Leadership 2

Friday
Long but interesting drive down with Johnny and Cameron, mostly talking Warhammer and life.  Some shitty traffic rolling into LA but otherwise uneventful.  Arrive at the hotel about 6:30 to find Derek drunk off his ass and making love to Fred Whitney. Apparently anything Fred said was endlessly hilarious to Derek.  You have all heard the assorted stories about his night of wanton inebriation so I will refrain from going into it, except to say the only real damage Derek did that night was to my eyes as he stumbled out of the bathroom stark naked (with the window to the lobby more or less open and exposed).  He stumbled around the suite looking for someone, went back into the bathroom, brushed his teeth for like 20 minutes, stumbled out, looked at me on the couch (thankfully wearing a towel at this point), said “Fuck you”, and fell into the nearest bed.  He curled up into a fetal ball and started calling for Cameron, who had abandoned him and left me to babysit.  Once he petered out I went to the pool where the rest of the degenerates were eyeballing some definitely underage girls and eventually went to bed. 

Round 1            Some guy         High Elves
This guy had a Star Dragon.  That was pretty much it.  A couple of units of Dragon Princes, some white lions, spear and archer unit as core, scroll caddy, BSB on mount.

Due to the fact that they assumed guys who had paid and submitted lists were going to show up without having them register, both my and Josh’s opponents were no shows.  I got this guy, Josh got Ian.  I had never fought a star dragon and was a little worried, but this guy was obviously a little inexperienced, in that he opted to breath fire on me round one rather than charge.  I had lined up one none flaming herald for each dragon prince unit.  The white lions, who worried me being str 6, I shot to death with flamers.  Having opted to flame me, I managed to get the charge off with a dog/herald unit.  The dragon was scary, and over the course of 4 round managed to kill two heralds, but he kept losing by one every round.  Turn 6 I managed to flank him with a bloodletter unit.  He killed the last herald in the fight (fireproof dragon, no love with jugg KB), but still lost by the flank and finally failed is break check to be run down by the dog unit.  18 point win to me, but it was annoying in that I had to charge a building in order to get his last core unit (archers).  Nice guy and a challenging game, if only in I was having a really hard time with that dragon.  He told me he didn’t think my army was that strong going in as at least I didn’t have a greater daemon.  More on this later.

Round 2            Ian something    Empire
This is the guy that played Josh round 1.  Stank, walter, volley gun, one unit of outriders, huntsmen, big  unit of greatswords, small unit of flagellants, assorted other crap.  He was lining up for a double charge with the stank/walter and I decided to give it to him.  my plan was to let him charge a unit of bloodletters with two heralds in it, refuse the challenge, and leave him with retiring my BSB or my str 7 herald.  Either way I could either KB him off the walter or kill the chariot.  Unfortunately for me his impact hits combined with absolutely no ward saves left me with no back rank to retire to and I had to accept the challenge.  He did his trick and more or less wiped out the unit and two heralds.  He did not overrun (a rules violation I later found out as the pope has hatred) but I followed up with a dog/herald charge on both models.  Stacey heard him say to a friend while I went to the restroom that he thought I had made a mistake, but this was not to be the case.  I accepted his  challenge and even with my reduced attacks was able to KB his pope.  After that it was a matter of popping the chariot and grinding down the steam tank.  The scenario was the psychology one and it screwed me out of a battle point.  His greatswords were getting beat upon by my generals unit and were going to be outnumbered, which would have given me the easy run into his deployment zone for an extra battle point, but that round we rolled immune to psych.  17 point massacre.

Round 3            Dan something  Glitter Daemons from Eyebleed Pass
This army is painful to look at.  He used assorted colors of glitter to base them (and get glitter all over whatever table he played on).  This guy was my one bad game and more than a bit of a dueche.  He is the guy who plays the Star Dragon guy and because he rapes all the locals with his list they both think greater daemons are the way to roll.  Bloodthirster with Dark Insanity (2d6+2 attacks per round), killing blow, and 3+ armor, Nurgle BSB with my favorite enemy banner, the stubborn daemon one, herald of tzeencht on chariot, unit of plaguebearers, unitl of slanesh with always strike first, slanesh herald with ether blade (no armor saves), some furies, two 10 man units of horrors.

I need to remember that I always need to stop miasma rather than any direct damage spells, but made the mistake of choosing my banner against lore or tzeentch.  Not that it would have mattered as the one critical miasma he managed to get IF with two dice.  He charged right into a bloodletter unit with two heralds in it with his bloodthirster.  I wanted to see what he had on the guy so challenged with the unit champ.  He butchered the poor champ but thanks to his banner I was able to stubborn right through it.  That was the pattern.  He would challenge something, butcher it, and I would stick thanks to his banner.  He managed to KB both heralds but not before I stuck two wounds on him.  when I ran out of characters I charged in with a unit of flamers and challenged him with they pyrocaster, who against all odds stuck another one on him.  he eventually ground down everything else but by that time the fight was behind him.  meanwhile he moved his herald of tzeentch around to attempt to kill my flamers, but left them close enough to get the charge off and kill him.  My only real concern was the herald of tzeentch with ether blade.  ASF with no armor will hurt me badly.  However, due to some clever positioning on my part and charging with two units rather than just one I was able to keep him out of base to base with my guys.  He did not issue a challenge (I had a bloodletter champ ready to take it) so the three dogs on him focused and in two turns burned him down.  The stubborn banner made me grind down every model in the unit in a long and painful fight, but it helped me much more than it helped him so I can’t complain.  The two horror units both died to dogs and the plaguebearers were embroiled in the same fight as the slanesh unit.  He finally ground out everything fighting his bloodthirster but I got my remaining unit of flamers to stick another wound on to him.  I knew it was close and my big concern was that he would fly that puppy the hell out of there, take a quarter, and not give up the points, but he got greedy and flew him into a position to charge, well within range of the flamers.  I stuck one more wound on him for the kill.  That’s when he got duechy.  First he tried to tell me that Bloodthirsters have 6 wounds, not 5.  Then once we looked it up he tried to tell me that I had only stuck 2 wounds on him in combat.  If there was one thing I was counting carefully it was the wounds on his bloodthirster.  After pulling everything it off the table he got sulky.  He was reduced to a single plaguebearer and his nurgle BSB.  I had my flaming str 7 herald in and he should have died at that point, but rolled irresistible force on his miasma, which reduced every stat my herald had to 1.  Then he stuck me with 2 wounds that made it past my armor for the kill.  My dogs managed to fail to kill the remaining plaguebearere, leaving him with enough on the table to reduce my win to a minor win.  13 points.  I should have tanked him for the bloodthirster stuff but didn’t.  I heard later he told Hengl that Furies are WS4, so I guess it was his pattern.  Yet somehow he still scored an 83 in “soft” point and his glitter got him a 33 in paint.  Retarded.

Round 4            Todd Ensly        Dwarves
Round 4 saw Mike and I matched up.  Since we had just played Thursday we asked if we could be rematched.  I asked to be rematched up rather than down (mainly because I wanted to beat the hell out of Eric Gerber and think I have the list to do it) but for whatever reason the paired us down, and since I had played the glitter daemons last round I ended up with Todd.  He played pretty much the same dwarf list he used to win best general at QCR, which is a strait up point denial army.  Everything is stubborn, everything is immune to fear, tough as nails to keep you from scoring anything.

This guy was kind of bitter about being matched up against me, and overall kind of a dry game, but fine otherwise.  I was surprised when he lined up on the 12 inch mark and didn’t start further back.  In fact he moved forward a little round one.  I managed to get first turn and advance.  He moves forward a couple inches and has a painfully ineffective shooting phase.  I charge forward and more or less make hamburger of his army.  He managed to kill one unit by some bad rolls on my part, but otherwise it was mostly done.  His general and BSB were both dead and all his big blocks gone.  He was ready to concede but when I asked if that counted as a massacre he wanted to add it up, so I was forced to play out the last couple of painful turns hunting down his war machines and other little crap.  We add up points at the end and due to the two hearalds dying and the 220 points he had left on the table I didn’t get the massacre but just the major win.  A perfect example of why the massacre system is lame and denies someone a graceful exit from an painful and undignified defeat.

Round 5            Steve Masada    High Elves
Steve and I played last year and I think I voted him best game then, a pattern that was to repeat this year.  Great guy, excellent player, and all around credit to the game.  High elf list with lvl 4, lvl 2, big unit of phoenix guard with banner of sorcery, mid sized unit of white lions, unit of spears, unit of archers, two RBTs, dragon princes, lion chariot, two eagles, BSB on mount. 

This is the only game in the tournament wherein I made mistakes.  The advantaged was mine, as we started at the 18 inch mark and got double victory points for units killed or run down from close combat.  He made sure either side had a woods based bunker and got the one he wanted.  My first mistake was not simply taking a unit and marching them into the woods to eventually force combat.  Round one saw him charge a dog unit with his lion chariot and against all probability completely destroy them.  The chariot would eventually get shot down by flamers but due to the victory conditions it was a big swing.  His dragon princes charged and died to my general without the flaming blade on the far right.  In a brilliant move he charged his BSB out of the phoenix guard at a lone unit of flamers.  Here is where I made another big mistake.  I stand and shot, but his guy was fireproof so I let it go.  However, I forgot that stand and shoot against characters charging out of a unit is resolved against the parent unit, not the model.  This would proved painful later as I had to grind those phoenix guards down to a man and held up two herald for a long time.  His lvl 2 had taken beast so I did my usual precaution of hiding my heralds in bloodletters.  That’s when I found out there is a FAQ that states beast cowers can be directed at a foot infantry unit containing a mount.  Have fun with that guys.  So my general’s unit was forced to hang out in the middle of nowhere for two turns while he shot the bloodletters out from under him.  His level 4 kept casting the spell that makes all units with 12 inches stubborn, which is why I had to grind out those damn phoenix guard.  Had I gotten my stand and shoot off they would have died a couple turns sooner.  He finally gets a single bolt RBT shot on my general and rolls a 1 to wound.  Round 6 I stick him in a 4 dog unit for protection and opt to wait out the turn.  His BSB flee’s a charge and is run down but doesn’t count for extra victory points.  A herald gets on the flank of his white lions, who hold due to being stubborn and in his turn 6 manages to only do one wound and pop.  He shoots the dog unit with archers and manages to kill 2 dogs in a freakish string of luck.  Then he single shoots the RBT onto the dogs, randomizes onto my general, and kills him.  A huge point swing turn 6.  I still had a lot of points and a couple banners, but when we added it up it ended a strait draw.  Once more I voted him my best game and was glad to see him get best sports.

Overall, a good time but a lot of weirdness that was kind of annoying by the end.  I will definitely return next year and recommend you all do as well, but I still have to say my favorite tournaments are going to remain Alamo and QCR.