Castle Assault

This weekend I headed up to Newcastle to play in Castle Assault – The Grave Calls IV – a The Ninth Age tournament. This tournament was a 2-day 4-round teams tournament with three on each team and 4000pt lists. We had four teams and the first three rounds were round robin and the last was the play-off. We’ve got a legendary group, so even though we were all trying to win we focused on having a chill and fun time, which I do appreciate.

Our team was called Pure Mathhammer, with:

• Chris The Part Time Warlord, bringing a Vermin Swarm list with lots of shooting.
• Brendon, bringing Undying Dynasty with a sphinx, some shabtis and lots of annoying ambushers.
• Myself, bringing my grindy Empire of Sonnstahl list.

Round 1

In the first round we were up against What’s a Battle?, and I was matched against Jack with his Beast Herds list. My team threw me under the bus here as Jack had brought a strong list that was a good match-up against me.

This game was tricky as Jack had two ambushing units that I had to account for and four big monsters that I had no answer for other than The Light of Sonnstahl. I deployed my battle-line to the right, my shooting to the left and my knights so they could come around the flank. With an opponent with ambushers it is always a consideration to deploy on the back line or to have some more room for flexibility, I opted to have more room but maybe I can try to place closer to the back line next time. The knights were just in a terrible position, which mistake I make multiple times as you will see but I like the position of the crossbow men the water terrain protected them well.

I managed to do enough wounds to his best monster with shooting to make Jack hold it back lest I gain the kill-points from it. I turned my knights and my great-weapons to face the ambushing units, Jacks monsters came into my battle-line and my prelate duelled his Ghaa! THE Quiet Muzzle.

However my shield imperials ran away, this was extremely unlucky as for their panic test they needed to roll under ten, with re-rolls,but they rolled a twelve and an eleven. Now as my unit holding the centre of my battle-line ran, and that quite frankly I expected not to, it was easy for Jack to clean up and table me.

Round 2

The second round was against To the Max!, and I was matched against Dan with his halfling styled Sylvan Elves.

Once again I was faced with a high toughness list that I couldn’t do much about. I deployed with my knights to the far right, the battle-line to the right and my crossbowmen in the middle. Here I think that I was being too careful with my knights, they didn’t end up doing much this game, I could have put them on the left and they could have protected my crossbow men and flanked when Dan engaged my battle-line.

I managed to shoot off one of Dan’s units of kestrel Knights and damage the other, but his eagles managed to chaff my knights. I feel a mistake I made was to charge an eagle with my reiters, they have feigned flight and stand and shoot so they are a difficult for the opponent to charge and I could have kept shooting with them. My rangers didn’t have a good target after Dan’s knights and eagles were gone, and I kept shooting at his wizard tree and they managed to do no wounds. In the centre Dan threw a bunch of trees and some kestrel Knights at my spear-block and managed to kill most of them in a couple rounds of combat whilst my spear-men only did a few wounds in return.

When I went to charge my swordsmen were in Dan’s tree-man’s flank and I placed the great-weapons to face the dryads after they cleaned up the crossbowmen. My Knights were once again chaffed by an eagle and the remaining combats proved inconclusive, resulting in Dan’s victory with a 8 to 12. I noticed that if I have at least 10 of my 36 swordsmen remaining my opponent does not gain any kill-points from them.

Round 3

The third round was against Team Timothy Tim, and I was matched against Mark with his Daemon Legions list. At Backyard Brawl I had previously versed Mark and lost to him 0 to 20, with a similar list.

Once again I deployed my knights in a too defensive position, otherwise my deployment was much the same as the last two games. On the first turn his myrmidons managed to charge my rangers, who predictably fled. I then charged my knights to face the myrmidons and he charged his brazen beasts into my crossbowmen. Unfortunately the overrun from his brazen beasts just managed to hit the back of my knights, with the flank from the beasts they were defeated. Mark was not keen to charge my infantry and neither was I keen to charge him, with my shooting gone and only left with big blocks we both decided that there was no point continuing as neither of us could get any more points. The primary objective was tricky for me to get so I let Mark have it, so Mark managed to win with a 2 to 18.

Round 4

In the play-off for 3rd or 4th we were against To The Max! again, and I was against Ryan’s Daemon Legions. As this was the play-off for the bottom two places neither team was too worried about winning and we decided to make sure we didn’t face the same opponent a second time.

I am more happy with my deployment, using my rangers to give my knights vanguard so they could move up after deployment. I think that I should have put my crossbowmen to face his succubi but I was afraid he would then redeploy them, however in hindsight Ryan didn’t leave anywhere to redeploy them to. As this was the last game of the tournament I decided to go offensive and move up the board.

Ryan put his fading glory in the gap between my reiters and my crossbowmen to be annoying, but he managed to blast my reiters off the board leaving me with an easy charge with both my imperials. My knights went into his fat babies, which were a quite defensive unit, with the expectation that my great-weapons would be able to help. Now I needed a 2+ on my charge roll, and of course I rolled a one. Then to seal the deal I had a terrible magic phase where I whiffed my Cosmic Scales cast and didn’t manage to get a single blessing. This meant that my spear-men and swordsmen were outmatched by Ryan’s forces, and my planned flanking with knights and great-weapons never eventuated. Ryan came out on top with a 0 to 20.

In considering how I can modify my list for the next tournament Hugo was telling me that I needed to consider things like: hammer and anvil, river and rock, and push and pull. So I’m thinking of removing the Imperial Rangers for a second unit of Reiters, as they do a much better job of being a river and chaffing. Now Hugo also mentioned that a couple Griffins would be an excellent hammer and push factor in addition to my knight commander and that I have way too many anvil units. This would mean getting rid of the great-weapon imperials or spear state infantry and my current general.

Unfortunately Pure Mathhammer walked away with the wooden spoon, but I still enjoyed the competition and it was a fun boys weekend out. I’d like to give my thanks to the legends: Tim for organising The Grave Calls IV, Kendall for overall organising Castle Assault, the Gal for the venue, Complete AV for sponsoring some prizes and all our The Ninth Age Community that participated.