Tag: David "FragEmAll" Richardson

Posted on

Southampton Sluggaz Summer Slaughter – A Conquest Tournament

Event Review.

Well it finally happened! Last Saturday, After 18 months of sitting idle during the Pandemic we finally managed to gather a bunch of players for a Conquest Tournament. The event was held at our usual Club Venue in Southampton and consisted of 3 games at 1250 points. The scenarios were all objective based, with 2 games being variations of the ones you find in the official Parabellum Tournament pack, and another of my own devising.

We had 10 attendees in total for the event, some experienced, some not, and some that had literally had a demo game with me a few weeks prior and were borrowing forces (which is a compliment to the game, that people are so excited after a single game to give up their time for a whole day event!)

The factions were broken down as follows:

6 x Hundred Kingdoms
3 x Dweghom
1 x Nords

Whilst our club does have Spires and Wadhrun players, they were either unable to attend or in the case of the Wadhrun not assembled in time (Paul had to borrow my Dweghom instead of shoving Orcs everywhere– poor thing!)

The lists were all a little different from each other. I’ve collated the armies into the table below. It shows the total number of stands present, though in some cases they may be spread amongst multiple regiments:

The first game scenario had two objectives spaced evenly across the middle of the table. The players swiftly got into the swing of things with all but one of the games being finished within the 2 hour time slot. Two of the players scored a maximum 12 victory point win to head into an early lead.

Game 2 was a scenario of my own devising with 3 objectives running up the middle of the table. Players would not score anything for the one nearest them, 1 vp for the middle objective and 2vps for the furthest away. Obviously the enemy would be aiming for the one nearest them, so they still had to work to deny it to their opponent.

The hundred Kingdoms Clash!

James and his Hundred Kingdoms continued their rampage with another 12 vp win, which was more impressive because he was against Mike H, whos Dweghom had also scored maximum points on the previous game. Ian also managed a fine win with his infantry based Hundred Kingdoms whilst Vaughan slowly crept up the table with a close win against Toby (Literally a few different dice rolls would have seen the Nords defeated). Poor old Paul was really regretting not having his Wadhrun finished at this point, though it looked like the awesome Wooden Spoon trophy was within his grasp!

Game 3 saw James and Ian face off at the top Table whilst Vaughans Nords squared up against yet more Hundred Kingdoms. The final scenario had a central objective. plus 4 other objectives in the middle of each table quarter. Players would score 1vp for holding BOTH their nearest objectives, and a VP for each of the other ones.

Unstoppable force versus Immovable object!

James and Ian slogged the hell out of each other, in what was a really close match. Eventually James gained the upper hand and managed yet ANOTHER 12vp win! The first prize was most definitely his!

The Nords embarked on a massively one sided slaughter of their opponents to secure a 2nd place finish, whilst Ian clung on to the 3rd place despite losing to James in the final game.

Down at the foot of the table Paul grimly claimed his Wooden Spoon prize, and vowed never to borrow any of my stuff ever again (probably)

The top 3 players each walked away with a victory mug, with First and second place also receiving a regiment box of their choice (James got Longbowmen, Vaughan got more Trolls – which we all hate him for). There was also a “side quest” of killing the most number of enemy Characters. Ian was our Assassin of the day, killing 8 characters across 3 games. As his prize he got a character box of his choice and went for an Imperial Officer.

Crimson Tower Knights showing no mercy to innocent dweghom. probably.

I’ll leave you with a lovely little piece from our winner James regarding the thought process behind his list.

++++++++

“So I attended a tournament of Conquest: TLoK, and while I intended to try to offer a fun but challenging experience to my opponents, I did not imagine I would actually win, and with maximum points per game, too! The event was semi-competitive; yes there was a prize and trophy that incentivised an element of competition, but the main aim was to enjoy a day of just playing the game and if you happened to walk away with something then that was just a bonus. It was this ethos that I designed my list, to hopefully offer a force that wasn’t spamming ridiculous units but was challenging to face ad against which my opponents had to think about what they were going to do.

The list I took was:

+++++

The Hundred Kingdoms – 1245/1250
Novum Equestrum

Noble Lord [150]: Tier 3, Tier 2, Tier 1, Armor of Dominion, Powerful Physique

– Household Guard (5) [315]: Armsmaster, Standard Bearer

– Mercenary Crossbowmen (4) [140]

Priory Commander (Ord. Crimson Tower) [125]: Select as Warlord

– Order of the Crimson Tower (3) [215]: Standard Bearer

Chapter Mage [130]: Tier 1, Magus, Olefant’s Roar, Fire Dart

– Men at Arms (4) [170]: Seasoned Veteran

+++++

I would like to put a disclaimer that I know very little about proper list building. I do not do “mathshammer” or statistics or anything like and this list includes everything I wanted to play with on the day – overall, if you don’t actually enjoy playing with the models and force you use then what’s the point?

I made the list to not only be a fun force to play, but it has a theme as well. Like many 100 Kingdom players, I’m sure, I have imagined a kingdom within Ea and based my collection around this. For me, my kingdom or called Novum Equestrum – hence the name of the list. The name means “new Horsemen”. It is a city-region that specialises in equine breeding and trade, and also provides the best horses to a nearby Crimson Tower Priory. The kingdom also has a treaty and trade with an established Nordic settlement within its land, and incorporates Nord warriors into its military – much like Rome and her allies and auxiliary forces. Likewise, Nordic culture has also seeped into the kingdom and influenced style and art. The ruling houses, in acts of support and friendship with the Priory, rejects the Church, and so does not house any priests, but does have mage advisors. This then was the theme I wanted for the army.

I have converted some Household Knights with some Huscarl models to create my household squires. I was originally going to include these into my list instead of the Crimson Tower Knights, but while it meant the squires could run up the field and mean any medium units could be entering the board almost half way up, I chose Crimson Tower simply for the joy it brings me when they get their charge off and inflict all those impact hits and the idea of just heavy cavalry smashing into their poor targets! With the Crimson Towers knights, I’m not fussed about if they get to fight the turn they charge, but getting that charge off, so will (more often than not after failing a 2” charge before – even with a banner) move and then charge – often the same turn enacting the supremacy of the Priory Commander who is usually my Warlord. I also often tell this to my opponents, explaining especially the Unstoppable Charge special rule if they haven’t encountered it before.

I also like to take credit for our little local gaming community in Southampton often taking a mage with Olefant’s Roar. I tried it once and never went back. I usually give the mage Fire Dart, and with Olefant’s Roar giving her Seize the Day, it means I can activate her Men at Arms regiment, have them activate bastion in doing so, move, and either volley (to allow the mage even extra range damage) or move again – it effectively means she can immediately have better protection through bastion, and turns her 16” range on her spell into 26”. This alongside Magus and Magic Tier 1, meant that Fire Dart was very often hitting 4 or 5 times reliably, and in one of the games, made her more deadly than the knights! In hindsight, this may have been a bit too OP, but certainly wasn’t a conscious attempt at power-gaming.

For the Noble Lord and Household Guard: the Guard are just fantastic models and they look amazing when ranked up, and the Noble Lord compliments them so well, especially when they’re given Arms Master. I did think about taking Regalia of the Empire for that extra +1 Clash, but it would have meant I had to either abandon the Crimson knights, or reduce the stands of either the MaA or Crossbowmen which I didn’t want to do – and Inspired Clash 4 is still nothing to snort at! The remaining points I put into the combat Tiers for the Lord, who also had Amour of Dominion; the armour was always going to be taken as negating cleave for 40pts was worth it, especially when seeing Dragon Slayers entering the board during one of my games. The Crossbowmen also just offered some range threats and having an extra stand just meant a little more reliability of not necessarily deleting units, but knocking off a few wounds here or there – especially in the late game when regiments may already be pretty worn down.

Overall, the list offered options for defensive play, offense, and worked well to support  each regiment. The list also had a few sources for AP, Cleave and of course the Brutal Impact 2 of the knights, all of which I hoped would make the opponent think rather than just running down the centre of the board. The list then was to be fun but demand pause for tactical thought – which is what I expected and received from my opponents’ lists, too!”

+++++

The Southampton Sluggaz Gaming club will be hosting more tournaments in the future and hopefully we will see numbers increasing as the player base develops. We run friendly informal events with a relaxed atmosphere. We welcome players from the wider community so if you ever want to visit us for one of our events then get in touch and we will always try to accommodate you.

Posted on

Path Of Conquest: Dave’s InSPIREing Blog – Part 4 “Drones sir, Thousands of ‘Em!”

Milestone 3 has been completed! We have now successfully converted our First Blood Warband into regimented blocks for the Last Argument of Kings massed battle system.

The Spires now sit at 1250 points and comprises the following:

As you can see, the main thing we have done this month is increase the sizes of the regiments that we already had in order to make them legal for Last Argument of Kings. I’ve added in some retinue and some upgrades into this list so let’s have a look at the new stuff in greater detail.

Biomancer

This lovely chap comes with the Biotic Renewal Draw Event as standard which is in itself a wonderful thing. There is an awesome combo (that I have shamelessly pinched from Andy Sparks – THANKS DUDE!!!) that enhances the healing ability even further. The Essence Transfer Biomancy lets you heal 2D6 wounds on an infantry regiment, at the expense of suffering 2D6 wounds on the regiment that the Biomancer is part of. This is brilliant for keeping your frontline regiments intact, but only whilst your Biomancers wound pool remains stocked. By adding the full Mastery of the Flesh Retinue, the Biomancer is able to use 2 Draw events per activation. This means he can Essence Transfer a pile of wounds onto a regiment that needs it, and then use the Biotic Renewal to heal D6 of those. It probably won’t heal up all of the wounds lost but it limits the amount lost for sure.

Mimetic Assassin

We have added the Degenerative Aura mutation to our Assassin. This is a really effective upgrade that bestows the Decay(3) draw event on regiments that are in contact with him or his regiment. This forces an enemy regiment that begins its activation in contact with the Assassins Drone regiment to roll 3D6 per stand at the end of their activation, and suffer a wound (Not a hit, a WOUND!!!) on the roll of a 5 or 6. It doesn’t cause resolve checks but it does ignore enemy defence and evasion so it can be really effective and certainly makes opponents think twice about engaging the regiment. Normally a good way of neutralising this would be to engage the character in a duel, but lets face it – who wants to be duelling an Assassin?!

Force Grown Drones

We have taken all 3 of our regiments up to 4 stands strong (16 models), each with the Pheromantic Node. Unlike in First Blood – you have to pay for the banners, and it is quite expensive at 25 points (the same as another whole stand!) but we already have them painted up and to be fair, rerolling charge distances isn’t a bad idea, plus they count as a leader so if we find our support characters engaged with something nasty, we wont take as many wounds as we run away! The reason I have gone for 4 stands instead of the minimum 3 is mainly because they are rather fragile and I want to be able to absorb a decent number of wounds without the unit being removed. No amount of healing will bring back a unit that is destroyed!

++++++++++

I actually got this force onto the tabletop recently (well – a slight variation of it, but broadly the same!) and it did really well. The drone wall was able to control the board really well, the assassins regiment got stuck in and wiped out a regiment of Milita and a Theist Priest in one glorious flank charge. The heavy hitters all dealt consistant damage with the Marksmen, Vanguards and Abomination all racking up quite a kill tally.

There was not anything really I would have changed, though there were a couple of times I messed up the order of the cards and couldn’t benefit from the Biomancies and Pheromancies. Still, that is all something that will come with practice and the list performed well against a solid opposing army.

++++++++++++

So what next? As we move into Milestone 4, as are going to take ourselves up to 1600 points. I will add in a regiment of 3 Brute Drones for additional combat punch, and will increase our 3 Force Grown Drone regiments by another stand or two each. To round off the points, we will make our Assassin even more deadly by giving him the Venom upgrade. The force will (hopefully end up looking like this.

Will i stay on target? Will i run out of blue paint?! Will I follow through with my insane idea to name ALL my drones? Stay tuned next month to find out! You can follow the work in progress of this project on my instagram page (https://www.instagram.com/david_resinbunker_richardson/). Give it a like and a follow!

Posted on

Path of Conquest: Dave’s inSPIREing Blog – Part 3 “The Clone Wars”

Milestone 2 has now been and gone, and this collection of models is beginning to look like an army now. The target for this month was to achieve the following:

I’m delighted to say that not only did I manage to complete the above, but I actually went one better and did all 12 Marksmen clones and all 12 Vanguard clones. This puts me nicely ahead for the next milestone.

We are now at 800 points, which in my opinion is probably the upper limit for First Blood. Here is a brief rundown of the units we’ve added in this Milestone:

Biomancer

This character brings yet more healing to the force with his Biotic Renewal draw event. When combined with the Pheromancers Accelerated Hibernation I fully expect to be able to reliably replenish casualties I suffer. He is poor in combat, so will need to be protected from enemy combat troops and characters.

Mimetic Assassin

This character is incredibly good in First Blood. Characters are normally quite vulnerable as they are not protected in a regiment (like in Last Argument). The Assassin however has an Evade stat of 3, which we are boosting by +2 with the Heightened Reflexes mutation, meaning that ANY wound he takes from Clash, duelling, direct damage magic or shooting will be saved on a 5 or less. Cleave is irrelevant to him! He’ll just dodge the massive axes! He has a decent number of attacks as well and will go first in duels thanks to his quicksilver strike special rule. His only slight weakness is a lack of Cleave, but he’ll certainly pull his weight in combat

Vanguard Clones

These are elite close combat troops. Each Clone has 2 attacks and a decent defence score, backed by evade 2 as well. Much like the assassin, they lack cleave, but sheer weight of attacks will tell against most enemy regiments. They’re also quite fast with a movement of 6 so can really to where they are needed.

Marksmen Clones

These are elite ranged troops. They have everything you need to smash enemies at a distance with lots of shots, a long range and the wonder arcing fire special rule, letting them use a friendly regiment to draw line of sight. They are only lightly armoured so careful positioning is needed to keep them alive, though the healing abilities of the Pheromancer and Biomancer will keep them combat effective.

We now begin Milestone 3, and this is going to be an interesting month as we convert the above First Blood Skirmish force into a 1250 point Last Argument of Kings force.

The obvious things changing will be the size of the regiments. Infantry, cavalry and Brute regiments all need to have a minimum of 3 stands of troops (a stand is 4 infantry models, or a single Brute/Cavalry model). Right now, all of the units apart from the Abomination are under this minimum threshold, so we need to bulk out what is already there. We will expand both Clone regiments to the minimum of 3 stands. We will also need to increase the Force Grown Drone numbers to make up for their below average individual stats, so I’m going to take all three of the drone regiments up to 4 stands worth of miniatures with 16 drones in each unit.

By the end of the next milestone (11th August if I stay on target!) The army will look like this:

This means that I need to add the following to the force: 6 x Marksmen Clones, 6 x Vanguard clones & 21 Force Grown Drones which should be perfectly achievable in a month.

This will give me 3 regiments of drones, each with a character embedded in them, and each fulfilling a different battlefield role. The assassins regiment is tasked with spreading decay into enemy regiments, whilst the biomancers regiment is simply a pool of wounds to be spread around the other regiments with the harvest essence ability. The Pheromancers regiment is purely there to keep him alive and healing.

The damage dealers will be the Abomination and the two Clone regiments. They are proper elite units that can go head to head with almost anything else in the game.

Stay tuned to see if I manage to get the next batch painted up!!!