I decided to go this these lists:
List 1
Pvlad
Draco
Devastator
Spriggan
Max Winter Guard Rifle Corps
Great Bears
Lady Aiyana and Lord Holt
Min Iron Fang Pikemen + UA
Kovnik Joe
Madelyn Corbeau
Lots of heavy metal that’s I could shit across the table on the feat turn, rifle corps+joe to deal with light/med infantry. Corbeau for the extra movement for vlad (17.5” Threat range, yes please). Great Bears cause they are pure win. IFP to throw in the enemies face and finally Lady Aiyana to give me some magic attacks or for the +2 DMG.
Plan with this list was pretty straight forward go for the alpha with the Jacks and beat down as much of their army as possible before bring vlad out for the kill.
List 2
Eirusk
Devastator
Spriggan
Great Bears
Max Man o War shocktroopers
Max Winter Guard Rifle Corps
Winter Guard Mortar
Winter Guard Mortar
Lady Aiyana and Lord Holt
Kovnik Joe
Madelyn Corbeau
This list was a bit more risky, I hadn’t used the shock troopers before but was itching to give them a shot. It was a defensive attrition list sit back and bombard the enemy before counter charging.
Game 1: Kill box, Kieran with Cryx
Venethrax
Death Jack
Nightmare
Max Bane Thralls + UA
Min Bane Knights
Bane Lord Tartarus
Max Bloodgorgers
General Gerlak
Withershadow combine
Set up
Pretty straight forward set up, bloodgorgers out on the far left with the bane thralls the caster and nightmare in the middle with the bane knights, Tartar and death jack on the right.
My vlad list was outnumbered in a big way here so I decided to turtle up in the left hand corner, the 2 heavy jacks holding the left flank the IFP and great bears on the right with winter guard in the middle and Draco set to counter charge where needed.
Turn 1
Reasonably uneventful, the cryx ran forward enmass my left flank moved forward read to intercept
Turn 2
The cryx closed in, and I launched my alpha, I dropped 3 focus on the devastator and Draco and popped my feat.
The devastator went into the bloodgougers, between the rain of death and the fist attacks only 2 where left. The spriggan moved up and put it’s flare down to highlight the base thralls and the wither shadow combine, the winter guard then moved up and shot up quite a few of the bane thralls. On the right I sent a full loaded Draco into the death jack. His rolls weren’t exactly great so I had to send in the IFP as well who minifeated and promptly failed to kill DJ as well. As next turn will show sending them in was a mistake when dealing with DJ.
Turn 3
Since both DJ’s arms where out I thinking I was pretty safe, alas not to be Kieran head butted one of the IFP and that let DJ heal both his arms back up, needless to say Draco took a beating from him with the band lord and knights finishing off all the IFP and Draco.
Nightmare moves across to kill a few of the winter guard and the spriggan got mobbed by the wither shadow and bane thralls but managed to survived.
Venthrax move up to bring vlad into his control area, that caused any spells I wanted to cast cost double effectively neutering vlad from casting either of his good spells.
The remaining bloodgorgers attacked the devastator to little effect.
Things weren’t looking good it was time to bring vlad out to play, using the ability from Madelyn Corbeau that’s lets me move a warrior up to 3” if there is an enemy in her control range, I set vlad exactly 14.25” from venthrax *evil grin*
My army parted like the red sea, the great bears went and wrecked nightmare. The winter guard just shot up some bane thralls that where in the way and the devastator took out the remaining bloodgorgers.
Now for the big one, I unleashed vlad and he did smote the dirty cryx.
I realised I hadn’t cast boundless charge and the two focus for it was needed to kill venethrax. In hindsight I thought he had went down too easy, I remember now my original plan was to run over and take it in the face for a turn before beating him to death.
On realising my screw up I came clean and gave the win to Kieran, well it beats my usual mistake of walking my caster out the kill box.
Game 2: Rectangular capture area, Toby Menoth
Etestement
Avatar
Reckoner
Vanquisher
Max Daughters of the flame
Max Choir
Max Temple Flame guard + UA
Max Exemplar Bastions
Vassal
Vassal
3 Wracks
I decided to try the Eirusk list against this as I figured 2 mortars would be really useful against all this infantry.
Set Up
Toby Set up first in a pretty unsuitable brick with the avatar on his right flank and the Daughters of the flame out on the far left
I got to go first so I set up in a square shaped piece fo stone as well. I set the spriggan up to counter the avatar and the devastator to deal with the daughters of the flame since I knew what a pain they could be
Toby ran forward and cast a few things on his jacks.
I moved up but made and fired off a few mortar shots, the winter guard killed a bunch of the daughters of the flame. This didn’t work quite as intended as the spells he had cast allowed the avatar and the Reckoner extra moves (I assumed since the spell on the reckoner let I charge when something near it was kill it wouldn’t be able to since nothing was in charge range I didn’t realise you could just charge and fail by quite some distance)
Turn 2
The remaining daughters ran in to pin units on my left flank the Reckoner got a shot off at Irusk leaving him on 5 health *gulp* the avatar move up aggressively as well. The rest of his army just shuffled forward a bit into the box
On my go I loaded up the spriggan and the devastator with focus and move the spriggan up against the avatar thinking it would lock it in place, it go one charging hit off and them the spell the vassal put on last turn kicked in and gave the avatar a 5” move ignoring free strikes…the ignoring free strikes I did not know about so I ended up with him in B2B with Irusk
Baws, not only was 3 focus wasted on the spriggan my caster was in serious trouble and nothing else was in a position to help. Plus I needed to get something in the box to contest.
So with this in mind the spriggan charged the reckoner, the ROD killed a few sisters of the flame and it punched a few chunks out the jack for good measure.
Joe gave the winter guard boosted attack rolls and shot the daughter of the flame that was pinning the great bears in place. Lady Aiyana then cast Kiss of lyliss for +2 to dmg on the reckoner allowing the winter guard to them nickel and dime it to death.
Then came the important part, the great bears charged the Avatar and in fantastic style destroyed it in 4 hits, the third one never even got the chance to dent his axe, with that I moved Irusk to the back to hide but for some reason that escapes me I move advanced and didn’t run him right to the back.
Turn 3
It was over quickly, the Vanquisher moved up and shot Irusk, game over :(
Game 3: The mission with three flags, Duncan with Cryx
Litch Lord Terminus
Death jack
Cancker Worm
Slayer
Max Bane thralls
Max Bile Thralls
Min Mechanathralls
Revenant Cannon
Pistol Wraith
Machine Wraith
Necrotech and Scrap Thrall
Duncan is my usual opponent so this was a dance I knew well I broke out vlad, I knew I wouldn’t get near his caster till he popped his feat and was ready to try and assassinate.
Set up
Duncan’s deployed the bile thralls in a big line with the mechana thralls on the far left and the rest tucked in behind
My set up was pretty straight forward, with vlads feat I knew I would be able to get the charge off with my jacks.
Turn 1
We both moved forward, that is all.
Turn 2
At the start of this turn the left hand flag vanished.
Now the fun begins, Duncan moved forward with death jack casting a spell on the winter guard kill a few.
On my turn I popped my feat and ran the devastator in to lock down DJ, spriggan fired of a few shots killing a bile thrall but Duncan’s tough rolls held fast, the IFP then mini feated and moved up to engage the bile thralls and the cancker worm. My plan was to try and delay his army and go for the two capture points next turn.
On the left flank Lady Aiyana gave the winter guard magic attacks and they went to work killing the pistol wraith, Necrotech, Machine Wraith and 4 of the mechanathralls
Turn 3
Terminus popped his feat ready to reap the souls this turn.
An uber juiced up death jack wailed down on the devastator and miraculously failed to knock out a eany systems …that’s was with 8 focus!
The bane thralls then charged into engage with some sweeping past to contest the middle flag. They managed to take out one of the devastators arms.
The two remaining mechanic thralls ran in to engage some of the winter guard, finally some of the bile thralls on the right went boom taking out the all the IFP but also laying some serious hurt on the canker worm.
On my turn I had about 6 Bane thralls to kill and that would give me two capture points. I powered up Draco and the devastator, the devastator went boom taking out a couple and punched up death jack a bit, the winter guard then move up and opened fire on the bane thralls killing some more but a lot of them passed there tough rolls, The spriggan them moved up to capture the right hand objective and put a few more shots into the bane thralls, but again the tough came into play finally Draco then went in and despite hitting with all six attacks Duncan past all but 2 of the tough rolls letting him keep contesting the objective.
Turn 4
The remaining bane thralls picked off the devastator and the canker worm and slayer threw a few hits at the spriggan.
DJ trampled a few of the winter guard.
As you can see Terminus was now full juiced but so we be coming out to play. I had placed vlad just out the threat range ready to go get him as soon as he moved up.
Alas I had forgot he could charge and still cast spells, those extra 3” managed to get him in range of vlad for some spell spamming and on the last roll killed him :(
Final thoughts
Well thats a first for me, came last over all (out of six), on the upside it gave me free entery into the next showdown in January :)
I made a lot of silly mistakes, part of that is down to me playing across three systems regularly and I find WM you really have to play constantly or you forget the detail. I need to get a bit more practice and make a point of exactly understanding what each spell my opponent casts actually does.
Eirusk is going to take a lot more practice, I think he is more useful in 2 caster games and the men o War really do suffer for being slow, here is hoping for a UA that’s speeds them up soon.
As usual I lost vlad when I don’t cast blood of kings, I think as a rule from turn three onwards I am going to have it cast.
One thing that does bug me a bit with Khador. You don’t appear to have anything quite as ridiculous as the other factions can manage, sure we have some pretty hard stuff but it tends to be slow and have a low def.
Yup that’s 21 souls and I have seen more than that on him before.