Lone Wolf 6 GT, 2008 Part 1

I attended the Lone Wolf this last weekend and it was a blast. It started with me taking off early Friday from work. I got home and threw in 300 to watch while I finished up some stuff around the house. This really got me pumped up and in the mood for some serious gaming.

I got up to the Game hall about 3 in the afternoon and helped with the final setup. I had planned a 'Ard Boyz practice game but that fell through, so I started quickly looking for alternatives.

While sitting around I start talking with a new face, Chris. A really nice guy who plays beastmen as well. As it turns out we are both part of the Herdstone message boards. He is from Albuquerque and is friends with Marcus Martin a long time acquittance of mine. So we decided to throw down for some Friday night practice.

My list was basically the same one I ran last year.

Ratspawn the Reincarnated.
Doombull undivided with Heavy Armor, shield, sword of might
Lvl 2 Beast shaman, und, Staff of Darkoth, D.scroll
Lvl 2 Beast shaman, und, braystaff, d.scroll
Lvl 2 Beast shaman, und, braystaff, d.scroll

5 Minotaurs und, great weapons, banner
4 Minotaurs und, great weapons
4 Minotaurs und, great weapons
3 Minotaurs und, great weapons
3 Minotaurs und, great weapons
5 Chaos warhounds
5 Chaos warhounds
5 Chaos warhounds
2 Tuskigor chariots
2 Beast Herds, 7 gors, 6 ungors, full command
5 Furies
2 Chaos spawn of slaanesh

Chris' Army was a Beast Khorne list. I don't remember everything it had, but from memory:
Wargor of Khorne,
2 exalted heroes on steeds, undivided
3 units of minotaurs of khorne, 1 with great weapons, 1 without.
4 Beast herds.
some chaos hounds
2 beast chariots
8 furies
14 Beastigors mark of khorne, warbanner

This game actually went pretty quick, as I threw a few spells early on, and nothing on less than a 13. So his herds and furies were suffering early on.
Then I got off 2 charges that were right at 12" with my minotaurs on his and took out 2 units.
His khorngors killed a spawn and overran hoping to get out of charge arc of ratspawn, but he was about 1/4" too short, and I was able to see their flank. I killed 3, and with flank, outnumber, banner, he lost his frenzy, autobroke losing the khorngors, his general and a banner. That pretty much summed up the game.

Chris and I hung out the rest of the weekend and he is a great guy. I can't wait to meet up with him at future tournaments.

I then met with David Long in a 2nd warmup game Friday night. David and I have really become pretty good friends since he beat me 2 years ago at the Lone Wolf. He beat me again at the Boyou last year, and we met again last Lonewolf when I scored my first victory against him. We were both wondering if we would meet for the 4th time in 4 GTs. It turned out not to be so, but the warmup game was a lot of fun.

His army:
Dwarf Lord on shield bearers with 1+ re-rollable saves, some other stuff
Couple of thanes, and a runesmith with 3 d.scrolls. 1 of the thanes was a BSB I think.

2 20 man hammerer units with commands, rune standards.
unit of warriors
unit of longbeards
10 crossbowmen
2 bolt throwers, str 7
grudge thrower, volley gun

He setup in the middle, had his runesmith in some woods by itself.
then warmachine between each unit.

crossbowmen on left then warriors, then longbeards with bsb, hammers with lord, hammers with thane. BTs were on the outsides, grudge thrower and volley gun in the middle.

He didn't have any hills, which made it easy for me to shield my chariots from his bolt throwers.

I won the roll off and decided to go first. I rush forward with everything. Magic has me wipe out 5 or so crossbowmen and a few hammerers.
It was his turn and he moves the far right hammerers up.

He then promptly misfires with the grudge thrower. He rolls a 3 so it wouldn't be able to shoot till turn 3. He decides to re-roll it and gets the 1 its gone.
He then promptly misfires the volley gun and it explodes. OMG!! I am laughing my ass off at this point. As is David and everyone hanging around watching.

His bolt throwers all manage to miss or bounce off and his crossbowmen are useless.

On my turn, I throw my furies into the flank of his remaining crossbowmen who flee off the table. EitW has me hit the bolt thrower.
I move hounds up to block everything, move everything else up. Magic kills a couple dwarfs. Spawn heads into the woods to go after runesmith.

In combat, my furies whiff, he kills 2, and I pop. Uh oh, that was bad.

On his turn he charges with the warriors at my hounds. This was setup to open up their flank, but when my hounds flee, the chariot is now exposed to the bolt thrower.
On the right flank, the hammers charge and the hounds flee.

He runs his runesmith out of the woods back towards his board edge.

He shoots his bolt thrower at my chariot and hits, but then rolls a 1 to wound.
His other BT misses.
This is just getting sad.

In the next turn, I charge my chariot into the bolt thrower, charge 2 units of minotaurs at the warriors.
triple charge the right flank hammerers with 2 minotaur units and a chariot, killing every single hammerer. The thane autobroke and ran towards his bolt thrower, I had 1 unit of minotaurs pursue and catch him and hit the bolt thrower as well.

the chariot failed to kill 2 of the left side bolt thrower crew, so they stood there. Then the minotaurs wiped out the warriors who failed their insane courage and wiped them out. resulting overrun hit the combat with the chariot and bolt thrower.

This left just his general's unit and the long beards. The bolt throwers are soon destroyed in the next round of combat.

On my next turn I charged in a chariot, 4 minotaurs and 5 hounds on the flank to break his 2 remaining ranks. I only kill 1 hammerer in all of that. 1 minotaur had to attack the lord. While all the others sat around on their horns, this one was actually awake. I get 3 hits and 3 wounds!! So his 1+ becomes a 4+ re-rollable save and he ends up missing 2 of them. I still lose combat by a ton as they kill 4 hounds and a minotaur. everything breaks. The lone hound is long gone, and the dwarfs are able to run down both my fleeing minotaurs and my chariot!!

He still has nothing to charge, so he spins around to face my general's unit.
Then on my turn he forces Ratspawn and minotaurs to charge his unit. So I do so. My herd with 2 shaman was about 7" away from the hammerers and failed their unruly roll and ran into the rear of the hammerers.

He doesn't challenge and neither do I. He has the banner of double unit strength, so I need to get his unit below half and kill his general. Otherwise he is immune to fear and will be a stubborn 10 to break. And his long beards are ready to flank charge Ratspawns unit with the BSB if I am still there. All my other units are facing the wrong direction to protect my flank.

I decide to just kill as many hammerers as I can to make sure I win combat, then we will worry about the other stuff later. The Dwarf Lord only has 1 wound left on him, so I just put 1 minotaur on him. I get 3 hits, and 3 wounds again!!
He then fails all 3 armor saves at 4+. On his re-roll though he makes the first, the second...and fails the 3rd. The Dwarf Lord dies.

So now I just have to get his number down to 8 to get them below my unit strength of 18. My herd in the rear manages to kill 4!!! Fantastic. Then even though ratspawn whiffs and only kills 2, the rest of the minotaurs chip in and kill off 5-6 more and drop him down to 6 or 7 guys. They auto-break and Ratspawn is able to pursue out of the charge range of the long beards.

We shook hands at that point and my record with Mr. Long is now at an even 2-2. But I'm sure we will be playing much more in the future.

This ends part 1 of my Lone Wolf 2008 experience. Coming next, Part 2, Saturday Morning and the real tournament games.

Until next time...