Warhounds 2 Warmasters

Bristol Gaming Collective event – Oct 2022

Inauspicious starts, lack of sleep and making the most of a maniple comprised solely of a titan class you dislike.

In reverse order:

I might have mentioned previously, I dislike Corsair maniples. If I hadn’t mentioned it, allow me to to now, here, to ensure the record is straight: ‘I dislike Corsair maniples. Fighting them. Playing them. Theorycrafting them. Frankly, I dislike Reaver Titans.’

I had barely slept after getting the Fureans to table standard around midnight. I probably managed 3 hours of a type of half-sleep; the kind usually reserved for people cold-turkeying caffiene, suffering mild tank shock or those finding themselves kicked off a cancelled train in Woolwich. The type of unsleep that is definitely not ideal when you’ve a two hour drive, each way, and a full day of titan-bashing on the agenda. Oh, and a storm. A big one.

The storm that hit the South of the UK carried on through the night, through the morning and the day. Driving though torrential rain, surface-flooded roads, flashing lightning storms and around (not through) the other, similarly afflicted drivers, is not my favourite thing to do without sufficient sleep. It sets a bad tone for the day and leaves me crabby. I am crabby enough at the best of times. Sufficiently so that I’m checked for claws and sideways perambulation from time-to-time, just to make sure. As such, I don’t feel I need any added +crabbiness modifiers applied to my character sheet.

So, once I’d gotten through the rain and arrived early enough to claw back a short and uncomfortable nap in the car (it’s a ridiculous car for a great many reasons and anyone that has witnessed my feeble attempts to nap in it entirely deserve their amusement) as I was too knackered to recon the area for food or supplies. Which was a mistake, as I probably would have benefitted more from the energy that food and coffee would have given than the ill-wrought anti-nap the car seat provided.

The event!

The first thing that jumps out are the tables – this is not a gaming group afraid of scenery! The tables are crammed – possibly a little too crammed for my liking – with beautiful terrain. Every table had a theme, a purpose. Each table was being laid out as per reference sheets – playtesting had obviously been done, which spoke to a reassuring level of effort at play. Although this would provide significant ‘home-field advantage’ to any of the local players attending, that’s fine: war isn’t about what is fair or who is right, it’s about who is left!

Regarding the crowded tables, at least I was playing a mobile force – warhound heavy lists would fare especially well here and any Knight households would likely feel VERY comfortable. As I chatted with some of the locals, it became apparent that there had been some unpleasant experiences with some synergies that were found with corruptions used in conjunction with crusade legio lists locally that were, I quote, ‘a touch beardy’ and the masses of terrain had evolved as a way to help to temper such behaviour.

A further table was added after the first round, but I didn’t get to try that one – it was a series of take & hold objectives on a starport. Lots of nicely printed and painted GrimDarkTerrain which made me want to change my own printing plans for the next few months!

Event Breakdown

As a narrative event, Traitors and Loyalists were teamed and impromptu leaders arranged. Each round would have a briefing session to detail any new rules, requirements, narrative developments and to establish the objectives for each side for each table. The teams then decide amongst themselves whom is best suited for which table. All terribly amicable. VPs are awarded for meeting some/all of the objectives. Engine kills were also tracked – as has become standard at these types of events. A Painting award was also on offer – voted on by the participants.

Round 1

I found myself on the ‘Escort the Convoy’ table – with the Traitors having to be the escort, which struck an odd chord thematically but I engaged ‘hey-ho, let’s go’ mode and started setting up my terminals.

This had me playing my 1500 list vs a 1750 Vulturum Ruptura list owned by a smiling and friendly looking sort called Dan. I was given 4 small blast template ‘Concealment Barrages’ per turn – which I forgot to use turn 1 and, as a result, lost 2/3rds of the convoy to one of the opening shots.

I pushed out on either side and Full Strided the convoy up the board. My opponent played Titan hunter Infantry – which is a lamentable strategem I would gladly see excised from the game, it was almost ubiquitous at this event. There was precious little shooting as the game began with breaking dawn rules – 12′ range – which I wish I had been awake enough to note as I had set the First Fire order on one of my Reavers.

My Princeps went head to head with a plucky Warhound (with Warbringer supporting) – a fight he lost, what a start. I managed to secure charges in turn 2 and won the first of the melee Reaver face offs – which resulted in a Wild fire and some leg damage, nothing critical. My other melee Reaver (on the right) took a charge from the warhound, survived and then crab-stepped around to get out of fire arc and to cut into the sides… or he would have IF I wasn’t facing Vulturum and a rather specific trait/strat that gives a free shot against anyone that moves out of forward arc. Point blank mega bolters with the Maximal Fire upgrade shells often offend. This was directed in to the recently damaged body from the charge, and was enough to end the Reaver – the warhound died when the cored-out Reaver fell on him, so… that was nice.

The other Vulturum melee Reaver found himself off to the side with a charge order but no one to charge, until I stupidly walked my ranged Reaver into the charge arc for… I’m not sure. It wasn’t advantageous – in fact it took him out of his previous fire arc to hit the unshielded overheating warbringer… it was a moment of stupidity or tiredness-induced-madness and it led, ultimately, to me being tabled.

After that Reaver died, I managed to get a 3rd of the convoy off table safely, my combat Reaver died attempting to take out the Warbringer that was desperately overheating. All that was left was a decent rearguard action, a fight with my Reaver on the right – drawing the final Vulturum Reaver in close enough to take him down in death with a suitably stupendous Mag Detonation. This was the ONLY catastrophic damage roll of the match that didn’t result in Wildfire. Weird.

I set the precedent for the day of not using my Offensive Surge – the Strat around which the list was built – and so effectively wasted 3 Strat points and several compromises in the list-building stage. I refer notice back to my comments about tiredness and will field no question in relation to this lapse.

Round 2

Next up was Ignatum – standing in defence of a Slurm plant. The previous round had seen a full defence by the same Ignatum player but my team mate had managed to clear a massive amount of the obstructing train-track-system terrain to allow me to advance virtually unimpeded. The first 3 rounds were decidedly smooth. Aside from a particularly recalcitrant Reaver of Ignatum, his titans were dropping and I was poised to control the plant.

Then, the aforementioned Reaver countercharged and killed my melee Reaver which resulted in a ferocious explosion that cleared my claim to the right side of the table and put me distinctly outside of range to claim (or even contest) the plant. Damn. I was able to balm my wounded ego a touch by racking up a decent tally of engine kills and scoring fully with secondaries. Something, at least.

Round 3

The final match was on a ruined Hive board – with an expanding warp conflagration at the centre. The mission was simple enough: occupy table quarters with larger scale units and/or kill the enemy.

The first turn saw both of my Melee Reavers make successful charges into my opponents VERY closely deployed Warhounds – which were then each finished in the Combat phase. Turn 2 saw my opponents banner of four Lancers on the left flank shown the unfortunate-end of volcano cannons and laser blasters as my ranged Reavers defended their claim to my side of the table’s quarters.

So brutally reduced in the early turns, the game was now mostly mopping up. My melee Reavers sandwiched the opposing Princeps Reaver, a plucky Acastus drilled my Princeps into the floor and finally one of melee Reavers overcooked from the Conflagration but the majority of the board was held by my Reavers at the end of the match. The sole surviving unit being a single Acastus that was making use of every building he could to avoid death himself whilst daring the heat buildup from the Conflagration to kill my titans!

It was a well run event with some lovely tables and a decent central theme running through the rounds. Once again, I have to compliment the tables – this is a gaming group that clearly take pride in a decently decked (if a little overboard) table, for which they deserve kudos. I am inspired to put a little more effort into my terrain offerings… Next year.

Anything negative from the day is largely my own baggage. I think I’ve played enough events now that I have enough reference to decide that I prefer an even playing field: which is matched play games over narrative. I don’t really enjoy being shoe-horned into situations or someone else’s story. I like the dice and mine and my opponent’s choices to create our own narrative. As far as narrative events that I do attend, I definitely dislike uneven points games. I don’t really like strategems in Titanicus, I understand that they are part of the game but I’d rather they weren’t a thing – counter-building an opponent’s list just feels beardy to me and the closed hand of them is one massively glaring Gotcha! – narrative events tend to throw even more of them into the mix and… I think for future I’d just rather not.

It was a good day and a well run event, definitely more of a case of ‘It’s me, not you’.

Now… 2 weeks to decide what to use for warfare 2022…