Thornwood Campaign: Game 2

Severely wounded in the previous game, eIrusk takes a break at the local holiday resort and spa.

In the previous game of the campaign, pGrim landed a casterkill on eIrusk. The movement of Khador forces got stopped and the Trollbloods are preparing on a counterattack on the Khador camp in front of the Thornwoods.

This is how we set up.

The Trollbloods had to catch the flag in the Khador camp (move B2B) within five turns or the Khadorese would win.

Supreme Kommandant Irusk - WJ: +5
- Kodiak - PC: 8
Man-O-War Drakhun - PC: 4
Widowmaker Marksman - PC: 2
Yuri the Axe - PC: 3
Battle Mechaniks - Leader & 3 Grunts: 2
- Battle Mechanik Officer - Battle Mechanik Officer 2
Man-O-War Shocktroopers - Leader & 4 Grunts: 9

Grim Angus - WB: +6
-    Dire Troll Mauler - PC: 9
-    Troll Impaler - PC: 5
-    Pyre Troll - PC: 5

Troll Whelps - PC: 2

Kriel Warriors - Leader & 9 Grunts: 6
-    Kriel Warrior Standard & Piper - Standard & Piper 2
-    1 1 Thrower's: 1
Greygore Boomhowler & Co. - Boomhowler and 5 Grunts: 6

The Trollbloods had a five points advantage because they pGrim quickly assembled additional forces while Khador was busy carrying eIruks into their camp.

On their first turn, the Trollbloods quickly advance forward. At this point, my plan is to tie down the MOW Shocktroopers with my Kriel Warriors not caring if they are gonna die or not - as long as they keep the Shocktroopers off my beasts.

On their first turn, Khador advances as well. Yuri on the right side, in this game with +2 P against warbeasts, is appearing like a gift from heaven for pGrim's Headhunter gun.

The second turn ends up perfectly for the Trollbloods. pGrim shoots Yuri, the Boomhowlers tie down the Drakhun, and the Kriel Warriors move in to block the Shocktroopers. At this point, I am very confident to win the game by sneaking someone around the camp to the flag. Tudor is growing desperate.

Khador's second turn, however, goes really well for them, too. The Drakhun and the Kodiak kill half the Boomhowlers and the Shocktroopers quickly wipe out the first row of Kriel Warriors. Also: eIrusk feats.

In the Trollbloods third turn it was me getting desperate as I headlessly tried to cope with eIrusk's feat. The Impaler stood and aimed, but fell short because my guessing wasn't accurate enough, so he just stood for one round doing nothing. The Mauler was fully loaded with the Pyre Troll animus and Cross Country when I realized he could still not charge because of eIrusk's feat, so I moved him back instead because I was too afraid Shocktroopers may charge him in return. pGrim also feated on this turn to hold of Khador for one more round.
The only success in this round were the Boomhowlers bringing the Drakhun down to zero live points, but because Tudor continued to make a couple really good Tough rolls, the Drakhun still stuck around for a while.

Khador's third turn saw the killing of more Kriel Warriors aided by the Widowmaker Marksman. With pure luck the Pyre Troll survived the battle with the Kodiak and will heal by snacking Whelps in the upcoming turn.

The Trollbloods 4th turn didn't see much action as the Mauler was too far in the back to charge the Kodiak. More Kriel Warriors died. However, pGrim (once again) shot and wounded eIrusk, but the Impaler missed despite boosting his shot as usual.

Just a close-up at the hacienda just because it's pretty.

In their fourth turn, the Shocktroopers anything but kill the Kriel Warriors. The Kodiak sadly finishes off the Pyre Troll (bye bye animus), but the Drakhun and the Boomhowler remain locked in their eternal struggle. eIrusk is moving back into his camp to remain out of pGrim's LOS.

In their fifth turn, the Mauler charges in, finally kills the Drakhun and start to rip apart the Kodiak.

In their firth turn, the Shocktroopers break away from the remaining Kriel Warrior (who was probably shot later by the Marksman).

Technically, the game should have ended here. However, since we were cruising in ultra casual mode we forgot to set up a turn counter. ^^ Counting the pictures on my phone I believed it was the end of the fourth turn, so we played another one. :-D

In their sixth turn, the Mauler gets the Kodiak ready for the junk yard. pGrim moves up and kills the Shocktrooper closest to him...

...while the remaining Boomhowler mounts his running shoes and goes for the flag.

Unfortunately, on Khador's sixth turn eIrusk moves around the corner and flattens him...

...while the remaining Shocktroopers do the same with pGrim.


Consequences of this game:

Eliminating the first Trollbloods defensive wave, the Khador forces will raid a Kriel (village) in the Thornwoods in the next game. Tudor even started modelling a Trollkin baby to motivate me a bit more to defend said village. o.O

Isn't he cute? :-D

Irusk will be back at full health, but Yuri (shot by pGrim) and the Drakhun (killed by the Mauler) won't be in the game anymore. Havinf the advantage on their side now, Khador will get an additional Widowmaker Contingent on top of the 35pts we are going to play next. :-)

On the Trollbloods' side, Grim will be missing and will have to be replaced by a different warlock. Currently I am considering pMadrak. :-)

Thornwood Campaign: Game 1

Yuri and the Impaler get physical.

WM/H gaming has really slowed down for me as Dystopian Wars continues to be my current #1 game plus I got sick of the local/national competitive meta. So what to do in this situation? Tudor and I agreed on starting a narrative WM/H campaign instead. :-D

The story arch behind this campaign is Khador trying to find a way through the Thornwood to move from Llael into Ord. There is neither a complex reward/punishment system nor a set of consecutively planned games, Tudor and I just chat everything up on the go.

Supreme Kommandant Irusk is being trusted with the task to lead an army through the Thornwood forest. As a smart Kommander he isn't blindly leading them through that forest, instead he moves in with a small scouting band first. With him are his trusted Man-O-War Shocktroopers and Battle Mechanics, a Man-O-War Drakhun as well as a Kodiak.

Supreme Kommandant Irusk - WJ: +5
- War Dog
- Kodiak - PC: 8
Man-O-War Drakhun - PC: 4
Yuri the Axe - PC: 3
Man-O-War Shocktroopers - Leader & 4 Grunts: 9
Battle Mechaniks - Leader & 3 Grunts: 2
- Battle Mechanik Officer - Battle Mechanik Officer 2

On the receiving end, there is pGrim being alerted to the intrusion of enemies in his wood as he moves around with his ranging party.

Grim Angus - WB: +6
-    Troll Impaler - PC: 5
-    Troll Impaler - PC: 5
-    Pyre Troll - PC: 5
Troll Whelps - PC: 2
Kriel Warriors - Leader & 9 Grunts: 6
-    Kriel Warrior Standard & Piper - Standard & Piper 2
Greygore Boomhowler & Co. - Boomhowler and 5 Grunts: 6

So for game 1, the Khadorese are trying to enter the Thornwood whereas pGrim wants to keep them out. We agreed that we basically just play a simple caster kill scenario, but the Khador forces should try to reach the Trollbloods' edge of the table whereas the trollbloods should eliminate everyone so no messager can go back to the Khador main host.

Let's see how it goes.

In round 1, the MOW Shocktroopers move up surprisingly quickly because they run for 8" plus get an additional 3" with eIrusk's Tactical Supremacy. Yuri is hiding behind the wood on the left.

The Trollbloods moved up as well, but other than pGrim's shot with the Impaler's animus every ranged attack was short.

pGrim aims but does not kill so the wounded Shocktrooper is being repaired again by a Battle Mechanic.

Yuri, who was hiding behind the wood the previous turn but is now equipped with Pathfinder, Battle Lust, and Weaponmaster, charges the first Impaler and kills him with one strike. Sounds like this nice little stroll accross the wood bridge wasn't so happy after all.

For the rest of their turn, the MOW Shocktroopers advanced some more while the Drakhun crashed into the lines of Kriel Warriors killing one.

On their turn, the Kriel Warriors immediately closed in on the Drakhun...

...but it took the second living Impaler to take him off his mount.

For the rest of their second turn, pGrim popped his feat and was taking insignificant shots at the MOW Shocktroopers again.

Because of pGrim's feat, the Khador band moved forward at a slow pace, so rather than doing deadly close combat attacks the MOW Shocktroopers resulted to their Shield Cannons.

On their turn, the Kriel Warriors and the Pyre Troll charged the MOW Shocktroopers, but only the buffed Pyre Troll was able to do any form of significant damage to them. In the meantime, eIrusk's feat kept the flanking Boomhowler & Co. away in the top right .

In their fourth turn, the Kodiak decided to turn right and support the block against the Boomhowlers. In the center the Kriel Warriors continued to be fed into a close combat that was impossible for them to emerge from as victors. Also, eIrusk moved into the wood on the top left because he felt saver there.

Save my ass - pGrim doesn't care about character models standing in a wood. He aimed, shot, hit, and wounded.

On his turn, eIrusk decided to go all in and charged pGrim. However, pGrim only lost half his hitpoints due to his amazing DEF 16.

On his turn, pGrim killed eIrusk in close combat as his six FUR proved to be just enough to bring eIrusk down to 0 HP in melee.

Consequences from this game:

We decided that eIrusk was severely wounded and had to retreat to his camp in front of the Thornwood. In his next game, he starts with 3 HP down.
Yuri gets +2 P against warbeasts because he sliced through the Impaler so mercilessly.
The Drakhun gets the Taunt rule because he was able to significantly shatter the Kriel Warriors' lines.

On the Trollbloods side nobody performed exceptional deeds, so we counted the casterkill as +5 Army Points for the Trollbloods in their next game. pGrim saw an opportunity to raid the Khador camp, so while the Khadorese were busy carrying back eIrusk into their camp, eGrim would quickly muster additional forces.

2013 Zürich Open

That's the view you get on the city center from the terrace of the Zürich Open.

For months we were looking forward to it and now it's history already - the first WM/H tournament in the city of Zürich ever, the 2013 Zürich Open! +Gergely Gati and +Sven Emmert worked tirelessly for weeks to make it happen and they created an event that is on par with other European tournaments! Thank you guys for this big effort!

+Gergely Gati and +Sven Emmert, the guys who made this possible.

Winners got trophies... (1st to 3rd from left to right)

...medals...

...and certificates.

The corresponding palyers also got "best faction general" badges.

The Winners

Josch got a special newbie prize as the first game at the tournament was his 8th game ever. :-) Welcome to the community, Josch. :-)

ePhilipp got best Trollbloods general. pPhilipp, that would be me. I feel a grudge coming up. :-D

+Dante Suwanda and +Botond Gati both happily shared 4th rank. In six years their names will be known all over Europe - in some parts they already are. ;-)

Our German guests came for winning this thing and so they did. Riccardo Rubbiani with Skorne won 3rd place.

+Dominic Beyeler defended our Swiss honor by placing 2nd.

1st place went to a German again, namely Magnus Matz.

My games

I am trying a new system for writing my game reports in hopes to improve their readability. In case you care, drop me a feedback if you think it's better now or not.

Game 1 - eGrim vs Dante Suwanda's eSeverius

Early game

Dante Suwanda had never played against eGrim, so I had some sort of advantage there. My Fennblades aggressively charged, my Scattergunners were moving into position behind them. Alas, the two Warjack's in his center proved to be too strong to inflict any significant damage really.

Midgame

The game went back and forth without any significant advantages, just the infantry on both sides died.

Endgame

In the end, Dante's Warjack tanked through the center and killed eGrim with their reach weapons. My big big big mistake here was that the Impaler was the only Troll not at his Fury limit, so I couldn't transfer neither to the Bomber nor the Pyre Troll although they still had full health. :-/

Game 2 - pDoomshaper (Runes of War T4) - vs. Patrick Liebi's eSorscha

Early game

Patrick spread out his forces, so I decided to have the Runeshapers run on my left flank. They were perfect for that job since they are very autonomous plus I somehow had to deal with the two zones that need to be controlled/contested.

Midgame

Patrick popped his feat early and had his Conquest charge my warbeasts; Mulg and the Mauler melted like butter in the sun. On the left flank the Runeshapers were hacking a blood path through the Winterguard.

Endgame

My situation grew so desperate I even had the Krielstone unit charge the Conquest just to keep it busy - and with their Tough rolls they even managed to do so. Yet in the end, the sheer Khador power was overwhelming and pDoomshaper got killed when even he himself had no other option left than to charge into close combat. (running down the clock was no option as Patrick still had plenty of time left)

Game 3 - eGrim vs. Robi Deola's eBaldur

Early game

I went for my eGrim list because I am still sort of hoping that shooty Trollbloods are my best hope against teleporting Circle. However, with eBaldur I was soon to find out that his armor buffs make my damage rolls go puff.

Midgame

During Midgame, eBaldur got dangerously close to my eGrim. However, his Druids' solo had some sort of spell that wouldn't let me cast spells on him, so Mortality was out of the question. Also it was his feat turn, so I gave him bombs, Scatterguns and the full load by eGrim's group, but to no avail. After that, eBaldur moved away to happily camp behind a wall.

Endgame

In the end Robi won on control points because he managed to clear the zone to the right by killing my Pyre Troll.

Speed up!

And we were both dangerously close to deathclocking each other.

Game 4 - eGrim vs. Rodrigo Recinos pLylyth

Early game

I didn't like this table at all - the two houses near my deployment zone meant I'd have to split my army in two and have them join again once they passed them. :-/

Midgame

The Incursion flag to my left disappeared and I continued to dislike this game as it put Rodrigo into a stronger position with his refused flank. However, eGrim saw that flag in the center of the table and started to move toward it.

Endgame

eGrim dominated that flag as if it were the last thing to do ever. Fennblades died and to a lesser degree the Scattergunners, but eGrim couldn't be moved og his flag. On the right, Rodrigo's unit controlled the flag on and off because I kept sending infantry over, so I accumulated my CP's quicker than he did. It also helped big time that he forgot to use pLylylth's feat. I'm sure he won't be so nice again, but I did clearly win on CPs. :-)

General observations

I finally ranked 15 out of 17 players. At the last three tournaments I have been able to win my last (in the "cellar duel" as we call them in German), so I see trend there of becoming the best among the worst. :-) If I can work out the big mistakes described above, I should be able to slowly move into the midfield on the scoring charts. :-)