Conflict Toronto, How did the DE do...(long)

Post by **Underway** » Mon May 31, 2004 8:02 am

Well I just got back from Conflict TO this weekend and let me tell you I had a great time. 6 good games 6 amazing opponents, all top sportsmen and met quite a few great people, saw some amazingly painted armies.

So how did my Dark Elves do? Keep reading and you will find out.

So I went to the tournament with this list just for a refresher.

Noble, SoG, Blade of Might, HA, Shield, SDC - in chariot

Noble, BSB, Blood Armour, Blade of Spite, SDC - in chariot

Sorc, Lvl 2, Blackstaff, dispel scroll

Sorc, Lvl 1, Cloak, Dispel scroll

16 BG, FC, Dread Banner

2 units 16 Spears, FC, shields

2 units DR, RXB, Mus

12 RXB, Shields, Standard, Musician

5 Shades

5 Harpies

2 COC

Soooo here's how the day went. The standings were calculated on the basis of win/loss/tie, not massacre etc... Added in sportsmanship, painting and comp. The last three dropped the highest and lowest of each category. Reduces statistical outlyers (aka jerks and best friends).

My first battle was against Slanneshi Chaos. Guy named Mark from London. He took a lord on a steed, deamonettes, warriors on foot, 2 spawn, 2 chariots, 1 sorcerer and some non-chosen knights.

The battle was take the hill. Army with the highest US on the top of the hill at the end of the game would win. Basically he ended up charging my BG with Deamonettes, and they held, counter charge with chariot wiped them out after 2 turns of combat.

My spears and other chariot charged his warriors and sent them packing, on the right flank my DR were frenzied into attacking the spawn killing it on the charge!! They then overran into his general doing a wound on the Steed! His general wiped them out. My other spears charged a chariot and beat it in combat and it fled.

Left flank my other DR were charged by the spawn who stopped them from annoying the CK who charged the RXB who had killed one of their number in the shooting phase. They fled off the table. The DR took a few turn but killed the spawn with help from my shades who charged in the flank.

Meanwhile the other chaos chariot and the CK had managed to nail my BG in the flank. They held easily and began hacking down the chariot. My noble fought his general and was killed only to have the general be killed the next turn when my BSB chariot slammed into his side (he was on foot at this point thanks to my general directing all his attacks at the steed). Harpies ensured the fleeing chariot kept going.

The BG did amazing holding up the CK for 4 combats until I could get my BSB around to charge them and eliminate the threat. His warriors had rallied but I held the hill with 2 units and my march blocking shades stopped him from reaching it in time to contest.

1 win for the Druchii. Mark was a great sport and we had lost of fun. He was laughing so hard at the frenzied DR killing a spawn. Top marks for sportsmanship ( the most important score IMHO) and his army was well painted. Unit of the match, BG for holding up the entire flank, killing the deamonettes, and taking the objective.

Next game was against the eventual Conflict winner, Adam Laforet. Super nice guy with a stunningly painted Blood Dragon army. We played personal vendetta which give an extra 250 VP for killing the enemy general. The game didn't last long. The Black coach running down my BSB, and my spears fleeing from zombies.

My DR rolled a 4 to flee from wolves, and the shades doing the same with ghouls. His banshee got in my back field and ran riot charging down my sorceresses. My was also General killed by the Blood Dragon handily in a challenge.

The only thing that did go my way was the BG charging into the flank of the Black coach, killing it, taking a zombie unit in the flank and ghouls in the front, holding until my RXB could jump in and chase away the ghouls.
The rest of my army however was in a shables with the 2nd unit of spears getting run down by a unit of grave guard. Ouch.

Despite all this it was a great game and Adam groaned just as much as me when every single flee roll was below six. He pointed out to me that if I had of managed to not roll so bad for a few key combats it would have been an entirely different game. Great guy, top marks for painting and sportsmanship.

Unit of the game, BG again.

Druchii 1 win, 1 loss at this point.

Game three was unfortuantaly a tie, against Paul who played a Lamian list. We had to claim table quarters and kill a traitor at the same time. I unfortunatly had to leave early to catch my train, but the game was going good at turn 4.

The BG had held a charge from his knights, and whittled them down to the champion, his skeletons and Lamian had reduced them to 5 men but I was in a position to charge in the BSB to help out. My DR were behind his line ready to chare and my other spears had held and defeated the Black Coach. The RXB and shades had completely eliminated a large zombie unit on the flank through shooting as well!! My magic phase was also really good this game, with my magic missiles going off like crazy.

Unit of the match goes to BG again for holding up his entire line while I got in positing for a counter charge.
So end of Day 1 1 win, 1 loss, and a tie.

Day 2 began with my drawing Slanneshi Chaos again against a amazing guy Fabio whose last name I will not mangle by trying to type it correctly.

His list had MD, a spawn, Lord on steed, 2 units Marauder cav, unit of Chosen, big unit of Marauders, deamonettes, 2 sorcerers, 2 chariots. The mission was to each write down VP on three pieces of paper and place them on terrain. The person with a unit of US 10 on the objective would get the VP. They however were secret VP.

So this game was easily the largest bloodbath of the tournament. My BG lost 13 yes 13 models in one charge from his lord and a chariot. Neadless to say they were wiped out after a turn, my DR played hide a go seek with the chosen and eventually fled off the table.

My sorceresses were in a duel with the enemy spellcasters and eventually one of them was blasted off a hill by wind of death. The chariot that killed my BG was charged by my RXB who consistently won combat against it for 5 turns and the damn thing finally broke in the last turn.

Enemy spellcaster stood up to my DR charge for the same amount of time! While the main show was going on my Spears and BSB beat down the spawn, and chased away the Marauders who after losing 13 to Black Horror were not much of a fighting force. The finaly turn saw me claim an objective worth 300 VP and him claim one with the chosen worth 150. Victory to the DE!!

We had a great time dueling the whole way. Super great guy and lots of fun to play against. There were only 2 units left with US 10 or more at the end of the game. Unit of the match RXB for holding off a chariot and keeping the entire flank from collapsing.

Nest game was against Orcs and Goblins. We had a very good time but there really wasn't much to the game. Some dueling mages and watching my two chariots fail to break a Black Orc Regiment on a charge (man those guys are tough!!). Black horror managed to kill 15 nigh goblins in one unit causing it to flee off the table and take the great shaman with them.

In the end though despite killing the night goblins a chariot and a pump wagon the loss of my two character on chariots game him the game. (double VP for standards in this scenario). Great game, lots of funny things happend (like lazer sighted bolt throwers who can't roll less than 6!)
Unit of the match, the sorceress whose timely Black Horror stopped a massacre and gave him a strong victory by 1 POINT!

The last game was against a Lizardmen player named Chris. He had 2 blocks of saurus with general, 2 skinks, 3 salamanders, 1 sorc, 1 flying skink of doom, 3 Kroxigors, and a steggie. Needless to say in his first turn when the shades killed and ran down the Flying sking of doom and followed up into the skinks on one flank and the harpies ate the skinks on the other flank it was all down hill for him from there.

Main saurus unit was killed by the BG, chariot and DR in the flank after my shooting and magic had eliminated the Salamander threat. The steggie was chasing DR all over the place due to some clever redirection on my part, and the BSB with spears wiped out the Kroxigors.

With that done I just position my units to charge the last unit of Saurus from all 4 sides causing them to explode. Only think left at the end of turn 5 was the steggadon with some DR in the flank. We called the game there. Chris was a great guy who I think would have had more fun if his army wasn't being taken to pieces so handily, well that and passing his fear tests against charging BG would have helped (8 attacks from a Saurus Lord!!! Holy crap! Thank god they hit on sixes). Unit of the game, the Shades, for killing that annoying flying skink of doom and then the skinks.

So my final score was 3 wins, a tie and 2 losses. Not a bad record if I do say so myself. I ended up in 13 place overall out of 50 and was the top DE player there. My painting let me down and if I can improve that for the next Conflict I will hopefully break into the top 10!

Look to army lists for an analysis of my tactics and how things worked.

Post by **Langmann** » Mon May 31, 2004 8:44 am

Good stuff.

Now I am glad to finally see someone else appreciate the BlackStaff. It is an item that quietly goes about causing my opponents pain.

Also glad to see the BG demonstrate their usefulness as an anvil and a bit of a hammer as well. (I have also killed a Black Coach with a unit of BG!).

Good games, Underway, you ought to be proud of yourself. Nicely done, keep kicking it to all the doubters.

Post by **Underway** » Mon May 31, 2004 9:03 am

Flat out the Blackstaff idea came from Keldrons little bag of tricks. I totaly owe him, Jeffleong and Ash1010101 tonnes of props for giving me in depth help with the list.

The list was inspired by Kel and Rob Lane originally. Jeffleong game me a large number of pointers regarding the construction of the characters (originally I had a HS on a Manticore) and the needed dispel dice.

Kel pointed out the idea for the Blackstaff as well as questioned the inclusion of a RBT and some pointers on how to properly use the list.

Ash got me to change the RBT for RXB and I am very very glad I did. An RBT would have done jack in the tournament for me, and the RXB held off fellbats, chariots, ghouls, took objectives, flanked Saurus warriors, killed Salamanders etc... etc...

Ash010110 · Post by **Ash010110** » Mon May 31, 2004 9:12 am

Kudos, Underway! Thanks for the props, and congradulations on such a successful (ie, fun) tournament. Decent report, too.

May peace be with you,
Ash

Post by **Langmann** » Mon May 31, 2004 9:45 am

Underway wrote:Flat out the Blackstaff idea came from Keldrons little bag of tricks.

Well he's not the only one who feels, felt that way about the BlackStaff. As I recall it was one of the overlooked items I mentioned in that huge "Furion" argument thread about how dark magic is 'weak'. I am glad that I have finally seen at least one other person use it in a list. IMHO it is better than a powerstone.

I often put it on a level 1. Without the 40 points that is required in a level 2, she now can steal dice from another caster (or the pool). IMHO now that the revision is done, all Dark Magic spells are useful (which is more than can be said about other lores, even life and to some degree, heavens).

Post by **Underway** » Mon May 31, 2004 9:56 am

Yep the Blackstaff is great, I used it on the Lvl 2 to good effect often casting with 4 dice to get Black Horror (which I got ever game except for the last one!) or Word of Pain easily. 4 dice is good, not to great a chance to miscast but a great chance to get most spells off. If the scrolls were saved for Black horror I used my magic missile Lvl 1 (wind of death) and Chillwind to kill banshees, mages, Deamonettes and ghouls. Very useful magic phase I must say all thanks to the Blackstaff.

Post by **Langmann** » Mon May 31, 2004 10:05 am

Underway wrote:Yep the Blackstaff is great, I used it on the Lvl 2 to good effect often casting with 4 dice to get Black Horror (which I got ever game except for the last one!) or Word of Pain easily. 4 dice is good, not to great a chance to miscast but a great chance to get most spells off. If the scrolls were saved for Black horror I used my magic missile Lvl 1 (wind of death) and Chillwind to kill banshees, mages, Deamonettes and ghouls. Very useful magic phase I must say all thanks to the Blackstaff.

Yes, and in the same respect, it means that he starts using his powerful dispel scrolls early in the game when it looks like it may be hopeless to try and dispell a 4d6 casting. Getting him to use those dispels are important in the early game (especially when using Dark Magic) as the end game is when the spells are most important. What I mean is that in the end game, where things may need to charge or win combat, casting many of the available Dark Magic spells can easily swing things in your favor, as well as the fact that DM is shorter range and thus once again more effective in the end game when things are closer. In the early game if you say make a bunch of empire swordsmen flee with Black Horror, its nice and all, but he can usually recover from it by rallying or compensating. Having those same swordsmen flee instead of being able to flank charge you in the endgame is much more effective. THUS I try and get him to waste his dispels early on. The Blackstaff can do that.

Isn't WoP so beautiful now that it can be cast into combat? I think I owe that delicious spell 3 games all to itself. And the death of a Blood Dragon to boot.

Post by **Underway** » Mon May 31, 2004 11:10 am

I agree entirely with the above analysis. The endgame is deadly. It really helped me against the Lizardmen where a saurus regiment and kroxigors were completly flubbing their attacks allowing me to build up a very large combat resolution that thier cold bloodedness didn't help to much with. The Black Horror was really good against a tonne of things and reduces fighting ranks quite a bit before the combat phase (hense how I was able to charge with a chariot unsuported and win easily against marauders).

There was also an extra prize for the Conflict this year and it went to the guy who came in last. They gave him a box of 40K and told him he might want to try his luck with that game system!! LOL it was hilarious. The kid didn't care though. Free 40K.

Post by **Langmann** » Mon May 31, 2004 4:13 pm

Underway wrote:I agree entirely with the above analysis. The endgame is deadly. It really helped me against the Lizardmen where a saurus regiment and kroxigors were completly flubbing their attacks allowing me to build up a very large combat resolution that thier cold bloodedness didn't help to much with. The Black Horror was really good against a tonne of things and reduces fighting ranks quite a bit before the combat phase (hense how I was able to charge with a chariot unsuported and win easily against marauders).

I agree. The BH is an extremely underated spell, as soon as one gets to drop that dinner plate on an enemy unit, one says, "hmm Dark Magic isn't so bad after all". The beauty of it is that it can work on more than one unit (because you can put the dinner plate (template) down on two units beside each other), and that it involves no armour saves. I have utterly destroyed empire knights with that spell, balls to their 1+AS. Not to mention the panic tests if you land it on multiple units: never ever underate making someone take as many panic tests as you can. In the same way I see a lot of people fail to utilize the full effectiveness of Terror, by only putting the terror causer by 1 unit when he could have put it in range of 3 units. Roll enough dice and even at ld10 they're bound to fail.

There was also an extra prize for the Conflict this year and it went to the guy who came in last. They gave him a box of 40K and told him he might want to try his luck with that game system!! LOL it was hilarious. The kid didn't care though. Free 40K.

Makes you almost WANT to lose... If they keep that up perhaps you'll see some people really making fools of themselves.

Oh well at least I would win a prize.

Black hydra · Post by **Black hydra** » Mon May 31, 2004 5:51 pm

Boy you weren't kiddin' when you said long...

Still, its nice to here news from the frontlines! Keep at it!

Zaqir · Post by **Zaqir** » Mon May 31, 2004 6:14 pm

Hey Underway

I was at the tourney and my Dark Elf Army did not fair so well. I was the lowest ranked DE player there and i also had the second lowest score in the entire tournament. (I missed out on the boxed set by 2 points)
My record was 0 wins 3 losses and 3 ties. All in all i did not do that badly and a 3 of my matches were last turn affairs either bringing me into a tie or costing me a win.

I weill report later (i have to go to work now) All in all I think Underway liked my Hydra which I named "Princess"
Either way for a sample of what my first day was like. Think 3 games, 2 chariots and a total of 2 impact hits... That was my first day...

Post by **Underway** » Tue Jun 01, 2004 4:28 am

@Zaqir: Yep that purple hydra looked great. It was a good centrepiece for your army. PM me and we will talk tactics some more like I promised.

I agree. The BH is an extremely underated spell, as soon as one gets to drop that dinner plate on an enemy unit, one says, "hmm Dark Magic isn't so bad after all". The beauty of it is that it can work on more than one unit (because you can put the dinner plate (template) down on two units beside each other), and that it involves no armour saves. I have utterly destroyed empire knights with that spell, balls to their 1+AS. Not to mention the panic tests if you land it on multiple units: never ever underate making someone take as many panic tests as you can.

I had an opportunity to do that with the O&G army but I needed to remove that annoying Lvl 4 Shaman first so the entire template went on his unit in the corner away from the rest of his army. 14 gobbos dead and he fled off the board. I still lost but I can count his fleeing caster as a moral victory.

Lord meaglin · Post by **Lord meaglin** » Tue Jun 01, 2004 5:26 am

thanx for sharing that with us

Ctuchik · Post by **Ctuchik** » Tue Jun 01, 2004 6:34 am

Nice reading.

I've thought about using a big unit of BG for a while, but it's just so much points in one unit! Especially with a nice banner.

Did you fail any stubborn tests with them? Did they kill anything? Did you get any use of the banner? Handy against undead I reckon.

I'm still trying to figure out a magic configuration for 2k that I'm comfortable with. I like Dark Magic alot now and would like to go pretty magic heavy, but something inside of me is warning of spending to much points on it. Did you feel those Disp. Scrolls where necesary?

And characters in chariots is interesting. A bit dangerous though with only 7 move.

Post by **Underway** » Tue Jun 01, 2004 7:05 am

Did you fail any stubborn tests with them?

Yes one test in the entire tournament (actually I think they only won two combats in the entire tournament the rest of the time tarpit...) but the BSB was nearby and they passed on the reroll.

Did you get any use of the banner?

This was by far the most important investment for them. It kept them from fleeing from undead at least a dozen times and deamonettes once. It also allowed an outnumbering break on the Saurus warriors with general, and caused him to only hit on 6's from fear for the first round of combat. Best 75 points I have ever spent in Warhammer let me tell you...

Did you feel those Disp. Scrolls where necesary?

Absoulutely, they stopped curse of years and kept the magic phase of most of my opponents in check quite handily (especially O&G). As a DE you cannot afford to let alot of spells get through, so the two scrolls were very very useful.

And characters in chariots is interesting. A bit dangerous though with only 7 move.

Not that bad considering I didn't need to march them anywhere and the charges were always in range. I only failed 3 stupidity test the whole tournament as well, and none of them critical.

Danceman · Post by **Danceman** » Tue Jun 01, 2004 7:25 am

wasnt till recently i started to like the black staff(ok i didnt even give it a chance till recently) but its nice to cast BH on 4 dice insted of the 3 dices limited to a lvl2.

the more of these i read the more i wanna get to a tourney cause it sounds like you had a grrrrrrrreat time

Aachil lathanast · Post by **Aachil lathanast** » Tue Jun 01, 2004 7:30 am

Black staff is one of the most useful items we have and I am surprised to hear that it is that rarely used. I never leave home without it and it is best used on level 1 sorceresses which tend to be underestimated by my opponents due to their low level. As you know our upgrade to level 2 is quite expensive and this is a good way to make our sorceress a real threat.
Anyway good report Underway and congratulations on your achievements at the tournaments. It is really refreshing that you used some different and not so common items for your characters ( most of the DE armies I see include a Lord with GoP and Crown of Black Iron ).

Lord hajjij · Post by **Lord hajjij** » Tue Jun 01, 2004 7:46 am

langmann wrote:
Underway wrote:Yep the Blackstaff is great, I used it on the Lvl 2 to good effect often casting with 4 dice to get Black Horror (which I got ever game except for the last one!) or Word of Pain easily. 4 dice is good, not to great a chance to miscast but a great chance to get most spells off. If the scrolls were saved for Black horror I used my magic missile Lvl 1 (wind of death) and Chillwind to kill banshees, mages, Deamonettes and ghouls. Very useful magic phase I must say all thanks to the Blackstaff.

Yes, and in the same respect, it means that he starts using his powerful dispel scrolls early in the game when it looks like it may be hopeless to try and dispell a 4d6 casting. Getting him to use those dispels are important in the early game (especially when using Dark Magic) as the end game is when the spells are most important. What I mean is that in the end game, where things may need to charge or win combat, casting many of the available Dark Magic spells can easily swing things in your favor, as well as the fact that DM is shorter range and thus once again more effective in the end game when things are closer. In the early game if you say make a bunch of empire swordsmen flee with Black Horror, its nice and all, but he can usually recover from it by rallying or compensating. Having those same swordsmen flee instead of being able to flank charge you in the endgame is much more effective. THUS I try and get him to waste his dispels early on. The Blackstaff can do that.

this is what i was talking about like a week ago and everybody shot me down in that highsorceress vs. 2 lv2s argument on some thread. oh well, thats the way it works i guess...i'll bow to experiance. :evil:

btw good work there underway

Ctuchik · Post by **Ctuchik** » Tue Jun 01, 2004 7:51 am

Yeah I supose a unit of 16 BG with Dread Banner and a BSB nearby can be pretty much guaranteed to stick around no matter what. =)

I don't know the statistics but chances of rolling over 9 twice is low, even in 6+ games. A highborn for ld10 is probably overkill.

Black Staff is nice, but why did you take it on your lvl2 instead of lvl1? To me it seems more usefull to a lvl1, maybe I'm missing something?

Post by **Langmann** » Tue Jun 01, 2004 7:56 am

Ctuchik wrote:
Black Staff is nice, but why did you take it on your lvl2 instead of lvl1? To me it seems more usefull to a lvl1, maybe I'm missing something?

The option of having more spells to choose from can be encouraging.

Post by **Underway** » Tue Jun 01, 2004 7:59 am

Black Staff is nice, but why did you take it on your lvl2 instead of lvl1? To me it seems more usefull to a lvl1, maybe I'm missing something?

Well it was all part of my total magic phase plan. The level 1 took Death magic and cast the basic fireball spell with one dice except one game where she used two dice for the 2D6 fireball spell.

The other caster took Dark magic and downgraded one spell to chillwind to cast with one dice. The rest of the dice (aka 4 of them) were used to cast the Black Horror or Word of Pain spell, usually getting in about 15-21 on casting value. This is tough to beat even if you use 4 dice yourself so it would either suck out a dispel scroll or go off, and cause massive amounts of damage.

Da'ghault · Post by **Da'ghault** » Tue Jun 01, 2004 7:59 am

In no way wanting to diminish your tournament result, but was the armies you met them most common ones?
For example you didn't met any 'real' shooting. Your army feels somewhat
weak against an army with even medium shooting capacity.
Hth opponents feels like the best choice for you.

And your army looks quite similar to Mr Dales army that won some kind of tournament fairly recently (The last year). Maybe I am mixing things up.

Da'Ghault Deceiver of the Damned

Zaqir · Post by **Zaqir** » Tue Jun 01, 2004 9:01 am

Well as mentioned I was one of the other Dark Elf Armies at the Conflict and I will give you a little rundown of how things went for me so we can compare and contrast.
My army was
1Noble HA SDC Crimson death+talisman of protection on a chariot
Another noble with HA+SDC and Draich of Dark Power.
1 lvl 2 Sorceress with seal of ghrond and darkstar cloak
1Assassin with extra hand weapon and killing blow ability.
16 Warriors FC
16 Corsairs+fc+war banner
5 Dark riders
15 Execs fc +banner of murder
5 CoK fc
1 Rbt
1 War Hydra

Game 1. I faced a lizard man army for king of the hill. It had a 3rd generation Slaan, a skink priest and a scar veteran which equaled almost half his army points was in characters (over 900) In retrospect i should have given much lower comp scores then I did but even though I lost I had a fun match. Aside from the player trying to tell me he could poison my chariots (he cannot, you can't poison warmachines) still his skinks rolled 6s to wound anyway and I lost a chariot to blow darts. In fact I lost alot of everything to blow darts and magic. He had Fire Blast and Fireball+Unseen lurker. He would either nuke my troops or get a charge in with skinks to actually stop me from flanking his other larger units. So aside from the large amount of points in characters I have to give the player credit because his army did what a slaan army had to do i think. Some rolls did not go my way. I did get Black Horror off and ended up only causeing 2 skinks to die with it, my chariots never even ended up able ot charge something either before the skinks or slaan just shot at it with a ton of shots.

Game 2. It was the arch rival game and I was playing dwarves. But the army I played had one of every war machine in it all tooled up to really cause damage. That and since the terrain had been moved to allow for only 1 hill for the game before we randomly placed 2 pieces each. Except his formation was not that random with a big large hill in his deployment zone and another difficult terrain piece in front. (next time i am gonna insist on 8 inch from each terrain thing but i did not want to lose Sportsmanship, more on that later) Anyway he had tons of war machines and thunderers and whatnot. His army shot mine to pieces, His stone thrower misfired and blew up which was nice but his cannon nailed both my chariots in 1 shot on a long bounce roll. My Execs were shot to pieces and there was not much left. I revealed my assassin in them and charged his Flame Cannon, i killed it and the next turn the rest of my execs were killed but the assassin remained and it went on a rampage killing other warmachines atleast. In the end it looked like he was winning but when we counted victory points it was a draw. Once I had gotten most of my army in combat the warmachines shut down and things went a bit better. However once again an issue came up when doing the scoring that I will discuss later.

Battle 3) Was against the person I drove down to Toronto with, A lizardman army again. This one had a Carnisaur and a Stegadon and we had battled many times. Once again in any lizardman army the most underrated things are the skinks. They bring so much versatility to the battle. They slow down the enemy, they block charges and they are great cheap archers. This was the traitor battle and it was actually pretty even except when I forgot to move my traitor 1 turn and his Cold one Cav actually managed to overrun into em. I was unable to get to his traitor, the table quarters (the other victory conditions were even) One note to mention is that one of my chariots got to charge and did manage to get.... 1 impact hit+the scythedd=2 so after 3 battles i had a total of 2 impact hits.

battle 4) Was against DWARVES. 2 dwarves and 2 lizardmen at this point and it was getting annoying. This guy had a nice balanced army and was fun to play. the game was close. It was the mission where objectives had point values if you had a unit strength of 10 within 4 inches from an objective. Anyway it was even pretty much all game with my right flank being mulched and the same for him. However on the last turn my Corsairs and Execs were in battle near 2 objectives and had beaten off his hammerers i beleive and I wanted to restrain but failed both and my units ran out of range of the objective. Bad luck=Tie.

Battle 5 was again.......................................... D W A R V E S
I now officially hate em. This battle was rather fun. It was totem hunt where we fought for standards and his army was a balanced army of only a few warmachines, some good shooty troops and warriors. The battle was rather even , he had deployed all his melee units stuck together en mass so I could not really flank with a unit of thunderers lined up in front to block front charges. What happened was I marched my army right up and while my CoKs and chariots were being shot up. the second turn my CoKs charged his line of thunderers and he chose to flee and he rolled a 2 which means he moved 1 and my Cok caught em. On his turn he charged my 3 remaining knights with a unit of warriors and I fled, however it had the desired effect of breaking his line. From the right flank I had 1 other chariot with my general, my hydra and my unit of execs. On his shooting phase he killed the remaining knights but on the third turn my hydra and chariot and execs charged. the execs failed but he fled anyway. But the resulting panic tests saw his iron breakers panic and run off the table. All in all the final battle came down to this sequence of events.

He had a unit of warriors who had chased but failed to catch my spearmen, They had my spearmen's standard. My spearmen had Rallied and thanks to a Dominion spell my sorceress was able to hold em in place and was able to flank charge with my warriors. The battle resulted in a draw but the 5th turn saw my chariot with general slam into his other flank and I rolled a 5 on impact his and killed 4 dwarves, my general killed 1 more and it resulted in him losing combat by 7. He rolled a 2 which was exactly what he needed and stayed. The next turn i only won cobat by 2 but he rolled an 11, he had his battle standard bearer near enough on this turn and rolled again and had an 11. I won combat chased em down got back MY banner and his= a 400 point swing in points= a Draw.

The last battle was against Slaanesh Chaos. It was the treasure hunt. We started fairly close to each other but I did not deploy at the full 18 inches. Bassically the highlights was my Hydra and Chariot with the noble+draich charged his chosen knights, the hydra actually failed the charge by like a half inch. The chariot was in alone vs the knights but I got 6 impact hits, i killed 2 knights and my noble killed another. I had won the combat and they fled but I did not catch. My other chariot slammed into a unit of 12 daemonettes and also rolled 6 impact his and I killed5 with my general killing another 2 and they poofed into nothingness. Anyway that was the highlights Other then my assassin killing his asprining champ in 1 shot. Anyway the battle ended up as follows. I had a unit of full Corsairs left and 2 chariots with my noble and general. He had his Exalted Daemon guy with the item I needed, a Sorcerer in a unit of warriors and 6 marauders. At the end of turn 5 the corsairs and marauders were content to sit on opposite quarters of the field to claim. My general was fighting his exalted daemon and my noble had smashed into the remaining warriors with her chariot. What happened was as follows. His daemon wounded my general but I wounded his daemon back in return actually winning the combat but the daemon held. My other noble was holding her own getting about 3 kills and winning the fights vs the unit. He was trying to kill my noble with the draich and she was holding her own.

On the last turn his first striking no army save demon was sure to kill my general but the daemon rolled a 1 1 2 2 and wiffed. My General then promptly stuck Crimson Death into her guts and I got the 250 victory points for the most expensive magical item he had. In the battle vs the warriors a lone measily warrior had actually hit my noble and i failed a 3+ armor save and lost my own magic item nullifying my efforts. The warriors while still losing the combat held. If I had made the save and the warriors fled with the sorceress I would have had my win but it was a tie that was so close it was a 15 point split in points in my favor.

All in all I had a GREAT Tournament even though I came in second to worst. My first day was crap but my second day had 3 last turn could have changed the battle games that was super exciting. I wish i did not have to play 3 dwarves and 2 lizardmen though

Zaqir · Post by **Zaqir** » Tue Jun 01, 2004 9:15 am

Now here are some problems I had with the Tournament.

This mostly occured against the first 2 opponents but I got this huge feeling of frustration. I was being polite/respectfull and fun as I could. This was my first big tourney I ever played in and I was nervous. When it came down for scoring time I accepted the fact that i am not a super great artist by any means, my army had a nice scheme going for it and as Underway mentioned my hydra I particularily liked. My composition was decent I felt for a DE army. 29% characters and items but not excessive and under 600 points. My Core troops was point wise less then my special but were still the majority of my figures. and my rare was a hydra and 1 bolt thrower and around 300 points only. So vs a lizardman army with 900+ points in characters and minimal core I was given less composition then I gave him? I felt as we discussed I was being nice just giving the guy a 4 and he would do the same to me almost to make sure I would not get many points.

Also for Sportsmanship despite the poison vs chariots thing if felt like in the first 2 battles I played if I brought up a rules issue I would get penalized. I brought up like 3 points in those 2 games that were clear set in stone rules issues and I felt like I suffered for it. ESPECIALLY in the 2nd game when one of the things I brought up was that we had to count victory points. The guy was so sure he had a win that when he realized it was a tie he seemed to get upset. He thought he heard one of the GW guys say that if you win by 1 point even its a win (The GW guy said that only for the 40k folks not Fantasy guys) And the fact that it was a tie like i saw the look on this guys face and he literally gave me 1 point lower in everything then what I gave him just to say that "Ya we tied but I am gonna get more points"

Everyone else I talked to seemed to have great opponents and fun. Heck my 4 other games I HAD EXACTLY THAT. So maybe I did just get unlucky but I find the subjective nature of the peer judging comparison whatever you want to call it horrible. Where literally 2 guys can simply out of pettyness cost you points. So while I understand that ya if it was pure wins there would have to be either more games and there might end up being cheesier armies. This way seems unbalanced also.

You get the feeling that if you were to go up and say to a GW Judge "Hey whats the deal this guy is giving me a crap comp score" Then yer opponent would simply use that as evidence to then give you a bad sportsmanship or some such.

Post by **Langmann** » Tue Jun 01, 2004 9:40 am

Zaqir wrote:Now here are some problems I had with the Tournament.

This mostly occured against the first 2 opponents but I got this huge feeling of frustration. I was being polite/respectfull and fun as I could. This was my first big tourney I ever played in and I was nervous. When it came down for scoring time I accepted the fact that i am not a super great artist by any means, my army had a nice scheme going for it and as Underway mentioned my hydra I particularily liked. My composition was decent I felt for a DE army. 29% characters and items but not excessive and under 600 points. My Core troops was point wise less then my special but were still the majority of my figures. and my rare was a hydra and 1 bolt thrower and around 300 points only. So vs a lizardman army with 900+ points in characters and minimal core I was given less composition then I gave him? I felt as we discussed I was being nice just giving the guy a 4 and he would do the same to me almost to make sure I would not get many points.

If it is any consolation, I think your Army Comp is very good and I would have given you top marks. No Lords, not much magic, and you use an assassin, a rarely used, fluffy, and possibly over-priced character.

No huge cavalry units, nor cheesed up huge units either. 1 RBT, and only 5 DR. Certainly NOT a cheesy DE army.

I like your theme and really there is nothing cheesed about your army. You deserved full points for it.

Maybe the guy is just a hard marker but I have encountered the chariot poison thing before and for some reason it REALLY pisses off those people who want to poison it. One game I just let the guy have it because I was tired of arguing and couldn't remember that the ruling was actually in the VC addendum.

Also for Sportsmanship despite the poison vs chariots thing if felt like in the first 2 battles I played if I brought up a rules issue I would get penalized. I brought up like 3 points in those 2 games that were clear set in stone rules issues and I felt like I suffered for it. ESPECIALLY in the 2nd game when one of the things I brought up was that we had to count victory points. The guy was so sure he had a win that when he realized it was a tie he seemed to get upset. He thought he heard one of the GW guys say that if you win by 1 point even its a win (The GW guy said that only for the 40k folks not Fantasy guys) And the fact that it was a tie like i saw the look on this guys face and he literally gave me 1 point lower in everything then what I gave him just to say that "Ya we tied but I am gonna get more points"

Ya. Nice eh? They're out there, that is for sure. I usually carry with me my collection of rules and laws I frequently encounter that piss me off (ie: chariots are immune to poison, champions are not wiped out unless targeted etc.). Whenever I have an argument I highlight the rule in the book, or attach the addendum to the book so that I can very quickly point it out and not have to argue.