophy, yo (also won a pot of paint for best painted ):
Thoughts on my list
The Bale Taurus is a tough SOB, but canāt stand and trade with many of the bigger baddies of the game, so itās important to pick your fights with him. As it turned out, the meta in this particular tournament was not at all dragon/monster focused, so he had a field day.
Hobo Khan Ruby Ring caddie earned his points back in every game except the first (and even then, he could as easily have stayed in the fight and kept flinging fireballs). Good choice. I donāt see that breath of hashut on him would be better, seeing as itās single use. Itās not dispellable, but his mobility kept him out of dispel range anyway, soā¦ Good pick, I think.
The BSB is ok, but I donāt think I had any particularly clutch re-rolls this time around. Iāll bring Lamassuās beard going forward, or leave him at home, probably. Go big or go home.
Big Boss called Waaagh! fairly consistently, and he and the boyz did overall well enough. There might be a case for going all in on hobos and blunderbusses instead of blorcs, though.
Infernal guard are a lovely anvil unit, enough said.
Bull Centaurs NEED to hit the right targets, and they NEED to be charging, and NEED to roll fairly well for hits, cause of their limited number of attacks. If they manage to tick all the boxes, theyāre good, otherwise theyāre minced beef for the enemy to chow down on. Not viable for competition play, I think. Unfortunately, cause I know we all love them conceptually. Maybe with the Ashen Banner
Iron Daemon is a beast, not much to say there. Hellbound didnāt do as much for me as Iād imagined. I didnāt charge that much, since I was rarely inside charge range, but the canonnade put in some serious work.
Thatās it, I think. Thank you all for the inspiration! Letās continue burning the land and stripping the forests whereāer we go