Battle reports: My MSU force in an uncomped 2,4k tournament

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triouto
Trainee Warrior
Posts: 28
Joined: Sat Aug 31, 2013 3:22 pm

Battle reports: My MSU force in an uncomped 2,4k tournament

Post by triouto »

So an uncomped tournament, all battles are scenarios from BRB. 25% Lord/Hero limit, no ET stuff.

My list:
Dreadlord, dark Pegasus, sword of anti-heroes, charmed shield, 4+ ward, potion of strength, 1+ armor
Supreme Sorc, lvl4, metal, dispel scroll, ironcurse icon
Master, bsb, dark Pegasus, cloak of twilight, full mundane
2x10 Witch elves
10 Darkshards, banner of eternal flame, musician
6 Dark riders, champ, musician, rxb, shield
5 Dark riders, rxb, shield
2x13 Executioners, one unit with banner
6 Cold one Knights, std, champ
5 Harpies
2x RBT
Kharibdyss
5 Warlocks
2399pts

Game 1, Meeting Engagement

I was up against an Empire army in my first game, and the list looked annoying enough to face. He had

Two Steam tanks
Light council with 3 lvl1's and 1 lvl4
War Altar
Knight Bus with Captain BSB
Pegasus Captain
Big block of archers and archer detachment for mage bunker
Two cannons
Master Engineer

I think that was all. Not sure if it was 2 or 3 lvl'1, think it was 3. Pretty strange looking minis with badgers, foxes and whatnot pulling both the war altar and the "steam tanks" which were really weird chariotish conversions.

I deployed my army first, with BSB, one exec group and one RBT stuck in reserves, only the engi got stuck for Empire. I got enchanted blades, plague of rust and transmutation of lead+searing doom, he got banishment(s), pha's, speed of light and some buff I dont remember. Was annoying to have to deploy my whole MSU army first with 2 steam tanks ready to lock down whatever in counter. All infantry deployed in the middle, while CoK and 1 DR went left flank and the other DR and warlocks going up the right flank. Lots of buildings as terrain on this table, was a bit limited on my movement at start. He had one ST facing my CoK, one in the mid, and the whole other force in a clump behind a hill and the mid ST hugging the light council tight.

In my first turn, one WE failed frenzy and charged headlong into the ST he had in the middle. Pfft, now I had no targets in range of searing doom and the his flanker ST was in place to run into my CoK soon. The one exec group I had deployed moved to support. CoK wheeled around some houses towards a narrow passage in the far left flank, Khari+BSB moved nearby in support. I pushed as far into his backfield as I could in my right flank with DR+Warlocks+Dreadlord, hoping to get a place for charge into the squishy bodies he had hiding in the mid. His Peg Captain moved to counter.

With so much ranged damage I had to get into combat _soon_ to avoid that crap. CoK had the options of probably doing nothing whole game behind the buildings or charge the blockading Steam Tank, so they took the charge to stop it from shooting. Khari was blocked from supporting by detach-archers who I charged instead. BSB flied over the ST to get closer to the squishy mid.

Events getting blurred at this point, so timeline has some errors. My WE did an unlikely 4 wounds into the tank, so I decided to charge Execs in there too to maybe put it down with the help of some rust spells. It was soon down to 1 wound only, and it held with 1 wound until the end despite my best efforts at taking the last wound down. The other ST took 2 wounds from CoK, after Khari smashed the detachment it charged this ST. Khari was already down to 2 wounds from cannon fire at this point. Khari hit with everything, and feast of bones put in 5 more hits. Khari did a total of 6 wounds in the charge. Was funny, but I couldnt finish the tank as it too was left with 2 wounds until the end. Both of his steamtanks failed the steampoint checks a lot with low wounds, but it was only broken weapons and engines every turn, no explosions.

My lord mowed down the peg captain and turned to face the knight bus which was flank to me, expecting an incoming exec charge from the front. My BSB failed to charge the squishy mid 2 times, needed to roll first 10 and then 9, finally getting a charge in on the third time, killing some archers and overrunning into a cannon (4th turn). My RxB's had been devastated by banishments, SS's new bunker was the Exec group about to charge the knight bus. The sandwich was about to close, with my BSB on left side backfield flank, execs coming down the middle and DL coming down the right side backfield, everything very close to the hiding light council. Both Steam Tanks were still having their own fun-time grinding down sacrifical meat in CC.

A frantic magic phase followed for the Empire with every buff he had getting cast and then dispelled by my extremely lucky dispel rolls. So, my lord drank down his potion, and charged the knight bus and execs followed example. He challenged with his BSB..I thought for a while, then risked and accepted with my SS to free my lord to do knight mowing duty. He killed 5 knights, peg killed 1 and execs 5 more. Sadly his BSB managed to hit thrice and wound thrice on my SS so she was killed. However, I had massive CR and with steadfast gone the knight bus broke and ran off the table. My BSB destroyed the cannon in CC, this panicked his next-door light council bunker who also ran off the table, hah. This was the 5th turn, but we had ran out of time and the referees said we had to end the game. He had both tanks and the war altar remaining, I had BSB, lord, 1 execs. It was a draw, too bad it had to end because I could've most likely taken down his altar the next turn with my Peg heroes, maybe finally getting rid of one or both of the 1 and 2-wound Steam tanks too.

All in all a bloody fight. My Peg characters shrugged off a couple of cannonballs and banishments each. He had lots of magic dice while I had 2 phases of 2 dice and some mediocre 5-6 dice phases.

Game 2, Watchtower

Ogre Kingdoms this time. He had a much softer list than the Empire player:

Skrag the Slaughterer (spelling?)
Firebelly
BSB
Ironguts, 12 I think? 10? (Firebelly and BSB here, also Hellheart)
2x6 Bulls
2 Ironblasters
4 Gorgers (whoa, strange one)

I won roll-off for the tower, one WE group went inside. I was feeling good about this game right from the start, very few units opposing me so lots of space for moving and diverting.

The ogre player didnt succeed in much during the game. All in all, not much to report in this game. The Gutstar was led turn by turn towards the table edge by fleeing and self-sacrificing units, they finally overran through an RBT, enough to get them off the table edge. They didnt do anything else in the game, their kill tally being harpies and the RBT.

Warlocks killed one Ironblaster and wounded the other before dying late in the game (they got off some boosted soulblights as well), WE finished off the Ironblaster. Execs, BSB and one WE group killed all the bulls, my lord drank the potion and killed Skrag in 2nd (or 3rd maybe?) turn. Lots of lucky 6's for poisons all around. Gorgers killed some DR and RxB's before getting killed themselves. Dice roll ended the game on the 5th turn, I won.
Last edited by triouto on Sun Mar 01, 2015 5:59 am, edited 1 time in total.
triouto
Trainee Warrior
Posts: 28
Joined: Sat Aug 31, 2013 3:22 pm

Re: Battle reports: My MSU force in an uncomped 2,4k tournam

Post by triouto »

Game 3, Blood&Glory

Against Daemons of Chaos, never fought against them before so had no idea what to expect except for "some random stuff happening in the magic phase". He had fortitude 7, I had 6. His list (sorry I'm not sure on the unit names):

Keeper of Secrets, lvl3 shadow magic
Some 8-wound megachariot with a slaaneshi hero riding it
Several Slaaneshi looking chariots
One flying Tz chariot
Block of Pink Horrors with Tz Herald inside. 1 standard here
2 20-something strong blocks of Daemonettes, one had BSB inside. Both had standards
Daemonette Riders fast cav with standard


Plan was simple on paper, kill the KoS and the squishy daemonette infantry blocks, go home with a win. He got multiple wounds (2) and impact hits for his KoS from some random table at game start. Something else was rolled for someone else too, dont remember what it was (way too much random tables everywhere the whole game :P). Left flank was flooded with all the Slaaneshi chariots, I countered with all dark riders, RBT, khari. Right flank had KoS and Tz chariot, with Pink Horrors deployed inside a house close by (booooring, come and face me!). I countered with BSB, lord, CoK, warlocks. Mid was seething with daemonettes, I countered with my infantry, harpies and one RBT. Ahh spells, he had miasma, enfeebling foe, pit of shades. And infernal gateway, glean magic(?) and treason for tz spells. I had my augments and final transmutation.

He got the first turn, moving his army a bit forwards. KoS failed a long charge on my CoK, DR fled from a charge by one the chariots. He rolled 12 for winds of magic and 10 or so pink horrors materialized in front of my CoK&BSB to block them from charging the KoS. I dispelled a big-diced gateway on my lord with a scroll, treason on CoK with dice and he failed to cast Pit of Shades.

My turn started with one WE first failing a frenzy check, and then failing to make the charge on the daemonettes. My warlocks quickly made it past his lines to his backfield, and IF'd boosted Soulblight on 6 dice, affecting everything but his chariots. CoK&BSB charged the newly formed Horror block, destroying it and reforming. Sadly attacks from 3 soulblighted horrors managed to wound my BSB once and I also failed the armor save, rolling a 1. My lord flew to land right behind his KoS. In the middle I edged forwards a bit, spreading my execs&WE around. Harpies flew to block the BSB's daemonette unit from advancing. RBT inflicted one wound on the KoS.

Left flank I failed charges on the chariots with the kharibdyss and DR, rolled pretty badly here.

His 2nd turn saw him charge his KoS into my CoK hoping for a long overrun/pursuit to get away from my lord. In his magic phase, he rolled 11 for dice but I made a following Ld check to stop my wizard from turning into a herald under his command. He hexed the crap out of my CoK, I didnt care and instead dispelled the gateway. In the KoS combat, I challenged with my champ and did a lucky wound too, hah. He then got shred to bits but the knights didnt break even though steadfast was gone from earlier ranged damage, BSB and general were close by. One daemonette block charged my RxB's with SS, I fled and now had these daemonettes in place for a 1-2 charge by my infantry. The mega slaanesh chariot charged my execs, I held hoping for a lucky killing blow or a lucky hold on steadfast LD roll (Khari was close by, ready to flank/rear charge on my turn). I was then told that the rider of the megachariot cant be KB'd, and execs also failed their break test and were ran down. Meh, down one fortitude point. This whole debacle was a really bad move by me, should've fled. Dunno what I was thinking, with or without killing blow it was one of my fortitude points wasted. Also, one RBT got run down by a chariot on the far left.

On my 2nd, my lord drank the potion and charged the KoS, BSB charged the Tz chariot close by. The 20-strong Daemonettes took a charge from WE and flank charge from harpies, and the remaining execs moved in the space opened up by these charges, in place to charge his BSB's daemonette block with WE help on my following turn. I rolled 10 dice for magic. Again warlocks, who had moved to block the bigger, BSB daemonette block from moving/charging anyone else managed to pull off an IF boosted soulblight, nice! I also got off Enchanted blades of Aiban on my DL when he failed to roll a high enough dispel roll (The RxB bunker had rallied earlier).

In the daemonotte-WE/harpy combat the daemonettes took huge numbers of wounds and all but one evaporated. Thanks, soulblight. In close combat my Lord cut down the KoS and he was down to 4 fortitude.

However my BSB managed to make a fool out of himself, he made 3 wounds on the Tz chariot but my opponent rolled well and made 3 wounds in return despite soulblight. I promptly rolled 1,1,2 for armor saves and BSB died a humiliating death. Good god, four armor checks in the whole game, all against 1+ and three rolls of 1. I was now down to 4 fortitude as well. Oh well, just wrap up the entrapped daemonettes, right?

It was not to be however. On his 3rd turn, his winds of magic roll saw Father Nurgle take attention in our fight. All my units on the table rolled a dice, on 6 they would take some low strength hits. The remaining CoK were the only one to roll a 6, and Nurgle's attentions proved deadly for them. They took their banner with them, I was down to 3 fortitude and the game ended in my defeat. Took quite a few risks in this game, it almost paid out though..Damn, so close!




Lessons from day one:

Not used to playing non-ETC environment games, 6 dicing boosted soulblight seriously rocks here!
Metal lore was nice even playing against two very lightly armored armies, not used to light armor in my local meta
Daemons of Chaos, what a weird army!
Nobody has yet been a match for my lord's character-erasing power in close combat, hope this continues



Two more games left for tomorrow. Leading players are too far ahead now after the sad defeat in Blood&Glory, but let's see if I can still scrape together some points from Dawn Attack and Battle for the Pass.
triouto
Trainee Warrior
Posts: 28
Joined: Sat Aug 31, 2013 3:22 pm

Re: Battle reports: My MSU force in an uncomped 2,4k tournam

Post by triouto »

Game 4, Dawn Attack

I got paired against my friends Skaven army in this game. So many rats in this list that the numbers may be off and I’m also likely forgetting something, but it was something like:

Grey Seer on a Screaming Bell
BSB
4 Engineers, some with one magic level, some just with skaven toys
40 Stormvermin pushing the Bell, plague wind mortar wpn team
10 Stormvermin, standard
3x40 slaves
3x5 giant rats
Doomwheel
2 Warp-lightning cannons
Abomination
2x6 gutter runners

Deployment was randomized as per scenario rules. There was a wall (not obstacle, the “castle wall” kind with ramparts and towers) running close to the line between left and mid deployment zone, going from table edge to table edge with roughly an 8” open gateway in the middle.

On my left flank I had both dark riders, warlocks and RxB’s with the SS. He had the abomination, 5 giant rats and one warp-lightning cannon. My flame banner was now facing the abom, but unfortunately was isolated from my main force because of the wall. On my middle, I had everything except both RBT’s (they were on the right). The skaven had everything but one slave unit and the 10-strong vermin unit on the mid, these two units were on the right side. Gutter runners went with sneaky infiltrating (ambush).

In spells, I got both augments, final transmutation and transmutation of lead. The grey seer got plague, curse of the horned rat, vermintide and something I don’t remember. Suffice to say now that magic didn’t do anything of note in the whole game, abysmal winds of magic and casting rolls on both sides.

The skaven won the roll to go first, and the abomination rushed 14” forwards. Next turn it would likely be in combat with something already unless I managed to kill it. The skaven edged forwards a few inches all around. One WLC-shot took the charmed shield off my lord, while the other one didn’t hit anything. Other skaven weapons also failed to do anything major besides a kill or two in my infantry blocks.

On my turn, I moved to surround the HPA with dark riders while blocking it’s movement towards the RxB block. Warlocks moved nearby for a soulblight. In the middle, everything went forwards trying to find a way to get to the bell unit. Soulblight on HPA was dispelled, enchanted blades on the RxB went through. I hoped to put in some wounds into the HPA in the shooting phase, but I just couldn’t do it. RxB didn’t wound even once, and the DR continued by their example. One RBT saw the HPA, and made some wounds too but they were regenerated. This meant the collapse of my left flank.

Skaven 2nd turn saw the HPA charge one of my DR units and destroy it utterly, it then overran next to the wall-line. He then moved his slave blocks, giant rats and some single engineers in place to make a huge meatwall-redirector in front of his Bell unit. WLC did 3 wounds on Khari, while Brass Orb got thrown but failed to do anything. His Screaming Bell ringed, destroying one of my RBT’s.

Not having any room to maneuver and try to get on a flank because of the castle walls, I charged into the meatwall with my infantry. One WE unit and BSB tried a combo-charge on a slave unit blocking the sole route to the Bell unit’s left flank by the wall, but WE failed to make it and my BSB was left alone. He would be fighting this same slave block for the rest of the game. Khari also failed its charge. Since the HPA was so close, I decided to instead of shooting march my RxB’s away from it, closer to the gateway so SS could try to get away from the monster. One DR unit rode close to the WLC on the left flank, ready to take it out in the next turn. In CC, the meatwall shrunk down a bit, one exec unit overran into the flank of a slave box.

Later in the game, HPA made a it into contact with my my Kharibdyss. Good god this beast. Amidst all the shooting and fleeing and destroyed units, my RxB’s panicked and ran real close to the table edge. Meatwall shrunk down little by little.

I failed to rally the RxB’s and they ran off the table with my SS. Meatwall shrunk down some more and one WE + both Exec units were through now. My lord had flied into position to charge the Doomwheel soon. In the Khari-HPA combat I hit with everything and feast of bones did some more hits, 4 wounds went through the regeneration. HPA then promptly whacked down the Khari who was already down to 2 wounds. This panicked my second Exec group who were close by. It overran a bit, close to my WE who charged it later and finally took down the beast.

Fast forwards couple of rounds, and my Execs who got through the meat killed the Grey Seer and BSB from the Bell unit before dying themselves. My lord didn’t manage to kill the Doomwheel but it fled and was later killed by CoK. Both WLC were taken out by harpies and DR. WE were killed by the bell unit, but not before they did a couple of wounds on the bell itself. We ran out of time, referees shut down the game at the end of 5th and counting the points it was a draw.

Game 5, Battle for the Pass

I played against fellow Dark Elves this time. The table was the same as last round, so a castle wall marked the edge of my deployment zone. He had:

SS lvl4 with dark magic
BSB on foot
2x25 Dreadspears
2x5 DR
2x10 RxB’s
20 Black Guard
2x RBT
2x CoC
5 CoK

Weird list. If only it was an open table, but I could barely fit my fast cav units (2 wide formation) in the gateway gap of the wall. I deployed my RBT’s and RxB’s on the walls to get the hard cover and since the enemy didn’t have any fliers only magic missiles could really trouble them. I had the rest of my units in a clump by the gateway. He made a symmetric deployment with shooting on both flanks, and going towards the middle, chariot, spears, dark riders and BG in the middle. He had PoD on his SS who was bunkering in the BG, other spells were Word of pain, soul stealer and shroud of despair. I got both augments again, and searing doom and transmutation of lead.

There isn’t much interesting stuff to report from this game, I fell victim to my moronic strategy of trying to squeeze my MSU force through that small gap into the open field. That’s pretty much what my turns were spent on, my opponents turns were spent on charging my units piecemeal as they got through the gap. I always play offensively so just staying behind the walls and waiting for my opponent to come didn’t even cross my mind at the time of the game, in hindsight that would’ve been a sure fire win but oh well.

On my opponents 4th turn, he miscasted with his lvl4, and her lvl was reduced to 1, pretty much stopping magic for him. On my 5th, and the last turn of the game due to time constraints (we were chatting a lot and laughing about the civil war situation), my own sorceress miscasted as well, sadly I rolled dimensional cascade and my sorc got sucked into the chaotic dimensions. On the bright side, I managed to kill off my opponents sorc with exec charge, so in the end this game was a draw as well.

Closing words

So in the end, I had 3 draws, one win and one loss. Not too bad, but so many draws left me feeling a bit unsatisfied. Couple of bad mistakes by me and some bad rolling also turned a game or two, but the dice are always fickle so that was expected. In all of my three draw games the ref’s closed the game down on the 5th turn, and in all of them I could’ve most likely sweeped extra points for the victory.. First game, only two steam tanks left with combined total of 3 wounds and lonely arch lector on war altar, second game, screaming bell with 2 wounds for a massive points injection (only got +100 for killing general instead of hundreds more if I only took down the bell), the last game, the BG block+BSB was surrounded on all sides by infantry and Peg characters. I really need to learn to stop talking and move+roll the dice when the situation calls for it :P

All in all, a fun tournament and I had the pleasure of playing very gentlemanly and friendly opponents, thanks to them for the games. Best game in my opinion was the first game against the Empire army, it was really tight and hung in the balance the whole game. I might add that this Empire general went on to win the tournament, winning every other game by a large margin except for the draw against me.

I was satisfied with my list, but I might still drop the CoK and RBT or two in favor of a Pegasus or Steed master, also maybe drop the RxB’s in favor of a Dark Rider bunker instead.
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Lord Drakon
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Re: Battle reports: My MSU force in an uncomped 2,4k tournam

Post by Lord Drakon »

Very nice write up ! Shame of all those draws which could be wins if you talked less haha ! Also loss could have been a win. Very good to see how your MSU army was able to counter every army fielded against you, and therefore a strong list !
triouto
Trainee Warrior
Posts: 28
Joined: Sat Aug 31, 2013 3:22 pm

Re: Battle reports: My MSU force in an uncomped 2,4k tournam

Post by triouto »

Hehe yeah, the draws were a bit annoying. I guess it might be in the nature of MSU forces that games can often hang in the balance until the very last turns, so many small moving pieces need to come together in the field. In all honesty, the loss against the DoC was deserved because of my stupid mistake with the executioners holding instead of fleeing. Bad dice rolls are inevitable, but a tactical mistake like that in a scenario where only fortitude points count...

The list certainly was proven good, and now I got some time to try other ideas before other tournaments. I think tomorrow I will start by trying out the Shrine of Slaughter in a 3k match against the Empire.

::EDIT:: It's also funny how much respect the Kharibdyss gets from people who havent really played against it before. It's squishy as a feather pillow, but just mentioning the Feast of Bones special rule and S7 will make many opponents give it way too much attention considering its actual effectiveness. Personally I find the forced re-roll of succesful LD tests a way, way better special rule since you can count on it.
Last edited by triouto on Tue Mar 03, 2015 6:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Mikael.k
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Re: Battle reports: My MSU force in an uncomped 2,4k tournam

Post by Mikael.k »

Looking forward to seeing how that works :)
Swordmaster of Hoeth
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Re: Battle reports: My MSU force in an uncomped 2,4k tournam

Post by Swordmaster of Hoeth »

Hi triouto,

Thanks a lot for a write up, being MSU practitioner myself I find your adventures very interesting! I agree it is the nature of MSU force to bleed points early and make up for it in later turns. Hence, it is important to play fast enough to get full 6 turns. Fortunately, it is easily done without the necessity of being silent all the time so don't worry, you can still chat with the opponents!

As to the form of the write up, do you think you could provide deployment maps for each game (or for the future games) as that helps enormously to picture the relative position of the regiments. Of course full reports are even better (by full I mean maps for each turn) but I understand it can be too time consuming. However, what you gain from that is the possibility to talk about particular situation and alternative solutions. I learned a lot from these discussions and without maps they would have never had happened!

In any case, good luck with your future games! :)
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triouto
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Re: Battle reports: My MSU force in an uncomped 2,4k tournam

Post by triouto »

Yes I know this, I often skip battle reports without deployment pictures myself because they are so hard to follow.. However my graphical skills are on the lower end of scale non-existent to laughable so... I might be able to get some photos from a friend who was taking pictures of the tournament though.
Swordmaster of Hoeth
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Re: Battle reports: My MSU force in an uncomped 2,4k tournam

Post by Swordmaster of Hoeth »

Photos are always helpful, even one or two from the game make a lot of difference. But what about Battle Chronicler? It is a tool designed for battle reports and creating deployment map is not that difficult. Have you tried it?
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