December Domination, after the dust settled… Part I

Well it’s a couple of days since the December Domination tournament that Luke and I ran and I thought I’d write a brief review of the day, primarily from my point of view since this is a blog entry!

I wasn’t sure whether I’d be playing or not for this event as it really depended upon the number of people turning up and I was the first drop out should there be uneven numbers on the day.  Luckily for me my presence made the event even numbers so I got to play.  I took my Menoth to the event and used the following lists:

pSeverius

*Blessing of Vengeance

Avatar of Menoth

Choir of Menoth (min)

Exemplar Errants (min)

Exemplar Errants UA

Vassal of Menoth

Gorman Di Wulfe

pKreoss

*Reckoner

*Reckoner

Choir of Menoth (min)

Exemplar Errants (max)

Exemplar Errants UA

Vassal of Menoth

I’ve used the pSevvy list numerous times at 25pts, however the pKreoss list was modified from another 25pt list I’d previously used.

During the run up to the event several people had to drop out unfortunately, however there were fourteen attendees in the end and a very strong calibre of player too!  From an organisational point of view things went very well, Luke and I had set-up the hall the previous day and the paper work had all been arranged so it was just a case of getting people ushered to their tables in preparation for the first round.

Game 1

I drew Paul North from York as my first opponent; a chap I’ve met several times and gotten to know over the past few months, last we played it was Paul who took the win against pSevvy with his Skorne.  Paul was taking Circle this time and I chose pSevvy for this encounter, Paul opted for Morvahna and took the first turn.

Paul preyed the Blessing of Vengeance with his Bloodtrackers and advanced towards it on my right flank, the Bloodweavers took the left flank and advanced facing off against my Errants.  The Stalker and Woldwyrd advanced down the centre along with Morvahna and the shifting stones.  Morvahana cast the two big upkeeps: Harvest on herself and Restoration on the Bloodtrackers.  My first turn was fairly quick and I ran the Errants up behind a hedge making it as difficult as I could to stop the Bloodweavers inevitable charge.  The Blessing and Avatar ran full speed forwards and the Choir sang ‘no shooting’ hymns to stop the weapon mastered Bloodtrackers making scrap metal out of them.  Sevvy advanced and put up all of his upkeeps, Gorman hid him behind a smoke cloud just in case.

Turn two Paul sent in the Bloodweavers, but couldn’t engage too many Errants due to the hedge I’d tucked up tightly behind, but several died to them, some Bloodtracker javelins and spells from Morvahna.  During my turn two I tried to clear a path for the Avatar to charge the Stalker, who was lurking ready to counter attack, the distance was going to be a bit short but I figured the Blessing could push the Avatar 1” forward with his repulsor shield to get the distance, but then realised the Avatar was too wide to fit through a gap and would fail his charge due to the hedge the Errants were fighting behind!  Instead of this master plan I sent the Blessing over to my left flank and used pSevvy’s Ashes to Ashes spell to clear out half of the Bloodweavers, freeing up the Errants, the Avatar trampled through more Bloodweavers and Bloodtrackers and engaged the Woldwyrd, he bought a couple of attacks and slayed the light beast.  The Errants charged the Stalker and remaining Bloodweavers/Bloodtrackers in the immediate vicinity killing the infantry and putting some damage onto the beast.

Just before we started turn three, five minutes time was called, so it was unlikely we would both have gotten a full turn in so Paul tried to get as much done as he could in the time remaining.  He used the Shifting stones to teleport the Stalker into the rear arc of the Avatar and hit it repeatedly, mauling it badly but leaving it intact.  The Bloodtrackers charged Gorman, the Vassal, the Avatar and a couple of Errants, but dice down was called before he had chance to attack.

The result was a win to me as I had killed a full unit and a light beast, Paul had only taken the Avatar below half damage as far as VP’s were concerned.  I felt a bit bad winning to be honest as Paul felt a bit robbed on the time factor.  It would have been interesting to see what would have happened should we have carried on playing.  Until next time!!

Game2

I drew Brett Wilkie for game two, another York veteran and friend, we’ve played a couple of games in the past, all of which I had lost so wasn’t that confident at pulling a win out, but was determined to give it my best shot never the less!

I won the roll off and opted to go first with my pSevvy list.  I was facing down Kraye, a Stormclad, two Hunters and two Ranger units.  I knew my anti-jack shooting hymn was my best friend against the armour piercing Hunter shots so my jacks advanced full steam under that protection.  I was keenly aware that the Stormclad had an insane threat range having been caught by it on previous occasions – something like 17”!!  Brett gave my aggressive full speed push forwards a fairly wide birth, given his army favoured range whereas mine was more melee based.  The Rangers/Hunters sniped off two choir members and a few Errants, Kraye and the Stormclad kept back, positioning for a long range strike no doubt!

In my turn two I managed to shoot a couple of Rangers dead with the Errants and Sevvy arced Ashes into another unit killing a few more.  The Avatar managed to Gaze at a Hunter stopping it from getting too far away.  Brett tried to figure out a solution to save the Hunter, but it was too close and the Avatar was going to have it next turn!  The Rangers let Brett down big time as he rolled bad dice rolls after bad dice rolls, though the Defenders Ward spell was probably the main contributory factor here.  Kraye and the Stormclad hurtled full speed down the left flank and towards pSevvy (that was a 20” run for the Stromclad)!

During my turn three the Avatar trashed the Hunter and the Errants killed off a few more Rangers.  I almost sent the Blessing to run after Bretts abandoned objective, but angled it to intervene if the Stormclad tried to charge the Avatar, I also killed off more Rangers with an arced Ashes again.  I used Gorman to hurl a Blind bomb at the Stormclad but was short on distance by ¼ inch and deviated a full 6”.  Unfortunately I forgot the maximum it could deviate was 3” which would definitely have hit the jack, but it was my fault and I said as much during the game (I realised this during Bretts turn)!  Brett struggled even more so with the Errants again, but killed Gorman for his audacity to chuck Blind bombs at the Stormclad!

Turn four was the last turn and I knew I had to protect my objective as a cheeky control point would secure the match for Brett and I was too far away to get one of my own.  I protected Sevvy from any potential charges or shooting and placed the Avatar within 4” of the objective, but safe from the Stromclad to possibly win on attrition, or at least be close.  Brett planned his turn carefully and removed the Avatar’s enliven move as well as its vision with two well placed shots.  I had made a fatal error unfortunately as I didn’t quite understand the heavy cavalry rules that the Stormclad benefited from and unfortunately for the Stormclad charged the intervening Choir boy and continued into the Avatar, the Avatar got trashed and the Hunter used its light cavalry move to score a control point.  The game time was over at this point and Brett won fair and square (again)!!

After game two it was lunch and people were asked to leave their armies on display should they wish to be considered for best army.  Below are a few photos of those armies on display.

Andy Garrard's Trollbloods

Mark Coultas' Skorne

Nick Langrick's Menoth

Phil Shaw's Mercenaries

Part II will follow shortly with a brief synopsis of games 3 and 4 as well as a summing up of the event.