Topic: Tactical Decision Game 1.6 (Emp Turn 6 vs Ogrebus!)

[Holy Hand Grenade]

Tactical Decision Game 1.6:  Empire Turn 6 versus the Ogrebus

***Note-  read the following threads to follow along with the Tactical Decision Game 1 storyline. 
     --Tactical Decision Game 1:  Empire versus the Ogrebus
     --Tactical Decision Game 1.1:  Empire Turn 1
     --Tactical Decision Game 1.2:  Empire Turn 2
     --Tactical Decision Game 1.3:  Empire Turn 3
     --Tactical Decision Game 1.4:  Empire Turn 4
     --Tactical Decision Game 1.5:  Empire Turn 5


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Tactical Decision Games are a fun way to think through tough situations that Empire Generals face.  In this TDG, we are working through different tactical situations presented to us during a 2500 point battle versus an Ogre player named “Bruiser” who uses an “Ogrebus” as the foundation of his army.  Right now we are in Turn 4.  Even if you haven’t participated up to this point, don’t hesitate to join in and post!

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 Bruiser’s Turn 6:

Bruiser barely won the last combat.  He wants to see if he can keep that going in this final round.

No charges.

The Leadbelchers fail to rally and run 11” away toward the table edge.

Gnobs go into the Wizard’s Tower.

The Ironblaster moves into position to try and get a lucky shot off on our lone Wizard.

Shooting:

The Ironblaster fires its last shot.  He only has room for a 3” gap from the back of the Halberds to the mage.  His first arty die is a 10 and he shoots off the board. 


Combat:

Let start with the side-show again.

Our lone Archer (not afraid) kills another Gnob and again they fail to wound him.  The Firebelly goes cold again and not only fails to wound our boy, but fails to Stomp him as well  (guess he lost more than his magic levels in that miscast…)

Unfortunately, both the Gnobs and the Firebelly make their Break Tests.

Back for some more main event!

All our Empire boys pass their Fear checks.

Bruiser doesn’t issue a challenge, but our Halberd champ does, knowing our General is on his last legs.  The Tyrant accepts.

--In the challenge, the Tyrant does 3 wounds and kills our Champ, and Bruiser gets an extra +2 for CR for Overkill!

--Demis (and ICK) on the Bruiser.  Get nothing.

--At I3, the Bruiser whacks on the GS.  4 attacks only kill 1 GS.
--At I3, our Halbs attack the Ironguts.  8 attacks net us only 2 wounds on a Gut.

--ASL, Greatswords on Ironguts.  15 attacks, 11 hits, 8 wounds, no saves.   2 Guts die, plus another drops.   

--ASL, Irongut on Halbs.  3 attacks, 2 Halbs die.
--ASL, Ironguts on Greatswords.  24 attacks, 13 hits, 5 wounds, no saves.  5 GS die.

1 Halb dies from a Stomp attack.


Final Death Count:

4 Halberdiers (one is the champ)
6 Greatswords

3 Ironguts


Combat Resolution:

Ogres:
Standard         1
Overkill            2
Wounds         10
Total:             13

Empire:
Flank                1
Standard          1
Ranks               3
Wounds:         10
Total:              15

Ogres lose by 2. 

Bruiser rolls a 6 on his Break test!   

Buffing effect on the combat:
Flesh to Stone saved 6 Greatswords.
Shield of Faith saved 2 wounds on the Halbs.
Hammers of Sigmar caused 2 extra wounds.

Post combat-  we reform to a horde formation to maximize attacks on the Gutstar for the final round.


The Aftermath Graph:

Empire’s Turn 6:

This is it!  Time to separate the Men from the Ogres!

All we do in the movement phase is move the Wizard closer to the battle.

Magic:

The magic phase has kept us in the game.  So, here is the last one and we have to make it count.

We get a lot to work with:  9 Power Dice to his 6.  The Firebelly channels an extra DD for 7.


Tactical Decisions for 1.6:

What to cast and in what order?  You should know the drill by now.

A couple of notes:

--The Arch Lector is in the Halbs and can cast prayers.
--The only spells on the Wizard that we have left are Regrowth and Dwellers.  He is now a Lvl 2.
--The Leadbelchers are in range for a Dwellers.  The ‘Blaster is not.
--The Arch Lector is within 12” for some free Life spell healing…

Let’s do this!

[Fandir Nightshade]

Regrowth on the Demigryphs should bring the Champion back....we could also try to get the greatswords back to damage potential.

Other than that we really want Hammer of Sigmar on the Halberdiers.

Greatsword Champion should challenge.

[grifter]

Missed 1.5 but have been reading up on it. Excitement!

Anyways, I vote for casting Regrowth on the Archers, as the Firebelly would otherwise likely threaten our wizard next turn. The usual buffs on the Halberds. That shouldn´t leave us enough dice to Dweller the LB I guess, so we can be generous with our dice:

2d SoF
3d HoS
4d Regrowth

Don´t challenge, Bruiser would answer with the Bruiser (heh) who can now only beat on the DGK´s, which is likely to add less to his combat res.

[Holy Hand Grenade]

Anyways, I vote for casting Regrowth on the Archers, as the Firebelly would otherwise likely threaten our wizard next turn.

Its the last turn brother!  No need to worry about the safety of the Wizard any more!   

[zakalwe]

-2 dice shield of faith
-3 dice hammer of sigmar
-4 dice regrowth on GS, heal  AL.

Even if we win combat, if bruiser doesn't break, but we loose the GS he wins. Prayers first as they cannot miscast.

[George]

2 dice shield of faith....this should just get through
5 dice regrowth on GS....enough dice to make Bruiser know this is our spell for the turn, also has a chance of a good roll getting it off, plan to heal the AL with the lore attribute.
2 dice hammer of sigmar...this is the main spell we want now that the halberds are in horde formation.

I think no challenge if we regrow enough GS, challenge with GS chanp if we look like losing every last one of them.

[Windelov]

Great game HHG

My 5-cent

Our Halberdiers unit and Demi-Gs will stand, whereas the GS are facing whipeout which will cost us dearly. I would go for a heavy dice roll (4) on regrowth on the GS and heal 1 wound on the AL.

Next a hammer of sigmar on halberds (if bruiser saved dispel dices for this, I would say use all 5 dices and skip shield of faith) and last, if dices permit, the 5+ ward on the halberds.

He might just loose those two second ranked IG (one being wounded) to halberd attacks, and his Tyrant will attack AL, so Halberds might not even be attacked = shield of faith not that important.

And challenge with GS champ to get acces to IG for Halberds or Demi-G
 
best regards

[Soapstar]

I agree with George on this one so add my vote to his!

[Holy Hand Grenade]

He might just loose those two second ranked IG (one being wounded) to halberd attacks, and his Tyrant will attack AL, so Halberds might not even be attacked = shield of faith not that important.

I normally wait to chime in...but I am chomping at the bit.

I think you nailed the crux of it here Wind:  the more the Halbs reduce the Ironguts the less attacks the GS face.  Hammers of Sigmar is key.  In order to increase the attacks of the GS, we need to Regrow some more.  Shield of Faith on the Halbs is only going to protect us from 2 of his models.

In light of this, I say we only go for the two spells that really matter:

3 or 4 dice on Hammers of Sigmar on the Halbs first.
5 or 6 dice on Regrowth on the Greatswords.

Unless we roll crappy, he can only stop one of them.

[Noght]

The GS champ has to challenge.  You have to get the Warded Ogres off the ends.  Agree on Regrow and Hammer of Sigmar though I think Regrow is more important.

[Friar Metick]

We can't let the GS's go down.

First, 4 dice HOS (only cause no chance of a miscast)

5 dice Regrowth on GS's/heal AL

Challenge with GS champ

Fight the gutstar combat first that way if we break them we may get an overrun into the firebelly to maybe get his and the gnobs points if we kill/break them too. If the gutstar breaks chase with the DGK's first - 3 dice rerolling ones on the chase. Then the GS's to hit the side of the firebelly.

[commandant]

In light of this, I say we only go for the two spells that really matter:

3 or 4 dice on Hammers of Sigmar on the Halbs first.
5 or 6 dice on Regrowth on the Greatswords.

Unless we roll crappy, he can only stop one of them.

This

[Fandir Nightshade]

I would suggest four dice hammer of sigmar four dice regrowth on gs and one dice shield of faith

[Empire - Ulric]

I'd vote for a 5 dice regrowth on the Greatswords. We need to conserve the VP's from this unit. After that depending on how many dice bruiser uses to try and dispell it I'd go with 3 dice at Hammer and then 1 dice at Shield.

Sadly regrowth is the only real spell that matters this turn. Hammer is nice but not critical.

[SevenSins]

Im with Fandir on this one 4 on hammer, 4 on regrow and one on shield

[Fandir Nightshade]

All three spells are vital, two less Halberdiers dying are -2 CR, 3 more wounds on an irongut is +3 CR and more important less attacks.

[Spjuth]

- 3 dice on HammerOS on the Halbs first.
- up to 6 dice on Regrowth on the GS depending on how many PD Bruiser kept. If he spent most on HoS save a die for Shield

[grifter]

Its the last turn brother!  No need to worry about the safety of the Wizard any more!   

Oh, right, Bruiser had first turn...neato!

In that case I change my vote to:

4d Regrowth on the GS
2d SoF
3d HoS

[Grazhnakk]

4 dice HoS followed by 6 dice regrowth on the greatswords.

[Soapstar]

I've been thinking (dangerous to my health I know!) but I'm starting to get the feeling regrowth is actualy the least important spell to get off. If we don't break and run down the ogrebus we lose, we're 180 points behind right with no real chance of gaining anymore VP both ogre characters are on full wound(?) with good defences so no way of getting points there realistically. If we regrowth the GS we gain max four attacks however this also give the ogres 4 more bodies to kill for CR (against st6 without a ward they ate easier to kill than halbs with a ward), also reroll to wound on the halbs nets us more wounds than the extra 4(max) GS attacks plus they go before the IG as opposed to simultaneous therefore I think HoS and SoF are our spells we want most regrowth is an added extra (+1 wound on the lector would be nice too). If the GS die to a man but we destroy the ogre bus we win. Basicaly it's do or die time kill the bus or lose the game, it doesn't matter if we lose some units doing it! Therefore I propose:

3 dice regrowth if it goes off hopefully bruiser like we did (some will still) will think its our most important spell and burns DD on it.
2 Dice SoF (less important than HoS)
4 dice HoS (we really want this!)
Also challenge with GS to force either character off the flank and allow more hits on the unit and save a few bodies to make some attacks.

I know the consents is regrowth is important so am I missing something here or were we blinded by trying to save our beloved GS?

[Holy Hand Grenade]

Finishing the Game:

First, we finish off the magic phase.


Magic:

As usual, there were lots of different opinions on this.  Eight people or so voted for Hammers of Sig first and 4 dice appears to be about the norm.  So, here we go…

Our AL prays to Sigmar to help the Empire Halberdiers destroy these Ogres, and Sigmar complies.  Our AL gets 2x 6s and there is nothing that Bruiser can do about it!

Realistically, we will probably have to get IF as well to get Regrowth off.  We have 5 dice and Bruiser has 7 Dispel Dice left.  So, our Wizard sucks up the rest of the Winds O Magic available and tosses a 5-dice Regrowth on the Greatswords.

This time our roll was crap:  12+2 = 14.  Bruiser gets 17.  Dispelled.


Combat:

Let start with the side-show yet again.

Our lone Archer (not afraid) is so worried about the Firebelly, that a Gnoblar shanks him with a forked dagger and he goes down.  He is lost, but not forgotten!

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Time to finish the Battle Royale.

All our Empire boys pass their Fear checks (Greatswords got exactly what they needed…whew!).

Our Greatsword champ bellows out a challenge and the Bruiser accepts.

--In the challenge, the Bruiser hits with all 4 attacks, does 3 wounds, and our champ makes one AS (earlier graphs were incorrectly labeled, the Bruiser is only Str 5).  So our Champ dies, and Bruiser only gets an extra +1 for CR for Overkill.

--The Tyrant wants some more blood.  He sends 2 of his attacks towards the AL and gets 1 unsaved wound.  The AL dies.  The Tyrant directs his last 3 attacks on the Halbs, gets 2 hits and kills 2 Halbs.

--At I4, the Demis are happy now that they get to chew on some regular Ironguts.  3 attacks, 3 hits, 2 wounds, no saves.  Since 1 Irongut already has a wound, these 2 wounds finish off an Irongut.  Our IC Knight riding the beast misses his attack, however. 

--At I3, our Halbs attack the Ironguts. 
          6 have to attack the Tyrant but don’t even come close to scratching him. 
          12 attack the Ironguts.  8 hit, 6 wound (4 of them because of Hammers!).  They make 1 AS, so 5 wounds are scored on the Ironguts.  1 Gut dies, another takes 2 wounds.

--ASL, Greatswords on Ironguts.  6 attacks, 5 hits, 4 wounds, no saves.   2 more Guts die.   

--ASL, one Irongut attacks our Demis.  3 attacks, 1 hit & wound.  No AS, so a Demi takes a wound.

--ASL, Ironguts on Greatswords.  9 attacks, 6 hits, 5 wounds, no saves.  5 GS die.

1 Halb and 1 GS die from Stomp attacks.


Final Death Count:

Arch Lector
3 Halberdiers
7 Greatswords (one the champ)

4 Ironguts


(In case you haven’t realized it yet, we have 1 Greatsword that lived!!!)

Here is how it looks, one last time so you can “visualize” the beauty of it:

Combat Resolution:

Ogres:
Standard       1
Overkill          1
Wounds       11
Total:           13

Empire:
Flank              1
Standard        1
Ranks             3
Wounds:       11
Total:             16

Ogres lose by 3. 

Bruiser has to make a Break test at 6 or lower.

Bruiser rolls boxcars!  His damn luck with rolling 6s have finally come back to haunt him!

So…of course we chase with everything we have.

Bruiser rolls a Flee roll of 6.

Halbs get a Pursuit roll of 8.

Our Demis and one remaining GS both roll boxcars of their own on the chase!  They really want to get a piece of the Ogrebus! 

Excellent job on our tactical decisions this turn.  I think they won us the game.

--Had we not successfully cast Hammers of Sigmar we would have made 4 less wounds on the Guts, and one more Gut would have been alive to attack the GS. 

--Had we not challenged with the GS champ, the Demis would not have gotten their 2 wounds (which essentially cancelled out the CR for the loss in the challenge), but more importantly killed one more Irongut reducing their attacks by another 3. 

Which gives us a potential swing in CR somewhere between 7-9.  So instead of winning by 3, we would have lost by 4-6.  Even worse, the Greatswords would almost certainly have died.  No matter how you slice it, Bruiser would have scored a complete massacre against us!


Victory Points:

With the entire Ogrebus in our Victory Point bank account, we have a massacre! 

We beat Bruiser by a solid 605 VPs!!!!  Even if we had lost the Greatswords, it would  have still been a narrow victory at 167!



After Action and Lessons Learned:

Whew.  For the first TDG, that game sure turned out to be a tense one.  But we are not done yet…one of the most important aspects of any endeavor is to look back with 20/20 vision and see what we did best, what we blundered on, and what we learned from it all.

So, I have some more questions I would like you to post on:

Q1.  Did we win because of luck or because we outplayed Bruiser, or a little bit of both?  Based on how the lists faired against each other, if we played 5 battles, what would the win/loss spread look like?


Q2.  If you had to state one key reason on why we won, what would it be?  Can it be replicated (could we do it again)?


Q3.  What was our biggest mistake during the battle?  What was Bruiser’s?  What can we learn from them?


Q4.  What part of your game improved the most by participating/reading the TDG or what was the most important thing you learned?


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I plan to run future TDGs.  After we have completely finished discussing this TDG, I will solicit input on what army/scenario/situation the forum wants to tackle next-  so hold off on those comments until we close this one out.


Congratulations on the victory, Warhammer-Empire!

        

[Fandir Nightshade]

First of all....I think the Halberdiers don´t profit from Hammer of Sigmar when the AL lies dead at their feet (spell effect leaves when the wizard is gone....or not?)

Second....ignore me and lets enjoy our victory.

 

Q1.  Did we win because of luck or because we outplayed Bruiser, or a little bit of both?  Based on how the lists faired against each other, if we played 5 battles, what would the win/loss spread look like?

I think every single game is based on three main factors, 1/3 is the list, 1/3 is how well the player uses his models and 1/3 is luck (it is a dice game after all, an important panic check leaving your center running can decide a game). A stronger list starts out with an advantage that shouldn´t be disregarded. Some armies have stronger lists than others (Skaven, Ogres, Dark Elves, Demons) and even though it is not even close to the imbalance of last edition there still is an advantage. Bruiser had the stronger list in this matchup. The gaming third I would like to think the Empire troops performed better. Bruiser made some mistakes the biggest one being the Mournfangs going in too soon. Trying to get to grips with the Empire he surged forward with everything and attacked in waves, his Gnoblar support couldn´t catch up with the main body and the ogrebus only arrived after the mournfangs were slaughtered. Also he left his right ironblaster completely unsupported some gnoblars as diversion and redirecters could have saved it and opened the demigryphs for an enfilading shot. So the Imperial player was the better one. The luck was balanced so no influence there. I think if Bruiser isn´t the type of guy who makes the same mistakes over and over again he will get the better of the Empire army in 5 games, so 3 wins to the Ogres and 2 to the Empire seem realistic.

Q2.  If you had to state one key reason on why we won, what would it be?  Can it be replicated (could we do it again)?
We won due to better placement of units I guess the early miscast also helped. On the other hand our steam tank got a solid pounding.....hmmm he made two 6+ saves though.

Q3.  What was our biggest mistake during the battle?  What was Bruiser’s?  What can we learn from them?
The turn we didn´t place the Greatswords well enought to threaten the flank of the ogrebus. His mistake as mentioned riding in in waves (many close combat armies do this and I am always happy to exploit this with Empire and High Elves as I would otherwise be outnumbered on a regular basis, it is often better to hold your fast elements back and suffer the shooting/magic and then combine the fast elements with the slower ones in a devastating turn 3 or 4.

Q4.  What part of your game improved the most by participating/reading the TDG or what was the most important thing you learned?
I underestimated and I think still underestimate how lethal Empire is now in cc.....we brought the bus down with a modest amount of buffs and neither hurricanum nor priests in every unit. The Ogrebus deathstar one of the most destructive engines of cc there is. I am so used to hold back with Empire and pound the enemies with magic and arty and then get rid of the rest in cc that I still underestimate the cc potential. I think you could even make a cc oriented list with War Altar, Hurricanum, 2 blocks of 35 Greatswords (horde) and a stank + some chaff units and infantry busses for ranks and play very competetiv. hitting regular orc boys on 2+ with S5  should create a pile of the dead of those suckers rather quickly. Even chaos warriors would pile. Also it is always nice to see the thoughts of the other players. If we do another tactical game with another site I would love to read the thoughts of the opponents after the battle went through or even on a turn by turn base.


So off to Ulthuan smashing some of those pansies.

[grifter]

Whew, that was close! Congrats everyone!

Q1.  Did we win because of luck or because we outplayed Bruiser, or a little bit of both?  Based on how the lists faired against each other, if we played 5 battles, what would the win/loss spread look like?
Well, it seems that it pretty much came down to this one Ld-test (against 6) that Bruiser failed, so I don´t see how we can pat ourselves on the backs too much (unless the difference between Empire and Ogres is so vast that even getting to that (not quite) 50/50 chance of winning is considered a great achievement).

That said, I think we did outplay Bruiser, whose dice where also quite hot at times (the Knights getting obliterated turn 1, dispelling every single spell he tried to dispell if I´m not mistaken, etc.). Pretty much the only time Bruiser got unlucky was losing his wizard early, but that´s the risk of chucking big spells around.

A hard earned victory in the end.


Q2.  If you had to state one key reason on why we won, what would it be?  Can it be replicated (could we do it again)?
We dictated the flow of the battle from the beginning; where the fighting will take place, what Bruiser can shoot/charge, what spells he gets to dispell, etc. We gave up that advantage on the turn we took the Mournfangs down, and Bruiser was able to dictate the rest of the game (except for magic, obviously). I think that almost cost us the game, and still think we should have tried to take the MF down on their own turn.

Empire, with it´s large-ish numbers, decent CC abilities, decent magic and good-to-excellent shooting is in a good position to dictate the flow of games and needs to do so in order win.
(Though Ogres are in a similar position, they´re an excellent all-round force as well, though you rarely see them being played that way...the temptation to just charge in and stomp things seems to be to great to resist).


Q3.  What was our biggest mistake during the battle?  What was Bruiser’s?  What can we learn from them?
Our biggest strategical mistake was playing conservatively, then aggressively, then conservatively again etc. Though it somehow evened out in the end it seems. 
Our biggest tactical mistake was handing over the reins of the game to Bruiser as stated above (re: GS vs. MF).

Bruiser´s biggest strategical mistake was in the initial deployment, though you obviously did that on purpose to present us with an interesting challenge.
Tactically, I agree that he played too aggressively with his Mournfangs. No need to charge in when you have vastly superior firepower and the Bus on the way.

Q4.  What part of your game improved the most by participating/reading the TDG or what was the most important thing you learned?
I´m such a n00b in this game that I pretty much soak up everything here. It´s awesome. 

[George]

Q1.  Did we win because of luck or because we outplayed Bruiser, or a little bit of both?  Based on how the lists faired against each other, if we played 5 battles, what would the win/loss spread look like?

I think we outplayed Bruiser at he start, but due to our indecision in the middle turns we didn't attack or avoid in the way we should have and by doing a little of both with our positioning we ended up giving Bruiser the intiative.
I would back Bruiser to learn from this matchup and take at least 3 games off us.

Q2.  If you had to state one key reason on why we won, what would it be?  Can it be replicated (could we do it again)?
We won because we got lucky...having the last greatsword still standing I think sugar caots the result a bit. In the end I feel that the atacking plan would've given us the 100-200 point win, which would be similar to the avoid the gut star plan....I think we ended up lucky that our bit of both plan ended up working.
I wouldn't feel comfortable trying to replicate this game plan again....I think based on the deployment phase and opening turn (read how good the cannons perform) would depend if we gunned for the gut star or tried to get the other units


Q3.  What was our biggest mistake during the battle?  What was Bruiser’s?  What can we learn from them?
I think our biggest mistake was not seeing the leadbelchers charge at the archers, who charges with a shooting unit. If we'd seen the possibility our GS reform could have been better and achieved everything we wanted to do that turn.
I think Bruiser could have done more with the gnoblars to protect the ironblaster and should have charged the 2nd one into the combat with GS and Mournfang....it can do a lot of damage on the charge and as it was in the flank wouldn't have had enough attacks directed at it to kill it. This would have isolated the halberds and made them deal with the gut star on its own.

Q4.  What part of your game improved the most by participating/reading the TDG or what was the most important thing you learned?
I really just enjoyed being part of this....seeing how others approach situations can only broaden your options when playing your own games.

Congrats on running such and enjoyable and well controlled TDG HHG!!
Looking forward to the next.

[Holy Hand Grenade]

Great comments so far!   

With all the comments on different moves/turns/decisions in the battle I thought I would include some mini-graphs for reference so you don't have to go back through 6 different threads (sorry I didn't do this in the first place for you first few posters...I owe you some ale!)

Bruiser's moves are numbered in Red on the left and our turns are numbered in Blue on the right.