Swords of summer tournament report

Swords of Summer was a 2 day, 5 game KoW event at 3,000 points with special characters, run in Nottingham as part of the Britcon convention.

There were 4 special characters available, based on Norse Gods, with each army choosing one that remained with them throughout the tournament. Each character was Very Inspiring and had an aura, but none were particularly good in combat. I chose Foresti that offered Very Inspiring, Rallying (1) and Dread.

I decided to run an Order of the Green Lady army with:

Horde Men at Arms Retainers
2 X Regiments Order of Redemption
2 X Hordes Water Elementals
Horde Order of Forsaken
2 X Regiments Woodland Critters
2 X Beasts of Nature
2 X Pegasus
2 X Exemplar Redeemer on Unicorns
Druid
Champion of the Green Lady

In the lead up to the tournament, I made up goody bags for my opponents, including a bottle of Sacred Water with which they could drown their sorrows after a loss or, more likely, toast their success.

Moonraker Andy and I headed up to Nottingham, on a very hot day, stopping off at Mantic HQ as I have apparently been appointed as head of the Northern Kings procurement department and they wanted us to stop and buy them some bits.

After booking in to accommodation and to the event, it was time to join TOs Jan and Bob at the Playwright pub, or was it the Playhouse pub? Who knows?

Sometime during the evening, the Northern Kings got banned from Facebook. Some atmospheric problem caused by a full moon, I believe.

GAME 1 – Ed, Forces of Nature, Raze.

Ed’s Forces of Nature included:
Troop Hunters of the Wild
Regiment Hunters of the Wild
2 X Hordes Forest Shamblers
2 X Regiments Earth Elementals
Regiment Scorchwings
Greater Air Elemental
Pegasus
Gladewalker Druid
2 X Tree Herder
Avatar of the Green Lady
Kapoka
Nature’s Wrath Formation

My plan was to try to hold the left most 2 tokens on my side of the board and try to sneak some of my fliers over the of Ed’s army to raze tokens on his side.

Lots of stuff happened in this game. I planned to raze the token on my far right by jumping 2 US 1 fliers onto it, fortunately realising just in time that the Scorchwings guarding it were US 2, not 1 as I had thought.

Ed had the best of the fighting and was ahead of kills as we approached the end game but then timed out. Despite this, I could not muster the strength to evict him from control of the centre and the game ended in a draw in Ed’s favour.

BREAK

We had a break for lunch and it was a chance to view the stall holders present,

and to admire the array of BETTys on display.

GAME 2 – Tod, Nightstalkers, Dominate

I had played Tod in an earlier tournament and the result had hinged on the final dice roll of the game. Hopefully, I could avoid that in this game.

Tod was running:

Regiment Scarecrows
Horde Scarecrows
Regiment Doppelgangers
Troop Reapers
2 X Regiments Reapers
Troop Spectres
Troop Shadowhounds
Regiment Butchers
Horde Butchers
2 X Mindscreech
Regiment Soulflayers
Shadowhulk
Void Lurker
Horror
Shade
Dreamhunter
Esenyshra

This was a brutal and bloody game that swung both ways but was effectively decided when Tod timed out and I was able to flood the Dominate zone for the win.

GAME 3 – Mark, Ratkin Slaves, Push

I had also played Mark in a previous tournament in which I had claimed a win and I knew that Mark was out for revenge.

Mark fronted up with:

2 X Death Engine Impalers
Overmaster
Golekh Skinflayer
Cryza’s Gore Impaler
2 X Overmaster on Winged Halfbreed
Taskmaster on Chariot
Horde Slave Warriors
Ten Gazillion Regiments Slave Warriors (actually only [only?] 12).

We both formed up with our main forces in the middle. Marl placed a single Winged Halfbreed on my right flank and the other Winged Halfbreed on my left, accompanied by 3 regiments of Slaves.

I placed my Push tokens on a horde of Water Elementals in my left centre while Mark placed his on a Slave regiment on my left.

I was able in the game to use my superior manoeuvrability to delay Mark’s centre while moving overwhelming force to win the battle on my left, steal Mark’s tokens and also get mine across the centre line while he claimed the central token. This was another bloody battle that Mark nearly managed to snatch back in the closing stages and I was fortunate to hang on for the win.

OVERNIGHT

We didn’t finish until gone 7 pm and so it was back for a quick shower and then out for a swift drink and meal. We were staying in the student accommodation, which was adequate although hot. We suffered however, from other residents arriving back throughout the night who stood outside and discussed in loud voices their exploits of the night.

GAME 4 - Nick, Nightstalkers, Plunder

For Game 4, I faced NIck, the acceptable face of the Northern Kings.

Nick deployed:

3 X Hordes Scarecrows
Regiment Doppelgangers
Legion Blood Worms
Troop Phantoms
3 X Hordes Butchers
4 X Mind Screech
2 X Planar Apparition
Portal of Despair
2 X Horror
Esenyshra

There was one point in this game when I thought that I had a chance of winning. Unfortunately, this was before Nick chose table edge and deployed.

I made several mistakes and Nick capitalised, even more so when I timed out.

A crushing defeat. Ouch.

GAME 5 – Matt, Halflings, Invade

An ‘easy’ scenario to finish, Invade.

I faced Matt’s Halflings with:

3 X Troops Stalwarts
2 X Hordes Stalwarts
Horde Halfling Rifles
4 X Regiments Ej Grenadiers
3 X Regiments Aeronauts
3 X Volley Guns
Iron Beast
Saucereor
2 X Engineer
Sergeant
McSween’s Cutthroats Formation

I won the roll for first turn and decided to take it, accepting that I would be moving into shooting range but I considered that this was an acceptable risk if it enable me to get my units forward and fight the battles in Matt’s table half.

Matt’s shooting was very effective and took out a Beast of Nature early on. He also deployed a cunning plan on my left flank that tied up 2 of my fliers that I had hoped to get into flanking positions. A nasty combat in which my Water Elementals failed to kill their enemy left them flank on to certain death and things were not looking good.

But then, I gained the upper hand on my left and moved into flanking positions while elsewhere I started to whittle down Matt’s higher unit strength. Matt charged a hero into the front of a Regiment of Order of Redemption but failed to wound and disorder them and they were able to charge into the Iron Beast and rout it.

With time running out, we got to the final combats and I managed to hang on for the win.

RESULTS

And so to the final reckoning where I finished with 3 wins, a draw and a loss for a 7th place ranking.

Thanks to Jan and Bob for running this great tournament and to everyone that I played.

I’ll leave you with some photos of the terrain that Bonb had built.

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Great report, but I always thought Paul was the acceptable face of the Northern Kings!

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He’s the acceptable tentacle of the NK :wink:

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The acceptable moon of the Northern Kings?

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