Who would win, quarterfinal round 4

This is the last of the Quarterfinal rounds. The winner will face the gatorman posse for the Hordes championship, and then we'll see the flameguard taking on the searforge commision forgeguard in a battle of the shield walls. the winners of each of those matches will face off for the final round, to determine (once and for all... haha) what infantry unit is the best in the game! ok, not really, but it sounds better that way.

Let's not get too far ahead of ourselves though. we still have the Skorne Praetorians against the wolves of orboros. these two units faced off in the demo round while I was figuring out the rules and showing an example of how this all would work out. The swordsmen won that match-up, we'll see if they can repeat that round here.



First Turn Roll

the wolves of orboros have the advantage in this roll-off. pathfinder and reach combine to give a +2 to the starting roll. and they get it easily, rolling a 6. The Wolves get the charge order. they have powerful charge, giving +2 to melee attack rolls on the charge. they will not use their mini-feat this turn, as 4 damage dice is a bit of overkill against infantry.

Turn 1

the wolves roll well, needing 5s to hit and 6s to kill. only 3 wolves miss their attacks, and every attack that lands kills a Praetorian. unfortunately for the Wolves, one of the missed attacks is against the Officer, so the swordsmen get to keep their side-step. still, with only 3 models remaining, it's not looking good for the swordsmen. they do pass their cmd check without trouble, thanks to the cmd 10 from the officer.

the remaining 3 swordsmen swing back, choosing to go ahead and use their mini feat this turn. against low ARM models like the wolves of orboros, the auto-kill is not really needed, but it will make sure that bad rolls don't take away the few kills that the swordsmen can get this turn. even needing 7s to hit, the swordsmen grunts do very well, killing 3 wolves. the UA takes out another grunt, and side steps up to the UA, making a normal attack. the attack hits, and the officer goes for it, rolling a normal damage roll at dice -3. and rolls an 11, killing the unit attachment in one hit.

Turn 2

the wolves still have the numbers atvantage, but having lost the UA they cannot use their power swell bonus. they also go back to their nomral to-hit rolls, needing 7s this turn. there are 6 Wolves left against 3 swordsmen. the first 2 grunts fail to kill their target swordsman. the first attack misses, and the second fails to damage. the second pair misses their first attack, and kills the swordsman grunt with their second attack. the last pair swinging on the UA only manages 3 damage between the two of them, even after they both hit. Power Swell would have been really good this turn, and probably would have killed all 3 enemies.

The last 2 swordsmen need to take advantage of a round of bad rolls by the Wolves of Orboros. the grunt takes his turn, and manages to hit and kill both of the grunts that missed him last turn. the UA only needs 6s to hit, and doesn't let the grunt outshine him. he takes down both of his targets as well, leaving only 2 grunts and the standard bearer. the swordsmen are almost dead, though, and one good round here could end it. but first the wolves have to take a cmd check... and roll and 11. that's ok, they still have a standard in the unit. they re-roll their check and get a 10... the one time the banner had a chance to do something useful, and he fails.

Turn 3

The Wolves cower and say "not in the face!"

the two swordsmen have another shot at taking the lead after a brutal charge turn almost wiped the unit out. the first swordsman misses one attack, but kills the grunt on his second swing. the UA again steps up and shows why he was promoted to Primus, killing both the last grunt and the standard bearer. The Primus went 6 for 6 this round, killing every model he swung at. someone may be getting promoted to Tyrant Commander in the near future...

Victory goes to the Skorne!

once again the Skorne swordsmen were able to pull out a close win against the Wolves of Orboros. a couple of huge turning points really killed the Wolves this time. the cmd check especially. failing that and not getting a chance to kill the last two swordsmen just handed the match over on a platter. For once, the unit that got the charge didn't win the match!

Next the swordsmen will have to face the Gatorman posse. that will be a much tougher matchup. the Praetorians are designed to murder large numbers of single-wound infantry. fighting a small unit of very tough models is going to be hard to do, especially with the Gators' first turn advantage. if they can advance past the Gators, though, they have a great chance of winning since the mini feat makes those shield walls all but useless. it should be an interesting finish!