So, I've been too lazy to make a proper battlereport of the 800 doubles tournament where I got a second place with my friend. However, I can say that in the final game, we met the winning team. It was a mix of VC with dark elves, and had the following
Vampire Counts
Necromancer, lvl 3
20 Zombies
20 Zombies
20 Zombies
Spirit Hosts
Spirit Hosts
5 Hexwraiths
3 Wraiths
Dark Elves
Sorceress lvl 2 (with lifetaker)
10 crossbowmen
10 crossbowmen
5 shades
6 shades
7 shades
war hydra
Our army was my chaos friend who had a unit of 14 chaos warriors with shield and a nurgle sorcerer in it (Who had the feedback scroll), 14 warriors of khorne with halberd and 5 warhounds. I buildt my army as support to him, with sorceress lvl 2 with furion and lifetaker, 19 crossbowmen, war hydra, 5 cold one knights and chariot.
As you see from the VC's army it was alot of etherals. I used the dark magic while they had the lore of fire and the vampire lore. The game was basicly a standoff as neither mine nor my friends troops could move forward against the etherals. Meanwhile, the dark elf player and both their mages blasted us with magic. My friend used the feedback scroll against the wrong caster more or less, as we wanted to try and take down the necromancer. Of course, he had not only three wounds, but would get his wounds back... we should've tried to take down the sorceress instead. My crossbowmen took a real beating and unfortunately I failed a leadershiptest and fled during the game, so the necessary magic damage was gone for two very essential rounds. I did however see that my original thoughts of the dark magic as our best chances against etherals to be true. Even though I didn't have range in the start, and only took out a unit of shades then, I managed to take down all the hexwraiths in one round with the bladewind. Unfortunately, the sorceress only got to do half of the job she should have, and I also rolled badly when I used the magic missiles, only wounding the wraiths and hosts a bit... In the end, due to some mistakes, I lost all my forces on the last rounds, just because they had all the firepower and focused me down, while my friend just lost his hounds and his sorcerer. I should have managed to keep my sorceress alive if I was a bit more awake in the end of the match.
As a final thoughts of that match, the combination they used, kinda f*****d up all armies in the tournament. We lost with about 600 VP, which was 1/3 of what the two other matchups lost with, so we actually came out quite well against the list. It shows though, how the etherals can put you on your back so easily. Not only did we lack the magic evenly distributed on our forces to be able to deal with the etherals, but we had no units with ranks to take down those spirit hosts either. They are real cheap, and blocked our armies completely.
Also, I had another match yesterday. It was against an army with 2 units of 9 black knights and a vampire in each, a necromancer at the back, 3 spirit hosts, 2 units of 14 ghouls, 2 units of 30 (I think it was) zombies and a corpse cart... og, and 2 units of 3 vargheists.
I fielded my own unit of 1800 pts which had a lvl 4 shadow sorceress, Cauldron of blood, pegasus master with pendant and soulrender, 19 crossbowmen with shields, 21 corsairs with frenzy, 21 witches with murder, 6 shades, 1 war hydra, 5 harpies.
I really got the better of the magic against him, managing to get in the miasma on the black knights, lowering his initative to 1, and then rolling a hit on the pit of shades with big template. Together with the crossbowmen, I managed to kill the unit off and leaving the vampire with 1 wound left. I flew my master straight for the corpse cart, and took it out in two rounds of combat, even though two of the spirit hosts decided it was a nice idea to attack me. The third moved up to try and block the hydra from getting into the fray, while hist knights moved up on one flank and the single vampire moved in to try and take down my master. The zombies and ghouls moved up in the middle.
The vargheists moved up on my flanks, and I started feeling the pressure on the crossbowmen. However, one volley on them in the second roll, felled one of the units, and the shades got off a volley before they were charged and killed... in return, my hydra ran into them and killed the rest of the vargheists off.
I moved my corsairs up to block off the unit, giving my corsairs the killing blow while my witch elves started grinding the first unit of zombies. The ghouls quickly joined the fray, but even though they are supposed to be somewhat evenly matched, my witches killed so many zombies and ghouls that they withered down real quick, especially when I got the mindrazor off my next round. My corsairs got charged by the knights, and I got alot of killing blows (Although not against the vampire). I took down all but 3 of them and the vampire, then the remaining knights and vampire managed to hit and wound with almost all the dices, making it an even match. The next round, I killed the rest of the unit off, while the witches moved on to the next zombie unit with the necromancer in...
Well, lets just say that the rest of the match was a complete mop-up. I got the magic I needed in, when I needed it the most, and I really killed off the army quick with just a few losses of witch elves and corsairs. He was rather unlucky with his magic and didn't get to raise anything the whole game, so I'd say it was a matchup where I kinda had the luck on my side... I do fear those knights with vampires though, which is why I focused so much on taking them down. The master with soulrender did most of the job, and I think my opponent did some big mistakes when he actually moved his etherals into close combat with him... he could've stopped my witch elves for at least one round, probably two, which would have kept most of his army alive.
I like the new VC, although some of the players I've played against and seen, need a bit more time to learn the units and the synergies of the army I think
Personal quote: "It's better to do little damage and lose nothing than to do lots of damage and lose everything."
Final tournament score for 7th DE book in 8th edition - W/D/L: 25/5/10
