Rumble in the Bronx 2014 - Part 6

This post is a continuation of my account of the recent tournament, Rumble in the Bronx. You can find the previous game here.

Game 6: Battleline

Nathan Goodchild, Daemons of Chaos

My Boast: Hold Out (keep enemy units out of my deployment zone)

• Demon Prince of Nurgle (Level 3, Lore of Nurgle) with Flight, Chaos Armour, Exalted Gift (chose something that lets him re-roll Winds of Magic)
• Herald of Tzeentch (Level 2, Lore of Tzeentch)
• Herald of Nurgle BSB (Level 1, Lore of Nurgle) with Greater Locus of Fecundity, Greater Gift (chose Fencer's Blades)
• 10 Horrors with Standard
• 25 Plaguebearers with Full Command, Banner of Swiftness
• 3 Screamers of Tzeentch
• 3 Screamers of Tzeentch
• 1 Beast of Nurgle
• 1 Beast of Nurgle
• Soulgrinder of Nurgle with Daemonbone Claw, Harvester Cannon

Comp score: 5

After the debacle of the game against Chris, I figured I would drop back into the pack a bit. Apparently this wasn't really the case as there were a group of us milling about on very similar scores, with just Chris running off with things courtesy of the springboard I had provided. My final opponent was to be Nathan Goodchild, who had travelled all the way down from Queensland for the event. I had never played him before, so was looking forward to it. I could only lament how much tougher my draw had gotten in the latter stages of the event, however. My final 4 opponents had all either been ranked no 1 in the country or won the Masters in relatively recent memory. No wailing upon inexperienced tournament players for me, it seemed.

Nathan was running a borrowed Daemon army for the event, as his Skaven had been unable to make the trip with him. The borrowed army was not really holding him back, however. If his dice had been a little better in the previous game, he would have been well ahead of me instead of barely in front.

I confess I was slightly concerned about the match-up. The big block of Plaguebearers looked nigh-on impregnable for my army, and the Soulgrinder was not exactly a push-over. I was at a big disadvantage in the magic phase, and then there was the Nurgle Daemon Prince. Oh well, at least he wasn't the 1+ armour save, unbreakable, self-healing Warriors of Chaos version. Still, I would need a good contribution from my Ironblaster to help soften the big stuff.

During the Ogres' first turn, because once again I got distracted and missed the deployment photos. That big rock thing adds +1 to any attempts to wound things within 6". Same thing as was on the table in game 3.

Rumble in the Bronx 2014 - Part 5

This post is a continuation of my account of the recent tournament, Rumble in the Bronx. You can find the previous game here.

Game 5: Watchtower

Chris Cousens, Lizardmen

My Boast: Contain Power (kill the most expensive non-character unit, in this case the Saurus block)

• Oldblood on Arabyan Carpet with Armour of Destiny, Great Weapon, Shield
• Oldblood on Cold One with Dragonhelm, Talisman of Preservation, Great Weapon
• Tetto-Ekko
• Scar Veteran BSB on Cold One with Charmed Shield, Dawnstone, Sword of Might, Light Armour
• 10 Skink Skirmishers
• 10 Skink Skirmishers
• 10 Skinks with Musician
• 10 Skinks with Musician
• 23 Saurus with Full Command
• 5 Cold One Riders with Musician, Spears
• 5 Chameleon Skinks
• Salamander
• Ancient Stegadon with Engine of the Gods

Comp score: 5

I had emerged from my game with Dave with my score more or less intact, and now I found myself playing the old Egg himself, Chris Cousens. This was the man responsible for my Tyrant flying about on a magic carpet, having issued a challenge to all and sundry before the event to include a model on a flying rug (only a couple of us were silly enough to accept). He was also leading the tournament. Apparently I really was at the pointy end of things.

Watchtower deployment, after Chris has moved his Vanguard forces up between the building and the magical rock that lets things within 6" re-roll failed charges.

Rumble in the Bronx 2014 - Part 4

This post is a continuation of my account of the recent tournament, Rumble in the Bronx. You can find the previous game here.

Game 4: Battle for the Pass

Dave Duriesmith, Ogre Kingdoms

My Boast: Reconnoitre (control the most table quarters at game's end)

• Tyrant with Great Weapon, Crown of Command, Dragonbane Gem, Armour of Destiny
• Bruiser BSB with Great Weapon, Luckstone, Armour of Silvered Steel
• Firebelly (Level 2, Lore of Fire) with Talisman of Preservation, Great Weapon
• 11 Ironguts with Full Command
• 6 Leadbelchers with Musician, Champion
• 1 Sabretusk
• 1 Sabretusk
• 1 Sabretusk
• Gorger
• Gorger
• Gorger
• Ironblaster

Comp score: 3

I had been hoping to avoid Dave's list, because the stubborn Gutstar was something I simply would not be able to crack. Never mind, I'd just have to make the best of it. At least I was guaranteed at least 4 points because of our comp scores...

To his credit, Dave didn't deploy all his characters in the Irongut unit. The BSB went in there, but the Firebelly and Tyrant decided it would be cooler to hang with the Leadbelchers. Or maybe it wasn't really to his credit because he realised he didn't need all that stuff in one place in order to take on my units...

You'd think by now I would remember to take photos before the game kicked off. Hey, it was first thing in the morning. This was during my first turn.

Rumble in the Bronx 2014 - Part 3

This post is a continuation of my account of the recent tournament, Rumble in the Bronx. You can find the previous game here.

Game 3: Meeting Engagement

Ben Leopold, High Elves

My Boast: Bodyguard (keep my general alive)

• Archmage (Level 4, High Magic) on Sun Dragon with Talisman of Preservation
• Noble BSB on Griffon with Swift Sense, Swooping Strike, Heavy Armour, Shield, Lance, Lion Cloak, Banner of the World Dragon
• Mage (Level 1, Lore of Metal) with Ruby Ring of Ruin, Dispel Scroll
• 10 Archers with Standard, Musician
• 10 Archers with Standard, Musician
• 6 Silver Helms with Shields, Full Command
• 5 Ellyrian Reavers with Standard, Musician
• Repeater Bolt Thrower
• Repeater Bolt Thrower
• Repeater Bolt Thrower
• Frostheart Phoenix
• Great Eagle

Comp score: 3

After playing two people I had never met before, I was suddenly faced with someone far more familiar. In fact, some of the models were very familiar too, since they were mine. I might have been involved in the idiot planning that saw Ben enter a list with a Banner of the World Dragon floating about on a Griffon, but despite the obvious dangers, he seemed to be enjoying it.

We would be playing Meeting Engagement (the one with the crazy diagonal deployment), and we found ourselves on a weird and slightly dreadful table with incredibly rough sand and an enormous rocky thing cutting the table in half. I won the roll-off for sides, and decided to try to take the big rock out of the equation by taking a corner that put most of it in my deployment zone. With an enormous ruined building next to it, that basically ensured that we were playing on a 4'x4' board. I then placed my army, with my regular Ogre Bulls and Sabretusks starting in reserve because they rolled 1s.

I deploy aggressively on the slightly weird table.

Rumble in the Bronx 2014 - Part 2

This post is part 2 of my account of a recent tournament. You can find part 1 here.

Game 2: Blood and Glory

Corey Leslie, Lizardmen

My Boast: Breakthrough (have a unit into the enemy's deployment zone at game's end)

• Slann Mage Priest (Level 4, High Magic) with Focus of Mystery, Becalming Cogitation, BSB, Standard of Discipline
• Saurus Oldblood with Crown of Command, Light Armour, Great Weapon
• 40 Saurus Warriors with Spears, Full Command
• 26 Temple Guard with Full Command
• 10 Skink Skirmishers
• 10 Skink Skirmishers
• 3 Kroxigor
• Bastiladon with Solar Engine
• 5 Chameleons
• 5 Chameleons

Comp score: 5

This match-up worried me slightly with the magical prowess of the Slann, and at least one unit I couldn't face. With the Oldblood at their head, those Saurus could take my entire army...

This is me almost remembering to take photos before the game began...

Rumble in the Bronx 2014 - Part 1

Rumble in the Bronx is over, and despite being exhausted for the entire weekend (too much late night painting and modelling will do that to you), I had a great time. Despite my doubts, I did manage to get my entire army ready in time for the tournament, so apart from not getting anywhere near enough sleep, I was all prepared for the event.

I've shown my list before, but here it is again for convenience:

• Tyrant
  • General; Great Weapon; Heavy Armour
  • Arabyan Carpet (He can FLY!!)
  • Talisman of Preservation
  • Enchanted Shield
• Bruiser
  • Great Weapon; Battle Standard
  • Armour of Fortune
• Firebelly
  • Magic Level 1; Lore of Fire
  • Ruby Ring of Ruin
• Hunter
  • Great Weapon; Light Armour; Great Throwing Spear
  • Longstrider
• 6 Ironguts
  • Great Weapon; Heavy Armour; Standard; Musician; Gutlord
• 6 Ogres
  • Iron Fist; Light Armour; Standard; Musician; Crusher
• 3 Mournfang Cavalry
  • Great Weapon; Heavy Armour; Standard; Musician
  • Gleaming Pendant
• 4 Sabretusk Pack
• 4 Leadbelchers
  • Light Armour; Musician
• 1 Ironblaster

Total Army Cost: 1999pts

I ended up getting a 7 out of 10 for composition, meaning the panel had deemed my list to be pretty rubbish. The reasons for this were that I wasn't really using any of the generally acknowledged strengths of the Ogre list, apart from an Ironblaster. My flying Tyrant and Hunter meant I couldn't pour all my characters into a single “Gutstar” unit. I had little magic and no dispel scroll. All my Sabretusks were in a single unit rather than running around separately as dirt cheap annoyances. And my Mournfangs had great weapons, meaning they were not very well protected. All good reasons to doubt my army could do the business, but I was pretty happy with the high comp score anyway.

My 2000 point empire-themed Ogre army.

Rumble used an unusual scoring system. Instead of the 20-0 system which is most common in this part of the world, the score range was 16-0 (with 8-8 being a draw). In addition to this however, both players had to choose a “boast” at the start of each game. Achieving your stated boast got you an additional 2 battle points, whilst denying your opponent their boast got you another 2. You couldn't use the same boast twice in the event – you had to use all 6 once. So the total possible score was still 20, before comp. Unusually, comp modifiers could push you above 20 points for the round, although you couldn't get less than 0.

Here is my account of the event. As usual, most army lists will be from memory, so forgive me if they're not entirely correct. I've got 130 photos to post all told, so I'll be splitting the games up into separate posts to help make the pages load OK. The venue was quite dark, so you'll have to forgive my amateurish efforts to take photos under the conditions.

Painted Empire Ogre Characters

Well this post may be a little late, but in the end my painting was not - I managed to undercoat and paint these 3 guys on Friday night, and was finally able to head to bed a little after 1am. I was tired all weekend, but at least I achieved my goal of having the army ready for Rumble.

Anyway, here is how the group of them came out...

3 painted Ogre characters - Tyrant on flying carpet, BSB and Hunter. Not bad for a night's work.

All in a night's work...

Let us sculpt and paint, for tomorrow we Rumble!

Rumble in the Bronx does indeed start tomorrow, and I do have a lot of work still to do. Just in case you hadn't worked it out yet, I bit off more than I could chew (again). The last couple of nights have been late ones, trying to get my army in order. Here is what I did last night...

Yeah, I had to do pretty much all of this last night. The flying carpet itself was nearly finished, at least.

Steam Tank Ironblaster and Ogre Bright Wizard Done

The clock is ticking. I really only have 2 available evenings left before Rumble in the Bronx. I'm beginning to think I won't get every model ready in time. Fortunately all of the remaining characters have back-ups, but if I have to fall back on them it might break my theme a bit, so I'm still hoping to avoid that.

Anyway, I spent a fair bit of time at the painting table last night, and my Ironblaster and Firebelly are all done!

My Steam Tank Ironblaster, ready for battle. Behold the scratchy highlighting on the cannons and splotchy washes on the hull (both are more obvious in the photos than in real life). A true masterpiece.

Converted Ogre Firebelly WIP

We're now into the week leading up to Rumble in the Bronx, and I am still not close to ready. I have not been idle, however. I have started painting my converted Steam Tank/Ironblaster thingy, and I even have the first of my character models ready for paint!

The only magic in my list for the weekend is a level 1 Firebelly with the Ruby Ring. I quite like the proper Firebelly model, but never bought one and don't intend to. Instead I figured I would make an Ogre-sized Bright Wizard, based on one of the old 4th edition Empire models. It fits my theme better. Anyway, I put him together last week and he is now undercoated and ready to go, if a little rough...

My concept model on the left, and the very early WIP Ogre on the right. I started with some cloned legs and a torso I already had in a bag, and ended up using real plastic Ogre arms and a head.

Doggies and Rumble Lists

Rumble in the Bronx is now less than 2 weeks away, and I still have a fair bit of work to do in order to get my army ready. I've been a bit slack over the last week or so, but last night I sat down for a couple of hours and knocked out some more "Sabretusks" (I'm using Fenrisian Wolf models from 40K, because they fit the theme of my army better).

These guys are pretty rough, partly because I'm lazy and in a hurry (a dire combination), but also partly because I find these white furry models difficult to paint cleanly. They'll look OK on the table, but the camera is rather unforgiving. It was only when I was uploading these photos that I noticed how pronounced some of the joins are, even after painting. I will have to go back and address this. It's pretty unsightly, even by my lowly standards. Fortunately I bought some more liquid green stuff recently (my previous pot dried up after almost no use, much to my disgust).

5 painted Subretusks, using Fenrisian Wolves. Try to ignore the nasty join lines on the models. I'll address that.