Friday 6 January 2017

Panonnia Minor 2016. Tournament, Game #1


Last week our club organized it's first fantasy event in a while.
We organized a small 9th Age tournament with six players participating in it.
The main goal of the tournament was to have fun and to learn a thing or two about the rules of the game.
The tournament was played according to the latest version of the 9th Age rules (v1.3) and three games were played within the limit of 5000 points.
The original plan was to to play tournament on a Swiss-based system, but due to work obligations of one of the participants we decided to draw all the pairs up front.

Link to the tournament armies and lists

Results of the tournament


I brought my Warriors of the Dark Gods mono-Pestilence list to this tournament.
My intention was to bring a list which was both fluffy and strong on the table.
The opponents were friendly and competitive and we've all had a great time playing the 9th Age.

Now onto the battle reports...
Unfortunately, I don't have too many shots of the games, but I'll try my best to recreate the battles using snapshots from a video of the event.
You can find the video of the event on the bottom of this post.


GAME #1

Warriors of the Dark Gods VS. Undying Dynasties

Victory points: 20-0
Battle points: +3560
Deployment type: Classic
Secondary objectives: Break-through


Before I start the report, I have to note that my opponent usually plays WoDG and that this was his second time playing the Undying Dynasties.
I have to give props to the guy for bringing this unusually rare and tactically demanding army on the table for the sake of diversity.
This was also my first time playing against the UD, so I had a ton of fun.


Now onto the report.

I won the initial roll and chose the side of the table.
After my opponent deployed the first unit, I chose to deploy my whole army in order to get to play first. WoDG live to dive into battle, so this was pretty important to me in all of the games.

So during the deployment the board looks like this:


Before the first turn, 2 units of Skeleton cavalry and 2 units of Warhounds made their Vanguard moves.

I started my first turn moving pretty aggressively towards the UD lines.
I moved my Warhounds in the way of the opponent's monsters and chariots as I wanted to keep those threats chaffed-up by expendable units.
The Dragon took a safe route behind the impassable terrain and a hill on the opponents side of the board. He only has a 3+ Armor save and the Lucky shield to ignore the first hit, so I had to keep him safe.

During his first turn, the opponent moves the rightmost unit of the Skeleton cavalry very close to my lines. I had to get rid of those early in the game (while I could still catch them), since the Skeleton cavalry counts as a scoring unit, as I didn't want to give secondary objective points to my opponent so easily. We were playing Break-through secondary objective, in which the opponent with the most Scoring units in the opponent's Deployment Zone wins +3 Victory points at the end of the game.
I just didn't want to risk the possibility of them getting away with all those points.


During my second turn I charge my Warrior block into the rightmost Skeleton cavalry unit and my Bloodbeast into his Battle sphinx.

The Pestilence-marked Wasteland warriors (armed with Great Weapons, and Banner of Filth which grants Poisoned attack and deployed in a horde formation) were accompanied by a Pestilence Shamanism Sorcerer and my Palanquin Pestilence Harbinger BSB (also carrying the War banner for +1 combat score).
Between all those attacks, the Warriors killed the Skeleton cavalry to a man and reformed on a hill, facing the opponent's main combat line.


Bloodbeast charging his Sphinx was a whole different story, though.
I thought that Bloodbeast could survive this encounter and chaff this thing up a bit until the help arrives. After all, that thing was bound to the Lord and had WS 8, LD9, S6, T5, AS 4+, Hatred and 5 attacks plus Frenzy.
Boy, was I wrong...
I had no idea that this thing was friggin' T8 with 2 Tomb guards on it. I was wounding it on sixes.
To make the matter even worse, the Battle sphinx also had Lethal strike cast on the whole model, instead of just those two regular Necropolis guards.
So I rolled first, fluffed all of my to-wound rolls and when the Sphinx returned attacks, the Bloodbeast promptly died.
I also move my Dragon Lord behind my opponent's lines and I move 5 Wasteland knights closer to the center of the table during the movement phase.



My opponent's charges the unit of 6 Pestilence trolls with his Battle sphinx and Shabtis during second turn.  They did a lot of wounds, while also being protected by a 5+ ward save granted by a nearby Tomb architect.
However, the trolls hold their ground due to a lot of lucky 4+ Regeneration saves.




The opponent turns his two main fighting blocks (Necropolis guard with a Pharaoh and Tomb architect & Skeletons with 2 mages) toward my Dragon lord.
The dragon takes 2 or 3 wounds during the magic phase.



During my third turn, I combo charge his chariots in the middle of the board with Pestilence Wasteland knights, Pestilence Battle Shrine and the Wasteland warriors horde.
The Wasteland knights make all of their dangerous terrain tests (had to charge over a wall)
They destroyed all of the chariots and the Knights then overran into the flank of the Shabtis, while the Warriors positioned themselves facing the rear of the Necropolis guard unit.
Dragon lord charges the Skeleton horde positioning itself right by the edge of the board, just out of the sight of the Necropolis guard units. This was a major mistake in my opponent's positioning.
Had he wheeled that unit a bit, they would have brought a ton of  Lethal strike attacks, probably finishing off the Dragon in that same turn.
This fight with the Skeleton horde will last until my opponent's turn 5, resulting in a fully crumbled unit and two dead mages.

In the remaining turns I charge my unit of Pestilence warriors into the Necropolis guard.
The Trolls and Knights manage to grind the Battle sphinx and Shabtis to dust and the Warriors destroy the Necropolis guard unit.
Pharaoh gets killed by Pestilence BSB in a challenge due to Necrotic Miasma gift, which granted him S3 Armour piercing (6) Breath attack. Poisoned attacks took care of the Pharaoh's last remaining wound, if I remember correctly.
By the end of the turn 5 my opponent only has a unit of Skeleton Cavalry and a unit of 3 Skeleton Chariots in my deployment zone (both Scoring units).


In my turn 6, I move my 3 Scoring units (Warriors, Knight, Trolls) into my opponent's deployment zone, seizing the Secondary objective and gaining 3 additional Battle points.
During this game, I lost a unit of 8 Warhounds, a Bloodbeast and my ambushing Fallen beast (I completely forgot about it and didn't even roll any of the Ambush attempts).
The end result is a 20-0 victory for WoDG.




To be honest, this was a very interesting battle since neither side had an upper hand in the fight until turn 4, when all those WoDG combo charges took place.
After a turn of heavy close-combat fighting, the battle unfolded very quickly.
The magic phase was pretty uneventful throughout the game.



So that's it!

Stay tuned for more and check out the links at the bottom of the post.

 

Best regards and may the Dice gods bless your rolls!

Silver Wolf


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A short video of the tournament was made by GRUMPI GUY.

For more updates, like and subscribe to GRUMPI GUY's channel.
If you're interested in top-notch painting, wargaming and Warhammer 40k, I recommend following this guy's channel. The channel is still pretty new, but expect a lot of various great updates in the future, since this guy means business!



Our gaming club, Panonnia Minor also has it's own Facebook page which you can like and follow:
(every post also has an English translation, just click "Read more" if it doesn't show up immediately)



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