Convic 2019 Aftermath - Part 4

This is a continuation of my tournament report of Convic. You can find the previous part here.

3 wins in 3 games. You wouldn't dare dream of it. I had come unstuck against Matt before however, so maybe my run of glory was at an end.

Game 4: Dominate (1995pts)
Matt Sellick - Elves

• Archer Horde with Heart-seeking Chant
• Therennian Sea Guard Horde with Brew of Sharpness
• Drakon Rider Horde with Chant of Hate
• Awoken Guardians
• Tree Herder with Healing Brew, Blizzard
• Tree Herder with Blood Boil
• Green Lady with Sabre-Toothed Pussycat
• Elven Prince on Horse with Sabre-Toothed Pussycat

Dominate. Nice and simple. It couldn't be too hard to move a pair of Tree Herders off the centre, right?

Matt's army actually looked pretty small. Sure, there was some good stuff there, but that's a pretty compact deployment.

My deployment was questionable. That's a lot of Pole-arms over on the left, but I was struggling to find a clear path for the hordes. I didn't want to spend ages fighting terrain. That would just get me shot.

See, that's not much stuff, right? The Sea Guard went behind the forest, and the Archers were poised to step onto the hill. Matt actually forgot to Vanguard, but given his movement in the first turn, I'm not sure it made any real difference.

Matt took the first turn and advanced... sort of. He didn't really go far. The shooting units moved into sight and range, but the rest of the stuff was more interested in maintaining a compact formation.

That's the Prince out front. I'm... not sure what his plan is there. Probably off on a mission of hindrance and delay. It would appear that my purple and white Pole-arm horde copped a bit of punishment in the shooting phase. 

I didn't like the idea of facing off against 2 shooting hordes. Best course of action was to get in there quickly and disrupt the ranged threat. With that in mind, the Winged Beast went up pretty hard on the flank, with the Giant for company. The Pole-arms also moved up onto the hill at best speed. 

The elements closer to Matt's combat units were more circumspect, but still closed the gap a bit. Again it was a question of allowing certain things to come within charge range, so long as they would be going in alone.

The other Winged Beast took the other flank. My line was a lot longer than Matt's, but for the moment I couldn't quite get in behind the lines because of the arcs on the Drakon Riders.

I admit, this is not what I expected. Matt decided that the Sea Guard were in trouble, and he was going to get best mileage out of them with a charge into the Pole-arms. That would at least take the Giant (and probably the birdie, who was charged by the Prince) out of the equation, at least. His charge was hindered, but he had +1 to hit from his item and Elite, so there was still the potential to break through a lightly armoured target.

The Awoken Guardians decided not to wait around and be charged. Instead they had a crack at the Beast of War. Realistically they were not going to break him, but at least they were getting some damage in.

The rest of Matt's units were in a dance to shield his flanks from the birdie behind the tower. Any I could still reach would have invited a fatal counter-charge, so he did the job well enough.

I had moved things up far enough that the Archers on the hill had to shuffle to avoid being charged and silenced next turn. This helped limit the damage I took in the shooting phase. I'm pretty sure that purple and white horde took more damage and wavered this turn, however.

Damn it, another lapse in photos. The Sea Guard did 9 wounds to my Pole-arms, but that was not enough to really slow them down. The Prince managed a couple of wounds on the birdie, which was a decent effort (he really just needed the one to stop me flying over his head). The birde was left with little choice but to counter-charge, and I sent the Giant in as well to try to ensure I wouldn't get stuck there for longer (Elf nerve values are a thing). That proved to be just enough force. Meanwhile the Pole-arm horde counter-charged the Sea Guard, and they brought both the Beast of War and another regiment of Pole-arms along for emotional support. This proved too much for the Sea Guard and left me free to overrun with the regiment and reform with the other units. The left flank was mine.

The Awoken Guardians had done a pretty poor job with the Beast of War, and my response was a count-charge aided by the Giant in the front and the regiment of Pole-arms in the flank. It was enough to rout them straight up.

At this point Matt's small army was in danger of becoming overwhelmingly outnumbered. The birdie had now found his way into a blind spot hard on the flank, and there were far too many targets with only a couple of the Pole-arm hordes really damaged.

Realising that he was in danger of being enveloped, and too far advanced to really pull things back and reform his lines, Matt set about trying to reduce my advantage of numbers. The Drakon Riders charged the regiment of Pole-arms whilst the Tree Herder continued to shield their flank. 

The Tree Herder nearer the centre had a better party trick than his friend, and cast Blood Boil on my poor battered purple and white pole-arm horde. Unsurprisingly, this damage proved fatal. The Archers continued to shift on the hill, but still managed to bring enough force to bear to get rid of the Pole-arm regiment that was threatening a charge. The Drakons did their job in the combat phase, which meant by the end of the turn, my advantage in unit numbers had decreased by 3.

In my turn, the loss of the Pole-arms near the hill was a bit of a blow. It meant that I had to use the flanking birdie to silence the Archers whilst the rest of my forces moved into position. I couldn't pass up an opportunity to heap damage on the Drakons, so threw both the Beast of War and Giant into them. They did moderate damage, but more importantly they wouldn't fly off and escape now.

Reinforcement approaching from the left...

In Matt's turn, the Archers counter-charged my Winged Beast. The Tree Herder in the centre moved to partially shield the flank of the Drakons and made menacing Blood Boily gestures at my other wounded horde, but they survived. The Drakons counter-charged the Beast of War, whilst the Tree Herder on the side moved around to look at my Giant's flank.

This was a bit of mixed fortune. The Drakons (who admittedly are less impressive on the counter-charge) failed to remove my Beast of War, but their failure paled in comparison to that of the Green Lady. She was meant to be healing the Drakons, but apparently Heal 8 with Elite is only good for a single wound. Laaame. Speaking of lame however, the Archers that were counter-charging my birdie killed him! He had only taken a few wounds... Man the nerve on those Winged Beasts is fragile. 

Now the Archers were back facing me again. That wasn't part of the plan! Still, I did have options...

Again I've kind of missed a picture. I charged the remaining Winged Beast and the nearby Beast of War into the Archers. The nearest Pole-arm horde engaged the Tree Herder (they wouldn't kill him, but they'd make a start and stop the Blood Boil). The Giant in the middle was able to get past the Tree Herder and into the flank of the Drakons, whilst the Beast of War counter-charged again. I'm pretty sure the other Giant realised he could spin and charge the flank of the Tree Herder on the right, but that doesn't really look like what we're seeing here. I don't know.

A little more time has passed here. We're really in the closing stages. The Tree Herder in the centre had a swing at the yellow and green Pole-arms before being charged again by both hordes and being swarmed to death. The birdie and Beast of War had wavered the Archers on the first attempt and finished them off now. The pair of Giants were tasked with handling the other Tree Herder (he didn't last long), and all that remained was an optimistic attempt to try to gun down the Green Lady over a couple of turns. Given I didn't want to leave the centre circle to go after her, she was always likely to get away.

Well that had gone well. It actually looked like my list had too much for Matt's to deal with. Too many threats, and too many of them were faster than most of his units. As soon as he started losing units, I think it became apparent to both of us (maybe he knew before that, and I'm just slow on the uptake). It ended up being my biggest win, on a day full of wins. At this point I was leading the event. How bizarre...

Result: Win 
Tournament Points: 20-1