After a lovely evening of raiding Cape Cod and playing arcade games at Skull Face’s pad, we were back at the Cape Cod Curling Club for another day at Orc Town. I’m unexpectedly on Table 3 or 4 facing off against Corey Reynolds, a Masters-tier player who also runs the Crossroads GT (which kicks off in just a few days of writing this!) The last time I played Corey was in Philly on the top table in the last round of a WHFB GT, where I conceded because I had no chance of doing anything to his Wood Elves once they broke through my Skaven lines and I wanted to drive home. Coincidentally that was the last time I’ve conceded :X
GAME FOUR: TWILIGHT KIN
Twilight Kin 2600
Blade Dancer Neophytes Horde
Twilight Gladestalkers Regiment
Twilight Gladestalkers Regiment
Impalers Regiment – Brew of Strength
Impalers Regiment
Cronebound Fiends Horde – Brew of Sharpness
Cronebound Fiends Regiment
Cronebound Shadowhounds Troop
Cronebound Gargoyles Troop
Cronebound Gargoyles Troop
Cronebound Mind-Screech – Lightning Bolt (6), Mind Fog (6), Wind Blast (6)
Cronebound Mind-Screech – Lightning Bolt (6), Mind Fog (6), Wind Blast (6)
Cronebound Archfiend – Fireball (10)
Mikayel, Lord of Nightmares [1]
Soulbane on Dread-Fiend
Naturally Corey is playing his Twilight Kin 😐 It’s certainly not the worst TK list, with blessedly zero levels of Host Shadowbeast, plus it looks amazing hobby-wise. But it’s still TK – even his ‘Cool New Model Added to Hit 2600 Points’, the Archfiend, is an absolute unit against me thanks to Stealthy. Corey is adamant I have more of a chance than I think but there’s only one way to find out …
We’re playing Kill, which is a bummer in general and especially against his list. Stealthy will make it hard to kill with my shooting, and that’s how my list usually kills 
Corey is going first. Here’s the rundown (head back to 34/35):
The Kin pushed hard into the center and then the left side, which involved a lot of playing peek-a-boo around that leftmost forest as grinding happened towards the center. A grind which I didn’t win but I did kill his Archfiend with my Coral Giant, and we all know I love a clash of the titans.
I felt a lot more confident on the right flank, however his shooting was far more effective than mine, and my double Kraken rush got bogged down with Gargoyles and dismantled by an unexpected Impaler counter. I also lost my Placos by woefully underestimating Twilight Gladestalkers in combat – poison melee, even hindered, does work! However you slice it, this was a big …
TRIDENT LOSS
In talking about it afterwards, Corey felt I should have just put all my guns on the right side and really forced down his Gladestalkers, and then put all the titans together on the left and gone full square base monster mash. I’m genuinely curious if that would have worked, as I so often try to spread things out when the game rewards focused aggression whenever possible. Ah well.
With that drubbing I plummet down the tables to face the Glacier King and friends in …
GAME FIVE: NORTHERN ALLIANCE
Northern Alliance 2600
Frostfang Cavalry Horde
Ice Elementals Horde
Ice Elementals Horde
Huscarls Regiment
Tundra Wolves Regiment
Ice Kin Hunters Troop
Half-Elf Berserkers Troop
Cavern Dweller
Ice Kin Bolt Thrower
Lord on Chimera
Hrimm, Legendary Ice Giant [1]
Ice-Queen – Surge (8), ???
Skald
There are 160 points of missing upgrades which I assure you exist and are smart, I just don’t have a list or much memory of the match left 😛 It’s a very unassuming list piloted by the youngest member of the New England War Kings, however he was in the running for highest attrition so was clearly putting work in the violence department!
The final game was Loot with 3 tokens, with the Alliance going first. Here’s the play by play (start on 41/42 and prepare for glamour shots of Hrimm doing stuff since I love that model):
I felt pretty strong going into this, as NoAl are relatively weak, the list seems a bit unfocused and I’m a more seasoned player. WELL that started to change Turn 2, when he alpha-ed the Water Elementals with his Frostfang and central Heartpiercers with his Chimera and routed both with solo charges. That’s not really supposed to happen, y’all, and it split my battleline, voided the traps I’d set and made me scramble to deal with these hammers instead of having time to whittle down the Frostbound stuff shuffling toward me. The flanking Kraken also ran into embarrassing predicaments, with the right one getting stuck fighting Wolves for half the game and the left one eventually being shot to death by a troop of Ice Kin Hunters and a single Ice Kin Bolt Thrower :O I had to golf clap those guys, but WOW.
Despite these setbacks, the Crabs did take their pound of cold flesh over the course of the game, but losing hammers so early made it hard going. A fun, bloody game to end the tournament. Oh right, and a …
TRIDENT LOSS
My opponent would go on to win a trophy for highest attrition! I’m sure the 2135 points I gave him here helped 🦀
After a meteoric first day, I’m sure I was ending up somewhere in the middle, maybe higher-mid if my soft scores were good. We assembled for the endless raffle as points were furiously tallied up, and I came away with the swag I really wanted, which is always nice.
Finally, Orc Town is known for its awesome trophies, so all that was left was to see who walked away with them:
I’ll cut to the chase: I won Best Sports! As voted by my five opponents, which makes the award even more humbling. Big thanks to all those lads and to the hardworking maniacs in NEWK, I was already looking forward to next year but this time I guess I have something to live up to ❤
Thanks for reading through these recaps, sorry they weren’t the full write-ups I usually do. I’ll make another pre-Crossroads post this week gesturing towards the practice games I’ve had between Orc Town and now, but otherwise get hype for me eventually writing up another set of tournament reports in the near future!
BLOODFIRE 