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Akilla Goes to War (or, How Boldo's Armory sweeps Syracuse!)

By John Buyea

I went to my first Rogue Trader Fantasy tournament, and if you have never played Warhammer in this format, you just don't know what you are missing! I had an absolute blast playing, got to check out some very cool armies, and managed to bring home the Best Painted Army award!
Boldo (Alex), Eric Moon and I packed up our armies and made the near 2 hour trek to Altered States in Syracuse. Boldo brought his incredibly tough Dwarfs, Eric his nicely painted (albeit not completely finished-Eric should easily win best painted if he ever gets these done) Vampire Counts, and I brought my freshly finished Orcs & Goblins. Upon arrival, the first this that stuck out was the large amount of Lizardmen there. 5 out of 17 armies were of the cold-blooded persuasion! That alone tells me that Lizzie RH list might be just a little too good right now. Good thing I didn't bring own Lizardmen. Rounding out the field of 17 were 2 more dwarf, 2 more Orc & Goblin, 1 more Vampire Count, and 1 each of Bretonnian, Empire, High Elf, and Daemons. A Beastman army made an appearance when we found out there were an odd number of armies, and that was played by one of the judges, who did not make any rule decisions while he played.
I know you're all wondering, so here is what I played; behold Akilla the Ton's Field of Green!

Akilla the Ton (Orc warboss, great weapon, Dead Ard Armor, Best Boss At)
Nogg (BSB, choppa, lt armor, War Banner)
Wuzzup (L2 N Goblin Shaman, Dispel Scroll)
Wazzap (L2 N Goblin Shaman, Itty Ring)

Core:
2x 25 Orcs (2 hand weapons, SMC)
1x36 N Goblins (spear & shield, SMC, 3 fanatics)
2x20 N Goblins (shortbows, SM, 1 fanatic each)
1x6 snotlings (just themselves)

Special:
2x Orc chariots
1x20 Squig herd (10 squigs, 2 hoppers, 8 herders)

Rare:
2x Doom Divers

Commentary on above. I had to bring what I had painted! I know I was 2 over on my special/rare choices, but the above list should have still reeled in a 17 Comp. I received an 11, and I suspect the scorer missed the champions in my orcs, counting them as 24 strong and not 25, thus not receiving the 2.5 size bonus for each unit. This alone would have placed me tied for 4th overall in the tourney. Oh well, I'll be sure to point this out the next time. I was leery about bringing the squig herd, as I have been completely unimpressed with their usefulness on the battlefield (and I still am) but they must have easily been worth the sportsmanship points they brought in for me, being extremely entertaining for my opponents! I considered my army extremely fair, if not a little weak, having no big'uns, no fast troops/cavalry, or no trolls.

Round one vs. Lizardmen (who'da thunk!) (Draw)
My opponent was a great guy named Rob Isbell. A very nicely painted and based lizardman army, but apparently not in the judge's eyes. My guess is it suffered merely because lizzies were so common in the tourney. We got the battle called the Messengers. It basically turns 3 normal troopers into independent heroes that must stand alone, and you must get them off the board on each side of your opponents deployment zone. A very cool battle. It took Rob and I quite a while to start, and in this game I realized how difficult it is to complete a 5 round, 2 hour game with my O&G army. Rob and I fought to a draw, unfortunately for him as he managed to set off the Comet, picking off 2 of my three messengers, and when time was called my right flank had caved in with bouncing squigs and fleeing night goblins everywhere. His messenger would have surely gone off the board the next turn. Maybe next time Rob! I scored Rob highly in sportsmanship, but pretty low for his army because of the Second Sign/2 Salamander combo and the level 4 Slaan. Just not a very fun army to play against.

Round two vs. Orcs & Goblins (Draw again)
Played a nice younger guy named Rob Markovitch. It was Rob's WHFB first tourney, like me. Rob is a 40K player at heart (poor guy!) but a great sport and very enthusiastic. The battle was Grudge Match, a pitched battle with 250 extra points awarded for killing the opposing General. My work was cut out for me as I looked across the table at an Orc General on wyvern, a big unit of big'uns, and a Giant. Top that off with two level 2 orc shamen (one with the double doing do-da thingie), and a Black Orc big boss. Much carnage ensued, with highlights of:
Rob's treacherous orc arrer boys shooting his own biguns in the back killing 7(!)
my fearless snotlings doing what they do best, sandbagging Robs giant the whole game
one of my shamen miscast and his head exploded,
one of my doomdivers misfired and exploded,
my fanatics tearing through Rob's big unit of orcs,
my squig hopper unleashing Robs fanatics in his own battle line,
and ultimately my general and his unit of orcs, combined with my 2 chariots leveling his Big'uns leaving his general exposed, and then….

Time was called! It wasn't looking good for Rob, and when we tallied up the points, it was a draw with me needing just 30(ish) more points to pull off the victory. What comes around goes around as I just got away with a draw last game, and narrowly missed the victory here. Grrr. Anyhow, I gave Rob top marks in sportsmanship, how can you not when two unruly Waaaghs face off, but had to bury him on his army. A Wyvern, A Giant, a Black Orc hero with no other black orcs to be found anywhere, which lead me to confirm with him after the game that the black orc hero takes 2 slots, and that he used up 5 slots in a 2k army, thus making it illegal. I suspect Rob played every fantasy model he owned, and that the actual army he brought wasn't built that way on purpose. My biggest rule discrepancy came from this battle as the judges ruled that a SNOTLING BASE is a "little things" as opposed to a "big things" when fighting a giant. Therefore, the giant was picking up and stuffing SNOTLING BASES! Last time I checked, a snotling base is the same base size as an ogre, and counts as unit strength 3. I didn't win this game due to giving up 75 battle points (half strength snotling unit, he scored 3 of them due to one being in the giant's bag) and two unfortunate rolls on my part; a self destroyed doom diver, and a self destroyed shaman. Oh well, next time!

During this game, the judges came around and inspected my army 2 more times; they had already checked it out during round one. They looked it over, walked away and whispered, and came back to look some more, pointing at details, admiring my liche purple night goblins and nicely based twin doom divers. I saw this as a very good thing! Could I actually be in the running for an award?

Round 3 vs. Beastmen (Won)
Face off vs. one of the judges, Andy. I had never faced Beastmen before, and Andy had never played them, as he borrowed it to make an even playing field. The battle was King of the Kill, a simple battle where you just have to have the most models within 6 inches of the hill in the center of the table at the end of the game. Now here is a battle I shouldn't lose, as I outnumbered him by 90 models at least! I certainly did all I could to lose it though, with my General's 25-man Orc unit run down, causing widespread panic among the NG spearmen and 1 of the NG bow units. I did not play my best game here, starting right from the start with poor deployment, and Andy is quite a good general. Good thing he didn't get to practice with the Beastmen. I had an 8 more models near the hill when time was called, giving me the win. Very close! Again, another round and I would have been in real trouble. I did not have to score Andy because he was a judge, I feel he scored me well, though.

So I went 1-0-2, pretty good for my first tournament. When it became award time, Jason Clark, a fellow Boldo's Armory regular playing O&G picked up best sportsmanship, Ty Danboise, who makes a long pilgrimage to Boldo's rather often, picked up best army for his Lizardmen. I could see Boldo start to get nervous as he has won best army 2 times, and someone else got it this time. Boldo was very surprised when he got best overall. His usual downfall is the fact that dwarfs don't lend themselves to a friendly game in general, and he suffers in sportsmanship just because its just not fun getting spanked by dwarfs. This time around he pulled off his highest sportsman score. He should play against dwarfs more often! (smile)

Best painted army award, goes to…ME! Whoo! Whoo! These guys really must have liked my army (and who can blame them, though..LOL!) Specifically, they really like my General (the gamesday black orc) in scratched liche purple armor, and the liche purple theme in general. "It works and they aren't in black" to paraphrase the head judge, Jeff. All my night goblins are purple, all the orcs are in gray, with some purple insignia, hat, jewels on the weapons, or whatnot. Cudo's to the judges actually noticing that. All are uniformly flocked in basic green grass, with a few bushes around the doom diver bases.

Anyway, this is way longer than I intended! What an amazingly fun time, and hey, it's always nice to win something! Not to mention bringing back most of the awards to Rochester with us.

I guess I'll have to get some pictures up, to show off a bit.
John

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