Lord-Aquilor (General) - Staunch Defender, Mirror Shield, Wind Runner
Lord-Castellant - Mirror Shield, Lantern of the Tempest
Knight-Azyros
10 Liberators
5 Judicators
5 Vanguard Hunters
2 Fulminators
3 Prosecutors w/Javelins
3 Prosecutors w/Javelins
3 Prosecutors w/Javelins
9 Vanguard Raptors w/Longstrike Crossbows
Vanguard Wing
So, it goes without saying that I had some major concerns when it comes to the well-being of my heroes. With the Aquilor able to teleport to table edges accompanied by the Raptors, and the Liberator wall able to jump between Prosecutor units, I was going to be seriously outmanoeuvred. This left me with a difficult dilemma. How do I catch an army in combat that is so fast, so evasive, and so devastating at range?
Going against this army forced me to think outside the box. Where my opponent had the ability to react to any moves I made, my only hope of winning was to give him a move so extreme, that he would have no other choice than react to it and it alone.
The scenario was Take and Hold, which means at any point from the start of Turn 3, if someone holds both objectives, its a major win. That was my glimmer of hope. My deployment was split into two halves. The whole Bloodbound contingent of my army will be dedicated to protecting my objective (represented by the white counter), while my Murderhost and Bloodthirster had a very specific job in mind. Slaughter their way to the enemy objective and claim the instant win.
Knowing full well the possible carnage that could be inflicted if the Letter Bomb made it into the Stormcast lines, my opponent castled in one corner, having the ability to leap around the board later in the game. The movement tricks made deployment an easy task for him, leaving a unit of Judicators just within range of a long bomb by the Bloodletters.
Elsewhere on the board, he dropped two units of Prosecutors on the back board edge to give him some more options for movement shenanigans. As you can see, behind the left-hand realm gate, his objective counter was completely unoccupied...
I made a 10" push with my Letterbomb, and whipped my Hounds and Skullmaster behind them to keep out of their way and allow them to launch unimpeded across the board. Then I made the decision to give my opponent first turn. There were two reasons for this; firstly, I wanted the option of double turning with the Letter Bomb and at this early stage of the game, there was only one unit within reach that would have exposed me horribly against a potential double turn back. Secondly, there wasn't a great deal of danger to my army from the Stormcast. All of his really scary ranged units were well out of range, and he wasn't about to expose his General and Raptors to a turn one death by launching within range of my juicy targets and in turn within range of my raging, murderous war host.
This turned out to be the right choice. While he was able to get all of his buffs off, he was indeed out of range of a lot of his shooting, and much to my opponent's dismay, his Knight-Azyros decided that now was a great time to shine his light brightly, and drop in a little earlier than planned. He landed on my left flank in an attempt to draw my small unit of letters away from the horde and exterminating them. Beside that, his turn one was largely uneventful.
Given a far more attractive target, my Letter Bomb did what it did, and broke the sound barrier crossing the board to punch on with the Dracothian cavalry. Unfortunately, my Slaughterpriest had a wee mental breakdown trying to give them +1 To Hit, and suffered three mortal wounds; not ideal, but Damned Terrain and numbers still gave them a Mortal wound trigger on a 4+. Even with all of this, I was only able to kill one and mildly wound the other. I'd like to quickly note here as well, that this tournament, I played the letter bomb at a disadvantage to accommodate the fact that their official base size has been changed to 32mm which obviously affects how many models can reach their foes and in turn, their damage output.
On my objective, I dropped the Bloodsecrator, and then bubble-wrapped all of my heroes in Blood Warriors and Reavers. The Bloodstoker was the only one to venture forward to whip the Thirster.
Then came my big play. I got the double turn, and my relatively healthy Letter Bomb retreated from combat (much to their disgrace in the eyes of Khorne) and retreated to flood the objective. They were joined by the Hounds and the Skullmaster (who had last turn pushed straight up the centre of the board. My Thirster, a shameful disappointment so far, pulled his finger out and decided that he could manage six wounds to kill the nearby Prosecuters, preventing any surprise Liberator arrivals.
It was at this point that my opponent realised what a precarious position I had managed to put him in. I had successfully applied so much pressure to his objective, that he had no choice but to dedicate his entire army to prevent an instant defeat if I won priority on turn three. And he didn't pull out any stops. The Aquilor/Raptor pairing shuffled back into their corner to get in range of everyone, the Vanguard Hunters entered the board, Judicators moved into range, and the Azyros began his sprint to aid his brothers.
In his scramble to prevent a loss, my opponent was desperately looking for a way to get bodies onto the objective in time. I'd managed to push all of his "board edge" tricks far away from being able to contest it, but in a casual comment (knowing that neither of us were going to reach the podium, and in the spirit of not tricking him out of a win, I pointed out that he could move his far-right Prosecutors toward the centre, then use the Vanguard Wing ability to daisy chain buffed up Liberators into the heat of the battle. He then capitalised on the move by using every shooting attack possible against the remaining Bloodletters, neutralising a huge threat, and opening up a path for his army to march onto the objective.
If luck permitted, of course.
To only add to the intensity of the game, with everything on the line, my Thirster, Hounds and Skullmaster all piled into the resolute defenders of Sigmar, and unleashed absolute hell upon them. The Bloodthirster finally decided that his deep-seated fury would overflow in a whirlwind of murder and bloodshed. The Liberators were absolutely butchered, and only managed to wound a single hound. This was another nail-biting moment, as I still needed five models and no nearby models to hold the objective. If he'd killed three hounds it would have been game over. But alas, he now faced a horribly vital Battleshock test. If he rolled a 4+, the Liberators would be slain, and a major victory would be mine! With a small audience at this point, the tension was palpable.
The dice launched into the air.
It bounced across the battlefield.
A two.
Heartbreak.
Having escaped a sudden and brutal demise, the Stormcast retaliated with the fury of Sigmar's hammer. The Bloodthirster drew the unfortunate attention of the Vanguard-Raptors and was turned into a punctured ballon by the ruthless snipers. The rest of the army dedicated all of its attention to slaying the Hounds and Skullmaster, reclaiming the objective for their Chamber.
Knowing that he wouldn't be able to chew his way to my objective, and with the knowledge that with one objective each, the minor victory would be decided by victory points, The Aquilor/Longstrike pairing jumped to my back board edge and spent the rest of the game picking off high-cost targets such as my Bloodbound heroes.
The game ended in a minor victory to my opponent based off Victory Points.
I'm actually really satisfied with how I played this game. I made a lot of right decisions, pulled out a double turn to force immense pressure onto my opponent. I knew that if I had any hope of winning, I couldn't let him control the board, despite his plethora of movement tricks. So I gave him threats that he simply could not ignore, dictating where he had to move, rather than where he could move.
In the end, I played for the scenario, and almost got him. It came down to a single Battleshock with 50/50 odds in an absolute nail biter! I have no regrets regarding the comments about the Liberators being able to move, as I don't think it would have been very sportsmanlike to try and hide that, and it only delayed possible defeat, rather than negating the possibility.
My opponent was a good friend, and as always, the game was entertaining and exciting from start to finish. I walked away from the game with no regrets on how I played. I did all I could, and Lady Luck denied me.
I ended up finishing around 20-24th, with a Major Loss, a Major Win and a Minor Loss. I wasn't able to get many Hero Kills, which really, really hurt my end result. All in all, it was a fantastic event with a very high quality of players, and I recommend Brisbane City Grand Tournament to anyone who is able to attend in the future!
Thanks for reading,
Gabe
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