31) Wildrat 24: Going Back for Seconds

The tournament was smaller this year. Instead of a two-day 5 game tournament, it was a one-day 3 game tournament. It was also half the size of last year, down from 40 slots to 24, but the new venue was free to use, so it saved the organizers from having to rent the hall. They passed that savings on to the attendees by dropping the $40 entrance fee, and making the tournament FREE to enter.

The tournament organizers from previous years, Jim and Robin, recently moved to Florida, so two local community members, James and Don, took the reins and ran the show this year.

We had terrible storms the weekend of the tournament. The drive down was rough. It should have been a six or seven hour drive, but it took me almost ten hours. When I finally got to Kentucky, much of the area was without electricity. Thankfully my motel still had power. I got a good night's rest, and met up with a couple of the other players for breakfast at IHOP before the tournament.

Game 1: Rats vs Riftforged Orcs

My opponent's army was just a massive amount of heavy infantry Orcs. There wasn't anything subtle about this army. Orcs are tough to kill, and they hit very hard. They're relatively slow moving and not very manuverable. They just kind of trudge forward in massed ranks and kill whatever they hit. The only speed in this army was one regiment of boar riders, two troops of wolf cavalry, and an Orc cavalry hero named Thonar.

All of these Orcs are heavily armored, and are very tough compared to my little Rats. I was going to have to focus on the mission, and just try to not get killed. My rats have very little attacking power, but we are good at defense and healing, especially if we can get into rough terrain.

My rats lucked out, because the scenario for this game was "Dominate", where the winner is whoever has the most Unit Strength in a 12 inch scoring circle at the end of the game. The scoring circle for this tournament variation was 10 inches to the left of the center of the map. Because my little rats are so much quicker than the Orcs, I was going to have an advantage in that we could rush the scoring zone and then just defend as hard as we could with our spear phalanxes for the rest of the game. There was a large forest in the scoring zone, which was an ideal defensive position for us.

War horns and drums sounded. The massive Orc army marched forward, and the very earth shook beneath their iron boots. It was an intimidating sight to say the least, but the plucky little rats kept their composure and hurried into the forest, where the Orcs would be at a disadvantage. My two big spear phalanx hordes and the Tangle took the woods within the scoring circle, while a more manuverable spear regiment took the hill to the left of the woods to protect the left flank, and the Hackpaw cavalry stayed behind the forest in reserve. To the right of the hordes, the Mutant Rat Friends and two more spear regiments faced the center of the Orc army, which consisted mostly of regiments arrayed in a checkerboard pattern. A larger wider horde of Orcs was marching in to reinforce them from further right. Scud the Rat Demon flew up the edge of the table and turned to face toward the horde from outside of their charge arc. The horde hesitated. At the moment they were safe because Scud was in their flank arc, and that flank was protected by a piece of impassable terrain. If they moved at all though, they would present him with a charge. They were effectively stuck! They couldn't go forward or back without exposing their flank to Scud. They couldn't turn in to face the objective without offering a rear charge to Scud. A flank or rear charge would mean the demon would get double or triple attacks against them, which would almost certainly destroy them without even a chance to fight back! The Orc advance stalled on that side of the field. My opponent sent some goblins forward to harass my line troops and get in their way, but since we were in a defensive mode, the chaffing tactic didn't really do much. My rats were already holding the objective, and we were happy to let the Orcs come to us. I did eventually send one Rat regiment out into the Orc regiments, hoping that the Orcs would try to flank them, and thus expose their own vulnerable flanks and rears to Scud and the Rat Friends. The Orcs took the bait, but my opponent expertly moved goblins and wolves up behind the big horde as it charged, to clutter up the space behind them so that Scud couldn't land anywhere in contact with their rear arc, and therefore couldn't get a legal charge! The spear regiment that I sacrificed died as expected, but the Orc regiments were now in a massive traffic jam, and the Mutant Rat Friends were able to take advantage of the situation to charge in and beat them up. We didn't have to actually kill them. We just had to stall them until the last turn. Another spear rat regiment joined the fray, attacking the pesky screening goblins who were protecting the big Orc horde from Scud. Over on the left by the actual objective, the Orc Boar Cavalry charged into the front of one of my spear phalanxes, but the Rats easily held. Spear Phalanxes are strong versus cavalry, and the Tangle had successfully cast a "Weakness" spell on the Orc Cavalry unit that turn. On the left, the Rats on the hill tried to stop Thonar the Orc hero, but he slipped right past them and got behind my lines! Fortunately for me, it was late in the game, and he only managed to kill a single Rat Wizard before the final turn (R.I.P. Hairless Potter). The Orc infantry in the center was all jammed up by the Mutant Rat Friends, and only a single Orc regiment was able to get past them into the scoring circle. On the final turn of the game, my Rats on the hill ran down into the scoring zone, and the Hackpaw cavalry moved at the double to join them. I had two hordes, one regiment, the tangle, and a cavalry troop (with the +1 US magic item) in the scoring zone. My opponent had one regiment of infantry, one regiment of cavalry, a troop of goblin chaff, and his Rift Shrine.

Unit Strength in Dominate Circle

RATS: 15

ORCS: 9

I actually only killed one enemy unit the whole game. Scud never did anything except to be threatening and mess with my opponent's movement, but slowing their advance was more than enough! Victory for the Rats!

Game 2: Rats vs Imperial Dwarves

The second battle was against a Dwarf Gunline Army. This was a small but elite army, consisting of only a few regiments of fighting infantry, two steampunk tanks called "Iron Behemoths", and three units of Dwarves with rifles, of which two were small sharpshooter units, and one was a big horde. He had two heavily armored hero characters who could shoot, plus a Dwarven Engineer who could not only shoot, but could give other Dwarves a bonus to their shooting attacks!

The table that we were playing on was not very balanced as far as terrain was distributed. There were two castle towers, a couple forests, a pond, and one hill. All of the terrain except for the hill was on one side of the table. This was not good. An open field is the last thing I wanted to see while facing a gunline army! To make matters worse, my opponent won the roll-off to pick sides. He picked the side with the terrain, which meant my rats were going to have to cross open ground to get to him!

I deployed my entire army on the left side of the table. For this scenario, we had to hold two out of three sections of the battlefield in a twelve inch band across the center of the table. I decided to push hard on the left flank, and whatever survived the Dwarven shooting would then try to move into the center at the end of the game to hopefully claim it. My opponent put most of his Unit Strength in the middle of his deployment zone, with his big rifle horde in the forest and a basic behemoth next to them. The far right section, which I had completely ignored, had just one regiment of fighting Dwarf infantry, and that was fine, as I was happy to let him have it. His sharpshooters were back behind one of the castle towers, but angled so they could see most of the battlefield. On the left, he had the upgraded Iron Behemoth tank, a couple regiments of fighting infantry, and a hero to face the bulk of my Rats.

Bullets and cannon shot whizzed through the air like horizontal thunder and lightning. Black clouds rolled up from the enemy ranks, and the ratkin were pelted with deadly hail. The little rats were terrified, but there was nowhere to hide, and nowhere to run except straight toward the Dwarven line that was the eye of the storm.

My troops scurried forward as fast as they could, and my opponent shot one of my hordes to absolute shreds. He also put a bunch of shots into one of the spear regiments. My healer wizards did their best to mitigate this damage, but there was only so much they could do. The horde that got shot up was in such terrible shape that I knew I wouldn't be able to heal it back enough to save it. I charged it into one of the Behemoth tanks just to keep the damned thing from shooting for at least one turn, but I knew that horde was doomed. The tank was sure to crush them on its counter-charge. That hard decision meant that I could focus all of my healing into the battered regiment instead.

The one advantage I have over Dwarves is that they are VERY slow moving. My charge ranges are much further than theirs are. I pushed my Mutant Rat Friends and Scud into range to charge on the next turn, hoping to get both Mutant Rat Friends into the other Iron Behemoth for a double charge, while landing Scud next to it, out of arc of sight of both the tank and the Dwarf infantry. Unfortunately, my opponent saw what I was doing and backed up his forces just out of range of the Rat Friends. I was left with only a really bad option. I could try to charge the tank with just Scud by himself, just to stop it from shooting and hopefully damage it, but it was unlikely I would kill it, and Scud would probably get flanked and killed by the infantry the next turn. It was almost certainly a sacrificial move, but it would set up my Rat Friends and an infantry horde to clear out that section of the table in the next couple turns. I went for it. Scud did a lot of damage to the tank, but failed to kill it. He was in serious trouble. My infantry continued their advance and they all popped their plague pots to get "stealthy" special rule for one turn. I was hoping this would help protect them from another round of shooting. Unfortunately, my opponent didn't even bother shooting at the infantry units, and instead focused all his shooting on my poor Tangle, blasting it to bits and causing me to drop my cheese token for the special objective! On the left flank, the Dwarves killed Scud, but their victory was short lived. The Rat Friends charged in and smashed the tank to pieces, while Rat infantry swarmed over the Dwarven infantry and the Dwarven hero. It was the Dwarf turn, again, and the rifles sniped my poor line officer, Peaches. She had already served her purpose though, by leading the infantry on the left through the pond unhindered.

The game was almost over, and I noticed that my opponent had still not moved his big horde of rifles out of the woods. If the rifles were going to contribute their US to the center objective section of the field, they needed to start moving now, or they weren't going to make it in time. I wasn't sure if I should say anything because some players get mad if their opponent gives them advice during a game. I decided to simply remark, "Hey man, don't forget that your units cannot move at the double if they are in terrain. It slows them down to their base movement." I watched the wheels turn in his head as he surveyed his lines. He grabbed a tape measure and checked the distance from the forest to the center scoring zone. He could only exactly make it into the zone if his short legged dwarves stopped what they were doing and started marching RIGHT NOW. The Dwarves stopped worrying about shooting Rats, and started legging it toward the mission objective. The surviving Behemoth and a hero just barely made it into the center section, but his sharpshooters were too far away, and could not score. Even marching as fast as they could, on the Dwarf last turn it looked as though his big rifle horde might not be 50% or more in the scoring zone, because of where they ended their move. I pointed out to my opponent that the Dwarves have a rule called "Ordered March", where they get one free pivot during a march move. Because the unit is a long rectangle shape, he could use that pivot to make sure his big horde was for sure scoring. He was able to angle them such that they were clearly at least 50% in the zone. On my last turn of the game, my poor bloodied Rats pushed hard into the center section, with the exception of a single spear regiment which stayed behind to keep holding the left. There was a problem, though. One of my units had to stop their move short because of my opponent's hero. Unless you are in combat, you have to stay at least one inch away from an enemy unit at all times. I couldn't charge him in combat because he wasn't in my arc at the beginning of the turn. This one inch buffer meant that my unit was teetering PERFECTLY along it's centerline on the central objective. Was it 50% or better in the scoring zone? Was it 49% in the scoring zone? It was so hard to tell, and it meant the difference between a win and a draw! Other players got out tape measures and laser pointers and a judge was called over to the table. The judge called another judge to come over. It was so perfectly along the middle of the line. Finally, my opponent said, "Hey, we wouldn't even be having this discussion if you hadn't pointed out that I could pivot my rifle horde into the scoring zone. Because of that, I say your regiment is in, you win, and good game!" The judges agreed with him.

The last minute Rat Scamper and that final ruling meant that I ended the game with three more US than my opponent had in the center. Because I had control of two out of three zones, it was another victory for the Rats! This was a strange game for my opponent, because he killed so many of my troops, but still lost.

One of the unique things about the scoring system for Wildcat is that it doesn't figure in attrition. Battle score is solely based on the scenario objectives, and the special secondary objectives for each army's Paymaster and Paychest models each battle. It doesn't matter how many kills you get. You have to stay focused on the mission or you aren't going to climb the ranking. I like this, because it gives armies that aren't necessarily very punchy a chance to shine. I've mentioned it before, that my list would likely struggle at a tournament because even though it is durable and mobile, it is not good at killing anything. Well, if there was ever a tournament where this army could thrive, this was it. Unfortunately, my Rats had flown too close to the sun. We were now facing the top player on the top table.

Game 3: Rats vs Empire of Dust

Empire of Dust is a high skill list. What I mean by that is that this army, which is an Egyptian themed Undead army, is very difficult to pilot. You have to be good in order to play it. It is an army that takes knowledge, experience, and finesse to use, because it doesn't win by killing things, and it doesn't even necessarily win by doing scenarios. Rather it wins by shutting down its opponent so that they can't do the scenario. It can also be very hard to kill. Even harder to kill than Rats. A really good Empire of Dust player will take control of the game immediately, and keep their opponent off balance the whole time. That said, it is a very hard army to use correctly. A novice will struggle bad with this army, because it is very complicated. The fact that Paul made it to the top table with an EoD army meant that he was a highly skilled player. I knew going in that this was going to be a rough battle for my rats.

That knowledge made me cautious. In hindsight, I shouldn't have been so cagey. The scenario was called "stockpile", and it consisted of grabbing loot tokens from little stockpiles arranged along the centerline of the table.

Our armies deployed across from each other. I had my two big rat hordes aimed at two of the stockpiles, and my three titans aimed at the third. He had skeleton hordes across from my infantry, and a bone giant and some Enchanted Guardians opposite the titans. My rat regiments filled in my gaps, and the Hackpaw cavalry was in reserve. He had spellcasting pharohs and chariots in reserve.

My frontline officer, Captain Peaches, was pointing out to the line troops where the loot was stockpiled in the forest ahead.

"All we have to do," she said, "is get in to those woods and grab those tokens. We're quicker than them, so it should be easy."

Before she could give any orders though, the earth began to tremble and split. The rats watched in dismay as massed ranks of skeletons erupted forth from the ground right next to the objective. That probably wasn't good. Then suddenly, there were beetles everywhere. That definately wasn't good.

"Cheesus Crust!" squeaked Peaches, "Did the battle start already? Nobody said the battle was starting!"

The Empire of Dust can scout skeleton units up to ten inches forward of their deployment zone before the game even starts. Paul did that with three hordes. He also won the roll for the first turn, and sent swarms of desert beetles forward to block my advance. It was the first turn of the game, and he already had tokens. I hadn't even left the starting line. This was not good. His skeletons can't really kill my rats, but we also can't really kill his skeletons to steal their tokens, either. Both armies are just too good at the grind. I finally cleared the chaff beetles from my path, and moved up. I should have charged the second it was possible. I didn't. I wanted to get my cavalry in position to protect my flank from his other unit of skeletons. This hesitation was my fatal error. I wasn't going to have enough turns in the game to get those tokens, and my opponent picked up another. I realized it too late to get a win, but there was still a chance I could get a draw. Paul's Paymaster special character had picked up one of the tokens to get him a bonus tournament point. That created an opportunity for me to steal a token from a character instead of from a big unit! My own Paymaster and a unit of spears charged in, killed the character, and stole the token. On the left, I sacrificed two regiments of spears to hold off the bone giant and the guardians so my three big titans could hit a horde of skeletons. Both Mutant Rat Friends and Scud crashed into the unit's front. The combat went well for me, and I only needed to roll a combined four or better on two dice to break the unit. This was my final "Hail Mary" attempt to turn a loss into a draw by stealing that token.

I rolled a three. Disaster! When the dust settled, I had lost the scenario by just one point.

This meant that instead of getting fifteen battle points for a win or ten for a draw, I got five for a loss, plus the bonus points I had earned for using my Paymaster to capture an objective, contribute to a combat, and kill the enemy paymaster. Interestingly my paymaster, Titmouse, had managed to check off every possible bonus point this round, which gave me five bonus points. My loss was effectively worth the same amount of points as a draw. This put me in third place, only one point behind the player who placed second in battle score (Austin Lesh, whom I never actually played this tournament).

So here's where things get a little cheesy. See, I brought a cooler full of fancy Wisconsin cheeses down to Kentucky with me, and each of my opponents got to pick a cheese after their game against my rats, with the remainder of the cheeses going towards tournament prize support. Not only did I get a perfect sportsmanship score, but all three of my opponents picked me as their favorite opponent of the day, which gave me an extra three bonus points towards my overall score. Not only did this mean that for the second year in a row I won the Best Sportsmanship award, it also bumped me to Second place overall, even though I was Third place in Battle Score! So I was Third place General, but Second place overall player.

Rat party at the Super 8 Motel! Woooooo! 

Did I bribe my opponents with cheese? Maybe. Maybe I did, but even if that's the case you've got to admit it is certainly on brand for the guy in the Rat costume.

Wildrat 2024 was a great tournament and I am so glad I made the journey to Kentucky again!

A few days after the tournament I found out that Paul Cravo is a Masters level player.