Might get round to a more comprehensive breakdown of these games but for now...
ROUND ONE - Old Man Kitson - Wood Elves
Antony is the player I credit with getting me involved in Warhammer about 3 years ago and we have a somewhat sustained history on the tournament battlefield. He's a clever chap, plays intelligently, and is usually keen to dish out the trash talk which I quite like. Kiwis seems to take themselves very seriously when it comes to Warhammer but Ant is happy to BS his way through grudge threads in the lead up to an event.
This grudge was the result of an earlier battle we had in the last round of Equinox this year (a tournament instituted by Phil Wu and run at/by him and the City Guard club). In that game my filthy Vod-designed Daemon list brutally steamrollered his Brettonians. Thanks to Antony generously rolling over 16-4 and Pete Dunn drawing a Nurgle wall of blech I won that particular event. Nice to win but far from my most glorious moment given the dirt I was throwing down on the table. Anyways... Ant decided at the start of the game to lay down a challenge - the winner could decide the army that the loser would use at the next tournament. So I won, 8th edition was released, and Wood Elves suddenly pretty much uber-sucked. So Wood Elves it was.
Antony followed this up by grudging me for GuardCon :)
Frankly going into this event I wanted two things - to smash Ant (again) and play 5 more games where I could learn more about 8th by playing different armies and players. So far, as I write this today, I'm sure I've done at least one of these things :)
Ant had a neat Wood Elf list (I'll post it later) and played well but the smashy VC Lord, constant Van Hel's casting from the Necro and my deadset stunning good looks did for him and he crashed and burned 14-6. Not quite the result I was hoping for (looking for a 15-5 or 16-4) but good enough to put him in his place (again!).
Big 8th edition learning curve - the banner giving Flaming attacks does not apply to magic weapons! So my str7 Vampire in the Skeleton unit with Banner of Hellfire was all for nought. Read the rules for Flaming if you don't believe me - great spot Ant. Pity it didn't help you :(
ROUND TWO - Jack Dunn - Dark Elves
Jack was at this stage the only Dunn I hadn't already played but I'd played the Darkies run by his brother Tom at FluffyCon earlier this year. Jack's a VERY smart guy (literally - he's an academic mega-brain) and a lovely chap to boot.
Unfortunately the game was a matchup whitewash. Odd really as VCs vs Dark Elves is usually a good pick for the VCs. This list was nails though and I realised quickly that Executioners + Black Guard + Hydra + double Shades + L4 and L2 was going to be a tough ask. Oh sorry, the crucial additive. The Cauldron. So, Killing Blow wherever you want it - cheers. Dodging bullets all the way in I ended up sucking down a Hydra to the face. 13 Killing Blow attacks later = dead Vampire Lord. Stink - still have three turns to play :(
End result - Jack: 2700VPs (everything!!), Dave: 270VPs (the Executioners).
20-0 loss/smashing/obliteration/annihilation
Big 8th edition learning curve - nothing. Sad really and not what I was looking for this weekend. I could have deployed on the base line, or thrown crap forward, hidden, lost 12-8 or something. Not interested thanks - would rather fluffyhammer and move on.
ROUND THREE - "Wild" Bill Shera
Oh cripes - Vampires vs Vampires. This scenario tends to end one of two ways. Either someone loses their General and gets vapourised, or we grind each other to pieces and end with a draw.
In the interests of fun and entertainment, I took a shot at Option A - kick Bill's Vampire's ASS.
This involved a BIG gamble where my Skellie train and characters would blow through an interposing Ghoul unit, tag the General's unit of Skeletons in combat, dispel/block the Shadow casting of a supporting Vampire (and in doing so stop that "Smoke and Mirrors" nonsense) and THEN suck down counter-charges in the flanks while my own General set his straight on who was in charge WHILE keeping his hitty stuff busy with my other blocks and junk.
The plan went off awesomely which I'm actually still quite amazed about! The Skellie bus and assorted mates smashed 20+ Ghouls on the charge and tagged the General, Bill failed to cast with the Shadow Vamp (and as a result couldn't attempt further casting), I sucked down the counter-charge, and 2 turns later the cavalry (or rather the second block of Skellies) arrived and the enemy Vampire ended up on thw wrong end of some serious combat res with not enough Skeletons to hide behind. Result!
In other parts of the field our Black Coaches (two on the field and they almost both finished the game fully charged!) ran amok (ok, mostly Bill's ran amok while mine hid), our two Grave Guard blocks beat other round the heads with their two Barrows banners, the Varghulf copped some Black Knights with a beautiful sacrifice (cheers Vargy).
Big 8th edition learning curve - Killing Blow + parry ward saves = lightsaber duels! My Grave Guard champion and Bill's Wight King BSB went hammer and tongs for two rounds clocking up and then parrying Killing Blow wounds. Was mean fun until my champion suddenly got too proficient and decapitated his supposedly superior enemy. Bonus VPS for killing an enemy character with a unit champion! Actually our Grave Guard causing immense Killing Blow casualties on each other for a couple of rounds was also pretty amusing.
18-2 win.
End of day one - 32 battle points. Swimming lazily in the middle of the pack (I hope). Aside from the abrupt and disappointing outcome of Round Two it's been a fun day :)
2 comments:
Glad to see you're posting again! Cheers for the writeups, it's especially interesting to see how the lists I was theory-hammering when judging actually worked out on the tabletop.
Cheers. Yeah I'll be writing up my thoughts on the lists I faced and a couple of other ones I saw in attendance. It's a steep learning curve.
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