36) Hoosier Storm: A Midwest Tournament Report

I made a slight modification to my Rat costume for this event. The head was just too hot and I really cooked at the last couple of tournaments. I trimmed the sides and the bottom off of it, so that it is less of a hood and more of a hat. It worked really well. It was much more comfortable this way.

Game One was against Grace Patterson's mushroom and nature themed Order of the Green Lady army. I had a plan going into this battle, but I wasn't able to execute it. I made a couple of big mistakes which bogged me down and caused me to run out of time on my chess clock.

Grace's army has some really solid high defense Earth Elementals. My rats can't really hurt them. I never should have gotten involved in combats with those units. I should have just kept disengaging and backing off. This would have forced Grace to make the difficult decision to have them pursue my units or to stay on the objectives they were guarding. I also made poor target selections with my ranged units early game. Grace had two hordes of mushroom people (Naiads) that are strong in melee but very vulnerable to shooting. I should have been shooting them from turn one just to remove unit strength. If I had removed those two big units I might have been able to get control of the center. Instead I wasted my early game shooting on the high defense elementals that I couldn't hurt.

Grace played very well and I did not. Even though I lost, it was a fun game and I learned a lot about my new list. This army has to pick its battles and lean into its strengths. Sometimes that means not wasting time hitting back in a fight.

Game Two was against Marshall Temple's Undead. The scenario placed three loot tokens on the centerline of the table. Rats are rather quick compared to zombies, and I was able to pounce on the tokens before my opponent's forces could. My big durable infantry hordes carried the tokens back into my deployment zone while my rat swarms and my Shock Troops ran interference and blocked the big zombie legions from pursuing. I didn't bother to fight the zombies. My units just marched in front of them and created a traffic jam that they couldn't manuever around. If a rat unit got eaten by the undead I just shoved more rats in front of them. The only ones that mattered were the ones carrying the tokens. My shooting units prioritized their targets much better this game and performed much better. In the late game Marshall was able to get a flying unit past my chaff. They killed one of my hordes and picked up the token. It was too late, though. I had two out of the three loot tokens, which meant victory for the Rats! Marshall killed most of my army, and I killed almost none of his, but I still won because I stuck to the scenario and didn't waste time fighting combats that didn't matter.

Game Three was against Kara Brown. Kara is well known for playing Rift Forged Orcs, but she was running her new Pirate Ogre army for this tournament. The scenario was "Dominate". In this scenario the object is to have the most unit strength in a twelve inch circle in the center of the table. Ogre armies are generally smaller, more elite armies when compared to just about anyone else. They are still good at the Dominate scenario though, because all of their officers and heroes are scoring units and a lot of them can squeeze into a twelve inch circle. I deployed the bulk of my unit strength near the middle of my side of the table. I also deployed a small contingent on my left flank. This little detachment was comprised of a regiment of spears, both Clawshot troops, and Titmouse. Ogres are pretty tough, but the Clawshot snipers are enough of a threat that Kara felt it necessary to send a small battlegroup off to deal with my flank detatchment. Splitting her army up proved to be her downfall. By the time her little battlegroup finished killing my flank detachment it was too late for them to get into the scoring zone. I had a lot of unit strength in the center of the table. I did well with my target selection this game. I slowed down her dangerous berserker units with rat swarms and concentrated a lot of shooting into them to take them off. This really blunted her attack in the center. This is the first time my Rats ever beat an Ogre army, and it was against a really good player with a solid list. Kara's decision to split her force ultimately cost her the game, but she didn't feel she could ignore those Clawshots. They excel at killing Ogre characters and Giants. My deployment forced her to make a difficult decision.

That was it for day one! We all met up for dinner at a local pub afterwards.

Game Four was against Nathaniel Johnson's Dwarf Gunline army. This army is nothing but rifle hordes, organ guns, and three tanks. The scenario was "Stockpile". This was a rough match up for me because unlike the loot scenario I played against the Undead, this scenario requires you to spend multiple turns to pick up the loot tokens. That means that you have to stand there and you can't move for a couple turns... And my opponent was a gunline army. I came up with a solid plan for this game, and I did my best to execute it. The rat swarms and the small infantry troops sprinted up as fast as they could to screen the rest of my advance and provide cover for my big hordes. All of my swarms and two out of the three Shock Troop units were blown to pieces. Their sacrifices were not in vain, because the rest of my Army was hot on their heels. Nathaniel had deployed all three of his Organ Guns together in a little battery. I parked a horde of infantry in front of them and popped my plague pots for smoke screen. They couldn't see past the horde to target anything, and the plague pot smoke screen meant that they had a severe penalty to shoot at the horde itself. The surviving Shock Troops charged into the rifle Dwarves, disordering them and preventing them from shooting. Meanwhile, in the woods behind my screening horde, Broodmother Tiamat and a Spear Regiment picked up two tokens. In the center, my Weapon Teams did their best to chaff and gum up the dwarf advance, but my opponent was very clever. Nathaniel figured out a way to squeeze one of his tanks past my roadblock by reforming one of his other units to make space. This was an outstanding move, and it ruined my chances of escaping with the center token that my central spears had just picked up. On the right flank my Storm Elemental had charged into the other Dwarf Rifle unit just to disorder it and keep it from shooting. This kept the rifles busy for pretty much the entire game. Unfortunately for me, both of the other Dwarf Steam Tanks were on this side of the board and my poor Rat infantry units on the right were run down trying to escape with the tokens. Nathaniel almost clocked out on turn six. He literally rolled the dice for the nerve check he needed to win the game as his clock went off. It was like someone shooting a three-pointer on the buzzer at an NBA game! This was a very close and very exciting game. In hindsight, the reason he won was because of my chaffing mistake in the center. I thought I had blocked his tank from getting in, but there was exactly a 50mm gap in my line, and the charge pivot combined with the reform that he did on his wavered unit (which passed a headstrong check that turn) meant he was able to exactly squeeze that tank through there and into the flank of a token carrying unit which I thought was safe. I should have measured instead of eyeballing it! I have nobody to blame but myself.

My final game of the tournament was against Scott Sallee's Halflings. The scenario was "Hold the Line". My friend Rob is a Halfling player so I have a lot of practice against these guys. I know the army well, but this list had something I had never encountered before. Hot Air Balloons. Rob doesn't run them. I'd never seen them before.

They're terrifying.

The balloons are called "Aeronauts". Their bombing run special rules perfectly negate all of the defensive special rules that the Rats have. My opponent had three regiments of them. They messed up my right flank so bad. Just absolute carnage. Rats squeaking in panic and running everywhere. Explosions. A smoking crater where a regiment used to be. A spear horde critically injured to the point where it is blinking red and alarms are going off. Complete chaos.

The rest of the battle was actually going quite well for me. I had a strong center, with enough unit strength to score and win the middle section even if I didn't kill the Halfling infantry. My left flank had shut down the Halfling Dog Cavalry with my Spear Phalanx, Rat Swarms, and Shock Troops. 

Eventually I got the right flank under control. As scary as the balloons are they don't like getting shot at, and the combined shooting from my weapon teams and Captain Peaches (with her pistol!) were able to pop them once they were behind my lines. It was a good thing that I had kept a Shock Troop troop in reserve, because this had limited where the balloons could land, and prevented them from getting any rear charges before I could pop them. My Brood Mothers did a double "Eat the Weak" drain life on the critically injured spear unit and healed my moderately injured infantry horde in the center back up to full health. This was probably quite demoralizing for the Halfling infantry who had been bravely fighting them for two turns! In the end I controlled two out of three sections of the map, so it was a victory for the Rats.

This was a great tournament. As always the Kings of War community was wonderful. Each of my opponents got to pick out a cheese from my cooler. I placed somewhere in the middle with three wins and two losses. I was tied for "Best Sportsman". Rob went four and one and got "Best General". His only loss was against former US Master Eric Trowbridge.

I enjoyed playing this combined arms list. The only problem I have with it is that the Clawshots are still difficult for me to use. I'm just not good at deploying them or keeping their lanes of fire clear. I keep accidently screening them with my own troops. I'm going to experiment with swapping them out for the Death Engine tank. It averages the same number of shots per turn, but it can shoot over my other troops without cover penalties, so in theory it will be easier to use. It has a much shorter range than the Clawshots, but unlike the Clawshots the Death Engine can move and shoot in the same turn. I'm going to try it and see how it works. It gave me an excuse to paint up this big ol gun wielding Rat Ogre that Mike gave me.