Xaereth goes to Bugeater GT!! Lots of Pictures!

[Xaereth]

Hi folks, just finished writing up my long tournament report for the Bugeater GT. It was 2500 points with 5 games. Lots of fun.

Here's the link to the report on my blog.

Feel free to comment here or on my blog!

[MangoPunch]

Nice job on the win on Game 1 - well played.

A couple of things:

I'm actually curious as to whether or not the Warlocks would have been allowed to charge the suddenly-available Warriors.

Yes they can charge the Warriors. You declare a charge with one unit and then resolve all charge reactions (Stand / Flee / Shoot) before declaring a charge with your next unit.

His big block almost kept fleeing, but rallied on the reroll from the BSB. It occurs to me now: was he allowed to use the BSB reroll if the BSB is fleeing?

I am not sure about this so would love a rules guru to give their take. That said, the BSB was in the unit, right? Like normal standards BSBs are destroyed when they break from combat.

I was surprised by his choice to get the Dragon Ogres into my Executioners, as I didn't realize a unit who wasn't initially capable of charging my units could actually declare a charge in the first place.

Yep, as long as there is a possibility that they might be able to complete the charge it is legal, so can declare a charge from behind another unit of yours, or an enemy unit. You also determine the order in which you resolve charges.

[Amboadine]

Thanks for sharing. Good to read.

[MangoPunch]

Between spurts of building an excel model at work, I am thruogh Game 3 of your reports. First of all, thanks for positng, it is a nice read and the pictures are helpful. Your troops look great on the table, clean and well highlighted painting. I don't have much to say on Game 1 aside from nice job. Game 2 you were very aggressive and it may have hurt you somewhat that along with inexperience versus vampires (something we share) definitelly hurt. On Game 3, I think you played it very well - you cleared his chaff quickly and then got stuck into good match ups. In another turn I think you could've tabled your oppoent, so unfortunate about that. A couple of rules notes on Game 3: a) You can't killing blow a chariot, so his SMs should've been stuck, b) judging by the picture, your darkshards should've gone in the flank of his unit, c) did you think about reforming the executioners to break his steadfast?

On to game 4!

[Dalamar]

Very nice report and an amazing result for the list as well as a person who says they only played 6 games in the remembered past

To be frank though, it seems your opponents weren't up to par with both rules and their tactics at a few stages. Generally bad rules knowledge led to bad tactical choice.

Here's a couple examples that I can fish out from the report:

Game 1 - No unit can use the Hold Your Ground! rule from a fleeing BSB, not even the BSBs unit itself.
Game 2 - Failed frenzy forces a charge into the *nearest* enemy unit, from the photo it looks like your executioners were about 0.5" closer than the Black Guard, meaning they would've been the target of the frenzied charge and your power dice... I mean dreadspears wouldn't get overran into.
Game 3 - Here I believe it was your mistake not to allocate *every attack possible* against the Everqueen. She's terribly squishy (Especially so without High Magic) and she's what makes her unit so durable. Once she was down, Swordmasters would've died under the Druchii halberds in no time.
Game 4 - Your opponent made a really big mistake with the bolt thrower hill due to not knowing how charges are done. He was in position to:
Charge the middle bolt thrower with his lord, angle it so overrun goes into the far bolt thrower. then charge the skullcrushers into the right bolt thrower, taking advantage of the free 90 degree wheel to overrun directly into your crossbows. It looks like there was just enough room for both to fit. This would put his skullcrushers and the sorcerer lord on the flank of your spearmen and threaten the rear of your black guard at the same time. It would've been really bad.
Game 5 - This was basically a lack of knowledge of rules (that had no impact) but if you charge a character out of a unit, the rest of the unit can't declare their own charge, so It was either character alone or together with all the trolls.

Aside from that, it's nice to see our chariots utilized to great effect, it actually makes me want to squeeze at least a pair into my list... somehow >.<
As for the black guard, yes they are amazing, but they are also amazing squishy and 15 points a piece. It's not that they're bad, it's just that most of the time other choices are simply more efficient. I'm glad you managed to use them to good effect.

Lore of Shadow is highly overrated I think, so is Death. Your idea to switch to Dark is a great one, especially if you keep the list largely the same.

[Forumite]

Nice reports, well played. The list looks good, you put the chariots and RBTs to good use, and it looks very maneuverable for an infantry army, or you just win during deployment with a good feel for how the battle will play out. I do think you could use a scroll caddy for some magical defence, maybe a lvl 1 Life to give the Black Guard regen for their first turn of combat.

A few rules mistakes that the others didn't catch. In game 5 you overran with chariots into fleeing hounds with chariots, they should have been destroyed as if caught when fleeing from a charge. Also later in game 5, I'm fairly sure the reroll from the Gleaming Pennant and BSB are not optional, you have to take the reroll if you can. Your spears couldn't have choosen to pass on the reroll and flee.

[Aleksii]

Nice writeup! Good reading for night-shift with lot of pictures . I usually field Black Guard too and they have never failed me(they have been wiped-out, but not before they have performed some vital job no executioner/witchelf could perform).

[Payce]

Your display board it amazing. Almost saddening to see such boring tables next to something so well done.

[Xaereth]

Your display board it amazing. Almost saddening to see such boring tables next to something so well done.

Haha, thanks! It's a pretty cool board - I can't take full credit for it. I bought the skeleton of the board from someone a while ago, and added some stuff to make it a little better. Appreciate it though

Nice writeup! Good reading for night-shift with lot of pictures . I usually field Black Guard too and they have never failed me(they have been wiped-out, but not before they have performed some vital job no executioner/witchelf could perform).

Thanks for reading, glad you enjoyed them I agree that Black Guard are good times. Volume of attacks with the ability to *always* reroll and all the other stuff they do well makes them really good. Sure, they're expensive, but at the end of the day, so is everything in the Dark Elf book. Pretty pleased with how they performed, overall!

Nice reports, well played. The list looks good, you put the chariots and RBTs to good use, and it looks very maneuverable for an infantry army, or you just win during deployment with a good feel for how the battle will play out. I do think you could use a scroll caddy for some magical defence, maybe a lvl 1 Life to give the Black Guard regen for their first turn of combat.

A few rules mistakes that the others didn't catch. In game 5 you overran with chariots into fleeing hounds with chariots, they should have been destroyed as if caught when fleeing from a charge. Also later in game 5, I'm fairly sure the reroll from the Gleaming Pennant and BSB are not optional, you have to take the reroll if you can. Your spears couldn't have choosen to pass on the reroll and flee.

Hm, thanks for the rules insights. I feel a little bad for not rerolling the dice now. I will have to look into that. As to the hounds, it probably didn't make much difference. 3d6 + 3 S5 impact hits should evaporate that unit regardless haha.

As to the comment about deployment - I won't claim to be an expert on deployment in Fantasy, though it is one aspect of 40k that I do obsess over. Deployment in most games is extremely important, much more so than many people give it credit for. I feel like it's even more important in Fantasy, since units are far less maneuverable/flexible once they're set in a particular position. I do agree that adding a scroll would be nice - I will have to see what I can do to hook that up

Very nice report and an amazing result for the list as well as a person who says they only played 6 games in the remembered past

To be frank though, it seems your opponents weren't up to par with both rules and their tactics at a few stages. Generally bad rules knowledge led to bad tactical choice.

Here's a couple examples that I can fish out from the report:

Game 1 - No unit can use the Hold Your Ground! rule from a fleeing BSB, not even the BSBs unit itself.
Game 2 - Failed frenzy forces a charge into the *nearest* enemy unit, from the photo it looks like your executioners were about 0.5" closer than the Black Guard, meaning they would've been the target of the frenzied charge and your power dice... I mean dreadspears wouldn't get overran into.
Game 3 - Here I believe it was your mistake not to allocate *every attack possible* against the Everqueen. She's terribly squishy (Especially so without High Magic) and she's what makes her unit so durable. Once she was down, Swordmasters would've died under the Druchii halberds in no time.
Game 4 - Your opponent made a really big mistake with the bolt thrower hill due to not knowing how charges are done. He was in position to:
Charge the middle bolt thrower with his lord, angle it so overrun goes into the far bolt thrower. then charge the skullcrushers into the right bolt thrower, taking advantage of the free 90 degree wheel to overrun directly into your crossbows. It looks like there was just enough room for both to fit. This would put his skullcrushers and the sorcerer lord on the flank of your spearmen and threaten the rear of your black guard at the same time. It would've been really bad.
Game 5 - This was basically a lack of knowledge of rules (that had no impact) but if you charge a character out of a unit, the rest of the unit can't declare their own charge, so It was either character alone or together with all the trolls.

Aside from that, it's nice to see our chariots utilized to great effect, it actually makes me want to squeeze at least a pair into my list... somehow >.<
As for the black guard, yes they are amazing, but they are also amazing squishy and 15 points a piece. It's not that they're bad, it's just that most of the time other choices are simply more efficient. I'm glad you managed to use them to good effect.

Lore of Shadow is highly overrated I think, so is Death. Your idea to switch to Dark is a great one, especially if you keep the list largely the same.

Heh, thanks for reading. I think that the fact that I missed all these rules should be evidence enough that I'm not just "saying" that I haven't played much lately. If I was more current, there is no way I'd miss all these rules. Ask my 40k friends - I'm very partial to doing things "right", even if it aids in my own loss

The Chariots are a lot of fun for this style of army. They force people to make difficult decisions, and are difficult to kill for how many points they're worth. While I won't pretend that they didn't frustrate me at times this tournament, I do feel that they did a mostly good job for me

As to the Black Guard - I agree that as far as "efficiency" goes, they're not the most amazing things ever. However, when list building, I kept finding that there were no units out there that did what they could with the reliability they had. While they are expensive, there are certain things I really value in them that would be expensive/impossible to duplicate in other units. That kind of utility is worth paying a little extra for, and in the end, I wasn't really disappointed.

Between spurts of building an excel model at work, I am thruogh Game 3 of your reports. First of all, thanks for positng, it is a nice read and the pictures are helpful. Your troops look great on the table, clean and well highlighted painting. I don't have much to say on Game 1 aside from nice job. Game 2 you were very aggressive and it may have hurt you somewhat that along with inexperience versus vampires (something we share) definitelly hurt. On Game 3, I think you played it very well - you cleared his chaff quickly and then got stuck into good match ups. In another turn I think you could've tabled your oppoent, so unfortunate about that. A couple of rules notes on Game 3: a) You can't killing blow a chariot, so his SMs should've been stuck, b) judging by the picture, your darkshards should've gone in the flank of his unit, c) did you think about reforming the executioners to break his steadfast?

On to game 4!

Haha, thanks for reading! I agree, I was a little too aggressive in Game 2. I felt confident, as I had never lost a game to Vamp Counts before. However, they are an entirely different animal these days, and I will be more cautious henceforth

As to the killing blow rule - the character had Heroic Killing Blow, which can indeed kill a Chariot :-/

Thanks for sharing. Good to read.

I'm glad you enjoyed it!

[Scyloc]

Thx for the interesting write up Xaereth.