Store Championship season for Runewars. Up here in da far nord ya know, ve got’cha covered for the AAR from Fantasy Flight Games Center in Roseville, Minnie-soda.
Alas for the turnout it was not what I would say as ‘good’ given it was 6 players. Knowing the crew, several were out that I was fully expecting to be there and a few out due to life so that’s the way it goes sometimes. With a building community forces like the flu and take their toll all the more harder.
Regardless we had fun!
So prize wise the store threw in a number of extras which was awesome on top of the already great kit. An essentials pack to pass on to a new player, and a tournament kit too.
With 6 players technically we just needed to play 2 rounds but hey, given we all wanted to get in games we all agreed ahead of time, it was going to be 3 rounds. Three being the number, the number being three. That shalt not stop at 2, and just 1 round was right out.
We had 3 Daqan, 2 Waiqar and 1 Uthuk army represented. No Latari was a major surprise and was, least for me, the army I was most worried about given my performance against Latari at worlds.
Good mix-mash of painted or nearly fully painted armies.
Working from left to right in the picture, these are the 3 rounds of deployment and missions that we used. The careful approach, demoralize their forces combo was pretty nasty, more on that in a bit.
I’ll skip to the results first, army lists and then the tale of my day.
So yes, I ended up winning. It was really weird/interesting how the Daqan and Waiqar separated out like that. I’ve zero theories to offer up why that was. Worlds was kinda the same way too. From my point of view everyone on the list could have taken it.
Lists:
Brooks – Daqan – 200 pts
- Heavy Crossbowmen 3×1 : Piercing Strike
- Heavy Crossbowmen 3×1 : Piercing Strike
- Rune Golems 2×1 : Visored Helms
- Rune Golems 2×1 : Visored Helms
- Spearmen 2×2 : Rallying Corn
- Oathsworn Cav 2×2 : Raven Tabards
Joshua – Daqan – 199
- Lord Hawthorne : Shield of Margoth, Sweeping Strikes
- Heavy Crossbowmen 3×2 : Fire rune, Dispatch Runner, Simultaneous Orders
- Oathsworn Cav 2×2 : Raven Tabards, Rank Discipline, Wind Rune
- Spearmen 2×2 : Triumpant Cry, Shield Wall, File Leader
Tom – Uthuk – 200
- Berserkers 3×2 : Bannerscamp, Dispatch Runner, Master Crafted Weapons
- Spinned Threshers 2×1
- Spinned Threshers 2×1
- Flesh Rippers 2×2 : Rank Discipline
- Ravos : Insatiable Hunger, Viscera’s Goblet
Dion – Waiqar – 198
- Ankaur Maro : Heartseeker, violent forces
- Death Knights 2×2 : Rank Discipline
- Flesh Rippers 2×2 : Rank Discipline
- Reanimate Archers 2×1 : Combat Ingenuity
- Carrion Lancer 1×1
- Carrion Lancer 1×1
Curt – Waiqar – 200
- Ankaur Maro : Heartseeker, Regenitive Magic
- Carrion Lancer 1×1
- Reanimate Archers 2×1 : Combat Ingenuity
- Carrion Lancer 1×1
- Reanimate Archers 2×1 : Combat Ingenuity
- Carrion Lancer 1×1
- Death Knights 2×2 : Shield of Margoth, Rank Discipline
Tony – Daqan – 199
- Kari : Heartseeker, Latari training
- Oathsworn Cav 3×2: Hawthorne, Shield Wall, Raven Tabards, Column Tactics
- Heavy Crossbowmen 3×1 : Rank Discipline, Marching Corn, Tempered Steel
- Heavy Crossbowmen 3×1 : Rank Discipline, Marching Corn, Tempered Steel
How did the day go?
Curt and I were paired off in Round 1. With Supply Raid we had a lot in the middle of the field and it was obvious from the get go we were going to go hard at it. I deployed my Spine Threshers first thinking the Carrion might have ended up on the side to go for my flank but just didn’t happen. I dropped Ravos down last with the idea that I’d attack hard from my left flank and then push left to right.
Now there is that thing where plans don’t survive .. what was that .. hmmm o the Carrion Lancer on the left in the picture and Ravos completely miss each other in turn one. This resulted in my Flesh Rippers having to take on two Carrion Lancers and Ravos went for the Reanimate Archers. They go well with BBQ sauce, a little dry tho.
Ravos finished off the Reanimate Archers and makes for Maro. The Berserkers and Spine Threashers finish off the Death Knights. Ravos gets Maro, the other Spine Threashers get the other Reanimate Archers. The Flesh Rippers also oddly finish off both Carrion lancers. I end up with lots of tokens and it ends up being a 10-1 win. The dice were not kind to Curt.
For Round 2, I played Tony.
Here we are at the initial setup. Terrain was huge in this game as was morale. Ravos bolted forward, took the blight token and then at the end phase walked out of the terrain to a very surprised Kari.
Turn 2, I completely missed it that the Oathsworn had Raven Tabards thinking I’d activate before them … so Tony nearly destroys one of my Spine Threshers. While my charge was cancelled with dispatch runner from the berserkers behind I get the dreaded morale result to turn the cav around. Kari goes down who was the Bounty and then Ravos ends up behind the Cav to keep them from being able to adjust.
Meanwhile on my right flank the Crossbowman finish off my other group of Theshers but the Flesh Rippers take out one of them before getting the drop on the others finishing them off. Tony does eliminate my remaining Thresher against his Cav but the Berserkers charge in and that’s about it.
If the morale card hadn’t come up it would have been a very different game. While Ravos might have gotten in behind the Cav, they would have taken out way way more of my stuff. Berserkers just can’t stand against Cav head on.
Round 3
I played Brooks, more shooty-shooty Crossbowmen, with Uthuk not having something to counter ranged units all I can do is run up and try to take them out ASAP, tho the meta sure follows the worlds model of kicking skirmishers out to slow you down and make you take more damage as you come in.
It’s a good strategy!
This is about turn 3 of our game. Ravos and the Cav unexpectedly meet in the middle which thankfully prevents a bit of a disaster with my threshers holding my right flank. On the left flank it’s a good question how that’ll play out. That terrain keeping the charge angle for the flesh rippers more than complicated. Do those Golems plug the hole or do they dance and face my other group of Threshers?
In a ‘great’ bit of driving I misjudged and hit the rock with the flesh rippers. This gave Brooks both time and options for his Golems. Ravos finished off the Cav with lots of chaos and unclear choices on my right flank.
Last picture. Ravos about to take an arrow in the back and die. My flesh rippers finish off the Crossbowmen on my left but they get finished off by the Golems attacking them in the flank. Brooks takes the one and only victory token from the game. A 3-8 loss for me, but not quite big enough win for Brooks to knock me out of first.
A hugely dramatic game with lots of interesting maneuvering on the table and quite quite fun.
Across the other tables, the results were fairly similar in that very few victory tokens were scored.
All around a good day. We capped off the adventure with discussion about doing a large out of control multi-army game at some point late spring. Three of us had played in the worlds multiplayer match (3v3). It was a lot of fun, so stay tuned for something special coming up for that!