Last weekend I took my Brothermark army down to the London GT for one of the most interesting tournament experiences ever.
I’ve been flirting with Brothermark since their arrival in third edition, but never quite got my head around the best way to put them on the table, either from a models or army list point of view. Since the refresh in the 2022 CoK book I’ve always thought they’ve had quite a few structural similarities with Ratkin (although everything hits harder), and then about three weeks ago Serendipity struck and I suddenly found myself with a list I thought might be viable and a Basilean army that would make up the core of the force. I also had sufficient stuff in my bits box to cover the units that aren’t supported by Mantic (villains and Initiates). A couple of test games later and I was quite excited about the weekend.
The GT
I’d heard a lot of mixed views of LGT, so I wasn’t overly sure what to expect. However, I figured that whatever else was going on there a few games of Kings of War with any of the great people I meet through the UK tournament scene couldn’t make for anything less than a reasonable day out.
To be fair I was quite impressed. Despite there only being six players, we were on the main floor. For those who don’t know LGT is a massive gaming event where a vast number of systems are represented in the middle of a running track. This weird juxtaposition gave, in my view, the best of both worlds; a small friendly event with the atmosphere of a much larger one. Parking was ample, and free, and there were some great food trucks outside for lunch.
Our little corner of that world was well run by Clive, with some great prize support as it was a Mantic run event. Frankly I couldn’t have wanted more for a relaxed day of gaming. The only slight downside was a lack of woods and walls on the gaming tables (and then I only raise this particular issue because I ended up playing a Varangur army twice that included three Magus Conclaves, a Chimera and mage on a horse with Alchemist Curse). That being said the TO did find some woods for all the tables for the final game (just how much that helped me is questionable, but that’s undoubtedly a me thing).
The List
My 2,300 points consisted of:
Horde of Villain Penitents
Horde of Spear armed Men at Arms with Veteran Command
Troop of Villain Skirmishers
Regiment of Initiates of the Brothermark with Helm of Confidence
Regiments of the Order of the Abyssal Hunt (2) – one with Brew of Sharpness and one with Sir Jesse’s Boots
Ancient Pheonix
High Paladins on Dragons (2)
Exemplar Chaplain – with Fury Aura
Exemplar High Paladin – with horse, duelist, Gnome Glass Shield, Aegis Fragment
Augustus
Game 1 Vs Nature, Control
This was a great match up to start the day, not only is Seb an all-round great person but his army (that would go on to take best painted) is beautiful. Seb’s army is a nice mix of elementals with a couple of hordes of shamblers, a tree herder, a hydra, a couple of druids, and a unicorn.
Seb focussed his force in the centre and to my left. With some really durable units and a lot of surge I was worried a wrong move could open up lots of juicy flanks for Seb’s forest dwellers. I split my army across the board with the infantry in the centre, the Abyssal Hunt to their left with a dragon and the initiates on the far right with the other dragon.
The dragons swept down the flanks and distracted the units on the edge of nature’s tightly packed ranks. On my left air elementals went dragon hunting, but thanks to a well-placed house they were unable to charge me. On the right the hydra and a horde of water elementals responded.
In the centre the cavalry and infantry moved forward steadily readying to charge. As the dragons and initiates joined combat on the flanks, the skirmishers and mounted high paladin rode forward to distract nature’s front before the Abyssal Hunt unleashed their charges. The knights were devastating, splintering forest shamblers and leaving behind trampled kindling.
The Phoenix charged the tree herder in the fourth turn and the two remained locked together in a futile fight for the remainder of the game, meanwhile the dragons broke the flanks before struggling against a greater water elemental and a horde of earth elements. As the Brothermark’s titans deadlocked against their opponents the rest of the army spread out to claim objectives. In the final round the druids surged the greater water elemental into my central scoring zone claiming 2 points, however the knightly order took the day claiming 4 points worth of areas.
Game 2 Vs Varangur, Invade
This was undoubtedly the list I didn’t want to face, but with so few players it was almost inevitable I would. There were two hordes of frostfangs, one with brew of Sharpness, three magnus conclaves, a regiment of tundra wolves, a draugr regiment, a regiment of the Sons of Kourgan, a theign on a frostfang, a mounted mage with Alchemists’ curse and a chimera.
It was during this game that I realised none of the tables had woods or walls on them, which combined with the placement of the hills meant I had very little natural protection against an army that ignored the terrain that was there and had some pretty powerful shooting. However, I was about to see just how durable the Brothermark actually are.
I set up in the same way as before. In the centre, across from my infantry were the frostfangs, to my left were the conclaves and on my far right the sons of Kourgan, the chimera and a regiment of draugr, facing one of my dragons and the initiates.
The shooting was pretty good, dealing out about six wounds to one of my knight regiments in the first turn, however a combination of iron resolve, the phoenix and Augustus quickly removed that.
The Varangur pushed forward hard in the centre, blocking my knights up with chaff and munching through my penitents. Fortunately, though one of the frostfang hordes wasn’t able to wipe out a knight regiment in one go, leaving a flank open to the dragon on the left, and the fight back began.
On the right flank the dragon and initiates played cat and mouse with the chimera and the Sons until shooting started to take its toll on the dragon and wavered it. A successful headstrong roll though allowed the beast to make one final charge into the second frostfang horde and hold it up.
The speed of the Varangur, and them taking the first turn, meant that the fighting mostly took place in my half of the table. As a result, my spearmen were struggling to reach the opponents half of the table despite the enemy being largely wiped out. At the end of the game the chimera and the draugr were the only remaining scoring units for the northmen. The Brothermark still had the phoenix, a dragon and my spear horde intact, however the Varangur had done enough to keep them all out of their area and managed a 3-0 win.
Game 3 Vs Nightstalkers, Fool’s Gold
With two regiments of shadow hounds on the table and a terror I was really intrigued to see just how well these newly buffed units would perform. In addition, there were two hordes of butchers, some needle fangs, a regiment of phantoms, a horde of scarecrows, a regiment of blood worms, a regiment of doppelgangers, a portal of despair, a banshee and a planar apparition.
For this scenario I generally have two ways of distributing my tokens which are dependent on whether I have a grindy horde army (put them all in the centre) or a faster army (put them all around the sides). I still wasn’t completely sure at this stage what type of army my Brothermark was. They have some speed, but none of the 40/50mm scoring units most alpha strike lists can access, they are grindy, but they have a very finite supply of units. So, I opted to put all my scoring tokens in the centre.
I set up as I had done previously. On my left were the shadow hounds, the centre consisted of pretty much everything else, with the terror and phantoms on my right. I had placed my zero point objectives on the right, and my initiates and dragon did their best to convince the stalkers that they were worth something, which failed miserably. So, they switched tactics to giving the phantoms a run around. In the centre my worst fears materialised, and the terror proceeded to devour my two infantry hordes in two turns, with the help of a butcher horde. A rear charge from a dragon put a stop to the butchers but the terror remained. Fortunately, my knights and the other dragon managed to clean up the shadow hounds and scarecrows in the centre before the terror had finished its first course, so were able to avoid the ugly brute for the rest of the game.
The dragon on the right flank eventually got tired of playing dodge the phantoms and ventured into the centre where, after removing the butchers, he worked his way through the bloodworms and dopplegangers. Things were generally looking good for the Brothermark until a couple of issuetes cropped up. The first was that one of the two point tokens was underneath a horde of butchers that had effectively been boxed in by a game long duel between the phoenix, the needle fangs and the portal of despair. No one was killing anyone. For the first couple of turns this had all been good fun, until it became apparent that the deadlock was preventing me from getting other units in to deal with the butchers. Consequently, I found myself having to withdraw my faster units to claim objects my opponent had placed away from where the butchers were placed. Having worked out a plan to grab objectives in turn six the next issuete raised its nasty little head. I had lost track of the turns and my carefully cultivated plan for turn six was now redundant because I made it at the end of turn six.
My opponent rolled for turn seven. I crossed just about anything I could cross. The dice hit the table, I let out a sigh of relief. There was a turn seven. The knights made their way to their objectives and managed to disorder the banshee as they did so, removing the windblast and enthral shenanigans from the game, and claiming a 4:2 victory.
Game 4 Vs Varangur, Dominate
And so, I found myself facing the same army I had faced in game two. It’s never a great feeling facing an army you only recently lost to, it feels like standing at the bottom of a very steep hill. However, I was determined to do better this time. In order to improve I decided to try something different.
I had been quite shocked by the efficiency of the northmens’ shooting in the previous game, and so decided to try a new approach. On one side of the dominate circle I placed my dragons, phoenix, initiates, and mounted high paladin. In response my opponent placed his conclaves, chimera, tundra wolves and a horde of frostfangs. On the other side I placed the remainder of the force. The hope was that my fastest moving units could distract his shooting long enough for the rest of the army to surge forward into a winning position.
As plans go, it wasn’t the worst. The troops on the left managed to heal off most of the damage from the shooting, kill the wolves and even one of the conclaves before heading into the centre. The war of attrition on the right saw both armies take considerable losses until once again a small number of scoring units remained on the table. The Varangur held the centre with the last remaining frostfang horde and the chimera in turn six and a regiment of daugr blocked the last regiment of knights from scoring. Fortunately for me a seventh turn was rolled, and the Abyssal Hunt steamrollered the draugr and finish their follow up in the dominate circle with my last remaining dragon to make the final game a draw.
Final thoughts
Bringing the Brothermark to the table has been an absolutely brilliant experience. I was really happy with the list’s performance overall. What stood out for me was its durability. The combination of healing and high nerve that was possible through rallying really kept units on the table. The Order of the Abyssal Hunt were absolutely terrifying, and to think the first list had included three of these units, I might have another look at that. It’s now put me in something of a quandary as I look towards The Meansqueaks of Bristol as to whether this is the army I take, or do I return to the Halflings?
Whilst only a small event in terms of number my results put me in second place, which is something of a trifling consideration when compared to how relaxed, fun and friendly the day was. A massive thanks to Clive and all my opponents.
The Wizard's Bookshelf 