Dec 10, 2018

Krush Kill N Destroy - 2018

Roster

With the rules for the tournament, the possibilities for a roster was more or less endless. After some deliberation between pro elves and necromantic, I decided to take the werewolves for a spinn. I played them last at the Danish Open 2014, so it was about time.
I played the following roster (with two re-rolls).

Game 1 vs Skaven

FAME 0
Nice weather

I decided to kick as I didn't want him to have an easier one turn attempt in turn 8 (assuming that I'd be able to remove more rats over 16 turns compared to 8) and the plan was to force him to score early for the 2-1 grind.

My opponent quickly went down on flank, going for a pass to and from a gutter runner, but due to a double one on the pass, I had a chance. 

Worth noting here was that I mistakingly thought that my opponents claw blitzed had mighty blow. It didn't and a stunned wight shouldn't have been stunned. Fortunately this was discovered in turn 3 or 4, so quite early. My opponent thought claws worked as they once did, providing a +2.

Back to my chance, the ball was on the ground and I had a wrestle wolf in range. I blitzed the gutter next to the ball and pushed it on to the ball. The ball scattered on to my wolf, who caught the ball. Then it was time for the second frenzy hit and it was a double both down. As I had already used my re-roll on a double skulls, my now ball carrier was placed prone and it was a turnover.

The shaven then scored which I wasn't too sad about as I had enough time for a score and some free hits on AV7.

The rats kicked to me and the kick off result was a blitz! This meant that I was under pressure directly and one of my zombies was blitzed off the pitch.

Survived the first blitz
My opponents defense was good from then onwards and he managed to stop me from scoring.

This sadly meant that I was now going for a draw, unless I managed to remove some rats.
The kick off was yet again a blitz!

Under pressure again, but I managed to out maneuver my opponent and he made a mistake, allowing my fast players to make a cut back to the other sideline and my slow players pinned his team to the other side.

The game ended in a 1-1 (3-3) draw.

Game 2 vs Slann

I started with the ball in this one and the plan was of course to smash some frogs, as my opponent was running an 11 man roster.

This went to plan as I managed to casualty one of his blitzes early (apo used), but then the removals halted. I managed to score in turn 8.

After my turn 1
My opponent moved up first in the second half, looking for a quick score, but a double 1 stopped him and gave me a huge chance. I managed to pick up the ball with my sure hands ghoul, but after some leaps and a blitz by the wrestle blitzer, the frogs scooped the ball up and scored in turn 12. I wasn't too worried. I had enough time to score back for the 2-1 grind. All I needed was a KO or hopefully two to wake up. Zero out of three KOs came back and it was now 10 vs 10 on the pitch.
Things were made worse by a thrown rock on the kick off table, removing my mighty blow wolf. This just turned into an up hill battle.

The wolf is removed by a stone
Things were getting even worse as the ghoul managed to drop the ball when trying to pick it up. This meant that the frogs flooded my back field. I was in real trouble here. I managed to pick the ball up, but I couldn't secure my position and the ball was on the ground again during the frogs turn.

I then went for a high risk play, dodging my blodge ghoul in to a tackle zone on a 4+ (with dodge) and blitzed a line frog away, picked the ball up and ran for it. My opponent legged back and in turn 16, has a chance at blitzing the ball carrier. All that was needed was two GFIs. The second one failed and I could score the winning touchdown in my following and last turn.

2-1 (don't remember the casualties)

Game 3 vs Dwarves

FAME -1
Nice weather

I started with the ball in this game and I was hoping to inflict some damage on the dwarves with my mighty blow wolf as I was facing 11 dwarves with an apo. Things didn't go as planned, but I was still stunning she dwarves. However, I made an error in turn 4, trying to push my luck with the mighty blow wolf, whom I then left in contact (flanked by guard). The dwarves blocked the wolf and it went into the KO-box. That's where things went wrong and my team started to crumble. My KO-box was soon full with a wight, both wolves and a ghoul plus a regened zombie in the reserves box. I lost the ball and the dwarves made a run for it down the sideline.

I managed to blitz the ball carrier with the blodge ghoul and picked the ball up. In hindsight, I should have left it there, but I made a GFI to get away from the now downed dwarf, but I rolled a 1. This meant that the dwarves just needed to dodge their scoring threat away, pick the ball up, throw a short pass and catch it. Easy, right? Well, that's exactly what happened.

I rolled for my KOs and I got everything but my two wolves back.
Things were not looking good for the second half.

My opponent blocked some zombies down and then picked the ball up with a blitzer.
The blitzer was however in range of my ghouls, so I blitzed it after making some GFIs (re-roll used), but the blitzer didn't go down, but my opponent was now under pressure.

I did manage to get the ball from the blitzer and run off, but I got greedy and made a zombie block, which resulted in a double both down. This means that a long beard just need a block to free up his tackle troll slayer, in range of my blodge ghoul with the ball. Such a rookie error by me.

The ball carrier was knocked down and the ball bounce in to the hands of the troll slayer, who then ran back towards my endzone. Desperate times and I had to dodge a zombie for a 1d blitz on the slayer (after two GFIs), but was rewarded with a pow.

After some failed pick ups by both parties, I managed to clear the ball and pick up with my sure hands ghoul, followed by a pass to the blodge ghoul in a tackle zone. The ball was caught and all I needed was a dodge for the equalizer in turn 16. A 2! Dodge re-roll and the ghoul was away!
A very lucky touchdown, but I felt that it was fair considering the luck my opponent had in the first half combined with the wolves staying out.

1-1 (don't remember the casualties)

Game 4 vs Chaos Dwarves

Final game of the tournament and I was up against a beautifully painted chaos dwarf team. I kicked the ball off and my opponent didn't really inflict any damage in his first turn, but picked the ball up with one of the bulls. I then stunned the other bull and tied his dwarves up. My opponent then went for the side with the most dwarves (but away from the other bull) and I could push him even more towards the sideline and I also managed to get rid of a guard dwarf.

Bull with ball
Following that, I could put my flesh golems in the wide zone, effectively stopping any progress down that flank. My opponent had to turn back and I could bog him down with zombies and put the blodge ghoul on the ball carrier. My wolves removed more dwarves and it started to get ridiculous.

I then stole the ball and scored in my turn 8.

I got the ball in the second half and was up on players. The snow ball effect was in full role and I managed to inflict seven casualties!

Maybe I should have gone for 3-0, but I didn't really feel like rubbing it in and a win is a win.

2-0 (7-0)

Conclusion

I ended the tournament undefeated on a 2-2-0 record (TD 6-3, CAS 14-7) which I was happy with, but I feel that I could have played better. Especially in game three against the dwarves. I made too many mistakes in that game and the necromantic team really suffers without its wolves.

Speaking of which, I'm not sold on the block mighty blow wolf. Sure it's good and in some game it's great (game 4), but I like to spread my skills and a guard zombie might have been a better use of the double or just block or guard on the second flesh golem plus a fan factor. Not sure and it's rare to be able to play with a block mighty blow wolf in a tournament, so I guess it had to be done.

I need to practice more with the necromantic team, but I did enjoy playing them (although I like undead more). I recently bought an undead/necromantic team from Vortice miniatures and once that's painted I recon that I'll play more with them.

This was my last tournament for 2018 and I'm already looking forward to 2019, which will see me playing at least one new race (in a NAF tournament) and my first World Cup!

Looking back on 2018, I've played in seven tournaments, using five different races.
My combines record was 17-11-7 and 57% of my loses were collected using dwarves. Not my team, but I will give them another chance.

My tournament year 2018
Thank you for reading.