I Pitty the Thuul

Here We Go!

Finally I manage to get myself to a tournament and it turned out to be rather a good one. 

Showing once again how friendly the KoW community is, led me to taking a train ride to meet yet another stranger with the hope I'd make it home alive. A quick lift up to Hemel from Rusty Shackleford via the station to offer another lift and we arrived at the venue. 

It being doubles I at least knew one person in the room and by the amount of chat on the Kings of Herts group i could now put names to faces. A fair amount of aimless chatter later and with only 3 mins left before games were meant to kick off there was a hasty set of instructions from Paul and Matt and we were underway. 

The venue was a little chilly to start but soon warmed up with all the hot air that a group of wargamers can provide. Along with the nicely laid out tables full of scenery there was free tea and coffee and a few drinks and crisps to buy. ThePit had also turned up with a cornucopia of goods, all at 20% off retail and in some cases 50%!

Here’s a quick overview of mine and Dan’s list and cunning plans. I took a pile of fast moving but fragile Thuul, tidal swarm and a knuker Meanwhile Dan bought the heavyweight stone elementals, Steel behemoth and ironguard to which i contributed some Gigas. The cunning plan was for him to be the weight in games such as dominate and control while I legged it about chaffing and trying to kill units with my maneuverability. Having taken Martyr’s prayer would also mean Dan could just heal all day if any of his heavier units did take damage. 

Game 1 - Pillage

Gunpowder Treason and Plot

A mix of Ogres and Varangur with some very weighty combat units backed up by boomers. The spread of objectives was pretty wide and in some odd places with us putting all ours in terrain to hopefully blunt attacks and make use of terrain. Three of the objectives were in deployment zones and with the ogre legion being wide enough to sit comfortably between two of them and claim them we denied this by selecting this side to deploy on and dumped a load of De6 dwarves on them. In the mean time my Thuul formation and tidal swarms set up on the other flank to threaten the objectives more out in the open and my gigas camped in the centre in the woods ready to move onto another objective. Lexa and Jon dumped their thralls on the objective in their deployment zone and spread their ogres and other slower units across the centre of the board. The tundra wolves and mounted sons faced off against the Thuul. 

Through the first few turns i managed to chaff up the sons and wolves and take them out despite heavy losses from the boomer guns and cavalry charges. GT&P advanced straight up the centre wiping out the Gigas and moving up on the objective they were after. My knicker spent most of the first half of the game running about and Dan’s dwarves sat guarding the objectives with The Behemoth shooting up the boom as opposite and then picking on the ogre legion. 

As the game wore on my embattled Thuul made a desperate charge for the thralls to try and claim their objective but were worn down by the flying varangur hero having been shot to pieces by boomers. As the battle entered its final stages a stand off between the dwarves and the ogres meant little movement. A glimmer of hope opened up on Turn 6 with my knucker able to get a flank charge off on the ogre shaman character who was claiming the centre objective but despite doing a fair amount of damage and needing a 5 to win rout him and take the objective I scored 2. There was no turn 7.

With the dwarf contingent holding their own objectives (and taking no losses) we scored 2 and contested the one next to the knucker and ogre. 

GT&P claimed the one in their deployment zone, the one previously held by the gigas and the one in no mans land. Making it a 3-2 loss.

On reflection i was more than pleased with the way my Thuul performed but really should have used my knucker better and ideally should have put some cheap junk like tidal swarm on the objectives in our half which would have freed up the dwarves to do something rather than baby site. IT ended up a great fun game against sporting opponents with a highlight being Lexa telling Jon to go away while she rolled dice to stop cursing them. 

Game 2 - Control

Better Dead than Smeg

Undead and Varangur combo for this battle with Mark and Grant. Low model count for the Varangur with a couple of borders of fallen and a hoard of direfangs and Magnilda. The undead were far more numerous with revenants, skeletons and a liche in support. We went for the same tactics as usual plonking our de6 units in the woods and hoping to chaff up the fallen with the Thuul and swarms. The undead all held the centre with fallen deploying wide on the flanks. 

With the skeleton formation all of them could vanguard move and they promptly legged it straight up the centre. They followed this up with the first turn and advanced all across the board trying their luck with a turn one surge charge into the elementals. This fell short and crucially opened up the flank to some waiting Thuul. The elementals and Thuul charged back in taking out the border of undead and the chaff on either flank attempted to lock down the fallen. Then began a mass brawl in the centre with the elementals, scorpion, revenant units direfangs Thuul and even the knucker getting stuck in. The Thuul on the left flank took out their fallen foes but the dwarves on the right fared less well. When it all finished up mid game in the centre the heavily wounded direfangs ad a regiment of skeletons were all that remained. 

Moving into the end game the Thuul who were now on their own moved to secure sectors and the remaining fallen realised their home 2’x2’ was at threat so rapidly redeployed. The Behemoth and gigas were all that remained of scoring units facing off against the revenants and direfangs. A lucky single would from the Behemoth’s gun caused them to rout and the complexion changed. As turn 6 closed Neither home sector was controlled by the enemy so the game finished turn 3-2. 

A couple of crucial points swung the battle in this match up. the destruction of the skeleton horde on Turn 1 mainly by the troop of thuul, and the lucky shot from the Behemoth on the Direfang horde which reduced the US for Grant and Mark in the centre. I was lucky that with the Thuul's speed they could deploy quick enough to grab table edges. The knucker finally came into its own in this game, height 4 nimble has proven to at times be better than flier and equipped with pathfinder too it can strike a whole lot of angles. So far I'd been pretty happy with my army's performance and Dan's dwarves in this game provided the speed bump they needed to. 

Game 3 - Dominate

Rhordian Hot Wings

Despite only knowing 3 people before attending this fate decided to intervene and bring all of them together in this final game. Rusty had his blocks of iron guard backed up with a bombard and a rival Golloch's fury while Seb had bought hordes of halflings armed with bows, riding chickens and crewing an iron beast. They were accompanied by some honour guard and wizard on a flying beast. 

With so much De6 in the armies deployment of the slow stubborn stuff was obvious and they all huddled in the centre of each line facing off against each other. My Thuul set up with their swarm chaff on the right and the knucker deployed to hunt Rusty's war machine on our left flank. We won the roll to go first and moved all ahead full to get into the dominate circle and sent the chaff out to try and deal with the halfling cavalry. The knucker shot through the woods ready to move over the obstacle and assault the bombard. A lucky fusillade from Dan's Golloch managed to waver the halflings with a double 6. 

The hot wings returned in kind moving all up to meet the stunties and fish. The bombard launched a shell at the Gigas skulking in the woods and knocked a couple of wounds off them while the other missile troops targeted the stout Ironguard with minimal effect. 

The following couple of turns involved the Knucker sneaking round to snipe the war machine and the Thuul armed with their Hammer of Measured force getting a flank charge off on a unit of Iron guard on the end of the Dwarf line. The Thuul on the right were being torn to pieces along with their tidal swarm chaff but did manage to take down the chicken riders and stall the honour guard's advance. Golloch kept plugging away at the halfling horde and eventually took them off. Meanwhile Rusty's Dwarves returned fire wiping out the Thuul threatening the dwarf flank and the majority of the heavies on either side maintained their stand off. 

With no one left to inspire the mythican charge off and managed to rout his opposing spell caster killing off him and his flying monster in a single turn of combat!The knucker continued to terrorise the rear of the enemy line but finally went down having kept running away from the threatening battle driller. Dan's Iron guard finally went down having been healed relentlessly by the stone priest and with no Turn 7 it was a 7-6 win to us. A surprisingly high number of units survived the game and it would have been very tight if there was a turn 7 with a lucky shot here or there potentially taking off a unit to wing the balance

The knucker again was great at zooming about and just causing a nuisance. I used to run a winged archfiend in my Abyssals army and while maneuverable the removal of nimble when damaged did hurt him. Although the Knucker loses his Thunderous Charge he is great at being able to run away and proved it again this game. The Thuul were devastating on the flank charge and the punch packed by the troops and the chaff were very handy for slowing the halflings down. The dwarves did what they did and just stood firm supported by their guns. Another great game and a fitting end to a fun day. 

Overview

Tournament

The whole day was really well run and little touches like a food order being put in with the local take away and free tea and coffee just made it a whole lot more convenient rather than having to nip out to the local shops all the time. The KoH guys did a good job of keeping us informed and everything ran to time. 

We ended up 5th in the end. I think as a pair we played better together the longer the day went on. We did a pretty good job of keeping an eye on the mission objectives and the army was rounded enough to deal with most things (Maybe not quite a horde of direfangs but you can't have it all). We did win best team name though as a consolation. 

I was advised before I attended that KoW tournaments are friendly affairs but wasn't really expecting how welcoming it was. I'll definitely be looking more out. 

Changes?

For the times that he didn't get to use it I am not sure about the Mythican having Bane chant in that small a force. It really should have come into play but barely did due to the situations. While fragile I found the Thuul a very good threat at spd7 and once I used him properly the Knucker was great too. Although slow the gigas are great cheap unlock and played their part to just hang about and be de6. I think for a larger force I'll definitely bump up to two knuckers and maybe even add some more thuul, possibly playing around with nimble so they can really threaten quickly up the flank and force decisions when teamed with the knucker(s).