STANE OF BLOOD
Stane of Blood was a 22 player, 4 game, 1495 point KoW tournament held on 25th January in southern England. All 3 Moonrakers attended what would be our first 3rd Edition tournament.
PREPARATION
The tournament posed as few issues in the preparation phase.
Firstly, which army should I take? I had fallen out of love with the Abyssals following the loss of Despoilers in the mass extinction of the end of the 2nd Age. With no idea of how the meta would change, I decided to revitalise my Rhordians. Background fluff for the army is:
Following the cataclysm that ended the second age, and the demise of many species (cough … Abyssal Despoilers, Halfling Iron Beasts … cough), the survivors entered the third age in confusion. With an eye to the future, but with a memory of past allies, the Church of the Children formed a new military order, The Cult of the Dead, and honoured it by presenting it with a rare War Shrine. In order to remember those killed in the cataclysm, and also to strike terror into the hearts of the foe, knights of the Cult shave their heads and paint their bodies to resemble skeletons.
“Victoriam in Meam Commemorationem Mortuorum”
Secondly, 1495 points is an interesting and challenging level. On one hand, it stops spamming of heroes, monsters or war engines. On the other, it leaves the army relatively light of units on a 4’ by 6’ board. There could be a lot of open flanks to exploit.
I put my list together and then had some practise games against fellow Moonrakers. These games went really well – for the other Moonrakers. In my final game against the Fox, I faced the ultimate ignominy when my horde of Honour Guard failed to kill a troop of Skeletons. Unfortunately, it was too late to change my list and so I was stuck with:
Horde of Dogs of War
Horde of Honour Guard
Regiment of Halfling Knights
Regiment of Pole Arms
War Shrine
Duke on Aralez
Standard Bearer
Wizard on Pegasus
Baron on Horse
It was with a feeling of deep depression that I set off at 6.00 am on Saturday morning to collect the others and then start the long drive to the venue. I know that 2½ hours driving represents a small trip to our American friends, but for me this is the equivalent of 2 months’ normal travel for me.
GAME 1 – DOMINATE – JAKE, ORCS
Jake fronted up with:
Horde of Ax
Horde of Trolls
Regiment of Gore Riders
Troop of Morax
Troop of Morax
Troop of Skulks
War Drum
Winged Slasher
Godspeaker
Flagger
We had a cagey start with a slow advance in the centre. On my left, my Duke, supported by the Baron, ended up in a stand-off with the Slasher.
Eventually I decided that a more direct approach was required and went all in to smash through the enemy lines. This sort of worked but Jake played very well and the move left my Honour Guard needing to avoid being killed by a furiously charging Troll horde. They fortunately survived and with my Duke keeping the Slasher out of the battle, I was able to mop up and control the Dominate zone for a win.
GAME 2 – RAZE – PAUL FOX, EoD
Just what I needed as a reward for winning my first game; a rematch against the Fox with the same lists and scenario that we had used in our last practise game.
Paul was running:
Horde of Guardian Archers
Horde of Guardians
Horde of Skeleton Spearmen
Regiment of Mummies
Regiment of Mummies
Regiment of Skeleton Spearmen
Troop of Skeleton Spearmen (Yes, the Skeleton troop of doom)
Monolioth
Soul Snare
High Priest
We played on the table that I had used in Game 1. There was some blocking terrain on my left that separated the board into distinct zones and Paul put 2 tokens in this area, charging his Skeletons to move forward to claim these. The rest of his army was set out to contest the other objectives with the Archers and supporting units providing extra effort where required.
I set the Dogs of War the task of stopping the Skeletons from claiming their objectives (well, I wasn’t going to use the Honour Guard, was I?) while the rest of my army looked longingly at my objectives.
The game started badly for me when the Guardian Archers took 7 wounds off my Honour Guard. Ouch. Fortunately, they were not able to repeat this feat and Paul was forced to engage with the Guardians. Meanwhile, my 2 flying characters had flown forward and razed the 2 objectives on my right. The Guardians moving forward also created the space for my Wizard to mount a suicide mission to claim my third objective, before dying a glorious death.
On the left, Paul’s Skeleton troop of Doom razed an objective by the Skeletons were not able to break the Dogs of War to claim the other one in that area. In the centre, we started a brawl for control of the central objective. I was fortunate to survive this as unit after unit was wavered but survived and come the end of the game I still had superior unit strength to claim the centre.
Despite the Fox killing more of my army than I had of his, I claimed the victory, and some redemption for the Honour Guard.
GAME 3 – CONTROL – ROB, DWARFS
Rob was running a semi-MSU list with:
Regiment Shieldbreakers
Regiment Shieldbreakers
Regiment Shieldbreakers
Regiment Rangers
Regiment Mastiffs
Regiment Mastiffs
Troop Brocks
Troop Brocks
Troop Berserkers
Troop Berserkers
Lord on Beast
Berserker Lord with Blade of Beastslayer
Standard Bearer
That was a lot of units!
The Shieldbreakers and Rangers formed a solid cores in the centre with Mastiffs and Lord on Beast on my right flank and Mastiffs, both Brocks and Berserker Lord on my right. I deployed the Halfling Knights and Polearms on my left to protect my flank while the rest of my army deployed on the right and centre.
I got a good charge with my Dogs of War into a regiment of Shieldbreakers and killed it, but was then counter-charged by the Rangers in the flank and that was goodnight to the Dogs. Not a good exchange for me. Rob was playing very well and with the Dogs of War gone, my army was looking fragile. Fortunately for me, Rob’s dice proceeded to let him down big style. As an example, he failed every Headstrong roll that he tried to make.
I was able to secure the right flank and then move into the centre to mop up there while on my left my Halflings and Polearms killed the wavered and non-Headstrong rolling Lord on Beast.
In the end I ran out with a big win that did not really reflect how ell Rob had played.
GAME 4 – LOOT, MATT, OGRES
For the final game I faced off TO Matt and his Ogres in a Loot scenario. Unfortunately, I did not take any photos of this game.
Matt had:
Horde Warriors
Horde Warriors
Horde Warriors
Horde Boomers
Blaster
Warlord on Chariot
Bully
Warlock
Kuzlo and Madfall
This looked menacing. It was. Spoiler alert, Matt destroyed 80% of my army in this game while I killed very little of his.
The Loot tokens were deployed with one in the centre and one on each flank. Matt deployed with the Chariot and Bully on the left flank, Kuzlo on the right and the rest in the centre. Early in my deployment, I dropped the Polearms on my right as a deception plan as my aim was to try to take the centre and right tokens. On my left I placed my Duke, the Halfling Knights and Baron, hoping that they could secure the flank and then turn to support the Honour Guard and Dogs of War in the centre.
Unfortunately, things became bogged down on my left and I was forced to redeploy the Honour Guard to help out. This allowed Matt to charge my Dogs of War with 3 hordes of Warriors in the front and Kuzlo in the rear. Even thought the Warriors were hindered and ensnared, they still ripped the limbs from the Dogs.
However, this concentration of effort had allowed my Polearms to sneak up the right flank and run of with the Loot token there meaning that I was now holding the 2 flank tokens while Matt held the centre one. On the left, my Halfling Knights carried the token but there was a danger that they could be shot by the Boomers. It was now the turn of my Duke to take one for the team by making a suicidal charge into the Boomers to delay them. On the right, Matt desperately turned his Warlock to Lightning Bolt my token-carrying Polearms and turned kuzlo in their direction. It was the chance for my heroic Pegasus-riding Wizard to show his mettle again by landing directly in front of Kuzlo to slow his advance. The ensuing fight resulted in lots of blood and feathers but achieved its aim.
At the end of turn 6, the token on my left was secure but the Polearms were injured and not inspired. One more turn of Lightning Bolts could spell the end. I prayed that there would not be a turn 7.
But there was.
More Lightning Bolt damage on the Polearms. All eyes turned to the nerve roll.
Wavered but not routed.
A further victory, if you can call it a victory when 80% of the army is dead.
AWARDS
This was the first occasion on which the Moonrakers Curiosity Award was presented for an unusual or curious event.
Paul suggested, very unfairly I thought, that I should receive the award for beating him, a very rare event indeed. However, in the end it was awarded to Rob, my Dwarf opponent from Game 3, for his inability to make any successful Headstrong rolls during the game. He is my sort of Dwarf!
In the final rankings, Paul finished 7th, Moonraker Andy finished 5th and I took top honours, winning a fantastic piece of art as a prize (thanks Matt, its great).
CONCLUSION
A great tournament, very well run by Matt. Thanks to Matt and all of my opponents.
Some quick closing thoughts:
- For the first time in a long time, none of my games was decided by a critical Double 1. I enjoyed that.
- 1495 points creates a lot of difficult issues in army design. You just don’t seem to have enough of anything.
- League of Rhordia is clearly overpowered!
A great tournament, very well run by Matt. Thanks to Matt and all of my opponents.
ARMIES ON PARADE
Some photos of other armies that I managed to grab. These do not capture everyone’s armies and there were some great models on display.
