Leadership 2

This tournament started on a bad note, as I developed a very minor cough the morning we left.  I guess I can't go to San Antonio without getting sick.  Anyway, it was a totally fun trip, with Derek and Johnny both getting new names.

Round 1-Derek Cullin      Lizards

Really nice guy.  Just got back from Afghanistan (Air Force) and just all around great guy.

Oldblood on Carnosuar, Burning Blade, War Drum, Glyph Necklace

Priest on EOTG

Priest on foot

Min Skinks skirmishing

Kroxigors

2x3 Terradons

6xCold One Riders with Sun Standard (-2 to shooting)

2x1 Salamanders

This was the Ojo scenario, and since I know from past years most people choose a unit champ or something lame to kill I decided to balls up (and got a mention for this at the end of the tournament) and had my general put the Ojo on his general on carnisaur.  You are all pussies compared to me.  Anyway, I could tell this guy’s strat centered around hitting someone with the double cold one/carnisaur charge, and so gave him something too juicy to pass up in the form of a dog unit with my general and another herald in it strait across from them.  I put another dog unit with a single herald in front of the EOTG, hoping he would charge.  He took the bait in both cases.  The EOTG hit the dog unit, AOE’d them for a couple wounds, did a couple more on impact hits, and got stuck in a challenge with the herald who killed the skink in short order and eventually ground down the steg.  The Cold One unit and general in Carnosaur hit my dog/herald unit.  He took the challenge with his general and thanks to the obsidian armor and his carny only hitting on 5’s failed to wound.  I KB’d his general to complete the Ojo requirement while the other herald did ugly things to the cold one’s.  After that it was mostly clean up for a 20 point win for me.  Great guy, but still a little new to Warhammer I think.

Round 2-Eric Nelson      Lizard

This guy had the magic heavy lizards, which if anything is easier for me than the combat list that Derek had.

Slann with Becalming, Focused Rumination, Focus of Mystery, Cupped Hands of the Old Ones, Scroll, War Banner

Scar Vet with Flaming Sword of Chotec and Carnasuar Pendant on cold one

Skink Chief on Terradon (?) with staff of the lost suns, enchanted shield

Preist on EOTG

3xmin skink skirmishers

4xterradons

5xcold ones

20 man temple guard

2xSalamander units

I’ve done this fight often and it doesn’t really present a lot of challenge.  This guy was good in the sense he kept the EOTG way off to the flank and brought it in after I was all locked up to AOE bomb me left and right.  He used the skrimishers to get me to expose a flank on a dog/herald unit to the temple guard, but the herald managed to continuously do enough damage to keep the unit from wiping.  His cold one unit ran afoul of another dog/herald unit while my dog unit with no herald ran up the left flank and approached his temple guard from the rear.  He got a good charge off with the EOTG on the embattled dog/herald unit in the temple guard but since I had already killed the unit champ that allowed me to challenge and kill the skink off the mount.  Next round I got another dog/herald unit on his flank and the dog unit on his rear.  At that point it was a matter of grinding down the temple guard.  The Slann autobroke and got away, which was worrisome as we were within range of a draw, but I had enough free units to eventually run him down for the 20 point win (piñata.  I put a few wounds on the piñata in the first round and ignored it for the rest of the game).

Round 3-Taylor Grimwood           WoC

At this point in the game my sickness had progressed to the point where I had lost my voice entirely and was not at 100%.  I asked John to put me in the small room in the back in hopes of it being quieter and he was kind enough to do so.  Taylor beat Jordan Braun round 1 and his list is the ultimate deathstar.

Lvl 4 nurgle with Puppet

Festus the Leechlord (?).  I suppose I should have read more carefully but again, kind of sick and Army Builder does this bullshit thing for named characters wherein they actually take up less space and are less obvious than ordinary character.  Bottom line I did not review his rules prior to the game.  My mistake #1.  Apparently his a lvl  2 with nurgle who gives the unit he is with regen on a 5+ and poisoned attacks.  Of course if I were playing a named character (Skulltaker, for example) I would make a point to tell my opponent what major changes that character does to a unit.

Lvl2 with Power Familiar nurgle

BSB with sword of striking on deamonic mount

3xMin Marauder horse

29xChosen of Tzeentch with Rapturous Standard

2xChaos Warshrine

First of all, this was the third army I faced with bare min points in core units.  Say what you will about my list, but my core units are actually both larger and have more points in them than bare min.

When I first looked at his list I thought “I should just stay away from that unit and score what I can”.  This would prove to be the correct decision, but I rethought myself.  I added up his total points outside of his deathstar and came up with a total of 505 points.  Given that 280 of those were in war shrines which were firmly embedded behind the deathstar that left 225 in scorable points.  Give his magic heaviness my concern was that he would be able to do enough damage with magic to cost me even the draw.  I know now that all his most effective spell only have an 18 inch range, so I should have just stayed away and gone for the draw.  My request to change rooms bit me on the ass as the table we were on had a wall that was at least 12 inches long and at least 12 inches tall (apparently the overflow room was were all the Gorkamorka terrain ended up) which Taylor parked his deathstar behind.  If the scenario (save the keg) and not dictated an exact position for the keg unit I probably would have gotten nothing.  In the end I decided to do what I could to kill the deathstar.

Taylor had amazing luck, starting with rolling boxcars at the start of the game on his deathstars eye of the god roll giveng them a 4+ ward and stubborn.  What he failed to mention until I was engaged (and is not listed on Army Builder’s army list) is that the Mark of Tzeench increases that to a 3+.  In fact, the fact that he didn’t mention something like that that is not anywhere on his list was the deciding factor that pushed me over on my decision to tank him at the end of the tournament.  So to recap, the unit had a 2+ armor, 3+ ward, and 5+ regen.  I won’t get into the gritty details of the fight (there really wasn’t any maneuver to speak of.  I was able to maximize my herald to do the most potential damage to the unit, to no avail).  I managed to KB his BSB early on but from there on his ward saves were unbeatable.  At one point I had all 4 heralds, 2 units of dogs, and a unit of bloodletters on it and in that turn did exactly one wound.  Sufficed to say my characters all died.  A failed stupidity roll plus extra range on the charge for my bloodletters allowed me to get his keg for an 8 point loss.  Had I just fought for the draw I would have had a 12 point draw, which an the end of the tournament would not have changed my placement, so a pretty tame learning experience.  Still, not a fun game.

Round 3 – Adam “Spike” Spiegel- Bretonians

My voice had recovered enough to communicate, but I was still kind of out of it. This guy was another really nice guy and a great game.

Lord on Pegasus (?) with Gromril Great Helm, Tress of Isoulde,  KB on large target

Damsel scroll caddy

Paladin BSB with virtue of duty and war banner

5xGrail knights with anti shooting banner

2x3 units of peg knights

6xRealm

2x8xRealm

6xErrant

12xbowmen skirmishers

10xbowmen ranked

Trebuchet

This guy was geared to kill steam tanks.  Really nice guy, but his lack of Fast Cav really hurt him.  I ran my furies forward and lined them up in front of his units, which he had split into two groups.  Rather than do the double or triple charge and go for the overrun, he charge each with on unit each.  He broke and overran two.  His grail knights(which he ran 5 across rather than in lance formation.  I guess it makes sense if you expect to receive charges) managed to contact a dog/herald unit.  Unfortunately I had set up a bloodletter unit to counter charge.  He flew around with his general and one unit of peg knights to try to get my magic cannon, but I was screening them with bloodletters.  His small errant knights hit a unit of furies.  My general was in range and they held with one fury left.  The last fury unit he sent his other peg knights after but they failed to contact anything on the overrun.  Next round the bloodletter unit on the flank of the Grail Knights plus the herald finished them and left them in a good position to later countercharge his general.  The other peg nights died to another dog/herald charge and on my overrun I managed to contact one of his realm units.  He charged the bloodletters screening my cannon, but took my unit champs challenge with his general rather than his unit champ, allowing me to keep enough models to survive the break test.  The unit that had flanked his grail knights was in a perfect position to rear charge the peg/general and autobroke them off the field.  After that it was mostly cleanup.  A bloodletter unit got the cannon while a single herald killed the trebuchet.  20 point win.  After the game I gave him a bunch of advice on how brets can screw me up and he seemed to appreciate it.  I think he might be the guy who gave me the best game vote. 

Round 5-Ben Burns-WoC

I’ve know Ben for years but this is the first time we played.  Also since it was table 1 he was going to put it in his magazine, so that was exciting.  However, one look at his list and I knew I was in trouble.

Lvl 4 with Mark of Tzeentch, collar of Khorne, Familiar

Lvl 2 with puppet, chaos armor, Bloodcurdling Roar, and Necrotic Plylactery

6x5Maruader horsemen with flails and throwing axes, all marked slanesh

4xChaos Knights marked slanesh, one with warbanner, one with rapturous standard

By the way, in comparison to the other WoC player, Ben had clearly marked on his army list that his Mark of Slaanesh made the unit immune to fear, terror, and panic.

This was obviously a gateway army, and he managed to get in off twice with pretty bad results, but the big problem for me was the 6 units of fast cav.  Basically I had no control over my maneuver phase.  Early on I got charges off, which he managed to flee (although one I double charged with a unit of furies to kill the unit) and at that point the flank charges set in.  His two characters were safely in a unit of  fast cave that stayed safely out of combat.  He would shoot a couple of fire spells from the lvl 2 in hopes of drawing out my two dispel dice and then drop 5 dice on gateway.  My dispel dice were good but all my other dice (up until now very strong) went to hell.  He was smart enough to avoid the flank charge on the dog unit w/herald trap.  He did make one charge on a dog unit with my BSB on the other side and in a roll that kind of was the beginning of the end I need to roll an 8 or less twice to keep the herald up (and most likely kill off the unit) still managed to fail twice and wipe the unit.  I managed to run down a few units and Malachi crunch another unit of knights, but the whole fight felt like boxing the invisible man.  In the end a 19 point win for Ben.  That being said, it was a great game, very challenging, and Ben is a fun game, so I gave him my best game vote.

At the end of the tournament, my 3 20 point wins, plus a ton of soft points, gave me enough to win 3^rd overall.  My improved paint scores helped dramatically, and Jim and Chris, the paint judges, both sat down with me and gave me some awesome feedback.  Overall, an excellent tournament where I had a lot of fun and would have had more fun if I hadn’t been sick most of the time.  If any of you can only make one out of state tournament this is the one IMO.