Last Saturday 18 players gathered for a cheeky day of Kings of War. This was the third tournament I’ve run this year, and I couldn’t have been happier with the turnout, not to mention the prize support provided by Mantic.
After having had a really good showing at the Southwest Clash I decided to take my Halflings again and see if we could pull off a couple of wins. However, in addition to my TO and player duties my young son, eight, had decided he also wanted to come along to watch the first game. So far, he’s given Ambush a try and has developed a worrying fondness for Nightstalkers, today was about finding out what daddy gets up to when he disappears for a box of toys. Of everything that was going on I have to admit estimating how long he would find watching me remove models from the table interesting was what weighed heaviest on my mind.
My halfling list consisted of:
Horde of Braves (1)
Regiments of Juggers (2)
Regiments of EJ Grenadiers (1)
Regiment of Aeronauts (1)
Hordes of Forest Trolls (2)
Troop of Wild Lancers (1)
Iron Beast with Pride of the Shires
Saucerors (2) – 1 with mount
Muster Captains on Winged Aralez (3)
I haven’t played halflings since the Southwest Clash, way back in July, so it’s fair to say I was a little out of practice, but I was looking forward to giving the little people a run out. I find this list really fun to play because of the nimble units and the unpredictable nature of gastromancy.
I remember them doing quite well in their last outing, winning three of their five games. However, whilst the army did quite well at objective grabbing, kills were definitely not their strong point. I hoped I might be able to improve on that this time around.
Game 1, Loot vs Riftforged Orcs
Looking at three hordes of manticore riders, two troops of riftwalkers, Thonar, a storm giant, a horde of thunderseers and a couple of stormbringers on manticores is not the best way to wake up on a Saturday morning. I much prefer a bacon roll and a nice mug of tea. Although I’ve played against ritforged orcs before this was my first time going against the flying circus version of their list. Riftforged orcs, I have found, are a great counter to my halflings. They are durable and really killy, this list gives them tons of mobility as well. My other issue with these orcs is Thonar. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think he’s broken, I don’t even think he’s too cheap, but he offers a real issue for a list like mine where there is a chance he could one shot most of my units, and failing that cause me problems by reducing melee stats on units that don’t make too much of a dent.
We both lined our armies up opposite each other in the centre and to my left. The loot counters were set up nice and evenly with one in the centre and one on either side. I decided to deploy a troll horde on the far right. I was hoping putting something like the trolls on their own might tempt the orcs to deploy either one of their manticore hordes on the far right or a couple of smaller units. Sadly, they didn’t fall for it and a lone stormbringer was placed opposite the trolls who I fully expected to ignore them in favour of harassing my flanks.
Given the speed advantage I had thanks to my gastromancy and the muster captains the orcs decided to hang back and shelter in the woods on their side of the table. In retrospect I probably could have waited for them to come forward, but I decided to press the attack and by the second turn I was fully committed on the right flanks with muster captains tying up one horde of manticores and the giant and whilst the grenadiers and lancers blocked the riftwalkers and thunderseers.
In the centre a few shots from the Iron Beast peppered the other riftwalkers, but the orcs shruggered the shooting off. As predicted the stormbinger on the left flew past the trolls, looking for flanks on my central units. The trolls began to follow them, hoping to act as a deterrent.
Things were starting to get messy on the right. Inadvertently I had left a flank open on my aeronauts, which a manticore horde took full advantage of. Worse, two rounds of combat between two of my muster captains and another horde of manticores had resulted in hardly any damage on the orc fliers, missing wavering them by one point and a dead dog.
The one bit of respite I had on the right flank was that Thonar became embroiled in a combat with another muster captain which distracted him from the rest of the table. The halflings put up a brave struggle managing to take down the manticores that had destroyed the aeronauts, but they just weren’t able to kill the orcs quickly enough. As right flank collapsed, and the centre started to fall apart the trolls that had been on the right flank made their way back to the loot counter they had been eyeing up at the start of the game. By the end of the game they had managed to secure the loot and save the halfings from a zero point loss to start the day.
Game 2, Pillage vs Undead
Zombies. Loads of them. There were a couple of individuals, a balefire catapult, two regiments of wraiths and a horde of wights, but mostly just zombies.
I was not overly hopeful about the outcome of this game. As I’ve mentioned before, my halflings aren’t especially killy and this army had a core of three hordes and two legions of zombies, not to mention a horde of ghouls for good measure.
I remembered something I had listened to about detailing with these types of army, which was to not try and kill everything, focus on the scenario, and deal with one bit of the army at a time. To this end I put the majority of my army on my left. There were a number of objectives on that flank that I hoped my fast-moving units could secure. I was also hoping that by trying to clean up on the left of the table and in the centre, his units on the right would be too slow to get over to provide support.
For good measure I also placed a regiment of juggers on the right, behind a hill, close to a couple of objectives, my thinking being that if they could avoid getting killed they might be able to contest, or even win an objective late game.
The plan worked reasonably well. The muster captains and juggers took care of a regiment of wraiths and a horde of ghouls with reasonable ease. However, a vampire on foot threatened to cause problems. With no troops left to command she started harassing my muster captains. Given her number of attacks and resilience I was worried she might end up killing one of the captains, so she couldn’t be ignored. I decided to bite the bullet and use two of the captains and a sauceror to get rid of her. It may have distracted them for two turns, but it was absolutely worth it as by turn four the objectives on the right flank were secured.
The centre was not quite so easy. Here the dead would just not, well, die. A legion and a horde of zombies took quite a bit of shifting, threatening my grasp on the centre most objective. However, a hindered flank charge by wights into my brave horde failing to dislodge them allowed a horde of forest trolls to destroy the wights and turn their attention to the right flank where in the final turns of the game the brave juggers were starting to get surrounded.
The remaining wrath regiment attempted to surge into them but missed them by an inch. I breathed a sigh of relief, as that combat was only likely to go one way. The wrath’s final position gave my knights an opportunity for a flank charge on a zombie legion. They failed to take the legion off, and did not survive the counter-attack, but the damage done meant the trolls that had just destroyed the wights could also remove the zombies, claiming a final objective and giving the halflings a 5:2 win.
Game 3, Invade vs Riftforged Orcs
For the second time I found myself against the greenskin menace once again. This army was a little more varied with the formation, a legion of fight wagons, a horde of thunderseers, Thonar, a shaman, a shrine, a giant, a manticore horde and a stormbringer.
Not really sure of the best way to deal with the angry green menace on the other side of the table I decided to castle up and hope for the best. Whilst I was largely faster than the orcs, I was worried that splitting my force would leave battle groups that would not be sufficiently tough enough to deal with smaller groups of orc units steamrollering them into the ground. In addition to this the scenario meant I needed to have a go at stemming the orc migration before it happened as there would be no time to cross back into my half to fight them once I had made it to the other side.
The game played out in much the same way as the first game as I tried to block up units with my muster captains on the left flank whilst the centre attempted to hold off the worst of their units for as long as possible. Unfortunately, a concerted effort by the orcs in the centre meant the braves were quickly ground down and routed. The halflings on the left flank were far more successful though killing all the orc infantry, their giant, Thonar, and their fight wagons. It was not enough though. Battle damage and magic took their toll (despite spellward). By the fifth turn the Halflings did have more unit strength on my opponent’s side of the table, but it was all in pretty poor health and so easily taken down by what remained of the orcs leaving me with nothing but a single sauceror.
Final thoughts
All in all, today was not a great day to be a halfling. Whilst fun and flexible to field the list just lacks a decent punch which makes rift forged orcs a problematic match up as they can both take punishment and dish it out in equal measure. I do wonder if splitting my army rather than castling up would have been a better option. After all the army has a lot of nimble and didn’t really get the opportunity to use it. I think a few more practise games wouldn’t go amiss. Thos will have to wait though as I have the Bullrun on the horizon it looks as though I’ll be taking the Brothermark.
As to how my son got on… to my surprise he stayed, completely voluntarily, for all three games and helped hand out the prizes at the end. He spent quite a bit of time nosing through the Big Red Book and we are now putting together a 1k army of Nightstalker proxies for his first proper(ish) game next week. So, all in all a bit of win all around.
The day absolutely flew by between the admin, the games and my son. I hope everyone had an enjoyable time, and I look forward to seeing you all at future events.
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