Battlefield Bangkok

Fed up of being shot to pieces from far far…far away… well assuming you don’t get nailed on turn one here’s a slow but effective way of advancing up the table in order to kick the crap out of Cygnar. The Ingrediants are as follows for 500 or 750 points

• pVlad
• Doom Reavers 6 will do, 12 might even go better
• Other small based killers, like Great Bears
• Assassins , to run interference

Quite simply form a wall of Doom Reavers in front and around Vlad, Put Vlad in the middle, put the other small base killers around Vlad.  Cast wind wall. You now have a nice wall of models around you that can not be targeted by spells or ranged attacks and the opponent has no line of sight to stuff behind that could be targeted by spells. Don’t stick a medium or large base model in this as it kinda ruins the effect. Throw in the Assassins or man hunters to slow down cavalry that Cygnar might throw at you. Yuri can be very effective at taking out the Cavalry leader to stop Assault orders.

At 1000 Points you can get more adventurous using pVlad and pZerkova to make any unit you like spell proof and then bullet proof with Wind Wall. Medium based multi wound models are the best as they’ll ignore all but the very worst accidental hit.

My last battle enabled me to actually get my core army into combat and slice up Cygnar with great joy although my first 3 turns were not very thrilling and the rest of my army took the wrath of the Black 13th anc Co until I got into melee.  Oh throw in a Mortar to keep the B13 on their toes.

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Battles raged across the fields of war this past Wednesday with multiple factions taking up arms.

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First up was a 750 Rage, Rivets and Solos with Kromac and the Circle taking on a confident Dominic Darius. Darius had witness last weeks royal massacre of the ciricle by Khador and felt the battle was going to be a mere formality of handing him a medal and getting his butt kissed by a hairy wolf… not quite the way it turned out. Luck desered Darius from the get go as his forces missed everything. Given a blunderbuss and a barn door, his forces would have missed, that was how badly it was going. Even his half jacks couldn’t repair his Jack’s fast enough and the forces of Kromac ripped a trail of cogs and screws right up to Darius and then ripped his head off and played footy with it, until that was, one of the Warp Wolves got hungry and ate it. All said and done, not a day to remember for the blue boys.

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Next up Dark hearted Fiona took on Vlad in a 500. Fiona fielding a couple of Jack’s, a full unit of Croe’s bad boys and some other assorted riff raff. Against an interesting combination of Khador cavalry and Yuri and his Manhunter gang…plus the obligatory fire and hope Mortar.  Well as it was for the Blue’s so it was for Croe and the barn door. Miss after miss and then the cavalry and the single Kodiak Jack stormed in. Blood everywhere and while a counter attack from Fiona did finish off the 3 Khador Cavalry she was left horribly exposed and with Yuri’s gang coming at her fast. Even her feat failed to stop the reds from cutting down her forces. A last throw of the dice she moved up to get range for an attack on Vlad…and forgot about the Man-o-War Drakhun counter charge.  That left her with 3 wounds left and no line of site to Vlad. Next turn just to add to the general all round horror, she got boiled alive the next turn by the Kodiak Vent attack… nasty!

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So the reds were feeling confident. And faced Madrak in a 500, Scorcha in for the reds.  The terrain was awful. It was a double champions brick and the reds really became very tentative early on, unable to find a way through the brick, even with the Kazyak Assassins and underboss they dithered around and waited for the Trolls to attack, which they did and then it was all down hill from there. Madrak maintained Sure Foot whch mean Scorcha couldn’t get penetration on the Brick and the Iron Fang Pike men couldn’t knock anyone over.  Greylords were burnt alive by the Pyre Troll, and the only good news was when Hawk managed to take out the fell caller, though with sure foot running he was never going to be needed. In the end Scorcha was left almost alone and made one last effort to get to Madrak, it failed and she died under the stomping champion boots.

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With Scorcha unable to be fielded, Kris fancied his chances to take out Khador, fielding Fiona with an impressive 3 Heavy Jacks, including that bastard Mule. In reply Khador fielded Vlad, the Behemoth and a Besrker.

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FIona’s spells proved to be marginal in the battle other than her pow 12 strike that should have won the game when Vlad was left exposed but crappy dice saved Khador.  Vlad on the other hand used his Wind spells and Impalor to great effect, shutting down the Mule until it was engaged and using his wicked frost spell to cause the Behemoth’s armour piercing attacks to do horrific damage.

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Once the mercs were enagged the battle was never really going to go the mercs way, though after the Beserket killed the Mule and then Blew up, there was a moment when it looked like they had a chance, then the Behemoth killed another Jack to put the melee battle beyond dispute.

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At that moment though Vlad was left exposed with no focus left and no BoK running, hit twice by Fiona’s pow 12 spell, once with a boosted damage, he was very lucky to be still standing. Turn 5 Khador he returned the favour to Fiona, charing up and impaling her with his first attack.

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Another battle that I could have lost,  bad roll on Fiona’s attack saved my over confident arse from being defeated.  350 battles are really becoming very fast, I remember reading the rules when we first got them and thinking “15 Minutes!! are they insane!” . Now if only I can beat those bloody trolls at 350… then I will be happy!

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Epic Butcher and Vlad (Chris) challenged Epic Magnus and Bart (Kris) in the 1000 Point ladder match which saw both armies set up to face each other down and find out they’d both missed the party. The Mercs came Jack heavy expect Khador to be Jack heavy due to Epic Butcher being featured, and Khador came infantry heavy expecting to see lots of pirates. So it was interesting to see both players a little out of their element. Though the armies were well up for the battle and it went the full six turns.

Kris did an excellent job of shuttigng down the Khador Jacks, they spent most of the game on the floot, system locked, netted or generally out of the game and the Devestator ended the game with no damage and no kills either. Butcher spent most of the match disrupted and his only contribution being to kill Eyriss on turn 5 after she had driven him even more insane through four turns of disruption. Many attempts to kill Eyriss failed until the Butcher had her kiss Lola.

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However this left Vlad free to give Khador “S&P” love on a constant basis and that really made the difference. The Battle was very even, and though the mercs locked down a good half of the Khador army with a combo Magnus / Bart feat , by turn 5 both armies were still pretty much intact with only the odd solo and unit on each side destroyed. However Kahdor turn 5 saw the Rocketeers move up and nail Magnus. Two hits and he was dead. 2 Jacks shut down and suddely Bart was alone.  His Jacks got nailed the same turn, two loosing their guns and he got hit by the Khador Eyriss meaning he was disrupted with no focus for his last turn, not an ideal situation.

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Turn 6 the mercs advanced and though they killed a couple of winterguard they did nothing more than clear the charge lane for the Man-o-War Drakhun to charge Bart. Three flying steel attacks were called for and it took just two to cut down Bart and bring victory to Khador. Neither Khador caster seeing much action and Vlad only attacking in the last turn to take out the Mule. The Mule it must be said, once again prooved to be a beast!

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Battle two was the closest I got to a win. Facing Vlad and an interesting selection of Behemoth, Widow Makers, Yuri, 2 Man Hunters, Eyriss, Drakon (no dismount) and Grey Lords.  It started very badly on the left with the Behomth sprinting 16″ across the board and engaging my advancing archers. The Grey Lords, Widow Makers and Vlad advanced on my left, the rest came down my right.  I had no choice but to throw one of my beasts at the Behemot to slow it down, the archers were a mess, but my right flank moved forward and swiftly cleaned up.

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Then things went wrong, rather than killing my beast, the behemoth picked it up and threw it at my other beast…missed… deviated one inch…hit. Both beasts on the floor they then suffered ranged attacks galore and died together. Leaving me light on beasts. However the Harriers were doing okay and we’d killed everything on the right execpt for Yuri and he was in a bad way.

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Turn 4 for me I poped my feat and moved my caster, yes really I did,  battle three I forgot again.  Rhyas swept through the Khador forces, killing all but the last Widowmaker and all the Greylords and ending the turn invisible, Def 20 in the middle of what was left of the Kador army (not much at all) . Harriers advanced but didn’t manage to kill Yuri, it was looking good!

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Then Yuri moved (ran) , avoided two free strikes and ended next to the Behometh, and here a slight rules error from both of us (mixing up stealth and invisibility for ranged attacks) meant the Behometh then picked up Yuri threw him at Rhyas, missed and deviated on to her. (Rules error being that she can’t be targeted and therefore the Behometh has to throw at half strength distance). Anyway she was hit, knocked down and then Vlad stepped over and finished her off.

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So close, and yet so far!

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First the key fact, played 3 lost 3, 1 on caster kill (Vlad A) , 2 on army kill (Shae / Vlad B).  Two of the games were close, the third was a massacre, in games one and three I popped Rhyas Feat…and then moved on to the next model, forgetting to advance her, never mind attack with her, which in Hordes is devestating as all my beasts ended up horribly over extended and then dead. In the one game I did get it right I cleaned up quiet merrily and ended Invisble. Worked great. Battle group wise, Archers just sucked , I needed melee fighters with Rhyas not archers, Harriers did okay both as solo killers and getting in the way. Seraph rarely did well and was nailed fast, and as I didn’t face a Hordes faction the Forsaken was just a side show model that did nothing apart from die, okay first game he killed a couple of pirates.

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As I’ve never used or fought against Vlad before it was a shock to face him and the never changing “Blood of Kings” , “Signs and Portents” and assign one focus offensive.  Makes the eVlad “hand of fate” spell look pretty weak in comparison… oh and seeing the Behemoth run 16 inches across the board and then fire was bloody scarey!!! Note to self : Buy Vlad before going home!

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Tournament winners were Skorne (Zaal) beating Cryx (Deneghra) in the final.  I came a solid last! No regrets though it was great fun and well over 200 people showed up at the Con playing all kinds of games as well as DnD 4e that just launched on the 7th. Next tournie is tentaively planned for November.

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