Under the bright lights!
In this event you were allowed to bring 2 2000 point lists and choose between them at the start of the game. I brought 2 pretty identical lists, bringing the arts of Shaolin Shadowboxing and Wu Tang Sword Style together into something dangerous!
1 Horde of Rhinosaurs w either Caterpillar or BoToK
2 Regiments of Kaisenor Lancers w brew of haste and either Caterpillar or Pipes of Terror
2 Regiments of Ghekkotah Warriors
2 Lekiledons
1 Herald w Lute
1 Clan Lord on Fire Drake w/ Banner of the Griffon
2 Clan Lords on Winged Fire Drake w/ Boots of Levitation
The only actual differences were in a couple items that swapped around depending on the terrain and opponent, but normally I ran the rhinosaurs with caterpillar.
No Scrying Gem anymore, replaced with Boots of Levitation which was an awesome purchase. I've probably found my crutch item for these dragons, 32" breath bubble is great for pushing or clearing chaff, and late game clutch attacks.
Since this review is a couple weeks late and I'm writing this off memory, I will probably be more brief in this review than I was in my mountaineer review.
Scenario 1- Invade!
Opponent- Tim Bowie w/ Ratkin
I don't have a copy of Tims list, but off of memory he had
1 Horde of Blight
2 Hordes of Stormvermin
2 Legions? of tunnel Slaves
1 Blight Lord w Bane Chant
2 Swarm Criers w lute and diadem?
2 Troops of Hackpaws?
3 Weapon Teams
I was pretty intimidated by this list on invade, he had a crap ton of nerve and unit strength, but I was able to use the 12" range on my breath attacks plus some chaff in holding him back while my plain dragon flanked around. This locked in some of his hordes from advancing, and let me pick apart the weapon teams with the other 2 fire drakes while my ancients and kaisenors cracked the stormvermin and blight hordes. This matchup turned out to be a dream for my build, using all of my ranged threats to pick apart exactly what I wanted to kill while the rest of the army popped units where necessary. By the end of the game, I had 11 unit strength across the half while he had a horde of stormvermin and legion of tunnel slaves, giving me a full victory. I also ate up a good amount of the bonus points, giving me a pretty strong start to the tourney.
Scenario 2- Occupy!
Opponent- Daniel Payne w/ NightStalkers
List:
2 Regiments of Spectres
1 Horde of Scarecrows w/ Healing Brew
2 Hordes of Fiends
2 Mind Screeches
3 Screamers
2 Banshee's w/ Lightning Bolt, Zephyr Crown and Boots of Leviation
The Pink VS Orange Heavyweight Title Fight
This list terrified me. My breath attacks are pretty solid against Night Stalkers, but 25 Lightning Bolt and 2 Mind Screeches is brutal, especially combined with the firebolts of the spectres. Our table had a really good sized forest in the middle of the board though, and we deployed putting it between our main armies. I kept all 3 fire drakes together, using my kaisenor lancers to provide cover from the mind screeches and used all the breath to clean up the screamers first. the other half of my army camped the objective on my side of the board, in some difficult terrain to make him hit on 5's. Dan's dice really betrayed him early though, and throwing all of his shooting into my units only did a couple wounds and I hadn't lost a unit until turn 4. With 48 breath attack that I could dance around I just had to scalpel a unit a turn. On the last turn of the game he had a couple options to wind blast me off of objectives, if he got my dragon with like 8 successes he would win the game, or he could go for a kaisenor I had on the 1 pt objective to get a draw with 4 successes. He decided to play for the win and only got 7 successes on 18 dices, meaning I could fly the dragon on the 2 pt objective bottom of turn 6 and get a minor win. I was really helped by some poor early shooting and keeping my dragons around till the end of the game giving me the ability to reach out at objectives, but this list definitely could take out my army by turn 3 if his dice roll hot.
Scenario 3- Loot!
Opponent- Cyle Pool w/ Goblins and FoN allies
List:
1 Regiment of SharpSticks
6 Regiments of Rabble
1 Legion of Rabble w/ Fire Oil
1 Troop of Fleabag Riders
3 War Trombones
2 Flagits, 1 mounted w/ Diadem of Dragon Kind
2 Wiz w/ Bloodboil
2 Mincers
1 Giant
1 Regiment of Centaur Bray Striders
1 Beast of Nature w/ Fly and Vicious
21 drops of fun! Loot is a brutal matchup for anyone against goblins, having to kill so many units is rough. I deployed pretty central, with my Boots dragon on my left and the plain one on my right. The right loot counter I invested a regiment of skinks, kaisenors and my dragon to ensure I got at least one, and giving me a pretty clear avenue into his flanks for my dragon. The center I just tried to pick apart what I could shoot at and clear some of the rabble and war trombones. The boots of levitation dragon found a pretty easy opening after turn 1 to shoot up the right flank and turn to face his army while taking care of a war trombone with the breath attack. By turn 4 I felt pretty good about my position, but I had a string of wavers against him and his mincers had finally reached me and his list started picking up my units. By turn 6 I only had my dragons and the skink regiment with a loot counter, while he still had his giant and legion of rabble fresh on top of the other 2 loot counters. The giant was in a forest so I decided to try to breath 32 on the legion and spike a roll or 32 but getting the 20 wounds I needed for a solid nerve check wasn't in the cards and Cyle got the minor win. He played a good game and definitely deserved the win. I had a few decisions that looking back I could have picked better options in the mid turns for my shooting/combats but overall I can't be upset with how we fared against each other.
Scenario 4- Ransack!
Opponent- George O'Connel w/ Elves
List:
2 Hordes of Dirty Stinking Kindred Archers w/ Heart-Seeking Chant and Wine of Elvenkind
1 Regiment of Forest Shamblers w/ Healing Brew
2 Hordes of Dirty Stinking War Chariots w/ Caterpillar and Fire Oil
1 Dragon Breath
1 Army Standard Bearer w/ Diadem
2 Dirty Stinking Elven Mages w/ Fireball 10, 1 w/ Bloodboil
1 Dirty Stinking Dragon Kindred Lord w/ Chant of Hate
1 Dirty Stinking Master Hunter
So there's 72 4+ 24" shooting and 60 4+ 12" shooting. Plus 3 3+ 24" shots. All with elite. I did not have the tools to handle this army at all. While I'm loathe to nerf a chariot unit, but they should not hit on 4's in shooting and melee in both elves and twilight kin. They are just silly good for their points in combination with regular archer hordes, and have enough hitting power to actually clean up consistently. Our table also had a lot of very wide open firing lanes, and nowhere for me to get cover approaching him, so I just hid behind a forest and building the whole game. This is probably the first game in KoW where I felt I lost in list building, and I don't think there is any way I could counter this in Salamanders without giving up games to actual balanced builds. George did make a mistake in turn 5, and I had a chance to jump both of my dragons 20" onto the 2 3 point counters, denying it from him and possibly getting a minor victory but I was off eyeballing it by 2" and at the end of the game I had only killed 195 points of mages and standard bearers and controlled 0 points to his 7. I was able to get a few bonus points here so still scored decently, and I felt I handled the game a lot better this go around than when I played George at mountaineer.
So at the end of day 1 I was 2-2 and in a pretty good standing should I sweep my next 2 games to get a high finish.
Scenario 5- Push!
Opponent- Felix Castro w/ Herd
List:
3 Hordes of Guard Brutes w/ Blade of Slashing, Mace of Crushing, Healing Brew
1 Horde of Lycans w/ Helm of the Ram
4 Troops of Beast Pack
1 Horde of Stampede w/ Blessing of the Gods
1 Winged Chimera
2 Shaman w/ Heal 5, 1 w/ Banner of the Griffon
My Ancients are about to have a bad time...
So this list hits hard and fast, but I felt pretty comfortable with my odds here, I have enough shooting to clear the chaff in 1 turn and stay out of the charge ranges, and if I can focus my shooting on the stampede I can pop it in one go. Turn 2 I set everything up in position, had all my breath attack ready to kill all the chaff then dance around the threaten his flanks and rears with dragons to stall out the guardian brutes. On the left I took a bad charge with kaisenors to stall the stampede a turn while I cleared the chaff in front of it, in the center I had ghekkotahs ready to die for the cause to shield my walking fire drake, and on the right I had my plain dragon with a troop of beast packs in the woods. He had put lycans behind those woods but not in it, which I thought was a pretty big mistake so I was looking to one shot or waver the beast packs then threaten flying overhead to stall his lycan horde. Buuuut then I rolled 3 hits and 0 wounds with 16 breath attack, and on his turn he charged my dragon and did the 1 wound he needed and put his lycans in the woods so they could see me now. On my turn I started to go into the stampede with my shooting, and backed up the plain dragon on the right and turned the walking drake to clear the last beast pack. The center was just a bloodbath of ghekkotah's not accomplishing anything but stalling for a turn. I then failed to break a stampede horde with 16 wounds, which was okay, but he healed 6 on his turn with his shamans. And his lycans one shotted my Plain fire drake needing 9's twice reforming to face the walking drake and eventually killing that drake as well. By this point my center was gone, and I was planning on there being 2 dragons behind him letting my stuff function, but instead there was one still dancing around a stampede. He cleaned up the rest of my army on turn 6, getting a full win. I don't think I would've done anything different though, that's the dice part of dice games and my list plays a high risk high reward style when against fast hammers like this and I paid the price for it. Felix was a great opponent though and got my top vote for best sports, and even getting my rectum turned inside out it was a fun game.
Scenario 6- Dominate!
Opponent- Kim Reiss w/ Dwarves and Herd Allies
List:
5 Regiments of Brock Riders w/ Caterpillar, Blessing of the Gods, Brew of Strength
2 Flame Belchers
2 Mounted Berserker Lords 1 w/ Banner of the Griffin
1 Horde of Lycans
2 Troops of Beast Packs
Dragon has broken through the center!!
Kim had only been playing for a few months prior to this event, but my dice really didn't care about that. This game my breath attacks were the exact opposite as they were against felix, I was pretty frequently getting 14 hits out of 16 dice, and on a def 4 army that's back breaking. With both lekelidons and 2 drakes shooting with rough averages I could one shot a brock rider on 7's so I played cagey and let her approach me. She wasn't familiar with playing salamanders though, and ignored an early charge on my speed 9 kaisenor to go after my fire drake with boots of levitation but rolled only 4 wounds and that gave me the space I needed to charge into her, taking a flank on lycans, kaisenors into flame belchers and ancients moved up to take out another brock rider regiment after it killed the kaisenors I shot forward. I cleared out a lot this turn which gave me a huge amount of board control with my dragons and left her with few options without getting rear charged or danced by my dragons. Ancients finished off the right flank and I shot out the rest of the turns, and going bottom of second could one shot her brocks that went into the dominate circle. She was a great opponent though, and I honestly felt bad about how ridiculous my dice were that game but she took it like a champ and got a sports vote for it. Give her a few more months of tournament play and I wouldn't be surprised to see her take top finishes once she gets used to the game and how her army works.
End of Day 2 I finished 3-3, with 111 battle points for a 7th place finish out of 16. Not too terrible for salamanders. I also finished 7th in Paint, with 13 points out of 20. I was really happy with this after my pretty miserable finish in paint at mountaineer, I put a lot of work into new models to up the quality of the army as a whole. Sports I got 16 points out of 18!!!! Best in sports was a big surprise for me, and got to take home Jesse's favorite trophy! Overall I jumped up to 5th on the back of my soft scores, putting me in a strong position to grab a top 8 spot in the Mid Atlantic too!
Prize Support was incredible for this event!!
MVP's of the Tournament
Clan Lord on Fire Drake w/ Wings and Boots of levitation
This guy can carry a list so far buy himself, the amount of board control you can gain if you play him right is crazy and also necessary to make Salamanders work reliably. It still suffers for having stupid low nerve for a 310 point model, but I don't really think I could go back to running Salamanders without the dragons. Have to have that extra range threat to protect your Rhinosaurs and clear screeners for the kaisenors, nothing else in the army does it as well as the clan lords.
Can't forget the other Salamander player on the East Coast Chris Booth!!!
Future Changes-
So spoilers for Keystone, I tried a Blood Boil build to combo with the fire drakes, and in short it did not work as a consistent gimmick in a meta about super fast hammers. So I'm going to try out some alternative choices for my hero slots, using regular clan lords on mounts to be a backfield hammer that can add 3-4 wounds to any combat with a battle captain on rhinosaur to get some punch in there. I also picked up a varangur army at keystone, and will be working on that in the short term to take a break from the lizardmen as well as have some fun sculpting heads and really going all out.
That's the long and short of the event, George O'Connel won the whole thing, Cyle Pool and Felix Castro took 2nd and 3rd respectively, making my new name Joey "Trampoline" Greek, beat me and you'll finish high 😅
Thank you for sharing about this tournament Joey!
ReplyDeleteAnother Great Read. Love the game by game assessment. Also reviewing the list pre and post game.
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