Bridgeford Bloodshed 1

Last weekend I went to the Bridgeford Bloodshed 1 tournament, held in a leafy suburb of Nottingham, hosted by my good friend Andy Garrard.  The event was a corker and I’ll elaborate with a couple of brief battle reports and the Protectorate crusade!

Lists:

As the event was designed as a prelude to the Masters events taking place over the summer Andy made the event 50 points and two lists with an option to take three – the stipulation being each list must be played at least once.  As I’d designed and play-tested Feora1, Feora2 and Kreoss1; I selected these lists (characters did not overlap), each list had some similarities, but played differently and posed different questions.  Below are the three lists:

Feora, Priestess of the Flame	+6	Feora, Protector of the Flame	+6	High Exemplar Kreoss	+5
*Reckoner	8	*Reckoner	8	*Reckoner	8
*Heirophant	2	*Reckoner	8	*Reckoner	8
Avatar of Menoth	11	*Judicator (bonded)	18	(4) Choir of Menoth	2
(4) Choir of Menoth	2	(4) Choir of Menoth	2	(10) Exemplar Errants	8
(6) Exemplar Errants	5	(10) Holy Zealots	6	Exemplar Errants UA	2
Exemplar Errants UA	2	Holy Zealots Monolith Bearer	2	(10) Holy Zealots	6
(6) Temple Flameguard	4	(10) Temple Flameguard	6	Holy Zealots Monolith Bearer	2
Temple Flameguard UA	2	Temple Flameguard UA	2	Vessle of Judgement	9
(6) Idrian Skirmishers	6	Vassal of Menoth	2	Vassal of Menoth	2
Idrian Skirmishers UA	3	Vassal Mechanik	1	Vassal of Menoth	2
Eiryss, Angel of Retribution	3	(3) The Wracks	1	The Covenant of Menoth	2
Knights Exemplar Seneschal	3			Rhupert Carvolo, Piper of Ord	2
Knights Exemplar Seneschal	3			Vassal Mechanik	1
Vassal of Menoth	2			(3) The Wracks	1

Game 1

Opponent: David ‘Lux’ Thomas

Army: Legion of Everblight

Warcaster: Lylyth1

Scenario: SR2013 Supply & Demand

Lylyth1 Source: BattleCollege

I recognised the name David Thomas, but hadn’t associated it with the chap I knew as ‘Lux’ and I was delighted to give him a game as we’ve met several times and always had a good close game.  Lux was running Lylyth1 and Thagrosh2, the latter being very beast heavy and his Lylyth1 list less so.  I opted to take Feora2 because the ranged and melee output of this list is very high as well as a greater threat range on the alpha strike (12” Reckoner threat).

Lux went first and sent his infantry plus beasts forwards, as per a usual first turn surge forwards.  I managed to send a couple of continuous fire rocket pods off towards his Striders and managed to fish a couple in the scatters, the Zealots took their mini-feat and ran aggressively towards the Striders to engage them the next turn.  I did a switch-flank reposition between my two Reckoners to deny Lux his prey bonus for later turns.

On turn two Lux advanced further and the Striders/Deathstalker nibbled at my TFG.  Lux had placed his beasts fairly central and in the 12” zone to deny me any control points.  His Warspears were positioned on my left flank and in assault range of Feora2.  I played the next turn pretty well attritionally, I sent one fully boosted Reckoner shot, followed by two fully boosted Judicator rocket pods into the Carnivean dropping it to about three health, slaughtered most of the Striders and Deathstalker as well as killing a stray Warspear.  Feora2 repositioned and ran to the other flank, getting away from the Warspears and into Escort range as well as keeping four burning models in her control range to take advantage of Caustic Presence, all whilst not stepping out of the kill-box!

Lux felt that it was do-or-die time as the attrition battle was not going well and he had little left to really make an impression on my heavies, or infantry.  He used Lylyth1 under her feat to boost all ranged attack rolls in an attempt to assassinate Feora2.  One thing that did catch me off guard was one of Lylyth1’s abilities to immediately cast a spell at a target she hits with a shooting attack, regardless of range, this meant Lux could get a cheeky Parasite spell off to reduce Feora2’s armour by three…  Lux had very little that could shoot Feora2, the Angelius, Lylyth1 and a lone Warspear that I can remember.  Lux’s dice were with him and the last shot from a Warspear sealed the deal and Feora2 was dead.

After the game I was chatting about my game with fellow team mate Andy McB and I realised that I hadn’t calculated Feora2’s armour correctly, basically I forgot to add the Escort spell’s bonus in (+2ARM) and that would have meant she would have lived – D’oh!  To be honest it was my mistake and I wasn’t too bothered, I just kicked myself for not being switched on!  Ah well I won’t make that one again!!

Result: Loss (Assassination)

CP’s: 0

Game2

Opponent: Steven Knowles

Army: Khador

Warcaster: Karchev

Scenario: SR2013 Into the Breech

Karchev Source: BattleCollege

Again I lost the roll and went second, Steven had a T4 Karchev list and had a Spriggan, Kodiak and Behemoth as a Battlegroup, two full units of heavy infantry and some mechaniks .  I chose Feora1, though in hindsight Kreoss1 might have been the better match up from my point of view, simply to shut down Karchev’s  spell casting (Lamentation, Purification and the book), this would have severely hampered Karchev’s effectiveness, but Feora1 has the Avatar, Ignite Eiryss2 and the Knight Exemplar Seneschal (KES) roadblocks!

Steven did a fairly predictable first turn and advanced forwards, though I was surprised the Shocktroopers and Demo Korps only advanced, perhaps Steven was thinking defensively and giving them the Shield Wall order, he further augmented this with three Grey Lord Ternion clouds.  I advanced aggressively, but was mindful of just how far Karchev can Tow and sling shot off ‘jacks.  I used the two KES to ensure the Avatar couldn’t be charged and Enlivened him just in case a cheeky ‘jack managed to trample through to him.

On the second turn Steven continued to advance the heavy infantry in defensive formation, but I noticed that he hadn’t placed any models in the zone allowing me an easy 2 control points in my turn.  Karchev and Co. advanced and shot a few Idrians and made attempt on one of the KES, but did relatively little damage.  On my turn I took the opportunity to dominate the zone and then jammed the heavy infantry with Errants, though I knew they wouldn’t last long but would ensure board control for me.  The Avatar would have been short on charging Karchev so he destroyed the Behemoth and was Enlivened once again.  One of the KES charged Karchev for a few points of damage, but prior to this the Idrians CRA’d Karchev and charged the Mechanics, more in an attempt to remove Steven’s ability to repair as well as whittle Karchev down a bit.  The Reckoner didn’t engage the Spriggan, range was tight and I didn’t have a lot to deal with the heavy infantry once the Errants were dead so it stayed central and safe.  Eiryss2 did the honourable thing and ‘bombed’ the Spriggan (Kodiak was quite far back and not threatening).

On Steven’s turn three his Battlegroup was in trouble, an Avatar in the midst, Behemoth dead and no focus allocation allowed to the Spriggan, he also needed to enter the zone otherwise I’d dominate in his turn, then auto win in my own turn.  Steven attempted to shift the two KES who were jamming up his Battlegroup with Karchev, but they were in good awkward spots, Karchev did manage to get a single attack on the Avatar, but dealt low damage and he Enlivened away, the Spriggan however managed to get free and inflict just enough damage to cripple the Avatar’s sword arm and importantly engage the Avatar whilst he was out of melee with Karchev.  Steven did manage to get some models into the zone, but I was still in a strong position.

The Reckoner managed a cheeky rear charge on the Spriggan, denying its shield bonus and wrecked it, freeing up the Avatar to wade into Karchev.  The Protectorate character ‘jack managed to assassinate Karchev even with a crippled arm!  MAT10, P&S23 (Battle and Ignite) even with one dice is hard  as nails.

I think I played the game right, I isolated targets and used Protectorate dirty tricks (Enliven) and jamming KES to allow the Avatar to take on Big K and a full Battlegroup.  Kreoss1 may have been better as I stated earlier, but I really wanted him for option in the last two games as that list is probably my strongest list.

Result: Win (Assassination)

CP’s: 2

Game3

Opponent: Alex Smith

Army: Circle of Orboros

Warcaster: Morvahna2

Scenario: SR2013 Chemical Reaction

Morvahna2 Source: BattleCollege

Alex is one of the hosts of Elite Cardre, one of the H/Wm podcasts, though I seldom listen to it these days.  Alex had Morvahna2 and Kruger1, I think we both knew which casters each would be taking.  Goatvahna as she is commonly known has a fairly net-list build which is very strong although Alex had gone down the tier route and instead of Skinwalkers he had Tharn Ravagers, but still had the double Stalker and Gorax combo.  He also had a full Tharn Bloodtracker unit and full Wolf Riders.  Tier bonuses included free upkeep spells on turn one and some other bits that I forget.  Alex didn’t have any shifting stones which meant I could more accurately gauge Stalker threat range, he did however have a Barknode (Gallowsgrove) so I would need to be aware of potential spell slinging.

Again I lost the roll, but Alex chose to go second.  I simply ran my stuff forwards, put Defender’s Ward on the Errants and Lamentation up.  I figured that I could go toe to toe with the Goat Lady on spells; denial with Purification and the book – well that was the plan!  My Errants took the left flank, facing off against the Than Ravagers and Bloodtrackers, whilst the Zealots took the right against the Wolf Riders – that was how Alex set it up as he deployed second.  The two Battlegroups were fairly central.  Alex also advanced and attempted a cheeky Death Knell spell against a far off target hoping to drift onto the Zealots, but to no avail, at least I was aware of this trick now.

On my second turn I advanced the Errants cautiously as the Bloodtrackers had preyed them and the Ravagers had hunter and pathfinder so could effectively ignore the two intervening forests.  I did give up four Errants as bait who just ‘toed’ into the zone, the remainder hunkered down behind a wall.  The Battlegroup tried to kill some Wolf Riders along with the Battle Engine, but my dice were shockingly bad and not one hit, so that made things interesting!  The Zealots mini-feated and ran forwards, a few engaging the Wolf Riders, but most staying back ready to be more effective the next turn (I was concerned about a potential Death Knell).  Alex played a canny move and judged distance perfectly, a Gorax power attack ‘push’ on his own Stalker meant it was just in range to charge my Battle Engine, which it managed to scrap.  I wasn’t sure why he made this choice as it was dead next turn given the proximity of my two Reckoners and his other two beasts were too far away to counter, not a good trade in my opinion, but Alex did say he hated the Menoth Battle Engine with a passion which is fair enough!  Alex moved his Bloodtrackers and killed off three of the four Errants who were ‘the bait’ and the Ravagers ran to gain position and engage the last Errant in the zone.

On my third turn I knew it was going to be decisive, Kreoss1 dropped Lamentation as I realised that Goatvahna wasn’t going to get anywhere near Kreoss1 and she had the speed to get away from the book, no kill-box meant my plan wasn’t going to be effective.  Still my feat was coming and Kreoss1 knocked down all the Bloodtrackers, all the Ravagers and both Stalkers.  The Wild Riders, Gorax and Morvahna2 were too far away to catch, which was unfortunate as the Zealots would have loved DEF5 Wild Riders with their bombs!  The knocked down Stalker near my Reckoners was quickly killed along with the Barknode.  The Errant unit had a ‘live the dream’ round and double tapped all of the Bloodtrackers and nibbled a couple of Ravagers.  The second Stalker was too far away to be charged and was stealthed due to a combo of Fog of War and warping for Prowl.  The Zealots charged (to save time) but didn’t hit a single Wild Rider.  Like I said, if they had been under the feat it would have been awesome.  I can’t complain too much as I’d killed all of the Bloodtrackers and they can’t be returned under the Goat Lady’s feat.  Alex made some decisions and his remaining Stalker stood up and destroyed two Ravagers in its melee range, the idea being to relapce them with his feat into melee with the Errants and get to attack, I did query this and it turned out that they couldn’t attack this turn.  The Ravagers and Barknode were returned to play and I lost a couple more Errants.  The Wild Riders did rude things to the Zealots and all but two died in a flurry of wolf and rider attacks!  The Gorax held back at mid table, similarly with Goatvahna.

The previous turn had drawn both feats out and probably seen my army up on the attrition front, given I was in the driving seat for countering the counter if you like.  We’d both taken losses and neither had scored control points yet, I was looking pretty strong on my left flank, but quite weak on the right.  So this turn was as I stated above a piece trade round where I concentrated on removing key enemy pieces and looking for a way to score control points.  I was very aware that Kreoss1 would be targeted for assassination, so I was keen to avoid this given I was likely to go ahead in control and VP’s from now on.  The Errants continued to fight the Tharn Ravagers, having a strange sense of deja vu  - “haven’t I killed you already good tree folk”?  The Reckoners split their threat vectors now and one protected Kreoss1 and was preparing to support the Errants in taking out the last Stalker and possibly enemy objective.  The other charged a Wild Rider and got in a perfect position to buy attacks on another three killing 4/5 of the unit.  I knew the Gorax would counter charge, but it would stop Alex scoring and threaten Morvahna2 for later rounds.  Alex sent his Stalker into the Errants, warping for ‘Beserk’, I don’t know if he’d tried to Beserk attack Errants, but it doesn’t work well as their Self Sacrifice ability shuts it down, Alex also was under Ashen Veil off the proximity of the Reckoner creating effectively DEF16 ARM18 tough Errants.  The Stalker realised it was in trouble and attacked the Reckoner to make it Enliven away – or take damage.  I took very little damage and managed to Enliven completely around the back arc of the Stalker denying it further attacks and maintaining Ashen Veil coverage to protect the Errants.  The Gorax did charge the other Reckoner and did a fair amount of damage, maybe knocking out a system.  The lone Wolf Rider had made it through to my support pieces and began attacking Vassals and Choir.

The fifth turn saw the last Stalker fall as well as the remaining Tharn Ravagers, I’d almost cleared the zone and Kreoss1 moved to dominate it – only the returned Barknode lingering at the end of the zone was contesting, though this could not be dealt with my remaining forces during this turn.  In the other zone the Reckoner beat face on the Gorax, though without Choir or a Vassal to augment  it couldn’t kill the beast.  I did suspect the Reckoner would loose the fight at this stage!  On Alex’s fifth turn he mangled the Reckoner with the Gorax and Morvahna2, but didn’t score due to the proximity of a Vassal Mechanik (I think this is how it went).

The sixth turn was the decider, time was getting very short and I needed to ensure I’d won so the Errants charged the Barknode and killed it, Kreoss1 was in position to dominate if dice down was called and I was contesting Alex’s zone, I also had more points in zones and more VP’s so I was pretty confident on victory if dice down was called, but you never know…  My Reckoner had taken three focus as I was unsure whether  to charge the enemy objective and kill it, going 3-0 up with a potential to dominate my own zone in Alex’s turn to go 5-2 and win, but I was unsure on distance and some rough terrain could have made this a mistake, so the Reckoner took Battle Hymn and shot Morvahna2 with a fully boosted to hit and damage.  The rolls were very good, setting her on fire and the damage roll being enough to kill the Gorax with the transfer and enough damage remaining to kill Morvahna2 as well, so it was game there on assassination!

Result: Win (Assassination)

CP’s: 2

Game 4

Opponent: Andrew Kenny

Army: Trollbloods

Warcaster: Borka

Scenario: SR2013 Fire Support

Borka Source: BattleCollege

‘Kenny’ as he likes to be known as, is Lux’ mate and I’ve known him a while, he used to live in Hull and went to the local club as well as a few events that I had run as well as a few elsewhere in the country.  I had used all three of my lists and therefore had a choice of all three in this round and to be honest all three could do equally well, or badly.  Kenny had the Kriel Stones plus UA in both lists, meaning he could get a protective aura against continuous effects, so this would render both my Feora lists less potent, Kenny also had some immunity to knock down and one of the fell calls could stand knocked down models back up.  I opted for the Kreoss1 list as it could hit Kenny’s beasts very hard at range as well as the multi-wound Troll models.

I actually won the roll to decide first turn and took it, figuring my Advance Deployed Errants and fast warjacks could threaten objectives early and I could put pressure on this way.  Kenny opted for a first turn feat which gave his Kriel Warriors an additional +2 movement on top of their +2 movement from Swift Foot, the extra +4 movement helped Kenny’s force position to stop my board control advantage.  Later I discovered that Borka’s feat only affects charging models, not running models, as far as the +2 movement from the feat is concerned, but to be fair it didn’t make too much difference.

On the second turn I asked to see Kenny’s cards as I wasn’t familiar with the Kriel Warriors and their immunity to knock down.  I spotted that the immunity to knock down was ‘granted’ by the standard bearer, which meant if he died then the unit lost the immunity and Kreoss1’ feat could affect them – a plan was formed!  The brace of Reckoners opened up on the Mauler severely wounding it and the Vassals were positioned to give ancillary shots to seal the deal, but I was waiting for the Battlle Engine to go next as its Admonisher ability would catch the Kriel UA, the Battle Engine killed the Mauler and both members of the Kriel UA, so this allowed Kreoss1 to feat and knock down the whole Kriel unit and a few other bits.  The Errants then charged and caused mass carnage to the Kriels and Sons of Bragg, this was further aided by the Holy Zealots who mini-feated and jammed up any potential LOS to Kreoss (who had stuck his nose up front to deliver the feat).  Kenny was a little demoralised by the massed carnage and tried to pull it back by nibbling at the Errants and bringing the Champions into position.

On the third turn I continued the attrition mopping up remaining Trolls who were contesting the flag to my right and creating lanes for my forces to destroy the enemy objective.  Borka was relatively safe and he is notoriously hard to assassinate, so I wanted to get the upper hand on scenario on my right.  I killed the light Swamp Troll warbeast too this turn.  Kenny managed to turn things around a little this turn and charged the Reckoners with his Champions as well as my objective.  One Reckoner ended up getting destroyed (as Borka also charged) and the other lost its cortex and right arm, meaning Kenny was getting close to Kreoss1 and I only had a handful of Zealots and one damaged Reckoner left to stop him – Kenny had also gone 1-0 up on scenario and I had little to stop him running away with the scenario!  I think I hadn’t anticipated just how hard the Champions would hit my ‘jacks and was a learning curve for me as I could have positioned them much better in hind sight.

The fourth turn was also interesting, I managed to nibble a couple more Champions with the damaged Reckoner, tying them up and I finally managed to destroy Kenny’s objective and allowed Kreoss1 to run on to the right hand flag and dominate to go 3-1 up.  Kenny had very little left to stop me scoring in his own turn; the wounded Pyre Troll advanced within 4” and took a cheeky pot shot at Kreoss1, setting him on fire, Kreoss1 had too much armour to be affected by the initial shot, but in my following Maintenance Phase it could hurt!  I think Kenny managed to kill the last Reckoner too, but didn’t dominate the flag for whatever reason, probably too busy killing Zealots with Borka!

On the fifth turn all I had to do was stop the Pyre Troll from contesting, it took a single blast off the Battle Engine to slay the light beast and seal a scenario victory.

Result: Win (Scenario)

CP’s: 5

Conclusion

With three wins and a loss under my belt I was really chuffed, I’d played quite well and only made one big error on the first game.  I’d learned a lot from the four games, spotted some new tricks and tactics to watch out for as well as putting my three lists through their paces.  I was one of three players to go 3-1, but didn’t get a podium finish due to strength of schedule and my final placing was 4^th.  I was really pleased to come 4^th and am hopeful to get to one if not two of the Masters events I mentioned that are on over the summer.  I’m going to play-test Kreoss3 and Harbinger with a potential of subbing one of these lists in for the Feora1 list, which I consider the weaker of the three.  Though I am contemplating revising that list and making it more competitive; especially considering the winner of BB1 used Feora1 for three of his four games!