'Ard Boyz Fantasy Semi-Finals Battle Report- Lots of Pictures!

 

Heh, the mascot to my army.  I don't have the base for him, and he's since I took this picture, he's shattered into a thousand pieces.  He's not actually even mine, don't worry- I didn't paint him or anything.

Hey there folks, how's it going today?  Good, I hope!  Today, I've got a tournament report, from my attendance at the Semi's for Fantasy 'Ard Boyz!  It was fun, and I wanted to see what good I could do- lots of ridiculous lists at the 3000 point level, and I wasn't disappointed!  There were, I think, either 9 or 11 players who showed up from all over the state, and I was pretty sure I would just fold, due to my lethargic, apathetic approach to Fantasy, since it isn't my 'main' game.  Guess you'll get an opportunity to see if it actually worked out that way :)

I hadn't played since the Prelims, more than a month ago.

Um, before we get too far, here's the link to the Prelims battle report.

And here's a recap of my previous Fantasy 'Ard Boyz appearances:


2009:
-Prelims: 1st
-Semi-Finals:  Fail

2010:
-Prelims: Fail

2011:
-Prelims: 2nd
-Semi-Finals: Guess we'll see, won't we :)

So, here's my list (it's the same as the Prelims):

  Supreme Sorceress
-Lifetaker (S4 bow 3x shot, always hits on 2+)
-Sacrificial Dagger (kills guys for extra power dice)
-Talisman of Protection (4+ ward save)
-Lore of Shadow

Dreadlord
-Crimson Death (always hits on S6)
-Armor of Darkness (1+ save)
-Pendent of Khaleth (Reverse Ward Save)
-Ironcurse Icon (unit has 6+ ward vs. Warmachines)
-General

Death Hag
-Cauldron of Blood
-BSB

30x Warriors
-Fullish command (no lordling)
-Shields
-Banner of Flaming Awesomeness (flaming attacks)

10x Crossbowmen
10x Crossbowmen
10x Crossbowmen
5x Dark Riders w/ crossbows w/ Musician
5x Dark Riders w/ crossbows w/ Musician
5x Dark Riders w/ crossbows (no Musician)

20x Black Guard
-Standard/Musician
-Banner of Murder (Armor Piercing)

Cold One Chariot
Cold One Chariot
Cold One Chariot
Cold One Chariot

War Hydra
War Hydra
War Hydra

My list is what it is.  Not much to see here, to be honest.  Not optimized to have 6 chariots + 4 hydras, since I didn't want to spend the money on new models I would never use except for in an 'Ard Boyz setting.  Please don't judge too hard :)

I was hoping for the Bye for round 1, because that mission is the ridiculous Kill Points one, where my Hydras are worth 8 'Kill Points' each- not a good mission for me at all, especially since everyone there just has huge blocks of infantry, and their armies were worth like 30 total KP.  Mine is worth... let's do the math... 67 Kill Points.  Let's face it, I was in trouble if I didn't get the Bye.

He drew a name out and.... he said.... someone who had driven hours to get there, not someone who could just go home and sleep another 3 hours (like me).

I was in trouble :-p

Game 1:  Dark Elves vs. Mike Tester's Beastmen of Dooooooooom!

His List:

Beastlord w/ Sword of Swift Slaying, Armor of Destiny, Gnarled Hide, General
Great Bray-Shaman w/ Lore of Shadow, Level 4 Upgrade, Staff of Darkoth, Shard of the Herdstone 

Slugtongue
Bray-Shaman w/ Level 2 Upgrade, Hagtree Fetish, Lore of... Wyssan's Wildform, lol.  That's all he used.
Bray-Shaman w/ Level 2 Upgrade, Chalice of Dark Ruin, Same lore as above
Bray-Shaman w/ Level 2 Upgrade, Dispel Scroll, Some other Beast Lore w/ Viletide
Wargor w/ Uncanny Senses, Gouge-Tusks, Many-Limbed Fiend, Banner of Eternal Flame

45x Gors w/ FC
45x Ungors w/ FC
10x Chaos Warhounds
10x Chaos Warhounds
Tuskgor Chariot 
Tuskgor Chariot
Tuskgor Chariot
10x Ungors w/ Ambush
10x Gors w/ Ambush
5x Ungor Raiders w/ Bows
5x Ungor Raiders w/ Bows
5x Ungor Raiders w/ Bows
5x Ungor Raiders w/ Bows

18x Bestigors w/ Totem of Rust, FC
5x Harpies

So, lots and lots and lots and lots of core and wizards.  I hadn't ever played against Beastmen in 8th edition, and this build was completely unfamiliar to me.  I thought- "well, he's got a lot of really small units- I think I might stand a chance against him in this Kill Point scenario."

Um, other than the Kill Point thing, there was a special rule that whenever you cast a spell, you had to roll a die, and on a '1', you had a miscast, even if you had already gotten a miscast for the spell itself.

We rolled off, and... don't really remember who won the roll.  It didn't matter- I always lose the deployment race, even against this list.

Here's our deployment:

Already I'm failing.  I put my Dark Riders on the flanks (you can't see the ones on the right) to kill his little archer units, but I left myself with nowhere to put my spears/sorceress but in the back.  This size of game, I need to learn to deal with the logistics of so many units.

He won the roll to go first, and took it.

Before the game started:

Lots of my units lots multiple dudes from Slugtongue's awesomeness.  I think he rolled the requisite 4+ on all but two of my units.  Lots of my guys died from that alone. He was off to a good start :)


Beastmen Turn 1:

He shuffled around, and moved up some.  A quick note on his setup:  He had all of his casters around that weird skull thing in his deployment zone, which gave him extra power dice for each wizard he had, as well as extra channeling dice.  Weird setup, but it worked out well for him.

In magic, he did some stuff, but it didn't really do a whole lot.  I think one of my hydras took a wound or two.

Shooting, he did so little the entire game, that I think I'm just not going to include that part in this batrep.

Oh yeah, he had lots of ambushers, who all came in on the right side.  Notice my surrounded Dark Riders, lol.

Dark Elves Turn 1:

Hm, the Dark Riders charged their targets.  It seems that I messed that up- you can't charge after vanguard moves.  He said nothing though- I think he wanted me to charge, heh.  So Dark Riders charged some ungors on the right, and dogs on the left.  Otherwise, I moved up.  My hydra placement was ... well, it was terrible.  They were kind of staggered, and ready to get pummeled.  I was under the assumption (a bad assumption) that his ungors would have trouble killing a lone hydra, and that the others would then jump in and help crush the big block.  /shrug

Magic I did nothing, since nothing was really in range to make a big effect, and I didn't want to risk the 'wrath of Tzneench' with a 1 for a spell that didn't do a whole lot.

In shooting, I killed a few guys.  Nothing special at all.

In combat, the Dark Riders won both combats, but lost some dudes.  The hounds ran away, and I couldn't catch them.  The ungors rolled well, and stayed where they were.  Bad dice for me thus far...

Hm, not looking awesome.  The gors on the bottom right will get into myspearmen flank because I didn't wheel far enough with the spearmen.  Inexperience + rust is a powerful combination :-p

Beastmen Turn 2:

He charged into the side of my spearmen on the bottom with his gors.  The big block of ungors charged into my first hydra.  His other movement wasn't very interesting.

Magic gave the ungors S6 with Ockham's Mindrazor, and nothing else too crazy.

In combat, he was able to kill my Hydra, and run into my next one.  See?  Stupid placement of my Hydra.  The gors at the bottom lost by a lot of points, but stayed with the roll of a "3".  Not much going well for me at this point.

The stuff happening on the sides isn't of much note throughout the game- his stuff mostly lived through everything, and my stuff mostly died if looked at.  Nuff said :)

Dark Elves Turn 2:

I needed to charge into his ungors with my other hydra if I wanted to actually survive.  So I did.  I also had lined up my chariots to all charge the huge block of Gors in the middle.  I failed every single charge roll.  So that sucked.

Magic didn't do much for me this game- I think I'll just stop mentioning it.

In shooting, his chariot on the left kept rolling 5+'s like it was his job.  He would have died easily to my crossbows otherwise.  Heh, should have, but what can you do?  Other shooting was somewhat inconsequential.

In combat, the hydras chewed through the ungors and went forward, both grievously wounded.  The spearmen killed the other gors, and repositioned themselves.

Can't say as this game is going well for me at all at this point.  Can't say as I've played it flawlessly by any means, either :-p

Beastmen Turn 3:

He charged one of my chariots with one of his.  Another of my chariots fled some charge or other.  His chariot on the left charged my crossbows, who again failed to wound a T4 dude.  He couldn't stop making saves with him.

In magic, his main caster miscast something minor, and was sucked into the warp.  Woot for that.  His other magic killed both of my hydras.  Sad face.  Note that he got 12 dice every single phase after he got the bonus dice for being near the lodestone, and channeling.

In combat, his chariot killed mine, and barely missed crashing into the next one in line.

My lines are in disarray. 

Dark Elves Turn 3:

Well, I decided to charge his chariot with the Black Guard, so that I could overrun into his big block.  My other chariots crashed into his own chariot as well. 

Shooting didn't do much, as per usual.  Failed again to kill his chariot on the left, as he continued to butcher crossbows.

In combat, I killed his chariot easily and swept the other two into the Gors, though the Black Guard failed to get into them.

At this point, we're just going through the motions- can I bring it to a minor or major loss, instead of a massacre?

Beastmen Turn 4:

He charged (and eventually killed) my squad of crossbowmen with his bestigor unit.  His chariot in the middle charged my Black Guard.  All that's really left is a magic phase and then combat.

In magic, he was able to buff his Gors with wildform.

In combat, the chariots won combat, but not by a lot.  Both lived though.  His chariot died, easily.

Starting to wind down.  I'm starting to regret that my spearmen haven't done much this game.

Dark Elves Turn 4:

I charged my Black Guard into the side of his Gors, who are T5.

Not much going on.  We get into a slight debate, because he TOLD me flat out that the Gors were T3, and it turns out they're T4.  Would have cast different spells that turn had I known.  I don't think me misspoke either- since I asked twice at different times in the phase.  Ah well.  Guess he wanted to win, lol.

In combat, I killed a few gors, he failed to hurt me, and passed steadfast easily.  He was unable to change his facing though, because he had to keep the chariot in combat.

Not much to do but resolve the Gor fight.

Beastmen Turn 5:

He charged his harpies into the back of my Black Guard.

In combat, I was able to kill the gors in droves, and won combat, but he remained steadfast.

Dark Elves Turn 5:

This would be the last turn.  I was able to get Ockham's mindrazor on the Black Guard, killed a TON of Gors, broke them (along with his general and two other characters).  The chariot and black guard both pursued, and I rolled a 9 and a 10 to catch him.  He picked up two dice, and rolled an 11, getting away with the general, 2 characters, and the unit, which was worth a combined total of like 11 points.

The game ended.

Results:  Massacre for the Beastmen, 23-3!

I ended up getting 3 battle points, which would turn out to haunt me in the long run.  I had some terrible rolls, he had some tremendous rolls, and I just kind of just played bad in general.  Bad rolling combined with bad play is a brutal combo :)

So, he got 23, I got 3, and we got paired.  I looked forward to getting someone who had also gotten massacred.  Only to find out I had gotten the 5th 'highest' points, and was paired against Dave Lout, who had not only gotten 23 (out of 24) points, but had also won the Semi-finals last year, and the prelims this year.  *sigh*

Men of the Match:  Gotta give it to the Black Guard, who in spite of everything else, held in there and killed his deathstar unit, then rolled a 9 to catch them (though he rolled an 11).  Can't fault them for his good rolling though. 

Game 2:  Dark Elves vs. Dave's Skaven!

This game was somewhat of a grudge match between me and Dave.  He had beaten me down pretty hard in the prelims last year with his dwarves, on his way to win both the prelims, and the semi-finals, winning a free Skaven army, which he was playing today.  That he got a massacre in his first game, and I got massacred, was a frustrating matchup.  But, since I figured I was out of the tournament anyways, it was a good opportunity to play against a good list, at least.

His list:

Warlord w/ Warlitter, Shield, Ogre Blade, Dragon Helm, Talisman of Preservation, General
Warlord w/ Fellblade, Shield
Grey Seer w/ Power Scroll (I'm guessing level 4, but he didn't write it on his sheet)

Chieftain w/ BSB, Standard of Flaming
Plague Priest w/ Plague Furnace, Flail, Dispell Scroll
Plague Priest w/ Plague Furnace, Flail, Other Triskster Shard
Warlock Engineer w/ Doom Rocket

50x Skaven Slaves w/ Fang Leader, Musician
40x Clan Rats w/ Shields, FC
38x Clan Rats w/ Shields, FC
28x Storm Vermin w/ Standard, Storm Banner

30x Plague Monks, FC
30x Plague Monks, FC
5x Gutter Runners w/ Poison, Sling
5x Gutter Runners w/ Poison, Sling

Hellpit Abomination

It was a scary list, with lots of big scary things in it, along with the doom rocket of amazing cheapness, and the skitterleap + cracks call Grey Seer.  The furnaces were especially intimidating.

The mission:

The mission was a weird one.  A fanatic (we used one of my space marines) would jump around randomly, and cause wounds to people who tried to restrain him.  He was worth +5 bonus points at the end of the game, which is considerable.  Otherwise, it was the weird mission where you don't get to decide where guys are deployed, instead rolling for unit by unit.

Here's our deployment, when it was finally finished:

Neither of us rolled a single "1".  My chariots and hydras are all kind of spread out, but I generally like where they are.

I had won the roll to go first, and he failed his 'seize' attempt, so I chose to go first.

Dark Elves Turn 1:

I had a general advance, though I spaced on moving my hydra on the right hand side.  Whoops.  The fanatic ran onto my side, and my warriors grabbed him, losing lots of their number in order to do it (it caused 2d6 S6)

In magic, I failed to reduce the Toughness of the HPA (hellpit abomination), but reduced it's initiative.  I also got Pit of Shades on the HPA, but he rolled, and saved.  Doh!

In shooting, I killed a few dudes.  Nothing too serious.

Lol, my forces seem so uncoordinated and messed up.

Skaven Turn 1:

He just kind of moved up, and got ready to shoot his rocket of awesomeness at me.

In magic, he killed some Dark Riders in the middle.  Not a crazy magic phase though, this time.

In shooting, he used the rocket, and killed more Dark Riders, as well as a huge chunk of my warriors, who he had been aiming at.  He also put three wounds on my cauldron squad with his skirmishers in the back, with outstanding rolling on his part.

Hm, will this be yet another fiasco?

Dark Elves Turn 2:

It wasn't time to panic... yet.  He popped the Storm banner.  So, I charged his HPA with a hydra and a chariot on the left, and his big unit with his Fellbladed dude of awesomeness with my other chariot, not knowing what the Fellblade did.  On the right, my Hydra marched, and the chariots lined up to charge the flank of his big Furnace unit.

In magic, I was able to again reduce the HPA's weaponskill, and not much else.

Shooting killed a few more plague monks with the Dark Riders.  Still not much to write home about.

In combat, the chariot and hydra (predictably) struggled against the HPA, though they lived.  The chariot somehow survived the Fellblade, and killed a few clanrats, but didn't do much else.

The opening skirmishes have begun...

Skaven Turn 2:

He moved his Grey Seer up, and got ready to magic me up.  He also presented me with a flank charge on his Furnace to the right.

In magic he killed a few guys in the warrior squad, then cast the 13th spell, and 1-shotted my Level 4 and the remaining warriors.  The fanatic was released.  Yikes.  I could honestly say I didn't see that coming.

In combat, it remained inconclusive against the HPA, though I was whittling him down.  The fellblade finally did what it does best, and killed off my chariot.

Alright guys on the right... time to show your quality.

Dark Elves Turn 3:

I charged the hydra + 2 chariots into the flank of his plague furnace.  I then charged my lone hydra into the front of his other plague furnace.  Everything else just kind of sat there.  Oh yeah, the crossbows and his skirmishers decided to try shooting eachother, and did that for the rest of the game, after his killed my Cauldron.

In Magic... oh wait.  No sorceress.

In shooting, everything boring happened.  Not gonna mention this phase the rest of this report.

Combat is what you wanted to hear about anyways, right?  The chariots + Hydra killed a ton of plaguemonks, and won combat, but the Furnace was unbreakable and thus held.  The HPA finally went down, and the Hydra + chariot braced for the blocks to charge into them.  The lone hydra caused like three wounds to his Furnace, and a few more to the squad itself, and survived his returning wrath.

Yeah, the chariots + Hydra killed all but two plaguemonks with the Furnace on the right.

Skaven Turn 3:

He charged my Chariot + Hydra on the right.  That was really it.

In casting, he miscast with his furnace fighting my lone hydra, and the miscast killed 17 plague monks, and hurt the furnace.  Nice!

Combat went well, with me killing his last two plaguemonks on the right, and the hydra in the middle then proceeded to kill off the furnace, break the dudes, and chase them down.  Awesome.  The hydra and chariot on the left both died very sad deaths.  :(

Well, at least I'm putting up a fight.  It still seems one-sided though, since he so easily manhandled my poor sorceress.

Dark Elves Turn 4:

I charged my awesome hydra (slayer of the great furnace!) into his slaves, containing his Grey Seer.  The Black Guard charged into his Clan Rats.  He chose to flee, and rolled snake eyes.  I got a 4, and BARELY caught them.  Still, a very fortunate roll for me.


In combat, I put more hurt on his remaining furnace, and killed his Grey Seer in the slaves squad.

So, got the Black Guard ready to face off against his General's clan rats now.  Can't wait to see what happens!

Skaven Turn 4:

He charged my Black Guard with his Clan Rats.


In combat, I put more wounds on his furnace on the right.  His gas attack just wasn't doing very much to my high toughness, but his T6 is hard to get through as well!  The Black Guard predictably butchered lots of clanrats, but they remained steadfast.  Heh, my general challenged, and MURDERED his champion.  Too bad overkill is somewhat irrelevant these days.  My hydra continued to eat slaves.  Woot.

Whittling him down...

Rest of the Game:

Combat was all we did.  I killed his Furnace finally.  I broke his clan rats.  I ate his slaves.  I jumped on the fanatic with my crossbows, and though one of my units panicked off the board, the other one was barely able to restrain him on the last turn.  The final storm vermin squad got into combat with, and were broke by, my Black Guard.

Results:  Massacre for the Dark Elves, 26-0!

It was more than I could expect.  I ended up tabling him, which was crazy.  I didn't think I would come close to that, but it turns out his list had a lot of trouble with T5.

Man of the Match:  Got to give this one to my middle hydra, who (with the aid of a miscast) killed a unit of (very depleted) plague monks, a plague furnace, the Grey Seer, and a full unit of slaves.  What a man.

A note:  My opponent decided that my win was based entirely on my good rolls.  In my defense, I rolled very poorly at the start of the game, and though perhaps I rolled better overall throughout the game, I don't think it was anything extraordinarily outside of the norms.  Hydras should kill slaves by the handful.  Black Guard should kill clan rats by the handful. If I got lucky and rolled 5 5+'s against his furnace to wound it over the course of 2 turns while hitting it on 3's, I don't think it was too much of a stretch, considering my beast masters also got to swing at it...  /shrug  What can ya do?

Game 3:  Dark Elves vs. Frank's Tomb Kings!

We were both happy to have this rematch, since last tournament we were in we got the stupid 3rd mission that killed all our unit for us.  We're friends, and so it made for a very laid-back game.

If last time I got paired way up, this time I got paired kind of down.  I had 29 points, and Frank had 26.  The difference was that he had gotten zero the first game, gotten a bye (and therefore full points), and then we got paired.

Here's his list (from memory, sorry, didn't grab his list):

Cetra (chariot dude)
Herophant

BSB in skelly unit
Tricksy L1 Caster w/ Power Scroll
Casket of Awesome
Casket of Awesome

3x Stalkers (in reserve)
3x Stalkers (in reserve)
Tomb Scorpion

30x Skellys (maybe more, maybe less, don't really remember.  It was a big block though)
10x Skeleton Archers
10x Skeleton Archers
8x Chariots (in a big unit)
2x swarm bases

Bone Giant
Sphinx thing (T8)

The mission:

It was the 'cramped' deployment, though it was pretty standard.  We had to try to 'break' each other (kill each other's standards) for extra bonus and victory points.  Like I said, pretty standard.

He's got the scorpion, some weird swarm bases, all the stalkers, and his sneaky lvl. 1 caster with the vortex spell, in reserves now.

He won the roll to go first, and took it.

Tomb Kings Turn 1:

He shuffled around a little, didn't do a whole lot.  I had forgotten to Vanguard move, and he had forgotten to move his archers, so I remained out of range.  The caskets worked, and hit most of my units, but I made most of my leadership checks, and he did minimal damage, despite hitting almost every one of my units.

Notice his chariots moved up some.  It's actually somewhat of a big deal.  Notice the stupid horsies on the bottom right, who wanted to Vanguard, but forgot, lol.

Dark Elves Turn 1:

I moved up a little bit, wanting to bait him in.

In magic, I was able to get the chariots down to T1.

In shooting, I killed a TON of chariots, with S3 AP crossbows hitting on 5's, and the sorceress' bow causing a lot of damage.

Lol, -3T vs. RXbows is brutal... (chariots are on the far left, if you didn't already see)

Tomb Kings Turn 2:

He still stayed patient, and his reserves all came in.  The scorpion mishapped and died, and one of the stalker squads mishapped and came in on his own table edge.  The other squad appeared right behind one of my hydras.  The swarm things appeared right next to my crossbows who had been murdering his chariots.  The trisky caster appeared right in front of my Black Guard.  Ut-oh.


In magic, he cast a huge S4 vortex directly on my Black Guard, and killed a bunch of them.

Shooting wasn't anything crazy except that his stalkers shot, got like 26 shots on my hydra, and KILLED IT.  Wow, neither of us saw that coming, from a bunch of S1 shots, lol.  Nice hit, Frank. :)

Um, his stalkers will be painted to an excellent standard in like two days.  He's just that kind of awesome painter.  So, judge me instead of him, if you want someone to judge on painting.

Dark Elves Turn 2:

Lots of charges.  The chariots charged a squad of skelly archers with a standard, the Dark Riders on the right charged the flank of his stalkers, the hydra on the right charged his Bone Giant.  Everything else just kind of meandered up.  I wanted to keep pounding Cetra with my archers while I could.  My hydra on the left moved to block off the swarm things from charging my crossbows.

In magic, I didn't really do a whole lot.  He failed to dispel the -3T spell.  Awesome!

In shooting, I continued to murder his poor chariot squad, though not quite as hard this turn, since my crossbows had to move to be able to shoot the chariots, who had gone backwards out of range.

In combat... I killed the Bone Giant with the hydra (using his Breath Weapon), won combat with the stalkers (killing 1), and murdering the skellys, overrunning with both chariots off the board.

Template didn't screw me... this turn.

Tomb Kings Turn 3:

The template moved directly over my Black Guard, killing another ton of them.  The sphinx charged the Black Guard, and the swarm things charged my Hydra on the bottom, while the spearmen charged my hydra on the top.

In magic, he was able to finally get rid of the -3T spell.

In shooting, he failed to do a whole lot, and would continue to do so until the end of the game (so I won't mention it again).

Combat saw the sphinx losing combat, but staying locked in after taking a couple wounds.  The Hydra crushed the poor swarm things, and reformed to face forward once again.  The Dark Riders/stalker combat on the right happened for a long time.  I won't mention it again for a while.  The sphinx got smarter, and killed a ton of my Black Guard instead of my invincible general.  The hydra on the top killed a bunch of spearmen, and piled in.

This picture is taken after we had already rolled the vortex, who true to form, passed once again over the Black Guard, killing the remainders.  Last picture for a while.  Also, not sure why this picture doesn't show the skelly spearmen in with the hydra.  Something isn't quite right, but this is basically what took place.

Dark Elves Turn 3:

The chariots came in again, ready to charge the caskets and the snakes the Dark Riders can't seem to kill.  The spears charged into the sphinx.  My hydra on the bottom left marched up, daring Cetra and his remaining chariot to charge him.


In magic, I casted Ockham's Mind Razor on the spears, boosting their Strength to 8, and bringing his chariots down by 1 strength.

Shooting brought down even more chariots.

In combat, I was able to genocide even more skellys, and to kill the sphinx.

Rest of the Game:

Cetra charged the Hydra, and killed it, overran into my chariot, where I was able to get a counter-charge with my own chariot, killing Cetra because of his reduced Toughness and Strength.  The caskets both went down really quickly to my chariots, and I got some guys into his stalkers to kill them.

Not sure what point in the game this is.

Results:  Massacre for the Dark Elves, 24-0!

Frank was a great sport.  Halfway through the game, his painted casket (all metal) fell and shattered.  His army is painted to an incredible level, and it kind of ruined the game for him, I'm sorry to say.  It was a fun game, and it was nice to play against the new TK book in a nice, laid-back sort of way.

(Wo)Man of the Match:

Hm, not quite sure.  The hydras were again extremely good this game, but I want to give it to my sorceress, who kept Cetra debuffed the entire game to the point where he couldn't really accomplish much at all.  He killed a hydra, and that was it.

Overall results:

(drum roll)

3rd overall for the Dark Elves!!

It was a close-run thing, with the Skaven player who won last year barely being edged out by myself, despite his full-point massacre the last game against a Fateweaver/bloodletter horde spam list.  The beastmen guy I played in the first round ended up getting 2nd overall, after his opponent decided he didn't want to 'put up with his shit', as he put it, and gave him full points without even playing him.  If he had anything but massacred, I would have been in 2nd place.

1st place went to a dude running Warriors of Chaos with a huge Chosenstar, and a huge Warriorstar.  Looked pretty brutal, with very few units.  I'd like the opportunity to play against it, though I have no real clue on how I would begin to face it.

I was pleased with my finish, and was happy to learn that 3rd overall got the same prize support as 2nd, and was entitled to a battle force, which I'll be turning into cash soon, to buy some Venoms :)

I also qualified for Nationals, and decided against it- I don't really care enough about it, and spending all that money for a tournament where I only get 3 games in and have very little chance to win doesn't sound like fun.  So, I passed it on to the next guy, whoever that was.

Overall, a very fun tournament, despite getting trounced once, I was pleased with my play after the 1st fiasco of a game.

So, hope you liked it.  Let me know what you think!  I'll be happy to answer any questions you have, that I'm capable of answering.  :)