Wednesday 3 September 2014

Rumble in the Bronx 2014 - Part 1

Rumble in the Bronx is over, and despite being exhausted for the entire weekend (too much late night painting and modelling will do that to you), I had a great time. Despite my doubts, I did manage to get my entire army ready in time for the tournament, so apart from not getting anywhere near enough sleep, I was all prepared for the event.

I've shown my list before, but here it is again for convenience:
  • Tyrant
    • General; Great Weapon; Heavy Armour
    • Arabyan Carpet (He can FLY!!)
    • Talisman of Preservation
    • Enchanted Shield
  • Bruiser
    • Great Weapon; Battle Standard
    • Armour of Fortune
  • Firebelly
    • Magic Level 1; Lore of Fire
    • Ruby Ring of Ruin
  • Hunter
    • Great Weapon; Light Armour; Great Throwing Spear
    • Longstrider
  • 6 Ironguts
    • Great Weapon; Heavy Armour; Standard; Musician; Gutlord
  • 6 Ogres
    • Iron Fist; Light Armour; Standard; Musician; Crusher
  • 3 Mournfang Cavalry
    • Great Weapon; Heavy Armour; Standard; Musician
    • Gleaming Pendant
  • 4 Sabretusk Pack
  • 4 Leadbelchers
    • Light Armour; Musician
  • 1 Ironblaster
Total Army Cost: 1999pts

I ended up getting a 7 out of 10 for composition, meaning the panel had deemed my list to be pretty rubbish. The reasons for this were that I wasn't really using any of the generally acknowledged strengths of the Ogre list, apart from an Ironblaster. My flying Tyrant and Hunter meant I couldn't pour all my characters into a single “Gutstar” unit. I had little magic and no dispel scroll. All my Sabretusks were in a single unit rather than running around separately as dirt cheap annoyances. And my Mournfangs had great weapons, meaning they were not very well protected. All good reasons to doubt my army could do the business, but I was pretty happy with the high comp score anyway.
My 2000 point empire-themed Ogre army.
Rumble used an unusual scoring system. Instead of the 20-0 system which is most common in this part of the world, the score range was 16-0 (with 8-8 being a draw). In addition to this however, both players had to choose a “boast” at the start of each game. Achieving your stated boast got you an additional 2 battle points, whilst denying your opponent their boast got you another 2. You couldn't use the same boast twice in the event – you had to use all 6 once. So the total possible score was still 20, before comp. Unusually, comp modifiers could push you above 20 points for the round, although you couldn't get less than 0.

Here is my account of the event. As usual, most army lists will be from memory, so forgive me if they're not entirely correct. I've got 130 photos to post all told, so I'll be splitting the games up into separate posts to help make the pages load OK. The venue was quite dark, so you'll have to forgive my amateurish efforts to take photos under the conditions.


Game 1: Dawn Attack
Damien Cooper, Warriors of Chaos
My Boast: Assassinate (kill the enemy general)
  • Exalted Hero of Nurgle with Dragonhelm, Dawn Stone, Scaly Skin, Great Weapon
  • Sorcerer of Nurgle (Level 2, Lore of Nurgle) with Hideous Visage, Nurgle's Rot, Enchanted Shield, Sword of Battle
  • 20 Warriors of Nurgle with Shields, Full Command
  • Nurgle Chariot
  • Nurgle Gorebeast Chariot
  • 6 Nurgle Ogres with Great Weapons
  • 3 Dragon Ogres with Great Weapons
  • Mutalith Vortex Beast
  • Nurgle Giant
Comp score: 7.5 (yep, even softer than me)

First up, I was playing Damien Cooper with his very nice Nurgle Warriors of Chaos. Rather heroically (and perhaps ill-advisedly) his list included a Mutalith Vortex Beast, a Giant, an Exalted Hero as a general (so Ld 8) and no BSB. At least there was plenty of Nurgle across the board (including the Giant), so things were resilient. Somehow Damien finished 9th overall, which I would say was an excellent result given the limitations of his list.
Random deployment didn't really cause either of us a lot of grief.
Look, a Mutalith Vortex Beast! It's an actual thing!
Damien's army was very nicely presented. The Exalted Hero and Sorcerer are both in this unit.
My left flank, with the Firebelly and BSB in the Ironguts whilst the Tyrant hovers around nearby.
Damien won the roll-off to choose table sides and proceeded to roll for his deployment. He ended up with his forces heavily to my left, with only the Giant being forced onto the other flank. I wound up with most of my characters and Ironguts over on my left, with the Ironblaster, Mournfangs and Bulls supporting them from the centre. The Leadbelchers went on my right flank, and were kept company by my Sabretusks until they Vanguarded. I failed to steal the first turn, and Damien went first.
The Chaos forces advance warily.
Most of the Chaos forces were wary of the charge distance of the Ogres, with only the Mutalith and Gorebeast Chariot scooting around hard on my left flank, next to the building. The Giant decided to swing around to my right of the big rock on that flank, and seemed more concerned by my Leadbelchers than he probably should have been.
The Mutalith Vortex Beast knows no wariness. It barrels forward enthusiastically, waggling its mouth tentacle things in salutation.
In my turn I decided to charge the Mutalith with my flying Tyrant, and did a couple of wounds. I took one in return, but won combat and broke the beastie. Unfortunately he somehow eluded my pursuit, fleeing through the Gorebeast Chariot. I chased abysmally, and stopped right in front of the Chariot. Bummer.
The Vortex Beast gets away, and my Tyrant pulls up short of the Gorebeast Chariot, which was an embarrassingly small distance behind.
My centre hangs back a little, cagey like Damien's was.
My magic was exciting, with a boosted Fireball going off irresistibly. I killed 2 of the Nurgle Ogres, but my Firebelly was wounded and did 5 wounds to my own unit – so the net result of the spell was even on each side. The Leadbelchers did 2 wounds to the Giant after the Ironblaster failed to wound it.
The Leadbelchers knock a couple of wounds off the advancing Nurgle Giant. That extra point of toughness changes his durability so much.
My Firebelly gets a little excited and blows a hole in his own unit.
The Giant was apparently upset about being shot by the Leadbelchers, and decided to charge them. Unfortunately he found his path blocked when my Sabretusks suddenly got in the way, having fled a charge from the Dragon Ogres in the centre. The Nurgle Ogres decided to gamble on a long charge into my Ironguts and failed, leaving them slightly exposed to the counter-charge. The Gorebeast Chariot predictably charged into my Tyrant and did 2 wounds, leaving him with 2 more. He did 3 wounds in return and the combat was a draw. The Mutalith failed to rally and kept running, but didn't quite make it to Damien's table edge.
The Gorebeast crashes into the Tyrant as the Vortex Beast keeps running.
The Sabretusks flee from the Dragon Ogres, safe in the knowledge that the Giant has already declared his charge. Now they're just in the way!
The Chaos centre advances a little more.
In my third turn, things really started to happen. The Ogre Bulls went into the front of the Dragon Ogres, whilst the Mournfangs managed to swing around and get one of their number into the flank. This went predictably poorly for the Dragon Ogres, and though they killed one of my Ogres, they were broken and destroyed. My Sabretusks rallied in front of my Leadbelchers, who stepped across and fired again at the Giant to little effect. The Ironblaster continued to do no damage as well.
The Dragon Ogres are besieged.
There is an enthusiastic stampede as the remaining Dragon Ogre flees and is cut down.
You're going the wrong way!
The Sabretusks rally under the guidance of the Hunter, but they're kind of in harm's way.
On the other flank, my Tyrant managed to survived another round of attacks on a single wound before finishing off the Gorebeast Chariot. My Ironguts succeeded in charging their overly enthusiastic Nurgle counterparts, and obliterated them in a single round of combat before reforming to face toward the centre of the Chaos lines.
The Nurgle Ogres get themselves dead, but take some of my Ironguts with them.
My left flank is starting to look secure.
Things were going pretty well, but they were about to get a bit dicey. The Giant decided to swing past the Sabretusks and charge the Leadbelchers. He mashed one of them into the ground with his club, took no real damage in return, and they failed their Steadfast test before being run down. The Sabretusks and Hunter saw this apparently, and promptly rolled five 6s – 2 for the panic test, and then 3 for how far they fled, taking them the 12” they needed to reach the right edge of the table. Curses.
Run, he's too ugly!
If you're going to panic, do it properly. The Sabretusks of Courage show how it's done.
Oh sure, rally waaay back there. Very helpful.
On the other side of the field, the Mutalith decided to stop running right on the edge of the table before turning around and casting its spell at my mostly-dead Tyrant. I failed to stop it, and found myself taking 5 Toughness tests. I failed one, but to my amazement I passed my 4+ ward saves and lived to fight another turn. I lost an Attack due to the after-effects of the spell, but gained an Initiative in exchange. Great deal, eh? In the centre the Chaos Chariot moved to block my Ironguts, whilst the Chaos Warriors containing Damien's characters hurried across the table toward my Ironblaster.
The Chaos Chariot moves to intercept my Ironguts. That forest was to be the bane of their existence. It was a Wild Wood and it accounted for at least 2 Ironguts in its own right over a couple of rolls.
My right flank was gone and my centre was a bit confused, with my Mournfangs and Bulls being behind the Chaos Warriors and facing the wrong direction. This was made no better when the Bulls failed to reform swiftly, getting them in the way of the Mournfangs as they all tried to turn about and move to engage. The Ironblaster realised it wasn't quick enough to escape the advancing Warriors, and actually moved into their path a bit whilst firing once more at the Giant. This time the shot was true and the brute was removed, but alas it was too late for my forces on that side of the table.
Let's finish this!
My Tyrant was on a single wound and I agonised briefly over how brave I felt. In the end I decided to take the entertaining route and charged into the Mutalith, even though it would attack before I did. The gamble paid off when Damien rolled very few attacks and I didn't have to take a save. In return the Tyrant cut the beast down and reformed to face back toward the rest of the table. The Ironguts charged the Chariot and destroyed it in short order, overrunning across a bit further than I might have liked behind the Chaos Warriors.

In Damien's turn he didn't really have a whole lot left. He decided to charge the Ironblaster with the Chaos Warriors and I fled, taking me off the board and leaving his unit with its rear to my lines.
I just remembered, I left the stove on at home...
In my turn I think I tried to charge the Ogre Bulls into the rear of the Warriors, but they didn't make the distance because it was a pretty long way. The Mournfangs and Ironguts both advanced and tried to swing wide of each other to make it harder for the Warriors to keep them out of their flanks. The flying Tyrant shot back towards my other units, looking to get involved.
The remaining Chaos worshippers can feel someone following them.
Surfing back across the table, like a boss!
The Chaos Warriors turned around and managed to pass a Swift Reform test to back off, keeping all my units to their front (it had been a Ld 7 test without a reroll because of the Charnel Pit sitting nearby in my deployment zone). The Sorcerer gave the unit Regeneration in an attempt to prop them up in the combat ahead.
Turning to face the music.
It was my fifth turn when I charged. I considered holding off another turn, but was running out of time and it was possible I would somehow mess up and let them get away if I wasted another turn ensuring I had a flank charge. The Mournfangs and Ironguts both went in, whilst the Tyrant moved around to look at their flank the Ogre Bulls moved up behind the chargers.
Bring it on! The combat starts well, but things rapidly go downhill.
The combat was ugly for the Chaos unit. They failed their Fear test (Ld 7 again) and found themselves flailing about uselessly with WS 1. My forces killed 7 of them, but it was not enough to knock off their Steadfast and they held their ground. In Damien's final turn they fared better, and passed their Fear test. They then set about them rather brutally, culling the numbers of both my units. I did very little in return (stupid Mark of Nurgle) and found myself on the losing side of the combat. The remaining Mournfangs held, but the Ironguts turned and fled. This meant my BSB keeled over along with the unit standard, and suddenly things were looking less rosy.
Nothing ventured, nothing gained. The almost-dead Tyrant goes looking for the almost-dead Exalted Hero.
It was my final turn and I still wanted the points from the now rather depleted Chaos Warrior unit. I also wanted the 2 bonus points for assassinating the enemy general (my boast for the round), who was now on a single wound. I decided to gamble. I sent in the crippled Tyrant and the 2 generals faced off in an epic duel of Always Strikes Last. I fully expected us both to die, and the Chaos leader did indeed keel over and left me needing a 4+ ward save to survive. Once again to my amazement, I passed the test! The Mournfangs were reduced to a single model on one wound, but thanks to the duel I won the round of combat and the Warriors broke and were run down. The Chaos army had been wiped out in the very last phase of turn 6.

I felt like I had held the upper hand for most of the game, however the toughness of the Nurgle troops had nearly seen me throw away my advantage in the end. I had to gamble to capitalise on my early lead, and the game could have fallen apart. But I had been rewarded for my courage/foolishness. I had achieved my boast and prevented Damien from getting his, so I got the maximum 4 point bonus for that on top of my 12-4 win.

Result: 16-4 (15.5-4.5 after comp)

You can find the next game here

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