‘Ard Boyz Mini-Report and Commentary

Our local ‘Ard Boyz event was great. I had a chance to bring my totally stupid list against the really brutal stuff. I have no complaints and gave it my best. I’ll elaborate on my tournament thoughts after the report.

My Completely Fair, Balanced List:

Kholek Suneater
Galrauch
4 x 5 mounted marauders, one unit with flails
6 chaos hounds with poison
2 x 4 dragon ogres with great weapons
2 giant shaggoths with great weapons
Chaos giant with mark of slaanesh

Game 1.

Kyle’s Dirty, Dirty High Elves:
Teclis
2 lvl 2s
Mounted BSB with +d6 CR banner
3 archer units
6 RBTs
7? Dragon princes
20 swordmasters
2 units of silver helms
(something like this)

With 6 elf bolt throwers and an F-ton of magic to deal with I needed to close fast on this list. Having played Kyle before, I knew I would have to be sharp to make a game of it.
I managed to deploy all my large monsters, minus Kholek, and a dragon ogre unit into a corner behind a hill. Kholek deployed in the center behind a forest. I spread the rest of the army along the line. Kyle got first turn. My marauders and dragon ogres took a beating in the magic and shooting phases but I was happy to have things remaining. On turn two I surged out at the elf line en masse. Turn two was close with dragon princes and BSB hitting a shaggoth an failing to break him (4 wounds to the DPs made the difference). Kholek was on the business end of a 29 hit conflagaration of doom for 3 wounds. Turn 3 was what kept me alive. The dragon ogres on my left overran a RBT and overran into the flank of an archer unit. Kholek engaged the swordmaster unit with Teclis. The right side was a bad luck disaster for Kyle as his silver helms ran in fear of my dragon ogres and ran off the board, panicking a RBT at the same time. The only negative was my shaggoth breaking from the dragon princes and running. The remainder of the fight was Kholek beating the heck out of the swordmaster unit, only managing 2 wounds on the mighty combat Teclis before getting cut down. The dragon ogres on the left ran the back-line tallying 4 RBTs and an archer unit. The mish-mash on the left resulted a badly wounded Galrauch failing his split personality roll and getting shot up before dying on the charge to a swordmaster (he had 1 wound left). The big monsters otherwise held their own. The right was strewn with marauders and my pin-cushioned dragon ogres were unsuccessful in saving Kholek with a flank charge into the swordmasters. I’d managed to kill both silver helm units, 6 RBTs, the BSB, an archer unit, and half of Teclis and the swordmaster unit. Not bad, but this one definitely favoured Kyle.

Result: Draw in favour of Kyle, considering scenario bonuses. (13-9)
Moment of the Match: Very tough to say, but a well placed swordmaster wound to Galrauch saved Teclis from death and possibly the swordmasters too.
My Hero: The left flank dragon ogres cleared out the back field for roughly 700 points. Very nice.
Mr Stupid: Other than being a threat, Galrauch was a huge liability.

Game 2.

Petro’s Balboa Dwarfs:

Thorek
Lord
Runesmiths
BSB
Organ gun
Gyrocopt
20 Miners
20 Hammerers
20 Warriors
12 Slayers
20 longbeards
2 x 10 quarrelers
(something like this)

I felt a lot better when I saw no magic and only a single war machine. I deployed away from the organ gun and quarrelers to my right. His infantry blocks bunched up in the center and I deployed almost all my units there. He hid Thorek in the back corner behind a hill to my left and I deployed both Kholek and Galrauch directly across from them. Petro did a good job of tying up Galrauch and Kholek with a combination of anvil nastiness, the gyrocopter and miners. By ignoring the right side I was able to concentrate on his center. I was able to get the shaggoths and giant through the line by overwhelming the slayers. This opened up a flank into his hammerer unit (with Lord). It took 2 separate shaggoth charges into this unit (engaged by dragon ogres in the flank) to finish the unit by turn 5. With a combination of magic, breath weapons and combat, Galrauch managed to take down the miners fairly quickly (some good luck was involved). Kholek eventually broke through and got to Thorek by turn 5 where he showed the stunty how a hammer should really be used. In the late game I managed to take out a dwarf warrior unit with great weapons. The scenario had forced them to squabble as greenskins, leaving them vulnerable. My turn 6 moves mostly involved scaring off some quarrelers and positioning for scenario bonuses.

Result: Minor victory for me. (17-6)
Moment of the Match: More of a series of moments, but Galrauch making fast work of the miners and gyrocopter prevented Kholek from getting march-blocked on his way to Thorek.
Hero: Galrauch really saved the day on my left and was even able to help support the center late in the game.
Not So Hot: Every unit pulled their weight, but the hounds had minimal impact.

Cory’s Stone-hands Lizardmen

Slaan
2 skink priests on EotG stegs
Mounted scarvet
16 Temple guard
18 Saurus warriors
7 Cold ones
2 skink and krox
Skirmished skinks
(something like this)

Cory bunched his units roughly in the center. I deployed across from him except for Galrauch and a shaggoth on my left side. The lizard line advanced and did some fairly tame damage (though 3 wounds to Kholek from a single fireball was notable). I was a bit thrown off my game because I was expecting to run at a mostly static line. I advanced and managed to get Galrauch up the left flank and some marauders around a forest on the right. My giant got ran over by cold ones early on paid for it with a shaggoth counter charge and died horribly. The EotG pulse managed to do a little damage but no massive damage was done. The scenario forced me to charge Kholek into the slaan/temple guard (when there was a steggie right next to them) where he squashed the unit champ in a challenge for max wounds. A shaggoth managed to overrun into his other steggie but got killed after doing 3 wounds. Galrauch and friends squashed a skink and krox unit on the left flank, freeing him to cause further havoc. The combats around the Kholek versus Slaan unit fight were a bit of a back and forth. I managed to do a lot of damage but took a beating in return. The match of the game was Kholek hanging on to make 6 break tests against the temple guard, including a late steggie charge. A lone dragon ogre came late to assist and with only two temple guard left, the slaan issued a challenge. The critical combat round ended with Kholek playing ‘single hole whac-a-mole’ with the slaan. It was a last-ditch attempt to hold the line, and a brave one, but Kholek finished the job in style. Cory’s temple guard just had stone hands and couldn’t finish the play. (Not like I was lucky or anything)

Result: Draw in my favour from scenario bonuses (13-10)
Moment of the Match: Kholek held on after the flank stegadon charge. Lucky, but it decided things.
Hero: Kholek!
Glass Jaw Wonder: The shaggoth that was dropped by a steggie left my line in a tough spot.

Final Result: 4th of 12 with 39 points.

Hero of the Tournament: Kholek was the one, consistent threat in each game.
Back to the Farm: The slaanesh giant is all-or-nothing. He’s a great monster but doesn’t have a lot of value in this particular list.

I had fun. Every game was a good time. If there was a weak spot it was the scenarios.

My approach to future events like this will definitely change. My initial idea was to just play hard and smash through everything I could. The difficulty is the points breakdown for different levels of wins and losses. A massacre is a 2600 point difference! Even a minor victory required 1200+ points difference. Yikes!
After the first game I realized that the odds of really blowing apart another ‘Ardboyz list of any measure would require a ton of risk. The good players with good lists will always make you pay for taking those sorts of risks, leaving that a non-option. What I focused on in the last 2 games was gaining the bonuses. Because these bonuses apply to your battle points even a draw or minor can be beneficial. The 7 points that I picked up in the last two games were the difference between 4th and 7th place.
My approach in the future would be to build a high percentage, ultra-offensive list that can either force minor victories with full bonuses or simply push for the massacres. The battle point modifiers make a huge difference for those games against defensive armies. The key is in having a list that can dish out the pain quickly without taking major risks or eek out smaller victories while collecting bonuses.

Just my thoughts,
Netter