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Author Topic: Path to Glory, Round 1: Gloomspite Gitz Vs Kharadron Overlords  (Read 1259 times)

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Offline Wyddr

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Path to Glory, Round 1: Gloomspite Gitz Vs Kharadron Overlords
« on: September 30, 2019, 01:47:07 PM »
Path to Glory Campaign, Round 1, Battle 2: Gloomspite Gitz Vs Kharadron Overlords

The cold steel rain had driven Gloama and his band under the foil-like leaves of glitter trees that spread throughout the Forest of Fangs. It was gloomy and wet and foggy and, ordinarily, this might have put the Loonboss in a good mood. Instead, all he could do was sulk.

Torturing the fish-elf prince had proven to be no fun at all. It didn't cry out, didn't weep, didn't beg--it just stared at him with those fathomless black eyes and looked bored. Gloama was wearing a necklace of the thing's fingers at that very moment, but the display didn't seem to phase it. It was hanging upside down from a tree, wrapped from ankle to neck in nets and barbed cord, and still it seemed completely at ease. Just waiting for its chance.

Gloama hated its guts.

All things being equal, he would have preferred to be further north, deeper in the forest where the trees were taller and the cover better. Out here, on the outskirts, they were exposed. But the bubbling spring nearby supposedly was home to someone--something?--that might be able to be convinced to join up with Gloama's band in exchange for a genuine fish elf to eat. He had heard it was called "Nod-nash." So far, there had been no sign of it. He had his bounderz out patrolling, seeing what they could find. In this rain, odds were it would be nothing.

There was a deep bass hum that was growing, gradually drowning out the "snik-snik" of the hard rain against the foil leaves. Gloama cocked his head. "That's not good."

There was a boom and a ripping tear through the air, followed by a heart-stopping explosion. The goblins all around him leapt to their feet, grabbing their spears. Gloama kicked Git-gobbla, waking the beast up. "This definitely isn't good."

He pointed to a few of his more cowardly goblins. "You lot--grab the fish thing and go hide somewhere dark. I'll find you later. NO EATING IT!"

The goblins hastened to obey, leaving Gloama to deal with a novel new problem: bombs and harpoons raining from the sky.


Game two of our Path to Glory campaign. I haven't added anything to my force because we have agreed not to add until after everybody plays everybody else. My force is, again:

Loonboss w/Giant Cave Squig (Gloama--Backstabba's Blade and Fight Another Day)

20 Stabbas w/Spears, Bad Moon Icon, 3x Netters
20 Stabbas w/Spears, Bad Moon Icon, 3x Netters

5 Boingrot Bounderz
5 Boingrot Bounderz

The Overlords brought the following:

Admiral w/command ability allowing re-rolls to hit
Aether-Khemist

Arknaut Company w/3x Light Skyhooks

3 Endrinriggers w/Rivet Guns and Pneumatic Saws

Frigate w/Cannon (Artifact: The Last Word)

Mission, Terrain, and Deployment
We rolled randomly for the mission and got Blood and Glory--four objectives, one in each quarter. If at any point after turn 3 you had all three of them, you won a major victory. Everything else was degrees of minor victory. A tough mission for such small forces, to be sure.

Terrain was thematic--the western half of the board was entirely forest, with a "Dangerous" spring at the center of it (some kind of monster living in those waters!), in the east there was a pile of rubble and an ancient statue of an old god (Damned) and a hill with a sigil of Tzeentch carved into it (Arcane!). We were also dealing with Steel Rain (which could cause mortal wounds to units not in cover).

In deployment, my opponent simply loaded everyone into his Frigate and dropped it in the forest in the north, somewhat near the NW objective. I dropped both stabba blocks in the woods with Gloama between them and put both Boingrot Bounderz in the west in the open, sitting on the SE objective. My plan, at least at the outset, was to use cover to let my goblins advance and try to seize the western objectives and let the Bounderz armor protect them as they tried to take the *other* two objectives in the east. The Bad Moon was to deploy from the SW corner. 

Deployment


Goblins in the forest
Bounderz in the open
Ship full of dwarves

Turn 1
My opponent won initiative, but let me go first. Wary of getting too close (lest he disembark, shoot me up, and charge out of his Frigate), I kept most of my army put but ran the westernmost stabbas forward about 9". This marked my second of many, many tactical errors this game, mostly borne of my total ignorance of what Kharadron allegiance abilities could do.

Top of Turn 1


Goblins sneaking through the woods

In the bottom half of the turn, I get my first taste of what the Overlords can do. The Company disembarks along with the Admiral and the Aether-Khemist while the Frigate sails east. The frigate's cannon hits the Boingrot Bounderz but fails to wound (whew!), but the Company uses the Admiral's command ability (get re-rolls to hit against one target of choice) and the Khemist allows them to fire their skyhooks twice and next thing I know, four of my five Bounderz (in the closest unit) evaporate and the fifth one just runs away. Ouch!

Bottom of Turn 1


Turn 2
Well...crap. I now realize I really, really need to come to grips with the dwarves ASAP, but I also need to claim objectives. It is at this point that you, more experienced players, have no doubt realized what I forgot: objectives remain claimed until taken back by the enemy! I could have moved up first thing (at least a little) with no problems! Well, consider that a fatal error I don't intend to make again. I win initiative this turn; I go again. 

Anyway, even assuming I remembered that crucial detail (I didn't), I still had the problem of getting too close to get shot and charged before I could launch an assault myself. The good news was that the Bad Moon shot out to center field this turn, bathing everyone in its clammy light. Two Arknauts were turned into mushrooms; nobody died of rainfall. I did my best to get my last unit of bounderz into combat with the frigate, but fell short on an 8" charge (only got a 9" move on a move and advance). The Stabbas with Gloama moved forward at a restrained pace (mistake) while the ones behind the spring moved at top speed (10"). Still, other than the light of the Bad Moon, I have done no damage. And it's mostly my fault for not moving on the first turn, which is because I forgot that I retained possession of objectives even after moving away. 

Top of Turn 2


Just not close enough!

In the bottom of 2, the Endrinriggers disembark from the Frigate and proceed to shoot/charge the goblin knights, killing 3 for only 1 wound in return (not good dice for me today). The last two, in true goblin fashion, run away. The Arknauts harpoon the stabbas with the boss and the Frigate's cannon also blows up a bunch of them. I lose something like 9 altogether.

Bottom of Turn 2


Goblins riding balloons slain by balloons riding dwarves! Film at 11!
I start taking hits

Turn 3
Calamity of calamities! The dwarves win initiative! Double turn!

Well, I lose just about everybody in the stabba unit closes to my boss from a barrage of rivets, a cannon shot, and a bunch of harpoons. Only about five goblins left, made to stick around with the expenditure of a command point.

Top of Turn 3


In my half of the turn, the Bad Moon zips to the northeast quadrant, which helps me not at all (need to get the hang of that thing). All units move up as far as possible, with the sneaky stabbas managing to secure the northwest objective, but still out of charge range. It's too little, too late.

Bottom of Turn 3


We made it round the mountain!

Turn 4
My opponent wins initiative again, and he obliterates the remaining stabbas by the boss and puts four wounds-worth of harpoons into Gloama and Gitgobbla.

Top of Turn 4


Okay, so *even assuming* we were playing by the correct objective-claiming rules, I'd have 3 objectives to his 1, but he can easily claim two and tie us with no problem in one turn's movement. Then he'd win a minor victory on points alone. Knowing what I know now, I *should* have tried (however lamely) to charge and kill the Endrinriggers with my Loonboss, which *might* have been possible, denying him the ability to secure the SE objective. What I did instead was try to eliminate the Arknauts and their thrice-damned skyhooks. The plan was to charge from the rear with the sneaky stabbas and from the front with my boss, using "Stab 'Em Good" to hopefully generate enough mortal wounds to wipe them out. No good, though--I failed both charges and nothing happened. Not even the boss's magic spear could kick out enough lightning to injure anyone.

Oh yeah, and the Bad Moon abandoned me, too. 

Bottom of Turn 4


I concede the game at this point. There is only one turn left. My opponent cannot reach the SW objective and probably can't claim the NW one, and certainly can't do both, so claiming all 4 is out--no major victory. He can tie me on objectives pretty easily, though, and claim a minor victory by dint of the fact he wiped out 75% of my army and I barely scratched him. So, minor victory for the Kharadron Overlords!

Post Mortem
Ouch! That one hurt.
I chalk my defeat up to a number of things, not least of which was a bunch of poorly-informed choices.

1) I should have realized you can claim objectives at the end of a turn and keep them until they are *re-taken*. That's an extra 6" of movement on turn 1 that, had I used it, might have made a huge difference.
2) I should have realized getting a major victory, even *with* those rules in use, was a long-shot and kept the bounderz in cover and near my infantry blocks--there was no reason to split up.
3) Mental note: goblins can't just stand there and be shot with harpoons all day. They need to get over there and *kill some dwarves.*
4) The Bad Moon would have been much more useful traveling the *opposite* direction that I had it going. Even better--going NW to SE. Have to get better at predicting where the action of the battle is going to take place.

At the end of this list was the fact that my dice were fairly bad, but that wasn't the worst of it--I was out maneuvered. It is also probably worth noting that, were we using points, the Overlord army is 700 points to my 580, so there's that, too. No matter: next time we meet, I'll do better.

In the end, the Overlords earned 3 glory for their efforts, whereas I acquired a measly 1 (for a total of 4 so far). Gloama skulked off into the deep woods with his surviving goblins, their captured Lochian Prince still in their possession.

Thanks for reading and thanks, as always, to my opponent!
« Last Edit: September 30, 2019, 01:48:15 PM by Wyddr »

Offline Myen'Tal

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Re: Path to Glory, Round 1: Gloomspite Gitz Vs Kharadron Overlords
« Reply #1 on: September 30, 2019, 07:15:20 PM »
Good Bat-Rep, Wyddr, it was very interesting as this is the first time I've seen Kharadron take the field just about anywhere in a battle report! That loss was rough one, but there is always something more valuable to be taken away from a defeat than a triumphant victory. I see you've taken a lot away already :).

Looking forward to the next Battle Report!
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Offline Roboknee77

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Re: Path to Glory, Round 1: Gloomspite Gitz Vs Kharadron Overlords
« Reply #2 on: October 1, 2019, 10:27:51 AM »
Thanks for the write up Wyddr.

Like you, I forgot how claiming objectives worked in AoS and how it's different than 40K.  It did come up in one of the test games you ran about a year ago, which is why it was easy to forget.  I don't think we'll forget again.  The one thing I did remember was damage is applied to the whole unit so hit that does 6 wounds will take out 6 models.  Some good damage rolls with the Sky Cannon and the Sky Hooks really helped me whittle down the stabbas.

Overall my tactics were pretty simple, as you pointed out.  One Drop, let you go first then get out of my boat and shoot with buffs as you come toward me.  I figured the Bounders were the priority since they could get to me the fastest and could hit pretty hard.  After that it was focus on one unit of stabbas at a time.

Thanks again for the write up, I had a lot of fun and know the next match won't be as easy.  It never is against you.  :)

Offline Myen'Tal

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Re: Path to Glory, Round 1: Gloomspite Gitz Vs Kharadron Overlords
« Reply #3 on: October 13, 2019, 08:40:04 PM »
Hi Wddyr,

Can you tell me a little about the software you're using for your Bat-Reps? Also, is it rather simple to use?

Thanks :).
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Offline Sir_Godspeed

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Re: Path to Glory, Round 1: Gloomspite Gitz Vs Kharadron Overlords
« Reply #4 on: October 13, 2019, 10:57:31 PM »
Nice!

Offline Wyddr

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Re: Path to Glory, Round 1: Gloomspite Gitz Vs Kharadron Overlords
« Reply #5 on: October 14, 2019, 10:40:48 AM »
Hi Wddyr,

Can you tell me a little about the software you're using for your Bat-Reps? Also, is it rather simple to use?

Thanks :).

Sure! The software is called Battle Chronicler (just Google it--not sure forum rules allow me to post a link). It's not really that hard to use, but it has a *little* bit of a learning curve just because there are so many fiddly bits.

The thing that takes the most time is setting up your army templates and getting all the right base sizes and stuff (I've been using it for years now, so I  have a comprehensive array of templates by now, all custom built). It also has a lot of terrain choices, but they're not customizable (well, except by size), so sometimes it's hard to duplicate the precise terrain seen on the board (though it doesn't have to be exact).

I'd recommend downloading it and fiddling around. You'll get the hang of it pretty quick, I'm guessing.

 


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