This tournament was in large part in preparation for the bigger, more awesome Bugeater GT I will be attending next week. While the Bugeater is 2500 points, this would at least give me a refresher on how the army could work, remind me about the rules, and just generally help me to be more prepared.
List and reports after the bre
My List:
Supreme Sorceress
-General
-Level 4 Upgrade
-Ironcurse Icon
-Sacrificial Dagger
-Talisman of Preservation (4++)
-Lore of Shadow
Sorceress
-Level 2 Upgrade
-Dark Steed
-Tome of Furion
-Lore of Dark Magic
Master
-Battle Standard Bearer
-Dawnstone
-Enchanted Shield
-Halberd
-Other mundane gear to get me to a 1+
29x Dreadspears w/ Shields
5x Dark Riders w/ Shields, Crossbows
5x Dark Riders w/ Shields, Crossbows
20x Executioners w/ FC, Banner of Flame
20x Black Guard w/ Musician, Standard, Razor Standard
Reaper Bolt Thrower
Reaper Bolt Thrower
5x Doomfire Warlocks
The list is designed to kill stuff really quick and efficiently. I don't want a grindfest - I want the combat to be resolved ASAP. Some things I don't want to get into combat with at all, which the Bolt Throwers and magic are supposed to deal with. Otherwise, good debuffs and the occasional Okkam's Mindrazor can make this list ridiculous.
At least, in theory :)
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| Wish it was a little more detailed - and I apologize for the silly display board. There were no points given for display boards, I just wanted something to transport my models :) |
Game 1: Dark Elves vs. Lizardmen!
His List (100% from memory):
Old Blood
-General
-Obsidian Blade
-Other wargear - something that makes him harder to hit in CC
Skink Priest
-Level 2
-Not sure what else
-Lore of Heavens (he got Chain Lightning and Comet of Cassadora)
12x Skinks w/ 3x Kroxigors
12x Skinks w/ 2x Kroxigors
20x Saurus Warriors w/ Spears, Shield, FC
20x Saurus Warriors w/ Spears, Shield, FC
Troglodon
Bastilidon
Bastilidon
3x Ripperdactyl Riders
Razordon Hunting Pack
Razordon Hunting Pack
The Mission:
Primary: "Win" by 100 points or more
Secondary: Kill your opponent's model with the most expensive magical item (his was his General) AND kill opponent's most expensive Core unit. If a draw, kill one of them.
Tertiary: Bonus points for controlling terrain.
Pre-game thoughts:
I wasn't sure what to think. I've played against the old lizardmen a bunch, but the new book has a bunch of stuff I don't know about. No clue what the Bastilidons or Troglodons do, or the Ripperdactyls, or the Razordons. Really, I was at a loss.
I *did* know that the blocks of Skinks, Sauruses, and Kroxigors would do a little damage, but weren't much threat to my own blocks. My hope was to kill his Ripperdactyls immediately with shooting and magic if possible, then focus on the rest of his army with Bolt Throwers, magic, and overwhelming combat prowess.
Let's see how it goes!
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| I thought he may have made a mistake in deployment - that unpassable hill in the middle was going to make it hard for his blocks to support one another. |
Dark Elves Turn 1:
After our Vanguard moves, I was in a good position to mess with the Ripperdactyls. Some of you may laugh at me for my paranoia, but things I don't understand need to die immediately, and this was the only really mobile part of his army. The rest could be contained by clever unit placement.
So I moved my army up, hit them with Doombolt, subtracted their Toughness, and, in a word, destroyed them utterly through both magic and shooting.
Otherwise, I wanted to stall his big guys from charging the Executioners, so some Dark Riders rode up at a slant to make any charges by his big guys unlikely to overrun into me but if they did, I'd be able to counter-charge easy enough. It would also make any charges by his Krox unit unlikely.
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| I'm just hoping his Krox unit decides to take the bait and charge my Black Guard. |
Lizardmen Turn 1:
He took the bait, and charged my Black Guard.
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| There's a third Krox in there, he just hadn't assembled it yet. |
His shooting and magic phases didn't go very well. He failed to cast Chain Lightning, which made it really easy to block his two Bastilidons' magic. Razordons didn't get a high number of shots, and I made some saves. In the end, he was able to kill 3 Dark Riders, who passed their panic check.
In combat, I rolled very poorly, and only killed 10 Skinks. Actually, I rolled about average, but after 17 6++ parry saves, my opponent saved 7 of them, and he was able to punch a few Black Guard in the process with lucky rolls.
He fled, and I pursued, wanting to get into the Saurus Warriors behind ASAP. He got away, and the Black Guard crashed into the Saurus.
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| Hm, I had been hoping to get rid of that block - now they can be a nuisance henceforth. |
I was kind of sad - my Dark Riders were in the way for my Executioners to charge, but I figured it gave me a good chance to soften up his Troglodon with the Bolt Throwers.
I galloped my 2 Dark Riders away behind a hill to preserve their points. I galloped the other fast cav up 18" to the right, hoping to get some flanks eventually, but charged the Warlocks at the fleeing Skinks + Kroxigor unit, who fled 7" exactly to the table edge. I wanted to measure it, but my opponent moved his unit before I got a chance to. He kind of did that a lot - things I was like "wait a minute" about, he just did it so that we couldn't tell if it was accurate or not. Heh.
In magic, I was able to debuff the Saurus Warriors' Toughness and WS.
Shooting I failed to do anything to the Troglodon (actually, they did zero damage for the rest of the game - always 2's or 1's to wound, all game).
Black Guard *shredded* the Saurus warriors, killing all but six of them, who fled, but killed another 4 Black Guard before that.
Black Guard chased them down, and crashed into the Troglodon.
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| His Old Blood character is in flank position - will he charge? |
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| Poor Black Guard have to do all the work around here :) |
He charged his General into the Black Guard, but refrained from any other charges.
His Krox unit regrouped. His other units mostly just stood there.
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| Not sure why this picture was taken. Maybe to show the Old Blood charge in? |
His shooting and magic did a little damage to my Executioners, but not too much. He again failed to get Chain Lightning off.
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| Executioners standing there with awesome cloaks billowing |
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| Black Guard should do better than that, haha! |
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| Lots of Lizards still around.... |
I charged the Executioners into the Old Blood with the aim of then crashing into his Bastilidon if I got to chase/overrun.
I moved the Dark Riders to a flanking position of the hurt Krox unit, and the Warlocks on top of the hill to get what flank charge they could get.
In magic, I managed to give the Black Guard Okkam's Mindrazor, and failed to debuff his Old Blood, mostly because I miscast and destroyed 3 Wizard Levels and all my spells besides Miasma, haha.
Shooting, ... ha.
In combat, the Executioners got several hits, but no killing blows. Black Guard got several hits on the Old Blood, but rolled (out of 4 hits) 1 wound. They did manage to down the Troglodon easily enough though. The Old Blood killed some Black Guard, but I had won combat handily, and with all my modifiers (flank, charge, standard, BSB, etc.), he needed a "2" to stay in combat.
Of course, he rolled it, and I groaned. Black Guard opted to reform (since they're stubborn anyways) into a more compact form, since there were only a couple of them left at that point.
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| Will the Bastilidon choose to counter-assault me yet? |
Lizardmen Turn 3:
He opted not to charge me at all. Not sure why - he had yet to get any points off of me at this point.
Instead, he shot some stuff through combat at my Spears, who actually took quite a few losses.
In combat, with Okkam's still up, the Old Blood died, earning me one of the Secondary Objectives. Woot!
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| Old Blood DEAD, General slain! Pretty neat :) |
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| Black Guard reformed, as did the Executioners. |
Dark Elves Turn 4:
Black Guard charged his Skink Priest, who held.
Executioners charged his Razordon, who was right in front of the Bastilidon, aiming to overrun into the Bastilidon.
Warlocks charged into the front of the weakened Krox unit, and Dark Riders crashed into the side of it.
Magic didn't do much - I didn't want to risk my mage/general.
In combat, the Black Guard crushed the Skink Priest and overran into the Bastilidon.
Executioners crushed the Razordon unit and overran into the Bastilidon.
My opponent said that I could then have a round of combat against the Bastilidon, because of the overrun rules and the fact that my Black Guard were already there. I don't think this was how it was supposed to work, but he really wanted to use his Bastilidon's tail against my Black Guard.
Unfortunately for him, they killed the Bastilidon before he could strike, and since time was running out, he told me he wanted to try getting the Black Guard into the Saurus flank with an overrun (which I'm pretty sure is also not allowed).
Warlocks and Dark Riders did a lot of damage to the Krox unit, killing a full Krox and both remaining Skinks, taking little damage in return. Krox needed a "2" to stay, and again got it. Damn cold-blooded, lol.
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| Productive turn of combat for me, if slightly illegal. |
Lizardmen Turn 4:
This would be our last turn. My opponent was new to his army, and I knew more of the rules than him (if that tells you anything, heh), so we didn't get a full game in.
Instead, we made sure he got his turn, in which he tried to do more damage to the Executioners, but failed to. His remaining Razordon unit went and shot up my 2-man Dark Rider squad, who politely died (I had a chance to pass my saves, but decided I wanted him to kill at least one full unit of mine, so I just picked them up).
Warlocks killed the Krox unit, and the Black Guard had 2 remaining models left after killing a few Saurus (I even let him have two ranks, despite having his flank).
The game ended.
Results: Win for the Dark Elves!!
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| I didn't take any more pictures like this - we actually goofed up and didn't give him his 5 points in Primary for a loss. Not sure what the point of giving a loss points (it just makes the "15" the winner gets worth less), but we did forget to do that, and I feel bad. |
Post-game thoughts:
Well, I was happy enough with how the game went. I feel like in 8th edition Fantasy, you need a Level 4 Wizard in your list in order to win most games. Jake only had a Level 2, and I was able to cast over him all game. It's like having close to an extra dice every single spell you cast when you have a Level 4 and the opponent only has a Level 2.
And really, the debuffs were a big deal this game. I was able to hit him with the debuffs I wanted, which made my troops' lives much easier. Despite the fact that he had some models that he didn't even use this game, I still feel like the bigger story was the magic phase. Fantasy lives and dies by the magic phase lots of times (for better or worse) and in this case I was able to mold his troops into the shape I wanted them to take with the various debuffs and buffs for myself.
At any rate, I had won, and I would be paired with someone else who got a high score. There were a total of 10 players there, and as it turned out, I had the highest score by... I believe 6.
Therefore, I wasn't surprised to find out that I'd be playing against my good friend Andy and his Warriors of Chaos, neither of which had been defeated since the new book came out...
Andy's List:
Daemon Prince w/ Mark of Nurgle
-Level 4 Upgrade
-General
-Mark of Nurgle
-Wings
-Lots and lots of upgrades (really not worth listing them all)
Hero-level Warrior
-Battle Standard Bearer
-Juggernought Mount
-Lots of upgrades (probably)
Throgg the Badass
12x Chaos Warriors w/ Hand Weapon/Shield
6x Trolls
5x Trolls
5x Skullcrushers w/ FC
The Mission:
Primary: Win by 100 or more points
Secondary: THE TRAITOR - heh, Andy hated this one, and I agree. We each had to give the opponent a model from Core, who was our traitor. They couldn't join units, and the goal was to get them across the board into the opponent's deployment zone. I gave him a spearman, he gave me a Warrior. We earned points both for destroying the opponent's traitor and for getting our own traitor into the DZ.
Tertiary: How many pieces of terrain can you claim? 1 point for each. Heh.
Deployment:
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| I picked my side because I didn't want the Demon Prince to be able to hide behind the mosque thing and away from my Bolt Throwers. Also, loved the Bolt Throwers having a hill (on the far left). |
Pre-game thoughts:
Me and Andy go way back. Out of anyone in our area, he's by far the closest to being .500 against me. I think I'm up by a couple games, but not a lot. He's a savvy tournament player, though this is a matchup we've never played: we're fierce 40k rivals, but we've never played a game of Fantasy together. So, it should be interesting.
I knew that the Demon Prince would be trouble. I wanted to be able to shoot it with Bolt Throwers for as long as I could, so when I got the opportunity, I took first turn, giving me a minimum of 2 turns to be able to fire at him.
Otherwise, I wanted the Executioners to kill Throgg if they could (they had the Flaming standard), and my aim was to cast Pit of Shades on as many trolls as possible. I also had Okkam's which would work wonders against the DP, Bloodcrushers, or anything else for that matter.
In the end, I wanted to kill his DP as quick as possible. The second he was in combat, I would put Okkams on that unit and do everything I could to kill it. If it died, I would have vast magic superiority, and I could win the game through all my debuffs alone.
At least, that was the plan, :)
Dark Elves Turn 1:
I moved some of my guys up a little. I wanted Throgg's unit to have a shot at getting into my Executioners, while avoiding the Bloodcrushers if possible. Executioners moved to within 15" of Throgg, who would need a "9" to get into them. I figured Andy might get "lucky" and bite, though I wasn't at all sure if 20 Executioners could handle Throgg + 5 Trolls. Heh.
In magic, I cast Pit of Shades, but scattered 4", clipping two trolls, who failed their tests and were dragged into the Pit.
Bolt Throwers both missed. Again.
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| Well, I'd managed to kill two Trolls in my first turn. Best turn ever, right? |
Andy needed an "11" to get into the Executioners with the Skullcrushers, and tried for it, failing.
Demon Prince needed boxcars to get into my Black Guard, and failed.
Trolls needed a "9" to get into my Executioners, and...
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| He spiked it! I was actually very happy about this, because you know, flaming attacks :) |
Andy was content with his charges - he just wanted one of them to go off, which was actually likely enough what with swift stride on the Skullcrushers and whatnot.
The magic phase... didn't go as well for Andy. He cast Rancid Visitations or something equally creepy sounding on my Warlocks, who hemmoraged wounds and all died, barely leaving my Sorceress with a single wound remaining.
HOWEVER, he also got it irresistibly, rolled a "4" for miscast, then rolled the wrong side of the dice and the demon prince was dragged into a hole and clubbed to death by midgets.
The effect of this can't be overstated. Seriously, ridiculously game-changing. His Demon Prince is the heart of the army, and though Andy still had a lot of really strong models left, killing off his own general/wizard/combat badass on turn one was a really big deal.
He had no shooting at all, so we moved into combat. He challenged with Throgg, I accepted with the unit champion, who caused a wound and was overkilled by 4. The rest of the Executioners were fine with that though, and I managed to kill the majority of the Trolls, who promptly fled. I pursued and caught them, netting me a huge turn.
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| Looks like the Executioners weren't even damaged by the Trolls. Madness. In fairness, I'm doing 3x S5 attacks w/ Rerolls along with 12 S6 attacks w/ Rerolls on wounds, all flaming and hitting on 3's. Maths tell me that I should kill 3 Trolls minimum before they get to swing. |
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| Brave 1-wound Sorceress, what will I do with you? |
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| So really, Andy killed all my Warlocks, which was sad. However, he also lost (in his own turn!): His General, Throgg, and 5 Trolls. Not really a fair exchange. Sucks to happen in your own turn as well. |
I knew that I had the advantage this turn, but also knew that Andy still had some really powerful units left and that he had yet to be defeated with this list. I had to keep my foot on his neck or he would find a way to beat me.
I knew it would be folly to charge his Skullcrushers with only the Executioners, but also didn't want to waste time/movement to simply march past them. Executioners would lose that matchup for sure, but they would give as good as they got. I needed to buy a turn and get a flank charge on the Skullcrushers, ideally with Okkam's up to help negate his 1+ save.
So, I ran my Dark Riders up to redirect the Skullcrushers. He would kill the Dark Riders and still crash into the Executioners, but I would be in position to hit him on the flank with my Spears if he decided to do that. Otherwise, he'd just have to reform and wait for me to make my move, losing models to my shooting all the while.
I managed to get Pit of Shades off on the leftmost Troll unit, 4 of which were hit. However, on his initiative rolls (needing 1's), Andy spiked 3 1's and I only killed a single Troll. Doh!
Further, Pit of Shades went off irresistibly, and I got the one that hits every caster on your side with a S6 hit, killing my Sorceress off. Also doh!
Shooting was reasonable - I managed to kill one Skullcrusher with Bolt Throwers. Not perfect, but I'll take it!
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| You can see his Warriors facing a weird angle right now - Andy was trying to keep his own Traitor from reaching his DZ. |
Chaos Turn 2:
Andy did what he could - he failed his Stupidity check on the Trolls, and charged my Dark Riders, killing them and overrunning into my Executioners. His Warriors reformed to flank me next turn.
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| Well, Executioners are in for the long haul now. |
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| Actually, the spears look a little bit far away from being able to charge. I think I needed a 6 or 7 to get into him. Not my best positioning. |
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| Ah, the Traitor also had a 360 LOS arc, and charged my Dark Riders. I killed him with Stand and Shoot, haha |
Dark Elves Turn 3:
I charged with the spears, getting a flank on the Skullcrushers.
In magic, I reduced their WS to 2 or 3, and got Okkham's Mindrazor off on the Spears.
Shooting didn't do much. :-/
In combat, I managed to kill all but 2 Skullcrushers and his BSB, who fled. The Standard and BSB died from fleeing, and I (foolishly) tried to pursue, despite the fact that Andy would now need snakeyes to rally. I failed to catch him, and I presented a nice flank for this Warriors to get into whichever unit he wanted.
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| Well, Skullcrushers are dead, which kind of spells doom for Andy. Unless he can pass his Ld. 4 on the Trolls, he's has one small chance to kill me with his Warriors. |
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| Black Guard haven't done much this game, though they would have been worth their weight in gold if the Demon Prince had lived through the whole game. |
Chaos Turn 3:
The Warriors charged the flank of my Executioners, and the Trolls failed stupidity. His remaining Skullcrusher failed to rally on snake eyes and ran off the table.
Warriors killed a couple Executioners, Executioners killed a couple Warriors. I lost combat, but stuck on stubborn Ld. 9. I then passed my Ld. check to reform and did so.
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| Can the Executioners carry the day once again? |
Dark Elves Turn 4:
I debuffed the Warriors, taking their WS and Initiative down by a point or two.
Then the Executioners killed an assload of Warriors (with the debuffs, they struck first and hit on 3's), making them flee and catching them.
At this, Andy conceded, and we called it a day.
Results: Win for the Dark Elves!!
Post-game thoughts:
Well, the game kind of got lopsided real quick. With the Demon Prince gone, I had magic superiority and was able to debuff the units I wanted to debuff with no real chance of failing.
My Executioners were tied for MVP this game with the debuff Supreme Sorceress - while the Sorceress only managed to kill 3 Trolls with Pit of Shades, she also made sure that I could butcher the Skullcrushers and Warriors when necessary. Executioners killed Throgg and his Trolls, Skullcrushers, and the Warriors unit. They did it all with help, but it was still a pretty impressive showing for a ~300 point unit!
Black Guard didn't do as well this game, simply because I needed them to help guard against the Trolls on the flank. They were also there to help mess with the Demon Prince, which turned out to be unnecessary. /shrug
At this point, I had gotten 27 points the first game, 29 the second, and I was in the lead by over 10 points total. The next closest was a Bretonian player, who, as it turned out, had traveled around and played a lot of bigger Fantasy tournaments, even qualifying for the Masters earlier this year.
I knew this wouldn't be an easy game, but wasn't really that worried for some reason.
Heh.
Game 3: Dark Elves vs. Bretonians!!
His List (from memory):
General on a Horse w/ stuff
BSB on a Horse w/ stuff
Prophetess on a Horse w/ stuff (Lore of Life, Level 4)
Paladin
10x Questing? (the "average" profile) Knights (all his characters went here)
6x "below average profile) Knights
6x Grail Knights
10x Peasant Bowmen w/ Braziers
10x Peasant Bowmen w/ Braziers
5x Light Cavalry
3x Pegasus Knights
Relic of some sort
Trebuchet
The Mission:
Primary: Beat the other player by 100 points or more
Secondary: +2 points for each character you kill. This does not include unit champions.
Tertiary: +1 point for each piece of terrain you control.
The deployment was the one where we could deploy 12" apart if we wanted, and one person has to deploy everything first. I won the roll and had him deploy everything, knowing that he would need to go 2nd for his prayers anyways.
Deployment:
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| You can see his Peg Knights on the far right there. |
I wasn't sure quite what to make of his army. I knew that my troops would do well against his cavalry in general, though I wasn't sure *how* well they would do. I wanted to use Pit of Shades on his units if possible, using Miasma on them first to get their Initiative low enough that they lost a bunch of guys immediately.
Lots of ideas - I really wasn't very worried. Kind of a mistake to not feel worried, I feel like. Let's see if it was warranted :)
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| Here was his Vanguard move - I thought that I would be able to charge them off the table, but he Vanguarded cleverly away. Whoops :-p |
My Dark Rider units both charged his Pegasus Knights. Warlocks charged his fast cavalry, who fled and lost a bunch of guys to Dangerous Terrain, also causing a unit of Peasant Bowmen to flee as well. For whatever that's worth, lol.
My Sorceress moved up to get range to his Grail Knights, and cast Miasma, dropping their initiative by 3. I got Pit of Shades off, and it scattered 4 inches, killing one of them. :-/
In combat, the Dark Riders managed to kill one Peg Knight (and caused a wound), causing them to flee. He rolled a 7" flee, and they both pursued but only managed to get 6", letting the damn Knights escape. Really frustrating, none of my plans came to fruition! Ah well, he wasn't really in a place where he could mess with me too much this coming turn, so I was confident that I would have a chance to retry my botched turn 1.
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| How can they only go 6"?? Sigh :) |
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| Pretty sad - I actually think it would have been wiser to just move my Warlocks up to threaten the Trebuchet - that thing packs a whallop! |
He declared a charge with his big deathstar unit on my Dark Riders, who fled. He redirected into my Executioners, which he would need 11" to get to. I was okay with this, thinking it was unlikely.
Instead, he spiked the 11" charge and got into me.
In magic, he got Throne of Vines off, and I failed to dispel it.
Shooting killed 12 Black Guard with his Trebuchet. Jeeze, that thing is rough!
In combat, the Deathstar took a single wound from my awful-rolling Executioners, killed a bunch of them, and ran them down.
Really a bad turn for Dark Elves - I wasn't prepared for an 11" charge. Perhaps I should have just fled with Executioners?
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| Oh yeah, his Pegasus Knights regrouped, as well as his Fast Cavalry. Peasant Bowmen kept running, lol. |
Dark Elves Turn 2:
Frustrated, my single unit of Dark Riders charged his Peg Knights.
Warlocks and Black Guard charged his Relic thing.
Magic failed me - I tried to get Pit of Shades off on his big unit, and it went off. However, it again scattered off the unit. That's 5 or 6 attempts this tournament on the small template only scattering d6" having it scatter off the unit almost entirely. I believe that it hit one of his horses, who passed his Initiative check.
Shooting saw the Bolt Throwers miss both shots. Again :)
In combat, the Dark Riders killed some Peg Knights, who fled, and this time were finally caught. Black Guard and Warlocks rolled poorly against the Relic thing, only killing about 4 or 5 Peasants total (seriously?) but I got lucky and the thing broke on Stubborn Ld. 8. I ran it down with the Warlocks, just going short of hitting his Trebuchet in pursuit. Black Guard reformed to receive the Grail Knight charge.
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| Dark Riders killing Peg Knights FTW. |
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| So close to getting to the damn Trebuchet! Behind the house you can see the Paladin's spear just barely. This is important. |
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| Things are not looking good for the Dark Elves, but I still have some hope. I only need to hold out this turn and my Sorceress can save me :) |
Brets Turn 2:
First, he declared a charge with his Paladin into my Doomfire warlocks. He got the high roll he needed (forgot what it was), then ran up like 8", wheeled 90 degrees, and completed the charge. I had never in my life thought that this sort of maneuver was possible. I thought he had to wheel first then charge in a straight line. Really really threw me off my game to see this Paladin (who I had thought was blocked by the house) charge into my Warlocks.
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| Warlocks were unprepared for this, to say the least. |
In magic, he got Dwellers Below off irresistibly on my Spear unit, killing 3/4 of the unit (bad time for my dice to finally roll high, lol) along with the Sorceress.
Paladin in combat killed a couple Warlocks, who actually caused 5 wounds to the Paladin, who saved 4 of his 3+ saves, won combat, and ran the unit down.
At this point, I was down to a single Bolt Thrower, 10 Dreadspears, and 8 Dark Riders, along with some Black Guard who we had yet to roll for.
I decided to throw in the towel - even if the Black Guard beat the Grail Knights (maths tell us they would kill 2-3 of them, only lose a couple of their number, and possibly break them), there was no real chance for me to survive the weapons he had remaining.
Results: Loss for the Dark Elves!!
Post-game thoughts:
Well, this game showed me my ignorance of how to play:
-I could have dispelled Throne of Vines in my own turn, then watched while his Prophetess miscast twice in a row.
-I could have supported my Executioners as a "just in case" provision - 11" charges from cavalry can certainly happen. I was foolish to think that the Executioners were safe for a turn.
-I had no idea the Warlocks could be charged by the Paladin. He showed me the rules for it, and I still barely believe it. Madness :)
-I didn't realize that my Bolt Throwers don't have "multiple shots", so they can fire at full BS without the multiple shots penalty. This would have been useful against Brets.
Still, lots of things went wrong for me that could have gone better:
-Dark Riders should have chased his Pegasus Knights down
-Pit of Shades should not have scattered as much as it did
-He was pretty unlikely to get an 11" charge
-Executioners should have killed more than a single model
And there were the indifferent things that could have gone either way:
-Trebuchet could have scattered off my Black Guard
-Sorceress might not have failed Dwellers Below
-Warlocks might have gotten into the Trebuchet, at least dragging the damn thing down with them, or probably winning combat, since I'd do more damage to the Peasants than the Paladin
As it was, my opponent played a very strong game, and was certainly more skilled than myself. I was outplayed, and I will admit it. The things that could have gone my way were unfortunate, but that's just the way games go sometimes. He played better, and was rewarded for it.
It gave me a lot to think about though - I would have been better served to put the Warlocks over by the Pegasus Knights and had my Dark Riders support the other side, taking out the Trebuchet and Peasants. I could have kept the Executioners back a little more. I definitely could have supported my own units more. Putting the BSB with the Executioners really doesn't work - I should put him with a unit that is already stubborn and can use his extra strength (Black Guard!).
Very good, instructional game in how to play better, which is always my goal.
Tournament Results:
My Round 3 Opponent (I believe his name is David) won Best Overall, as he was one of the few present with a fully painted army.
I ended up winning Best General, as even in my loss I managed to scrape a few points, and I was far enough ahead that nobody could really catch me other than my Round 3 opponent.
Post-Tournament Thoughts:
I kind of already said most of my stuff.
-I think that my Sorceress on a Dark Steed was a waste of points - she never once cast a single spell. I will be turning her into a Chariot at Bugeater.
-Black Guard continued to impress me. They just kill stuff. Lots of points, yes. But lots of stuff that they can kill. Love their stubborn. If they had been charged by the Deathstar unit in Game 3, they would have been hurt, but not completely destroyed due to Stubborn. Then, I could have cast spells and made the fight much more in my favor.
-Bolt Throwers should have been better this tournament, math-wise. I missed SO MUCH and failed to wound SO MUCH that it was actually comical. However, for 140 points, they still did a little bit of work, and will probably do better next tournament. Still a little disappointing :-/
-Bugeater is going to be fun - I'm taking more shooting for my 2500 point list (2 more Bolt Throwers, 2 units of Crossbows, 3 Chariots) and my magic won't really be damaged very much. I'm sure I'll play against good players, but I'm looking forward to getting better at this oddball game. You can only get better when you play against great opponents. I was actually very glad to get a game in against my final round opponent - he knew how to play the game, and had a lot of valuable insights to offer.
So, that's the report! Let me know what you think, if indeed you have thoughts about it at all! I've played in 2 tournaments since the new book came out, and won Best Overall at one, Best General at the other. Can I win Bugeater and qualify for the Fantasy Masters tournament later this year?
Guess we'll see :)
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