The Battle of the Blood Orange

 

 

Prize Haul: Wooden Spoon and "Best Blood Orange" trophy. I'm sure you will agree that my interpretation perfectly matches the brief.

Just in time for Christmas, here's a heartwarming account of Wargaming Seasonal Cheer from, erm, October. I had the fortune to visit distant Nottingham to take part in Andy2D6's 2nd Battle of the Blood Orange 1-day tournament.

Game 1: Mirror-match against Kingdoms of Men.

My glorious army lined up for battle, with the Wizard on the right flank of the Norman knights.

Beyond sharing the same source list, my first opponent in years had brought a list not too different from my own, based around big blocks of infantry and cavalry and not too many monsters or fancy stuff.

Only shot I have that's in focus of my opponents army. This view somewhat undermines my point in the previous paragraph, what with the Flyers in the centre.

Despite the «Grande Batterie» of three cannon and the archers doing excellent service, I was out-deployed and out-maneouvered, exemplified in the enemy knight Horde getting off their first unhindered charge ever and wiping out my shieldwall in a single round of combat.

Another moment of tactical genius as I leave just enough of a gap between the spearmen and the knights to allow a flank charge from the pegasus riders.

At length, and I add, brushing the rust off against an exceedingly experienced opponent, ignominious defeat ensued.

Not even the Blood Orange Wizard can halt the rampage of the knight horde.

Game 2: Forces of Nature

Chastened by my experience, but also encouraged with a deeper understanding of my list, it was time for round two. As always in tournaments, defeat in round 1 usually means a weaker opponent in the next game, so I went into the next round full of confidence. Also full of cake. Andy's baking is nothing to be sniffed at: practically worth the ticket price by itself.

Even my dice are nicely lined up for battle.

Taking into account advice I had received after the previous game, I decided to play a more passive, reactive game, relying on my superior firepower (in the current meta, 3 cannons and a handful of archers is more than most are toting) to let the enemy come for me, then react with the big hitters.

While engaging the enemy giants with my own giant was part of the plan (Slayer +D6 yes please) allowing her to get flanked this badly was not.

This approach, while a little more successful than last time, was still not enough to overcome the Surge shenanigens (moving in the Shooting Phase as well!) and other general tactical mistakes. Another problem was that hanging back and playing the reactive game tends to hand control of the board (and objectives!) to the opponent.

I can't believe anyone has every been flanked as much as I have (to the left, out of  shot, are my Archers having a heated discussion with some eagles who flew right over and landed in their rear.

Game 3: Abyssals

Before starting the final game of the day I was already at a psychological disadvantage. Two games in without a good result to bouy up morale and the mental reserves were running dry.

What appears to be the only wide-angle shot of the battle, left and right flanks not visible.

As with all these game reports, the passage of time has made my mind hazy, and sadly I suspect it has blotted out mostly the highlights leaving only a few caption's worth of woe to commemorate the battle.

The hoplites, hopelessly distracted by the succubi, completely fail to hit anything and are destroyed in return.

So, overall not particularly successful event, although having the most orangey Blood Orange Wizard (as voted by the Internet) recouped the honour lost in winning another wooden spoon.

 

Particularly annoyed with this: I think I managed to forget these two were fighting for 3 turns in a row and missed out on the juicy victory points.

 Afterwards, enthused by the concept of another tournament but not keen on taking the same army again, I decided to get back to re-painting my old Chaos army and adding some ogres. Unfortunately, I then when back to my bad old ways and decided an even better idea would be to revisit a plan that's been rattling round my head for some time now, and requires buying an entirely new army at great expense. I'm sure you can guess which of these projects has captured my imagination.

In a brief flash of tactical genius I hide the cannon behind the impassible terrain so my opponent can't score victory points off it. I don't think the knights made it though.

Based on previous performance, I'm not sure I will be blogging very frequently in 2025, but with a fair amount of enthusiasm I will probably will send out a few progress reports into the great void of the internet. Regardless, hope you have a happy holidays and all the best into the new year.