In the fourth round of the W8MW tournament we were fortunate enough to be paired against team Canada and friends; besides being proud “best sportsmen” of the 2018 ETC, the Canadians have made their mark in the recent online tournaments, with very decent final positions. And while @DougL seems to be at the forefront of that veritable Canadian wargaming renaissance, there is one other person who is the Maple Syrup to Doug’s pancakes (here’s hoping that this wasn’t an inadvertent Canadian sexual reference, I apologize in advance if it is the case! ) ; that’s no other than @awww jeeze , Sylvan Elf general extraordinaire. I’ve been following his results with the Sylvans, and he seems to always be placing high in the scoreboard, so I was happy I’d get to face him and his sylvans with the following list:

Awww Jeeze wrote:

610 - Forest Prince, Great Elk, Light Armour (Destiny's Call), Sylvan Blades (Titanic Might), Obsidian Rock, Dragonfire Gem, Wild Hunter
455 - Druid, General, Wizard Master, Druidism, Binding Scroll, Sceptre of Power
290 - Druid, Wizard Adept, Shamanism, Sylvan Longbow, Book of Arcane Mastery
380 - Thicket Shepherd, Battle Standard Bearer, Toxic Spores
521 - 21 Sylvan Archers, Standard Bearer (Banner of Discipline), Musician
401 - 27 Forest Guard, Spear and Shield, Standard Bearer (Rending Banner), Musician, Champion
205 - 5 Heath Riders, Heath Hunters
375 - 4 Thicket Beasts, Champion
350 - 6 Wild Huntsmen, Shield, Sylvan Lance, Champion
350 - 6 Wild Huntsmen, Shield, Sylvan Lance, Champion
280 - 7 Pathfinders
280 - 7 Pathfinders
4497

So a mix fast close combat units, decent shooting and magic, as well as a couple of big blocks anchoring the line if the SE ever wanted to form one. The scenario was Capture the Flags and we’d be playing Frontline Clash. Going into the game I had rated this as a positive game, mainly due to the vulnerability of the characters and wild huntsmen to cannon fire and small arms fire respectively. So I figured that outside of a coordinated combo charge that would be able to break my steadfast, the big blocks were relatively safe and could outgrind the opposition. Fighting against such a mobile enemy means that you need to get your deployment just right, so I spent a bit of time theorizing on the correct approach, and ended up with a refused flank deployment where there would be no blind spots from the cannons and I would be able to use the Impassable terrain to cover my flank while advancing. My opponent won the roll for sides and so I opted for a full drop to get the first turn.
Matt replied by putting as much distance between our two armies as humanly possible, taking care to shield both of his characters from first turn cannon fire. After scouts were deployed and vanguard was done we ended up like this:



The Hold Guardians evidently selected vanguard as their upgrade, and for magic I opted for double runes of Resolve, Resilience and Gleaming. My opponent took Awaken the Beast and Swarm of Insects on the shamanism adept, whereas the Druidism master took Healing Waters, Entwining Roots, Stoneskin and Regrowth.

TURN 1 – Dwarven Holds

With the first turn in the bag, I’d shoved everything forward using vanguard. The goal was to close the gap between the two armies as fast as possible, while taking as little damage as possible. The Greybeards, joined by the BSB during Vanguard, moved up using the Banner of the Relentless Company, hoping to reach combat by turn 4 or so, while the Hold Guardians braved the sylvan forest so as to try and box in the Pathfinders. Magci had a single goal, and that was to protect my shooting troops from counterfire: I was able to put Rune of Resilience on both the Forge Wardens and the Rangers. In the shooting phase the Forge Wardens opened fire at the Heath Riders and killed them to an elf, while the Forest Rangers shot at the Pathfinders furthest away (they were providing cover for the Wild Huntsmen and I figured that killing two of them to open up the possibility of a cannon snipe on the Prince was too much to ask). As it turned out, these rangers had gone to sharpshooter school, and they managed to drop three Pathfinders! The cannons tried to reproduce their success but failed.



TURN 1 – Sylvan Elves

After that initial setback, the elves applied their battle plan, which was -fittingly- quite querilla warfare-like. The archers moved up to shoot at my king’s unit, the wild huntsmen passed frenzy and started outflanking the same unit, and the rest of the army stayed relatively still, the characters careful not to give the cannons any good targets. The leftmost pathfinders failed their march test and could only move backwards 5”.

In the magic phase I stopped the Swarm of insects cast on my rightmost cannon, and let through both the Oaken throne and an entwining roots that resulted in a raised Pathfinder. (it’s possible that an attempt at Regrowth on them… [Read More]

In the third round of the tournament we were in for a treat: after dodging each other in one Luxembourg Bash tournament after the other, we’d finally get to play QTL, an Italian team that always competes for the top spots. Once again, the pairing matrix of the dwarves was pretty favorable, and I ended up facing Warriors of the Dark Gods, which I'd rated as a favorable matchup:




The way I looked at it, there was no combat that wouldn’t go my way in this game: my blocks beat the warriors on a one-on-one fight, and I’ve got the shooting (cannons!) to get points and threaten the Exalted Heralds. The scenario here was Secure Target, which I was expecting to draw. Once the pairing was done and I started looking at the list more closely, I realized that it was NOT in fact a combat list, but an avoidance WDG list based on the Hellmaw. Bear with me, because this is about to become very enlightening – it was for me at least.

My main goal going into this game was to avoid getting outflanked: with the Ominous Gateways this meant that I’d have to adapt my deployment according to their initial position, and potentially sacrifice a unit to stand all game on top of a portal to prevent any massive redeployments. Another consideration was the Wrath of God: my deployment would have to be wide enough to prevent a game-winning comet, and make sure that it would be difficult to hit both cannons with one. Finally, I wanted to make sure that the Hellmaw (integral part of the WDG strategy) would have a hard time hiding from the cannons.

In deployment we alternated a couple of drops, and then once I saw where the Feldraks were going I dropped the rest of my army to get that first volley off. We ended up with something like this:



I will not do a play-by-play description of the game, because as you’ll see a lot of it was quite uneventful. So here are the highlights:

Turn 1: The dwarves advance towards the middle of the board, cautious not to let the EH slip past their arcs of sight. In shooting the Rangers manage 4 wounds on the Feldraks, panic them and they run off the board. The Forge Wardens shot at the Flayers inside the ruins and killed them to a man.



Turns 1-2: The cannons try to hit/wound the Hellmaw, to no avail; the WDG start the great migration; using the portals the entire army starts teleporting to the east.

My opponent does a great job using the LoS-blocking terrain, and by turn 3 my cannons have no real targets. I let through Marked for Doom on my centremost cannon that had -1 to wound on it, but it still suffers maximum damage. One comet later, the cannon is no more and I’m left with no options for shooting at the Hellmaw.



Turn 3 DH: It now becomes apparent that as long as my positional game is good, my opponent has no intention of engaging me. I briefly consider leaving an opening for him, but decide it’s a bad idea. I’m content with a small win, even if the game will be more boring for it. So Greybeards + Warriors zone the entire eastern flank and I take potshots at the warriors.



Turn 4 WDG: A very successful magic phase sees the EH kill no less than 14 Greybeards (!), which means that now there’s a possibility that the unit will give up half points. By now the entire WDG army is packed in the upper right quadrant, and the dwarves are left staring at emptiness.



Turn 5 DH: I go into full point conservation mode, the GBs are boosted by double Rune of Resilience and the Forge Wardens start moving towards the objective.



Turn 5 WDG: my opponent finally makes a more aggressive move. The Knights teleport to the left, threatening my Forge Wardens, and the Chariot and Exalted Herald (general) both move past the hill and behind my lines.

Turn 6 DH: I have an 11+ charge into the Chosen chariot with the Hold Guardians, with an overrun into the flank of the EH; I take it, but fail. After that it’s once again a case of holding on to the points and the objective draw (currently 11-9 for the dwarves). The forge wardens move as far away from the Knights as possible, and the Greybeards use the BSB’s Relentless company banner to also move away from danger. I try to cannon off one knight to deny them a rank, but fail.

Turn 6 WDG: there’s only one play for the Warriors – the knights have an 11+ charge into the rear of the Forge wardens (boosted by Rune of Resilience), and they… [Read More]

After the hard-fought first round, we found ourselves comfortably in the middle of the ranking, and got to play a USA/Mexico joint team in the form of El Jeffe’s Mercenaries. The online tournaments being an excellent way to meet new people who play the game, I was looking forward to this round!

I was lucky enough to get paired against Neil @hamil302 , an experienced tournament player and a team Mexico veteran in past ETCs. He had brought mixed arms DE with an Academy focus and a couple of the more “fun” choices such as the Thunder Pack!




The secondary objective for the round was King of the Hill, and the deployment was Marching Columns. Going into the game, I really hoped that I’d get to pick sides, which would enable me to always keep the two terrain pieces nominated close to each other (one side had limited options for terrain picked). Other than that, I hoped that my shooting would be enough to scare the cowboys into hiding while I forced the combat blocks to face my shieldwall dwarves in a losing grind.

Things started well, since I indeed won the roll for sides and promptly decided to defend the ruins in the middle of my deployment zone, ensuring that whatever the pick of my opponent was I wouldn’t have to spread my forces too thin. After the mandatory three drops Neil dropped the rest for the first turn, giving me the opportunity to counter his deployment. I ended up with a weighed left flank, cannons in the backline and far enough from any warmachine hunters, and the Hold Guardians as an anchor in the middle of the board; I was expecting to get outflanked, but hopefully the Banner of the Hold would allow them to stay in the fight even engaged to a flank. The warlock Outcast selected Altered Sight, Ice and Fire, Perception of Strength and Unity in Divergence for his spells, while I took the usual duplicate runes: Revocation, Resilience and Gleaming.

The Rangers were used to reinforce the line on the left, blocking any easy turn 1 moves towards my warmachines by the Shadow Riders. Vanguards saw both the Forge Wardens and the Warriors move up a bit to prevent a first turn rush, while the Shadow Riders started their flanking maneuver. The king’s grudges went on the Obisdian Guard, the Dread Knights and the Auxiliaries, since they were the units I’d most likely get to fight over the course of the game.



TURN 1 – Dread Elves

The DE started the game with an intricate maneuver: the right flank moved as fast as possible towards my lines, the Manticore braving the imminent double cannon shot, while the backbone of the army moved away from my blocks, putting some further distance between us.

In the magic phase I let the Ice and Fire through on the Warriors, losing three of them to the magic missile and then the outcast failed to cast anything else thanks to the Hewn from the Mountains rule (it’s possible that the bound Wheel Turns was cast to give the Obsidian Guard +1 Advance) Shooting killed another dwarf from the king’s unit and a couple of Forge Wardens fell to the Shadow Riders’ shots.

TURN 1 – Dwarven Holds

After some hesitation, I decided that the Shadow Rider bait was a trap my Forge Wardens wouldn’t be able to fight their way through, so I decided not to charge and put my faith on the dwarven shooting: the battle line angled a bit and generally held its ground.

In the magic phase I managed to cast Rune of Resilience on the Forge Wardens to help them in the shootout. Shooting started with both cannons trying to hit the Legion Legate on manticore and both failing, followed by the Forge Wardens killing four Shadow Riders but failing to panic them. The Rangers showed everyone how it’s done by putting no less than four wounds on the Thunder Pack though!



TURN 2 – Dread Elves

With no favorable charge available, the elves opted for some more maneuvering: the wounded Shadow Riders redirected the King’s retinue, while their colleagues moved past my Hold Guardians and within charge range of the Cannon next to the house. The Manticore flew over the hill and in relative safety, staying hidden from the furthest cannon, while the chariots edged forward towards the hold… [Read More]