I had some luck at a local RTT a few weeks back with my Empire forces, and thought I'd share a few thoughts and pics with folks. Something to read, anyway, while we all await Machiara's SAWS report.
There were a couple of Forest-Spirit-heavy WE armies there that did well but missed out on the top spots.
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The crew at Tower Games in Minneapolis only run one or two fantasy RTTs a year, but they run top notch events that tend to draw lots of veterans and fill up very fast. I was happy to hear they were running a second event this year, and even happier to get signed up before it got full!
My list:
1 General of the Empire – full mounted kit, Rod of Command, Shroud of Magnus
1 Warrior Priest – full mounted kit, Icon of Magnus
1 Level 1 scroll caddy
1 Master Engineer – repeater handgun
25 Swordsmen – full command
9 Free Company
7 Archers
25 Spearmen – full command, shields
9 Free Company
7 Archers
10 Handgunners
2 x 5 Knights – champ, musician
2 x 5 Pistoliers
2 Great Cannons
1 Volley Gun
1 Steam Tank
The tournament theme was “Summer Seige” and required us to bring an extra custom-made war machine. I went with an RBT-esque option modeled from a bunch of spare handguns mounted on a wooden frame and tied to a single trigger cord. Each game board also had a tower on it. Besides the usual points for W-L-D, there were various bonus battle score points available tied to the special war machines and the towers in each game.
Game 1:
Rick Viner’s Dwarfs lined up across from me, no doubt scowling through their beards (if anyone could tell) at the pathetic human gunpowder contraptions and listening their engineer go on and on about how his human counterpart couldn’t hold a candle to him.
Dwarf Lord w/ Shieldbearers
BSB, Runesmith, and Engineer
20 Hammerers (Lord and BSB here)
20 Longbeards
2 x 10 Handgunners
1 each of Bolt Thrower, Cannon, and Organ Gun
This game required us to attach our “special” war machines to another unit and try and punch it into our opponent’s DZ while preventing him from doing the same in order to claim the bonus tournament points.
I loaded up my best stuff on the left flank opposite his handgunners and war machines, hoping to sweep through them quickly and get my “special” war machine (attached to my general’s unit of swordsmen) into the enemy DZ. Other than having to pass a couple of panic checks with my GoE’s Swordsmen due to concentrated handgunner fire, this plan went off without a hitch.
On the right, his two combat units moved forward. A unit of Pistoliers on that side successfully distracted and diverted his Longbeards away from the Hammerers, whose lone march up the field under the loving attention of both my cannons and my volley gun was long and painful. The last Hammerer fell within charge range of my spearmen, thanks in no small part to the volley gun exploding (literally) for 28 shots at close range. His lord and BSB (the lone survivors) tried to carry their special war machine through my Spearmen, but it was too much static CR for the dwarf characters to overcome before the game ended.
Here is a midgame photo just as I am hitting his shooting troops and getting ready to pound the Hammerers:
Victory to the Empire!
Game 2:
Jon’s Witthuhn’s All-Nurgle Demons, beautiful in a way that only a mother could love:
1 GUO – a d6 wound sword and no doubt some other stuff
1 Herald in a huge (25?) unit of Plaguebearers
2 smaller units of Plaguebearers
2 Beasts of Nurgle
3 Nurgling Swarms
His special war machine was a light cannon (I won’t get into the details of the conversion . . . let’s just say “eeeewwww”), and the scenario required both of us to deploy our special war machines front and center using the dwarf entrenchment rules, otherwise it was a straight up pitched battle.
My plan revolved mostly around shooting the GUO with everything I had to soften it up for either a static CR unit or the Steam Tank to go in and finish him off, feeding the big plaguebearer unit till that happened, and hoping for the best with all the other stuff.
Jon’s solution to keeping the GUO from being shot at was rather unique. After advancing up the field on his first turn, he tried casting a spell with the big guy. Miscast. Double “1”’s on the miscast table.
Wow.
Here's a nice shot of me using my dark force powers when John isn't looking to hex the GUO moments before his fatal miscast:
With Papa Nurgle having recalled his favorite son to the warp, my Steam Tank was now free to shoot across the field and slam into now-unguarded flank of his big Plaguebearer unit. Those two units stood mired in combat till the end of the game, pretty much unable to hurt each other.
This left my shooting and other regiments to handle the Beasts, Nurglings, and support Plaguebearer units for the win, while my own cannons polished off his entrenched “special” war machine and my handgunners (of all things) seized the tower for the bonus points. I was mighty impressed by the toughness of the Nurgle troops and how hard it was to get rid of them, but with his heavy hitters gone or tied up it was more a matter of “when” than “if”.
Game 3:
John Stentz and his piles of GT and RTT hardware that had been cleverly converted into a Brettonian army that had been cleverly converted into a Tomb Kings army awaited me in Game 3.
Tomb King – on foot, Scorpion armour, GW, some other stuff
Icon Bearer on skeletal steed
2 x Liche Priest, one w/ Casket of Souls
1 big unit of Tomb Guard
2 x 10 Archers
2 x 3 Chariots
3 Ushtabi
1 SSC
2 Tomb Scorpions and 1 Tomb Swarm
Not an OTT Tomb Kings army by any stretch, but the tunnelers and SSC had the potential to make a complete hash of my lines. At least I had the Shroud to deflect the worst of the Casket’s magic. His chariots and archers went on the flanks, while the center featured the Casket, SSC, and special war machine lurking in the backfield behind the Tomb Guard.
Here we are mugging for the camera before slugging it out:
I decided to play bold and ran my knights out in front of his chariots on the flanks, while my Steam Tank went hard for the Tomb Guard. The Knights made their armour saves against the T4 impact hits and gradually ground down the chariot units over the next couple of turns. The Steam Tank slammed into the Tomb Guard for the full 6d3 impact hits, and over the course of a couple of turns just barely managed to finish that unit and the Icon bearer off before being ground to bits by the Tomb King’s S7 attacks.
In my own backfield, I had the tunnelers to deal with. My general’s Swordsmen walked onto one of the Scorpion counters and luckily my opponent rolled the “hit” on the tunneling dice. I had to sweat out a few attacks on my characters, but even my lowly scroll caddy managed to survive the Scorpion’s poor rolling before it was finished off by static CR. The Tomb Swarm misfired trying to tunnel up. The second Scorpion did much better, managing over the course of the game to take out a cannon, my special war machine, the handgunners, and even the right-flank knights before it was all done. Still, it hadn’t been as bad as I had feared. My shooters had even had time to take out his special war machine and hit his troops hard enough to force a lot of his casting power to go into just keeping up his strength.
While all this was going on, his Ushtabi had taken the tower . . . however, with the Volley Gun saved by my general’s unit, I was able to fire into the building and destroy them over a couple of turns. The Engineer’s extra BS really helped here, meaning I was hitting on 5’s instead of 6’s against the hard cover. That cleared the way for my spearmen to enter the tower and claim it for the bonus tourney points.
John’s archers took out my Pistoliers and hurt my detachments over several turns of firing, but since I had deliberately run them out front to keep his SSC from having good shooting lanes to my infantry blocks, I wasn’t too upset. I did take a late-game SSC shot to my general’s unit, and they did flee, but there were no enemies nearby to capitalize and I had time to rally.
Up till very near the end of the game the points score was pretty even, but John had simply ran out of troops. My Warrior Priest’s Knights had nothing in their way once they finally finished off the left-flank chariots, and they managed to roll around the tower and into the Casket to put me over the top for the win. A bit of bad luck with tunneler rolls and impact hits on the second turn helped turn the tide in my favor, but it was a good hard-fought game with lots of tactical maneuver. It was a great way to end the day!
Wrapup:
It was a close fight for the top spot. There was another 3-0 player in the mix, and a 2-0-1 player who had a phenomenal paint score (4 or 5 Golden Demon winners in one’s army will tend to do that), but, thanks mostly to snatching almost all the bonus points in each scenario, I managed to just edge them for the overall win! All on the day before my birthday to boot!
It was a good day for the Empire overall. Combined, the 3 Empire armies in attendance went 8-1, took 3 of the top 6 spots, and went home with the Overall, Best General, and Best Sportsman awards. It was just a good day to be a human, I guess.
Kudos again to the Tower Games crew for putting on a top notch event that was well organized and loads of fun.
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There were some very nice armies there. I have some pics of a few of my own minis archived, and while I am quite happy with them I was (deservedly) not in the top half of the paint scores. If I can get close-up pics from a few of the other attendees, I'll pass them on.