Tournament Round 1 Watz vs Daeron

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Amboadine
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Tournament Round 1 Watz vs Daeron

Post by Amboadine »

***Note - Amboadine posting on behalf of Watz***


My first match in this tournament was against Daeron and his Dark Elf forces. I myself choose to lead a horde of orcs and goblins with my shamans skipping most of the native greenskin magic for the new lore of undeath. We decided on using the river-rules for the lake.

The game started right on time with several people watching. After the deployment the dreaded shades emerged from the... well shades and Daeron made his vanguard moves. No Vanguard moves for me since my lone goblin was too scared of all those arrows and decided to hide within the horde of savages.

pic1.jpg


In retrospective that hill in the bottom left corner helped me alot by giving my mangler squiqs a save place to start the game and my siege units a good vantage point. I was deathly afraid of bladestorm ripping my poor goblins to shreds which explains my somewhat more cautious placement of those.
I got first turn and started to move my savages toward the enemy while my goblins, still afraid, held back. In my magic phase I rolled highfor the winds of magic but, after my lvl4 shaman heroically fumbled with a 1,1 on his first spell, my goblin shamans had to struggle to make any meaningful contribution in this magic phase. With some lucky dice rolls I managed to draw Daerons dispel scroll and place at least one unit of 10 skeletons to block a possible charge from his warlocks. Little did I know what those skeletons would eventually set in motion...
After no goblin hitting the self-destruct button during my shooting phase it was Daerons first turn.

There were no charges and most of his army closed in on my units. Only his Darkshards stayed back with his lvl4 sorceress joining those. The magic phase saw a dispelled enchanted weapons spell and an irresistible force Black Horror... which misfired. While the Horror and subsequent miscast only killed one warlock and a few darkshards this game was already becoming extremely lucky for me.
In the following shooting phase I lost my goblin charriot and a few orcs. Also my one doom diver crew temporarily lost its courage too shoot.

pic2.jpg


(Picture2: The Black Horror misfires. Nontheless my goblin hero cowardly choose to hide under the ruler)

Once again it was my turn and my goblins immediately decided to fail their animosity test. Luckily for me my goblins didn't start to shout "Yo mama is so fat, even gork's hand can't lift her" towards my orcs, but instead set their eyes on the warlocks in front of them and charged.
I would love to say that everything what followed was carefully set up by me, but that would be a pretty big lie :D To be honest I was quite surprised how everything would work out and definitly learned alot that day. Even now I am not completely sure if I would even have done this charge if I hadn't been forced to.

After the forced charge was declared the warlocks choose to flee, which brought them through my skeletons just om the fence in front of the Black Horror's vortex. Now my goblin would take his chance to declare a charge against the warlocks and force them to take DT and Black Horror tests during their fleeing movement. By insane luck he not only did that, but instead just went far enough and outright destroyed them.
The rest of my turn was almost equally lucky with my casters summoning some hexwraiths & skeleton archers (which in turn shot the last warlock in front of my siege units) and my Rock Lobba managing a direct hit on the bloodwrack shrine instantly killing it.


pic3.jpg


(Picture 3: Those skeletons with the wings on the back are meant to symbolize archers...)

In his turn Daeron retreated with his pegasus lord, killed my rock lobba and destroyed the hexwraiths by using enchanted weapons during the magic phase. The Darkshards would stay and keep shooting since my skeletons on their current position would prevent my savages from charging. The skeletons in turn were prevented from charging by the lone goblin hero.
Continuing Daerons streak of bad luck it turned out the goblin was near enough to the pegasus hero to declare a 21" charge. Needing to move at least 3" forward on his failed charge he would then open the possibility for the skeletons to charge, which in turn would allow the orcs to charge. If you have read the report until now then you can probably guess if the goblin was lucky.

pic4.jpg


(Picture 4: The goblin of fate again hiding under the ruler, moments before his charge)

We kept playing until turn 4, but With the lvl4 sorceress and darkshards gone and the shades killed by manglers and new summons we decided to end the game.


In the end I simply want to add that, even though it took 8 hours, the game was alot of fun. Daeron was a great guy, showing alot of patience when I took my time to reach decicions.
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Thraundil
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Re: Tournament Round 1 Watz vs Daeron

Post by Thraundil »

This is an interesting orc army. Lots of artillery, but also a very tough nut to crack in the savage orcs. The lore of Undead seems powerful at board control, although it seems as if bad luck and some brutal charge distances didnt do Daeron any favours :) nice writeup.
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Re: Tournament Round 1 Watz vs Daeron

Post by Calisson »

Beware the goblins!
These are fun to play with and against.
Thanks Watzoadine for the report!
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Re: Tournament Round 1 Watz vs Daeron

Post by Daeron »

These were my pre-battle thoughts:

So, my pre battle thoughts. I'm probably dead :D

It's been a while since I played Warhammer now... But what is probably a bigger factor is that I'm not a tournament player. I once took part in a tournament once back in 6th edition and I got hammered. Additionally, this will be my first match against Orcs and Goblins in this edition. My local group mainly plays with elite armies (Elves, Chaos, Dwarfs). I did pick up some tricks in the long time I've been around, and I know the theory. My playstyle can probably be compared with a terrible spell selection, followed by a theoretically solid dicing strategy for the spells.

So, to prepare for this match I find I have a lot to learn and pick up... starting with Watz's list and his strategy. As I read his list, and the armybook, I can't help but giggle and laugh at how entertaining the book, the rules and Watz's list is made up. The animosity I was familiar with, but the Quell Animosity rule, the insane NG Shamans and Doom Diver are brilliant (and make for a deadly force!). I would have enjoyed seeing this in action on the table, but UB will do :)

Anyhow. Here's what I guess to be his plan, after a lot of wishful analysis.
- His Big Uns will try to hunt my spears+bws or my RBTs, so he'll try to narrow down the playing field quickly, supported by lore of undeath to bog me down.
- Considering the range of his Goblins, I expect them to be somewhere closer to the centre.
- He'll try to combine the Orcs and Goblins in a line to form a safe zone for his lobber and doom diver.
- I mostly expect his Goblins to be used as a pivot, which can quickly reform widely to close down a path.
- The chariot and manglers can be used either defend the war machines or flanks of his units.
- I expect that power stone in the first round and the forbidden rod in round 2-3 to get some summoned units early on.
- However uncharacteristic it might seem, I see no reason why he can't castle up. I lack the punch to take advantage of the initiative anyhow. I hope I have enough blasting spells to help me if this happens.

If he doesn't castle up, he'll need to close me in which is quite plausible with summoning spells. Looking at the map, the top side seems to provide more means to do this. If he gets the bottom side, he might struggle to protect the warmachines in the back, but he can place them far enough to buy time... a deadly amount of it. Combined with his summoning, I might never reach the target.
It's tempting to position my Spears on a wide flank, but there's two downsides: range, and being locked in.

So here's the idea.
Deployment - Try to foil his deployment by creating distance between his orcs and my spears. Preferably by deploying on one side, opposite of his Orcs. Key here is to have the Goblins in the middle, so I can harass them with magic as required. Hide the BSB.
Turn 1 & 2 - This is the time I have to take down chaff as required to reach those war machines. Whatever I have left can go either on the goblins to weaken that shooting volume, or begin hacking into the Orcs if I can, somehow. I might run back a unit of Shades for my Sorceresses.
Turn 3 & 4 - Depending on what I have left, a struggle will begin. I hope I have some chaff capable of hunting warmachines, but I'll need to commit on blocking the Orcs. My BSB, if he's still alive, comes to hunt machines or undead. Either way, this is where I shift my priorities.
Turn 5 & 6 - I'll probably be dead, but at least I tried!

My magic can do damage, but should focus on getting that opening, which means I may have to cast dull magic missiles at chaff first. If I could kill either the chariot, or a mangler this way, I'd be happy. If I can get a big spell on those goblins, that will be great.
In magic, I pray to the gods they give me enchanted blades of Aiban to deal with ethereals. WoP might save me a lot of hassle with the goblin unit, and combat if ever I get to it. Early shooting is slightly counter intuitive with strong shooting on weaker targets (RBTs on manglers/chariot) and volley fire on warmachines in hope I get lucky. Go 6's (to wound).


I combined this with some study work, just to get a bit of feeling again with the game and the effectiveness of my troops:
- Studying his list
- Deployments

But what really got me, I think, is simply a not so solid game on my end. I didn't follow my own tactic, probably because I lost track of it along the way.
The biggest mistake was putting my BSB Master in charge range of that Wolf. This was a particularly silly mistake since we went through it in detail just before that, concluding that the entire Orc unit was blocked because of that Wolf.
And then I give it an escape route.. *facepalm*

I'll put my screenshots and a more detailed report on later.
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Amboadine
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Re: Tournament Round 1 Watz vs Daeron

Post by Amboadine »

I think some countries armed forces have put less thought and consideration into a battle plan than you have just posted.
Staggering amount of strategy and fore thought.

Like you said, shame you didn't follow it :D

Very good exercise though and great to read through your thought process.
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Re: Tournament Round 1 Watz vs Daeron

Post by Daeron »

Oh yes, I enjoyed doing it as an exercise :D
It's a part of the game I enjoy a lot. But it shows practice is more important ;)
I love me a bowl of numbers to crunch for breakfast. If you need anything theoryhammered, I gladly take requests.

Furnace of Arcana, a warhammer blog with delusional grandeur.

"I move unseen. I hide in light and shadow. I move faster than a bird. No plate of armour ever stopped me. I strike recruits and veterans with equal ease. And all shiver at my coldest of whispers."
- The stiff breeze
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