Vengeance Rising - Battle 15 - 1500 TK vs Empire - Blood & Glory - 7/7/12

Blood and Glory

Tomb Kings

Level 4
32 Archers
4 Chariots - flaming
2 x Warsphinx
Necrosphinx
Casket

Empire

Waraltar
BSB - Pegasus
Engineer
5 Knights - Std, Mus
40 Halberdiers
4 Demigryph Knights
Cannon
Helblaster


Spells
Level 4 - Desiccation, Veng, Smiting, Protection

Deployment:

TK win the roll off and elect to take first turn.

TK1

Vengeance goes off on the Demigryphs dropping their movement by 3. Shooting fails to inflict any casualties.

Empire 1

Champion of Demi knights takes a wound from difficult terrain test.

5+ ward on everything within 6" in combat. Banishment is dispelled.

Cannon kills eastern Warsphinx.

TK2

Necrosphinx charges Demiknights.

Smiting on the archers. Lod does a single wound to the cannon.

Shooting fails to wound War Altar.

Necrosphinx takes 4 wounds, does one back to BSB and crumbles. 

Empire 2

Banishmnet goes off IF, 6 archers croak it.

Cannon misfires.

Helblaster misfires and becomes 9 shots into archers. Kills 2.

TK3

At this stage I was just going to attempt to inflict some damage before dying!

Warsphinx charges War Altar. Chariots fail to charge Knights.

Magic does nothing.

Warsphinx holds with War Altar.

Empire 4

BSB + Demigryphs charge into Archers.

Kill archers and general, winning the game.

Result - Empire Victory

Well my luck didn't carry over from last weekend. My opponent was very lucky to score so many wounds on the Necrosphinx in the opening combat, just frustrating. Sure they maybe T8 but without armour save it doesn't account for much. It was a quick game but plenty of time for more.

Vengeance Rising - Battle 14 - 1500 TK vs Dark Elves 29/6/12

It was to be a cracking battle, I had a gut full of nearly half a kilo of kangaroo and I was pumped to dismantle the dark elves with ranged fire power and much stompy stompy from the warsphinxes!!

My opponent drops his hydra on the ground breaking off a head and two legs, this could be a good omen.

Battleline

Lists:

TK:

Level 4 – Channelling staff
20 Archers – Std
20 Archers – Std
4 Chariots – Std, Flaming
2 x Warsphinxes – FB
Casket
2 x SSC

DE:

Level 4
BSB
Hag – Cauldron
11 Xbowmen
20 Corsairs
6 Shades
2 Hydras

Deployment:

Spell selection:

Sorceress - black horror, word of pain, doombolt, soul stealer, power of darkness,

Hierophant - Desert Wind, Smiting, Desiccation, Vengeance

DE1




Cauldron puts 5+ ward on corsairs.

Magic - Word of pain reduces archers to BS1.

Chariot takes 2 wounds from shades.

TK1




Light of Death kills 2 xbowmen

5 xbowmen die to shooting

DE2

Cauldron puts Ward on Xbowmen.

Doombolt on warsphinx does nil. Word of pain on archers again. Black horror dispelled.

4 wounds on chariots from shades.

TK2

WS charges xbowmen, fails, pass terror.

Desiccation on xbowmen

Shooting wipes out xbowmen and puts 2 wounds on level 4. 1 wound on shade.

DE3

5+ ward on corsairs from cauldron.

Hyrdas charge Warsphinx. East one fails.

level 4 moves into corsairs.

Power of darkness adds 2 dice to pool. black horror on archers kills 9. doombolt on chariots fails to dispel does 5 wounds.

Hydra kills Sphinx. 

TK 3

Chariot into Hydra and Warsphinx into Corsairs flank.

Smiting on warsphinx, LOD does 2 wounds to Hydra

SSC scatters and takes out a shade.

Archers destroy shades.

Crew kill BSB, and kill a further 8 corsairs however they're steadfast.

Chariot kills hydra and overruns.

DE4

Hydra charges into rear of chariot.

Power of darkness goes through. black horror kills 3 archers. word of agony dispelled from sphinx.

Chariot dies. Hydra reforms to face Archers.

Warsphinx breaks Corsairs, reforms to face rear of Hyrda.

TK4

Warsphinx into Hydras flank.

Desiccation onto Hydra. Powered up smiting goes off. Heals wound on sphinx and 3 archers get up.

Archers kill level 4 and 2 corsairs are left. SSC kill another 1.

Drawn combat between sphinx and hydra.

DE5




Corsair continues to run.

Warsphinx kills Hydra.

Op concedes.

Result - Tomb Kings Victory

Wow, eating that kangaroo sure paid off. 

All I can say is I was pretty lucky that I didn't cope both the hydras on my warsphinx at the same time, had that happened then they would have rolled the sphinx and been into my back lines and that would have been a wrap. As it happens the dice were fickle and the double ones saved my boney hide this time.

Conclusion:

1500 points certainly feels like a more tactical game than the usual 2500 I’m use to. You really feel every wound that your army takes so at this points level the healing certainly felt good to have even though it didn’t change anything major.

Things for me to take note of next game, ensure I keep my chariots out of range of shooters to ensure they don’t take any more damage than what is necessary (Shades).

The shooting elements of this list were fantastic, probably a few too many points invested in shooting however it really decimated the Xbowmen and forced the level 4 to join the unit of Corsairs preventing them from charging.

Things would have gone completely different had the second Hydra made it into combat when they both charged but alas it was not to be.

I was also extremely lucky in the fact the chariot pinged the last wound off the Hydra! I was thinking about reforming the unit and positioning it off to draw the Hydra away from the casket but decided to overrun but it didn’t get me far enough. This however did allow my Warsphinx to gain the flank but perhaps a round of shooting against the Hydra would have been a wiser choice.

Thanks for reading!

Star Wars Legion Tournament Report - Queensland States 2022

Welcome folks,

On Saturday the 2nd of July the Queensland States for Legion was held at EPIC Games in Ipswich. I was lucky enough to get an invite and several spots opened up due to other player not being able to make it unfortunately. Aaron was the TO and Bryant from Phoenix Games supplied prizes and hearty banter throughout the tournament.

I didn't have a great deal of time to alter my list so ran the same Vader/Tank list that I did at the last Unnatural Resources event a few short weeks ago.

799/800

9 Activations

Director Orson Krennic 75

Darth Vader (Dark Lord of the Sith) 190 + 23 = 213

--Burst of Speed (3), Force Push (10), Saber Throw (5), Vigilance (5)

Snowtroopers 44

Stormtroopers 44

Stormtroopers 44 + 9 = 53

--R4 Astromech Droid (9)

3x Dewback Rider 70 + 5 = 75 x 3 = 225

--T-21 Blaster Rifle (5)

TX-225 GAVw Occupier Combat Assault Tank 140 + 5 = 145

--Governor Pryce (5)

Implacable•, Vader's Might•, New Ways to Motivate Them••, Deploy the Garrison••, Master of Evil•••, Darkness Descends•••, Standing Orders••••

Major Offensive, Advanced Positions, Roll Out, Hemmed In

Key Positions, Payload, Intercept the Transmissions, Hostage Exchange

Limited Visibility, War Weary, Supply Drop, Hostile Environment

Game 1 vs Morgan

Morgan was running a Anakin lead Clone ball backed up with Padme. It's the second time I've played a competent Clone player and boy did I pay for my mistakes!

We ended up with Sabotage the Vaporators, Major Offensive, and Clear Conditions.

Deployment was all the Empire gear lined up, Vader on his ride facing off against a Clone ball with a sniper team on a flank which would sit in that spot all game.

The opening turn saw me lose a Dewback to combined fire and fire support for no return whatsoever. This was due to a combination of inexperience and simply not paying attention to what my opponent's army can do. My return fire accounted for very little between Padme's dodges and solid dice rolls from my opponent.

Beginning of Turn 2

Beginning of Turn 2

My army kept advancing under a hail of fire and for the second turn I played New Ways to Motivate them catapulting my remaining Dewbacks into units of Clones in order to rack up some kills. It certainly didn't account for much other than a few suppression tokens and thanks for more fire support I was now down three lizards with only a few dead clones to show for it. My confidence was fleeting. Vader would fix everything right?

In turn three Vader finally hit the enemy lines with dodges and an aim. Anakin and Vader dueled and Anakin was left on three wounds whilst Vader took a revolting amount of damage after being force pushed out of combat, then a shiny light saber thrown at him backed up with fire support. Well played Morgan.

The rest of my army advanced by this stage securing two of the Vaporators whilst the Clones had one.

The fourth turn rolled around and Vader dispatched Anakin. I ended up Force Pushing a unit of activated clones into combat with me to prevent further shooting and by this stage Vader was limping around with a single wound remaining. The snipers continued to drop stormtroopers from afar and Krennic and the full strength unit of Stormtroopers lined up the uncontested Vaporator.

Morgan made a play and rushed the last Vaporator and although I killed the unit, I couldn't prevent them from removing wound tokens onto it. I pushed both my units up meaning next turn they'd be able to pile wounds back on effectively nullifying that objective.

The last turn I didn't have an answer for until it was staring me in the face in the form of Vader's Might. As you can see in the last image taken at the end of the second last turn, Padme is in range of the final objective. Vader's 1-pip card allowed me with him ensuring that I could embark allowing a greater range band to use Vader's Might to move Padme on the far side of the tank preventing her from getting into range of the objective. Blaster dodged.

The Empire very narrowly creeps through with a victory.

Morgan was a wonderful player and certainly schooled me with how Clones can be competently played. I've taken a lot of lessons away from this game.

Game 2 vs Robert

My self appointed arch nemesis Robert appeared across the table from me. This would be my third game against Rob in local tournaments and his game plan is just on par with the amazing paint job of his army. He is fast becoming a master of the Rebel playstyle in my opinion and something I'd like to emulate one day.

Rob was running his usual setup of Op Luke, Shriv in a tooled up bus, triple wookiees in various configs and triple rebel troopers. Finally everyone's favourite (most hated) astromech rounded out the list hell bent on stealing the Empires secrets.

We ended up with Disarray, Payload, and Clear Conditions. 

Deployment

Rob split his forces up where I just anchored a single zone and then allowed a single Dewback Rider to flank the Rebel cart pushing force and start the harassment. 

I dropped some models and did some damage but I had a strong feeling that although I might win the morale victory, R2 was happy to witness the back of the Dewback nearby and wander off into the sunset.

Vader catapulted into the enemy lines whilst Luke attacked my soft spots. Although I'd prevented Roberts cart from moving and even managed to keep Luke heavily suppressed, classic Rebel misdirection meant that the objective was never going to matter.

I pushed, and I huffed and puffed but unfortunately the cart wouldn't go any faster than speed 2.

7 suppression Luke is a well behaved Luke. 

Vader jumped back onto his delivery wagon to make the last desperate play. The Dewbacks doing sneaky moving and disrupting and then shooting ensured Luke took a run to the board edge.

I played Implacable as my final defiant act. I had a great plan, the tank reversed, Vader jump out, Rebels died, he pushed, took a wound, activated again, Rebels died, he pushed ensuring I could move my cart. We measured and I was just shy of being in range two of the target and scoring any victory points whilst R2 happily cruised off into galaxy with the lone VP scoring Robert the win. What a tragedy.

Well done mate. Until next time!

Game 3 vs Callan

Intercept the Transmissions was the objective followed by other parameters I can't re-collect.

Callan was running the Shadow Collective with Maul, a tooled up unit of close range Black Sun hooking a ride on a Bus, Lots of ranged Pykes and some Mandos for good measure. In all of my wargaming history I'm normally content to be on the losing end against a new faction before somehow I can figure out how to best dispatch it. With a recent loss still fresh in my mind against Todd and his Black Sun army, I was confident of the Black Sun's abilities to remove Dewbacks as well as put gaping holes in the side of armour so they'd be high on the priority list.

Then Callan revealed he was going to infiltrate Maul and do the crazy ivan bolt at my lines hoping to take something out of action in a blaze of angry glory. I countered this hard and put my entire plan on hold for a turn anchoring a flank opposite Maul with a Dewback and Vader.

Maul on my right flank.

Deploy the Garrison was the command card for the first turn ensuring I could react well enough to keep Maul occupied. He made a play for Vader who spent his standby to move back and lob a sabre doing some wounds onto Maul. The Dewback then added to the suppression with shooting. He hit something but didn't do a great deal of damage. I charged with Vader, did some more wounds then force pushed him out of combat allowing the rest of my army to light him up giving him a healthy collection of suppression and wounds. He eventually ran off the table or died of blood loss.

Callan easily grabbed his objective and rolled onto the centre one meaning I'd have a heavy lifting to do late game and that was only if I could get Vader back into the heat of the action. The mandos took some heavy fire and withdrew onto the top of the bunker as my Dewbacks got pumped with fire before charging into the Black Suns.

The tank pulled a full reverse whilst Vader used Burst of Speed to ensure I could embark on the vehicle. The tank was taking some wounds but by the stage my R4 Astromech had repaired all he could. Some critical shots take out the remaining Mando.

Master of Evil turn was played and the tank screamed forward before Vader dumped his suppression and threw a beat stick. The Dewback was finally free after the Black Suns were dispatched but on a single wound remaining the glory was short lived. My remaining forces begun to spur and circle around the bunker to get shots onto a unit of Pykes.

The final turn saw me play Implacable again. Vader disembarked, swung and pushed. The tank went boom, Dewbacks charged and ate things and Vader went again. Lots died and I moved Krennic and Stormtrooper units into the bunker ensuring I scored the middle objective. I drew on objective points so it went to points destroyed and I scraped through a victory.

Once again, a lot of lessons learned from this game and I'm only really starting to learn how to use Dewbacks properly as opposed just to walking target practice for the opposing army. Having them move through enemy units twice to gain suppression tokens and then finally get some shots off for a third suppression token is an amazing way to help the Master of Evil turn be much more beneficial. 

Conclusion

I placed 8th from 16 players. Although I'm my worst critic and it was my third tournament I don't suppose its too bad. My biggest take away from this day was however I didn't manage to play the entire six turns out in any of the games. An extra turn in Roberts game could have been crucial but alas it was not meant to be. 

This is something I'll have to make a conscientious effort to improve my decision and reasoning skills for a faster outcome. For this army, more turns means Vader is playing more command cards which often means more enemy units dying which I'm not upset about.

Thanks for reading.

Star Wars Legion Tournament Report - Phoenix Games Unnatural Resources

Welcome folks,

Bryant at Phoenix Games put on another great event at Comics Plus in Annerley which I was lucky enough to attend and drag my son along to. 8 players attended with a variety off different lists. I was the only player using Empire, the Rebels were represented by 2 players as were the Republic. Finally the dirty droids made up 3 players.

It was an 800 point event using the scenario rules for Unnatural Resources which is here: 

As you can read from above, it was simply going to be a lot of tennis style back and forth lobbing of the Dianoga. Of course with the Dewbacks ability to spur they could often double tap it each turn to cause maximum effect.

I'd run this list a few times over the last fortnight and was getting pretty happy with it:

799/800

9 Activations

Director Orson Krennic 75

Darth Vader (Dark Lord of the Sith) 190 + 23 = 213

--Burst of Speed (3), Force Push (10), Saber Throw (5), Vigilance (5)

Stormtroopers 44

Snowtroopers 44

Stormtroopers 44 + 9 = 53

--R4 Astromech Droid (9)

3x Dewback Rider 70 + 5 = 75 x 3 = 225

--T-21 Blaster Rifle (5)

TX-225 GAVw Occupier Combat Assault Tank 140 + 5 = 145

--Governor Pryce (5)

Vader's Might•, Implacable•, New Ways to Motivate Them••, Deploy the Garrison••, Master of Evil•••, Darkness Descends•••, Standing Orders••••

Vader getting closer to the enemy in a tank backed up by 3 Dewbacks under the watchful compelling gaze of Director Krennic ensured they would always get where they needed to be, and wouldn't panic because of being overloaded with suppression tokens. I did experiment with Tenacity on them but found having the white dice ranged attacks helped in the initial turns when they weren't in combat, and for sneaking a few wounds through onto targets of opportunity.

Finally having Pryce on the tank was a good way to ensure Vader had an aim token for maximum damage on the Sabre throw or hitting things in combat.

Generally, the orders went something like Darkness Descends, Deploy the Garrison (Vader + Dewback), then a combination of whatever I felt like.

Game 1 vs Richard

This was Richards first tournament which was great, but the best part was his 10 year old son Oscar was also playing. I didn't play Oscar but from observation he seemed to have a really good grasp of the rules and loved the game which is so cool to see at his age. Parenting done right!

Richard was running Grievous backed up with a T Series and Magnaguard. A heap of B1's filling out the core choices, a sniper team and rounded out with an AAT.

I deployed all of my army hugging the short table edge whilst Richard ensured his core was going to get to the objectives and start scoring victory points as quickly as possible.

The first turn was mainly pushing up with all forces whilst the armoured threats faced off against one another. Richard managed to put a wound or two onto my tank but in reply between the tank, dewbacks and Vader's sabre throw it took an unhealthy amount of damage in return sitting on 6 wounds. The Dianoga also played havoc throwing some suppression around which was going to be largely mitigated because of my armies commander. The end of the round saw both players hold a single objective.

Turn 2 saw the rearguard of Richard's B1's all advance accounting for another 3 victory points at the end of the round. I played Deploy the Garrison meaning the moment the AAT flinched Vader lobbed his sabre throw at it, destroying it. My army begun building up suppression tokens on to his commander and magnaguard through the Dianoga and when Master of Evil was played it ensure his key units each had 9+ suppression tokens and they started to rush for the table edges.

By turn 4 I was pushing my forces whilst capturing objectives and just edged out on victory points having only lost a single Dewback and a few Snowtroopers edging out the win.

Both Richard and Oscar went on to have a great day of Legion and fingers crossed they'll be at future events.

Game 2 vs Robert

I previously played against Robert in March at the BVC Tournament and was a pleasure to play against. Sporting his Rebels again in their visually appealing scheme he was running a solid group of core with a Rebel Officer, Op Luke, a Speeder Truck and Wookiees.

Robert played cagey (to his strengths) and hid most of his core until it was time to strike securing objectives early in the piece. Op Luke sat in the truck taking his time whilst I didn't do enough damage to it before it was close enough to unload its cargo. Two dewbacks died fairly quickly to the Dianoga which smashed my lines for wounds and suppression.

By the time Vader was in a position to do anything he'd already suffered 2-3 wounds and was whacked ceremoniously by his son. I tried to play for a morale victory either killing the bus or Luke but it just wasn't to be.

Congrats to Robert for a well played game and deserved victory.

I did learn some lessons from this game and it was perhaps to be more patient. The terrain didn't help me much but I feel as though I had the tools to tackle his list, but didn't execute it well enough.

Game 3 vs Bryan

I've played against Bryan years ago on the X-Wing circuit and he was the fellow who taught me Armada so it was good to see a familiar face. He was running a Rebel gunline supported with Leia and a pair of Tauntaun Riders to harass my lines.

I deployed to capture the objectives with my core, whilst pushing the advance with Dewbacks and Vader to the centre objective. My biggest problem was going to be the Tauns screaming down the opposite table edge picking off my core on the gas vents. I was anticipating sending Dewbacks after them as well as Vader sabre throwing from atop the tank.

Fortunately as luck would have it, what happened to me in the second game was replicated to Bryan's Tauntaun Riders. They advanced to the centre and the tennis match of hitting the Dianoga back and forth begun. Because I had more units he came off worse losing a Tauntaun rider mini and both units being heavily suppressed.

Deploy the Garrison ensured that Vader's standby triggered before they had much more of a say in the game and his activation then charged the second unit removing them. This allowed him to lob the Dianoaga towards the Rebel forces.

Bryan decided to concede cutting his losses as I hadn't lost anything at this stage and had the full weight of my army bearing down on him with Vader a turn away and about to jump out of line of sight of his army. This gave me my second victory of the day going 2-1 rewarding me with 3rd place.

Everyone picked up some good swag in the form of new minis, upgrade packs, alt art cards and dice trays/bags. Once again thanks to my opponents for the games and Bryant for his continued persistence in building a local community for Star Wars Legion.

Thanks for reading.