Fools of War (WV edition) Results!

First tournament of the year, and first tournament with Salamanders after a few months of preparing and practicing, and a good week of scrambling to finish enough of my army to not be embarrassed.  Also had no idea how much pressure this blog was gonna put on me, cause I would look pretty dumb if I didn't at least do okay.  Going to apologize, I didn't take any pictures of the games, so just a text block article. 

So the list I took was the one I talked about in part two of my preparation article for Fools of War, as follows here:

1 Horde of Primes w/ Chant of Hate
2 Troops of Corsairs
2 Regiments of Kaisenor Lancers w/ Blessing of the Gods and Helm of the Ram respectively
1 Horde of Ancients on Rhinosaurs w/ Potion of the Caterpillar
2 Komodons
1 Battle Captian w/ Wings of Honemaze
1 Herald on mount w/ Lute of Insatiable Darkness
1 Clan Lord on Fire Drake w/ Banner of the Griffon
Firebrand

Scenario 1: Push Fools!

Opponent: Rob w/ League of Rhodia

Rob was a great opponent, we played on table 10 (started at the bottom and all) and I was matched up against a cav list. From memory, it was

2 Regiments of Knights
2 Hordes of House Guard
2 Barons on Aralaz
2 Barons of Winged Aralaz
1 Horde of Ogre Siege Breakers
2 Troops of Red Goblin Scouts

with some items sprinkled in, like pathfinder and bane chant.

Overall we basically matched up evenly, with a massive bloodbath in the middle of the board.  Each unit in both of our lists could one shot another unit in the opponents, and the tide turned in my favor when he rolled a 3 and wavered my prime horde instead of popping them, which let me get an extra turn to roll a flank and by the end of the match, Rob had a whole regiment of knights with one loot counter on his side of the board, and I had 1 Komodon, the Herald, and the Ancients on Rhinosaurs with 6 of the loot tokens on my side of the board.  Due to the fake ones I only scored 4, and since no one had any counters on the opponents side I won a 12-8 on scenario, and squeaked an extra point in kill MoV for a 13-7 victory.  I don't really have anything else to say on this, there wasn't any crazy tactics or tricks to either of our armies, we just butted heads and I had the last unit left, which is one of Salamanders strong points.

Scenario 2: Invade

Opponent: Alex w/ Brocks and Rocks... also known as Dwarves

List:

2 Hordes of Earth Elementals
2 Regiments of Brock Riders
1 Troop of Rangers
2 Regiments of Earth Elementals
2 Greater Earth Elementals
2 Berserker Lords, one mounted, one with wings of honeymaze

There were other items, but I don't remember them all.

Alex is one of the best Dwarf players that I know of, and I've played him before last year and had the best draw ever where we spent 6 turns unable to kill each other since I ran ensnare and he had def 6.  We were playing on table 5, and I really did not like the terrain placement of that table.  Both forests were on one deployment zone, and there was an empty field in the middle and a large wall and building blocking of the right flank for the other deployment zone.  Naturally I got the side with a blocked off flank, instead of the forest side.  In effect this left my army with no good options to deploy, as I was going to have to make hindered charges no matter where I deployed but my opponent could pretty easily avoid that with a pathfinder unit or flier. 

I also made a pretty big mistake early on, taking some bait to kill a greater earth elemental but leaving my kaisenors out in the open to get popped pretty quickly by brock riders, who are basically the perfect counter to kaisenors.  I really struggled to put damage on from there on out, and had some pretty unlucky nerve rolls with my ancients who were supposed to be my silver bullet, but could not roll a 5+ nerve check that game, even with my april fools rerolls.  Alex was pretty easily able to clean up, although the komodons did come through killing the brock riders turn 6 to at least get me an extra point.  Ending score was a 3-17 loss for me, with no scoring unit on his side of the board, and he had more than enough to get 15 scenario points.

Scenario 3: Scour

Opponent: Chris w/ Orcs

List:
1 Horde of Greatax
2 Regiments of Ax
2 Regiments of Gore Riders
2 God Speakers
1 War Drum
Gakamak
1 Mounted Krudger w/ Blade of the Beast Slayer
1 Giant

He also had a ton of items on the orc units, like brew of sharpness and strength, and some other stuff that I can't remember 100%

This game was disappointing.  I deployed it about perfect, everything matched up where I wanted it too, I had a ranged element that wasn't being threatened by his mounted units who deployed across from mine, and with the pillage counters pretty balanced in spread I was content to sit back and shoot him to death until he wanted to give me charges.  After 2 turns of that he was kinda tired of not doing anything but adding wounds to his horde of greatax, and gave in.  I was able to rout just about everything I collided into, thanks in part to the Komodons and Clan lord burning the war drum from behind his lines, and some bane chant help from the herald made sure I was wounding on 2's with just about every single unit.  Then I rolled a 3 on the horde of great ax with 17 wounds on it, and I had prepped for that just in case by blocking off one flank with firebrand and wiping out the other flank.  Following turn I went back into the horde with my primes, and then proceeded to roll a snake eyes, keeping the horde alive with 30 wounds, and sealing the loss of my horde.  It went downhill from there, his krudger was able to waverlock my clan lord, and I had to scramble to finish the job.  I made a pretty big mistake holding back my Ancients instead of getting them into the krudger, but I was pretty concerned that I wasn't going to maintain any pillage tokens, and didn't want to turn what was a big win into a loss.  Had I done that I wouldn't have had to worry about tokens though, because it would've been in a prime position to finish off what was left of his army, and my clan lord wouldn't have died turn 5.  By the end of the game, I held 2 tokens to his 0, and got a 13-7 win on scenario, and only had 1 extra point from MoV getting me a 14-6.  It was extremely disappointing that my streak of being unable to finish a big win out from last year continued into this year, and leaving points on the table from a snake eyes is always frustrating to me.  Chris was a really fun player though, he was a good sport in the beginning and kept it fun throughout, would definitely play him again. 

Scenario 4: Control

Opponent: Chris Fischer w/ Basileans

(apologies for the badly done corsairs, they were a last second addition)

List:
1 Horde of Elohi
1 Horde of Sisterhood Infantry
2 Regiments of Paladin Foot Guard with 2 handed weapons
1 Regiment of Paladin Knights
1 Troop of Panther Lancers
1 Phoenix
1 High Paladin on Dragon
1 Ur-Elohi
1 Mounted War Wizard
1 Bearer of the Holy Icon

Back on table 5, and I got the side I really didn't like again. (I didn't win a single roll for sides this event, and I really wish I won the table 5 ones)  Chris's list was also really fast, with 4 speed 10 units, I had no ways to stop him from getting the charge, and most of his speed 10 stuff was able to really put the smack down, especially on the kaisenors.  I played in a castle and tried to be as cagey as I could, but that really just gave him time to set up all around me with his fliers, and I couldn't really do anything about it.  The game truly turned to his side when he spiked a nerve check on my horde of primes after committing in the middle and wavering them, after I had set up his sisterhood horde to easy kill range of the clan lords breath attack.  This prevented me from being able to roll over all of his infantry, and at least consolidate one flank and face his fliers, and gave him the win.  Was a really disappointing finish, although Chris was a great opponent, and my first game against him so i'll need a rematch to even the score 😉  Ending score was a convincing 18-2 win for him. 

Overall I finished tied for 14th, going 2-2 on the day but since I had small wins and big losses only scored 32 points total.  I didn't feel like the list was bad in any regard, I had the tools I needed to win every match I felt, but I will say even with the changes from CoK 17, the army still needs some help.  It is missing something and I can't put my finger on it, a cheaper anvil or better flier, something in those viens.  The event was an absolute blast, and it was great to see a lot of familiar faces from last year, and I got to play against 4 really fun opponents.  They're going to be running a 2 day GT in June, and I'm almost certainly going to go. 

The Komodons performed pretty well, throwing wounds onto targets consistently and I was happy with their production.  They are also the ultimate distraction monster, since they look far more threatening then they actually are. 

I'm really going to look at making triple Clan Lords on Fire Drakes a list, been thinking about how to get everything I want and the slots are an issue, but looking at allying in some elves or trident realms/forces of nature to help fill in some holes I think the Salamanders have.