Tournament report: Klintkampen Jan 2011, 2nd game

It was time for the second matchup of the tournament, where the losers of the first games would face one another (we were four teams for a total of 16 players). I was picked to face a Dogs of War army with a light gunline feel. Meanwhile, our Daemon player went up against Beastmen, the Skaven squared off against Lizardmen while the High Elves challenged another Orcs & Goblins army to a fight.

2nd game - Dogs of War
I had never faced Dogs of War before, as the army is normally not allowed in our larger tournaments. My opponent fielded two units of Duelists with pistols, 20 Crossbow & Great Axe-wielding Dwarfs, 30 Frenzied Marauders with Flails, a small unit of Knights. The army was also supported by a Great Cannon and two Halfling Hotpots, while being led by some sort of Lord who was slightly better than a Commander of the Empire, a Paymaster for the Battle Standard and a Death Magician. Luckily for me, this time there were no Purple Suns.

Surprisingly, his shooting did very little for the first couple of rounds, as the hotpots scattered for most of its shots, and the Cannon only took two wounds from the Giant. I dare say that the combined might of my Goblin spells and the Doom Diver actually had me in the lead after the trudge across the field towards the waiting mercenaries. With less point invested in my shooting, with melee swiftly approaching, this was my game to lose. And by Gork, was I ever going to do that.

Things of note:

• Squig Herd - I wanted to get into combat so bad with the herd against their hated Dwarven foes carrying great axes, as they would have lost so many of their comrades before even getting to strike back against the overly excited Squigs. Unfortunately, I must have been too accustomed to fighting Khorne Marauders with great weapons, that I somehow missed out on the fact that these guys were swinging flails and would actually strike before I could in combat. So with the advantage on my side, I commited the most fundamental mistake of my entire experience in 8th edition. Instead of placing my snotlings to force the Marauders to overrun into my Shieldgobbos, I angled them for a perfect smash into the Squig Herd. I still had the opportunity to counter-charge, but for those new to the O&G army: If you ever get to select which unit to act as the anvil and who gets to be the hammer, always always always go with the shieldgobbos and their nets, while the squigs counter-charge the flank. NOT the other way around. What first looked like a very promising Squig Herd was reduced to only two night goblins before they even got a chance to strike. It was nasty.
• Giant - Meanwhile, after only suffering two wounds until the Cannon was taken out, the Giant was in excellent position to either counter-charge the Marauders alongside the rest of the army, or to charge into the remaining artillery. Sadly, a Pump Wagon wheeled a little bit too far and gave up a flank charge from the dwarfs by about half an inch. Not a big loss I figured, until they followed that slaughter by overrunning 10" into the big guy waiting. That's right, my goblins couldn't even charge a unit 8" away from them, while the resilient dwarfs with their 2D6-1 pursue move were making my day miserable. A club, a stomp, and the ensuing fall once the dwarfs cut him down took out almost half of the unit, but spelled the end for the giant.
• Doom Diver, Spear Chukka and Shamans - The Doom Diver continued its strong play by taking out the knights with help from the chukka, then spent the remainder of the battle shooting at the dwarfs in a forest, bringing their number down to a mere 4 or 5 dwarfs left standing. The Shamans also did very well, with Brain Bursta taking out plenty of Duellists early on and encouraging Mork himself to reach down with a warty green hard and squeeze the life out of the great cannon, sparing the Giant from early punishment.
• Shieldgobbos - The final part of the game consisted of what we both agreed turned out to be the least epic battle imagineable, with netted S2 Marauders slugging it out against death hexed S2 night goblins. After 4 or 5 rounds of combats, the goblins finally failed their steadfast test and they were chased down, alongside the Warboss, which turned a draw into a 500 point loss. In retrospect, knowing full well that their General were sitting on a 5+ armor save and 4+ ward save (with me having Tricksy Trinket to remove it), why I didn't challenge him to a duel and killed him with my Warboss is beyond me. Oh well, at least it wasn't as bad as the Squig Herd/Snotling blunder.

Despite this, our team performed well overall with both the Skaven and the High Elves taking out their enemies fairly easily, while the Daemons actually played a draw against the Beastmen. In the end, we came out of the second matchup with a 12-8 victory.