For round 5, we were paired against Ungrateful Colonials which was mostly US ETC players. I tried to pair myself against their OK list and successfully matched against it.
Ben Mitchell Ogre Khans
535 - Shaman, General, Wizard Master, Thaumaturgy, Iron Fist, Binding Scroll, Magical Heirloom
425 - Mammoth Hunter, Light Armour (Wrestler's Belt), Iron Fist, Hunting Spear, Lucky Charm, Trolleater, Leader of the Pack
395 - Khan, Battle Standard Bearer (Banner of Discipline), Plate Armour, Halberd, Paired Weapons, Iron Fist, Great Weapon, Lygur's Tongue, Hoardmaster
380 - Mammoth Hunter, Light Armour (Death Cheater), Iron Fist, Hunting Spear, Spinesplitter, Leader of the Pack
585 - 8 Tribesmen, Iron Fist, Standard Bearer (Pennant of the Great Grass Sky), Musician, Champion
205 - 3 Bruisers, Champion
205 - 3 Bruisers, Champion
140 - 20 Scraplings, Throwing Weapons, Scrapling Foreman
80 - Sabretooth Tigers
80 - Sabretooth Tigers
245 - Scratapult
245 - Scratapult
490 - Rock Aurochs, Ogre Crossbow
490 - Rock Aurochs, Ogre Crossbow
4500
Scenario was King of the Hill and Ben "won" the roll for table side and took top, meaning I would go first from the bottom. He selected the fence for his objective and I picked the hill on the lower left.
General strategy:
With the building splitting his deployment zone and his selection of the fence for objective, I felt he would definitely corner on the top left so I left one unit of centaurs wide to try to flank from that right side, everything else went right in the middle.
I would try to use the hill for early game charges for the centaurs, and for the chariot characters after that.
I'm not usually intimated by OK lists like this as in theory, the GW centaurs can take a charge from either a hunter or aurochs and generally hold, or at least heavily wound it before they are chased down. And of course, if they get the charge then it's a much simpler combat. Even if they are charged by both... the champion can challenge out the hunter which definitely doesn't guarantee a win (they likely still lose badly without stoneskin) but still gives good odds to heavily wound the auroch before they go.
Having first turn, I will push everything up to start. If I can get a lucky master of earth on one of the tigers, then I will be able to charge T2, otherwise I will likely be charged in return and will need to rely on stoneskin for the GW centaurs to fight it out.
His big deathstar unit holding the characters is tribesmen rather than bruisers, so I think my large unit of wildhorns will do well against it if they have an opportunity. It also gives opportunities for the chariot characters to charge in there without fear of dying.
The 2x scrapalaunchers aren't particularly intimidating either. Anything in my army can take a charge from one of them, and the shooting will likely only kill a couple centaurs a turn.
Showing deployment and first turn vanguards. There is a gap in the top left where I could move the GW centaurs into as his splinesplitter hunter and auroch were looking away. However, I chickened out as doing so would mean they would take charges from 2x scrapalaunchers and a unit of bruisers... just slightly past my risk tolerance. This was possibly an early mistake as I wasn't able to put that much early pressure on the left flank.
T1 BH
The dogs move up in front of his tribesmen bunker and the unit of bruisers beside them. The lance centaurs and lord chariot move up on the hill, the lord watching the board left. The right centaurs fill the gap between cliff and building. The left centaurs hover in the middle of the board as I wasn't particularly aggressive with them as mentioned above. Magic is not good... the master of earth on a tiger is predictably dispelled but stoneskin goes off on the left centaurs, at the expense of a miscast and 2 wounds on the shaman.
T1 OK
His middle bruisers charge and chase away the dogs, then reform to face the lance centaurs. On both flanks, tigers chaff the GW centaurs and the aurochs and hunters prepare for counter charges.
Magic is devastating. A single hand of heaven does 5 wounds to the lance centaurs. That's five games in a row now where they've taken 5+ wounds on a single magic missile. Wrath of the gods is also cast, and shooting does another 2 wounds to the lance centaurs, leaving 3.
T2 BH
On both flanks, the centaur chieftains charged out of their units against the tigers. On the left, by doing so the chieftain over-ran and chaffed the auroch. On the right, the tiger fled and blocked the tribesmen bunker. I re-directed in the auroch on a risky charge. I figured on averages he dies... but if he doesn't then he ties up the auroch for a turn and the centaurs can then roll that flank easily.
In the middle, the 3 remaining lance centaurs charge the bruisers in front of them. Both units of ambushers come in.
Magic is strong and puts stoneskin on the left chieftan, and distracting on the right centaurs. He used a binding scroll to prevent any augmenting of the lance centaurs (only summer growth was in range). Unfortunately comet comes down and does a ton of damage, doing 2 wounds to the lord, wiping out the remaining dogs, most of the mongrels and 10 wildhorns.
In combat, the right chieftain succumbs to the law of averages and dies, but does 2 wounds to the auroch on the way in. Hopefully distracting will be enough to save the right centaurs now. The lance centaurs are much luckier and do a stunning 6 wounds on 7 attacks, taking one in return. They chase down the bruisers and over-run into the scrapalauncher behind.
T2 OK
Unfortunately the BH are on the back foot as the OK start off the game with the most charges. The left auroch charges the chaffing chieftain in front but bounces off his stoneskin. The left hunter (splinesplitter) charges the GW centaurs. In a risky decision, I choose not to challenge thinking he probably won't do the 10 wounds required to break steadfast. He does... 9 wounds (phew!)... and only takes one in return and the GW centaurs hold.
His second unit of tribesmen charge the lance centaurs in the middle and finish them off, after they do 2 wounds to the scrapalauncher.
The right flank is most disastrous. With the right auroch free after killing the hunter, both he and the right hunter (trolleater) charge the centaurs. The centaurs are debuffed with -1 strength to offset their distracting advantage and the combat does not go well. Again, I choose not to challenge (not sure what I was thinking here!) and the auroch and hunter combine for 12 wounds. The 2 remaining centaurs put a single wound back on the auroch and are run down. The hunter pivots to face the ambushers behind him, and the auroch runs toward the chariot. I'd checked the wildhorns last turn to ensure they were clear of the pursuit path.
T3 BH
Not a good turn for the BH! I really, really should've challenged on the right flank to soak some of the trolleater's damage to give the centaurs a better chance to kill the auroch. On the left, I think even though he did a ridiculously lucky 9 wounds, not challenging was again the wrong choice as the champion should've soaked at least his impact hits and devastating charge bonuses.
Anyways, his over-runs were contained so counter charges are available and there's tools to claw back into this one! Chariot lord charges his left auroch. BSB chariot and raiding chariots charge his right auroch. The right longhorns charge his trolleater (hoping for a lucky flank support from the raiding chariots after killing the auroch). The wildhorns in the middle chase off his tiger, but fail their rr 9 redirect test to hit the character bunker. Without their help, the longhorns behind the bunker decide to stay put.
Stoneskin helps out the remaining GW centaurs on the left, and with its help they beat and run down the splinesplitter hunter.
The BSB chariot and raiding chariots kill the right auroch, and then the raiding chariots hit their lucky 10" over-run to flank his trolleater hunter! Things are looking up!
The left auroch kills off the remaining chieftain, but the character lord kills it in return. He hits his over-run into the scrapalauncher behind, which keeps him out of counter charges.
And then things go sideways... In the raiding chariot + longhorn fight against the trolleater 2D6 impacts, 8 Str5, 2 Str6 and 6Str4 hits manages... 1 wound on the trolleater. The trolleater then does 4 in return to the longhorns. Disappointingly, it adds up to a loss by 1 for the BH. The longhorns pass steadfast, but the chariots roll a 10, 10 for BSB and flee.
They clip the wildhorns on the way out. The wildhorns roll... 10, 10... and flee.
The wildhorns clip the BSB. He rolls... 10, 10... and runs as well.
Literally, every dice roll was a 4 and a 6. It was quite something to see in the chat log of UB...
Fortunately, the shaman and mongrels buck the trend and pass their panic as the BSB clips them. Maybe the issue was the BSB reroll? With him running, the little guys maybe felt a bit more pressure to pass the test the first time!
To make matters worse, at the end of the turn Ben mentions the chariot lord failed his fear so may not be able to over-run. We checked the rules, and he was right. We retracted the over-run, leaving the chariot lord stuck precariously in front of the OK character bunker.
What a turn, what looked a bit dire at the start turned around quickly, and then just fell apart as only BH can...
T3 OK
The character bunker charges the lord, who justifiably flees, and takes the gargoyles with him. The remaining hunter finishes off the longhorns. Wrath of gods is cast as well.
I'll just leave this depressing picture below to show the game state at the bottom of T3!
T4 BH
UB wasn't done with me yet. The chariot lord, BSB, chariots and wildhorns all failed to rally. The chariots ran off the board.
However, the gargyoles did rally and wrath of gods didn't come down so it wasn't all bad news!
The remaining GW centaurs charged his scrapalauncher who fled off the board. I figured there was no way I could fail another discipline test, so I happily threw their LD7 redirect which they passed, then charged the bruisers in front. Having no other targets for magic, the shaman buffed them with stoneskin. The centaurs then handily killed the bruisers and over-ran as far as they could to keep his character bunker away from the hill.
I mostly just left my longhorns on the top where they were and hoped Ben would forget about them...
T4 OK
His character bunker charged and killed the GW centaurs, then pivoted to face the objective (my hill). Wrath of gods failed to come down again, so he added a second one (the stars) for good measure.
T5 BH
The BSB and wildhorns again failed to rally, and ran off the board. However, the brave chariot lord determined his fluffed fear checks 2 turns ago was a little embarassing... and rallied. Hooray!
The longhorns charged his scrapalauncher who fled, they failed their charge and exposed their flank to the scrapplings.
The mongrels ran in front of his character bunker to slow their push on the hill. The shaman ran out on his own (with 1 wound remaining) to dodge the hunter.
He buffed the remaining longhorns with healing waters to keep them safe from a flank charge and healed himself.
The gargyoles flee to the left, away from wrath of gods. Both of them came down, but because everything ran off the board, nothing was hit.
T5 OK
His scrapplings charged the longhorns but couldn't break them. They turned to face for next turn. His hunter charged and killed the mongrels.
The scrappalauncher rallied.
A key piece was the character bunker. The mongrels were just barely in their way, meaning he had to wheel carefully around their flank to ensure unit spacing which kept them 6.5" away from the hill. I didn't measure it, it was just lucky placement.
T6 BH
The gargoyles had their big moment and blocked the character bunker from the hill. The chariot lord walked up behind them to ensure when they fled, they would bounce out of charge reach.
The shaman continued to play rope-a-dope with the hunter, and this time helped the longhorns with stoneskin to deter his hunter from joining in. This was fortunate, as they killed a bunch of scrapplings but couldn't break steadfast.
T6 OK
The character bunker was stuck with their failed charge against the gargoyles, leaving them off the hill. The chariot lord passed his panic as well, preserving a few points. He elected not to charge in the hunter against the stoneskin longhorns, so they handily killed off the scrapplings this turn.
End result was a 7-13 for the BH.
Closing thoughts:
Turn 3 was just about the most disasterous, see-saw, turn of ninth age I've ever played. It makes it a bit tough to analyse this game with all the failed discipline tests but let's see what I can do! Fortunately, I didn't fail a ton of primal furies like the last two games!
The lance centaurs continue to disappoint with their vulnerability to magic missiles. Yes, they killed a unit of bruisers (with a ton of luck helping out), but were easily dispatched the following turn meaning I trade their 400+ pts for 200pt bruisers and a single magic missile. Maybe they just aren't destined to play in the middle of the board?
The other centaurs weren't much better. It was my fault in forgetting to challenge meaning his trolleater/splinesplitter did a ton of damage on the charge. However, the left centaurs did have a flash of greatness after they got a stoneskin, killing one hunter, then chase down a scrappalauncher and unit of bruisers the next turn. Maybe I'm also using them wrong as flanking units? They need stoneskin so much it hurts, and this map was not good for druidism range with no water and the hill in my deployment zone. Next round I may try to base their deployment off the terrain placement instead.
In general, this army really wants to play as a bubble for leadership/druidism support. However, the big base size of the centaurs and their vanguard struggles against that concept. This is the main strategy I'm trying to figure out with the army.
I also was not pleased in my first turn push. The dogs weren't well used blocking his middle which probably wasn't going to push aggressively with my units on the hill opposite. The dogs would have been better used on the left flank to block a scrapplauncher, who would have let me push with the left centaurs more aggressively.
I think the main "good" this game was my conservative use of the gargoyles to keep them safe until the end of the game where they were badly needed to prevent the secondary 6 pts swing!
As all my opponents in this tournament so far, Ben was a pleasure to play and it was a really interesting game despite my disbelief on turn 3!