My Majestic Triumph In Kirkcaldy On Halloween

[swntzu]

Kingdom of Adventure Border Patrol Tournament – 30th October 2009

Here is my account of what happened in Kirkcaldy on Halloween.

First of all, my list:

Heroes
Herald of Nurgle
Noxious Vapours, Stream of Bile

Core
11 Plaguebearers
Standard, Musician

Rare
5 Flamers

Comments
I actually went with this list after falling asleep the night before. The intention was to go with some horrors, a flying Tzeentch herald and 4 fiends but alas that was not to be.

The theory behind the list was that the plaguebearers would amble up the board and beat most things in combat due to their resilience. Hopefully the flamers would force my opponent’s hand by kicking out all those S4 shots.


Game 1
John’s Bretonnians consisted of a unit of 5 realm knights with his general (basic kit), a unit of 6 grail knights and 11 bowmen. Both knight units had full command.

It is worth saying at this point that all tables were 3 by 4 feet as laid out in the border patrol article. Terrain for this game consisted of a hill and two woods which effectively played no part in the game due to their placement towards the edges of the table.

John prayed but I decided to let him have first turn. I did this in every game where I had the choice so that my flamers could fire in turn 1. He moved forward cautiously to ensure a charge and took some potshots at my flamers with the bowmen. In my turn, the plaguebearers inched forward and the flamers responded by killing a few grail knights. The following turn saw much the same with the flamers killing another grail knight and the breath weapon not doing much. The ensuing charge saw my plaguebearers hold for one turn but they fell foul of two high instability rolls. From hereon in, my flamers went crazy in combat and killed all the remaining knights with a flurry of high dice. All that remained on the table on turn 6 were 4 flamers and 6 peasants.

Game 2
Ryan had a unit of 5 khorne knights, 10 unmarked warriors with shields, and an unmarked sorcerer with the book of secrets (TWO FIRE BALLS!!!)

This table had some terrain that largely did not play a part in our game. Features of note include a massive hill that made up my side of the table.

This game was similar to the one against John but the magic seriously worried me. Luckily Ryan had bad luck with all the dice involved for his magic as the sorcerer kept his distance in his warrior bunker. The khorne knights charged the plaguebearer unit in turn 3 who promptly went pop. They then swung round and got beaten by the flamers in combat (???). The rest of the game consisted of me dispelling fireball and grinding down the warriors before finally killing the sorcerer.

Game 3
Fake James Esland had 10 unmarked marauders with flails, an exalted hero on horse with the rending sword and 7 or so nurgle knights.

No subtlety of play was evident here. The nurgle knights ran straight at me and demolished my plaguebearers in one round of combat. My misunderstanding of the mark of nurgle rule meant I screwed myself over a little bit (-1WS is only for you targeting them not vice versa) but it made no difference to the overall result. I managed to kill his general before going down but in the end it was the flamer who saved the day by clawing back enough VP to make it a draw. Giving away 100VPs for my standard was beginning to look like a critical error in my list.

Game 4
Ant’s list is familiar to most of us at Dwarf. Exalted hero on horse with collar of khorne, 5 knights with muso and champion, about 12 million hounds and 10 actually naked marauders make up his 500 pts.

Suffice to say that this game was over in 15 mins. Ant’s knights smashed into my plaguebearers with a supporting charge from the warhounds. I committed my flamers hoping to garner enough combat res from the hounds to balance the combat but 2 1s to wound put paid to that.

Game 5
Andy’s ogres had 6 bulls with crusher, light armour and iron fist, 3 ironguts and a gorger.

In a stark contrast to the previous game, this wasn’t in any doubt after the first panic test. The ogre line had previously advanced cautiously presumably so that I wouldn’t get the charge on his units. In turn 2, I advised Andy not to charge my flamers as we both knew they were out of range but he was unaware that I would be able to stand and shoot at them anyway. As usual I misjudged the distance between my plaguebearers and the ogre unit in front so I had an opportunity to use my breath weapon which caused some minor damage. In turn 3, the gorger turned up and the two ogre blocks charged my line. The large bull unit went for the flamers and panicked before completing the charge while the ironguts got into combat. After not doing enough wounds, the ironguts promptly fled. The rest of the game consisted of my killing the bull unit with my flamers while the plaguebearer unit slowly ground through the gorger.

Game 6
After a short break in which I criticised everyone who was playing 40k, I took on The Great Leader, Brian. He had a level 2 wizard with dragon bow, 10 crossbows and 13(!) outriders with a champion armed with a hochland.

Brian went for heavens for this game and got portent and comet. I was cautious at first and chose to hide behind terrain. This was clearly a mistake as I worked out that he would need 6s to hit at long range. From turn 3 onwards I changed my tactics to be more aggressive by throwing everything straight forwards. The outriders almost panicked off the table but rallied in the following turn. Comet was cast and built up for 5 player turns but when (in Brian, the I is before the A) rolled a 1 for distance that was the final straw and he conceded.

Elimination rounds
Due to the format of the tournament, the top 4 players were drawn against each other to play a semi-final and a final. These were Ant, me, Ryan and Brian.

Semi-Final
Our game went much the same as the previous one with Brian making a mistake in turn one where he pushed his solo fire wizard out to fireball my plaguebearers. The flamers then retaliated and killed him. From there on the outriders whittled the flamers down to 2 and completely ignored the plaguebearers. This allowed them to

Final
Ant lost to Ryan in his game so I was in a favourable position to win the event. The game ran a similar course to our previous meeting but this time his luck with the spells was even worse. If he cast fireball, it wasn’t wounding. The tipping point came when I managed to kill two knights before combat with my breath weapon and flamers. In the charge that followed, my plaguebearers lost 4 models but held this time. A flank from the flamers in my turn was enough to kill the remaining knights but for some bizarre reason I decided to overrun right in front of the chaos warriors. They promptly charged me but in a flurry of terrible dice rolls, I was able to get my plaguebearers into combat and eventually break the chaos warriors.

In the third place playoff Ant had some crazy luck to beat Brian into fourth place.

Prizes and reaction
For winning I received £10 in store credit and the Horus Heresy Collected Visions book which is a pretty good return for a £5 entry fee.

Many thanks to Dave and I will definitely be attending the next WHFB event at KoA..

Final Results

1. Kar Meng Lee (Daemons of Chaos)
2. Ryan Taylor (Warriors of Chaos)
3. Anthony Purdie (Warriors of Chaos)
4. Brian Forrester (The Empire)
5. Sean Kelly (Warriors of Chaos)
6. John Harper (Bretonnia)
7. Andy from Kirkcaldy (Ogre Kingdoms)

[Purdindas]

I had a great time.

Can't believe Ryan beat me twice and I beat Brian twice though.

[swntzu]

Me too. It's not the winning that matters; it's the taking part. At least that's what I keep telling John!

[Garviel]

LOL

Would rather play a fun game and loose....


Although an occasional win doesnt hurt