Axemaster 2023 Aftermath - Part 3

This is the final part of my report of a recent tournament. You can find the previous part here, or go back to the start here.

With one game to go, I was now sitting on a win and a loss. Coming away with more wins than losses would feel like a solid success for the event, so now I just had to win my final game.

Game 3 - Pitched Battle
Jonathan Harry - Vampire Counts

• Blood Dragon Vampire Lord on Barded Nightmare with Full Plate Armour, Shield, Great Weapon, Ring of the Night, Black Periapt, Red Fury, Heart Piercing
• Necromancer (Level 2) with Book of Arkhan, Dispel Scroll
• Necromancer (Level 2) with Spell Familiar, Dispel Scroll
• 20 Skeleton Warriors with Light Armour, Shields, Full Command
• 20 Zombies with Standard Bearer, Musician
• 9 Ghouls
• 5 Dire Wolves
• 5 Dire Wolves
• 25 Grave Guard with Heavy Armour, Shields, Full Command, War Banner
• 9 Black Knights with Heavy Armour, Shields, Barding, Full Command, Banner of the Barrows
• 4 Fell Bats
• 3 Spirit Hosts

A Blood Dragon Vampire and enough magic to pretty easily force some spells past my defences... This game could be a struggle. This time the scenario was a normal battle, so I didn't have to worry about controlling something in particular. I could focus on... Not dying.

Deployment was interesting. I decided to anchor my flank with the forest, and put the Republican Guard closest to it in the hope that it would keep any fighting to their front. I found Jono's placement of his Vampire lord unusual. Putting cavalry out on the flank is nothing really new, but when it's taking the main combat threat in your force and the ability to march within his leadership range over there, and there's a forest blocking you from the enemy's flank. In his defence, he hasn't played as much 6th edition as he has 8th edition Warhammer... He might have forgotten what a barrier that forest would likely be.

All lined up and ready to go.

The Vampire Lord leading his Black Knights... What are they doing way over there?

The forest is my friend. Keep away the nasty Vampire Lords...

I won the roll-off for the first turn, and I didn't hesitate. I slammed the accelerator as far down as it would go. I felt like I had an opportunity to try to take out Jono's centre before the Vampire could intervene.

All ahead full! There are some bats behind the other forest, but we can't let that  bother us.

The Besiegers tried to eliminate the annoyance of the Dire Wolves on the hill, but as usual they left a couple to float around and get in the way.

Jono responded by turning the Black Knights and beginning the painful process of working their way through a slightly too-small gap so they would be able to get involved if I made it into his deployment zone. The Spirit Hosts scooted forward into the forest, and then tried to charge into the flank of the Republican Guard using Vanhel's (and the Book of Arkhan). So much for the forest protecting my flank... Some things just refuse to play by the rules. I managed to fend the Vanhel's off, but you can see that Gaze of Nagash took a toll on my Ogre Bulls. Can't stop everything...

The remaining Dire Wolves make their presence felt, trying to interfere with my rapid advance.

The Fell Bats remained in hiding, however.

I was still determined to try to hit the enemy as quickly as possible, but my cunning plan was only mostly cunning. I hit the annoying Dire Wolves in both the flank and the front, intending to slingshot both my units off them - one of them toward the Zombies, and the other along the line, next to my Bulls.

Gonna slingshot off you so hard... Except it seems I stuffed up, and the Ironguts who were meant to be going forward were going to hit the Venators instead. The presence of the Rhinox as we were charging was probably a factor. I had moved the Venators in after all the chargers - it was just carelessness on my part, being as aggressive with them as I could. I was also trying to set myself up for a combined charge against something the following turn with the Bulls and the Rhinox. The Leadbelchers had eased off their advance to make sure that if the Bats emerged behind my lines, they would have the range to turn and fire.

Collisions everywhere.How wonderful. Such a cunning plan I must have had.

In actual fact, Jono was a bit baffled by my questionable behaviour. I had presented the flank of one of the Irongut units to the Grave Guard, and he was trying very hard to work out why I would have done that. He was very suspicious, but eventually decided he had to take the opportunity to charge. I immediately fled, as you do when you are a dishonourable Ogre. The Grave Guard were unable to redirect to the Bulls, because they could have charged them in the first place. A great escape!

The Grave Guard shuffle forward, disappointedly.

The Fell Bats now made their presence felt, flying out to block the charges of both my Ironguts and Venators. The Necromancer bailed from the Zombies and headed for the relative safety of the Skeletons, clearly not trusting the Bats to last for long.

Then came the magic phase, which went particularly well. I let Gaze of Nagash through again, and it continued to ream my Bulls with an abnormally large number of wounds. I did this to enable me to fend off Vanhels... Except I underestimated my power... Jono cast it with irresistible force, and then I rolled double 1s to dispel the Book of Arkhan. I failed to stop anything, and was even still sitting on a dispel scroll. Clearly the universe hated me. 

The now quite depleted Bulls find themselves holding against a cheaty bonus charge...

...Whilst the Republican Guard decided to avail themselves of the one option they actually had, and fled the other cheaty charge. At least they got away this time.

The combat between the Ogre Bulls and the Grave Guard actually went better than I expected. The Tyrant pulled his weight a little, ensuring that a whole rank was removed for the loss of 1 wound on my side. And nobody ran away, which means everyone wins!

It was decision time for me again, as the Rhinox was positioned to flank the Grave Guard. But he could also charge into the approaching Black Knights, and do so without even bringing the Vampire Lord into contact. Negate their charge bonuses, keep them away from the other combats... It was tempting, but frankly he had been pretty useless in combat up until this point, and I could see him bouncing off harmlessly and breaking from combat. Which would be bad. So I went the conservative route, and sent him in where he'd make a difference even if he didn't know how to fight.

The Butcher... Well, he decided to try to cast a spell, which was obviously foolish. He miscast, and exploded in a ghastly cloud of butcher bits. Thus endeth my already underwhelming magic defence... 

There are fewer Ogres now that I exploded one. Ah, magic is so helpful...

The Venators hit the Fellbats, looking for a big overrun once they were dealt with.

The arrival of the Rhinox had the desired effect on the Grave Guard, who managed to pull down the already wounded Bull, but were on the cusp of crumbling away entirely.

The Venator overrun plan actually worked! I know, I was shocked too! The Zombies were a less attractive target now the Necromancer had abandoned them, but they still needed to be dealt with.

How the turn ended. My fleeing troops had all rallied, most of us were not dead yet, the Vampire was still struggling to get to me... Could be worse!

There were no charges in Jono's turn. The Spirit Hosts were content to stand right up in the faces of the Republican Guard, the Black Knights finally worked themselves free of the forest, and the Dire Wolves moved up to look for a chance to annoy (or eat) someone.

The remaining Grave Guard collapsed as expected, and a decent number of Zombies fell to the Venator charge, but what happened to my other Irongut unit with my BSB in there?

Oh, there they go. Another 5 wounds from Gaze of Nagash. It seemed Nagash was looking especially spitefully at me today. I should mention that the Necromancer who had cast Vanhels the previous turn was having a very up-and-down game. I think she was trying to use a cat as a Spell Familiar, but it was really just a cat, and channeling magic through it was going about as well as you would expect. The first turn was a miscast. The second turn was irresistible force. The third turn was a miscast. Magic is exceedingly fickle and moody when channeled through a cat. Let that be a lesson to all of you.

In my turn, I once again had decisions to make. The Rhinox and Tyrant's unit were no longer locked in combat, but they couldn't see (or reach) the same things. The Rhinox had to charge the Skeletons to get out of the way, but there were 2 Necromancers hiding in there, and it didn't seem like a bad plan. The question was whether the Tyrant, who was down to only 2 Ogre buddies, should really consider charging into a unit containing a Blood Dragon Vampire Lord... Probably not. But I had a Tenderiser. I declared the charge anyway.

I decided it was time for the Republican Guard to charge the Spirit Hosts that had been tormenting them, but they disagreed. They were still very much engaged in being tormented. That's quite the fear roll...

I think this counts as the defining moment of the game...

The Venators were still trying to brush off the last of the Zombies. The Leadbelchers had gotten bored and moved around the fight, looking for a target.

The Rhinox did quite well, squashing a few skeletons and assassinating the Necromancer with the Book of Arkhan. Not losing and running away was also a plus. But then there was the main event...

Blood Dragon Vampires don't hide in the crowd. He immediately declared a challenge and stepped across to face the Tyrant.

The Tyrant had the charge advantage, so got to swing first. He only landed 2 hits, but at Strength 7... He rolled 1s to wound with both attacks. Didn't even make him take a save. The Vampire responded by inflicting 3or 4 wounds, none of which were saved. The Ogres brought down 1 of the Black Knights, but they lost the combat, broke, and were run down. The Black Knights actually rolled 18 to chase them after a decent flee roll. Apparently enemies don't like my Tyrant getting away when he flees. Everyone rolls maximum pursuit. The Knights didn't actually travel all that far, connecting with the corner of the Skeletons. But the damage was done.

With my one chance to remove the Vampire gone and my Tyrant dead, any real chance of winning the game was evaporating. The Venators finally finished off the Zombies, but the Rhinox was tired after his efforts of the previous turn, and failed to remove even a single Skeleton. He lost the combat and broke, but at least he got away.

As the undead regrouped, they once again cast Gaze of Nagash, this time doing 5 wounds to the other Irongut unit, which panicked them as well.

The game started to slip away, and as it did so I apparently lost the ability to take photos. The Republican Guard managed to charge the Spirit Hosts on the second attempt, and were rewarded by losing their entire back rank. This was far more damage than I had been bargaining for. Thankfully the Spirit Hosts slowed down a bit after that, but the combat was still going at the end of the game and I was unable to get them below half strength (though they did manage to do that to us - so it was not a good combat). 

My troops struggled to reform a meaningful line to try to face the oncoming Black Knights. Gaze of Nagash killed about half of the Venators, although the Leadbelchers did get some revenge with their only shot of the game firing off something like 20 shots into the Black Knights. Unfortunately it was only enough to remove a couple - not enough to make a real difference with a Vampire Lord at their head. I think the Venators died in the end, but they took the second Necromancer with them. We managed to pick off the second unit of Dire Wolves, but that was our last bit of success.

Things were a bit of a mess at the end.

In the end I still had my BSB, his Ironguts, the Rhinox, the Besiegers, and half of the Republican Guard. Jono had his Vampire Lord, the Black Knights, the Spirit Hosts, and the Skeletons and Ghouls. I had lost, but we had put up a fight. It would have been very different if the Tyrant had fired up in his moment in the spotlight. Ah well.

Result: 8-12 Loss

So I hadn't managed to win more than I lost, but it hadn't been a complete disaster. My games had all been entertaining, and I think everyone had a good time on the day. Thanks to Pete for running the thing, and to everyone who turned up. Below are the final results for the tournament. Thanks for reading!