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Temysry
Sergeant
512 Posts
    
 | | 01/04/2007 7:28 PM |
| Happy New Year! After almost a month away from the game I finally made it back to Halifax to play with the Thursday Knights. Our schedule has changed slightly and we are now sanctioned to run epic games only on the last Thursday of every month rather than every other week. Personally, I like this because I have a load of ideas for 200 point bands that I want to try out. Also - I find that you get to see different maps more often. Anyway, we had a rather poor showing of only 5 players but there were some very exciting matches.
The Bands:
Tem (3-0)
Red Hand War Sorcerer
Fire Giant Forgepriest
War Troll
Dire Rat
Goblin Skirmisher x3
Map: Drow Outpost
Zuran Alda (2-1)
Battle Plate Marshal
Thundertusk Cavalry x2
Dwarf Artificer
Gold Dwarf Soldier
Eberk, Adventurer
Azer Fighter
Timber Wolf
Map: Frostfell Rift
Orcdoubleax (2-1 with a bye)
Inspiring Marshal
Valenar Nomad Charger x2
Longstrider Ranger x2
Graycloak Ranger x2
Timber Wolf x2 (minions)
Map: Teleport Temple
Zak X (1-2 with a bye)
Ogre Mage
Red Hand War Sorcerer
Erinyes
Flameskull
Dark Moon Monk
Kobold Miner x3
Map: Broken Demongate
Pumpkin King (1-2 with a bye)
Tiefling Captain
Vlaakith the Lich Queen
Skeletal Reaper x4
Minotaur Skeleton
Map: Dragonshrine
Round 1:
Tem def. Zak
Zuran def. Pumpkin King
Orcdoubleax def. BYE
Round 2:
Tem def. Zuran
Orcdoubleax def. Zak
Pumpkin King def. BYE
Round 3:
Tem def. Pumpkin King
Zuran def. Orcdoubleax
Zak def. BYE
The astute reader will notice that my warband is not original but "borrowed" from another Hordelings poster. I did this for two reasons - first, I didn't have time to put together anything myself (I'm lazy) and second, my first impression of it was that it wouldn't hold up but it's record was quite good so I thought I'd give it a go. Needless to say, I'm now a believer despite a couple close calls.
Round 1: I wasn't terribly happy to see so many spell casters with a RHWS on the opposite side of the table considering that my FGFP would be taking double damage from the snowball swarms and a frightful cone of cold. Zak won his map but I won side and picked the "good" side. I tried to start by advancing the war troll and RHWS to get off ranged attacks and spells as much as possible while my giant tried to get into the battle. I managed to cause his only kobold in one of his victory areas to rout so neither one of us scored tile points in the first round. With my two large bases and all the difficult terrain I had a hard time getting my hitters into good positions. They both ended up taking a number of spells for their trouble. The Erinyes DD into my backfield and caused my commander to rout. On the next turn, he DD again (after taking an AOO from my giant who based him) to base my routing RHWS who only had 10 hp left. I made the morale save but had nowhere to go. I pressed the attack forward letting my commander meet his undeniable fate while putting a good deal of distance between my forces and the wounded Erinyes. His now unprotected spellcasters tried to run away but even with all the difficult terrain, I managed to catch them and start collecting tile points at the same time. Although I couldn't finish off the Ogre Mage before he got away I did have the point advantage and what remained of my warband was entirely in a victory area. He brought the fight to me and I finally killed the Ogre Mage for the win on points.
Round 2: My first thought when facing Zuran's band was: at least I have really high attack bonuses to hit all those ridiculous ACs he has. Well - turns out even +18 and +20 isn't enough some times. Thankfully, his dice were equally biased and I eked out a win. I won my map this time which really helped a lot. Many times during the game he couldn't get both thundertusks to attack my main hitters because the central bridge of drow outpost is too narrow. I took the cave side and managed a first turn snowball swarm on a couple of his pieces. I managed to press the attack in the centre with the Forgepriest and War Troll (thanks to reach) while the RHWS cast spells from relative safety. I was quite happy that the RHWS managed to get off all of his spells during the game but then dismayed by the fact that he's pretty useless after that. Basically, there was a lot of swinging and missing for most of the game but we both ate away at each others bands. In the end, my Giant failed morale (but then rallied), my War Troll was dead and Zuran was left with only the Battleplate and one mostly healthy thundertusk. With my Giant down to 30 hp, I swung at the battleplate who had joined the melee and killed him with one swing, cleaving into the thundertusk. I also hit with the second attack to finish him off. His death strike hit the giant but because the BM was already dead, he only did 25 damage leaving my only hitter with 5 hp at the end of the game. A very close match indeed.
Round 3: Due to odd matchups caused by having only 5 players, DCI reporter paired me up with a 1-1 player rather than the other 2-0 player so I faced Pumpkin King on Dragonshrine. I won side and took the fire side so that he couldn't benefit from the fire resistance. We both moved out rather cautiously and I took a couple pot shots with my War Troll hitting Reapers a couple times. Of course, my War Troll took a disintigrate and a fireball for his trouble from Vlaakith but passed morale. My RHWS burned a lightning bolt to take out a single Reaper that was after my tile grabbers. I miscalculated the position of my commander and allowed him to be based by the Minotaur so I took some AOO on my Giant from the Reapers (who thankfully missed) to hit the minotaur who was then finished off by a fireburst. Now I was far enough ahead on points that I could gather my forces and try to pick off Reapers for 31 points a shot. I managed VP every round and won fairly quickly after that by ignoring Vlaakith. In the end, she only got a single melee attack by the time I hit 200.
So, in closing I'd like to say that I'm now a believer. I didn't think this band could cut it but I was very impressed with how it fared against the warbands I faced. It has suprisingly effective ranged damage and brutal melee damage which can easily be focused on a single target to take out threats quickly. High AC beaters with a ton of hit points, regeneration and cleave is tough to deal with. I'm also happy to see that you can do a "dual-titan" outside of CE effectively.
Lesson learned: You never know just how a band will do until you try it out. | |
A Proud Gelatinous Dude
www.gelatinousdudes.com
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