Cancon 2017 Aftermath - Part 2

This is a continuation of my report from Cancon 2017. You can find the first part here.

Game 3 - Loot!

Craig Smellie - Dwarves

• Regiment of Ironclad with Brew of Courage
• Horde of Ironclad
• Horde of Shieldbreakers
• Regiment of Berserker Brock Riders
• Regiment of Berserker Brock Riders
• Flame Belcher
• Flame Belcher
• Ironbelcher Organ Gun
• Ironbelcher Organ Gun
• Army Standard Bearer
• Berserker Lord on Brock with Blade of the Beast Slayer
• Steel Behemoth
• Steel Behemoth

A loss followed by a win. Clearly I was undertaking the classic "submarine" technique of dropping my first game in order to ensure an easier run. That is obviously what was happening, right? Anyway, my next opponent would be Craig's Dwarves, which sported an alarming array of war machines on a field with a very open centre...

I placed one of the loot counters hard on the right flank in the hope of making things more difficult for Craig, with his generally slower troops. Unfortunately with the 4 war machines, he had far more deployments than me and was able to delay dropping his key units until I was committed. Now I was facing 2 regiments of Brock Riders and the Berserker Lord over there.

I put the Hunters on the left flank, intending to wrap around past the building. It didn't work, however - a Flame Belcher saw them coming, turned and did 6 wounds to them, wavering them. I was forced to back them off to hide from a follow up shot, which would have been the end of them.

On the right, I had been confusing myself over the fact that this hill was Height 1 (all hills were Height 1), when it was apparently 3 levels high. I think it messed me up a bit, but I ended up inviting a charge from the Brock Riders on my Chariots. My horde of Warriors was set up  to hit the nearest unit in the flank, but the combined fire of the Organ Guns and the advancing Steel Behemoths took them out. The Chariots held the charge bravely and allowed me a counter-charge along with the Shooters from the forest (so they were admittedly hindered), and the Warlord on the other end. The Shooters bounced off the unit they were facing with barely a scratch, and were murdered by the counter-charge the following turn. The Chariots and Warlord routed the regiment they hit, but were eventually picked off on that flank. Brock Riders really are a nasty combination of attacks and high nerve. 

On the left, I pressed up until the horde of Ironclad stepped forward, expecting me to charge them with 2 or 3 units. I charged with just one unit of the Siegebreakers, whilst the others took out the regiment of Ironclad nearby, which Craig had dangled to tempt me. After killing them, I turned to face the exposed flank of the Dwarf hordes, but didn't factor just how hard I would get hit by the fire from the Organ Guns and Behemoths. It was so savage that I don't think the unit would have survived even if they had been facing their shields toward the shooters, but as it was they had no chance.

In the photo above, you can see that the Boomers were a little stuck behind the Siegebreakers slugging it out with the Ironclad horde. Unfortunately they were a fraction of an inch out of range of the Flame Belcher (I had misjudged it), and they wasted 2 turns trying to work their way around the traffic jam that I had made. Sigh.

Anyway, the Siegebreakers pummelled the Ironclad over a couple of rounds, killed them, then humiliated the Shieldbreakers (who had worn a couple of Boomer shots as they looked for a consolation after found the Flame Belcher out of range) in a similar fashion. As my remaining units were getting picked off around them, they then turned and killed the Dwarf Army Standard who was trying to slow them down. They then turned to stare down the 2 approaching the Behemoths. My unit already carried one of the loot counters. The Brock Riders had another. The remaining one sat right in front of the Behemoths. I had the choice of weathering more enemy fire and stepping up on the objective, or charging onto it the nearest Behemoth and scooping the loot counter. I went for the latter plan, hoping the unit would just have to weather the combined charges of the Behemoths rather than endless shooting.

It just about worked. The Siegebreakers went in, did about 8 wounds to the Behemoth, then took their combined counter-charge and sustained 11 wounds. I had Inspiring from my Army Standard behind them (the only other thing I had left). If Craig failed to rout me and the game ended, I would win... But he routed me, re-roll and all. 

I consoled myself by charging the wounded Behemoth with my Army Standard and wavering it. Routing it wouldn't have helped anyway; Craig and divided the loot counters dropped by my unit between the Behemoths, so I couldn't possibly get them both back anyway. Smart move. I had lost.

Result: 2-18

Game 4 - Invade!

Dan Mackay - Twilight Kin

• Regiment of Crossbowmen
• Troop of Gargoyles
• Troop of Gargoyles
• Regiment of Dark Knights
• Regiment of Dark Knights
• Regiment of Dark Knights
• Dark Lord on Battle Dragon with Blessing of the Gods
• Dark Lord on Battle Dragon with Ensorcelled Armour
• High Priestess on Mount with Lightning Bolt, Heart-seeing Chant
• Ba'su'su the Vile

By game 4 on the first day, I was starting to struggle. Then I saw Dan had 2 dragons and some horrible flying demon thingy, and I found myself struggling further. I didn't end up taking any photos of this game, I'm afraid. I was focusing on survival...

Both dragons deployed hard on my left flank, putting them in cover from my Shooters who had gone fairly centrally. I did have most of my stuff over on my left, though - we had kind of piled stuff up on one side of the field. I got the first turn, fired the Shooters at some Dark Knights in a forest, and rather surprisingly wavered them. Otherwise I achieved little. Dan responded by landing Gargoyles right in front of 2 of my units, whilst the Dragons combo-charged one of my Siegebreaker units and routed it straight up. The Gargoyles were intended to prevent me from responding, and they did this reasonably well - one unit died blocking my Warriors, whilst the other managed to take about a dozen wounds and then roll double 1s against my other Siegebreakers. Sigh.

My Boomers hit one of the dragons pretty hard with their shooting, so it charged them to shut them up. This didn't bother me too much - I figured they were a chance to waver or rout it with a counter-charge. Of course, with 18 attacks on 4s and 4s I assumed they would at least do a wound to disorder it... Oh well, they deserved to die after that effort.

Thanks to the blocking Gargoyles, my Warlord was the only one who could reach the other dragon. He charged in and did a couple of wounds - enough to ensure that it would have to respond in kind, and they began a series of counter-charges that lasted a couple of turns. Amusingly, when the Warlord reached the point where he really should have died, Dan rolled appallingly and only wavered him. This prevented the dragon from turning to face the Siegebreakers, who had finally killed the Gargoyles, and were now about to hit him in the flank. One dragon gone.

I did get the other, already wounded dragon a little later as Dan worked to clear off my remaining units. The Shooters were hit repeatedly by Ba'su'su in the flank, and I wound up losing them and my Army Standard to a combination of this harassment, shooting from the High Priestess and Crossbowmen, and finally the arrival of the Dark Knights (who had taken their sweet time in getting there, after wavering a second time on the way).

My final resistance came from the Siegebreakers and Warlock. After removing both of the dragons, they also accounted for at least one regiment of Dark Knights. But eventually Ba'su'su and friends caught up with them and finished them off. 

I had killed over 1200 points of stuff, but I had nothing left. This time it was my turn to get a consolation prize from Matt in honour of being wiped out. Oh well. Honestly, apart from a couple of dire rolls the whole game had gone better than expected.

Result: 3-17

Game 5 - Push!

Stevo von Divo - Orcs

• Horde of Ax
• Regiment of Ax
• Regiment of Ax
• Regiment of Morax
• Troop of Skulks
• Troop of Skulks
• Horde of Orclings
• Regiment of Gore Riders with Maccwar's Potion of the Caterpillar
• Krudger on Winged Slasher
• Krudger on Winged Slasher
• War Drum
• War Drum
• Godspeaker with Bane Chant
• Flagger with Diadem of Dragon-Kind

By the end of day 1, I was really falling apart. In the evening my voice was starting to fade, and I was pretty sure I was going to be playing day 2 communicating via semaphore and suggestive body language. Thankfully I felt slightly better in the morning, and actually held up OK on day 2.

First up was Stevo's borrowed Orc army, which was surprisingly light on magic items. Who fields Winged Slashers without bothering to give them anything? Well OK, it sounded a little like the Orc equivalent of my army. But it still seemed brave to me. Stevo deployed all his fast elements facing my right flank, and proceeded to hurry toward/around me. I responded, and then this was the second turn.

I had thought the Warriors below were safe. I didn't realise the Gore Riders could see through the forest thanks to their corner being inside it when the leader point was behind it. But it turns out that is indeed how things work. And so my little Warrior regiment died the Gory death. My Warlord had deliberately invited the Morax regiment to charge him through the forest. I knew he could take it. Well actually, for some reason I assumed Morax hit on 4+ normally rather than 3+. So I was a dumbass and took more damage than I had expected, despite the hindered charge. So sue me. I am lazy.

You see those Winged Slashers in the picture above? That is actually where they had landed after turn 1. Stevo completely forgot them in turn 2. It was only during my turn that he realised, and because I wasn't paying as much attention as I should have been, I hadn't picked it up either. I had kind of assumed they had turned to look at me, and were otherwise happy where they were. By the time Stevo said something, it was a bit late to do anything about it as I was halfway through my turn. I felt bad, but it was a bit of a stuff-up.

I had moved up aggressively with my other units, looking to get the Siegebreakers into Stevo's units as soon as possible. The Slashers were far away, so it seemed a good opportunity.

The Warlord took a solid number of wounds from the Morax, but didn't waver. So he was able to counter-charge along with the horde of Warriors, which was more than the Morax could handle. The Siegebreakers nearby got to the Orclings and routed them with a charge, before stopping just in front of the Ax horde. The Orcs charged, basically bounced off the Siegebreakers, and were fairly quickly dealt with. 

After they burst through my Warrior regiment so easily, I charged the Gore Riders with my Chariots. Unfortunately they did little damage. Fortunately the Gore Riders responded in kind, which gave me a second crack at them and this time they routed. At this point the Winged Slasher nearby finally got with the program, turned and charged the Chariots. I wavered, and ended up reforming to face my rear to the Winged Slasher...

The Chariots were not going to be able to take another charge from the Winged Slasher, so what difference did it make if they were facing the other way? At least this way, if the thing flew over our heads into the Shooters (who were in range), it was signing itself up for a potential rear charge. It didn't take Stevo long to work this out. He settled for finishing off the Chariots. I don't think the Winged Slasher got any closer to my lines, however. It was shot until it stopped moving. The other one had charged my Warrior horde once or twice and wavered it. Eventually they regained their composure and hit it back, cleaning it up.

Stevo didn't have much over on the other side of the field. All his muscle was in those Winged Slashers. The two regiments of Ax did little more than stall what I had over there, as the Skulks tried to run off with the loot counters they had deployed with.

Stevo spent the closing stages trying to poke some more shooting damage into either my Warlord or Warriors, as they were both pretty hurt. Unfortunately for him, it was not to be. Things ended up pretty one-sided in terms of the score.

That result brought me back up to 2 wins and 3 losses. Who knew, I might yet break even!

Result: 20-0

To be continued...