I took part in Agora Hobby’s WarCry tournament and got totally wrecked. (0-2 and threw the last match)
But it was so fun! I’m going to do a quick review of my matches and what I learned from playing the Iron Golems warband against experienced wargamers. My warband roster as follows:
Dagger: Drillmaster, Legionary with Bolas
Shield: Dominar, Ogor Breacher, Armator, Legionary with Shield
Hammer: Preceptor, Legionary with Shield
Match 1: Iron Golems vs Cypher Lords (1 – 21)
Battleplan: The Prize (capture the treasure and hold it), Twist: Murky Swampland (-1 movement if fighters start their move on the battlefield floor)
Match 1 was against the eventual champion with his Cypher Lords. Objectively, the odds were stacked against the Iron Golems in this match up. Iron Golems don’t have enough speed to reach and carry the treasure token, and the Cypher Lords have the ability to fly (avoiding the swamp problem) and teleport their prize runner with Shadowy Recall (triple ability)
And that’s exactly what happened. (See pic for final round of the match. Guess who’s holding the prize)
What I learned from this match:
- Iron Golems are slow and need to spend their dice effectively to gain the initiative and grab the prize first.
- As the game is only 3 rounds long, it is generally true that the first fighter to reach the prize will hold on to it until the rest of the match, especially if they can fly/teleport.
- A game like The Prize also favors warbands with at least one fast mover/flyer.
- Tactical positioning errors hurt in movement games
Match 2: Iron Golems vs Legions of Nagash (0-1)
Mission: Burn and Pillage (6 objectives, first to burn 4 wins), Twist: Winds of Rot (+1 Toughness to all fighters)
The second matchup was against a Legions of Nagash (LoN) player, with 1 Necromancer, 1 Sepulchral Guard Seneschal and a legion of skeleton warriors.
The Chaos Gods must be laughing at the Iron Golems today. The normally fragile skeletons are buffed in toughness, and they are playing an objective based game at half the number of fighters of the LoN. I took an overly aggressive strategy by charging the Ogor forward, and he got butchered by amazing damage from the Necromancer and the Sepulchral Guard Seneschal. That sent my game down in a spiral as I didn’t have enough damage dealing ability to wipe out my opponents chaff fast enough. We fought to a closely held draw*, but my opponent managed to secure their secondary objective for the win.
What I learned from the game:
- Being the newbies that we are, most matches are not supposed to be fought to draws. If the objectives cannot be met, both teams are to fight till the bitter end. I’m glad that we totally forgot this rule, because there were 16 or so fighters remaining on the field and the rest of the tournament was waiting for us to finish. Fighting till the bitter end would most likely result in my bitter end.
- The Necromancer and
Sep GuardSeneschal (I gave up spelling sepulchuahruaral wrongly for the 4th time) hit HARD but are squishy. Prioritize taking them down quickly. - Due to the mechanics in this game, it is difficult to block off access routes to objectives. Disengaging is essentially a 3″ sidestep away from the blocking fighter, and then they are free to move.
- Hordes of cheap troops is an ability in itself, and the game rewards having a more activations and fighters.
Despite my complete wrecking, it was a totally educational and fun experience for me, and I would participate and get wrecked in more tournaments again, with my favorite slow pokes the Iron Golems.
“We Create War!”
If you have any comments or pointers to share, I most welcome them!
Special thanks to Teng Siang and the guys at Agora Hobby for organizing the tournament.
