500 point Border Patrol tournament

[sorberec]

Army Composition: Border Patrol

Board Size: 3 x 4’

Deployment Zones: 15”

Deployment Method: Standard



Introduction


This is going to be different to my usual battle reports as this was a mini-tournament between myself, Andy, Nick and Andy’s friend Martin. Although we were only playing 500 points I didn’t want to slow things down by jotting notes all the time, so this is going to be just what I can remember.

I decided not to take High Elves given that I’ve only ever come up with 1 decent list for them which only gives me two units. Instead I decided to try an army I hadn’t taken before and so drew up lists for Ogres, Beasts and Bretonnians. I ended up going for Ogres but was a bit concerned that two units of multi-wound Fear causers might be a bit much. As it turned out, I needn’t have worried…

As I didn’t take any notes at the time these reports aren’t as in-depth as usual and probably aren’t even 90% accurate. The maps are a bit less accurate again.


Armies


Me - Ogre Kingdoms

Bruiser
- Heavy Armour
- Sword Gnoblar

4 Ogre Bulls

4 Ogre Bulls

20 Gnoblars

20 Gnoblars


Andy - Empire

Wizard
- Ring of Volans
- Van Horstmann’s Speculum

6 Pistoliers
- Outrider with Repeater Pistol

5 Knights

20 Swordsmen
- Full command


Nick - Orc and Goblins

Orc Shaman
- Level 2
- Itty Ring

20 Orcs

20 Night Goblins
- Fanatic

5 Spider Riders


Martin - Dark Elves

Noble
- Elven steed
- Sea Dragon Cloak
- Shield
- Lance

5 Cold One Knights

5 Dark Riders


Game 1 - Ogres Vs Dark Elves



For terrain we’d got a bit of woods over on the Dark Elves left just on the edge of their deployment zone, another woods on my left about midway down the table and finally a hill on my right just before my deployment zone.

I deployed a unit of Gnoblars on the left so that they could march up and go either way round the hill, the other Gnoblars behind the hill, my general’s unit of Bruisers between the Gnoblar units and the remaining Ogres to the right of the hill.

The Dark Elves deployed with the Warriors in a line to the left of the woods as I looked at it, the Cold One Knights



I think I won the roll to move first and moved all my units up. I think the Cold One Knights moved forwards slightly their first turn while the Warriors shot at my general’s Bull unit putting 2 wounds on my general and 2 on a bull in the back rank.



Second turn I moved both Bull units and the right-most Gnoblars up while wheeling the Gnoblars on the left to bring them to the right of the woods. The Cold One Knights charged my General’s unit while the Warriors shot down 4 Gnoblars from the unit on my right. In combat the Cold One Knights did 1 wound (I think) to the Bulls, taking 1 off the back rank. In reply the Ogres killed 2 or 3 Knights and put a wound on the Noble and won the combat but the Elves stuck around.



Turn 3 the Gnoblars on the left moved a bit closer to my General’s unit while the others moved up close enough to throw some sharp stuff at the Warriors. The other unit of Bulls started manoeuvring in front of the woods. The Gnoblars managed to take down 2 Warriors by flinging sharp stuff at them. In the combat I think I killed another Knight but the Elves held again. The Dark Riders changed flanks so that they were behind the Cold One Knights while the Warriors changed formation to 2 ranks to accept a charge from the Gnoblars.



Fourth turn the Gnoblars charged the Warriors, beat them and chased them off the table. The Ogres wiped out the rest of the Cold One Knights and the Noble fled. While the Ogres couldn’t pump their legs fast enough to catch him they did overrun towards the Dark Riders who saw which way the battle was heading and fled off the table. In the Dark Elf turn the Noble rallied.



The Ogres with my General Bull Charged the Noble and in the ensuing combat chopped him down from his Cold One.


Game 2 - Ogres Vs Empire



Scenery was not too dissimilar to my first game – there was a hill in roughly the same place while on the left of the table there was a building where there had been woods. The main difference was that there were no woods on the opposite side of the table this time.

I deployed my Gnoblars pretty much the same as before but this time both Ogre units went in the middle of the table. The Empire deployed with the Pistoliers on the left as I looked at the table, the Wizard and Swordsmen just to the left of centre and the Knights on the right.



Empire moved first with the Pistoliers moving down the left side of the building while the Swordsmen and Knights moved up. The Swordsmen had strayed a bit too far forwards and so I charged with my General’s unit while moving the Gnoblars on the right just onto the hill. The Ogre charge killed 3 Swordsmen but the Wizard armed with the Speculum challenged my general who obviously failed to score any hits. It was probably only due to the unit failing its fear test that the Ogres didn’t take any wounds back but they still lost due to the static combat resolution and fled towards the end of the table taking the other unit of Ogres with them. The Swordsmen were still in shock from the Bull charge and couldn’t catch the fleeing lard-asses.



The Swordsmen continued pursing the Ogres while the Knights decided to chance an attack of sharp stuff and moved alongside the hill. The Pistoliers found they’d moved too far forwards the previous turn and were march blocked so they contented themselves with running down the flank of the Gnoblars and unleashing a volley into the Gnoblars, killing 2.

Ogre turn 2 the Gnoblar units both turned to face the enemy, although the Gnoblars on the left chose to go after the Swordsmen rather than the Pistoliers. Both Bull units carried on running towards the table edge. The Gnoblars didn’t manage to do anything with shooting.



Turn 3 the Pistoliers charged the Gnoblars as did the Swordsmen, with the Knights moving up once more. Needless to say the Gnoblars were wiped out. Both Bull units rallied just in time to turn and face the advancing enemy. The Gnoblars on the hill again flung sharp stuff at the Knights in vain.



Turn 4 the Pistoliers moved down to my table edge and turned to face the Bull units while the Swordsmen reformed to face them also and moved up. (Can’t remember what the Knights did but I’m sure they didn’t sit around waiting for sharp stuff to be flung at them again). Shooting put another couple of wounds on my General’s unit. My General’s unit charged the Swordsmen again while the other Bulls turned to face the Pistoliers. This time the Bull charge failed to kill any Swordsmen, the General couldn’t do anything after being challenged by the Wizard and I think the Bulls either did no wounds or only 1 wound. The Swordsmen did enough wounds and had enough static resolution to win combat and leave me requiring insance courage to stick around – which I duly rolled.



Turn 5 I think the Pistoliers unleashed a volley into the Bulls closest to them causing enough wounds for a panic test which they failed and fled off the table side. The Knights I think moved further from the hill. The Swordsmen beat the Bulls and ran them down. I don’t think I did anything with the remaining unit of Gnoblars this turn.



Turn 6 and the Pistoliers moved to the base of the hill to fire at the Gnoblars, which they did killing 2 or 3. In reply my last turn the Gnoblars turned to face the Pistoliers and flung sharp stuff at them, managing to kill 1 (annoyingly the other wound caused was saved and so I didn’t make them take the panic test which might have got me some points).

I should add that Andy’s Wizard was casting Bear’s Anger like a good ‘un most turns which I was letting go to dispel the spell he’d got in his Ring of Volans and then dispelling in my turn. I don’t think the Wizard actually ended up in a combat where he still had it in effect until one round in Andy’s game against Martin.

[b]Game 3 – Ogres Vs Orcs and Goblins[b]



Going into this last game as the points stood it was pretty much like a typical England world cup football group – theoretically almost anyone could win the group but I needed to take full points from Nick and hope Andy fluffed against Martin’s Dark Elves.

Scenery for this game as I looked at the table was a hill just to right of centre on the edge of my deployment zone, a woods on the left hand side of the table down the length and finally a woods in the Orc and Goblin deployment zone on the right hand side.

I deployed both Gnoblar units on the hill with my General’s bulls just to the left of the hill and the other Bulls next to them. Nick deployed his Spider Riders in the woods on the right of his deployment zone, the Boar Chariot not quite behind the woods on the left side, the Night Goblins next to the chariot and the Orcs with the Shaman to the right of them.





As I’d kind of caught bits of Nick’s previous games out of the corner of my eye I’d seen that both the Empire and Dark Elves had moved forwards and got completely hammered, so for the first couple of turns I decided to hang back and only moved the right-most unit of Gnoblars on the hill round to face the advancing Spider Riders. Nick suffered from animosity a bit these first couple of turns but eventually got his units moving forwards.



In my turn 3 (I think I got first turn but can’t remember) I moved my General’s bulls forwards a bit and tried to take down some Spider Riders as the unit had strayed close enough to the Gnoblar hill that the unit could move just to the base of it and fling stuff. Unfortunately they failed to cause any wounds.



Turn 4 I decided to risk running into the inevitable Fanatic and declared a charge on the Gobbos with my General’s bulls. Nick decided to flee with the Gobbos, presumably hoping to leave my General’s unit open to a charge from the Boar Chariot, but he’d evidently not noticed me move my General’s unit of Bulls forwards as they managed to run into the Orc unit using Enemy in the Way with a couple of inches to spare.

Not that that did me any good as I’d only got 1 Bull in base contact with the Orcs. On a plus note, one of those Orcs was the Shaman so after failing to do anything with the Bull Charge impact hits I put all the Bull’s attacks into the Shaman but failed to wound. Fortunately the Orcs did nothing in reply and despite losing combat the Ogres stuck around.

That turn I’d also moved the other unit of Bulls forward hoping to invite a charge from the Boar Chariot and in Nick’s turn 4 he duly obliged. Between impact hits and attacks from Boars and Orcs he killed 1 Ogre and might have had another wound on one as well. In reply the remaining Ogres in contact did 1 wound, lost combat and were run down.

In the other combat Nick had moved his champion into base contact with the only Bull touching the Orc unit but again didn’t do enough from striking first to kill him. This time the Ogre made no mistakes and cut down the Orc Shaman.

Unfortunately despite causing more wounds the Ogres still couldn’t overcome the static combat resolution of the Orc unit and this time fled from combat only to be chased down.



Turn 5 the Gnoblar unit of the left of the hill turned to face the Boar Chariot and moved forwards to be only just in range of both ranks. Despite the penalties for having moved the Gnoblars managed to do 4 hits only for me to then realise that with Strength 2 they couldn’t harm the chariot anyway.



In Nick’s turn 6 he charged the Gnoblars with the Orcs, doing enough wounds combined with the static resolution to require them to run and be run down. I think the other unit of Gnoblars also ran off the table in sympathy.

I can’t remember exactly what happened with Magic this game. Nick rolled Gaze of Mork and ‘Eadbutt and I know he cast Gaze of Mork a couple of times which I let go so I’d still got dice to try and dispel his ‘Eadbutts on my General.

Conclusion

Well before I get onto the bitching and griping I have to say well done to Nick for winning this. Admittedly he was playing against one person with even less recent experience of WFB than us, as well as using a 6th edition army book, and me taking an army I’d not played before that I’d be surprised if it wasn’t bordering on sub-optimal for the points level, but as they say every time England rack up an impressive victory against the Outer Hebrides pub team third eleven, you can only beat what’s there.

While I only got the odd glimpse of the other games and the odd word with his victim of the moment during a momentary lull in my own games he played his force pretty well and benefitted from the dice gods on a couple of occasions.

To take my games in order I don’t really think it fair to count my game against Martin as 6th edition Dark Elves are clearly not a patch on the nastiness that is 7th edition and the list he took was always likely to favour the Ogres since his units weren’t generating much static combat resolution. That said he was unlucky when the Cold One Knights charged my General’s unit of Ogre Bulls and fluffed one too many attacks to tip the balance his way.

My second game against Andy I think I just messed up my deployment. Rather than having the Bulls in the middle I should have put the Gnoblars there to try and tar pit the Swordsmen and put the Bulls out on the Flanks to match off against the Knights and Pistoliers where I’d be starting any combat with either equal or higher static resolution (assuming the Pistoliers hadn’t shot up any bulls facing them too badly first). That way I would hopefully have been able to beat one or both of his mobile units and then come round into the rear or flank of the Swordsmen.

That said, the Van Horstmann’s Speculum trick is nasty – I’ve read about it being used before but I think this is the first time Andy’s used it when I’ve played him – and basically meant I didn’t get to make use of my General in combat where he might have turned the tide in my favour.

The final game against Nick I was trying to be a bit more clever by waiting for him to come to me but should probably have deployed the left-most unit of bulls further left out of sight of the Boar Chariot (assuming I remember correctly and that was deployed before my small unit of Bulls) and then moved my General’s Bulls up at the Gobbos and trying to bait the Chariot out and hopefully hold the chariot charge and get in its flank with the other Bull unit.

List-wise I’d gone in trying not to take something that might be too over-powering, thinking that a couple of units of fear causing fat guys with 3 wounds and attacks each could possibly be a bit hard to deal with as it was.

Obviously this proved to be a mistaken idea since the low weapon skill of the Ogres made it difficult to get enough hits to turn into wounds to trouble the opposing units.

The only other list I’d seriously considered taking had a unit of Iron Guts rather than the second units of Bulls and Gnoblars but I should probably have fielded a couple of Maneaters instead of those two units or just had one larger unit of 7 Bulls for the General to go into, pimped out with a champion, standard bearer and additional hand weapons so that I’d have had 2 static combat resolution (outnumber, if the Bull Charge impact hits killed any models, and standard) and 9 WS3 attacks, plus the General’s 4 WS 5 attacks (and not losing his attacks in the challenge to the Speculum by accepting the challenge with the unit champion). With that little lot I’d have hopefully been scoring some hits on the opposing units which should have translated into a few wounds (actually, I’m not clear from the Ogre book if the additional hand weapons means you still get to use the Ogre Clubs or not)