Leadership 2

This past weekend I was the only DE player out of 20 for a tournament held on the USS Hornet in Alameda CA.

Due to a paint judging snafu I ended up 3rd overall and top in battle points, though they had no 'Best General' award.

I played:
Lord on dragon, caledors bane, potion o strength, pendant
master on cold one, sword of no armor saves
Sorceress with 2 scrolls
24 spears, shields, full command
2x5 dark riders with xbows
6 harpies
2 chariots
5 knights, champ with hotek, ASF standard
7 shades with champ
hydra
assassin with killing blow, +d3 att, hand weapon

My matchups were a good mix, in round order:
Chaos Dwarfs
Tomb Kings
Brettonians
Skaven
Vampire Counts

I cant do justice to 5 battle reports, but will try to hit highlights.

Vs Chaos Dwarves, Thomas Van Dyke
My dragon and Hydra ran up the left flank while on the right I had a standoff with my knights vs his centaurs. Shades fired away at centaurs. My chariots and spears sat stupid in the center and his blocks marched up. His earthshaker would slow my dragon and hydra but all the bolt throwers bounced off dragon and rider. My harpies and dragon eventually ate through all the warmachines while his bull taurus lord killed the hydra. His centaurs charged my knights after I killed 2 with shade xbows, and I won and ran them down. In the center I managed to get a chariot into a blunderbus unit, providing cover so my spears could get close enough to charge his large dwarf block with aid of an assassin and chariot. I ended up losing the assassin, master, and both chariots by the end of the game but he had lost more. Major victory for me.

Vs Tomb Kings, Ivan Jen of Leadership2
Ivan warned me he would kill both my chariots in 1 shot if I put them side by side, fine, Dragon lives I say. He keeps his promise when he gets first round and drops a hit on one and a partial on the other that wounds 5x. I play aggressive, knowing nothing fast can take on dragon on. He does a good job of hiding the heirophant but I eventually get the lone shade champ in the flank of the heirophants unit and a charge with the dragon on some archers that gives me over-run into the heirophant. I drop 5 wounds on the heirophant, he passes 3 to his unit with his 4+ ward and lives. He gets another unit into my rear but it cant save his heirophant from another round of combat. Dreadlord misses all attacks, Dragon hits 2 and wounds 2, but 4+ ward saves them. I lose by a lot and dreadlord on dragon breaks as well as shade. I escape, rally, irritated but still in it. The game is really close so I move to take some quarters. His heirophant has healed 1 wound, but I fly over and flame breath him getting half points and the quarter. Another victory for me.

Vs Bretonians, Larry DeTomassi
I screwed up early in this game and gave Larry a charge on my dragon with a lance of knights with no heros. We would both have bad dice for a few rounds here. I got a chariot in his flank and he still won by musician and my dragon broke and ran to within inches of board edge. After rally the dragon eventually came back and ate that lance. In the middle my hydra terrorred his generals unit away, but they rallied too far from the action to effect the game. Larry took the bait in the center with a few lances charging my dark riders, and lost most of his lances to my combo charges. In the end it was a slaughter in my favor.

Day 1 was over and talking with LD2 it looks like Im in top 3 in points. Luckily day 2 didn't start with me facing another Leadership2 member.

Vs Skaven, Steve Castro
He had lots of troops but for shooting had only 1 unit of jezzails that quickly died to my harpies after being shot to half by shades and dark riders. We danced around lots of units but the game really came down to a mess in the center. His lord and BSB with swarm banner were in a large unit of stormvermin that bring a static 8 combat res. He uses them to chase off my hydra, giving me awesome charges.. dragon in right flank, knights in left, 2 chariots in front. I kill something like 17 stormvermin and he knows it is game over.. With the BSB He manages snake eyes on the reroll and holds. He screams, dances a jig, and charges everything he can into me. 20 slaves into my knights flank, a plague censor bearer into knights other flank, 20 slaves into chariot flank. He is back to a 9 combat res before wounds are dealt, my dice flop and I lose by 5. Knights hold, chariot flees, chariot holds, dragon holds. His moment of glory is crushed as I throw dark riders into slaves flank and harpies into other slaves flank. Now this combat is HUGE! My dice don't fail me. I kill dozens and chase him down left right and forward. Another victorious slaughter.

Final game was Vs Vampire Counts, Derek Wiswell of Leadership2.
I knew my battle points were good and a draw or better would put me on tops in battle points for the whole tourney. Derek pushes his wraiths and Vargulf forward where I cant reach them with Dragon, makes a spirit host base with an annoying irrisistable force wind, and its my turn. I give the vargulf a charge on spears with master and assassin. I give wraiths and spirit host a charge on hydra or chariots, and just move forward. Hydra flees from wraiths, chariot holds up spirit hosts, spears hold for vargulf. The vargulf kills some spears but fails to kill the assassin. He takes a wound, then 3 from combat res he fails to regen. This allows the master, assassin, and dragon to charge 20 ghouls with a vampire. Eventually I kill the vampire and the ghouls while saving my flanks by sacraficing my hydra. I win by something like 400 points in a very low casualty fight. Minor victory I am proud of.

Undefeated and with an army I know ranks in top 5 for paint I expect to win overall, but it wasn't to be. Due to an error in paint scoring I am ranked 5-10 points below what I should have (not just IMO, but admitted by organizer), and overall goes to John and the Squigtonians. All the games were great fun and who doesn't enjoy winning every game!