MUCH DELAYED Horned Gobbo write up

Horned Gobbo-The woodies march again.

First of all-GRRRRRR for Picnik being intergrated into Google + meaning I had to look for a new photo editing thing that was easy to use...

Howdy, I had a fantastic weekend of gaming at the horned Gobbo tournament in Wellington. I took my new look woodies that looked something like this:

lvl4: beasts, scroll, Stone of Crystal Mere, Magical attacks spite

BSB: abane, HODA

18 GGuard: FC-flame

6x10 GGuard: M

4x8 Dryads

2x5 Wildriders: M

2x5 Waywatchers

Eagle

SO lots of shooting, lots of diverting and not many points on offer (except for 430 from the General...).

GAME ONE: Random Deployment vs Tomb Kings

Very exciting...the OTHER lots of shots army. Key difference is the his army had horde of tomb Guard with Prince, and 6 Necro Knights in big unit. Fun....Even more fun when 70% my army deployed opposite the Necro knights with my escape route checked by the Tomb Guard and cluttered by the mission. Game was defined turn 1 when casket IF'ed and killed both units of waywatchers. Pretty much downhill from there as I struggled to get my shots focused on stuff as my shooting got hammered by his shooting. Main bunker getting flanked by necro knights when I accidently killed 1 with shooting, allowing them to charge past my blocking units. oh well. 1-19 to the tomb Kings.

GAME TWO: Diagonal Deployment vs WOC

This game had my advantage written all over it. I deployed first, had 2 big pieces of impassable terrain creating a kill zone, allowing me effectively channel his army into my archers. Also helped that 2 units of Warriors and all characters were off the board. What I didnt count on was how much damage 6 Chaos Knights could absorb...working their way through 2 units of dryads and a unit of waywatchers. They Also distracted 10 archers and the waywatchers before they finally died. Frustratingly I killed all but 1 of the Marauder block. The champ made it to combat where my Glade Guard fluffed, held his round-then support charge from another one of my units = still can't kill it OR run it down.... I was sitting on a comfortable win until Mr lvl4 decided that the realm of Chaos was the more happening place swinging it to a loss. 9-11 to the warriors.

GAME THREE: Watch Tower vs Beastmen

hmmm didnt fancy my chances in this game. uber unit of Gors, Uber unit of Beastigors + 7 characters and chaff. Beasts had the tower and put 10 ungors in it. Turn 3 I FINALLY kill them after 3 horrible rounds of combat from a unit of dryads. Meanwhile I was doing everything I could to kill his big units of stuff the best way I could...with a hail of arrows. The Gors had3 characters of doom in them. After I finally killed the entire unit sans these characters, I tried my luck at killing all/some/one of them. 78 shots later....not a single wound. I shot the bestigors down to standard and champ. I was holding the watch tower at the end of the game, but a sneaky death snipe took my lvl4 to bring it back to a 11-9 win for me

GAME FOUR: Banner Mission vs Skaven.

Banner mission-sitting on a break point of 4 was never going to end well for me. Vs my one of my usual gaming buddies made it all the more difficult I couldn't rely on the surprise factor. The game can be summed up as " everything shoots my bunker unit and it runs off the board"...though I did kill his grey seer...WLC blew up first turn (as it had in every game up to that point. In fact he had had a 10 in a row misfire streak until he finally rolled something different vs me...then promptly continued to misfire until the artillery died to my waywatchers and wildriders.  We didnt even bother adding up the points as with the 600 VPS for breaking me it was pretty obviously a 0-20 loss. But a fun game.

GAME FIVE: Normal battle....FINALLY

Last game and I wasn't duking it out for bottom place phew! I was up against a Orc army that looked like an easy beat for my list....lots of easy points to pick off, 2 blocks and trolls to avoid. So basically everything went to plan....killed the chaff for no loss, diverted the trolls and the blocks and shot stuff to bits. HOWEVER...massive 10 inch diameter forest in my deployment zone was of the hurt your unit on a 4+ type. Finished off a unit of glade guard that had worn a magic missile, killed 10 from my bunker unit that had to go through it to get away, and created a massive null zone. THEN just for the fun of it, my LVL4 sucked himself into the warp turning my comfortable victory into a draw...slightly in my favour.

OVERALL

So lost 3, 1 draw, 1 win. Came 24 out of 30...last of the 3 woodie players...oh well.

The draw and one of the losses was a direct result of my lvl4 going to the warp losing me the win. Heck, my lvl4 died in EVERY game. 330pts + 100pts for the general is a big chunk of points to be giving up in an army designed to not give big points away easily.

THOUGHTS ON LIST

I think the list I took is about 90% solid, 10% work in progress.

The draw and one of the losses was a direct result of my lvl4 going to the warp losing me the win. Heck, my lvl4 died in EVERY game. 330pts + 100pts for the general is a big chunk of points to be giving up in an army designed to not give big points away easily.

The ward (only used once and failed it!) and the magic attacks (not used) are dead points. Also, 2 units of wildriders was too much. I also found that I had no units that could easily finish off stuff that was destroyed by the glade guard. In my warm up games the Wildriders and dryads had done this for me, but I just couldnt get the combos together and the charges off. Also this tournament was VERY combat character heavy-something I dont usually play against (so didnt plan for). Also Wildriders dont really have that "finishing touch" charge as they get more attacks the rounds they dont...

The other woodie lists had treekin and treemen for this task, but I think they got a "free pass" due to the unusual lack of dwarf players and lore of metal wizards who eat treekin and treemen fast. For my list the trees also just create another lvl4 problem-too many points that are easy to take.

My solution is the following:

lvl4: beasts, scroll

BSB: abane, HODA, ICI

18 GGuard: FC-flame

6x10 GGuard: M

4x8 Dryads

5 Wildriders: M

2x5 Wardancers

2x5 Waywatchers

Eagle

Wardancers solve a few problems for me:

·        1 more drop. Not that I need it, but it helps

·        somewhere to hide the lvl4 and bsb that can move fast be flexible on where it goes

·        they are i6, ws6 mini hammers that can rush in and finish stuff off

·        KB on characters in units. This is a biggie for me as it gives me another way to keep killy characters at bay/get the points.

·        would be the two 2nd cheapest things in the list = more chaff to throw at stuff.

·        Gives me an excuse to re-paint them-which I have. Painting post next!