Quick writeup for Tournament last sunday.

[Azure]

Well guys, Dundracon was another success. I came in... 11th? out of 26 so not a bad placing but obviously not as high as I had hoped. There was two painting judges and I feel like one graded significantly harder than the other but since I went 1-1-1 it didn't matter much to me. Had some great games with some interesting luck on both sides of the table.


My list can be found here http://www.druchii.net/viewtopic.php?t=67915

Pre-tournament shenanigans: I headed up to San Ramon, Ca, after work in the morning on Saturday night. After getting up there, it turns out that two of my gaming buddies had found some warhammer players randomly in a tabletop section of the convention. We all wanted to get some warhammer in so the plan was set. We created tables in the hotel lobby (Mind you, this hotel was not the same one Dundracon was in, meaning we had to ask permission from the manager etc) and had a game each. Hard liquor and beer was had by all. Then a Talisman game started up with more cider, Modelo and Bacardi. We ended the game around midnight but 18 feet worth of tables in the middle of a hotel lobby with 6 warhammer armies was worth mentioning!


Game 1: I played against a VC opponent who had a Level 4, 3 Level 1's and a Wight King. He also had a horde of around 40 Ghouls and 40 Grave Guard. He also had a unit of 20 or so skeletons to hold his lord with WS10 and the Helm of Commandment. He rounded out his list with a large block of zombies and that was it! I immediately saw that I couldn't fight the regenerating shenanigans that is the Grave Guard bunker (Just wait until I forget...) so I deployed to push the flanks and focus on the ghoul unit with it's 3 vampires to get enough for the win. I had my RXB's in a building and their shooting combined with my shades and hefty amounts of Withering brought the ghoul unit down to a reasonable size. Meanwhile my Dreadlord charged into his lords skeleton unit to hold it up. I eventually got my shades into the rear and the combined attacks managed to pop the entire unit. Around this time, his ghoul unit managed to hit my hydra and cast an IF Transformation of Khadon. As you probably guessed, my Hydra didn't last long but my Black Guard charged the victorious ghouls and with KB beheaded two vamps and held them long enough for the charge of my warriors to crumble them.

Going into the last two turns, I pretty much knew the game was in the bag BUT two of the bonus points came from killing the BSB and the most point unit. Obviously all that was in the Grave Guard. At this point, all my opponent had left was his Grave Guard with Regen and a Wight King. I ended up attempting to charge him with both my pegasus in the rear, my corsairs with KB in the flank and my Cold one Knights in the front. Unfortunately my Corsairs fell short and I believe I rolled quite low for the magic phase. Either way, I ended up killing a lot of them but losing my COK in return. After my corsairs got in with KB and Mindrazor, the game was done.

End Result: Victory for the Druchii. 20 Battle Points.


Game 2: The scenario was Watchtower and with my 20 strong corsair unit, I thought I had a good chance to hold it if I was given it. Unfortunately my opponent, Alan Martini, OnG player and a member of our club, rolled higher and dropped a unit of Big Un's in there with a a hero. The rest of his list was two big units of goblins, one with fanatics, 2 rock lobbers, 2 chariots, another unit of Orc boys and 3 trolls in two units. The game was an absolute disaster. Though my dice were far from spectacular, I went into the game with a poorly thought out plan and it showed. The initial plan was to get first turn, give my BG an extra attack and charge the tower's big uns while debuffing them with Withering and Miasma. I ended up rolling a 5 for my charge so was short. In Alan's turn, he cast Waaagh and I stupidly forgot about it. Turn two started up with my Black Guard charging the tower and getting cut down to 1 model due to ASF and reroll misses. A huge mistake from me and I deserved to lose after that start. I also moved my Hydra into the flank of his generals unit meaning he had to worry about it hitting his flank with my spearmen to the front. On his turn, Alan dutifully rolled a 6 on animosity, turned to my hydra, charged it, killed it and reformed towards my Warriors. About the worst possible thing that could happen. At this point, the game was over. I attempted a last minute take over with my RXB and then my corsairs but it was far too little too late.

End result: OnG victory with 19 points to my 6.


Game 3: Johnny Haliburton of the LD2 Oakland gaming group. Johnny was playing Beastmen with a 25 Gor herd, 40 or so Ungors, a Doombull, Gorebull BSB and 5 minotars in one big block, 3 more minotars all alone, 2 tuskgor chariots and 2 units of harpies. He also had a beastlord to act as a general.

I played Johnny a few years back at this very tournament. In that game, I was trying out a Beastmen "super herd" and he was playing a self proclaimed broken empire army. It ended in a massacre in his favor and I hoped for something similar.

This game was an absolute mess of racist jokes, raunchy humor, breaking of the warhammer rules (not cheating mind you, I'll attempt to explain the situation that caused us to ask 5 different people for help on) and ended in non-game related VP denial causing a draw. I'll try and cover the highlights.

Highlights include my Lord charging his minotar block in turn 2 (I didn't feel like I had much choice since it was more then capable of ripping my army to shreds) and surviving for only 4 rounds. Johnny did 4 or so wounds the first but I saved them all. In the next 3 phases, 3 total wounds got to my reverse ward save and I rolled a 6 for each one. As if that wasn't bad enough, that minotar block now had +4 attacks each. Very very bad. On the plus side, I did manage to take out most of his army with my Hydra and corsairs. Dropping toughness with Withering was definitely huge for my success. Another highlight would be a tuskgor chariot charging my harpies (who were screening for my Master on pegasus who failed a charge against the chariot merely a turn before) and leave 2 standing. My harpies held and my Master got another chance to destroy that chariot. My shooting killed the other.

Going into the ridiculous combat, all Johnny had left was two units of harpies, his Gor unit and his minotar's with Doomnull, Gorebull and Beastlord.

The units involved: My Cold One Knights with Hydra and Black Guard in the flank. His unit was 3 minotars with Doombull, Gorebull and Beastlord. The unit was ranked as a 3x2 minotar group with the beastlord sitting on the flank where my BG and Hydra hit. I had originally thrown in my Black Guard thinking they could do some wounds to the Beastlord and help the combat. Apparently you can move characters around as long as they are still in combat so Johnny moved the beastlord into combat with my COK and the Doombull and Gorebull into my BG/Hydra side. As you would probably have thought, my Black Guard were murdered and my Hydra ended up fleeing. My COK didn't fare very well either. The game entered the final stages with my CoB being charged by the Minotar block. My Hag ended up breaking all odds and only died after the third round against the doombull. In the end of that combat, all he had left of the unit was a badly injured Gorebull, a single minotar and his Doombull with 2 wounds left. My CoB crew with KB had killed his Beastlord in a final ditch effort to get a few bonus points from the loss. Turn 6 my RXB's shoot at long range and double shot needing 5's. I end up killing the final minotar and his gorebull giving me a HUGE boost. You'll see how important this was in just a second!

End result: We count up the points with 200 required to count as a victory. With the battle so bloody, we both decided to just count what was on the table. Using those numbers, we figured out that I was down 203.5 points. After counting it up a second time, my opponent, being the good sport that he is, asks if my list was a perfect 2500. It is here that I remember I did have a few points left over. Turns out my list was 2495 points. Meaning it ended up a draw, through list building points denial, by a mere 1.5 points.

Crazy crazy game and the perfect way to end a quite enjoyable tournament.

-Rex

[Calisson]

Nice report.
MVP?

[Azure]

Very solid question. Tournament wise... I'd probably say my RXB. I'll also pick one per game.


Game against VC: My lord. Holding up the VC lords unit and eventually killing it was absolutely key to my plan.

Game 2 against OnG: Hard to choose and not in the good way where everything did so well. If I had to choose... I'd probably say my RXB for giving me a chance to get the watch tower. In the end, nothing really performed particularly well.

Game 3: Tie between my CoB for holding up the minotar unit and doing so many wounds and my RXB for finishing them off.

-Rex

[Tundrik]

nice report seems your list worked quite well for you in the end.

The only thing i would say is in the beastmen game when he moved his character to fight your BG, im guessing he wasnt in Base to base combat with other models? I ask this as you can only move characters around in combat if they are not engaged in combat. You can't just choose which combats they are in.

Cheers for the report

[Azure]

I'll see if I can make a better description. His unit was made up of 2 minotaurs, 1 Beast Lord, 1 Doombull and 1 Gorebull BSB.

The unit was ranked with Gorebull and three minotaurs and then the beastlord. So in model terms, it was 4 wide with gorebull on far left, two minotars in the middle and then the beastlord on the right. His doombull was directly behind the second minotar (the one next to the beastlord) and the other minotar was behind the Gorebull.

My COK were in the front of the combat, only in BTB with the gorebull. My Hydra and Black Guard were in BTB with the doombull and the Beastlord. So the 3 minotars were not in BTB with anyone.

Hope that all made sense. He bounced the Beastlord into combat with my COK and the gorebull to my Black Guard. It didn't seem right at the time but it was game three and I was 1-1 so I didn't make too much of a stink about it.

-Rex

[Tethlis]

Nice report. Were you pleased with how your list performed overall? Anything you would change? I am running a lot of units very similar to yours in my own list, though I use one less character and no Shades in order to run two Harpy units, the knights at 10-strong, and the Black Guard at 20-strong. I find the extra bodies make a big difference, though I do miss having the Shades.

The game against the Beastmen was particularly interesting. I find that Beastmen are pretty underrated in 8th edition, but can create some tough and difficult combat units since their characters are quite strong. The Moobus minotaur block with multiple characters is brutal if it's able to fight on its own terms.

Similarly, I absolutely love the way that the Lore of Shadow performs in conjunction with the Dark Elf army. Were you happy that you switched from Fire to Shadow?