Cancon 2016 KoW Aftermath - Part 3

This is the final part of my tournament account. You can find the previous part here.

Game 5: Loot!
Lockjaw, Kingdoms of Men

• Berserker Horde - Pathfinder
• Berserker Horde - Fire Oil
• Berserker Regiment
• Berserker Regiment
• Beast of War - Ballista
• Beast of War - Ballista
• Siege Artillery
• Siege Artillery
• Ogre Shooter Horde - +1 to hit
• Wizard on Pegasus - Inspiring
• Wizard on Pegasus
• Wizard on Pegasus
• Army Standard on Horse - Boomstick

Coming into this game I was on 2 wins and 2 losses. I'm afraid at this point my photo-taking broke down entirely. I was aware of having already failed at it in my previous games, so I decided to give up and focus on playing my games instead. I've patched together something approximating the battlefield so you can get a handle on what I'm talking about, but from now on you're on your own. Best of luck to you...

This was the table and deployment. More or less. The little compasses are the loot markers.

Locky got the first turn and set about obliterating my army with shooting. The first 4 shots from the artillery all hit, and all rolled at least 6 wounds on my units. The Ogre Shooters also fired up and did a devastating amount of damage. The Honour Guard on the left and the Doggy both perished to shooting in the first couple of rounds, whilst the Honour Guard on my right took a hit before getting hit by a Beast of War and killed whilst the other Beast of War killed my Militia. I had been trying something similar to what I had done in Game 3 with the Militia leading the way and buying me a counter-charge, but the monstrous damage I was taking made it all a bit irrelevant. On the right flank I wound up sending the Birdie into one of the Beasts of War, and he did reasonable damage. Unfortunately he then got flanked and killed by the other Beast. I can't quite remember why I had approached it that way with the Birdie, but it was not pretty.

My Knights went around the lake on the left, and managed to flank the Ogre Shooters in the forest in my third turn. They caved immediately, which was some compensation for the devastation the Ogres had already wrought. The Knights then turned to face back onto the field, toward the Berserker horde that had headed for the objective.

My own shooting did manage to inflict some damage, removing one of the Berserker regiments in a volley and following it up by killing one of the Wizards. Another of the Wizards perished blocking the charge of my Dogs of War, as the second Berserker horde moved in and claimed the objective near the hill. The Iron Beast charged into them alone, but did only modest damage.

There was a bit of a scramble in the centre as I tried to protect my Volley Guns whilst picking off the advancing enemy. The final Wizard flew into combat with one, but failed to do any damage. Which meant it was able to shoot him, and he died (yay!) The remaining regiment of Berserkers copped a blast on their way in, but weathered it and took off one of the machines. The regiment was then killed, possibly by my Wizard's Fireball.

After the demise of the Birdie over on the right, my Iron Beast decided to forego a second charge into the Berserker horde and instead turned its flank to them to fire its Breath attack at the Beast of War the Birdie had wounded (he was carrying an objective). It was a wasted effort, and the Berserkers went into the Iron Beast and smashed it up rather more easily than I had expected. It meant they could reform to face the Dogs of War and then began a prolonged series of charges and counter-charges as the two units tried to tear each other to pieces.

Toward the end of the game I was doing better than you might have expected, helped in part by the fact that Locky's artillery stopped destroying the whole world. The objective with the Beast of War was out of my reach, lurking behind the building. But there were still 2 more to fight for. My Knights engaged in several rounds of combat against the Berserker horde near the lake, as they had picked up the objective and then turned to face the threat. It was a bit touch-and-go, and in the end I needed a high nerve roll to rout them and claim the objective from them. It did not materialise and my regiment was overwhelmed the following turn.

The Dogs of War and other Beserker Horde (who had the remaining objective) tore strips off each other, but neither side could finish the other one off. Again I came very close (I think I may even have gotten them in the end), but I think I had a lucky nerve roll for my part to still be there at the end.

When all was said and done, I had fought back reasonably well. The crippling damage I took at the start was a bit much and it was an up-hill battle from there. But a loss is a loss.

Result: Loss
VPs: 1035 - 1660

Game 6: Kill and Pillage!
Rowan Keating, Empire of Dust

• Ahmunite Pharaoh with Wings of the Honeymaze
• Ahmunite Pharaoh
• Ahmunite Pharaoh
• Horde of Revenants with Casket of the Damned, Brew of Strength
• Horde of Enslaved Guardians with Casket of the Damned
• Regiment of Mummies
• Regiment of Scavengers
• Regiment of Scavengers
• Balefire Catapult
• Scorpion Husk
• Bone Giant
• Reanimated Behemoth

We had reached the final game of the tournament, and I found myself facing Rowan's undead. I think I must have been tired, because I found my head spinning as I looked at his list and tried to work out what things were likely to do to me with that much Surge at their disposal. I hadn't actually faced anything with Surge all tournament and it felt like a bit of a shock to suddenly hit something that I knew would play so differently. 

Once again the compass points are the objectives. There is one under the Balefire Catapult and another unit the Volley Gun on the hill.

Really I was pretty fuzzy for the first couple of turns of this game. My deployment was all over the shop, not at all aided by the objectives being scattered everywhere. I probably should have avoided the area around the buildings altogether; instead I wound up concentrating most of my stuff around them.

I'm not even sure who went first in this game. I moved up hard with the Militia on the left and the Birdie flew up next to them. It turned out I went up too far because the Scorpion Husk went into the Militia whilst the Enslaved Guardians just made it to the Birdie thanks to a Surge using their Casket of the Damned for an extra boost. Both units routed immediately, and suddenly I had no left flank. Oh goody.

The Revenants advanced toward the gap between the buildings and were charged by the Iron Beast. Unfortunately it then wound up bouncing around over a fence, and the Scorpion came around behind and charged it in the rear. Eventually it fell apart. The Honour Guard dealt with the Bone Giant, but also bounced off the Revenants and were cleaned up. The flying Pharaoh was floating around the area, causing mischief with his Surge and picking off the Volley Gun.

My Dogs of War once again found themselves having to move through a forest, which was definitely not what I wanted. They took about a month to get through, by which point the Revenants were brushing dismembered bits of Iron Beast and Honour Guard off themselves. The Dogs of War charged them twice, and still I somehow couldn't rout that unit. It was really pathetic - the horde lived through the game despite having taken 4 or 5 significant charges. If I could roll more than about a 4 for nerve tests they might have been in more trouble near the end.

I spent the first part of the game somehow subsconsciously thinking the Pharaohs could all fly, but eventually managed to break that mindset. It worked to my advantage when the Mummies had advanced into the top right corner of the central forest and were looking to the right, toward the Reanimated Behemoth. The Mummies were preparing to counter-charge whatever went after the big beastie. In the end it was my Honour Guard, who went in alongside the Doggy and routed it in a single charge. The Mummies would most likely have made it into them thanks to Surge, except that the Pharaoh nearby had moved At the Double to get into a good position and Rowan had forgotten he would therefore not be able to cast the spell. It put the Mummies out of position and got them charged in the flank by the Knights, which proved fatal.

The Honour Guard, Knights and Doggy all busied themselves trying to claim or contest the objectives on that side of the field, but Scavengers caused them a bit of a headache because they were a bit too agile. The Volley Gun on the hill also found itself moving around trying to avoid Scavengers and contest the objective nearby. Thanks to some underwhelming efforts to get rid of one of the Scavenger units, there was a limit to what I could do score-wise.

In the end my low rolling for damage and nerve cost me the ability to remove one group of Scavengers (which also cost me an objective) and those damned Revenants. It was a lot of points - maybe enough to have salvaged a draw. But in the end the damage I took early on had cost me, in particular the loss of the Birdie. I needed his mobility and muscle if I was ever going to have any control in the game. I had been out-played.

Result: Loss
VPs: 950 - 1460

So when all was said and done I had only 2 wins and 4 losses. I did do plenty of damage in most of my losses, which meant I finished on top of those players with the same win tally (I had killed nearly 1300 VPs more than the next player on 2 wins). So that left me in 34th out of 46 players. Nothing heroic, but then I didn't exactly set out to try to crush all and sundry anyway. It was a fun event. Maybe next time I will remember to bring all my stuff with me!