Kings of Oslo GT 25 – Tourney report

Posted on by Illumini

This tourney was played before the latest errata, so here command dice and points are pre-nerf.

My “Brethren of Taal” army. Better pics and some fluff coming up in another post.

My list: 2300pts Sylvan Kin – “Brethren of Taal”

I have built up this army in January, and have not really had time to try it out. I have played one game with a pure close combat version, and one with a very heavy shooting variant, but ended up with this fairly balanced, very mobility centered army. Everything except the spear horde is nimble, and speed 9 and 10 is prolific. The forest warden with sorcerer crown gives me a nice 24″ bubble for surge, and with the sylvan kin special order, it can go up to 30″. Two duelists help with a big weakness all my cavalry has, fast individuals. The shooting should be enough to clear away chaff, and to buy time for me to get the best charges. Speed 10 armies and tough+shooty armies (dwarves) might give the list issues. Of course phalanx spam + shooting is also going to be a bad time. No heal is a big weakness. I did originally have a sorcerer with celestial restoration, but she had to go to make room for the second greater air elemental instead. Offence is the best defence?

Game 1 – Stockpile VS Basilea


Well, that is a rough match for game 1. A good player with a list that outranges me and likely outshoots me, since he has heal and regen. None of us really want to pick up tokens until late game, so this will be a dodgy movement game until the very end. If I can kill a phoenix or two early, I should be able to pressure him into bad charges. I can afford to trade a couple of my units against his, since he only has 9 of them, which is the big weakness of his list.
My plan was to have my main force in the center to left corner, with a spoiling force on my right to make it harder for him to surround me.
He wins first turn and rolls up to threaten. I had made sure to put my army outside 26″ from his phoenixes, so he couldnt shoot, but unfortunately, I had been a bit sloppy on my silverbreeze troop, and he got some early shots in, wavering the troop. In return, I focus fired on his left side phoenix, putting 10 wounds on him, but unfortunately just wavering him. I made sure that all my front line units were covered by longer charging units, so he couldn`t use breath attacks without being charged.
He plays cagey in return, not taking any charges, and burning away my troop of silverbreeze, as well as putting wounds on a regiment. With my chaff unit dead, my right side units have to jump into my “castle”. This turn, I try to kill his ancient phoenix with shooting, putting about 10 wounds on it too, but again fail to get the required nerve roll.
He keeps playing the waiting game, slowly attritioning away my silverbreeze. I realize that my chance of winning the shooting battle died with the two phoenixes that are now regenerating, while my own shooters are taking rapid casualties. I am forced to engage. His left flank is somewhat isolated by the forest, so I charge in against all four units on that side.
A greater air elemental charges his high paladin, and actually does very well, putting 6-7 wounds in and wavering the bastard. That lucky high nerve roll really gives me a slight upper hand! The windborne engage the phoenix, the queen goes and puts some wounds on elohi, and a regiment of silverbreeze sacrifice themselves against the other elohi. Meanwhile, two regiments of stormwind are ready to join the party.
The next round, he still has few good charges against the rest of my army, so the manouvering continues there. He otherwise charges everything back, killing the queen, the windborne and wavering the silverbreeze. I hit back with my two regiments of stormwind, killing the phoenix, but unfortunately not breaking the elohi (double 1s, needed a 5 or something).
I have also set up a perfect 1″ surge into the flank of a unit of elohi, but even with a command re-roll, the idiotic forest warden misses all 4 dice! Now the middle elohi are unhurt, and my second air elemental has his flank to a lot of hurt. This is the first time I have tried surge, and it fucked me over 😛
With the two elohi hordes both surviving, the game quickly turns against me. I also made a mistake with my spears, forgetting to properly check my arc, and gave away a flank to a dragon. Together, bad luck and some sloppy play mean that my army is taken down piece by piece.
However, objective wise, he only has two, and both are on a wounded ancient phoenix. After his movement in turn 6, I have a clear charge with stormwind and an air elemental. Unfortunately, he gets a big 5″ overrun with his dragon that closes the gap for the stormwind. I grab one objective with the unit of stormwind, and charge in my air elemental for a long shot kill on the ancient phoenix. Unfortunately it is not to be, and I lose the first game 2-1 in objectives. Kill points was within 2-300 pts, leaving it a 7-14 loss. It was a tough match-up, my opponent played very well, making no obvious mistakes (except forgetting that his paladin had headstrong).

Game 2 – Compass Points VS Dwarfs

Dwarfs are pretty damn scary right now. They have a lot of piercing shooting, great defence, and vengeance is a totally lunatic order. This list has the very good (almost auto-take) formation, the almost auto-take Faber Ironheart and the very good lord on large beast. I was very happy to not see Golloch, but the list does have a lot of shooting. Even the crossbows are dangerous in close combat with vengeance. With bane chant support, you get hit with 20 4+ attacks with CS2, possibly even with elite from the royal bsb. It is a medium match-up for my list, as high piercing shooting can quickly dismantle my list and force me into bad charges. However, it is also very slow, so if his early turn shooting is bad, I can likely quickly take him apart.
I deployed with a heavy left flank, and a spoiling 4 unit right flank. He deployed heavy center right, and had a smaller force facing off against my main force. I felt good about the deployment if I could get first turn, then his crossbows would be toast turn 2, cannons would be in danger turn 2 and his center would find it very hard to advance with threats coming from all directions. In hindsight, I should likely have switched which side I went heavy on, as the big forest and hills could have covered me better, leaving me less exposed if he went first.
Unfortunately, he did get first turn, and rolled hot with his shooting, exploding a unit of silverbreeze immediately with 10 wounds, and putting 4 on some stormwind (we remembered about halfway that his cannons should not have been able to use the accuracy command, which gave him a couple extra hits I believe). That put me on the backfoot, and forced me to commit very early. The left flank had to charge into phalanx units and I had to throw units into the crossbows. Vengeance saw those units wiped out in return, while low nerve rolls saw the bulwarkers die way too slowly, letting him bring his king on beast over to help. I also really struggled to kill his flying king because of low nerve rolls, who instead of dying by 10 wounds, got to go snack on my windborne.
My center and weaker flank tried to break through his main line, but that was slow going as well, and I had to switch over to just try to hold him there, so I could score my objective and the right one. This I was able to do, feeding him one and one unit. The game looked really bad, but it was actually still saveable because of the slow nature of my opponent and my fast army. Unfortunately, I was a bit too quick, and sent a unit of silverbreeze holding the center objective into the rear of the dwarf king on beast. With 42 attacks, they managed…. 1 wound. If I had kept them center instead, I could have sent over a unit of stormwind instead the next turn, who could have wiped out the crossbows, and then outscored the king.
In the last turn, my opponent had a chance to win if he could shoot away the silverbreeze on the right hand objective. Luckily, his artillery were finally getting tired from all the killing, and my silverbreeze survived to save the draw. Also note my forest (frost) warden holding up his big horde for a couple of rounds, not attacking, forcing him to become hindered.

This was not a well played game by me, so a draw felt like more than I deserved in this situation. I think it ended with about a 10-10 score.

Game 3 – Dominate VS Ratkin

The scenario had a house rule added to it that made this list a pretty terrible match-up. The entire! dominate circle was difficult terrain AND gave cover to height 2 or less. My opponent could pretty much march his US 30 into the circle and just stand there. I only had two units with pathfinder to fight him, and I would not be able to shoot him away when he had auto-cover too. (and he also has 4 ensnare/stealthy + phalanx hordes). I was very happy to not see phalanx on the shock troops, but other than that, this was a terrible match-up for this scenario.
I was not a great fan of the house rule. It made this scenario very match-up dependent, and even though it was meant to help infantry, I think it actually hurt several types of infantry armies. Dwarfs with little pathfinder get to move 4″ every turn. Combat infantry without pathfinder can just forget to reach anything, while armies with a lot of pathfinder can just dominate against those without. Imagine going into an earth elemental line in this scenario, bleh.
He gets first turn and wanders his six hordes slowly into the dominate circles. On my left flank, he has a serious flanking attack, with Scud, a brute, 3x weapon teams and a vermintide. I send my queen up to threaten to ground scud / kill weapon teams, so he can’t just move up to charge range of my knights.
On the right flank, I have a small force working on flanking wide. Because the circle was difficult terrain, I only have my spears and windborne in the center. I try to kill weapon teams with shooting, but find out the little buggers are def 5+, and with rally 2, they have 10/12 nerve, and they have easy cover. They are hard to kill! He moves Scud more towards the center, and takes some shots with weapons teams. The vermintide moves up to block.
I am forced to commit on the left flank. I charge my queen into the vermintide, but unfortunately, she only wavers them, which throws off the trading on that flank. A couple of weapon teams are taken out, while an air elemental does delaying actions by charging Scud. In the center, my spears take out a damaged spear horde. I also charge a spear horde with cavalry, not taking it out, but starting to put some wounds down. My other air elemental gets a flank on a horde of spears and puts a lot of wounds in, but does not break them, and is slain. My other air elemental is mashed by Scud and the shock troopers. The brute gets to hold up my stormwind for a turn.
Scuddy-boy jumps in and starts eating my silverbreeze, while my spears are engaged by enemy spears. On the right flank, the warlord tries to hold off my king, and manages to break the gnome shield. My queen sacrifices herself on the shock troops to buy time for my left hand knights, but those morons can’t punch their way out of a wet paper bag (a brute), and are stuck for another round.
Towards the end of the game, things are really heating up. I have to use another regiment of silverbreeze to keep Scud off the flank of my center knights. His chaff somehow surviving for so long mean that my left flank knights are looking at taking a shock troop charge to the face, and a brute in the flank. In the center, my spears get to flank his, but they roll terribly with the hindered charge, and dont wipe them out. The right flank is finally in position to get a flank charge on a horde, and wipes it out, while my king holds up the wretches. My center knights still can`t get through the enemy spear horde. The grind continues into turn 6, with Scud going into the windborne after killing the regiment of silverbreeze. He rolls low however, and they stay alive. My center knights fall in the late game. After his turn 6, he has two hordes, two titans and a large infantry hero in the zone, for 12US. I have a horde of spears, a troop of silverbreeze and the windborne, the forest warden and two cav regiments for 10US.
Then after my turn 6, it is suddenly 10-0 to me. All his hordes were on a lot of damage, so one was shot off by the silverbreeze troop, the other was killed by the flanking king and stormwind. The forest warden got a rear charge on the tangle and took it out. The spears got the brood mother, and in a great upset, the windborne manage to get 1 wound onto the damaged Scud, and kill him in close combat! It ended up being something like 19-2ish win. My opponent played well, it was a very hard fought victory, it felt like I was ice-skating uphill against so much phalanx, chaff and hindering. It was a much closer game than it looked like at the end.

Game 4 – Seek and Destroy VS Riftforged OrCS

I think I have only played against riftforged orcs once previously, but they seem similar to orcs and this looks like a great matchup for me. I outshoot him and outrange him by a lot, and there is no phalanx to blunt my charge, his regiments, while tough, have much less chance of surviving my charge than big orc hordes would have had. The mission was also pretty good, as I could spread out some tokens far from others, which he would struggle to take. If I can take out the war drums early, he is unlikely to survive my charges.
The riftforged army looked amazing, it got one of my votes for best painted, and ended up in second place for best painted army. The mierce giant troll was my favorite.
He won the roll to place 4 objectives. I tried to spread them out, while he tried to get a cluster. In the end, the right side had the most objectives, so he castled up on that side, leaving me to automatically get two on the far left side (as long as I could spare a unit to pick them up late game).
I finally won a roll to go first, and my left flank surged forwards to start the flanking attack. My right side just inched forwards to get some shots off. I managed to kill one wardrum turn 1, and put some wounds on the fight wagons
He moved up on my right, sacrificing the helstrikers to block my right side knights, with a plan to counter-charge my knight unit with his fight wagons when I killed the helstrikers. However, I used a regiment of silverbreeze (the empty base) to do the same to him after killing the helstrikers. My shooting killed his other war drum, and on the left flank, I started to pick on the morax, putting 4 wounds.
With my shooting taking a toll, he had little choice other than trying to close the gap. He sent a mounted hero and the chariot hero into my blocking silverbreeze, wavering them. The rest of his line moved up, trying to give up as few flanks as possible, and trying to keep the fight wagons ready to pounce on my counter-charge.
However, 20″ fly is a very long charge range to get out of, and a greater air elemental charged the damaged fight wagons, on the first nerve roll actually killing them, but since I did my combats in a bad order, not taking out his inspiring first, they survived, taking out the elemental in return.
It didn’t matter much in the end though, as I still had a ton of other good charges, killing a mounted hero, the chariot hero and a regiment of riftforged, and leaving most of my army unchargeable by him. On the left flank, I shot off the morax and then charged and killed the riftforged. The rest was cleanup, with my other air elemental getting a flank on the giant, and his units being picked off until the entire riftforged army was gone in turn 6, while I had lost 2 units. My opponent had both a bad match-up, and also fluffed pretty much every important roll he made. I rolled a double 1 in the above charge on a hero, which cost me one unit, but otherwise, I got the rolls I needed. My opponent took the bad luck and match-up it in good spirits, and it ended 21-0.

Game 5 – Control VS Dwarfs

I moved up to table 2 and ran into another dwarf opponent. This dwarf list looks a lot like what I have been theoryhammering. The formation is great, you have Faber and Golloch for the high piercing shooting and combat / staying power, backed up with sharpshooters for more ranged damage. The large beast king is here too. I would have ran more bulwarkers instead of the ironguard, but they are also a nice anvil. Mastiffs are great chaff for such a list. Like game 2, if he can get early shooting damage in, I will struggle, as I will be forced into bad charges. The scenario however was good for me, as I have the mobility to take zones late game.
My opponent basically abandoned the left flank, anchoring his line on the house in the center. With the painful turn 1 shooting from the last dwarf game in mind, I hid my entire army behind hills, forests, or just out of range of even the sharpshooters. He won the roll-off, and after pondering it for a long time, went first. Since I had denied shooting so well, and going last in control might win the game, I was happy with that for a change.
Another great looking army, with lots of older GW stuff in it. The very cool tank is from MOM miniatures. This army also got one of my painting votes. The quality of the armies at the tournament was really high.
He trundled forwards, throwing out a few shots, but not doing any serious damage. In return, I took it slow, and tried to kill of his mastiffs. Unfortunately, I could not take them down. On the right flank, my air elemental and queen threatened his crossbows.
The mastiffs surviving was actually pretty big. He then got to tie up my greater air elemental, who could else been surged into some juicy flanks. On the left side of the house, I charged the other mastiffs with my spears. I tried to block the king, and convinced myself that I had managed, but that was wrong. I engaged his line with a unit of knights, my king and a flanking air elemental, taking out a unit of bulwarkers, but otherwise being stopped by the tough dwarfs.
The flanking air elemental kills the ironbreakers (bulwarkers), while my horse archers manage to kill a unit of sharpshooters. Bottom left the air elemental has to spend a turn killing mastiffs.
Me apparently forgetting how charge rules worked when I tried to block the king, instead managed to just barely give him a millimeter to sneak past the spears and hit my knights behind. That screwed up my plan for breaking his center. Now I was locked into a grind, against dwarfs.
Luckily, I have surge, and my air elemental was finished with the mastiffs, so she hit the dwarf lord on beast in the rear, freeing my knights from a certain death. In the center, the lines held on both sides. I managed to kill Faber with my TC3 knights, and I windblasted Golloch far enough for him to not be able to charge me back.
Still, the dwarf line held, and I started losing units to counter charges (with elite, vengeance and bane chant) and shooting. The grind continued, with me winning in the center, but with him having two healthy hordes and Golloch left, as well as a lot of firepower still operational.
Golloch eventually got a charge on my TC3 knights, but I used “move full backwards” order and could slip the windborne perfectly in front of them, shielding them from dying for a turn.
Blow away you filthy dwarf tank! This was an important move, as I then the next turn got to charge in again with the TC3 knights from the front, and normal knights flanking, which cracked the infernal machine.
Late game, I sent units to claim three uncontested parts. I tried to clean up his sharpshooters with my king, but it was not to be. Similarly, I had a charge with my air elemental into the crossbows that did little, and then the elemental was slain by vengeance crossbowmen in return. A unit of knights went down to the ironclad horde. In turn 6, I had one last chance to take down the crossbows with my king, which would rob him of the upper left corner, but it was a long shot, and it was not to be. Still, I won 4-2, with a slight advantage in killpoints, for a 15-6ish win in another close game, well played by my opponent.

Results

With 3-1-1 score, I had no chance at the top, as last years winner of Kings of Oslo had once again gone 5-0. The king of Oslo is still an Englishman! However, I did end up 4th place best painted army, and with paint scores added in, I did sneak up from a tied 4th in battlepoints to a third overall placement, for a podium placement and a new title as “Duke of Oslo” 😀
Some nice submarining after the pretty bad start.

As expected, since I had never played this list, I did do some silly mistakes, especially in the first two games, where I also struggled on time. It quickly got better, helped by a basic “battlegroups” plan for deployment. The list was really fun to play, the mobility gives a lot of options, and makes it a good scenario list (although with a few bad scenarios for it too). Having some surge is just fantastic, letting me set up traps, stopping easy flanking moves from opponents, and saving my ass when something does slip behind me lines. Having shooting is great, after having played almost exclusively no-shooting last year. It buys me time to set up for even better trades. However, to my surprise, I was outgunned in three of the five games. I am glad I went for silverbreeze over gladestalkers, as the former still have a ton of value in scenario play.

The sylvan kin orders are not amazing, but I did get to use extra the extra range one fairly frequently. Never needed it for surge, but it was often nice to leave one of my 18″ ranged units at the 24″ line instead. I used ordered march in the last game, allowing me to pivot more than 90 degrees and run 18″ to claim a quarter in turn 6. I think this is the level orders should be at.

The re-roll hit / wound orders were used pretty much every turn by everyone. Re-rolling bane chant (or surge for me) was a common use, and too good, so nice that it has been toned down to not allow re-roll on spells.

The full sidestep / back orders were clutch several times, as expected. They are very good tactical tools.

Vengeance was a beast, also as expected, taking any dwarf unit into very dangerous territory. I was beaten up by vengeance crossbow hordes several times. Another good call that it now longer can be used by hordes at least. +1TC order was used a couple times against me from the ratkin, and it certainly took otherwise poor offensive units into dangerous territory. The air elemental for example would have tanked the wretch-charge if they didn’t get buffed to CS2 with command points + bane chant. It is a bit too easy when you have access to those orders that can just be thrown out anywhere at the table when you need them.

Based on the tourney and some other games, I am not loving the addition of command dice and orders to KOW. As they were in the tourney, they were extremely powerful. The faction orders vary wildly in power, and the orders make already very good units even better, and the struggling units get even worse. (fast / nimble / fly units vs normal infantry). The changes in the errata help tone it down, but there are still plenty of totally nuts combos, like nightstalkers with their +1 to hit order. Just handing out re-rolls every turn too doesn’t add anything positive to the game, but at least both sides can do the same. There is some potential here, but I don’t think command dice are very well thought out as is. I will continue to try it out with the new changes, and hopefully Mantic can reign it in, and make it less about buffing alpha strikes, and more about adding some general tactical options.

One thought on “Kings of Oslo GT 25 – Tourney report”

  1. Unexpected army! But congrats on the podium, Duke of Mandollies. Thanks for the reports, and the army looks great. I strongly agree with you on command dice, they either feel like wasted time or broken depending on if your faction was blessed with good orders. Plus, as you note, even the orders shared by all armies favor fast and (especially) nimble units, widening the gap between fast elites and lowly ground pounders. So even ignoring external balance issues, orders skew internal balance as well, which always makes me sad to see, as it was one of the reasons I fell in love with KOW years back.

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