Tournament Report: Warhammer World Warcry Matched Play October 2022
Welcome back to the second in Warhammer World's Gnarlwood Champion series! Ahead of their bigger event next month, we decided to head back up to Warhammer World last week to take part in the second of their monthly evening events. I took a different warband this time around, mainly with the intention of testing a couple of theories about list building and how they actually impact in the games themselves.
I'm going to be taking a slightly different format for this article then my usual long-form fare. I have recorded a separate video-article which covers the event in-depth as well as what I brought, the games and some of my thoughts about the game itself which you can find below:
Over here we will go over the event pack and go more in-depth about the tournament format itself so without further ado lets dive in.
Event Essentials
Great and terrible are those that ascend to claim the mantle of the Gnarlwood Champion: mighty warlords, ruthless leaders and luminous heroes all. Although their ranks are small, their strength is undeniable. Will you defeat all comers and rise to become the new Gnarlwood Champion, the self-styled ruler of that bestial forest?
This is the first Warcry Rumble, a series of Warcry Matched Play events held at Warhammer World. These events are held once per month, and they use unique battleplans designed by the Age of Sigmar Skirmish Studio that can be completed in under an hour. Come and join in the Rumble!
MISSIONS AND SIDE QUESTS
Warband List
This time around I wanted to test some ideas that I had with list building to see how they would pan out in an actual setting instead of just through math-hammer. With that, I brought a very different warband to last month's outing with me swapping my Nighthaunt for Rotmire Creed.
I wanted to get 3 Bloated ones in there so I made sacrifices in list-building for them, specifically on the Blissbringer; I had originally wanted to get a Varanguard in there but the numbers just didn't add up in my favour. That being said, it's still got good speed and utility so it seemed like a good fit for the warband.
I was running two Bloated Ones with nets with the idea that a charge -> net -> attack sequence might be better overall then the flat +1 extra attack.
Hammer: Witherlord, Blissbringer, Bloated One w. Claws
Dagger: 2x Outcasts
Shield: Bloated One w. Net x2, Outcast
Games
Overall I won all three of my games netting me the Champion trophy, Agent of Chaos award and also winning best Warband in the painting contest (you can take a look at the video for an indepth coverage) but as a summary;
Game 1 (Loot and Pillage + Run Interference)
Vs Ogres (3x Leadbelchers, the Leadbelcher Champion and 5 gnoblars for a 9 man team)
I had the Blissbringer, Witherlord and a Bloated One on the field turn 1 whereas he had an Ogre and 2 Gnoblars; The Blissbringer rushed to the center early to loot a token with the Bloated One and I ran Witherlord to the right to be there when my dagger arrived. My opponent had 2 Ogres in his Shield so my Shield was well placed with the 2x Bloated Ones to beat his Dagger (One Ogre and two Gnoblars) whilst I won the Center Fight with the very high damage from the Witherlord. I lost the fight on the right hand side of the board and my opponent picked up the two treasure after I had taken it and tried to run but got shot down by the Leadbelchers.
We both picked up run interference twice during the game and it ended 14vps to 8 in my favor.
Game 2 (Supremacy + An Early Grave)
Vs Legions of Chaos (Centaurian Marshal, the leader, 2x axe, 3 shield guys)
I started with 2 guys on the field and he started with 3 in our daggers so on turn 1 so he scored all 6 VPs vs my 2. This flipped on turn 2 however and I managed to hold the lead through to the end of the game.
The Centaurian Marshal was in his hammer which was thankfully blocked off by gnarlwood bridges which kept it out of fights for a good chunk of the game (thankyou mounted runemark) so the fight on the bottom right objective was largely between Bloated Ones and Legionaries. Being both mounted and a huge model meant that the Centaurian had to effectively walk around everything to get into fights so it only killed an outcast and then a move/attack on turn 4 failed to kill my Witherlord meant that its impact was severely limited. Big models like that essentially need to be effective almost from the turn they hit the board to get their points back.
Chaos Legionnaires are very tough with the army wide defense of 4 and can put out a surprising amount of damage. On turn 2 I had my seeker run into an axe guy, fail to kill with his 5 attacks at boosted damage from it's triple and then take 20 wounds back in the counter-swing (and died the following turn). Nobody killed the leaders so no one scored an early grave.
Ended up winning 20VPs to 12 due to keeping objectives from turn 2 onwards.
Game 3 (Tides of Battle + Strong-Arm the Competition)
Vs Splintered Fang (Chaos Sorcerer Lord ally for the daemonic power double; +1 attack and Strength, Tureblood, Venomblood with Whip and another with Spear, a mix of Clearbloods and Purebloods. 10 fighters)
I decided to focus on the secondary over the primary victory conditions for the first couple of turns (because a primary and a secondary objective scores 3 VPs vs 4 for an objective and Strong Arm the Competition). The game essentially devolved into two big fights around our hammers and shields; The Blissbringer performed similarly to the last game (going in, not killing and then getting killed in return) so I am thinking about definitely switching it out due to the poor strength of 3.
My Bloated Ones with nets howevers did wonders with their double enabling them to kill on the charge with 4/4/2/5 and 3-6 damage (especially since they were attacking into defence 5 on the venombloods). I was surprised by the damage output of his fighters with most of them on 4 crit damage but overall I won the game because my opponent's Venomblood with Whip moved just out of 3” of the center of the battlefield to fight a Bloated One so he couldn’t score the extra 3VPs on the last turn. Witherlord almost became MVP with his lethal injection; He murdered a guy on turn 3, used his double to get his potion and then on turn 4 move/move into the opposing leader with 15 wounds left. One triple 1 to a triple 6 later for the lethal injection and I only needed to roll 3x 5+ to do the 15 wounds needed to kill. Unfortunately my dice left me at that point and he only did 5 damage.
Final Thoughts
I won the event on 3 wins and also picked up best warband for the painting and conversion competition.
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Overall I was happy with the performance of the Rotmire Creed; I would say that compared to other bespokes they (as in the core warband) Rotmire Creed are pretty good (though with the ally system pretty much any warband can perform decently well). Unfortunately the SBGL player decided to bring something else this time around so I didn't get to test against it but it is a matchup that I would have most probably struggled with. The Bloated Ones do a lot of work for the warband and statistically are very good at 140 points with the number of attacks they get and their damage. I used their nets far more then the blowpipes off the normal guys and with the s3, the basic Outcasts really don’t do all that much so maybe upgrading them to shields for the defence 4 might be better.
The Blissbringer massively under-performed however due to its strength 3 – in an average t4 environment I might start looking at less attacks with easier time to wound. This goes back to my thoughts on Executioners for Nighthaunt; 2 attacks at strength 6 but with good damage might be better then lots of s3 attacks.
There are more Warhammer World Warcry events coming up between now and the end of the year so I'll be looking to go to those also and I hope that other stores will follow suit and run similar things, especially considering that the Organised Play kit is now out in the wild.
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