Tournament Report - pictures

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Deathpepper
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Joined: Sat Jan 02, 2010 5:58 pm

Tournament Report - pictures

Post by Deathpepper »

So my first fantasy tourney was this weekend at Legions games here in beautiful snow-covered Pittsburgh. The store is huge, and a real local mecca of gaming:
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They have dozens of gaming tables, a large number of regulars, and some hillarious warning signs in the bathrooms:
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Anyway, the tourney rules were 1999pts, no comp, no special characters, all terrain was fixed. 3 rounds starting off with random pairings. Sportsmanship score as a tie-breaker. According to their site, the pts limit was picked to "limit demons". I found this statement hillarious.

So the entry fee was $15 for unpainted armies, but only $10 for painted. The difference went into a pool for a best painted army prize. We got 27 players, the organizers had to set up a few extra tables to fit everyone in.

My list was all my painted models:

Master - HA, shield, cloak, Soulrender, Pendant of K
Sorceress - lvl1, Seal of Ghrond
Cold One BSB - cold one, HA, shield, cloak, lance, hydra banner
14 Corsairs - FC, Frenzy Banner
24 Warriors - FC
10 RXBs - shields
10 RXBs - shields
5 Dark Riders - musician
5 Harpies
5 Harpies
8 CoKs - FC, Banner of Murder, RoH
8 shades - GWs
Chariot
Hydra

Legions Tourney- 1999pts

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Round One - Bye
That's right, first round of my first tourney and I get the bye. So I spent the time looking at the other armies. Here's some of them:

The Tzeentch army that eventually won, had 16 power dice or something. Just 3 units of tzeench casty deemons, flamers, and one big blob of plaguebearers with stuborn banner bsb.
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A very pretty wood elves army that played the demons guy 1st round. He had a stunning treeman model with different colored leaves etc. Fun game to watch.
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The orcs/goblins player I went against in round 2. He was playing against an empire army made up of all core heavy cav, 1 steam tank, and some cannons. Very shiny.
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Another dark elves player vs an unpainted high elves army. It seemed like the dark elves where kicking butt all game, but the high elves had tons of points in 2 big blobs of elite infantry and pulled out a win.
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Two beautiful armies. Vampire counts slowly moving in on a gunline dwarf army. The board seemed like it didn't change every time I came by but eventually the VC's wore the dwarves down.
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A quick break for lunch and second round pairings came out.

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Round Two - Joe's Orcs and Gobblins

Gobbo List[/]
3 Shamans with 3 dispell scrolls total, some other item on one of them.
6 groups of 5 Spiders
2 Bricks of goblin archers
3 Bricks of goblins with 3 fanatics each
20 Black Orcs with the Dispel Dice Totem
4 Bolt throwers with 3 goblins on each
Giant

[u]Spell Selections

My sorc got bladewind. The 2 of the shamans got foot of gork and something else, the 3rd guy got gork's warpath and something else. They just used the gork spells all game...

Deployment:
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I tried to fake out Joe's deployment, but he just had way more deployments than me. I wound up with most of my units a little to my left flank, with Driders as my only unit on the far right. Shades had no real options, so they wound up in some ruins on the far left. Put my sorc in the spears, foot master with the corsairs.

Joe had 3 units of spiders holding each flank, and a huge LOS-blocking mesa terrain piece to put his bolt throwers on and to hide his shamans behind (the gork spells have infinite range and don't need LOS...).

I win first turn and gladly take it.
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Turn 1 - Elves
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My forces advance down the center, with harpies screening most of it. Shades move up to the edge of their cover to see, manage to kill 2 spiders. My only spell is countered by a dispel scroll (unnecessary really with his dispel dice...) I cast nothing this game.

Turn 1 - Gobbos
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Goblins move up and dump 7 fanatics on me. 2 of them go through the harpies, killing all of them and 4 of my knights. Hydra and chariot are damaged. The closest unit of spiders moves forward 6 extra inches from some orc special rule and gets a charge on my shades. The shades stand and shoot, then kill off the spiders pretty easy.

Turn 2 - Elves
Knights go stupid and blunder forwards, stopping within about a millimeter of 3 fanatics. I do some maneuvering and shoot down a fanatic and 2 more spiders.

Turn 2 - Gobbos
Fanatics mostly move back into the goblin lines, offing a dozen or so. My units are missed completely this turn. Waaagh movement forces a unit of goblins to charge my stupid knights.
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The knights carve them up. The goblins manage to get away. Magic and shooting causes lots of damage.

Turn 3 - Elves
I try to get in some charges, but the goblins/spiders flee. This leaves my chariot in charge range of the black orcs, oops. My knights are fairly close to the shamans now.

Turn 3 - Gobbos
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The broken goblins run off the table. A fanatic clips the knights, killing all but the master. Another lands right on the spears, killing a bunch. I completely forget I have ring of hotek on the knights. Not sure if I was in range, but Gork spells kill the master and a bunch of shades. Doh! Black orcs smash the chariot. Multi-charge on the corsairs auto-breaks them (giant) and they are run down. My DRiders are facing all the right flank spiders at this point:
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Turn 4 - Elves
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My DRiders charge a unit of Spiders, win combat and chase them off the board. Hydra chases some spiders off the table. Only one unit of spiders left now.

Turn 4 - Gobbos
Gobbos advance, more shooting/magic damages spears. DRiders brought down to 1 guy. Spiders charge my right xbows on a flank.

Turn 5 - Elves
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Hydra comes back on. My spears charge the giant, do 2 wounds to him.
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Xbows shoot down some spiders and Blorks. Last DRider moves to help out the xbows.
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Turn 5 - Gobbos
More magic damage kills the hydra and the left unit of xbows, giant breaks the spears. Gork's warpath backfires, I have it squish a shaman.


Turn 6 - Elves
Spears keep running off the board. DRider charges into the spiders to help out the xbows. Spiders direct all attacks at the DRider, killing him. My Xbows hold.

Turn 6 - Gobbos
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Xbows are run down.

Result:
Tabled on turn 6. 0 battle points.

Analysis:
Ouch that was a rough battle. The goblin magic and artillery are just so dangerous. The fanatics also put a ton of damage on me even though they mostly missed. I think I'll try to lure out the fanatics next time using sacrificial units (harpies/DRiders) and save my heavy cave from all that pain. Magic is useless vs orcs. Just don't bother.

Otherwise, they're ok but I think I could have done a lot better given: using the RoH better, and a reasonable amount of terrain. Having a huge mesa to hide behind was annoying. I had a tough time even getting close to it much less charging the fleet of out of LOS mages.

MVP:
Hydra was a champ. He made more regen saves than you'd believe (90% maybe). Didn't save me, but it was nice having him just shrug off spell after spell.

Hero(es) of the game:
Dark riders did really well vs the spiders. Chased off two units with no shooting at all. I will be adding crossbows next time.

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Round Three - AJ's Wood Elves
After my thrashing in round 2, I was paired up with AJ playing wood elves for round 3.

Hero elf - some one shot 3d6 shooting thing, some cc gear.
Caster elf - lvl1 that hid all game
Branchwraith - lvl1 with stinging nettles (only hit on 6's in challenges)
3 groups of 9 trees
3 groups of 10 archer elves
5 fast rider guys with bows
5 special rider guys (no bows)
8 wardancers
3 eagle riders
Treeman

Spell Selections
I chose Lore of Fire for my sorc and rolled a 1: fireball.
AJ rolled something for his sorceress hero, but I countered it the one time it went off.

Deployment:
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I managed to fake out AJ's deployment such that my army was mostly on the right side of the table, while his was spread out a lot more. So his cavalry, eagles, treeman, and 1 group of trees were off on my left. I had a harpy screen in front of my knights and infantry, xbows on a hill, DRiders, chariot, and hydra on the right.

I put my sorc into one of the xbow units. Foot master with the corsairs again.

The terrain was really too much, we had hills all over and big LOS blocking rock formations in the mid-field. I tried to keep one rock formation between my army and the left flank of wood elves for the first few turns. Shades dropped into those same rocks.

AJ's branchwraith was with the center unit of trees, his other two heros were hiding behind his free forest on a hill to my right. His archer units were on or behind hills.

Turn 1 - DElves
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Move up pretty much like last game. My xbows are out of range to shoot anything. Chariot is stupid.
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Turn 1 - Tree-Huggers
Archers move up and fire across the board at the sorc/xbows. The hero uses his 3d6 shots power on the same xbows unit. They panic and run off the board. He shoots maybe half of the harpies, who stand and take it. His cav and eagles move really far down the board on my left flank.

Turn 2 - DElves
Hydra gets in range to flame one tree on the right, it makes it's ward save. Apparently fire isn't that great vs trees after all... The 4 remaining harpies all charge the closest group of archers. They win combat, killing several. I foolishly charge his fast cav bow guys with shades (I was tired by then), they flee out of range.

Turn 2 - Tree-Huggers
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Trees on the right charge my hydra.
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Bad idea! It lunches on about 6 trees, losing a wound and a handler. The trees break and my hydra rolls really high, catching them and running into the archers behind. Wardancers charge one harpy fighting wood elf archers. I lose combat and 2 remaining harpies manage to run for it. Trees with branchwraith charge the corsairs. My master challenges, the tree champion takes it. Trees do almost no damage (AJ was rolling abysmally with them all game), the corsairs kill the champ and several trees, but they hold. Treeman charges shades, who run. Shooting takes out all but 5 of my remaining xbows, they break and almost go off the board. The melee wood elf hero charges my DRiders who flee.

Turn 3 - DElves
Harpies rally, shades rally, xbows rally, DRiders flee off the board. Knights charge the left archers, obliterating them and almost going off the board. Chariot charges the cc wood elf hero, who runs away. Harpies move over next to the enemy sorceress. Hydra runs down his archers. Corsairs trade kills with the trees they are engaged with. I challenge with my master again, but the branchwraith has this only hit on 6's ability and I miss. Spears turn around so the cav/eagles can't rear charge them.

Turn 3 - Tree-Huggers
Mostly repositioning. Eagle riders charge my shades, allowing me to get all 8 of my guys b2b with his 3 eagles. Eagles wiff their attacks and all die to greatweapons. Hydra charges and kills the last unit of archers. Wardancers pile onto the corsairs, breaking them and running into the rear of my spearmen.

Turn 4 - DElves
Knights turn around. Corsairs fail to rally. My remaining xbows and shades shoot down ALL 6 of the special cav guys (lots of failed 5+ ward saves). Hydra flames 1 wound off the melee wood elf guy. Spears lose combat and are run down. The pursuing trees/wardancers pursue into the still fleeing corsairs, destroying them too.

Turn 4 - Tree-Huggers
Treeman kills some shades with his magic. My last few xbows are shot down.

Turn 5 - DElves
Knights are stupid. Bleh. Harpies charge the sorceress, she flees but is still caught and destroyed. I shoot some of the light cav guys. Hydra keeps trying to catch that melee elf guy, he moves just to one side each turn to prevent a charge.

Turn 5 - Tree-Huggers
Treeman charges the shades, I take it for fun. Treeman kills 2 shades, I do nothing back, break, escape. Opponent insisted this was turn 6, so we called it.

Result:
Solid victory for the wood elves. He had 2 quarters to my 1, caught a banner, killed my general. I don't remember what the vp's worked out to.

Analysis:
Some simple mistakes were very costly. Never set up on a hill vs wood elves. I just gave their archers a good target and was unable to fire back. Should have deployed as far forward as possible with my xbows. Charging with the shades at fast cav was dumb. I could and should have just shot them up instead. Hydra should have just marched instead of trying to flame a single tree dude, but I really thought they had a weakness to fire. AJ made some errors in deployment that I could have taken better advantage of, but I really didn't know the wood elf list very well. Next time, next time...

MVP:
Again, the hydra was a tank. Just shrugged off charges, trashing multiple units. My only regret is screwing around with the hero instead of just moving to help out my other units.

Hero(es) of the game:
Shades were great. They shot up some hippie elves and beat down those eagle rider guys on the charge. I will probably use them more in the future.

Hope you enjoyed the tourney!
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