UK GT results

Surprise surprise daemons won, out of the 17 daemon, 10 dark elf and 9 vampire! POWER TRIP!

Results here
Daemons continue their winning ways.

1st Adam Hall - Daemons
2nd Shane Baxter - Daemons
3rd Will Goodwin - Empire
4th Phil Manwaring - Daemons
5th Fabio Panicucci - Daemons
6th Ben Curry - Dark Elves
7th Michael Biggs - Daemons
8th Lee Khater - Daemons
9th Elia Bonucci - Daemons
10th Joe Sturge - Dark Elves

Battle reports, game 5 on the last one I think i know the bloke who was using it

I have just come back from my first Grand Tournament experience, and wanted to give an outline of the 6 games I played.



Battle one – Vampire Counts. Scenario – Table Quarters
I opened my GT career against a horrible VC army. Four units of Ghouls, 2 units of Fell bats, 5 Cairn Wraiths and 4 Vampires. The Vampires accounted for over half of the armies value and were all put into one unit of Ghouls, which included the BSB giving it Regeneration. Having little experience against VC I didn’t realise that they could cast and re-cast the Necromantic spells as often as they liked in one magic phase. Before I knew it the four vampires were expanding their units of ghouls and fell bats to monstrous proportions. I knew my only chance was to get in and kill their general, and with Anvil assisted movement had my Hammerers into combat in turn 1. Despite 25 Thunderer shots, 2 BT shots and the charge of the Hammerers, only 3 ghouls died and no vampires were hurt. The Vampires then showed how good they were in combat, especially the 2 with great weapons, and my Hammerers were gone by the end of turn 2. The Longbeards had a flank charge on the uber-Vampire/ghoul unit, inflicting 1 wound on the Vampire Lord, which he soon healed up with Invocation of Nehek and the Longbeards followed the Hammerers in being eaten up. Meanwhile the Cairn Wraiths and Fell Bats zoomed around eating up Thunderers and Bolt Throwers. I used the Steam Drill to delay my miners entering until turn 4, and they hid in a wood to deny my opponent one table quarter. Otherwise only my Runelord survived and I failed to take any VPs of the Vampires.

Result – Loss by a massacre.

A truly dismal start to the weekend, and I went to lunch fearing I was there to be Vampire and Daemon bait for the next 5 battles.


Battle two – Orcs and Goblins. Scenario – Claiming Objectives
After the major drubbing from the undead I ended up on the second to bottom table against an enemy I was more familiar with. We placed our objective markers, with me having both of mine on the right hand side of my side of the table and easily defended. Of the other two, one was hidden out of sight and the other was in no mans land on the extreme left of the table. I deployed Warriors and Longbeards with the BTs on the left flank, and the Hammerers, both Thunderer units and the Runelord protecting the objectives on the right.

Opposite my right flank were 2*20 Orcs. Opposite on the left were 20 orcs, a giant, some savage orc big’uns with a Lord, some squig hoppers, a goblin chariot and a small unit of wolf riders.

Quite soon I was in trouble, with a shaman induced Waagh bringing his battle line across the table and swiftly into combat. By the mid-game my Longbeards and Warriors had been broken and run down leaving the left flank in disarray. However, the Miners turned up on the left, charged down the wolf riders, overran into the Giant (who was down to 1 wound after Bolt Thrower action) and killed him, and then took out the Squig Hoppers, before backing up to sit on the objective marker until the end of the game. The moment of the match, however, came when the Hammerers decided to mix it up, and in a series of battles, pursuit, charging and Anvil assisted movement swept aside all in their path. One orc unit charged them, the orcs were broken and pursuit drew us level with the supporting orc unit with them. In our movement phase we reformed to face their flank, the anvil made us charge and we broke the second orc unit. Next the Wolf Chariot smashed into us trying to halt the onslaught, but they were barely registered and were beaten off with ease. Another pursuit, reform and anvil charge sent the Hammerers into the flanks of the all important savage orc boar unit with his Lord. All the Boar Boyz were killed and the Lord fled. In our pursuit we charged into the flanks of the last remaining orc unit, breaking and running them down, pursuing into the rallied Orc Lord and killing him in the last combat phase of the game.

With two-thirds of my big infantry units killed, a heroic killing spree by the Hammerers across the breadth of the battlefield swung the game to a massacre in my favour. Dwarf pride was restored!

Result – Win (3 objectives to 0) by a massacre.


Game 3 – Lizardmen. Scenario – Total annihilation.

This scenario revolved around completely wiping out opponent units and heroes, with higher points for Specials, Rares and Lords. In my first game against Lizardmen I faced a 2nd generation Slann, 2*4 Kroxigors, a pack of 3 Salamanders, some Terradons, a Skink priest, a fast moving Saurus Scar-Veteran and 5 units of skink skirmishers. I soon worked out that the Slann, taking a total of 1 Lord, 1 Hero and 1 Rare choice combined to give 7 points if I could take him down.

Bolt Throwers combined to try and skewer the overgrown frog in a chair, and when I hit home I was amazed to find out that he only had the standard 4+ ward save and did not have the 2+ ward save against missile fire. To cut a long story short, the Bolt Throwers did their best but bad dice rolling held me back, with 2 hits getting through the ward save but each scoring 1 wound only. The Hammerers tried to punch a hole through the centre of the skink line to get to the Slann, but got caught in the flanks by some Kroxigors who slowly ground the unit down. Massive magic from the Slann (he had 3 d6 S4 magic missile spells and conflag of doom) seriously weakend the longbeards (who were eaten up by the other Kroxigors) and destroyed the sneaky Miners in one magic phase. With the Slann looking like he might escape the Runelord threw caution to the wind and went for Wrath and Ruin on ancient power three turns in a row, managing two of them to get more wounds on the Slann and taking out the Terradons and two skink units in the process. Despite my best attempts, however, the Slann finished the game with 3 of his original 8 wounds. Had the Bolt Thrower dice been kinder to me he would have died and I would have had a big victory. As it was the Lizards won comfortably. A good game, and a nice introduction to Lizardmen as an opponent.

Result – Loss by a solid victory.

So at the end of the day I was placed around 100 out of 156, had received an absolute stuffing, handed one out and then come out second in a game that could so easily gone the other way. Onto the second day…

Game 4 – Ogre Kingdoms. Scenario – Total Annihilation

Facing another army I had little experience against, I found myself with a lake on one corner of the board. This was an ideal area to castle up, with the Runelord and Bolt Throwers in the corner behind the lake, the only ways in protected by the big infantry units, and Thunderers at the front in my centre and right flank. The Ogres were 5*Ironguts Units, one unit of Bulls, one unit of Leadbelchers, a Tyrant, a Bruiser BSB, 2 Butchers and 40 Gnoblars.

I started, and slowed his advance by the Wrath and Ruin rune on a Unit of Ironguts with his Lord and BSB in it, blocking up two units queued behind this main combat unit. The tactics in the battle were otherwise predictable – he advanced, I shot, he charged with depleted units, my infantry waded in, etc. The Miners turned up and routed the Gnoblars (not exactly hard) but their stumpy dwarven legs only overran 2” and failed to follow into the flanks of the Ironguts unit behind. The Ogres then beat the Miners to a bloodied pulp.

When the dust settled we had an exact draw on Kill points. Two of his fleeing units rallied on the last turn, denying me their points. I also had a unit of Ironguts with a Butcher in combat with Longbeards to the front and Hammerers to the rear which I failed to break in consecutive combat phases (they had a spell that made them stubborn, and all the dispel dice in the world couldn’t shift it!). So an honourable draw it was, although I felt I could have won the game with a few sharper strategic decisions.

Result – Draw


Game 5 – Wood Elves, Scenario – Claiming Objectives.

Again I faced an army I had not fought before! The wood elves had come in multiple small units, with 4*8 dryads, 3*10 glade guard, 2*5 wardancers, 2*5 wild rider, a single unit of 5 glade riders, a noble, a lvl 4 mage and a lvl 2 mage.

Due to drawing the last match I ended up on the same table as before, fighting on the same side as before, so I placed my objectives on the left flank around the lake and castled up. I was pretty sure that the wood elves wouldn’t be able to shift a bunch of ranked up dwarven infantry backed up by ferocious missile fire. However, I also had to try and get a unit across the board to contest an opposing objective. We needed a bunch of fearless, heroic and selfless warriors to create a diverson and go on an all or nothing mission of glory. In short, we needed the hammerers lead by the Thane BSB.

The Hammerers marched to the centre of the board, heading right for one of the enemy objectives on the other side of the table. Arrows rained down upon them, forests moved to block their path, magic bounced off their warding runes. But relentlessly they marched on. By turn 4 the enemy storm broke, and the Hammerers were simultaneously charged from 4 directions by glade guard, wardancers, dryads and wild riders. Bring ‘em on! My opponent soon realised that the Hammerers were more than capable of holding up lots of units, giving as good as they got, even killing his noble in a challenge. Despite the Hammerers losing 3 combats in a row (outnumbered, outflanked, rear charged, etc.) their dwindling numbers held firm till the end of the battle.

Meanwhile, the dwarven fortress of Thunderers and Longbeards had held firm while dryads charged in from different angles. One unit of Thunderers effectively prevented any access to the crucial objectives, holding firm in combat against multiple attack, strength 4, fear causing opponents time and time again.

Then fear gripped the enemy as the Miners arrived close to the unattended final objective in a distant corner of the battlefield. With his last movements any remaining fast cavalry was sent to block their path, and only just prevented them claiming the vital objective. I had pointed out to my opponent that if I had wanted to be extremely cheesey I would have brought the miners on in a 1 wide, 12 ranks deep conga formation, which with one march move would have pretty much given me the crucial objective marker. But being a sporting sort of chap I came on in standard 6 wide, 2 deep, and handed him the draw. He had made some naïve errors, first in getting distracted by the Hammerers and having a lot of his army tied up in a pointless combat with them in the middle of the board instead of closing in on my objective markers. Second, in forgetting that dwarves had miners – only his fast cavalry (curse them and their 18” move with free reforms!) running back to reclaim the objective saved him. Finally, assuming that small units of skirmishers, even very good skirmishers, could shift a fully ranked up, well armoured dwarven unit from a defended spot.

Result – Draw (although I could have won if I had thrown in a cheesy but legal conga formation to get my Miners an extra few inches in from the board edge in the dying moments of the battle).


Game 6 – Chaos Daemons. Scenario – total annihilation

Onto the last game, and yet another army which was new to me! My opponent confessed he usually played dwarves but was trying out some Chaos Daemons. We hit it off really well and decided we would play the last game for as much fun as possible and not worry about the result.

He had brought 2*16 plaguebearers, 2*19 pink horrors, 20 Daemonettes, some Chaos Furies, 2 Heralds of Nurgle and 2 Heralds of Tzeentch. Given that my mission was to wipe these units out totally I was going to have a tough game.

I deployed Thunderers on my right flank and in some soft cover/ruins in the centre. The Longbeards and Warriors held the centre between the Thunderers, and the Hammerers with Thane BSB were out wide on the left flank. I was hoping for the centre to hold while the Hammerers came in from the side to smash through unit after unit. We can but dream…

The Runelord and Bolt Throwers were deployed deep onto the table edge to try and keep them out of trouble.

He open up by marching towards me, firing lots of magic in at the central thunderers. These thunderers were slowly ground down by Chaos Magic, but they passed every panic test and kept on firing until the last one was toasted by infernal chaos magic. The courage of the thunderers was a sign that all the dwarves were up for this fight, which turned out to be the most enjoyable of the weekend, and possibly the most gaming fun I have had all year.

The battle then descended into two big car-accident style pile ups, with units charging in from different directions, dwarf units breaking, fleeing, reforming and running back into the fight for some more. Trying to take out plaguebearers (T4, 5+ Ward, 4+ Regeneration) was obscene. That said, the Hammerers did get into one of the Pink Horrors units and started to do some damage. In the spirit of this all out carnage battle the second unit of pink horrors charged the Hammerers in the flank for a fantastic fight. The Hammerer champion will go down in legend for killing both Tzeentch heralds in challenges, handing out some serious damage which eventually smashed through their 4+ ward saves.

We looked like we might run out of time, so we decided to do the last few turns as combat only, not bothering with magic, shooting or non-compulsory/non-charging movement just so we could fit in maximum carnage. When all was said and done we totalled up kill points and I was amazed that we had drawn the game. Once again my Hammerers had done most of the hard work, the champion alone winning half of my kill points by taking out two Heralds.