Warlord GT - Warrington

[khaosgoblin]

Another excellent event ran by the Northern Warlords, I hope the event continues to run next year with the departure of Ant to Oz.

Venue excellent, hotel round corner
Bar well priced with decent offers
Buffet lunch plenty for all
A few issues with the event system on saturday, but overall very well run
Superb social interaction with such a large field of gamers chatting through the pros & cons of the new game.

Enjoyed all my games, loved playing with my Forest Goblins & glad I did not falter & take something a bit more competative at the last minute (still not sure what is competative in 8th)

Game 1 vs Anthony Townson from the NWW with his DOC led by a great unclean one, this was the "battle line scenario,
He came straight at me & I charged into combat turn (this is the start of a trend), but also had a luck rock land on the bloodletters (killing 10)
We where both amazed at how well the greenskin horde faired against the Daemons,
A large win to the Goblins with only the Great Unclean one left standing

Game 2 vs Adie McWalter & his Bretonians in the Dawn attack
I placed my Warboss unit first, this scattered to my right (the only unit to do so) so I placed it the full 18" from the right edge, my other three large blocks scattered to the left along with a few other units, only a small portion of units ended up in the middle, in contrast Adie got to choose most of his placements.
The bulk of the Bretonians headed straight for my isolated warboss unit, I tried my best to divert them with snotlings etc but in the end his superior magic (L4&L2) took its toll & the bretts cleaned up most of the scattered goblins. (Oh yeah, forgot to mention my warmachines killed zip).
Big win to the Bretonians.

Game 3 vs John Broome & his Ogres in Battle for the pass
John Had three large Ogre blocks plus a block of 40 Gnoblars with two gorgers bringing up the rear, after his initial shock that a mass combined chariot & unit charge broke & wiped out 8 Ironguts, the rest of the Ogres stomped the goblins into the ground (my highlite was the giant falling over & killing 3 ogre bulls.)
Big win to John & his Ogres

Game 4 was Blood & Glory against James Darcy & his Daemons of Chaos
I had a fortitude of 7 & James had 5 which meant if Billy Bloodthirster went down James would lose, James also had two 40+ blocks one of Horrors & one of Bloodletters. I picked of the peripheral units (fiends & Juggers) & diverted the horrors whilst engaging the bloodletters in the flank with my warboss unit & ramming repeated chariots into them.
Billy hid behind a huge tower which I filled with Goblin archers, over the next three turns Billy was pounded by indirect stone thrower, foot of Gork & goblin archers, finally on 2 wounds he made a dash for combat, failed the roll & was then nailed by a bolt thrower.
Solid win to the Forest Goblins.

Game 5 was against Mike Newmans very nice High Elf army (was nominated for Best Army) this was the meeting engagement scenario, diagonal with reserves.
Mike set up fairly well back & his BSB failed to deploy
As usual someone forgot to tell my vanguard & warmachines where the battle was & 75% of them came on as reserves, I swarmed round the Elves picking of bolt throwers & eagles whilst taking down a big unit of seaguard by combined assault, my main points came from a suicide charge into the white lions to kill the level 4, lost the 100 point goblin block in the process, but kept chipping away & managed a small win.

Game 6 was the one I dreaded, the watchtower with my best unit available a unit of goblins, Imaging my Horror to find Bryan Carmichael with his mighty DOC army out for revenge from our last couple of games (a win to me & a draw). We had some fun peripheral fights but the main action was my warboss fighting through a block of bloodletters to get to the 40+ horror block in the watchtower.
The warlord eventually got there & beat the horrors who where stubborn on an 8 with a reroll (they made the roll)
Big win to Bryan (picking on Goblins, should be ashamed).

Loved the event & all my games, now pushing the Forest Goblins up to 2999 for the Mansfield Maul.

Khaosgoblin

[jackhoneysett]

It is rather sad that despite running a predominantly combat build the only game I won was where I basically avoided fighting combats with any ranked units.  Somehow that just feels very very wrong to me.

You played it very well I think Dave. Fleeing your unit through the building to safety was the right thing to do while you were up on VPs. Perhaps it's got more to do with the scoring system - only needing to win by 101 pts means that picking off points and then retreating is often the best strategy. I personally think a 20-nil style system would make games more exciting.

Brief round-up of my other games:
Game 1 vs. Lizards - Nice guy from a club in the lake district. He had a temple guard build and lots of saurus, plus the obligatory life magic. Essentially I dicked around trying to dwellers his Slann (stay just out of 24" of his becalming). Having survived dwellers 4 turns in a row, I threw my stegs into his for a massive stegadon love-in the centre of the board. Managed to get just enough points out of this for a win.

Game 2 vs. Empire - A really tough game against Will Goodwin: STank, Popemobile, 4 war machines and all the toys. I really had no chance, he sat back and after a couple of huge magic phases he had picked off all my support units with magic missiles and stegs with cannons. One hairy moment when I thought my ethereal Slann would get run over by a magical Tank (enchanted blades from his metal wizard!), but luckily he warded it up and then healed himself back. Due to the random deployment I could never reach his gunline, so I lost this one.

Game 3 vs. Dwarves - Dave's surprisingly friendly dwarf army! I was dreading playing a gunline on this Battle for the Pass scenario, but luckily this wasn't a standard dwarf army. Even so, a steg went down early and I knew I was down on VPs. Dave cunningly fled his one isolated block through a building to safety, making it very hard to get any points out of the rest of his army. My Scar-Veteran was again useless and failed to deflect a cannon ball with his 2+ charmed shield roll! A win for Dave.

Game 4 vs. Warriors - Felt rather sorry for this guy when I 'skilled him up' by dropping his Sorceror Lord general on turn 1 with dwellers! This left him within 1 fortitude point of breaking. Luckily the Skink-Krox "deathstar" (ahem) took some frenzied chaos knights down to just the standard bearer before fleeing. A few cheeky terradon rocks later and this last knight was gone, giving me the win.

Game 5 vs. Orcs and Goblins - Matt Sewell's Orcs and Goblins were really helped by the diagonal deployment, with 3 rock lobbers in the far corner. Again, the stegs let me down and have their points away before my chameleons and terradons could take out the war machines. I also managed to get my scar-vet killing blowed by his general. In the next turn he charged my Slann - after umming and ahhing I decided to hold, and hope that I survived for a turn, allowing me to flank his entire army and clear it up. Yes, you guessed it: his warlord only hit me once, a 6 to wound, and I failed my 4+ ward. Dead slanny boy! (Even more amusingly, Matt's giant already had a slann from his last game stuffed down his trousers). My 3rd loss.

Game 6 vs. Skaven - This was rough on the skaven. I was able to hide my stegs behind the building from his WL cannon, and I won the roll off to place my saurus in the building. With the Slann within 12" they would never fail their stubborn LD9 with a reroll test, even holding off a load of death-frenzied rats. Of course, a lucky Dwellers taking out his BSB was a bonus, meaning that salamander-induced panic caused a bit of a mess to his army. The stegs then managed to mop up the remainder of his units for a big win.


In summary, the games I lost were mostly due to the stegadons getting flattened. The games I won were mostly due to me 6-dice monkeying Dwellers. Not exactly the most skillful tactics in either case!
After getting bored of Life magic by game 2, I don't think I'll be using it again. I think Light may be the way to go, combined with big blocks of saurus for grinding power.

Some of the scenarios are clearly very unbalanced. BFTP, diagonal deployment and dawn attack favour gunlines heavily, whilst the building scenario can be decided on the roll off to see who gets to put their nails infantry into the tower first. I enjoyed the Fortitude scenario though, it encouraged more positive play rather than playing for the 101 pt win. I still believe Pitched Battle is the fairest compromise, but some might disagree there.

[fatolaf]

The salamanders were by far the best value unit in my list! Absolutely creamed big blocks of goblins and skaven, and the auto panic test they cause is very useful.

Do they still have that power? If so I totally forgot about it (though it was the 6th ed rule)

I still believe Pitched Battle is the fairest compromise, but some might disagree there.

God no, nothing worse then endless game sof PB, I really like scenarios, people will just have to thinkn of better lists ans get used to it.

The lack of decent scenery did create a problem in some missions versus gunlines, this does need to be addressed for future tournies..

Ie: The Hydra boys have the right idea with their lovely 6 inch tall hills...

[jackhoneysett]

They do indeed, they just have to cause a casualty. Awesomeness!