Colonial Carnage After Action Analysis

KellyW · Joined: 21 Dec 2010 Posts: 306

All,

I mentioned this to Gene on Sunday morning that we, as a club, ought to share our thoughts about what worked and didn't work at a tournament. I think that it is one way to improve game play. I'll take first crack.

1. I saw types of armies that I had not really encountered in any of my practice games. For example, my 5th game was against a VC player with a Crypt Ghoul on a terrorgheist, a Vampire Lord on a Zombie Dragon, two units of five Hexwraiths (those things are nasty) and three big blocks of zombies (one was bunker) and two surrounded the bunker and six units of five dogs. This army rivaled mine in speed and getting across the board. I didn't know what to do. In game four I faced an all-mounted Empire army. One cannon, no STank, six demigryphs. Then my opponent did the smart thing and castled in the corner, knowing that his one cannon could kill my strong units (three monsters) if I didn't come to him. My point? We should think about moving to really fast armies. I think that is where the meta is headed.

2. You have to have some answer for everything. In Game 2 I faced a demon army with a GUO and a Soul Grinder. There was nothing in my army that could take out the Soul Grinder. Ultimately I squeaked out with a bare win (I got both of my victory conditions and he had a 8 for Comp). I had the tools for the GUO, but it took me three turns to figure it out (which was too late -- it was down to one wound at the end of the game).

3. The corollary to #2 is that there are a lot of big, difficult to kill monsters or other large figures out there these days. These can be really tough if you have no answer. I had no answer to Soul Grinder, didn't do a wound to it all game. It practically won the game for my opponent by itself. If you don't have an answer, and it is fast, that one model can eat your lunch.

4. In a Swedish Comp tournament, I believe that you shouldn't sacrifice a major element in your army to achieve an extra high comp score. The comp differential only really made a difference in one battle. It was a factor -- but not so significant that I would want to sacrifice something major to achieve that high score.

5 Second place overall was a Tomb King player bringing Lore of Undeath. He is a very good player, but there appears to be more to the Lore of Undeath than first meets the eye.

6. A lot of armies can do a lot of damage on GTs 5 and 6; I earned several battle points in the last few turns of my game against my Empire opponent because my magic finally kicked in. It is worth trying to recognize which armies can and which armies cannot.

I hope that my comments are worth considering and elicit your thoughts.

Kelly W

Grix007 · Joined: 28 Aug 2013 Posts: 712

Kelly,

You make some very valid points. I think from my experience it would be that the two most important things I will be taking away from this is bring an Ironblaster and play more.

Even though I had quite a bit of shooting it hurt the fact that I did not have a cannon. In all my games I could have used it and the 20ish points in comp I saved didn't help me enough to win the game. In game 1 I could have shot knights, in game 2 the cauldron, game 3 didn't really need it vs Beastmen, game 4 I needed it vs 2 soulgrinders and a keeper, and game 5 well your son has a choochoo train of pain and a Ka'daii. So I need to bring the Ironblaster.

As far as playing more, I really did not get a chance to play before the tournament and was really rusty.

We also need to take a look at the top lists taken and ensure we have a way to deal with them. As well as learn from our games and those by others in our club to make us better.
_________________
2016
Ogre Khan's
Pickup 4-4-0
Tournament 3-1-1

Corey · Clanrat Joined: 29 Nov 2010 Posts: 832

Will post tomorrow. Wrote something up but it timed me put.
_________________
Previously Arhain!

ExecutionerofKhaine. · Shade Joined: 30 Nov 2010 Posts: 2420

Soul Grinders (×2) and Beast of Nurgle unit were the toughest nuts to crack that I played against. I was pinning the Keeper down with Acquiescence spell and thought I would kill the Grinder with 5 str 7 attacks eventually, but failing 2 Initiative 8 tests and subsequently failing my ward save dropped my unkillable lord Crying or Very sad

Keeper was pretty scarey too. I think that the default blade the they can get giving them D3 to all the best combat stats is a very popular choice with Daemons too.

Lastly the Terrorghesist was very scarey as well. Very tough to move trying to keep that guy 28" away from you. So this guy really messed with my movement, and he only had one Terrorghesist. When I finally got tired and moved up a bit, he rolled an 11 and almost wiped out my Skullcrushers the first try. I saw on a different table a guy with 2 of em and 1 had a Ghoulking on it I believe. I belive this list at Brawlers when they can take 4-5 more screamers on top of that......I will cry. Out loud, I will cry. He will scream and I will cry.
I see this list as a major bump in the road for me. I have very small, very expensive units and I have lots of Armor that they (screams)don't care about too.
I can only hope Purple Sun helps with this problem Twisted Evil

_________________
Joey

9th Age Armies
Vermin Swarms 8-5-1
Mixed Daemons 2-6-0

Skipschnit · Herr Pyramid Dictator! Joined: 29 Nov 2010 Posts: 2274

My observations:
1. I liked the venue and location.
2. I liked the terrain for the most part. I'm a huge fan of mysterious terrain and a hater of building rules so wish those were addressed.
3. I didn't like the table tops. I understand why they went with the thin board, but I didn't like how they bowed or how gritty the surface was. It was like playing on sandpaper or at the beach.
4. I liked how the event was run and the objective card use.
5. I'm a fan of the comp and the scoring, just may suggest tweaks to the scoring for ours.
6. I told y'all to let me use lore of undeath! Rolling Eyes

peer pressure
7. Need to pay attention to not only your objective card, but your opponent's as well. I missed a draw by not moving my knights 2" to get into Jerry's deployment to deny him the 150 VPs.
8. The units may be the same, but don't compare this event to Brawlers if you're list building. It's apples and oranges. Brawlers is going to be nasty and you will see LoU spam. Cheap throw away wizards spamming undeath to raise free nasties...that's my plan too.
9. Don't sleep on dragon ogres! They are really hard hitting and survived many shots and combats frustrating my opponents. The same goes for small units of trolls. They are cheap chaff that annoy your opponent. They don't care how strong you are, just as long as you're not Flamming.. My little unit made their points and more in every game.
10. Don't be afraid to hide. Alex said #tactics. When retreat has the word tactical in front of it, then it is ok. Get what you can and if you can't get any more, play the point bank/deny card.
11. Ranks are huge when you have an MSU army. If the dice aren't friendly you can find your expensive characters run down by cheap ass units/models just because of combat Rez.
12. Speed is key if you are not playing with a gun line and harmful if you are. Limit the number of shots on your army by getting to positions that deny shots, direct your opponents's shots, or into combat as quick as you can.
13. Don't sleep on the lore of heavens either. All those rerolls are frustrating and comets love castled troops.
_________________
Thanks,
Ben J.

Orationem pulchram non habens, scribo ista linea in lingua Latina

ExecutionerofKhaine. · Shade Joined: 30 Nov 2010 Posts: 2420

I think playing game with the army helps too. Know what you can and can't do with your army. I think I needed a few more games with my army. I also am not familiar with .y enemies as needed. That would have helped. Mangler tore me a new one thanks to my ignorance. Soul Grinder ate my lunch too. Definitely could have used a game or 2 against the Daemons.
_________________
Joey

9th Age Armies
Vermin Swarms 8-5-1
Mixed Daemons 2-6-0

Grix007 · Joined: 28 Aug 2013 Posts: 712

Yea but not many Daemon players in our group.
_________________
2016
Ogre Khan's
Pickup 4-4-0
Tournament 3-1-1

Arromanche · Posted: Tue Feb 10, 2015 6:00 pm Post subject:

I have all the Daemons you could want. Including the Soul Grinder. Wink

_________________
High Elves 7th - 60-29-12.... 8th 16-6-2
Lizardmen 7th - 71-40-9...8th 11-5-0
Skaven In 7th -12-8-5....In 8th 29-15-3
Dwarves 7th - 27-7-0....8th 10-7-3
Empire 8th 10-8-0
Wood Elves 7th - 65-22-3...8th 1-4-0

Gym Shorts · Joined: 23 May 2011 Posts: 1052

10. Don't be afraid to hide. Alex said #tactics. When retreat has the word tactical in front of it, then it is ok. Get what you can and if you can't get any more, play the point bank/deny card. --Ben

This is a big one for me... I took to 0-20 losses. And I was just throwing points out the window in these games.

My biggest issue was mistakes. TKs are completely unforgiving. I think my list was okay and had the Tools I needed for 4 out of 5 games to win. In my matchup against Chaos Dwarves I just shouldn't have engaged because his army is a chessesy crock of [censored] and my army literally can't hurt it.

In my other games though I made two crucial mistakes that cost me 20-30 battle points. As I get ready for Brawlers I'm going to look at creating an army that can sustain a little user error.

Also I think I need to bring the cheese. If you bring the vegetables you have to accept that if you make a mistake the other guy is going to pound you. If its frustrating that you have to play perfect and the other guy can get away with stuff consider a different army.

I may like playing TKs but there rules hamper me and it's not like I'm getting a great paint score relative to the time and effort I put into the army.

I also REALLY missed the boat on Lore of UnDeath.... Ben, you were right!

Congrats to Gene, Kelly, Ben and Corey on there placements! Nice job guys!

Brad C · Joined: 07 Aug 2011 Posts: 86 Location: Leesburg, VA

Does anyone have a copy of the Lore of Death that they can share?

Corey · Clanrat Joined: 29 Nov 2010 Posts: 832

Biggest challenge: I know that personally I struggled with when to challenge or not. In two of my games, I chose to attempt winning some major combats with static rather than active combat res out of fear that my block would die too quickly (namely the white lions). Rather than giving the block the extra attacks, I issued a challenge in order to protect them, thinking I could just static the win, which just prolonged combat and more than likely cost me.

In my demon game (still won 15-5), I accepted a challenge with my AM (3++) after the champ was killed. Thinking was that, he could definitely tank the Keeper (No rerolls) and when I took damage I could always heal back up, while i'd win with static. I should have definitely just declined and moved my AM back, and i'd get more attacks out, with the PG still tanking with 3++. While it didn't cost me the game, I would have definitely won a 20-0 if I had kept my head on straight and just declined.

Strength:
Honestly one of my biggest strengths in this tournament was deployment, With vangaurd and one scout unit, I was also able to bottle in or contain segments of the opponents army. The lone scout unit was crucial in a couple matchups of stopping vanguard or scouts (waywatchers in my WE game, shades in the DE). I also moved my characters around in units depending on the need. In some games I placed all cav characters in the silverhelms, while in others I'd place them where they were needed most (especially in games without template or cannons).

Definitely agree on the big nasties. For the soulgrinder, charging with a unit of cav should be enough to cause some extra wounds, or to at least hold him. He only has 4 attacks, so will slowly begin to crumble if you manage to make contact with an armored unit that can sneak a wound or two through.
_________________
Previously Arhain!

Arromanche · Posted: Thu Feb 12, 2015 11:44 pm Post subject: Re: Lore of Death

Grix007 · Joined: 28 Aug 2013 Posts: 712

ExecutionerofKhaine. · Shade Joined: 30 Nov 2010 Posts: 2420

Harry if it's handy get I get a copy too please?
Not planning to use it but wanna be familiar since everyone else seem to be going to Wink

_________________
Joey

9th Age Armies
Vermin Swarms 8-5-1
Mixed Daemons 2-6-0

KaptainKhaos · Savage Orc Joined: 28 Nov 2010 Posts: 366

Sounds like alot of people took the Keeper of Secrets in this tourney.
_________________
"All is dust"

ExecutionerofKhaine. · Shade Joined: 30 Nov 2010 Posts: 2420

ExecutionerofKhaine. · Shade Joined: 30 Nov 2010 Posts: 2420

Ben is Famous...

www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQcczVlvFYo
_________________
Joey

9th Age Armies
Vermin Swarms 8-5-1
Mixed Daemons 2-6-0

Skipschnit · Herr Pyramid Dictator! Joined: 29 Nov 2010 Posts: 2274

Yay! He thinks he should have won. Haha. I should have made 1+ armor saves and killed his sorceress in turn 2! Rolling Eyes

I've never seen someone roll insane courage 2 combats in a row either so those cold one knights should have been gone in turn 3. But his mistakes did keep me in the game and it was a roller coaster of a game. Nice guy too so it made the game fun.
_________________
Thanks,
Ben J.

Orationem pulchram non habens, scribo ista linea in lingua Latina

Skipschnit · Herr Pyramid Dictator! Joined: 29 Nov 2010 Posts: 2274

I need to learn how to do those battle reports like that and add the battlefield chronicle displays. Hmmm
_________________
Thanks,
Ben J.

Orationem pulchram non habens, scribo ista linea in lingua Latina

KaptainKhaos · Savage Orc Joined: 28 Nov 2010 Posts: 366

Tomb King Phil is game 3 with this guy.
_________________
"All is dust"