League of Rhordia vs Orks – Eliminate

Kislev Army: 
Duke on Ancient Winged Aralez, diadem of dragonfire (Tzarina Katarin on ice dragon)
Wizard, bane-chant, inspiring crown (ice sorceress)
Baron on horse, sword of striking (boyar)
Household knights regiment, helmet of the ram (winged lancers)
Household knights regiment, potion of catterpillar (winged lancers)
Household knights troop (winged lancers)
Honour Guard horde, brew of haste (sons of ursun)
3x Halfling horse archer troops (ungol horse archers)
2x Halfling volley guns (urugan cannons)
Halfling scout troop (kossar scouts)
City militia regiment (kossars)

This time, I used my kossar troop as a halfling scout troop, as I wanted to try out a new unit that I can play my kossars as. The helm of the ram is also a new addition I wanted to try out. It feels like the TC+CS of 3 that the honour guard have makes a big difference against the common 5+ /6+ units, so for only 15pts, it seems like it should be worth it to give a lancer regiment TC 3.

Ork army: (dont remember items)
1x Krusher on winged slasher
1x Ork shaman
2x Ax horde
1x Gorerider regiment
2x Giant
3x Goblin rabble
2x Goblin rocklobber
1x Goblin war trombone

First time up against orks. The hordes have a lot of nerve and good offensive power, but I think I can crush through them if I can get a multi-charge in, which should be fully doable because of my speed advantage. He is a bit light on inspiring, with none of his goblins having any inspiring at all. The rabble does have pretty decent nerve for the points though, so they make nice chaff.

Since I have recently gotten so little out of the volley guns, I wanted to make sure that I had good positioning of them, and that they could support each other. To that end, I placed them centrally together, covering the left side of the field. Sons of Ursun were placed centrally with a regiment of lancers with TC3 as backup. The two of them should be able to slice through even an undamaged horde. My opponent dropped both hordes fairly early, keeping his flyer and giants for last. I anticipated that they would flank round on the right, and set up my Tzarina and a regiment of lancers there to threaten / slow them down. Two units of ungols would act as chaff. Unfortunately, I didn´t think this through properly. I saw a wood and put my pathfinder lancers over there. However, with the scenario being eliminate, this was stupid. I knew I would probably be outmatched on this flank, so I should have placed the other knights here, who I could afford to throw away without impacting scenario. Turn 1 – I got first turn and started the advance. My ungols and scouts took out the catapult that had fallen for the “hill in the deployment zone” trap. Some wounds were also dealt to the boar riders. The Urugan cannons moved up to be in range of the ork horde.

The orks played very un-orky, backing up out of range of the Urugans, simply lobbing a rock with the catapult that unfortunately took out an Urugan cannon. It took me by surprise how defensively the orks played, I expected a headlong charge.

Turn 2 – I continued to move up, staying out of range of the slasher. My shooting added some wounds here and there to no big effect. My Boyar moved up to be just in range of the Ork shaman.

The orks moved slowly up on the left, while the right flank kept up the stand-off, except for the goblins and giant on the far right, which I moved my lancers away from.
I then found out that the ork shaman had fireball 9! and that the war trombone was just within range of the Boyar. Together they put 6 wounds on him, wavering the noble.

Turn 3 – I moved my center to the left to set up a double charge threath against the hordes with my TC3 lancers and Sons of Ursun next turn. The rest of my line adjusted, but I couldn´t get a unit of ungols out of the charge range of the goblins and giant, and Tzarina only put two wounds on the goblins with her breath, not taking them out. They charged the exposed ungols, wiping them out, suddenly outflanking my line! I should probably have charged the goblins with my ungols instead, as then I would have kept them further from my line. Now they were in a very annoying spot!

The winged slasher finally moved forward, now threatening my Sons of Ursun.

Turn 4 – I needed one more turn to set up the brutal charges in the middle. To that end, a unit of ungols charged the winged slasher, blocking the gore riders and managing to rob the slasher of flight. I sent the pathfinder lancers into the goblins in front of the slasher, with the thought that I could follow up into the slasher next round. That was a mistake however, as the ungols did not actually block the slasher from attacking the lancers instead.

Tzarina had her worst round ever, managing to bounce from the flank of the goblin rabble, only putting 4 wounds on them. Now she would get giant in the face next turn, instead of crushing the goblins and moving out of the charge arc of the giant. Luckily, the giant fluffed in return, and she only took some wounds from the goblin rabble.

The ungols got eaten by boar riders, and the winged slasher charged the pathfinder lancers.

Turn 5 – Finally, I got to execute the charge! On the left, a troop of lancers and the Boyar hit some goblin rabble, managing to push through them with a lucky nerve roll (yey, no inspiring!). In the middle, the Sons of Ursun and TC3 lancers hit an ork horde, easily slicing right through the horde. The scouts blocked up the other horde.

On the right flank, the pathfinder lancers managed to put 5 wounds on the slasher. even without TC. They were in a really bad position however, so I would soon give up a token. To not give up another, Tzarina pivoted and went 20″ over to the left flank. I have later learned that you actually also lose nimble if you lose flight from being disordered, so this was an illegal move.

Aftermath of the grand charge. Do you feel surrounded? 😀

The ork horde did what it could, murdering the scouts, then turning so they avoided giving flank charge to anything that could charge them. The war drum moved up to block the Sons of Ursun from participating, at least giving the second horde a chance to survive.

Turn 6 – So it was up to the second liners, the Kossars regiment and an ungol troop to support the TC3 lancers.

And the second line certainly delivered, the ungols and Kossars putting 9 wounds on the orks, and the lancers piling on a ton more. The Sons of Ursun wiped out the drum, leaving only a wavered shaman left on the left. The right however was now completely controlled by the orks, and it was lining up for a showdown between heavy hitters at the bottom of turn 6.

The Sons of Ursun had to accept a charge from a giant in the front, or from boar riders in the flank. I choose the giant, and he came thundering in. The other giant took the center objective. Right now, I had 6 points from killing two eliminate units and having two alive, while the orks had 2 from eliminate units, 1 from the winged slasher being alive and 1 from the center objective. My Sons of Ursun were unhurt, so I would win if the giant could not kill them.
That damn giant then proceeded to roll 6 for attacks, giving it 12 attacks. Then it hit 10 of them on 4+, wounded with 9 on 2+, and proceeded to roll above the 9 needed on the break test twice, sending my Sons of Ursun packing! Suddenly the score shifted to 5-6. I could easily secure a draw by contesting the center objective in turn 7, but it was not to be as the game ended on turn 6.

As I have later learned that I cheated with the Tzarina nimble run-away move, I guess it was karma that tilted those rolls at the end 😀

MVP orks: Giant that won the game in turn 6 after first slapping Tzarina around a bit.
MVP Kislev: TC3 Winged lancers. That extra TC really helps against def 5+, making them that much more reliable as damage dealers. They really pulled their weight against the ork hordes.

Scouts: The scouts felt like a poor man´s horse archers. They have nimble like the horse archers, so they can move and fire and they can often get in position to block stuff, but they only hit on 5+ and only has speed 4. For some reason, they don´t even have pathfinder, which is weird for scouts. I think they are highly playable though, stealth makes it harder to remove them with shooting, and they can reliably put some wounds here and there, which is often enough to make a difference. I will certainly use them again.