So as Ben had suggested, I want to add some comments into the list and how it fared over that weekend.
First, a little background about the tourney itself. It markets itself as a well rounded hobby/gamer tourney so it's a bit heavier on the paint/sports side of things for the US market. To this end, special characters are allowed, and it's heavy on the scenarios. In the past 'scoring units' have been required for completing almost all of the scenarios so many of my list considerations take this into account. To be a scoring unit, you had to have at least one non-character command model alive in the unit.
In addition to the concessions made for maxing scoring units, the army has become a bit of a painting project so I needed to use a lot of already painted models from the past book. I'll find a link to some pics of the army to add here as well.
Now some general list building thoughts:
Morathi
- on paper the bonus +d3 to cast and being able to split spells seemed really strong. In reality it was 'ok' most of the time but her total lack of LOS and only a 4++ meant she died most games. Largely this was matchup dependent so the 2 O&G gunlines and the dwarfs just pulped her with indirect shots making for some uphill battles.Master, Pegasus, Cloak of Twilight; Heavy Armour; Lance; Sea Dragon Cloak; Shield
- pretty standard kit, i think this will be a fairly universal add-in for many armies. The peg hero model I have put togeather is one of my favorites from the army, so he'll see play in every list i write in some fashion. He was good in every game, wouldn't change a thing here.Master, dark steed, Dragonhelm; Dawnstone; Potion Foolhardiness; Heavy Armour; Halberd; Sea Dragon Cloak; Battle Standard Bearer.
- Usuall ran around in one of the warlock units. Capable of solo-charging squishy blocks to tie them up or kill chaff/warmachines handily. Might change to Sword of Might/Dawnstone combo instead but that's kinda 50/50 in my book. 2x 10 Dark Shards, St, Mu.
- Remnants from the last army book, these were 'ok' in every game, helps to add fortitude and stationary scoring units. I would love to eventually replace these with 2x6 dark riders but time constraints on painting new models before the tourney didnt allow.20 Witch Elves, St, Mu, flaming banner
- I'm 50/50 on hte flaming banner's inclusion here but being worried about the wall-o-nurgle I thought it wise in the end. Ends up they chases trolls and otherwise the flaming banner had zero effect on the weekend. Another unit that the unit size was forced by the models i had available to me. I had previously only ever used 2x7 witch elf units, so a quick unit filler plus the witches popped off my old cauldron of blood to pump them up to 20. Would love to push these to 30 strong in the future.10 corsairs, Handbows, St, Mu.
- Purely here to fill core, It was either these or like 12 spearmen. Used to be a horde of 30 in the old book but just can't see it these days. Not with the handbows like they are modeled with at least. Most games these were just an expensive chaff unit or a bunker for a character to sit in to not collect arrows to the face.2 Bolt Throwers
- standard fare. 140 pts for 2 is spot on. These will see play frequently for me. Never great but never bad either.2x 5 Shades, GW, musicians.
- The musicians were again added to make these scouting scoring units. They were rather key in my overall standings as their ability to hide early and come out late game in deployment zones to squat on objctives earned me several battle points a game.2x 5 Harpies
- pretty mediocre with the new panic rules for them and their move out of core. They were included as i don't have any more shades or any dark riders painted. Plus they look really pretty. I'm a paint-whore at the end of the day.2x 7 Warlocks w/ masters
- Good, just good. Any qty but I went with 7's so i could keep a LOS for a round or two for whatever unit the BSB happened to be in. Champs solely to make the units scoring with high movement potential.Kharibdyss -
Pretty 'ok' unit again. Not points wasted but nobody is going to cry foul about the beast either. Got off Feast of Bones against a savage orc great shaman game 2. That made me happy but otherwise he tended to be picked upon as the only solid target in the army to point a cannon at. (assuming morathi was already safe/dead).Lineup for the weekend was as follows (roughly, not 100% on points scored as it's been a couple weeks):
O&G - 9-11 in his favor with max bonus points to me. He had the tourney TM build and it worked. Morathi eventually died around turn 2 from repeated stone thrower/doom diver shots. I killed off his chaff / warmachines with little other losses. My many scoring units ran around and claimed objectives.
O&G 18-2 to me, max bonus. Very similar to game 1 but morathi lived to turn 4 or so before dying to another stone to the face. Keeping her in the game longer plus assassinating the level 4 with a feast of bones from the kraken early on let me do massive damage in the magic phase to safely clean up chaff/warmachines at range before closing on the savage orc horde in the final turns to grind them dead.
Tomb Kings 20-0 to me. He played Arkhan plus the usual assortment, no catapults though. Arkhan died to repeated death pokes from morathi. The witch elves plus warlocks with character support blew through most of the army by themselves with the shooty portion of my army hiding in the rear.
Dwarfs - 11-9 to me? 3/4 bonus points? Something like that. He played 2 massive units (hammerers / long beards) plust anvil, 2x stone throwers, cannon, organ gun, etc. Don't think i got a single spell off all game (he's +5 dice, i'm -1, and he's got 2-3 scrolls) Morathi again died to indirect stone thrower shots on top of turn 2.. Pout. I managed to keep almost everything else alive while dancing around the 2 big blocks and scoring all his war machines, engineers, and his small warrior block. The epitome of negative game play experience. No offence to the player, he was great but i hated the army.
Dark elves - very similar list (see above, it was Corey Reynolds.) The TO had put up an offer of a case of beer to the man that could beat Corey as he has won the Daboyz GT for the past 6 years. This ended 11-9 in my favor (13-12 after bonus points). Corey still insists that 11-9 is draw territory though.
This was the best game of the weekend by far. Went to time in the end as our movement phases and shooting phases just took too long and all the fast cav made for a very fun experience in the end. He played all the characters in the big warlock unit (stubborn helm, Ring of hotek where in there somewhere, not sure who had which anymore) so the big death star got fed chaff / tied up with the suicide peg hero, etc while the rest focused on killing dark riders, bolt throwers and shades.
In the end I took First overall, Best Painted, and Best Dark elf. (obv). Great weekend, I'd reccemend it to anyone who is in the area next year.
One last highlight, The first place 'trophy' is a beer stein engraved with the date/event. If a winner brings it to future events it is filled for free for the duration of the event.
EDIT - Garagehammer Forum post where I put up pics of the army - skip till the end unless you want to see all the WIP shots.
http://garagehammer.net/forum/index.php?topic=2034.0