The Road to Masters part 2!

So on a frosty January morning I turned up at Mantic HQ for the UK masters to finally declare who was Kings of War 2022 Champion! After 14 tournaments I was 9th in the rankings. As I also had best in race for Free Dwarfs I took them and my list comprised of;

Ironclad (Infantry) Regiment (20) [125] 
   – Throwing Mastiff [15]
Ironclad (Infantry) Regiment (20) [125] 
   – Throwing Mastiff [15]
Ironclad (Infantry) Regiment (20) [125] 
   – Throwing Mastiff [15]
Ironclad (Infantry) Regiment (20) [125] 
   – Throwing Mastiff [15]
Free Dwarf Berserkers (Infantry) Regiment (20) [165] 
Free Dwarf Brock Riders (Cavalry) Troop (5) [125] 
Free Dwarf Brock Riders (Cavalry) Regiment (10) [195] 
Mastiff Hunting Pack* (Swarm) Regiment (3) [80] 
   – Throwing Mastiff [15]
Mastiff Hunting Pack* (Swarm) Regiment (3) [80] 
   – Throwing Mastiff [15]
Mastiff Hunting Pack* (Swarm) Regiment (3) [80] 
   – Throwing Mastiff [15]
Mastiff Hunting Pack* (Swarm) Regiment (3) [80] 
   – Throwing Mastiff [15]
Greater Earth Elemental (Titan) 1 [255] 
   – Craggoth & Kholearm [25]  
   – Fireball (10)
Herneas the Hunter [1] (Hero (Infantry)) 1 [135] 
Free Dwarf Packmaster (Hero (Infantry)) 1 [100] 
   – Mastiff Munchberries [10]
Berserker Lord (Hero (Infantry)) 1 [150] 
   – Wings of Honeymaze [40]
Berserker Lord (Hero (Cavalry)) 1 [145] 
   – Brock Mount [30]  
   – Blade of Slashing [5]
Sveri Egilax on Hellbrock [1] (Hero (Large Cavalry)) 1 [210]

It is a toolbox army with a lot of different elements to enable it to deal with anything (to a degree). I hadn’t played a lot with them at 2300pts so rejigged my list to fill in the gaps. The main thing was Craggoth and Kholearm. It added the crushing strength and high defence I was lacking and with it’s extra rules it meant it could operate alone and act as a pivot for the rest of the army to work around. The list also lacked long range punch so added in Herneas (I used the girl ranger model so it was actually Hernea!) the Hunter. It was a compromise between a cannon or rangers and more versatile. The last addition was the regiment of Bezerkers to add some late game punch. I’d have preferred a troop and had to drop the pathfinder on them and the brocks as I needed the unlock.

The basic idea of the army is a line of 4 mastiff (3D printed badgers!) with throwing dogs (actually badgers) with 4 regiments of dwarfs behind with throwing badgers. The pack master sits in the middle with the vicious aura (and inspiring) giving a nasty battery of short range shooting. The extra speed of the badger packs give a surprising amount of board control and mitigate dwarfs natural slowness. There is usually 1-3 turns of moving forward avoiding the throwing dogs and by the time the lines meet there is a turn or two of getting through the chaff. By then they don’t have enough time to chew through those cheap def 5 dwarf units and I win on unit strength. The rest of the army is there as a distraction to make this happen! Many players go one about how powerful certain units are and need ‘nerfing’ but the best unit in this army is the humble Dwarf regiment. It wins games.

The draw was made the week before and we got to see the altered scenarios, lists and the draw as to who we were facing first round. So here we go…..

Round 1!

I drew against John Quayle, UK number 3 and organiser of the UB Quayle Cup tournament. I’ve played him twice before and lost both times BUT I haven’t lost to Nightstalkers with this army so it could have gone either way.

We played a control style scenario where a 12” line runs down the centre of the table, cut into 3 sections, the middle worth 3 and the outer 2 worth 2 for a total of 7 scenario points. Add a possible 3 kill points and each game was worth a maximum of 10. There was no wins/losses/draws to affect the rankings. I weighted my left flank with Sveri and brocks and then the mastiff(badgers!)/ironclad battlegroup. Herneas, Craggoth and the bezerkers held the right.

John had annoyingly put all his juicy targets for my honeymaze lord behind other units and slowly advanced. One of us had to break first so I sacrificed the brock troop to get Sveri and the regiment in and they took out the scarecrows. As much as I wanted to take out his nastier units, I had to take out his unit strength to win. His phantoms flew in and bounced and that worked in my favour as that meant his other units couldn’t get in. He finally went for it with his soulflayers but my mass thrown dogs brutalised them and with Herneas long range wound chipping, managed to get rid of them. I had some good luck with a double 1 on Sveri which held my left flank for an extra turn but by the end I had all 3 board sections and he only had a unit or two left and I got the maximum 10 points! An awesome start!

Round 2!

So I strutted into game 2 thinking I was Jonny Big Bollocks with delusions of winning everything and that promptly failed…. It was against Simon Coopers Abyssal Dwarf List which was primarily 3 Hellfanes and 3 hordes of decimators. I wasn’t scared, I outdistanced him, I had the tools to take out his chaff and shut down his shooting and could out manoeuvre him to claim the objectives.

That didn’t work. At all. I went forward as planned, Herneas pelting one Hellfane and wearing it down, Craggoth taking on one of the others Hellfanes. I think the only mistake I truly made was sacrificing Sveri taking out a bezerker troop but the rest just didn’t go my way. My shooting was utterly abysmal (1 wound out of 16 shots….) and Simon didn’t fail a nerve roll, just taking off unit after unit. I then had to throw all my reserves into the fray and the same thing happened to them. The brock lord nearly managed to out grind a decimator horde but obviously failed his nerve check and died. Simon is a nice guy and fun to play but I always have the worst luck against him as a similar thing happened last time I played him too. Maybe he’s cursed. I got 1 kill point.

Round 3!

Me and Richard Laking with his Ratkin were on the livestream so my failure could be witnessed by everyone. It was always going to be close as we both had a lot of short range shooting and it was a dominate with a lot of central terrain. I used the trees as cover and unleashed my badger barrage…. Only to double 1 the nightmare unit in the centre. My bezerkers failed to rout his vermin tide and Craggoth bounced too and I never really recovered from that one lousy turn. I used my brock troop and Sveri to shut down and kill his flying demon and come back to the centre but too late. The main thing that swung the game was the tunnel runners with brew of sharpness getting a very tight cheeky flank charge coming off the hill into craggoths flank. I threw 3 units in after that but thanks to all his rally and heal I just couldn’t break them. It was a hard grind which I eventually lost and he got a convincing win 9-3 if I remember correctly.

Round 4!

A lovely meal and an early night and I was good to go against Mike Smiths Forces of Nature the next morning. It was a scenario where we place loot like objectives and Mike decided to be a little shitbag and place his in the 4 corners as far as he could. He had the air formation and a lot of fly and surge units backed up by a lot of magic. It meant I had more units so sent two into the corners to pick them up and sent Craggoth ahead. With his fireball he managed to waver the scorch wings and hunt them down to claim that loot and the centre was a melee that went back and forth several times…. Which ended in a draw! We both netted 3 scenario points and 2 kill points each! I’ve not beaten Mike before so this was a pretty good result for me!

Round 5!

The final round was against Richard Miles and his Riftforged Orcs. It was a Push scenario BUT you couldn’t start with all the tokens on a single unit which meant we actually had to think! I generally out ranged him but he had an obscene amount of killy def5 units! Again using Herneas to pick at a giant, I threw Sveri and the Brocks down there left flank to hopefully take out his token force there and swing in later game. While the Brocks were stuck there (brock riders suck. I don’t like them) Sveri used his nimble to squeeze past and I managed a mulit charge on his horde with him, Craggoth and the brock troop. The troop did terribly and overall and I didn’t break them. I only just survived the counter charge and flank from a regiment and my punch back took them off. This meant I could get Sveri around the back and get a rear charge on the other horde and take them off too! The other flank unleashed shooting hell on the giants and then I used chaff to hold everything up before the bezerkers could get in and roll up the flank. I used Herneas and the pack master to keep chipping away and managed to take off a couple of things too so I finished the game on maximum points!

End results.

It got me 8th place and as my rankings position was 9th I can’t complain at that. The army played well for me but I’m bored after playing it so much. I think in the future I’ll take out the brock riders for a scouting horde of shield breakers and get some rangers in there so I can try new things. That won’t be for a while though as I have plenty of other toys to play with first!

Chris Lynch got his Masters Crown (well, helmet) and it was well deserved as he’s put the time and effort in for it. Some people in the past have said they don’t like Masters as it’s too competitive but as most of the players there were from my region and we all new each other it was just as relaxed as normal, if not more so! I’ve done it once so don’t feel the need to do it repeatedly-I’ve proved my worth and you can have too much of a good thing and I don’t want to get tournament burnout. It’s just one aspect of a hobby that has many facets to it and I enjoy all of them. It’s just nice to turn one up to 11 at times! I didn’t get to face Ed Herzig and reclaim my pride for losing my Forces of Nature crown but he’s a jolly nice chap so I guess I can let him off. Most importantly, I finished one place above Rob Hutson proving without a doubt that Free Dwarfs are better than Imperial Dwarfs. 

I’m going to an Ambush tournament next with my Trident realms using models that haven’t seen the table in 3rd Edition. Should be a nice palette cleanser!