After last year’s changes, the most excitement being caused by the inadvertent “removal” of the Birthing Daughter who managed to miss her Big Red Book appointment but subsequently returned to us in the Companion App, this year’s update is pretty substantive, and I’m really excited about it.
Whilst I enjoy a good tournament, I’m not particularly competitive minded so my army selection tends to be a lot more based around rule of cool, and what I can be assed to paint. Whilst you’d be mistaken for thinking otherwise based purely on my win to loss ratio, as a faction, Ratkin are in a good place I believe with the usual suspects acquitting themselves well. However, there are a handful of units that need some love. So, it’s really welcome to see that this year’s changes are a combination of core changes that affect most of the other factions (cheaper phalanx, titan unit strength, redeploy, and menu-based wizards) and tinkering to units that sit on my “I’d like to take them to tournaments, but this unit is just more useful…” list.
Plague pots and Phalanx
I’m really happy to see plague pots get a price reduction, this was one of those changes I hadn’t really thought about until I realised the Twilight Kin’s Bloodhex (which gives +1 to defence for a turn) was priced at 5/5/10. Plague pots are great, but are they really more impactful than a defence bump for a turn. I’ve always wondered why anyone would bother taking phalanx for shock troops or spear warriors when plague pots exist, but with the points reductions for all of these I’m certainly tempted to see how much value there is in these upgrades.
I think possibly the best bang for your buck in all these changes is with the spear warriors. Not only do they benefit from more attacks, but also get a boost to unit strength for the 10 points more they cost than warriors, and now have the expendable key word as well.
It will be interesting to see if shock troops bring more halberds to the table. Personally, I see me giving phalanx to regiments because the combined cost of pots and halberds is the same as the old cost of pots, but I’m not sure about hordes. That being said, at 10 points for a horde instead of 25 I definitely see it becoming more of a consideration.
My one question about plague pots remains – was hackpaws not getting a cost reduction oversight or intentional?
Night Terrors, Swarn-Criers and Scurriers
These are the changes I’m most excited about. I really like night terrors, but having them in the heroes section just made them such a stretch to unlock. Having them as a monster now means they’ve already made their way into my next event list. The rally 1 is frankly the icing on top of the cake. Other than using Scud, I’ve found it hard to effectively rally faster moving units, but I don’t always want the demonspawn babysitting my tunnel runners. Being able to sit a night terror and the improved swarm-crier between a couple of regiments of tunnel runners means Scud (now 10 points cheaper) can make a nuisance of himself elsewhere on the battlefield creating two sources of reliable, fast threats for the opponent to deal with.
Finally, the scurriers have gotten their extra two attacks. Thematically I really like to use this unit, but they’ve just felt a bit lacking. Stealthy is a massive bonus. I will still take plague pots for this unit because when they’re fully rallied I have a suspicion they’ll become surprisingly hard to shift with a bit of ensnare.
Vermintide Legions
I have a legion painted up and will definitely be looking to use them at some point. There are a number of changes that have been made to this unit, but probably the best is that it is no longer irregular. Unlocking this unit always felt like a bit of a luxury, however having it as an unlocking unit, not only do I think it has the potential to be a great core unit for an army but also give more of a reason to bring the Birthing Daughter to the table.
A la carte magic
I’m not going to dwell on the game wide change to magic users, but I am just going to sat that a 15 point reduction on a lightning bolt 5 caster is nothing to be squeaked at.
So, what does this mean for my rats in the coming weeks?
All in all, this year’s changes bode well for another year of rat-based antics. The changes will definitely see me dabbling in some alternative builds. List building is already underway for the Christmas Reaper event in Bexley. I’ll be running out 2,345 of rodents and I now have a couple of ideas for lists, one built around tunnel runners, a swarm crier and a night terror, and one list bringing the vermintide legion to the table with a bunch of different synergies; but more on that later.
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.
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.
It feels like a while since someone last did one of these top five things, so I thought I may as well throw out a spicy tidbit of opinion to kick start a bit of a conversation about a unit type I don’t see very often, but I love playing.
Nimble cavalry such as Gur Panthers, Mounted Scouts and Tundra Wolves are a regular sight on the battlefield, but normally in troops. The are well regarded as chaff units that come in around 100 points, can perform a variety of roles, but are expected to die to a stiff breeze.
Regiments of these units I see far less, and generally they are on my side of the table when games kick off. I’d like to know why – am I playing the wrong people? Is my continuing use of these units what’s been holding me back all these years? Is my perception wrong, is everyone else taking these regiments, just not when they play me?
Ignore them at your cost.
When considering these regiments, I’ve come up with three qualities that I think these types of units do, or should do, really well. Of course, the usual disclaimer applies, all rating to be taken with a large pinch of salt. So, what should a light cavalry regiment do well:
1/ Board control – generally these regiments have US3 and a lot of range due to their nimble capability, which makes them easy to redeploy and reposition which is great at any point in the game, and very useful if they make it to the end of a game.
2/ Capacity to tie up more expensive units – there are a couple of ways they can do this, either by using nimble to force a more expensive unit to chase them around before they can be cornered, or by being a bit tougher than expected, or a combination of both. When going head-to-head with stronger units these units will inevitably die, but used carefully they can often avoid their fate for a turn or two more than would be expected and keep a valuable hammer away from friendly units that little bit longer.
3/ Ignore them at your cost – whilst many of these regiments will deliver little more than a gentle slap to the face of most units they charge in the front, having them in the flank can be an altogether different prospect, particularly if they have used their manoeuvrability to get onto a hill. My Hackpaws have waivered infantry hordes and one shotted large infantry hordes that turned away from them.
So, without further ado let’s kick off with:
5 – Shadowhounds
I really like the recently revamped Shadowhounds. With speed 10 and nimble they are highly manoeuvrable. The +1 to hit in melee on an unhindered charge looks interesting, and with 20 attacks they’re definitely not to be ignored, even on an unhindered front charge. However, as one of the more expensive types of this unit I wonder if the impact of hindered charges makes them a little inconsistent. There are a number of these types of units that have melee 3 and are cheaper, and whilst they will all lose their thunderous charge whilst hindered they’ll still be hitting on 4s rather than 5s. I have yet to see these puppies in action, and may well revise my opinion, but the points just makes me wonder if there are better options out there.
4 – Hackpaws
I was quite disappointed to put my favourite Ratkin unit at only number 4, but I do think that this is a unit that could benefit from a bit more “in army support”. Having synergies like rallying or auras within your army are a really efficient way to buff these types of units, because not only do these units benefit but the source of the buff can provide benefits to the rest of the army as well. Hackpaws are pretty points efficient at 150 points. They lose a point of speed to the Shadowhounds, and 4 attacks, but the points make up for it. They have access to plague pots (giving stealthy and ensnare for a turn) which can make them incredibly resilient against the right match up. Where I think they lack is in the nerve department. At 12/14 they are easily waivered and this, for me, rules out using the plague pots. But the frustration I have about the nerve is more directed at the rest of the army than the unit. With the exception of Scud, there is nothing that can provide rallying and keep up with the regiment. Whilst I love Scud, having him 6” from your Hackpaws does tend to change how the opponent reacts to them. I would love to see a mounted Warchief have the option of rally 1 for Hackpaws as it would, for me at least, open up some different play options, and make taking plague pots more interesting.
They’re great, it’s just the rest of the army!
3 – Brothermark Initiates
This is an upgrade to the scout cavalry that gives regiments melee 3 and an extra point of nerve. What’s more the army provides additional aura and rallying support which can keep up. Chaplains have rally 1 for these units and can take an aura of fury. All this makes them great at tying up the enemy. In short, these are upgrades I’d love to see for Hackpaws, and I am more than a bit jealous.
2 – Goblin Bangsticks
Fleabag riders tend to be one of the few nimble cavalry units I see regularly on the table in regiment form. In they’re natural state they are handy to have around, and although they are faster and have more nerve than Hackpaws the rats have 2 extra attacks and cost 5 points less which just seems a better deal. Of course, the Fleabags have access to Mawpups, but I have yet to see these used, unless they are in the Bangsticks formation. The Bangsticks formation is great fun and seems to find its way into many Goblin lists. The Bangsticks capitalise on the idea of this type of cavalry as a kamikaze style unit with the potential to cause lots of damage, even on a front charge. If I was ever going to start a Goblin army this would be the unit at its heart.
1 – Halfling Juggers
Having recently started playing Halflings I’ve been amazed at how well these units perform, especially when there is a Sauceror following them around. With defence 5 these are one of the toughest types of these units, more so when a Sauceror could realistically keep them at nerve 15/17 for much of a game. Melee 3 and 16 attacks makes them a real mini knight unit. Combine this all round not too bad stat line with the other buffs Saucery brings, brutal and wild charge up to 3, it’s a unit that can be tough to shift and needs to have a firm eye kept on them. I’ve been running two regiments since I started playing the little people regularly and they were instrumental in me winning three of my five games at their tournament debut at the Southwest Clash in July this year. For 185 points they seem an absolute bargain, not only that but other units in the army such as the Muster Captains on Winged Aralez and the Aeronauts compliment them very well allowing them to play a prominent role rather than being “that regiment that goes up the side of the table and gets killed by about turn 3, unless they’re really lucky.”
It’s been a while since I’ve had time to write a blog. Loads of reasons, but juggling a new addition to the family, prepping for Bristol’s premiere Kings of War event, and deciding I really needed to paint a new army on the off chance I got to play left little time for much else.
Not always this sleepy!
Now Southwest Clash is finished for the year I clearly have a hole in my schedule, until the October one dayer, so you get some scribblings.
Southwest Clash
Firstly, I want to say a massive thanks to everyone who came this year. It was great to see so many people return and a bunch of new faces at the event. I would also like to give an extra massive thanks to anyone who lent a hand in anyway over the weekend, it was massively appreciated especially as I ended up playing (which I was really happy about). Kings of War in the UK has a great tournament community, and I would recommend giving a local event a go to anyone. It’s a great way to get some games in and meet some lovely people.
First place went to John Quayle and his three Phoenix Basileans, the less said about that the better, with Jerry Marshall’s beautiful Ogre army taking best painted and Nick Davies voted most sporting. Amazingly I managed to get through the entire event without taking any pictures which was wholly due to my Halflings and the five incredibly closely fought games they played.
My Halflings
I’ve been trying to get my head around Halflings for some time now and about a month or so ago I decided to try using a force that leant heavily into nimble stuff. The outcome was surprisingly good and as I refined the list over the next few weeks, I felt it might actually be worth trying out at a tournament. I’ve become quite excited about this list because it leans into the nimble cavalry and aura shenanigans I’ve always wanted to run with Ratkin but don’t feel they have the right units to do it well with. My 2,300 point list ended up being:
Spot the proxies… and yes, there’s still a good way to go yet on the painting front.
Horde of Braves
Hordes of Forest Trolls (2)
Regiments of Juggers (2) – 1 with Blade of Slashing
Troops of Wild Lancers (2)
Regiment of Aeronauts
Iron Beast with Pride of the Shires
Saucerors (2) – 1 mounted on miniature aralez
Muster Captains on Winged Aralez (3)
How did it go?
Without any photos I don’t really want to try talking about individual games, however with 3 out of 5 games resulting in a win I was really happy with how it all went. I had a solid win, a solid loss and three really close games.
My solid loss was against a Sylvan Kin list consisting of, amongst other things, a bunch of Gladestalkers, 2 hordes of Air Elementals and 2 Greater Air Elementals. My opponent soundly out played me, however what I did notice was that the key combats where the Elementals did what they did best, getting into irritating positions and one shotting stuff, could have been better managed by the little folk. In a nutshell they weren’t lacking in capacity, it was just my lack of capability. I will of course take the “new army” excuse.
Juggers are my favourite Halfling units both visually and rules wise.
My solid win was against Nightstalkers. This was the first time my opponent was trying out his list, which was based around 3 hordes of the new Ravagers (shooty Butchers). I have to admit the new large infantry is going to present some really interesting challenges in the future because of how neatly they work with Enthral and Windblast. Fortunately, Spellward stopped any major issues arising with this particular combination and my dogs set to work dismantling the flanks. The Trolls and Iron Beast presented a sufficiently tough anvil that the Nightstalkers were unable to break through before the dogs started to close in.
The other three games were all thrillingly close. Against Northern Alliance a massive underestimation of how much surge the army had meant I served up a Muster Captain to be shot and surged by Ice Elementals, however another Muster Captain and a Sauceror managed to waiver a Frostfang horde and then kill it before it could do any damage which more than made up for it. The game finished on the sixth turn with a win to the Halflings that would have switched to the Northern Alliance had there been a turn seven. The third win was against Ratkin Slaves, it was a fantastically close game where the manoeuvrability of the army really came into play.
The second loss went to the Goblins. It was another close-run game and one that I went into thinking I had no chance in, but it was certainly hard fought with Groany Snark really firing on all cylinders. I don’t generally like to speculate on what might have happened if I had chosen different units, however this game did make me rethink one element of my army. I lost this game by half an inch. One of my Muster Captains was just short of being within three inches of an objective at the end of the game which would have tipped the game in my favour. In my rush to get my army completed for the tournament I had not fully explored all the options I had for chaff and had gone with two Wild Lancer troops. I then had five points over which went on the always forgotten Blade of Slashing. I now realise I could have taken a regiment of Ej Grenadiers for the cost of the lancers and the item. If everything else in this game had been played in exactly the same way this change would have won the game, and so this is the only change I’ll be making to the army.
All in all, I was really surprised by how well the Halflings played, and how much I enjoyed playing them. I had been worried about a lack of resilience and a lack of killing power, but when push came to shove their resilience was surprisingly impressive. The consistent issue with this army though was definitely the lack of killiness, and that certainly came through in the results. For now, I’m going to put that down to a lack of practice and not taking the Ej Grenadiers. The next tournament I’m going to will be the London GT, and I will definitely be taking grenadiers.
The world of Amzharr was created by the divine elementals, Nature and Time. To almost all the peoples of Amzharr they are known simply as The Creators. Nature delicately weaved the world together with thoughtful fingers, before calling the immortal peoples into existence so that they could explore her miracle and sing praises to her for the wondrousness of her creation.
Tears of joy cascaded from Nature’s many eyes, as she watched her perfect people explore her perfect world, bringing about the first rain. The sacred drops pooled in craggy cradles on mighty mountain peaks. They created crystal clear puddles that grew steadily until the water began to overrun, meet partners and give birth to infant rivers that playfully chased each other down the slopes, zigging and zagging with gurgling giggles, before joining with their playmates to cross planes, cut through forests, and eventually tumble with excited roars into the oceans.
The world turned and Nature smiled. Time stood beside her, as much intrigued by the creation as Nature was besotted with it. Together the Elementals would watch the plants grow, the creatures roam, and the immortals pass their days. Their gaze became the sun’s light. Warm smiles fuelled by the sweet smells of incense burnt, and wreaths of flowers offered, at great altars in Nature’s honour. However, over time exaltation withered to expectation. The immortals became inured to their world and began to look for new distractions. Nature began to feel ignored by the people she had given life to and withdrew from her observations. The sun faded in the sky as Time stood alone, continuing her vigil, uncertain what to make of the immortals’ abandonment of their matriarch.
As Time watched the immortals erratically explore the world. She could not help but wonder if there was something missing. Had Nature overlooked something in her pursuit of perfection? The world had been designed with the attention to detail that only a being with no beginning and no end could bring to bear. Each plant and each creature had a role and a reason for being. Sophisticated synergies, such as those between flowers and insects in our own world, bound species to species, even squirrels with the capacity for speech played an important role in maintaining the delicate balance that Nature had created in Amzharr, with the exception of one.
The only creatures that did not seem to exist in harmony with the world were the immortals. Whilst superior in so many ways to the other creatures their interactions with their habitat were awkward, so much so that both the immortals and their life choices were regularly a topic of intense debate and deeply furrowed brows for the talking squirrels who considered them to be irksome and irrational. It was almost as though the immortals served no purpose in the world other than to worship Nature.
Time reflected upon her hypothesis. She attempted to discuss it with Nature, but the deity felt so betrayed by the immortals that she shunned Amzharr. Nature would not be drawn into so much as the briefest exchange on the subject of either the world, or its people.
Disappointed by Nature’s deep disinterest, Time resolved to restore the connection that had been severed between the world and its mother. The issue, she decided, was not with Amzharr, but with the people who lived in it. They had become boorish and disrespectful of the planet. They spent their days hunting, eating, and sleeping with no thought for consequence or conservation. Time decided that the immortals needed a relationship with the planet that went beyond eating to fill empty stomachs and drinking to placate thirsty throats. So, she set about crafting her own gift for the world of Amzharr.
Nature sat in the cool shade of the Eternity tree. Its mighty branches bowed under the weight of its impossible fruit, each ripe and rotten at the same time. Time approached slowly, a bundle of soft white cloth in her arms. Nature looked up as she heard a discordant, gurgling cry from the bundle. Time rearranged the swaddling clothes to reveal a tiny baby. It was, in almost every way, like the ones the immortals gave birth to, but much smaller.
Nature recoiled from the child, no longer wanting to have anything to do with the immortals who had turned their backs on her. As Time brought the baby beneath the boughs of the tree Nature realised that the child was not an offspring of the immortals. It may have looked like one, but there was something about it that felt different. It seemed to possess the same limitless potential Nature had given the immortals to learn and grow, but it was all squeezed into a creature that was somehow restricted, and around its neck was a tiny silver locket.
“What is it?” Nature asked.
“It’s a he.” Time replied, holding the small boy to her chest to allow him to feed.
“He’s not an immortal.” Nature said.
“No, he’s something different, a child who will live a short life and then disappear from existence.” Time explained.
“What is there to be excited about in that?” Nature asked, feigning indifference as the child piqued her interest.
“In and of itself nothing,” Time replied adjusting the positioning of the baby so that Nature could see the locket that hung around his neck. “Remove it and look inside.”
Nature carefully removed the small silver necklace, doing her best to not interrupt the hungry little child’s meal. She opened the unremarkable sliver box attached to the equally understated silver chain. Inside cogs turned as tiny, misshaped creatures, roughly human in shape, worked away, she assumed, to keep the cogs running.
“What is this?” Nature asked turning the open locket around in her palm, finding it hard to focus on the tiny workers long enough to really see what they looked like. Although she had the distinct impression that this was for the best. From what she could make out they did not appear to be traditionally beautiful.
“It is the destiny of his race. It is their purpose, their reason for being, their future and their place in Amzharr, and it is my gift to you.” Time replied.
“And what is any of that to me?” Nature asked in a dry tone that tried desperately to disguise her rapidly growing excitement.
“It is my gift to you. Their purpose is for you to choose.” Time replied, knowing Nature well enough to know she would not be able to resist this offer. Time turned away from Nature and carried the baby towards the room where Amzharr spun silently.
Two days later the warmth of the sun once again fell on Amzharr, and in a forest an immortal ran towards the urgent cries of a hungry child.
With no tournaments in April, I was really excited to wake up very early on Saturday morning and hit the road. This time I was heading to beautiful Bexley for my first Shroud of the Reaper Tournament. Not only was it great to see some familiar faces, but the event pack included a couple of non-book scenarios which were going to make life interesting.
Having played a range of different lists from the start of the year with varying levels of success I decided to put something together that really played to the rat’s strength. To me that means as much rallying as possible, a handful of chaff, loads of melee 4, Scud and Cryza.
The List – 2345 points
Wretch Horde
Shock Troop Hordes (2) with plague pots, 1 with Brew of Strength, 1 with Blade of Slashing
Tunnel Runner Regiments (2), 1 with Brew Sharpness, 1 with Jesse’s Boots
Vermintide Regiments (3)
Hackpaw Regiment
Mutant Rat Fiend
Brute Enforcers (2), 1 with Inspiring Talisman
Mother Cryza
Scud
In addition to the army, there was also a special character which was a large cavalry unit that generated random auras each turn. It was an interesting addition to the force, but I don’t remember it contributing anything overly impactful to any of my games.
Game 1 vs Ratkin Slaves
Scenario – Gold Rush: players place seven loot counters anywhere on the board. For each loot counter gathered players receive 1 VP.
I was facing off against Mark, the TO’s, Ratkin slave army. The army consists of a couple of Impalers, Cryza’s Impaler, Golek, an Overmaster on big flying beastie, the formation (exploding rats), and about 8 other regiments of exploding rat warriors. Having played the army before I knew just how devastating the Impalers can be when acting together, and Golek’s Rally (2) makes them really hard to kill. I wasn’t surprised to see them all bunched together at the centre of his set up, surrounded by regiments of warriors.
After deployment I had Scud and the Hackpaws on the left, facing his big flying beastie and a warrior regiment. My infantry hordes were in the centre, clustered around the Mutant Rat Fiend, with a Tunnel Runner regiment at each end.
I won the first turn and moved forward cautiously with my line. I really needed to find ways of hampering the Impalers, reducing their opportunities to triple charge anything, and hopefully kill them off one by one. On the left flank a good round of shooting, and poor regen, from Scud and Cryza did some damage to the big beastie, and it decided to risk a charge into Scud. I wasn’t particularly worried about it as the creature only has 9 attacks so was unlikely to do that much damage. In return Scud hit back causing a substantial number of wounds before rolling a double 1. It was unhelpful, more unhelpful was that the beastie then wavered Scud. Fortunately, I had been prepared for that possibility and the special character was facing the rear of the beastie, charged in the next turn and took it off the field.
In the centre the massed ranks of infantry closed together and a tit for tat removal of units began. Fortunately, I had enough chaff to slow down the Impalers, at least for a bit. One of the biggest issues with this army is deciding how to approach the removal of exploding warrior units. They can do up to 6 wounds on a unit, weakening it substantially and making it much more vulnerable to future attacks. In one case my Sharpness Tunnel Runners took a regiment off and received 5 wounds. Very unhelpful.
To a certain extent, you just have to suck it up. However, against this type of army the Mutant Rat Fiend really came into its own, munching though regiments and regenerating damage. Despite taking damage pretty much every turn, it never got beyond about 5 wounds.
With the big beastie gone on my left flank Scud turned to grab a token.The Hackpaws exploited a slight positioning error on the Slave Warrior Horde, managing to get a flank and wavering it. The next turn they finished the job and picked up a few wounds for their troubles. As the turns progressed the Slave Warriors were cleared out, but the damage they had left from their explosions meant Golek and Cryza’s Impaler were able to pick my own units off without too much resistance. I had gathered 2 tokens with Scud and a Vermintide regiment, whilst the Slaves held 5. Fortunately, one of the Slave Warrior regiments had 2 tokens and at turn 6 was within charge range of both my remaining Tunnel Runner Regiment and the Mutant Rat Fiend. Unfortunately, the clock was against me. With just a few seconds to go I charged the Tunnel Runners in and wavered the regiment, not thinking I would have time to move the Mutant Rat Fiend and complete the dice rolls for that combat as well. I finished the turn with 22 seconds on the clock. It looked like it would be a Slave victory, then a turn 7 arrived, the clock started again. This time I moved the Mutant Rat Fiend in, as it would roll less dice than the Tunnel Runners and I only really needed to generate a nerve check to have a decent chance of taking them off the table. Could I complete the combat in time?
The hits were rolled. The wounds were rolled. Not worrying too much about totting up the damage I went to roll the first nerve test… the clock beeped… the game went to the Slaves.
Whilst it’s always a shame to potentially lose a game to the clock (there’s always the chance of a double 1) playing to the clock is a skill in itself, and I came up wanting. Undoubtedly there were things I could have done better, Scud being a case in point. I’m sure he could have been put to better use in the centre, but that probably would have led to more thinking time, which would, in turn, lead to even worse use of the time that I had.
Game 2 vs Halflings
Scenario – Kill Zone: this was a slightly awkward scenario that involved securing four areas on the board, each delivering a different number of victory points.
This is my first game against the new halfling list, so it was quite exciting. Going into the game I was conscious of the clock, and the complexity of the scenario. Looking through my opponent’s list I wasn’t overly concerned by any one element of it, but I also wasn’t too sure about how it would work on the table. By the end of the deployment phase I was a little more concerned. On my left flank he had a horde of Braves. In the centre was a block of defence 6 with 2 harvesters, and the Iron Beast, accompanied by 2 hordes of Stalwarts and a host of individuals. To my right was a mass of shooting units, scouts, and Forest Troll Gunners, as well as Aeronauts and Ej Grenadiers.
I decided to try and grab the central scoring zones. On my right flank Scud zapped the Ej Grenadiers off the table in the first turn. Then, with the Hackpaws attempted to push around into the centre. The Hackpaws were lost to a flank charge from Aeronauts, and Scud proceeded to dance around behind the lines trying to avoid shooting whilst also looking for a charge that wouldn’t result in him taking multi charges in the flanks and rear if he failed to one shot whatever he went after. Whilst there weren’t many on offer, he did manage to tie up several units for a handful of turns which meant their focus was well away from the centre.
The centre was a far better affair for the rats. The Stalwarts either ended up hindered or ensnared from pots, allowing my Brew of Strength Shock Troops to work their way through them with the help of the Wretches and a Brute Enforcer. Next to them the Sharpness Tunnel Runners, Cryza and the special character worked through the Harvesters, whilst the Ironbeast stood its ground and ignored whatever I did to try and start chipping wounds away from it.
All in all, the plan was working. Helpfully my opponent held back his horde of Braves on my left flank until the final turns of the game, which took the pressure off my units in the centre but did mean they were able to walk almost unopposed onto one of the objectives, whilst the Forest Trolls took the objective on the other side of the board. That meant coming into turn 6 the Halflings were holding 2 VPs and I had one of the zones that would allow me 2 VPs. As a result, it all came down to the final zone which was worth 3 VPs. The only scoring unit the Halflings had in it was the Iron Beast, however, the centre had become something of a log jam throughout the game and that meant there was only 1 scoring unit I could move in to contest the zone and neutralise the Iron Beast’s unit strength. That made the game a draw, and a win for me could only come about from one shotting the unharmed, defence 6 Iron Beast with the Sharpness Tunnel Runners and Cryza. Alas, it was not to be, and so the game ended in a draw.
I enjoyed this game a lot because it was facing an army that I’d never played before. I was really impressed by how the force worked and it will hopefully give me some impetus to get on with my own short soldiers. I know there were a couple of things I could have done better, if only because my Mutant Rat Fiend spent most of the game stood at the back doing nothing because of the log jam in the centre. I think if I’d pushed him forward earlier, he may have been able to get stuck into the Iron Beast and maybe cleared that 3 VP zone out. That being said this was the first time I played this scenario, and it was quite challenging to keep track of where the central scoring zones were. All told there was a lot going on, together with some rule’s questions, which meant I didn’t quite have sufficient clarity of thought to pull off the win. I did manage to play to time though which I was really happy with, which put me into a good frame of mind going into the final game with a loss and a draw under my belt. Could the only way be up?
Game 3 vs Nightstalkers
Scenario – Protect and Raze: similar to Raze, but points can be scored for keeping control of opponent’s objectives not razed.
The Nightstalkers were a really nice balanced army, although there were quite a few butchers! There was a little bit of everything with 2 regiments of Shadow Hounds, a regiment of Phantoms, a Terror, a Scarecrow horde, a Doppleganger regiment, 2 Horrors, a Banshee, troop of Needlefangs and 2 hordes and a regiment of Butchers.
All the Nightstalker’s fast units went on my right flank, with the Horror and Dopplegangers. The Scarecrows went in the centre, and the Butchers and Needlefangs to my left. I set up similarly to the previous game. Wretches and Shock Troops in the centre, Sharpness Tunnel Runners and Cryza on my left flank and Scud, the Hackpaws and the other Tunnel Runners on my right.
My big concern was the Horror. Ensnare is a really useful thing against an army where hardly anything hits on anything better than a 4. I could see a scenario where it could quite easily munch through the centre of my army. On the plus side though with Nightstalkers their lack of inspiring is something I felt a lot more comfortable trying to exploit given the number of high nerve units and pots I have in this list.
An opening blast of lightning bolt took the Needlefangs off the table in my first turn. My right flank moved forward, but I decided to keep my left flank back, choosing to offer a charge to one unit of the Shadow Hounds on my wretches and the Hackpaws to the other. Both of these were hindered, and the hounds took them, failing to route either unit. The result was a counter strike to one unit from some Tunnel Runners, which removed them, and a lack lustre fight back from the Wretches. The downside was that my Tunnel Runners would be taking a charge from the Terror in the next turn.
Having the Terror charge into my Tunnel Runners meant I had a big beastie, that was going to be hard for me to kill, behind my lines. Some tough decisions had to be made. In the centre I decided to throw one of the Shock Troop hordes forward into a Butcher Horde and put the Mutant Rat Fiend into the Scarecrows. The Shock Troops dropped their plague pots, expecting to be in for a bit of a grind as they were making a hindered charge but between a reasonable amount of hits and a high nerve check the Butchers never got to fight back. The Mutant Rat Fiend managed a few wounds, but would take another turn, and another high nerve check, to rout the Scarecrows.
Slowly the Nightstalker centre dissolved, Scud tore through the Phantom Regiment, the Hackpaws stole a flank on the remaining Shadow Hounds, before heading off to grab an objective, and on my left flank Cryza’s battle group dismantled whatever resistance they found. The only real remaining fight was around the Horror, as I threw units into it in a bid keep it penned in.
By turn 6 the rats had secured 4 objectives to the Nightstalker’s 3. It was great way to end the day and meant the rats pulled into 9th place overall.
Final thoughts
What a day! I actually couldn’t be happier with the way it went. This was my best set of results since January. The army could not have been more different than what I took for Staines of Blood (quite aside from the fact there was a points difference between the event). The army I took in January gave me far less confidence as the day went on, this time though I felt with each game I had a much better handle on how it all worked. Yes, there was a bit of a timing issue on the first game, and a lack of familiarity of scenario in the second game, but these are all weirdly enjoyable parts of the game. I’m now looking forward to my next couple of events which will be 2,300 points a piece. It does mean that I will have to drop 45 points, and I have a fair idea as to where that drop should come from.
All praise has to go to the Mutant Rat Fiend, which was undoubtedly the rat of the match. Fiends are a typically Ratkin Unit. In many ways pretty decent, but decidedly squishy for a titan. I’ve long held that Fiends can be one of the best titans in the game if you control the number, and quality, of attacks they have to face in any given round. Today’s games absolutely allowed the Fiend to shine.
And really finally…
A massive thanks to all my opponents for a great series of incredibly close games (the absolutely best type regardless of outcome) and a massive thanks to Mark and Grant for organising the event. I’m now really looking forward to the December instalment of Reaper related joy.
I think I’m correct in saying that The Bullrun, now on its third event, is Birmingham’s premiere wargaming event. It’s run by the bloody lovely Steve Hildrew and had a massive 32 players in attendance for a one-day event, which is pretty damn good.
Having had a pretty poor run of things with the rats recently I decided the week before the event, a few days before the list deadline, to completely overhaul my list and take something completely different, for me at least. My rat lists are generally built around monsters or titans. Over the course of the last few months, I’ve arrived at the conclusion that whilst these are fun, and the models are cool, I don’t seem to put out enough damage to kill things fast enough. This, coupled with my ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory with my finely honed scenario self-sabotage skills does not make for a winning combo. Consequently, I decided to go with something of a more traditionally shaped list.
The List
Warrior horde (1) with plague pots
Shock Troop hordes (2) one with Sir Jesse’s boots, both with plague pots
Vermintide regiments (2)
Hackpaw regiment
Tunnel Runner regiment with Brew of Sharpness
Warlocks (2) one with Conjuror’s Staff, one with Banechant
Brute Enforcer with Inspiring Talisman
Mother Cryza
Scud
In addition to 1995 points of rats there was also a choice of special characters. Either a Bull that effectively gave one turn’s worth of shooting damage, or a Cock (as in cockerel) that provided healing. I chose the Bull, which I felt would work nicely with the 20 lightning bolts I was bringing to the table.
It’s worth pointing out that this event used two non-book scenarios which really helped to shake things up a bit and made for a very interesting day.
Game 1 vs Kingdoms of Men, Wrack and Ruin
This scenario placed two dominate circles on the board, one at either end of the table, and an objective in the middle. You could win points in turns 3,4 and 5 by owning the dominate circles and then earn a further point by holding the objective at the end of the game.
The Kingdom’s of Men army consisted of regiments and troops of Fanatics and Foot Guard, a pair of Giants and two Generals on Winged Beasts. It was ideally suited to this scenario because of the mass of units and unit strength it brought to the table. Happily, for me, we set up with the bulk of our armies at opposite ends of the table. This meant it was relatively simple for both of us to score the full three points available for owning our respective Dominate circles.
I deployed heavily on the left side of the table but put a fairly decent sized force on the right side, including one of my Shock Troop hordes. This was so that my opponent would either have to take the time to destroy it all, or have it chase them towards the centre, and no-one wants a horde of Shock Troops in the rear. My hope was that it would distract a decent portion of the men for as long as possible, letting my units claim the centre in turn six.
I will admit to my first massive error of judgement of the day. I forgot that the objective in the centre was an objective and not a dominate circle. Consequently, by the end of turn five things were not in the best place. My gamble on the right flank had paid off and a lone Giant made its way towards the centre.
Around the centre something of a stand-off had developed. Lightning bolts had removed the Fanatics and a General leaving only a couple of units of Foot Guard on one side of the objective. If they went for the centre, they would be easily overwhelmed by the Tunnel Runners, Shock Troops and Scud gathered on my side. Fortunately, the men still had a remaining General. The General flew into the centre, a Giant blocked my Shock Troops, and a troop of Foot Guard blocked my Tunnel Runners. I would be reliant on overruns to win.
Amazingly the Shock Troops one shotted the Giant but failed to make it far enough across the table towards the centre. The Tunnel Runners made mincemeat of the Foot Guard, rolled a six for overrun and made it into the centre. It was a win… then the turn seven roll…
Turn seven started with the Giant that had been on the right flank charging my Shock Troops and obliterating them. The General and the final regiment of Foot Guard then charged my Tunnel Runners. A kill or a waiver now could have lost me the game. Fortunately, the Tunnel Runners lived to fight another day and together with a flank on the Guard from Scud the game went to the rats.
Game 2 vs Ogres, Gold Rush
This was the second non book scenario. For this one, players place seven loot counters around the table and then choose sides. The aim is to gather as many counters as possible.
The Ogre force was a perfect balance of all the things I find challenging about Orges! Three regiments of Chariots, two hordes of Siege Breakers, a horde of Shooters, a couple of Warlocks and a couple of Berserker Bullies. I think Shooters are quite underestimated. Having faced them a couple of times I know that what they lose in terms of ranged stat, 5, they make up for with their long range and piercing two.
I placed the majority of my army on the left and in the centre, with the Warlocks and Scud on the far left. Although there was a large chunk of impassable terrain in the middle of my deployment there was a fair amount of other terrain that would slow the ogres down and take the sting out of their shooting. On the far right I placed my Hackpaws and the Brute Enforcer who found themselves opposite a Bully and a mounted Goblin King with a short bow.
I had quite promising start. My lightning bolts wavered a Chariot regiment that blocked up the regiment behind it, slowing the Ogres’ advance. However, in a serious bit of shooting tit for tat the Shooters and Ogre Warlocks had a great round and severely damaged my Warrior horde. This made me nervous about bringing my Tunnel Runners forward and meant the Ogres were able to back off and avoid melee for an extra turn.
Turn two saw the damaged chariots survive a second battery of lightening, whilst my Warriors succumbed to another round of shooting. This time though I pressed forward with my Tunnel Runners and a Shock Troop Horde so there would be no escape for one of the Siege Breaker hordes.
Turn three saw the damaged Chariots hide behind a hill, giving me a brand-new Chariot regiment to take pot shots at. In the centre the Tunnel Runners, Cryza and the Shock Troops charged a horde of Seige Breakers and took them down. In retaliation Chariots ploughed into the Shock Troops, but they survived, taking the Chariots down the next turn with Cryza’s help.
On the right flank there had been a bit of a stand-off between the Hackpaws, the Goblin and the other Bully. This ended when the Hackpaws charged the Goblin, failed to kill it, and then got flank charged by the Bully. The table was becoming one of two distinct halves. On the right the Ogres had cleared it of rats by turn six and picked up three loot counters. On the right a lone horde of Siege Breakers stood with their front to Scud and their rear to a horde of Shock Troops clutching a loot counter.
Cryza sprinted and grabbed a token from a badly damaged Chariot regiment, the Shock Troops charged the Siege Breakers, smashed them to pieces and took their loot. Finally, Scud flew over to claim another counter. Turn six was a draw.
In turn seven the Ogres had one option, to fire everything they had at Cryza and hope they could force her to drop the equalising loot. I breathed a sigh of relief as they managed just one wound, meaning they needed two nines to take her off the board. First roll was a ten. The second… a nine.
Game 3 vs Rift Forged Orcs, Invade
This was a really nice way to end the day playing a straightforward scenario against an army that had beaten the hell out of me two weeks prior! But that had been my old list though, and it had been that encounter that had been the trigger for building today’s list. It would be interesting to see how the new list would measure up.
The orcs brought The Iron Boots Formation (three regiments of Rift Forged Orcs with extra nerve), two Storm Giants, a Fight Wagon Legion, Thonaar, a Stormbringer and a horde of Thunderseers. Rift Forged Orcs are a surprisingly resilient army, despite not having any healing or rallying. This makes their Storm Giants particularly problematic with their Cloak of Death and then there’s Thonaar, who is arguably the most annoying individual in the game.
Once again, I deployed along the left and centre of the table with the bulk of my troops and then placed the Hackpaws and Brute Enforcer on the far right. The Orcs put their heaviest hitters in the centre. The Fight Wagons, the Thunderseers, Thonaar, a Giant and a regiment of Reborn Legionnaires. On My left were two regiments of Riftforged Legionnaires and a Giant.
I started shooting one of the Legionnaire regiments on my left, keen to get as much unit strength as possible off the table, whilst my centre braced for the inevitable crunch that was coming. On my right the Hackpaws and Brute made their way, unimpeded, into the Orc’s half of the table.
In the second turn I split my shooting between the injured infantry and the Fight Wagons. The Fight Wagon Legion is a proper juggernaut. I have nothing that will stand up to a charge from it, and nothing that will reliably kill it quickly, so my plan was to start chipping wounds off it in the hope that it might make my life a bit easier later in the game.
The Orcs continued to press forward, and then happily for me, Thonaar and the Thunderseers peeled off to my right to deal with the Hackpaws, which would take them out of the main fighting for the rest of the game.
In turn three the Orcs started to hit home. The Stormbringer flew into Scud and one of the Giants removed a regiment of Vermintide. This opened up a small number of counter charges that saw both the Giant and the Stormbringer leave the table. In response the Orcs unleashed the Fight Wagons and removed my Warriors, whilst a combat on my left resulted in the Tunnel Runners being destroyed.
The next couple of rounds saw units fall on both sides until by turn five we both had nine unit strength on the table either in our opponents half, or within easy reach of the centre line. At this point my usual disregard for the general point of the scenario kicked in and I charged Cryza into the Reborn Legionnaire regiment she had no chance of killing on my side of the table. The result was fairly predictable… and in the six turn she left the table turning what could have been a draw into a loss!
Reflections
Despite the overall results I was really happy with the way the day went. Given that I threw the list together a week or so before the event, and it lost its single practice game I was pleasantly surprised at how well it performed. There were three big concerns I wanted to address with the list which were the lack of durability of my previous lists, the lack of damage output of my previous lists and the generally unreliable nature of predominantly melee 4 and 5 armies.
I’m pleased to say that it felt as though all those things were addressed by the army. I was particularly happy with the lightning bolts. Although I didn’t have any major spikes in the shouting the chip damage and occasion waiver certainly impacted all of the games and helped to smooth out the performance of my unpredictable infantry.
My main concern with the army was that having so many units with large footprints moving around would become difficult, however this issue only came up once in the three games. So, I’m happy this is something I’ll be able to navigate better with some more practice.
Overall, I was really happy with how the army played. As per usual I self-sabotaged on the scenarios, but I’m not worried about that for the simple reason that I think I’ve finally found a build for rats that will work for me. Prior to this event I was thinking about retiring the rats again for a little while, but this event has definitely rekindled some hope that I can get the army running well in tournament play. Coming away from the event there are a couple of changes I want to make to this list that will hopefully give me a bit of extra umph, although I’m not sure when my next 1995 event is. I also think this will make a solid base for my next event in May which will be 2345 points. There is a little extra painting required for that however.
Final thoughts
The Bullrun is a hobby tournament, which means that there are points that contribute to the final score that come from painting. Although I didn’t think I was in with the chance of picking up too many points for that it did encourage me to finish off refreshing some of my older units and add some banners to my Shock Troop hordes. All in all, it means that I’ve come away from this event with a much prettier looking army than I had before and a list that feels dependable enough to allow me to start trying to think about not messing up the scenarios.
Finally a massive thanks to my opponents, who were all frankly awesome, all three games were so enjoyable, and of course Steve Hildrew for running another fab event.
This year has been all about the rats so far and it’s been fun. Although the number of games I’ve won seems to have steadily dropped over time. That’s not the worst thing in the world, I play rats because I enjoy the fluff and the aesthetic, not for their hard hitting, punchy and incredibly reliable elite units (wink). Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying ratkin are a bad army, on the contrary, there are some great players who play very effectively with them, it’s just that I’m not one of them.
It’s fair to say my army has seen better days since I completed it in 2021. So, this year I decided to try and give my vermin a bit of a glow up. This has involved removing models from bases, giving both models and bases some fresh paint and then repopulating the bases. It’s not necessarily a time-consuming process, but it can be a bit fiddly. Because of this the relatively good start I made at the start of the year slowed to a virtual halt, as did a kit bash I had started to replace one of my tunnel runner regiments.
However, with Steve Hildrew’s Bullrun on the horizon I’ve found myself suddenly reaching for the paint brushes again. This is the third Bullrun event Steve’s run and I’m really looking forward to it because it is very different in terms of scoring and scenarios to most events I attend. Importantly it has a hobby component to the overall score, so for this reason I decided that whilst I will be unlikely to make it past the bottom table (and I certainly wouldn’t sniff at coming away with another of Steve’s lovely wooden spoons) I can do something about the general appearance of my army.
As is the way with so many things, I haven’t had the time to do as much as I would like, but I’m really happy that I have had time to sort out three of my core units. My warriors (who will be acting as Shock Troops) and Shock Troops have been given some highlights and a bit more colour. With the Shock Troops I’m really happy that their skull helmets look more noticeably skull like – this is a bit of fluff I really like and I’m quite keen to build another horde of these.
With the warriors I’m excited to have spent some time on their shields. I love the mix of designs and really wanted to bring these out.
The tunnel runners (the new Goblin chariots and mincers) are simply fab, and whilst I don’t mind the Deadzone models, I’ve wanted to do something a bit more interesting with this unit for a while. It’s also got me thinking about how great it would be if Mantic could produce a few more characters/more dynamic individuals for the factions. Don’t get me wrong, the rank and file plastics are great, but it would be nice to have a range of models that could be added to mutli-bases to create some extra energy.
So that’s it for now. Time is not completely up, and I have a couple of little extra things I’m hoping to add before Sunday, but the main elements are done and I’m thoroughly looking forward to getting on the motorway on Sunday.
I started running tournaments last year and I’m really enjoying it. One thing I haven’t quite yet decided on yet is whether I prefer sitting on the side lines and totting up the scores or running around manically totting up the scores and playing games.
This time around I hadn’t expected to be playing and had been planning on painting some of my Brothermark. However, due to a very last minute drop out I found myself packing up my rats for a day of gaming.
I’m back to playing Ratkin this year. I find them a massively fun army to play, but with lots of synergies and an abundance of melee 4/5 they are not the most consistent armies to play. My list consisted of:
Horde of Warriors with plague pots
Horde of Shock Troops with Jessie’s Boots and plague pots
Regiment of Scurriers with plague pots
Regiment of Hackpaws
Regiment of Tunnel Runners with Brew of Sharpness
Regiments of Vermintide (2)
Mutant Rat Fiends (2)
Mounted War Chief with Blade of Slashing
Twitch Keenear
Mother Cryza
Scud
Game 1 against Forces of the Abyss
Scenario: Loot
The Forces of the Abyss brought a lot of Molochs (three hordes), two chroneas, two succubi regiments, their larvae and a couple of warlocks. The demons represent a pretty terrifying prospect for my rats as most their units are capable of one shotting pretty much everything in my army. It dawned on me though that my army was quite a bit faster. So I decided my best option was to try and get around one of his flanks with Scud and the hackpaws and break up his formidable fighting line.
It started pretty well. Scud, the hackpaws and the war chief made their way down the right flank, distracting one of the chroneas and shutting down one of the warlocks. Soon the flank was starting to fall apart. Things were going well for the rats until a double one materialised. The unfortunate dice role kept a regiment of succubi on the table and allowed a horde of mollochs to get stuck into the units keeping the demons busy on the left flank. Although I was expecting that flank to collapse at some point it was happening too quickly. The demons were quickly able to chew up my centre and escape with two of the tokens leaving my scurriers holding one, meaning the demons took the win.
Game 2 against Nightstalkers
Scenario: Salt the Earth
I was very excited about this match up as the Nightstalkers in question are one of my favourite armies, beautifully painted and amazingly themed. The army was a nice mix of units, a void lurker, a shadow hulk, a couple of planar apparitions, phantoms, butchers, blood worms, scarecrows and Essenyshra.
This time I threw the hackpaws and war chief way out on the left flank with Scud, a fiend and the tunnel runners on the right and everything else in the middle. On the right the hackpaws did their best to avoid lightening bolts and phantoms. The war chief broke away and charged the void lurker, managing to tie it up for about three turns. On the right flank the tables were turned, ratkin lightening bolts removed a phantom troop and Twitch repeatedly hexed one of the planar apparitions. Then the rat war machine swung into action pulling apart reapers, smashing scarecrows and grabbing objectives. Although the nightstalkers managed to take out Scud after a double one kept him in combat with the butchers and allowed the shadow hulk to get flank on the demonspawn.
In the centre the void lurker finished off a fiend but the fight back floundered as a planar apparition and phantoms took far too long to see off the warrior horde.
At the start of turn six rats held three tokens, nightstalkers held two. With few options remaining it looked as though the rats would take the day, but the nightstalkers still had a shenanigan up their sleeves. Essenyshra made her way into the centre of the table and enthralled the tunnel runners, drawing them away from their objective leaving the game a draw.
Game 3 against Nightstalkers
Scenario: Invade
In the first round there had been a nightstalker vs nightstalker game that had ended in a draw. In my previous game I had played one of those armies, now I got to play the second, so I knew this was not going to be an easy ride. Although there were some differences between the lists core elements of planar apparitions, two void lurkers (rather than one and a shadow hulk), phantom troops, scarecrows, blood worms and Esenyshra were all in attendance.
I spread my forces evenly along the left flank and put my hackpaws and the war chief on the far right again. Once again, the riders played a patient game, keeping out of the charge range of phantoms, shadow hounds and a void lurker. A round of shooting from the scurriers took down a phantom troop, but the stand off continued until I made a mistake and gave the void lurker an opportunity to charge my tunnel runners that wouldn’t allow me the opportunity to fight back with anything else. I wasn’t too worried, even when Essenyshra joined in, as the runners were fully rallied to 16/18 and were inspired. Silly me! A high nerve roll wavered the chariots. Fortunately, the war chief was able to get in and stop the creature from flying, although this meant its only option was to finish what it had started with the wheels in the next turn. After that though the mutant rat fiend and war chief extracted their revenge. All this allowed the hackpaws to move around the flank and provide support in removing one of the scarecrow hordes, before moving into the nightstalker’s half to score my only points.
On the left flank things did not go well! I had problems dealing with the second void lurker which cost me Scud, then the blood worm legion (with Brew of Strength) went to town on munching everything that went near it consuming a mutant rat fiend, a horde of shock troop, Mother Cryza and a regiment of vermintide. With the legion and a surviving horde of scarecrows firmly in my half the game was a loss however a near comical showing by my dice in the final turn really didn’t help.
My war chief and scurriers had spent the last three turns of the game trying to kill a troop of shadow hounds, and continued to fail to do so in the final round. The hackpaws needed to roll a 4 for the nerve test to kill Essenyshra, they rolled a 3 and the surviving mutant rat fiend flank charged the last void lurker, pummelled it into oblivion and then… you guessed it… rolled a double one!
Thoughts on my list
The results of my last two events haven’t been great, but the games have been really fun, and most have been close. With both my 1995 and 2300 lists I feel a couple of relatively minor changes will improve how they play.
I thought the hackpaws did a marvellous job on the flanks, and the war chief did a great job of distracting troublesome monsters and characters, just what I had bought him for. These units were definitely my MVPs.
I’ve always seen Twitch and the Tangle as being either/or choices within a list. Originally I favoured Twitch because I like faster armies, which means my experience of the Tangle is that it gets left behind. The more games I’ve played with Twitch the more of a fan I have become, I find that when I take the Tangle now, I regularly find myself disappointed I don’t have Hex and getting frustrated that 2 dice Banechants often become a thing in the closing turns of the game. Hex definitely played a big role in the second game, effectively shutting down one planar apparition, and I can’t help but think it would have also impacted the third game if Twitch hadn’t failed to cast for three turns!
In terms of those tiny changes I was talking about… as much as I love my mutant rats fiends I’m not sure this army is the right build to run two. Fiends are durable, but you have to carefully manage what you allow to charge them due to their defence 4, I don’t think this list has the spare units to do that. The other issue I had was around their speed, I generally found I needed one of them to be faster. Consequently I’m going to swap one out and bring in a death engine impaler, which I’ve had a great experience with in my 1995 list.
And finally
I know I’ve moaned more about dice than I usually would, but there were some comically badly timed results. I don’t want that to distract from the fact that I had three brilliant opponents and three fun and challenging game. I want to give a massive thanks to everyone I played. It was especially great to play Pete and Matt for the first time. I thoroughly enjoyed all my games and will hopefully get to play you all in the future. I also wanted to thank everyone who attended, the venue – Bristol Independent Gaming, and Mantic for some fab prize support.
I hope everyone who attended enjoyed their day as much as I did.
Now I need to work out what I’m taking to the Bullrun.
The Wizard's Bookshelf 