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Hinge's Ramblings
Topic Started: Aug 16 2011, 01:26 PM (13,982 Views)
Hinge
Exalted Guardian
CyderPyrate
Aug 19 2011, 09:06 PM
Just to clarify what a refused flank is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oblique_order

In brief, you deploy disproportionate amount of force in one flank and try to 'roll up' the enemy army which is kept fixed in place by yours.


I try the strategy quite a lot, but with small numbers of units I tend to find my army gets split up too easily. The smaller units of marauders might be a good remedy for that.

I use the term “refuse a flank” to indicate I am aggressively pushing one flank forward while the other flank moves forward moderately, stays put, or even backs up. This may end up pivoting my line of battle. I certainly may load the more aggressive flank with more/harder units, but not necessarily.

The units on the refused flank have to be strong enough to discourage my opponent from using the units opposite to flank those I have advanced while cheap enough that if he drives straight at the refused flank, I do not mind losing them eventually. The marauder units fit this very well.

Hinge
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Hinge
Exalted Guardian
conjoy
Aug 19 2011, 06:12 PM
Thanks Hinge,

Any thoughts on your least favourite match-ups in terms of army/composition and particular units?

Also interested to hear if you've played Furgil (Dwarf player running 3 blocks of 40 GWs: 1 Hammerers, 1 Warriors, 1 Rangers. and 5 Warmachines). I belive he's ranked 4th overall there.

I do not believe I have played him. I played one dwarf army in tourney play the last year (at the Alamo in Texas). It was not that particular list. I love playing top notch players and would relish the challenge of playing Furgil. Frankly, win or lose, I tend to learn a lot from these games.

I have one confession. It is not unusual for me to be handed a list (or see one on the internet) and think, “how the hell am I going to beat that”. Good old self doubt. Then I start looking over the battlefield, seeing how terrain can impact the game, visualizing where units will be and where they will end up in a couple of turns. The familiar cadence of deployment settles me down. Ideas start popping into my head, what unit I will try to distract, targeting priority for spells and hell cannon, am I going to push a flank, etc.

Dwarfs tend to throw me for the biggest loop. Dark Elves, Lizard Men, Skaven, Demons. They all bring their challenges but I am familiar with these lists since I see them frequently late in tourneys. Dwarfs are unfamiliar ground. No one in my club really plays them. I did well against the one list I ran up against. The player was certainly solid and his list was tough. I have some strong ideas how I would approach Furgil’s list, but I got to keep some secrets. ^_^

Hinge

PS I hate Hydras with white hot intensity of 10,000 burning suns.
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Hinge
Exalted Guardian
Terrain on the tourney scene:

8th Ed made most tournaments’ terrain obsolete. Most hills are too low to hide units in TLOS, woods are too small to impact the game meaningfully. As one of the TO’s of the Quake City Rumble, I can tell you that updating the terrain represents a significant investment of time, effort, and money. Since no one holds a tourney to make money, I suspect this will be a slow process on the Indy circuit.

Each tourney seems to have their own set of rules regarding terrain, so understanding them and how they are different is important. One common one is that hills of any size block LoS to non large targets. This was mostly in acknowledgment that hills were kept low for playability and changing them all for the new edition is unrealistic.

Woods- Unfortunately most woods I have come across are too small to really impact the game. My hope is that this will change in the future. Part of this is selfish, but part is it will make the game more interesting and less repetitive.

MSU does well in a heavily wooded environment. Woods can be used to cover an approach, minimizing the damage taken from shooting. Given the lack of bodies in my army, this is useful.

Additionally, woods pull steadfast from non-skirmishing units. This is huge. If I can suck a large infantry block into woods, I do much to neutralize their advantages in static rez and steadfast. Heavy Cav can use this trick as well, though they risk some dangerous terrain tests.

When given an option on terrain placement, I often try to scatter woods through the middle of the table. BTW, most tourneys are playing mysterious woods, so there is always an element of uncertainty.

Buildings-I find these to be one of the more interesting pieces of terrain on the battle field. Over the last year, I have come up with some creative uses and have often thought about writing a general Building Tactics article.

While, Warriors have a huge advantage in building assaults since most of our models pump out a high number of attacks, I usually take advantage of the fact that buildings can act as an impassable obstacle. I often will secure a flank of half my line and wheel around the building, all the while maintaining enough units on the other side to threaten any turn towards the threat. I also love to flee through them to guarantee I get away (at the risk of dangerous terrain tests of course). Enemy units forced to overrun/pursue towards a building will stop in a very predictable spot (1” away), you can take advantage of this.

Most people view buildings as a defensive bunker. This is short sided, they have many more uses. Plus, how defensive is something when you give me the ability to throw 30 ST5 attacks at one of your units!


Hinge
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Deroga
The Chosen
conjoy
Aug 19 2011, 06:12 PM
Thanks Hinge,

Any thoughts on your least favourite match-ups in terms of army/composition and particular units?

Also interested to hear if you've played Furgil (Dwarf player running 3 blocks of 40 GWs: 1 Hammerers, 1 Warriors, 1 Rangers. and 5 Warmachines). I belive he's ranked 4th overall there.

I have played Furgil twice in GT's now since 8th ed, once at Lone Wolf round 1 (draw game), and at the other at Capital City Carnage at the final table Game 5 (lost). I also live about 40 miles from him and we talk on the local message boards fairly regularly. I know that what he fears the most is a a Warriors list with multiple massive hordes of Marauders with Great Weapons, and, i agree with him. For his list he cannot kill enough marauders to make them ineffective before they get there, and point fo point they will manhandle every dwarven unit.

My Capital Carnage game was a good example of this, he could handle the warriors well enough, but was unable to shoot either of the two 50 man units of Khorne Marauders down small enough to keep them from making it to, and beating his warrior units. IMO what cost me the game is that one of my two units of 24 warriors failed a ld 9 with rerolls panic test turn 3, just before getting into charge position, putting them out of the game entirely. Don’t get me wrong, Furgil is a great player and a very pleasent guy to play against, so i don’t want to short change his win in any way as he earned it, but if we were to play multiple times i feel i could win as many as i lost vs him with that particular GT list, simply because of how hordes of Marauders with Great Weapons perform vs Dwarves.

As a further note, my experience at Capital Carnage is what has led me to beleive that one horde of Marauders generally wont be enough at competitive tournements. I would suggest taking two 50-60 man hordes of marauders if you are not planning on taking the MSU style army list that Hinge is writing about.
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Deroga
The Chosen
Hinge
Aug 20 2011, 05:45 AM
Additionally, woods pull steadfast from non-skirmishing units.

This is a point that i have been heavily preaching in our area, especially when i hear complaints from long time players about hating how massive blocks of Infantry are the only way to go now. The truth is, as you have pointed out, that terrain such as Forests, Rivers, Lakes, Marshes, etc. NEGATE steadfast. The reason that the GT scene has turned into horde, or generally large units of infantry, battles is because of the amount of terrain that GTs have available at the moment. It costs a lot to bring the amount of terrain up from what was used in 7th ed, and into what is likely intended to be used in 8th ed. Once this happens, which i believe over the next year or so it will, i believe that you will see a shift in the GT meta game. I completely expect to continue seeing horde units, but far less. 1-2 units will be all. The rest will likely begin filling in with tougher, fewer, harder hitting units, like units of Chaos Knights. They can roll around 5-14 strong while moving fast and hitting hard enough to not have to rely on steadfast. This will make having a couple of units like the Chaos Knights pivotal in controlling sections of the map with steadfast negating terrain.
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Hinge
Exalted Guardian
Deroga
Aug 21 2011, 12:31 AM
I have played Furgil twice in GT's now since 8th ed, once at Lone Wolf round 1 (draw game), and at the other at Capital City Carnage at the final table Game 5 (lost).

Well, using these clues and checking results for these tourney's, pretty sure I have puzzeled out who Furgil is. If I am right, I have actually played him twice at previous Alamo's during 7th ed. O&G v. Empire and VC v. VC the following year. Honors are even with each of us with a win.
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conjoy
Exalted Guardian
Furgil posts his reports here:
http://www.bugmansbrewery.com/forum/12-battlegrounds/
I couldn't find your game, but sounds like it was fun and close.

Its an interesting point to note about the effect scenery can/will have on gameplay. Increased terrain can only have a good effect on armies like WoC and DElfs that are based on elite killy infantry and good movement. Although Infantry dathstars are not really going to be mitigated by such terrain as they rely more on out-killing than Steadfast.
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Moizt
Slave
[ * ]
Thank you for all the info Hinge! I'm in the process of building my army and have been heavily researching various tactics. Your style deviates from the normal setup and many people criticize it, but then again the normal "accepted" build for WoC is not tier 1, at-least you have success with it! I'll definitely be trying out MSU style since that style makes the most sense to me.

Thanks again
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rothgar13
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Clanlord
I wouldn't say most people criticize Hinge's style - it's just an acknowledgment that it's not an easy style to play. It requires pinpoint execution and a keen analysis of what each move and what unit is worth, as well as the ability to switch between micro-management and big-picture views pretty much on demand. That's not for everyone, and even the people who can do it say it requires a lot of practice.

And the reason why the "normal" WoC wasn't doing as well (according to the batreps) is because we were apparently being too conservative on the number of Marauders we brought to bear. The 2-Horde Marauder lists did quite well (placed 3rd as the lowest). I can't wait to unleash my 100 Marauders on a table somewhere. :)
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Hinge
Exalted Guardian


@Moist. Thanks for the feedback. The best advice is to play a style you enjoy with models and units that catch your fancy. I played Forsaken for a whole year because I had done some cool conversions and just liked their back story. They sucked bad but I eventually found a way to make them work (somewhat).

I enjoy the movement phase the most, so I look for builds that allow me to spend most my time there. Lots of units is one way.
Give it a try but do not hesitate to modify elements to fit your concepts.

Hinge
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Hinge
Exalted Guardian
For my next couple of posts, I am going to focus on specific games, lessons learned, tactical tips, match up challenges, etc. I generally write a Bat Rep for each tourney for my club, so I have gone back and reread them to refresh my memory. I will also comment on the tourney itself.

As I have mentioned, I have played 27 tourney games with my WoC since August of last year, winning 24. As is the nature of these things, you always seem to learn more from losses, so I will start with one of these.

Alamo-Nov, 2010-San Antonio, TX

The Alamo is my favorite tourney for several reasons. It was the first out of state tourney I attended. There is a strong war hammer community in Texas, with some excellent players. Finally, we can do some hard carousing on the Riverwalk prior to the tourney. This year, the Friday night debauchery was of epic proportions. The last clear memory I have was swigging straight from a vodka bottle while shot gunning PBRs, all while standing on top of a double decker bus. Saturday morning would find me sleeping on a couch in the hotel lobby, curled up around my army case, with a hangover from hell reminding me that I am not 25 (or even 35) anymore. The crew had to drag me to the tourney.

This year saw 68 participants.

Game 2-Dark Elves

In my opinion, Dark Elves are one of the top tourney armies. My opponent was someone I knew by reputation as an excellent player and is a two time member of the US ETC team, so I knew I was in a dog fight. His list:

Shadow Sorc, Sac Dagger and other stuff. Lord on Cold one, Helm of Command, GW, Pendant. BSB on cold one cloak that makes ranged shots half strength, re-rollable 2+ armor save. Lvl 2 with death. Cauldron. Two units of 40 spears. 18 Shades, 12 Exec., Hydra, small unit of Dark Riders.

Damn tough list with all the DE goodies. The most difficult to deal with is the Lord. With a 1+ armor and reverse ward makes it very difficult to deal with him. Stubborn on a 10 means he is ideal for pinning a unit. He can take advantage of the WoC need to challenge to chew through characters with high WS/ST attacks, scoring some nice points. Finally, if he breaks, swifstride gives him a good chance of getting away. I had one shot with BC Roar, did a wound which he managed to save! The Lord then went into the Chosen/BSB/Sorc unit, locking it up from top of two until the top of 6 (when my BSB finally put the bugger down). This allowed my opponent to attempt to maneuver units to hit the Chosen in the flank or focus his entire army on the rest of mine.

This leads me to the Third Eye of Tzeetch. This is an awesome ability and adds enormous tactical flexibility. Look for ways to take advantage of this. With my wizard locked up, I used my opponents Shadow nearly the entire game. I used it to Enfeeble the Lord, making it nearly impossible for him to get a wound through on the BSB. I used Miasma consistently on a unit of spearmen engaged with the warriors. In retrospect, I should have thrown Withering at the Pendant Lord just prior to using BC Roar. It likely would have killed before he could lock up the Chosen. This is now a standard tactic when facing similar armies.

A critical combat was the unit of Warriors v. a unit of spearmen. Unfortunately, my Hell Cannon decided to drop a round on the warriors the turn before and kill 4 of them. Dark Elves will own you on their magic phase with both Power of Darkness spell as well as the Sac Dagger. The Puppet is a good counter, in that it may tone down how many dice they throw at a spell. My tactic was to stop Mindrazor and let Miasma and Wither through and was successful. I returned the favor by using Miasma on the spears. When the dust settled, the 10 warriors were dead and 3 elves remained. I could never bring any help into this combat since the Hydra was chewing up a good part of my army and my inability to kill the last three (a single model survived at game end) cost me the game.

Marauders. I had placed a unit on each flank. My opponent had swung his executioners around to flank the Chosen. To get there, he exposed itself to a charge by the Flail Marauders. They did there thing and destroyed the unit in two turns of combat. The other acted as a pin cushion for the shades. I am not sure this was a bad thing since it would take 5 rounds of shooting to kill the unit (I kept them in woods). Once it was depleted to a point that it would be suicide to charge anything, I turned it around to avoid having to make a frenzy check. This forced my opponent to shoot one more time to claim the points.

A big mistake I made was forgetting my Horseman. They did well and defeated their DE counterpart. I the kept them close to the second spear unit to ensure they would not move to a point to threaten something like the chosen without me being able to intervene. This was great but once the marauder unit was shot down, I should have hidden it. On top of 6, the Shades were able to move to just in range and destroyed it with shots. With so much happening in the center with the Chosen, the Hydra rampaging and the Warriors v. Spears, working on getting a scenario objective and the press of getting those final turns in before time is called, I got a little target fixation and lost sight of these guys. The final count had my opponent up 159 points, losing the Horseman took it from a draw to a loss. Lesson is no matter the press of time and intensity of combats, take the time to survey the entire battle field looking for the easy points to take or give in the next two turns.

You will notice that it was a couple of one on one combats. I do not think either one of us wanted this. He really was trying to get the hydra into a flank of the Warriors but I was throwing the kitchen sink at it (it just would not die!). However, this kept me from sending support to the Warriors. I could have tried to flank the Spears with the GW marauders, but would have exposed their flank to the Shades, likely with similar results to what I did to his executioners. It really highlights the need of a cheap, hard hitting unit for flank protection. MSU really depends on getting multiple units into a single combat or at least in an advantageous position. His Pendant Lord and Hydra went a long way to wrecking my strategy, clogging up my movement lanes and really putting me on my back foot.

Hinge
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GeneralofChaos42
Member Avatar
The Puppet Master
Hinge,
Sounds like it was a good game against Jordan, I also learn 10x more from a L game, then a victory. How was your list doing on comp scores? If there where brackets, did you go into the soft or hard? [thanks]


GoC
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Hinge
Exalted Guardian
More and more tourneys are turning away from comp unfortunately, so it does not seem to matter much. With those that do, the list tends to do well and fly under the radar.

Indeed, it was a close game with some cazy dice rolls on both sides. The experience allowed me to go into other matchs against DE with a high degree of confidence. I have faced two more DE in tourney play and handeled them fairy easily.

Hinge
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Hinge
Exalted Guardian
Metal Lords thread on a mounted character in infantry got me thinking about games where it has been handy to have my BSB mounted. Oddly, out of 27 tourney games, he was only hit twice by weapons that could take advantage of his lack of LoS. A stone thrower on the head that I was able to make a 3+ ward and a cannon shot that had to skip through my trolls and they were able to catch.

SAWS XI, May, 2011

At 11 years, I think that SAWS has to be one of the older Indy GTs. It is located in Sacramento, CA. I am not enthused with the venue, which can get hot and does not allow alcohol. Terrain is mixed, with some very nice tables and some that are meh. On the other hand, the tourney runs like a well-oiled machine with experienced TOs (a huge plus in my book). It draws well from Northern California and Nevada (64 players this year). It has a unique comp system. It is a detailed scoring system published beforehand. It has the advantage of taking much of the subjectivity out of comp and everyone knows what their score is going in. It is subject to some bias by the creators and there are some softer lists that tend to pull a harder score then deserved. As in all things, there are also players who manipulate the system, looking for loop holes to attempt to gain an advantage. In the end though, I believe it does what it is intended to do, keep the most abusive builds out of the tourney. I have always enjoyed the tourney.

Game 1-Skaven

Warlord with Wizard Hat, Warlord on bonebreaker with 4+ ward, CoC, and stuff, 2 lvl 2 warplock engineers (scroll and warp-condenser), warplock engineer with doom rocket, BSB, 8 rat ogres with Gnawtooth, 2 units of 44 slaves, Abomb, Large Storm Vermin unit, small Storm Vermin unit, MSU Plague monks, unit of Clan Rats, 2 Doom Flayers, Storm Banner, Cannon.

My opponent is a regular tourney player in No. Cal and usually does not hesitate to bring the pain. This list is a huge concession to the comp system. He would get the +1 At on the Ogres, 5 attacks a piece, yikes.

I would set up, going left to right, fast Cav, Flail marauders, Warriors (dogs in front), trolls, chosen (Divine greatness), warshrine, chariot, GW marauders, disc. He would have Clan Rats, Storm Vermin, Abomb, Slaves, small unit of Storm Vermin, Rat Ogres, Plague monks, and the second unit of slaves and cannon in the backfield. Wizard Warlord gets Death is in the backfield.

My opponent goes first, general advance. He casts spirit leach on my BSB and is disappointed to find out that he does not get to use LD10, the FAQ on unmodified leadership had just come out that week. His Cannon makes it up by exploding my warshrine.

I charge the trolls into the slaves in the center. This has the effect of creating a huge obstacle that splits the battle field in two. I position the dogs in front of the Abomb and shift the Warriors/flails such that if he hits the dogs, he cannot over run into them. If he goes around the dogs, he would expose a flank to the Warriors. Fast Cav start swinging around, disc goes hunting, but the rest of my army stays pretty close to start line. My Hell Cannon blows itself up (a disturbing trend that would continue all weekend) and I get a wound off the abomb with flick (argh).

He charges my GW with two doom flayers, I kill one and am able to hold. He moves the Rat Ogres forward on that flank. His HPA hits the dogs and curiously he over runs, placing the HPA right between the flails and Warriors, exposing its flanks to both. His Doom rocket overshoots the flails, killing only a couple. His cannon blows up. Magic does little.

My turn, I send the warriors into the flank of the abomb. This would expose the flank of the warriors to the Storm vermin, so I planned to shove the flails into their face. Unfortunately, my flails failed a frenzy check and went into the other flank of the HPA. Ugh, once the Storm Vermin charged the Warriors, it would clear the way (a building was creating a bit of a log jam on that flank) for the clan rats to charge the flank of the flails. My solution was to send the BSB out in front of the Storm Vermin to bottle up his flank. I needed almost all of the 14” move to get there. This took my opponent by surprise as he could not understand why I would risk the BSB like this. First, at 1+/4++, he was unlikely to take any wounds from the Stormvermin. It would be static 5 v. bsb and whatever wounds I inflict. Frankly, pretty good odds I would hold out right. If he did break, the Storm Vermin would not be able to over run into the warriors, giving me time to sort them out and I would have a huge advantage on that flank. I move the chosen and chariot to threaten the rat ogres if they charge the GWs. I kill the Abomb and second doom flayer.

He charges the BSB and maneuvers the Rat Ogres. Curiously he pulls the warp lock engineer with the doom rocket out of the unit and runs him off to hide. My BSB fails a re-rollable 7 break test and my opponent chooses to reform facing the warriors/flails. Next turn I jam the GW into the Rat Ogres face in such that an over run would expose them to a flank charge from the Chosen, I reform and advance the Warriors/flails and move the Fast cav into a position to herd the storm vermin back if he decides to flee.

Next turn, he charges the GW, blows them up and over runs. He backs the other flank up and pours Warp lightening spells into the warriors. I charge the Storm vermin and clan rats with warriors/flails he flees with both and I send the storm vermin back with a charge with the fast cav. I am not sure why he did not use his cheap engineer the same way I used the bsb. I would have had to bring my fast cav in to deal with him, buying a turn and getting them out of his back field. The Chosen/Chariot go into the Rat Ogres. I eventually break it (stubborn 7 is not that great). I pick up the slave unit engaged by the trolls but some excellent maneuvering and use of flees keeps me from picking up anything else.

The ability of the BSB to get where I needed him was critical. Not only was I able to pick up the storm vermin and HPA, his sacrifice saved the Warriros/flails and effectively secured that flank, which allowed me to turn my Chosen away to deal with Rat Ogres.

Hinge
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DarkSchneider
Clanlord
great Hinge, this is the best thread on the forum, I think.

soon I'll add something on my own. Sadly I' won't do any tounaments before italys' GT, so next one will be the big one!

Keep on with your reports, they are indeed needed!
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