Greetings everyone! It is Tuesday, 2/25, which means I am back and sort of recovered from the amazing experience of attending my 4th U.S. Masters for Kings of War. This time I wasn’t fortunate enough to qualify for the main event, but luckily there was a “Best of the Rest,” or BotR, side event open to everyone!
I’m not going to go into too much detail about the social side of the event, but it was absolutely spectacular. Having an extra 55+ players all hanging out lent the event even more of a party atmosphere. I got to hang out with so many cool people, both new and old, and it really was the highlight of the year.
But I doubt you are here to read about the hangout; instead, this article will go over the army I brought, what my expectations were going in, and a post-tournament analysis of the list — though there will be pics of the hangout sprinkled throughout.
So my list, as I said I took Undead. In my mind this was the “last” hurrah for my current Undead army, as once Brotherhood of Blood is finished they will be my main army for a while. With that in mind I didn’t want to paint anything, and I wanted to try out some of the changes to the army.
My 2,300 point list:
x3 Troops of Wraiths
x2 Troops of Ghouls
Legion of Zombies with Giant Rats
x2 Hordes of Zombie Trolls
Horde of Wights
Horde of Werewolves with Brew of Strength
Necromancer with Inspiring Talisman, Drain Life (5), Surge (6), and the Vicious Aura for Zombies
Liche King with Drain Life (7), Bane Chant (3), Surge (10), Conjurer’s Staff
Vampire on Undead Dragon with Lifeleech (3)
My thoughts on this list: I generally saw all the infantry and large infantry working together as one block. The Wraiths would deploy behind the Zombies and Zombie Trolls to protect them from shooting and pop out at good chances. The Zombie Trolls would deploy with the Zombie legion in between, or both to one side, with the Wights on the other. The casters deployed behind this group, close enough to have the chance to double Surge something if needed.
The Vampire and Werewolves would deploy to a flank, and the Ghouls could deploy where needed, generally not in sight so as not to get shot off.
I was curious to use Werewolves again. They were a unit I wasn’t good with back when this was my regular army, as I always felt they were too expensive. I also worried the Drain Life may not be to my liking, as I usually took Heal to survive shooting. If this doesn’t make it clear, I didn’t have a lot of practice with this army. I took it to a single one-day event and got three games in, going 2-1.
Mostly, I was excited to get more Undead experience and give the old army one last run in the sun.
The Games
I’m not going to go over every game in detail, instead I will shout out to my opponents, and their armies, and then give an overview of what worked and didn’t work from the list.
Game 1
Game 1 was versus Ashley Mowat, fellow writer for Dash28, using Elves.
270, Palace Guard Horde — Staying Stone
235, Kindred Tallspear Horde — Fire-Oil
230, Stormwind Cavalry Regiment — Sir Jesse’s Boots of Striding
235, Stormwind Cavalry Regiment — Chant of Hate
120, Kindred Archer Regiment
180, Lord on Drakon — Mead of Madness
135, Elven King — Horse
135, Elven King — Horse
110, Elven Archmage — Heal (4), Bane Chant (2)
125, Elven Archmage — Boomstick, Lightning Bolt (5)
230, Hunter Horde — Crocodog
225, Giant
70, Army Standard
This was a grudge match and I was really looking forward to it. Ashley and I decided we would dress as each other, which you see in the picture above :). Ashley won the “who wore it better” off, but lets see how the game went.
The scenario was Dominate.
Highlights/Learning Points — Drain Life allowed me to slam Zombies into Ashley’s Hunters, and despite hitting on 6s, Drain Life was putting wounds on for me, allowing me to kill them in two rounds! The Ghoul troops did work, hitting flanks and dealing 8 wounds in one turn to the Tallspears.
I made a bone-headed counter charge with my Vampire which failed, exposing my flank to the Tallspear horde, ouch. Be more careful with this guy in the future.
Zombie Trolls Defense 5 makes them MUCH better at holding up to a charge.
The whole game I forgot the Vicious aura.
Win to me 19-2.
Game 2
Game 2 was versus Doug Blake, a Northeast Warking playing Abyssal Dwarves. Doug and I had played once in the past, ending in a draw, so I was excited to see how this game would go.
275, Abyssal Grotesque Horde — Blessing of the Gods
210, Abyssal Halfbreed Regiment — Pipes of Terror
220, Abyssal Halfbreed Regiment — Maccwar’s Potion of the Caterpillar
215, Lesser Obsidian Golem Horde
215, Lesser Obsidian Golem Horde
215, Lesser Obsidian Golem Horde
85, Gargoyle Troop
85, Gargoyle Troop
115, Angkor Heavy Mortar
115, Angkor Heavy Mortar
150, Abyssal Halfbreed Champion — Blade of Slashing
190, Iron-caster — Shroud of the Saint, Surge (8), Bane Chant (2)
210, Ba’su’su the Vile
The scenario was Push.
Highlights/Learning Points — My dice where HOT Turn 2, allowing me to kill Ba’su’su, the Halfbreed Champion, the Grotesque Horde, and two Halfbreed Regiments in one turn. Some of these charges should have had good chances to break the enemies, but others, the Grotesque horde for example, was due to my Vampire hitting 9/10 times, wounding 9/10, and then rolling a 12 to break the unit! This happened on the bottom of turn 2, which meant I got to dictate the entire pace of the game from here out.
Despite this, Doug was a pure joy to play, putting up a tough resistance. Wraiths were money, getting flanks on the Golems and charging into the terrain; I LOVE Strider!
I remembered the Vicious Aura around Turn 5 in this game.
Win to me 21-0.
Game 3
Game 3 was on Table 1, I was currently at the top of the event with 40 points, which meant much like Icarus I was WAY too close to the Sun, and a fall was coming my way.
I drew the gentleman from Nerdhammer, Allen Buehner, playing his Elves.
265, Palace Guard Horde
280, Palace Guard Horde — Sir Jesse’s Boots of Striding
235, Stormwind Cavalry Regiment — Maccwar’s Potion of the Caterpillar
215, Stormwind Cavalry Regiment
290, Drakon Rider Horde — Dwarven Ale
205, Silverbreeze Cavalry Regiment — Fire-Oil
175, Lord on Drakon — Staying Stone
260, Tree Herder
80, Battlecat Regiment
80, Battlecat Regiment
70, Argus Rodinar
145, Elven Archmage — Boomstick, Lightning Bolt (5), Bane Chant (2)
The Scenario was Smoke and Mirrors.
Highlights/Learning Points — I took a gamble and gave the Drakons a charge into my Wights, but I had Wraiths positioned so I would get one unit in the front and one unit in the flank if he took it. He did, breaking the Wights, but then my Wraiths took two turns killing the Drakons, costing me precious time. This in hindsight was probably not a necessary sacrifice, but I was hoping to sweep the flank.
Allen controlled the tempo the whole game, rapidly moving around my left flank while my flankers stalled on my right flank. He then baited me into giving him a double charge into an unhurt Zombie Troll horde, which I also dumbly took. Lesson here, don’t take risky charges, and probably don’t give away your best unit on Turn 2!
Props to Allen for a great game. Allen went on to get the highest Battle score of the event!
Loss 3-18.
Game 4
I had already had three amazing games, and the great opponents kept on coming with my first game of day two versus Andrew Summers, probably one of the most fun people to play, well… ever!
Andrew and I had played first thing day two last year at the Masters and ended with a draw, so I was excited to get a rematch. He was using his Abyssal Dwarfs.
290, Abyssal Grotesque Horde — Brew of Sharpness
220, Lesser Obsidian Golem Horde — Liliana’s Tear
220, Lesser Obsidian Golem Horde — Healing Brew
220, Abyssal Halfbreed Regiment– Blessing of the Gods
100, Slave Orc Regiment– Staying Stone
85, Gargoyle Troop
110, Gargoyle Troop — Scrying Gem
235, Greater Obsidian Golem
140, Iron-caster — Shroud of the Saint, Surge (8) to replace Fireball
90, Hexcaster — Inspiring Talisman, Weakness (3) to replace Hex
210, Ba’su’su the Vile
150, Abyssal Halfbreed Champion — Blade of Slashing
115, Angkor Heavy Mortar
115, Angkor Heavy Mortar
Scenario was Control.
Highlights/Leaning Points — I managed to win picking sides, and then I was able to position my army to largely negate Andrew’s mortars for the beginning of the game. However, in a stroke of what at the time seemed like genius, but in reality was probably rather dumb, I deployed my Wights far to the right, with the thought that they would hide behind the woods and claim that section. True, this could have been the case, but about halfway through the game I was mentally facepalming, all that Defense 6 and I put my best can opener out of the game largely…
Despite this silly choice I did have some pretty cool moves in the game. The Wraiths again were amazing, grabbing flanks, charging into terrain, and really messing stuff up.
The highlight of the choices I made, however, revolved around charging my Werewolves off a hill, unhindered, into the Greater Golem, and then Bane Chanting them. This gave them a terrifying Thunderous Charge 1, Crushing Strength 3, hitting on 3s, wounding on 2s, yes please! It didn’t break the Golem, but it did deal 8 wounds to it, meaning if I survived the counters coming, I should kill it (spoiler: I didn’t survive the counter strike). This was the moment that a trick with Werewolves sort of clicked for me, they are the perfect unit to aggressively grab hills and benefit from the hill charge!
The game was largely fought in a swirling combat in the middle, but when all was said and done Andrew had smashed almost my entire army, giving him a pretty solid win. Not surprising considering his stuff was tougher and had Vicious helping him even more versus my lower Defense.
Biggest learning point: if 95% of the time you think your army needs to stick together, then you should probably just do that 100% of the time!
Loss 5-16.
Game 5
My final game was against none other than Fred from the Giant Dwarf cast, who had flown all the way from Norway to play in the event! I was beyond excited to end the tournament playing Fred.
Fred was playing Undead, but a very different list from mine.
180, Ghoul Horde
180, Mummy Regiment
180, Mummy Regiment
105, Skeleton Spearman Regiment
105, Skeleton Spearman Regiment
265, Soul Reaver Infantry Regiment — Chalice of Wrath
265, Soul Reaver Infantry Regiment — Dwarven Ale
255, Revenant on Undead Great Burrowing Wyrm — Inspiring Talisman, Plagued Breath
220, Revenant on Undead Great Burrowing Wyrm
265, Liche King — Shroud of the Saint, Heal (6+3), Blizzard (3), Surge (10)
105, Revenant King — Undead Horse
105, Revenant King — Undead Horse
70, Undead Army Standard Bearer — Tome of Darkness
The Scenario was Raze.
Highlights/Learning Points — Fred did an interesting thing during deployment I had never seen. He deployed his characters first, meaning his first 4 drops told me very little about the actual position his army would take. This was clever, and quite unique, at least for the States.
I got another hill charge with the Werewolves allowing me to pop a Mummy Regiment in one go!
A Skeleton Spearmen regiment held up my poor Vampire on Dragon for 3 turns, once thanks to a Double 6s Waver, but still impressive!
Fred moved his horde of Ghouls as a shield to the Soul Reavers, with both regiments of Soul Reavers directly behind the horde. Fred had told me the day before his general plan was that once you killed the ghouls the Soul Reavers were there to mess stuff up. Unfortunately for Fred, he moved these regiments just a bit too close to the horde in his first turn, having them directly behind the Ghouls.
I managed to charge the Ghouls with a troop of Wraiths, allowing me to hold up the Ghouls, but more importantly block the Soul Reavers for an extra turn!
I was finally consistently remembering my Vicious Aura, which was helping me a LOT in the grind.
In part thanks to my fast flanking force, I was able to slowly grind down Fred’s forces and deny him most of the objectives.
Win 18-3 to me.
Results
I was extremely pleased with finishing 3-2, and I was even happier with the opponents I drew. Every game was in consideration for my best game! Going into the award ceremony I knew I wasn’t in the running for anything, there were better opponents and better painted armies then mine; I did well, but probably not well enough to podium, even with soft scores’ help.
During the awards I was named as 2nd Best Sport and 3rd for Player’s Choice army, which was exciting to hear; no awards for those spots, but some nice props. Then they announced Overall awards, and my name was called for 3rd!!!!!
Looking at the results I came in 7th in Battle, 2nd in Sports, and high enough in paint to manage to snag 3rd Overall!!! This was an unexpected but amazing way to end the event.
Thoughts
Right, so with the event in my rear-view mirror, what did I think of my list. I now had eight games with it and had some learning points.
Drain Life could be extremely powerful. In my game versus Ashley it was essential to letting me win the grind, allowing me to sap away the health of her Height 2 units while they fought my Zombies. However, in matches where there was less Height 2, or my opponent had many Defense 6 units, it wasn’t as useful. If my army began grinding, I almost always found a use for it, but the 6″ range was VERY limiting. Conclusion, I’m not sold its better then heal, but it did help me win several combats, so it can be very good.
Wraiths and Ghouls are phenomenal! Ghouls’ Wild Charge D3 along with their Nerve of 9/11 and 12 attacks means they have more speed, more attacks, and better chances to survive enemy chaff. Wraiths, though slower, were much, much better at helping me in the grind, jumping up and Surging into flanks to give essential damage. They excelled versus Defense 4 and lower, did ok versus Defense 5, and struggled versus Defense 6. Overall, I think both these units will be in nearly every Undead army in some way.
Zombie Trolls, just wow, I used to want to make these bros work so badly, but I never really could. In 3rd edition, I think they are going to be in nearly every Undead list. They have the toughness they were lacking before while maintaining an affordable price and good damage output. With the Necromancer Vicious aura, their damage can be more reliable and less swingy. If you want to take these, take the Necromancer, too.
Werewolves, another unit I struggled with in 2nd, were just amazing. Maybe I am in part a better player since I last tried to use them, but I found every game they were money. If there was a hill, I tried to deploy these near it so that they could potentially jump on it for the boosted charge. I think the key for these beasts is to be more patient with them. It’s ok to move around and wait to charge with them until Turn 3 or later.
Overall, I thought my list worked great. In none of my matches did I feel like I lacked the tools to take on the threats. I also really enjoyed the synergy of my list. In fact, I enjoyed this list so much that I am trying to import some of these learning points into my Brotherhood of Blood army project. I am working out the details, but I believe I will be swapping the target list around some to work in a Vampire on Dragon and a Horde of Werewolves.
