Who Would Win? Round 1

Today we will be kicking off the who would win contest! unfortunately, we only have 3 votes for the winning faction. even worse, 2 of these unit face each other in round 1! Which means the odds of someone winning are looking a little too slim... so before we dive into round 1, I wanted to let everyone know I will be allowing votes past the original deadline. hopefully as I start posting rounds people will see this contest and start voting. so the new rule is that you can continue to vote for any faction that has not played in a round yet. So after today we will still have 12 factions you can vote for! vote here
With that in mind, let's look at today's matchup. after completely random pairings (just a random number generator), we ended up with the highborn covenant's steelheads going against the Protectorate's temple flameguard (with UA). both units have a number of special abilities that could help them out in today's game. the steelheads have both powerful charge and set defense, meaning they will get a bonus no matter who ends up winning the charge. on the other side of the ring, the flameguard also have set defense (which would just cancel out with powerful charge) and shield-wall. the UA gives them continuous fire and terror.

so who will win the first round of the tournament? read on to find out!



Starting roll
both units have the same speed and reach, so the roll is straight dice. after 2 ties, the flameguard finally win the roll and charge!

of the 12 flameguard, 11 of them can fight (someone needs to give these banner bearers a knife...). the steelheads are ready for the charge, though, and the flameguard will need 9s to hit thanks to set defense. the flameguard manage 4 hits, each one easily killing their target with the boosted charge rolls. the steelheads pass their cmd check due to terror.

the steelheads that remain fight back. due to their low mat 5, they need 8s to hit. they roll a little above average and kill 4 flameguard. it helped that the flameguard charged on their turn, so weren't in shield wall formation.

the remaining 8 flameguard quickly fix this problem and get the shield wall order, hoping it will help them tip the odds in their favor. the 7 remaining flameguard with weapons kill 4 more halberds with pretty average rolling.

the steelheads are running low on guys with only 4 swings this turn. only one of them even hits, and he fails to break through the shieldwall. things are looking pretty bad for the halberdiers.

the remaining flameguard pair up on the steelheads, but since they only need 7s and 4s to kill them, they choose not to CMA relying on more attacks. after all the swings, 2 halberds die and the remaining 2 are on fire. with ARM 13, and fire that doesn't go out will kill.

one halberd gets lucky and doesn't die to the fire. the other one isn't so lucky... the last heroic halberd kills one more flameguard, and prepares himself.

the 6 flameguard circle around the poor remaining mercenary and finish him off with one big CMA for kicks.

Victory to the flameguard!


Final Thoughts:

with a straight-up infantry battle, shield wall is huge. most of the competing stat lines are pretty similar, and that +4 arm is really going to make a difference. we'll see how it holds up once the flameguard have to face weapon master units later on... next time they will be facing either dawnguard sentinels or bane thralls, both using weapon master. continuous fire is a neat ability, but probably wont' play a huge roll in the next couple of rounds.

in the end, the flameguard just had more tricks to play. even if they had lost the starting roll, shield wall and set defense are tough to crack. I almost wonder if the flameguard wouldn't rather start on the defensive to break a charge...

how far will the flameguard go? we already have one vote for them, so I know at least one person is pulling for Menoth to win it all.

Don't forget to vote! you can't vote for Menoth, but all of the other factions are still up for grabs! the winner will be getting a painted small-based model, so there is good reason to drop a vote on the original thread.

later this week we'll see round 2 which will feature farrow brigands taking on the wolves of orboros!