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test

Posted: Sun May 02, 2010 4:37 pm
by Langmann
Please read this before viewing the rest below:

Siege of Eagle Gate

Darathmir closed his eyes and savoured the feeling of the wind rushing past him as he swept down out of the clouds and onto the battlefield below. The Eagleclaw crews of the Asur boltthrowers turned and pointed as Haroclir issued a mind numbing roar that shook the ears of all the elves below. Desperately the High elf crews tried to train their warmachines on the beast but Haroclir was a young dragon, barely 900 years old and dodged and swerved through the incoming missiles.

Below, Darathmir noted, Kassandra and her altar to Khaine was nearing Eagle Gate, 2 massive War Hydras tethered to the chassis of the Altar, awaiting the gates to collapse and fall, which would finally allow the Druchii access to the verdant Inner Kingdoms of the Asur. Row upon row of repeater crossbowmen kept a steady stream of black darts falling atop the battlements, ensuring that any return bow fire from their misguided kin was rare and ineffective. This constant stream of abuse from the sky helped protect the spearmen and dreaded Black Guard as they launched their final attack upon the massive gate house.

Behind the walls Darathmir saw a Phalanx of Phoenix Guard preparing to hold the breach no matter what the cost, with a mighty crack the gates broke apart in a shower of wood and metal, the Phoenix guard lowered their halberds and prepared to meet the Druchii charge.

With a screech like a wild cat of the Anulli Mountains Kassandra released the two War Hydras, allowing them to charge forward, vaulting over the ruined gateway and smashing into the Asur line. Claws and heads snapped left and right, as the beasts tore the silent ones to shreds. And yet slowly but surely the Hydra’s were surrounded and the amount of wounds they were taking failed to immediately heal.

With grim faces and silent screams the Phoenix Guard launched themselves again and again at the Hydras trying desperately to stem the tide of Druchii flooding through the ruined gateway. High up in the sky Darathmir saw what appeared to be the Tiranocii Prince commanding the defenders desperately giving orders to reinforce the gateway.

Just as he was about to order Haroclir to the ground the Prince fell to the ground, hands at his neck trying to stem the blood pouring around the shuriken embedded in his throat. Darathmir chuckled as he saw one of his 2 bands of shades come sweeping out of the dark buttresses on the fortress, slicing down the High Elf command with disciplined volleys of crossbow fire.

With a twisted smile Darathmir ordered Haroclir to fly low, almost within touch of the High Elf battleline, Haroclir belched black noxious fumes that left scores of Elves chocking on the floor to be butchered by the Druchii spearmen with short, brutal, methodical stabs.

Finally with a loud thunderclap, that left dust floating through the air, Haroclir landed and let loose a piercing cry to Erith Khial. Darathmir sliced downwards, skewering two elves upon his dread lance before joining the cry, a call taken up by all the Druchii on the battlefield.

“Mistress, the gate is ours,” whispered Liziar, sorceress of the Convenant.

SO The Hong Kong GT was on this weekend and I took part like I have for the last 3 years and instead of taking my trusted Empire I decided to take my Dark Elves.

My list:

Dreadlord - Sea dragon cloak, shield, heavy armour, Caledors bane, potion of strength, pendant of kaleth, dragon
Death hag - BSB, Couldron of Blood
Sorceress - lv1, 2xDS

2x10 crossbowmen
15 spearmen - full command / shields

14 black guard - ASF banner, ring of hotek on champ
2x5 shades

2xHydra
2xAssassins - rending stars /mandbane
1xAssassin - +d3 attacks, killing blow, AHW

Game1: Table 1 vs Tomb Kings

So game 1 was against TK. List was:
Tomb King - destroyer of eternites
Lieche - cloak of dunes, some other item
liche - 2xDS
Liche - heiratic jar something else

2x10 bowmen
30 spearmen with full command, heal unit back banner
2x3 chariots

20 tomb guard - free reform banner, full command
tomb scorpion x2
4 ushabti
2 catapults incl 1 skulls of the foes

This was surprisingly a very challenging day and made me a little apprehensive for the rest of the tourney. I thought I did alright and hammered that unit of 30 with my dragon in the front and spearmen in the flank, cutting down about half. Then the shifty guy reforms his tomb guards, move and blasted me with magic to get it incl the TK into the flank of my spearmen. Thankfully my Dragon ran faster then my spearmen and faster then any skeleton.

I eventually got the upper hand and came off with a minor victory! 2100vps to 1659vps


Game 2: table 7 vs Vampire Counts.
So after the random draw game 1 I ended up exact middle of the group on table 7 from 14. My opponent was a semi-regular of mine call Ivan 'The Terrible ' (The terrible added by myself for comic relief).

Scenario rules: Enemy general worth 200vps, enemy hero's worth 100vps extra (so general worth 300vps)

His list:

Manfred the Lord
Wright King BSB with Regen banner
Vampire lv2 something, flaming lance
Vampire lv2 something - store 1 dice

2x20 zombies
1x10 skeleton warriors, fC/flaming
5 wolves
3 bats

Black Coach
10 Blood Knights with 4+ Ward save, champ with sword of might.

Blood Knight deathstar, a cause for concern on most occaisons. Not however when you rush a unit of Black Guard with Killing blow buff right in front of a unit, take the charge, strike first and have your assassin killing blow both Manfred and the BSB in the 1st round of combat (along with 4 other Knights).

Either way game was massacre to me 3700 vps to 595.


Game 3: Table 1 vs Lizards & the most hated player in Hong Kong
Scenario rules. All PD and DD must be rolled before that phase begins on a 1 you loose that die and cannot use it this turn. BS only work on a4+, Any BS by TK that has a 6 in it fails to work.

So my opponent to end the day (back at the top of the table, at this point I was winning the tourney) was a bloke called Thomas who is a local and probably the most reviled gamer in Hong Kong. Last year he came 2nd overall, best General and 0 for sportsmanship (out of 20, I got 20 ).

I had a couple of people wish me good luck, and 1 guy (the vamp player from above) gave me a death salute in honour of me about to get my arse handed to me.

His list:
Slann, knows all spells (metal), +1PD to all spells, +1 to cast, I think thats all
EToG
EToG
EToG

6x10 skinks
3x3 terradons
15 Temple Guard w/ FC

This was a very tight and hard fought game, probably one of my most enjoyable ever if I'm honest. There was NO quater asked of given and we both realized this and just got on with it while having a laugh now and then. There were 2 douchy moments the 1st was when he wanted an EToG to charge my Hydra but stay out of counter-charging Black Guard LOS. So he went to position the EToG like this.

EEEE
HHHH

Instead of

HHHH EEEE

I immediatly corrected the situation for him to which he got shitty at me and our voices began rise however I cut of relatively quickly and blindsided him with the following "dude, go ahead and do it but I'm just saying it's not a friendly thing to do" and he left the models as is.

The 2nd douchy moment was when he had a single champion from one of his skink units and he hid it in his deathpile until it was VP counting time...

Anyway I got rid of Steggy #1 with Hydra 1, Hydra #2 took Steggy number 2, Black Guard took Steggy #3, Dragon Lord flew deep behind enemy lines (I just rushed the crap out of him this game) and took on the Temple guard solo and eventually sliced them all down and took out the Slann.

That said I got hammered pretty badly myself. End result Minor Victory to me. 2400vps to 1850 vps

So this game ended Day 1 and I was bloody happy of the 28 contestants about 18 came up to me privately after this game in 1s or 2s to shake my hand and congratulate me for finally beating Thomas which no one has one in the tourney for the last 4 years straight (he won all his games bar this one in this tourney).

Day 2: Day 2 began at 10am sharp which meant it was probably a REALLY bad idea to stay on webcam till 4 am with a girl called Katie keeping in mind I had 1 hr sleep thursday (webcam with katie again) 3 hrs on Friday (painting 15 spearmen, 10 crossbowmen, 1 couldron, 1 hydra, 3 assassins, 5 shades and basing all + my BG for the tourney).

So it isn't much of a surprise that I woke up at 9.30 in a panic and only because someone called me to ask where I was!

The call I got was VERY ominous, "Yo man, you're playing Jack!" "Jesus," said I, horror evident in my tone. For Jack meant Daemons. Fantasy Daemons.

Game 4: Table 1 (still in 1st here) vs Tzeentch Daemons.

Scenario: enemy units killed +100vps, table quaters worth 200vps instead of 100, all units US5 in your enemy deployment worth 100+ vps. this was a lot of extra points on offer and I got to see just how many extras you can get.

His list:
Kairos Fateweaver
Herald of Tzeentch on Chariot, knowing all spells - beast lore
Herald of Tzeentch on Chariot, knowing all spells - heavens
Herald of Tzeentch on Chariot, knowing all spells - heavens

3x10 horrors
4x6 furies
3x3 screamers
2x4 flamers.

See the above, only 3 units don't effing fly.This was the most pointless game of warhammer I have ever played. He beast cowered my lord while throwing in Comets between my units (because apparently Hotek doesn't affect them even though the 1st line of the Comet description in my rule book says "pick a point on the table" that sounds like targeting a point to me...*grumble grumble*

And because some bright spark decided that sceamers slash attack should be flaming my Hydras just crumble. Pretty much he split is army onto each of my flanks and I gave up the initative (not that I ever had it) and formed a good old Fashioned Square with my entire army within 12" of Hotek and ready to hit anything that got close.

Well 1 Rule of Burning Iron later my Square collapsed like a Balloon in a pin factory.

He flew in from 1 direction hitting 3-5 units. I turned to face his new direction and he flew back over me.

Massacre loss. 90 vps to 5200vps. Yep. I nabbed a couple of furies and he destroyed my entire army, 2500, + 10 units dead = 1000pts, plus all 4 table quarters = 800, plus 8 units in my deployment = 800.

He made more points in 'extras' then my entire army (which I disagree with immensly). Either way this shattered my hopes of pacing. My lead thanks to game 2 meant even if I got a solid loss a Massacre in game 5 should see me win or get 1st runner up. I was very very unhappy after this game and went had a shot of tequila at the bar below.

To make matters worse Thomas (game 3 dude) and this guy met in the final and decided that they didn't want to play with such magic heavy armies and instead agreed to give themselves a draw. IMO The final game, Table 1 should be an epic event and I'm sorely disapointed in the organizers for letting this happen even though I wanted to conceed in Turn 3 of my game against daemons but had the decency to watch my army get systematically destroyed in what can only be described as a Western Front Slaughter.

Game 5: Table 7 vs Vampire Counts
no special rules

So I played on 2 tables , 7 and 1. I prefered 1 but you know at least I never dropped into the back half (my goal this year was the same as last year which was to place in the top 10, I came 12th in '09)

His list:
Vamp lord - regular crap of auto hit lance with extra attack for each kill, 4+ ward but stupid
Vamp - bsb with regen, lv2
Vamp - lv2, helm of commandment
Vamp - lv2, that wolf movement thing, book of arkhan.

2x20 zombies
10 ghouls
5 hounds

5 black knights
8 black knights - FC, +1 to hit banner
8 Black knights - FC, flaming attacks (all heros but wolf on in here)

8 wraiths.

So I'm quite angry at myself about this game as it was a clear case of me over trying and making some silly risks that I shouldn't have taken.

The first was charing my lord T1 into his Ghouls and opening myself to a flank charge by the Wraiths. Considering my Lord was the only unit that would be able to hurt the Wraiths (no other magic items and my lv1 was pretty outclassed) meant I should have been focusing on charging them not the other way around!

The other was again trying to rush my BG at his knights but he just dodged them (he used unbarded steeds for 16" movement...)

Game was alright if frustrating at myself. At the end he had his lord, the helm of commandment lord, 3 Black Knights, 8 wraiths remaining. To my mage, 1 crossbow unit, spearmen unit, both shades and 2 ninja assassins. something like 1867 to 1648 so a draw.

End results: 2 Minor Wins, 1 Massacre Win, 1 Draw, 1 Massacre Loss.

Trophys: 1st - Jack (the Daemon player from above), 2nd Thomas (the Lizard player from above) a guy I never played came 3rd.

Best Painted was Justin Hill from this forum with his Empire army (represent) .
Best General - Jack
Best New comer was Ivan the New Zealander (different Ivan from above) who used a modified version of my Empire army from last year, used my models too actually...
Best Story Teler (their spelling not mine): Yours Truely. So I wrote the best piece of fluff for the Tourney (I think it was a bit of a sympathy victory as the manager is a mate of mine and saw how upset I was over game 4 and he also hates Thomas).

Anyway it was a good weekend, I did things Warlord would ban me for, got an army painted and became the only person in 4 years to beat Thomas in a tourney, naturally the girls are all pouring over me.

Course the best part is until May 31st I get 20% of a single purchase so I can't decide if I'll start my Daemon army for next years tourney (I was contemplating Dwarfs actually but after game 4...screw that Daemons is where it's at). or Orks for 40k