See: http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail39.html
Ok, we weren't drinking "Ones". But Ant sure was rolling a heck of a lot of them! In this case the bogus math theorem goes like this:
The SUCKitude of the army is directly proportional to the ROLLitude of the ONES.
Antony of course had his Dogs of War (NCM of +2) which I had previously smashed and drawn against in two playtesting games. I was looking forward to this match immensely as it was the first time we'd faced each other in a tournament. And he didn't have a Dark Elf Lord on Black Dragon which helped a bit too. Ant's list is in a previous post somewhere... The plan for the game was anchored around a handy piece of impassable terrain that would funnel his three blocks into the centre, onto my guns and waiting blocks and detachments. If I could knock out his (not inconsiderable) shooting base then my knights could hopefully smack his knights and come around behind the blocks to lend a hand. Just like the last game it almost worked out this way. Fortunately I didn't have the opportunity this time to fail any Fear checks :)
This game was ruled by my opponent's absolute and unerring ability to roll an increasingly ridiculous amount of '1s' on his shoddy and imminently retireable dice. In fact overall I'd say Antony's luck was pretty poor and I think this was the biggest contributing factor to what was an hilarious game for me but a bit of a wash-out for him. Examples include:
- "Look out, Sir!" on his General from a cannonball. Nopes. Splat.
- 9 shots with his Duellists = 2 hits. All of the misses were '1s'. Awesome.
- So many double ones for magic and combat... so many ones...
- I convinced him I would move my Reiksguard Knights so he could charge them with his knights (not that bad a plan when you have a 1+ save, Warbanner and Hatred thanks to the Warrior Priest - he knew it too). The Reiksguard moved into the face of an approaching (unbarded) knight unit who spoiled the grand plan by running off the board after losing two of their number to the Pistoliers.
- Nailed his baby cannon with my cannon on the first shot. Took his General in the next turn. Enfiladed his barded Knights in the next turn but in a twist of fate the champion (who I was required to wound seperately) survived and went on to take out the cannon and my wizard (curses!).
- the Mortar was AWESOME! Smashed Crossbowmen and Pikes all over the place. Absolutely devastating!
- Eventually Antony had no option but to charge some depleted Pikes (with a most regretful accompanying Wizard) into my Spearmen. The Pikes were shot on the way in by the handgunner detachment (supporting fire) and counter-charged by the Free Company detachment in the flank. The Pikes were soundly clubbed to death and escaped both units but then fled the solo charge of my Warrior Priest and ran into some nearby impassable terrain.
- In their haste to pursue the Spears hit the flank of the other Pike unit as they were attempting to finish off the Flagellents. The last Flagellent was killed off but immediately avenged as the Spears broke the foe, chasing them into the same impassable terrain that had killed off the recently deceased previous Pike unit. Loving the impassable terrain right now.
- with nothing left to do the Paymasters Bodyguard found itself surrounded by Swords in the front, Spears in the back and two detachments in the side. A last-minute charge by 6 Duellists failed to shift anything (lucky - my BSB had died to that wretched Burning Metal spell... grr...) although I managed to kill off the Paymaster in the process.
Somehow despite causing huge carnage I 'only' won the game 16-4 which was a bit disappointing. I'm guessing Ant was more disappointed than me though so we'll call it even shall we? :)
Luck played a part in the game (death of the General, Knight Champion surviving to kill off almost 300pts worth of stuff) but I felt Antony should have stacked both Knight units on one flank against my Cav to give himself more options and to avoid any cannon fire (there was a hill blocking a decent chunk of the battlefield). A couple of panic checks and some failed rally rolls later and I had one flank and his deployment zone under control. Pity I had to lose two characters on the way in though so good play on his part in that regard.
After two games I was now sitting on 25/40 battle points and was determined to end the day by staying above the 1/2 battle points mark. Next up, Lizardmen...
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