Leadership 2

Ok, so here is a bit more in depth look at my experience which was a lot of fun overall.

Now as Derek noted 3 of us flew out and all three had different flights. I think Mike and I both left Oakland within minutes landing in different airports. I was less concerned as my first stop was my brother and sister in-laws drop off the wifey and kiddo. This ended up including some obligatory hanging out at the house, thus getting me there shortly after all of the Derek shenanigans. I get there in time to get a few beers and am cut off when we cannot find a liquor store in close enough proximity for our various stages of inebriety to get furthered. I luck out that Stacey brought an air mattress and prefers this to the hotel bed and snag a bed for the 1 night was gonna be at the hotel.

Over to the venue, which is decent and totally in the cuts of suburbia sharing a building with a senior center. The only thing that was a bit troubling during the tourney was the bit of heat that built up due to the air conditioning being out or something. I hear this was worse for people who had their LD2 bowling shirts and t-shirts underneath.

Game 1
Both my opponent and Dave's are no shows and they try to pair us. I say I don't want to play Dave, mainly because I can play in any time up in Oakland. So they have the table which was between us dice off to see who plays who.

I end up with Ian Dimitri playing an Empire list that is very similar to mine in a lot of ways with a more infantry feel to it. He has a Walter with the +1S ASF sword AoMI and VHS another priest he keeps with a unit of pistoliers to make unbreakable and a lvl2 scroll caddy and a BSB, crossbowmen, handgunners, block of flaggelents, block of swordsmen, block of greatswords with swordsmen detachment(s?), cannon, stank, hellblaster. This is going to be interesting as I have never actually played against Empire, though I know pretty much all it's strengths and weaknesses.

Our first few turns have most of our artillery failing to do anything. I allow a charge by his lechtor into a unit of knights knowing he is going to kill them sooner or later, which he does. Though I am fairly sure he does not realize his chariot will be taking D6 S6 impact hits simply for hitting my stank which was directly behind the knights. I got a couple wounds on his war alter from this and he got a couple on the stank. I had hit his gre~atswords with some knights and decided to hit them with my war alter hoping to break through them, though realizing that if I don't I give his stank my walter's flank. I manage to put 4 wounds on his stank and am stuck in with the greatswords on his turn he gambles and get the 3 steam points needed to smash my walter which he promptly does leaving my lector to get run down. I have not managed to kill his BSB with my 4 S6 attacks in 2 rounds of combat and am down one general, though his stank is now cannon fodder which I eat up. He gives me one cannon to misfire and I snag points here and there to eek out a minor win with my stank at 1W when we are done ~20min after time is called due to some weirdness in the timer and so we each get the same number of turns.

This was by far my funnest games and Ian got my fav opponent. He had come out from Phoenix for this one and runs a small indy GT called I htink Tides of War.

Game 2
I get to my table just as the round is about to start and again no one is there, though after a few minutes shows up Jim Murphy with his LM list of magicyness.

Slaan+TG, 2 EoTG, 2 skink/krox blocks, 3 or 4 terradons, 3 swarms, 10 skink skirmishers. Now I see his list and think this is gonna be tough, though I am excited to gack some stegs with cannons.

Now he starts off telling me that I have to show him a spell is in range before he decides to dispell and later that his unbreakable swarms don't crumble. If it had not been for such long game before that I got almost no break and this game starting off slow I would have contested these. Instead I said fuck it, I am gonna beat him with w/e rules he pull out his ass!

He is playing all weird and does not even use his skink priests to cast for 1 or two turns and his lobbing spells at my lector who has MR2. I manage to kill one skink priest and then gack his steg with my walter after I had destroyed one unit of skink/kroxes(it had 3 W from an early cannon shot). Cannons are a bit underperforming, though better to start than previous game again while it was nice to kill a priest off one steg, I later randomized onto a crew on my last turn which could easily have earned me half points o killed it. I had one flee cause a panic test on a unit of outriders and watched them run off the board. Now I think it was about now that I was going to charge his terradons who had flown over a unit of knights with what looked like over 20" to begin with and were clearly in the arc. He just moves them back a bit and says they weren't really where he placed them but a bit back. I kinda gap in awe at this blantent lameness! Again, fuck it I can still beat this.

I shoot them out of the sky with my outriders since that charge was not planned just something I was gonna do since he had layed it out for me. Now I am pretty confident in the win with me picking around his Temple Guard so that he has little left on the board and he has only claimed a unit or two from me. This is when on my final turn I get to watch a unit of outriders with two mages in it at the time fail to rally and run off the board creating over 600pt swing. Even with this I end with a draw ~100pts in his favor.

Bleh, well the game is over and I finally get a break and some food, I also realize that with all the other silliness that happened in this game we both completely forgot to run the scenario, /shrug.

Game 3
Ken Frey playing Dwarfs. Runelord on Anvil, Runsmith, Thane, some other character, 3x10 wariors, 10 thunderers, 20ish slayers, 20ish ironbreakers, 20ish stone something or other, 2 bolt throwers and organ gun.

This game I know I have some advantages, one being speed and another being I have more shooting with my 3 cannons and two units of outriders. I choose to park my cannons opposite of his castle making them pretty safe all game. His T1 involved not much other than some movement and no real effective shooting. My turn shows me how brutal his magic defense is. I manage to get little off. I then move on to shoot my cannons. Now I draw a line across his bolt thrower and organ gun of which I needed to neutralize such that a long shot and bounce would hit his lord and smith hiding behind a hill. Much to my favor I roll 10 and then 10/8 on both cannonballs and we are down one lord and one smith, anvil is now chillen as some points I will not claim this game. Now I continue to bash him with my shooting, slowing picking off his warmachines and slayers. I slam into a big block of I think stonebreakers with a thane in it with stank and walter smashing up quite a few dwarfs to start with a good number of impact hits and then he challenges me with his thane. I readily accept and swap stats with my mirror of you are now all mediocre stats. He has some rune that allows him to hold on 1d6 so he makes his roll he was shooting for and we get locked here for a while.

Now this game should have been a masacre in my favor, but this was the Nurgle scenario designed specifically to jack armies like mine. I had the scenario kill probably 60% or more knights than he did and gave up a cannon to misfire. Also this game got a bit tense after my favorable cannon overshots then ended up being fairly fun, though a bit less so for him. We chatted a bit on some things I thought might help his list and ended up chatting a bit the next day and he did not seem upset  over the game.

I go back to Torrence to hang with the family and my GPS goes out, phone is dead and a 40min drives turns into a 2 hour of lameness. Luckily I had my laptop with wireless card in the trunk to get me home.

Game 4
I had declared I would totally trade armies for this one if I could get a magic heavy list that could pick all the lores. My opponent Matt MacLean who happens to have a beard similar to mine getting our battle named the 'Battle of the Beards' has a Slaan+ EoTG and some other stuff LM list, though mainly he has what I need to take out my Stank and some knights. I opt to switch, though I probably could have destroyed him had we not.

His list is a bit weird and definitely not the hardest LM can bring, but it's decent and I get to have some fun playing against my own army of which I know how to beat. My basic strategy was to weight one flank and march the Steg around some woods to avoid cannon fire for as long as possible. This works out well and gets my one of the cannons, a knight unit, a mage and one unit of outriders, go engine go! Now in an effort to not be a total douche I give him a pretty solid rundown of my army and some pointers here and there with how I would deal with certain things. I do not however totally help him own me.

I do still have to manage to get off spirit of the forge and my empire defense is not shabby. Through out the game he notes how I am probably going to beat him with his own army as I consistently do things he would not have thought of with his units. Some things of note are me failing a look out sir on the slaan only to recover with the 4+ ward, me out thinking myself and marching the terradons to the same flank where my steg was surely going to get the cannon on that side as well as those same terradons having to march like I said because I could not stop the orb of thunder bound 4 with 2 dice(also the only useful time that item got used all tourney and it was against me) and me deciding to stop a burning gaze with 3 dice which might have killed a few saurus leaving him to fiery blast the terradons after I had repositioned them to go after the other cannon, who could have been in the forest :(

Well with time called I eek out another minor victory with a fun game.

Game 5
Greg Ostashay (or something like that) playing wood elves. He has an alter with no AS 5 shot bow, BSB, scroll caddy, branchwraith, 2x8 dryads, 2x10 glade guard, 5 glade riders, 7 wardancers, 5 or 6 wild riders 3 treekin, 5 way watchers and a treeman.

Now this is the Khorne scenario that puts us with up to 18" forward and double points for chasing things down in combat and he is not allowed his extra wood. This favors me as he needs a bit more time to dance around and draw me out for his solid charges, though this is really the way I like to play. He basically starts with most of his units hiding in or behind the forest on his side and a few others hiding behind his hill. I am able to put a decent crossfire with cannons on both sides of the board, one of which gets a nice bounce through the forest at the archers I could see and hit his treeman only to have his ward save kick in, oh well gonna have to work harder for this one. I had advanced up and had sacrificed one of my units of outriders ability to shoot much down to avoid him getting a nasty tree ambush with his way watchers. I then proceed to draw him as far out of the woods as I can, choosing not to make a semi favorable charge with my walter knowing there are KB dancers lurking.

I am able to draw his treeman out with some knights and a mage in it, though I am forced to flee with them as it was way too close to his charge range for me to chance it. This puts the treeman directly in front of my stank and walter so I combine charge each of his flanks to tag 4 wounds right off the bat. He had moved his dancers through the woods and is able to retaliate with 2 KBs on my lord and I make one 4+ ward, but the other gacks my lord.

This does not matter that much though as next round I finish of the treeman and win and chase down the war dancers and his dryads with some knights I had from a charge of his putting them in the flank of his wild riders, who I cannot do enough damage to destroy or have him fail his ld. I also had him gack a mage in a flank charge I had to receive for fear of getting destroyed on the treeman, though we rolled after I held to see where I would have been and it was just short with 8"(on 3 dice I feel this was still the right choice). I am able to hold for a bit here with my AS, though not able to reform as I don't actually win we draw 2-3 combats till he finally wins and I break in our T4 or 5 which was to be the end. They don't get caught so he does not earn the 2x points for them. I also get off a lucky irresistable force fiery blast on his alter while he was sitting on 5 DD and a scroll, this possibly won me this game. Overall this was a fun game with us both playing a turn or two of the dance around each other game. A minor victory here end me with a record of 4-0-1.

Even with my above record I am only in the middle of the group since I was not picking up very many points for my wins with my high score on any game 14pts due to the scaling win pts scores I think I totaled 58 or 59. I had a great time and look forward to what they whip up for next year.

I was a little shocked to find my list the 4th lowest comp, only 2 others and Dave's lists ranked lower than mine and some lists like Dereks VC getting double my comp scoring a 9 to my 4. Though I know it's a hard list I think they picked on mine because they think it's a points denial list.