Tournament Report: Hammer and Swords V

 And so it came to pass, after years of renovations, corona, baby, toddler, career changes and generally a busy time, I finally returned to the wargame table during the final sunday of october.

And in one go by going out and play a 9th Age tournament, hosted by the Tin Soldiers of Antwerp (whose ranks, if life keeps going like this, I'll be rejoining in 2024 more frequently).

Now, not only is this my first T9A tournament I ever played, it is tout court the first time I played T9A, period.  So with zilch experience in the rules, I have to fall back on my decades of Warhammer Fantasy Battles experience, combined with historical rank and file gaming to try and avoid the last place in the ranking, or at the bare minimum not run into 3 losses of 20-0.

Taking the battle to the enemy, I brought Infernal Dwarves (because of course, what else?), with an army I started building in march due to a series of unforseen circumstances that could be read about on this blog a while back.  So Hashut has risen again, and now let's see how it went... as the tournament ended with 19 players registering and the club's reserve player bringing it to an even 20.

But first things first, here is my army list, clocking off exactly at 3500 points, the army I have been repainting those past months:

370 - Overlord, hand weapon (Hero's Heart), Infernal weapon (Onyx Core), Breath of the Brass Bull

360 - Prophet of Nezibkesh, Adept, Pyromancy, Sceptre of Power, Obsidian Rock

580 - 20 Citadel Guard, Champion, Standard Bearer, Musician, Flaming Standard

320 - 20 Infernal Warriors, Champion, Standard Bearer, Musician, Legion Standard

240 - 30 Vassal Levies, spear and shield, Champion, Standard Bearer, Musician, Their Master's Banner

200 - 20 Vassal Levies, bow

530 - 6 Kadim Incarnates, Champion

335 - 10 Taurukh Enforcers, great weapon

290 - Rocket Battery

275 - Titan Mortar

My first battle is against Kaj Geenen, currently ranked 24th out of 200+ players of T9A in Belgium on T3, and someone I knew from the distant pasts.  Bringing along his Vampire Covenant, including an almost 900 pts Strigoi monstrosity Vampire, this would be a serious "get back into it" challenge... oh well, you have people entering boxing contests having only watched some YouTube, guess I fall in this category as well now...

So off we went, and facing me was a fast Vampire Covenant force with a lot of swift moving ghosts and big beasties... okay, and a heap of aegis saves... oh boy...

 

 

I was taken aback from the go in that his Dire Wolves immediatly ended up in front of my battleline, blocking off the Kadim and the warriors.  Another problem for my force was his "cowboy" unit, a vampire riding a Terrorgheist, whose shriek made short work of my Taurukh Enforcers, but for some reason he needed to even bring in the cavalry to take care of the simple Levies who kept punching FAR above their weight, refusing to give ground.

His spectral cavalry charged the Citadel Guard, but these managed to keep him in check and destroyed the unit, as the other regiments got caught up near my baseline, and this in a scenario where you needed to get forces in your opponents deployment.  One by one this resulted in my forces being overwhelmed, the final points score being 2580 points vs 1710 points and with him scoring the secondary objective a 4-16 defeat was my part.

The second round put me against the Vermin Swarm of Cedric, someone I know for years from the club.  I soon found out that this are NOT Skaven, they don`t run away from battles, they attack with huge ranks... who cares if they are all resilience 2 if you just can't cause break tests... and those two fiendish monsters are disgustingly good, supported by units of warmachines in the jezzails... what the heck hit me here.

In the old days, I wouldn't fear the Skaven one bit as you could grind through them for minimal losses, while this time, with my units stubbornly underperforming on saves agreed compared to his very lucky saves on 6's (once, he rolled 6 out of 7 saves), I still didn't seem able to mince through them.

His monsters kept churning through my regiments for barely any loss, and in the end my Overlord was the only valiant one still standing against that horde, netting him 3230 points versus my measly 950 and as I had many more scoring units, the Capture the Flag secondary objective was his as well, resulting in a 1-19 defeat.

This put me on the bottom table against Heikki, another well known face, and his Empire of Sonnstahl.  With the Red Lantern on the line (and actually price support), we did decide though to play for it, my personal honour being at stake here.  And for once my units did what was required of them, my Titan Mortar blew a hole in his crossbows, causing them to leg it of the table dragging his wizard along.  

 

 

My severly underperforming Enforcers smashed into his knights with general, destroying the whole unit ad causing the general to run off the table... and this was by turn 2.  While the Enforcers where subsequently decimated by a Helblaster, they finally did their job, as my Kadim churned through a massive block of 30 flagellants.

His force totally shattered, my main three combat units just lingered around the central objective that needed to be controlled, gathering the tokens.  Only the Citadel Guard saw some action with a decimated knight unit (courtesy of the Mortar as well) together with a wounded chariot crashed into them, but at the loss of only two troops eliminated both units.

The result was that he got tabled, and 3693 points where mine versus his 1115 points, and with the secondary objective scored gained me an honour saving 20-0 victory.

So clocking off with 2 losses, luckily not with a tabled 0-20 result (albeit the second game came very close to that) and 1 tabled 20-0 win, I think I didn't do to bad for a debut in a game system.  I learned some valuable lessons though, like a big force is not needed, better to focus on some smaller, more elite ones, and always take a deamonsmith along for aiding the warmachines. 

 

This last result gave a serious boost though in my final result, going up from the 19th place I lingered in at the start of the final round, to an in the end respectable 13th out of 20 players with 25 points (out of the potential 60 to be scored).

But it was a fun day, and the result a bit down the line of expectations after all, can`t expect to gun for the top places seeing where I stood at the start of the day.  The event did get me ranked now in the T3 tables, entering the Belgium ranking this week at spot 63 with 3.80 points.

Finally, here is a short clip of the award ceremony, and below that Jasper's best painted winning Saurian Ancients army.

 

This tastes like more for sure!

The 9th Age: Infernal Dwarf Rocket Battery

 While back in the days of old Warhammer the missile launcher was the smaller of the Chaos Dwarf war machines, in the 9th Age it is actually the more expensive one in their arsenal.

But never the less, it still is a weapon of mass destruction, and I included one in my renewed force, made by spanish company MOM Miniatures.

 

This resin cast model is pretty straightforward to assemble, as I showed in a small unboxing video on YouTube.  So with the crew based and the missile launcher assembled, I went on to painting the machine.

 

 

In size it is compareble to the old metal GW launcher, and as per the rules for T9A I based it on a round base, with the crew seperate just for the "rule of cool".

Gamewise, it actually seems more effective, and at least pointswise more expensive, then the Titan Mortar, mostly due to the fact it is no longer a rocket powered bolt thrower but rather a catapult like weapon.  But definitly far less erratic then in Warhammer 4th edition and beyond...

So together with the Titan Mortar that now completes the artillery segment for my budding force, meaning it is time to start painting up the heaps of rank and file troops for the force, probably starting with the like 50+ greenskins for the various levies units I`ll be taking along.

Praise Hashut!

The 9th Age: Infernal Dwarves Titan Mortar

 Aaaah, my beloved Earthshaker, how have I always loved both the looks and the playing style of these big cannons.

And for the resurgence of my Chaos Dwarfs, one of these big boys just has to be added to the force.

Though I did steer away this time from it's regular colourscheme, and went for the blue and gold that I`m running through my whole force instead.

Called a Titan Mortar in the 9th Age game, it can just as well wreak havoc with the movement of enemy troops due to it's slowing effect, even if it isn't as insanely good as in the old days where I tended to bring two of these along to really make my opponents movement fase's miserable.

But in T9A, as that part is slightly less impressive then back in the WFB 6th days, I settled for one Mortar in my force, also in part to the more limited amount of cannons and rifles the Infernal Dwarves can bring to the table, especially in bigger battles with the army restrictions.

So that is the second unit of the force completed, next will probably be the second war machine planned for the force, before I`m starting the big jobs of the blocks of rank and file troops.

The 9th Age: Infernal Dwarves Kadim Incarnates

 We are back babies, back into the building armies for events and games!

And of course, as i am still a fantasy player at heart and looking towards an event in october, I chose to rebuild an Infernal Dwarf army for The 9th Age.

I will probably be going in without ANY game under my belt, ever, but it looks like old Warhammer so that should be okay.

And the first "true combat" unit to be completed is this Kadim Incarnates regiment.  Build mostly out of Oni from the old Clan War range, they are joined by an even older Magic the Gathering Earth elemental, and a big guy for champion I have no clue about where he came from.

But that matters not, as they all become lava elemental spirits anyways.  And the benefit of having a second slightly larger model in the unit is that if needed, I can split the block in two smaller 3 demon units as well for a game.

I`m quite happy with how they turned out in the end, and while I have no idea if it is a solid plan to field a block of these, that will be lessons to be learned on the field of battle.

Unboxing 28mm Warlord Games Ashigaru Spearmen

 No, I`m not starting an historical samurai army, because reasons.  But I still want to build that "The Great Wall" movie inspired japanese army for The 9th Age.

And the Warlord Games plastic kits, from their Pike and Shotte Warring States range are the perfect boxes for the bulk of the troops.

Granted, the spearmen will come without shields as the Yari spears are very tall (halfway between spear and pike), but that I don`t mind, they are core troops, "only" human and as such will die by the troves.

But that is not for now, let's have a look at the box.  Coming with some nice box art, there are 20 hard plastic models in the set.  On the back of the box is an example of the unit painted, and it also states the models have been made by Wargames Factory.  Yep, it are those old kits repurposed.

The box also contains a decal sheet, assembly leaflet and plastic bases, though not nearly enough 20x20mm ones for my purpose, so I`ll be ordering that seperatly in the near future.

Every sprue also contains the elements for the command models, like the dual team drummer, but obviously you'll only need a single command group for the unit.  That means some parts will be left over to go into the bits box.

The leaflet finally contains some background information on the troops themselves, as well as the instructions on how to assemble them.

If you look around at various online retailers (like Wayland Games, check the banner above on the blog) or the sales Warlord often does, you'll be paying around 15 GBP for a unit of 20 plastic models, so that is not bad at all!

AHPC10: Cook's Crevasse: Kadim Incarnates

Or as they where called in the Forge World days, K'daai.  

Lesser stone constructs, created and bound by the Dawi Zharr to take the brunt of the incoming enemy and allow them the chance to flank opponents.

These models, created by Mantic Games in their Abyssal Dwarf range, are as such excellently suited to represent these big (and expensive points wise) monsters into the army of Infernal Dwarves, and as the theme for this bonus location had to be "earth related", where excellently suited as an entry.

Big and lumbering, this unit of monsters will pack a serious punch once I manage to get back to actual battling 9th Age, but for now I will just methodically build up my forces for gaming.

Now that should conclude my scenic route along the island, time to go hitch a final ride on the balloon and make way to the peak in the centre.

Pointswise, these should yield 6x 10 points for a monster figure, and adding the location bonus in the mix grant me a nice 90 points towards my goal.