Lone Wolf 6 GT, 2008 Part 2

Saturday morning had me facing off against Lex Simon and his Tomb Kings. Lex is a good friend and we have played a few times in the past. But since he moved to Austin about 2 years ago we haven't faced off and it was great to get the chance to match tactics with one of the best TK players I know.

Lex TK list:
Tomb king, destroyer, collar
Prince in a chariot of fire, flail
Lich priest jar, cloak, heirophant
Lich priest, 2xd.scrolls

10 skeletons w/bows
10 skeletons w/bows
24 Tomb guard with reform banner, full command, TK
5 light skeleton horsemen w/bows
5 light skeleton horsemen w/bows
3 chariots
3 chariots
3 Carrion
2 scorpions
Bone giant
Skull catapult with skulls of the foe

The scenario was the Cowboys Curse. Our general is smitten by some tart. Every turn you pick a different curse to lay on your opponent's general. And it is cumulatively worse. You can dump the tart at any time to rid the curse, but then you cannot get the objective.
to get the objective you must live with the curse and end up with more banners captured and owned, than your opponent.

The curses were: (pick 1 for each turn, may not repeat yourself)
-(turn #) to any combat res his general is a part of.
-(turn #) to power dice and add them to your dispel pool.
-(turn #) to the characters strength
-(turn #) from any casting roll your general uses, including bound spells
-(turn #) off the generals ld
-(turn #) off any 1 dice roll made by the opponent. Can force a miscast.

Each curse only lasts during your opponents turn. But can be a real pain in the butt. It got in my head more than I wanted it to. The Ld, strength and combat res were really worrying me.

So this caused me to be a lot more hesitant than I normally am. He got to go first and turn 1 kills a minotaur in my general's unit. I then have to make a Ld 8 panic test and fail. If it wasn't for the undivided which I passed, I'd been running off the board turn 1 of the first game. Wouldn't that suck.

I lined up my furies to take out the catapult, but on turn 2 it blew itself up. So I threw the furies at some archers and they promptly popped.
A herd failed 2 unruly checks in a row and then passed their fear test to charge into chariots with the tomb prince. This combat goes for 3 rounds, sees some fast cav charge in the flank. I then try to charge some minotaurs in and miss it by 1/4".
I finally whiff my rolls and the herd breaks losing its banner. With only a wounded Prince and 2 of the fast cav left.

The other 3 chariots charge 4 minotaurs, manage to kill 2. I kill a chariot back but break and run getting away. I rally, he charges with the 2 and blows the impact hits and I destroy the chariots.

On the left flank, three minotaurs are trying to get lined up to charge the giant and who has been hobbled by beasts cower. But it backfires. The giant gets on their flank and is magically charged in. But he whiffs and only gets 1 wound on the first set of attacks. Then gets a 2nd on the unstoppable assault. Killing my end Mino and winning combat by 3. Needing a 5 to hold, they do. The next round he only does 2 wounds again, and I do 2 wounds back. He wins by 1 because of the flank and again I hold.

In the middle his prince charges some minotaurs who fled. So I charge his chariot with a spawn and hold him. Over 2 rounds of combat he only does 1 wound to my spawn and I destroy the chariot out from under the prince. So on my turn 5 my 3 minotaurs charge in but only 2 can get on the prince instead of 3. I whiff all the attacks and only win by 1. So he loses his 2nd wound but doesn't die.

He had flown his heirophant over to make sure he could get that giant charge off which exposed her. I got IF dark hand of death on her, and poof. But no crumbling.

Game ends. Ran out of time at the bottom of 5. Lex never designated who had claimed the banner that had been captured. The 2 fast cav were gone, but the prince lived. We rolled for it and the prince had it. After we added up points, I was up by around 250. That banner cost me the win and the objective. I tried to sweet talk Lex into giving it to me, but he would have none of it. Great game Lex, I look forward to our next one.

So 8 point draw in a very well fought tough battle.

Game 2 verse Brent Collins and his Wood Elves:
Lvl 4 mage with stave and 2 d.scrolls
Lvl 2 mage with HoDA
Wardancer hero with Lamenations of dispair. A one shot bound item
wood elf noble BSB with Oaken armor

10 Glade Guard
10 Glade Guard
8 Dryads w/champ
8 Dryads w/champ
8 Dryads w/champ
3 Treekin
19 Eternal guard w/full command
5 Wardancers
6 Wardancers
Treeman

Brent is an excellent opponent who was a lot of fun to play, but Brent, you need to really practice with the army a lot. I think he had a lot of new things in the army that he wasn't use to playing with.

1. He never used his Treemans spell singing
2. He never used the one shot bound item he had, or the Hail of Doom Arrow.
3. when I charged his Eternal guard with BSB I asked if there was a champ and he said no, so I challenged and the BSB stepped up.
4. When I killed the BSB, I don't think he made his regeneration rolls? I may be wrong there, but I don't remember it.
5. He had my generals unit in a horrible spot, and charged the front with his eternal guard. I was expecting the wardancers with hero in the flank, and it never came. I killed the BSB, so the unit wasn't stubborn and broke them running them down.
6. He finally did charge my general's unit with a unit of wardancers and decided to go with the 4+ ward dance??? He only manages 2 wounds and I manage 2 back and I win, break him and overrun into the ongoing Treeman battle and cut down the treeman same turn.
7. In turn 6 I decide to go for the total destruction of his army and charge a chariot and Ratspawns unit into the Hero and wardancer unit. He goes with the +1 attack dance??? The chariot kills every last wardancer except the hero. The hero in a challenge with Ratspawn never gets a swing off.

In the end I had half my army left and he didn't have a model on the board. Even his general who was hiding in the woods died from a drain life spell on the bottom of turn 6.

For me it was a really fun game that allowed me to relax and get into the flow of the GT. You really need that first win to get you feeling good about yourself. And this game did it.

Brent was a great sport, several times he would make mistakes, like not moving his wizard out of the rain so he could cast or move a unit so he could treesing the woods. I was more than happy to let him do this, but he wouldn't. I almost even insisted but Brent wouldn't. He wanted to make himself learn from his mistakes.

So it ended up being an easy win, but a really really great game. Brent got my favorite opponent vote.

Win 20 points. Total through round 2: 28 Battle points.

Coming soon Part 3.

Until next time...