Tournaments

I thought it would be better to keep all my tournament reports on one page.

GT 2008 Heat 1

Game 1 vs Orcs and Goblins

As soon as I turned up at my first game I knew I’d have problems. Orcs and Goblins. These guys give me grief every time I play them. For every devastating and random thing I can throw at them, they can throw it back.

The army was stunning (and went on to win best of tournament), with converted goblin doom divers being thrown by trolls and some brilliant centrepieces to his units. He even had a warmaster wyvern painted up to replace his normal sized wyvern when positioning him near a table edge or on a hill etc. I have to admit that I was slightly embarrassed to get my Skaven out onto the same table. As we were on table 19 we were right next to the people queuing to register so he had quite a lot of interest. I tried my hardest to block line of sight with my body but I’m pretty sure someone saw my army on the same table as his. That’s enough canvassing for sympathy, on with the battle report.

My line was set up in my almost standard way. Giant rat packs out on the far left to divert flankers and cause mischief. My centre line was deployed quite tight and I left the jezzails out on the right to cover the wyverns advance. His set up was directly opposite me with the wyvern set up behind a hill for waaghhh godliness alongside his wolf riders. Set up against my giant rats were the savage orc boar boys and spider riders. The centre of his army consisted of, if I remember rightly, a block of boyz with choppas, black orcs, 2 doom divers and 2 units of 5 squig hoppers.

The scenario announced for this game would be scenario 3, capturing table quarters. You got 1 point for each of your own quarters and 3 for each of your opponents. Thankfully I got second turn, which would hopefully enable me to get a last minute charge into any remaining quarters. As it turned out I never needed it.

He marched towards me at full pelt with everything but the spider riders. The wyvern moved up behind the hill on my right flank. Both units of squigs had forgotten their ready break that morning and with three dice for movement, one unit managed to move (bounce?) 6 inches, the other 5 inches.

Magic started out well with the shamen miscasting his first spell. Rolling an 11 on his chart the shamen would spend the rest of the game stupid and frenzied. Shooting was more effective and effectively won him the game. His first doom diver targeted the 7 jezzails but managed to deviate well out of range onto a clanrat unit but with a bit of help from his redirection special rule he managed to get them back onto something more worthwhile, my plague censer bearers. Five of them died where they stood. Even more luckily the doom diver that had targeted the plaguemonks managed to deviate straight into the jezzails, killing three straight out and causing them to fail a panic test and run off the board.

Oh dear, the only thing keeping his lord, armed to the teef with god knows what and riding a three ton flying hulk of muscle, out of sight had just left the table. There was no combat so my turn.

I moved my warlock engineer out wide to hit either the wyvern of goblin wolfriders with warplightning. The clanrats (now holding the right flank) turned slightly so even with an overrun to the front or side would take the black orc lord flying all over the place except into another unit. Everybody else moved up a bit and I let rip with magic. Or at least I wanted to. The first warp lightning into the wolf boyz got scrolled, the second took out 4 black orcs and then as I threw down 4 dice to cast plague on the black orcs I rolled a double 1, ended the magic phase and took a strength 4 hit. Very nice. Not quite the devastation I’d hoped for.

Shooting would be more effective I thought. Nope. The warplightning cannon possibly managed to remove one of the boar boyz threatening my rear (I say possibly because I had so much to remember at the time). The ratling guns removed several boyz and several black orcs. I rang the bell with three dice, more out of desperation than having a plan and rolled up D3 wounds on anything with T7. This destroyed one doom diver and took the other down to one wound remaining.

Then it was his turn and the Waaaghhh was called. Oh shit.

For anyone who hasn’t played a good O&G player, the problem with a waaaghh is this. He has a black orc lord on a wyvern right up against a hill and therefore guaranteed at least 1″ of movement. This takes him onto the hill and suddenly he has line of sight to the whole battlefield and can charge who the hell he likes. You can see where this goes can’t you? A flank charge later and my little fury clanrats are wetting their little skaven pants.

I’d like to give you more information on what happened next, but I can sum it up in a few sentences. The lord managed to rip apart the skaven who break panicing everything around them. His pursuit easily catches them and unfortunately he just clips a ratling gun (the one which didn’t run away a second a go). The black orcs spank my skaven (with grey seer and screaming bell) and I roll hideously high to break and then even more hideously low to run away. Four inches isn’t that far when being pursued by black orcs. To finish up this battle report, I have to state that the plague monks put up a damn good fight against the boyz, but really I couldn’t win the battle with them and when they were flank charged by the wolf riders it was easily game over. I didn’t even bother with my turn three (I did ask if he wanted to continue out of courtesy but he declined. I figured I shouldn’t deny him his glory but he agreed that mopping up some of my crap units wasn’t that enjoyable). We counted up the victory points and objectives right there as if it had been the end of turn six (again I suspect that doing this meant he had got the 30 points for a win, but hopefully not enough VPs to encounter the hardcore daemon armies that would also be on 30 points. I have to admit I would have done the same).

So there you go, complete destruction.

Game 2 vs Vampire Counts

Skaven actually do surprisingly well versus undead, a lot of which I suspect has to do with them not having enough to counter the ratling guns. I figured my skaven would have slightly more chance than others due to the bell (1 unit of clanrats immune to Psychology) and then plague monks and censer bearers being frenzied (and therefore ITP as well).

A roll of 13 on the screaming bell can also be particularly effective against them. My plan on this one would be to reduce each unit at a time to stop any kind of raising later in the game, even if my magic defence did falter.

When I got to the table there were five units of ghouls, two units of dire wolves, a large block of zombies and a unit of knights (not the bloody variety) waiting for me.

This game would be objective winning; each player places two objectives of which only one can be in their own deployment zone. Personally I think this was a badly thought out idea, as the placing of objectives was more important that the placing of your army. If it was my tournament I would have got the players to place their objectives and then scatter them 3D6 inches in a random direction. Having all four scatter towards you opponent would be better in my opinion than you both placing them in ridiculous positions.

Anyhow, I got turn 2 again (this time it was of benefit, kinda) and he took his free ghoul movement and moved 5 ghoul units right up. In his first turn he moved them further towards me, close enough for a dance straight into my lines.

In magic there was the usual fist full of dice and +1 to cast which I managed to counter fairly well, allowing a raise only into units I knew would be getting blasted next turn.

My turn one. Unfortunately the plague censer bearers are in range of his lords unit and duly charge in. The giant rats charge into another unit of ghouls alongside the plague monks. This was to be a big mistake that only later on in the game was I to realise.

In magic I blast the two ghoul units in front of my clanrats (with screaming bell) with no less than three warp lightnings (1 was dispelled) and a storm daemon. One unit was effectively destroyed. My reasoning for this was destroying one unit first then allowed him to raise into the other 4, but blasting two units would mean that he’d need to concentrate into raising into both units before one got destroyed. In shooting I blasted both ratling guns into the nearest and most depleted ghoul unit completely destroying it. I then took a pot shot at his lord and BSB behind with the warp lightning cannon but he got both his look out sirs.

The next few turns continued with me basically shooting, warp lightning and killing (with my plague monks), his ghouls until only one unit remained. I did get lucky in the middle with my plague censer bearers holding up the ghoul unit (with his lord in) so my screaming bell unit could flank charge and destroy this unit. To protect his lord he charged in the BSB and necromancer (whose own unit had suffered horrendous casualties, i.e. everyone, from ratling gun fire) into the flank of the screaming bell unit. This was his mistake as when he went to cast he realised he now couldn’t raise the unit as it had been destroyed. His lord managed to escape with the help of the cast iron ring but the BSB and necro bit the dust.

Coming to the end of the battle he still had an objective covered by his knights and one covered by his zombies back in his deployment zone. I had blocked access to one of mine with the screaming bell unit and his lord couldn’t get through. However, he had moved his dire wolves into contact with my second objective in my deployment zone and now my plaguemonks and giant rats, the only things that could hold it were in the middle of the table, getting march blocked, trying to get to the zombies holding his objectives. This was my mistake, I should have moved at least one of these units back to my objective. I maybe should have just let the plaguemonks take out the ghouls at the beginning, I have no idea why I moved the giant rats out, but I did.

As he’d had his turn six, I turned my screaming bell unti around and moved slightly forward to try and get a plague off against the zombies. If I could blast them down to nothing, we’d only have 1 objective each and effectively a draw. My magic fizzled out and nothing got through. The ratling gun managed to kill off the zombie screen he’d raised to protect the dire wolves and then it was time to ring the bell. 13, wow, I need to re-count that. Yes a 13, he needs to take an instability test for everyone. The dire wolves holding an objective pop completely. The knights lose……1, damn, still a unit strength of 6, I lose.

Well thinking back over this game, I actually got enough VPs to scrape a very minor victory, but as it was, I lost the game due to objectives. I could have won this and I think the reason I didn’t is that I didn’t have enough to take the fight to him and defend my objectives. I also didn’t kill his lord, if I had of, the game would have easily been won. As it was, I ripped the heart out of his ghouls that made it slightly more bearable. A miscast of turn two didn’t help much and really I should have play tested the scenarios before I went. It was only when it was too late that I realised I threw it away.

I was fairly happy that any more undead armies would be kissing my arse.

Game 3 vs Wood Elves

I was getting to that fairly depressing state that you get to when you’ve lost two games in a row and effectively thrown away your chances to qualify (some of you may never have been in that state, but it sucks). So far I knew I’d played well, but had some bad luck. Hopefully this would change, and change it did. The next game was annihilation, you get a certain number of kill points for each unit, core are 1, special 2, rare 3 and characters 1 each (lords are 3). Whoever got the most kill points won the game.

Although the guy with the wood elves wasn’t that experienced, I can’t say it was a walkover, because it wasn’t, I just had dice of fire. He’d lost the game on turn one when one warp lightning had destroyed a unit of 10 archers; the second had dropped another unit of 10 down to 2 and the third wiped out his first unit of dryads. The warplightning cannon blasted his tree man with a strength 10 hit but I rolled a 1 to wound (damn dice of fire sometimes cock up). The ratling guns didn’t fire as they moved up to cover all avenues of movement. In his first turn he failed to get a single tree sing off and he had nothing left to shoot.

In my second game I took a gamble and moved everything up, past the tree with the treeman now in it. I nearly blasted the second dryad unit into oblivion with warp lightning but he’d had enough of lightning and scrolled it. I was rolling no less than 13 for each time I cast it. The second warp lightning destroyed what remained of the archers, and the one ratling gun destroyed the second dryad unit.
On his turn two he charged the treeman into the flank of the plaguemonks.

The rest of the battle basically consisted of my squeezing out what remained of his army and blasting them with spells and ratling guns until dead and beating him in combat with the plaguemonks every turn until he failed his stubborn test and broke.

The guy had kind of given up by turn three but he battled on anyway. Thumbs up to him for that.

Let the slaughter continue.

Practise game 1 vs High Elves

One of the guys I met outside whilst smoking had bought a pretty handy high elf army. Three units of dragon princes, two units of minimum archers and a dragon riding lord. We decided to have a battle as he’d never played against a screaming bell and I wanted to see how his army performed.

Game 4 vs Ogre Kingdoms

I was drunk with excitement about actually getting some points at last and turned up to look at the list, only to find even better news. Ogre kingdoms. I knew from previous experience that ogre kingdoms, in the right hands were dangerous, but against the skaven were target practise. I hoped my dice would still be on fire.

I set up in my usual way, main units in the middle (with plaguemonks and censer bearers to the right), unit of giant rats to the left and jezzails to the extreme right. Against the jezzails he put the trappers, in the middle were three units of yetees and a mixed bag of ogre units. I let him have first turn so he’d be in range of my ratling guns on the first turn. His characters consisted of a BSB, butcher and tyrant. I took a gamble with my scouts and put them on the hill in front of my right flank to stop his bulls marching past me.

My aim for this game was to magic and shoot the crap out of them.

On his first turn he moved everything up. On my first turn I inched forward and blasted away. My warplightnings reduced one of his yetee units to 1 base and the other to 2 bases. My jezzails bought down some ogres and the ratling guns were out of range. I shot at his extreme right unit of ogres with my gutter runners, causing enough wounds to drop one and for them to take a panic test. They failed and went fleeing towards the edge of the board.

Second turn and he charged the single remaining yetee into the front of my plaguemonks and the 2 bases into the flank. He charged the tyrant and a unit of ogres into the screaming bell unit (with spears). He set up everything else for next turn charges. Fortunately for me, all my dispel attempts were successful and I only let him get gut magic off where he wasn’t in combat.

The plaguemonk combat didn’t go very well with me needing 5′s to hit and 5′s to wound and the plague priest inflicted the only wound with his strength 5 hit that got through. I had no ranks (due to flank charge) so relied on war banner, banner and outnumber to keep me in the combat. As it happened I rolled a 3 and survived for another turn. In the combat with the screaming bell he rolled very very badly and killed one skaven and I inflicted one wound back on the ogres. With full ranks, outnumber and banner he needed a bit of luck to hang around. Unfortunately for him luck looked in on me and both units fled, I pursued and caught both relatively easily and took me into another unit of yetees (clipped them rather than hit them straight on).

In my second turn I kept my left flank where it was and bought my giant rats around to protect the second unit of clan rats about to get charged by big ogres with bigger weapons and lots of armour. They were also regenerating so I was thinking of just holding out as long as I could and try to win the right flank and the middle.

In magic my two warlock engineers had free range to anything they wanted. One blew all the trappers into another world with an irresistible force warplightning. The second wrecked havoc in the middle with his spell and the additional warp scroll. In I recall the grey seer fluffed his magic a bit and took a wound for the inconvenience. My ratling guns were now in range and started to roll out the barrels. The ratling gun to the right misfired with a double 1 and stood there scratching his herd, the second managed to pump out enough to drop a remaining ogre.

Knowing that the plaguemonks needed a wee bit of help, the jezzails fired into the combat with the yetees. I figured if I could just kill 1 on the flank it would be an easy victory there. Luck again was in and after randomising one of the yetees on the flank was dead. Thankfully this now left me a fully loaded and operational warp lightning cannon (which I’d been saving for the yetee mission) to blow apart the BSB. Plan went semi-according to plan, but rolling up a strength 4 hit didn’t wound him. As a side note, I had considered throwing the jezzails into combat to pull back the +1 for flanks, but decided against it at the last minute.

It was his turn three and he didn’t have much left on the board. The regenerating hard as nails ogres declared against the clan rats that chose to flee (clever little boys). This now left him and the butcher in a death zone for next turn.

The plaguemonks now had outnumber, 2 ranks, warbanner and banner and after both units had finished tickling each other the plaguemonks easily won, pursued and destroyed the yetee to their front.

The rest of the game was now a mop up. With 3 2D6 warp lightning’s, 1 bound 1D6, 2 ratling guns a warplightning cannon and 6 jezzails it was a matter of dropping everything else.

2500vp to 146 vp. As it was an annihilation game again I had another 30 points for the tally. Qualification was a slight possibility.

In fairness to the guy he had the worst luck ever. In the fifth turn I ratling gunned his BSB who had an item that when he died from shooting he would get back up on any roll but a one. I knew he’d roll a one as soon as he told me about the item.

He ended up rolling a one.
With two loses and two wins I was now on 62 points. The rumour put the qualification band at between 111 and 120. If I could win my next two games it would put me at 122, probably just enough to scrape through.

When the results got put up I saw I’d be facing another skaven army. I just knew this was the SAD skaven army I’d seen further up the tables. Uh oh……..

Work commitments stopped me writing up the next two games and my memory is starting to fade so not sure if I could do the battle reports justice.

I ended up losing to the skaven very badly when I could have easily gone for a boring draw. The next game I got vampires and got a very slight victory on an annihilation games (by 1 point). I ended up about 50th and 6 or 7 places away from qualifying. I went back and worked out that if I’d gone for the boring daw against the skaven and then still won my last game I could have qualified. It happens.

Bristol Brawl 2008

Game 1 – Steve Thorntons Vampire Counts

Due to the army lists being submitted 2 weeks early for bandings and the player/armies being on the warhammer forum, I already knew I’d be playing Steve Thorntons Vampire Counts. What I didn’t know was that it would be a sylvanian army. He had a unit of levy, a unit of militia, fell bats, black knights, banshee and a black coach.

The battlefield looked a little something like this with 2 hills and 2 sets of hills.

   

There were some walls, but because we were playing with the WPS scenery rules, the 2 walls we both bought were scattered well out of the way of the main battle:

From my left to right I set up the tunnelling team, choosing not to tunnel or scout with them, swarms, jezzails, plague censer bearers in the wood, plague monks with warlock engineer, clanrats with screaming bell, warp fire thrower, and then further out on the right the second clanrat unit with plague priest and warplighting cannon. I left the second gutter runner team to protect the warp lightning cannon. I cannot for the life of me remember where I put the globadiers or what happened to them.

On my left he put the fell bats, black knights (behind the hill), militia, levy, banshee and then the black coach.

One grave marker scattered onto the hill on his side, one near his lines in the middle by the trees and one on the hill right next to my jezzails.

Steve got first turn and opted to move everything forward as fast as they could. I managed to dispel most of his magic, but unfortunately I rolled badly on two of his grave marker summons and he rolled in 5 skeleton archers on his hill and 10 zombies behind my plague monks. On my first turn I moved all my units forward with the skirmishing plague censer bearers charging the new unit of zombies behind them. Magic produced no favourable results and my shooting was even more rubbish and I failed to hit anything with the jezzails, misfired with the warp lightning cannon and thought ‘oh my god I’m going to die very quickly’.

Combat went slightly more favourably and the censers fog pulled down 3 zombies. In combat proper, the plague censer bearers with hatred and frenzy wiped the unit out completely. They were now free to reinforce me.

Again Steve moved everything forward, bringing his knights very close to my lines. The fell bats moved along the extreme flank to hit my jezzails on the next turn. His two main units shuffled forward along with the black coach. The banshee hid in the wood ready to unleash banshee hell.

The magic phase again went very badly for me, allowing Steve to raise a unit of zombies to reinforce his levy, and rolled in 5 more archers on the hill. I used a dispel scroll getting rid of curse of years on my censer bearers. His banshee wailed but failed to wound any of the plague monks.

My turn 2. Charges first, the frenzied plague monks charged the militia, the second clanrat unit with plague priest charge the black coach. I moved the globadiers on the left flank up to the fell bats position (ah I finally remembered where these guys were) ready for some uber globe chucking. I positioned my swarms to try and charge his levy in the next turn and hold them up (this was to be my undoing, keep reading) and moved the gutter runners forward to charge his new skeleton archers on the hill in the next turn.

My magic is a nightmare, not only does my warlock engineer fail to cast warplighting, but for the second turn in a row I forget about the storm daemon. My grey seer casts vermintide on the levy approaching and opps…double 1. I roll a 7 which gives Steve the ability to cast curse of years again on to my censer bearers. I use my remaining power dice dispelling this. The jezzails have another pop at the knights bringing 1 down. The warplightning cannon takes a line through the banshee and some of his newly raised zombies in the middle. I roll strength 8 and 6 wounds on the banshee, one less thing to worry about. A couple of zombies fry as well. The globadiers do slightly better, killing one of the fell bats.

I ring the bell!! I roll a double and one clanrat dies. Curse that bell a thousand times.

The combat in the middle goes slightly better and I cause enough wounds to win combat with the plague monks and the unit starts to crumble. The second clanrat unit in combat with the black coach fluff their attacks and rely on the plague priest to win them combat but he can’t do enough damage to drop the wounds the black coach makes up again. The black coach is now one wound up and I am four clanrats down.

Turn three. Steve charges the fell bats into the globadiers, the black knights into the swarm (I told you their placement was my undoing!) and the levy into the clanrat unit with screaming bell. I’m not sure why the swarms were in charge arc, I’d had the movement for them not to be, I must have just had a moment of madness. Anyway, back to the battle. I’ve just remembered that Steve also had two units of dire wolves on the flank supporting the black coach. I also remember that this is how I got the charge on the black coach. I’d only just been in charge range with the second unit of clanrats and had charged, wiping them out and overrunning into the black coach. The second unit of dire wolves was now in charge range of my gutter runners protecting the warp lightning cannon and he duly charged them.

In his magic phase he managed to cast curse of years on to the censer bearers which I scrolled. I figured this would be a crucial part of the game and needed to contain all his magic. I failed to dispel him raising more skeletons on the hill, and he rolled yet another 5 in. I managed to dispel both of the other two markers but rolled badly and he raised yet more zombies near to the black coach battle, facing directly into the flank of my second clanrat unit.

He shoots at the jezzails with his skeletons and kills one, causing a panic test that I promptly fail and the jezzails run off the board.

In combat the black knights with vampire rip through the entire swarm of rats and overrun into the flank of my plague monks. Now in a new combat, they again rip through the plague monks killing over 7 of them. The combined attacks of my battle standard bearer and plague monks kill a few militia at the front, but after combat resolution I’m so far down that I need a double one. I roll badly, but then with a swift battle standard re-roll; I glimpse a one, then another one. I’m there for another turn.

Nothing of note happens in the levy/clanrat battle, but I’m sure I won, but only by a small margin.

The black coach battle raged on the flank, staying at a complete deadlock. Now the plague monk was back to strength four, the clanrats and priest were struggling to wound the black coach. I again won the combat with ranks, banner and outnumber and this time managed to take the coach down to one wound below its starting wounds.

The globadiers were wiped out to a man, and the fell bats moved forward looking for more prey.

The dire wolves wiped out the gutter runners and overran into the warp lightning cannon, which fled off the table.

By now, things were looking very dire.

I started my turn three hoping to use all the last sneaky tricks I could muster.

I charged the censer bearers into the flank of the knights to help out what remained of the plague monks and charged the remaining gutter runners into the skeletons on the hill. The skeletons opted for stand and shoot, needing sixes followed by sixes, and you know what, he got enough to wipe out the whole unit.

With no remaining shooting I move straight to magic. I attempt to cast vermintide and pestilent breath into combat, failing the first spell and miscasting the second. I roll on the miscast table and get the same result as last time, allowing Steve to cast curse of years again. I use my remaining power dice on dispelling it.

By now I have no shooting left and my only task this turn is to ring the bell. I get the result that causes D3 wounds to anything T7 or more and as there is nothing to wound we move straight on to combat.

The vampire kills all but one plague monk in the unit, the battle standard bearer and remaining champion cause little wounds back, the plague bearers bounce off the knights and I end up running and being cut down.

The clanrat unit manages to hold on, but I know the black knights are now free to charge and have the arc into my flank. The second clanrat unit manages to remove a wound from the black coach after combat res. Its pretty much game over.

Steve got an absolute massacre from this and took 20 points away. I was left mulling over what went wrong. It was a fun game but I got some absolute bad luck with my dice rolls.

I think the only mistake I made tactically was not trying to take the black coach out earlier. If I had directed the warp lightning cannon in its direction instead of the banshee, it would have been completely destroyed. I then would have had a clanrat unit with a very fighty character hitting the vampires in the flank early on.

I also completely forgot to use the storm daemon and bands of power the plague priest had. The bands of power especially could have really won that black coach combat for me (I actually forgot about them the entire tournament as I never take them normally).

2005 GT Heat 1

After the 2005 Grand Tournament I wrote up how it went so my regular gaming mates could read up how I’d done and who I’d faced. The tournament was during the Storm of Chaos, so I decided I’d take my nurgle daemonic legion. Hope you enjoy the write up.

Games 1 vs. Vampire counts 

Playing against an undead army, which isn’t great, as it negates my fear causing bonus and they are also immune to psychology and unbreakable, so once in combat, we were there for the duration.

I deployed in the centre, with two units of plague bearers in the middle, chariot and plague riders on the right and the nurglings holding the left. Daemon prince took the left as well to assist nurglings.

The battle started really well, with us both moving forward, but I started to find it hard to counter his 13 power dice with my 4 dispel dice and one spell breaker. In the first turn or two, he cast gaze of nagash on the plague riders, killing one, and wounding the second.

I moved the nurglings up the left, pulling away the newly raised zombies to their left from the battle field.

My main plague bearer unit entered combat against his grave guard and vampire count and started cutting through them like butter, his vampire and unit finding it hard to hit on 5’s. It was then that everything went wrong, and I slowly started to lose a battle of attrition as he raised more zombies than I could kill and my units started to become unstable.

By the end of turn 5 I had conceded total victory to him and started the tournament with a massacre.

I put this lose down to it being my first ever battle with undead since 4th edition, and the fact it was my first tournament game, and my nerves were pretty high. The good thing to come out of the game was my daemon princes ability to fly behind enemy units, cast potent nurgle spells, and then use stream of corruption, a tactic I used quite a bit, but in this game perfected. It would become a useful tactic in the next two days.

Game 2 vs. Vampire Counts 

By being massacred in game one, I found myself  facing another vampire count army at the bottom end of the tables. From memory, he had a unit of grave guard with a tooled up vampire in the unit, two necromancers flanking either side and then on each flank, a unit of 40 zombies. Protecting the far right was a banshee and some ghouls.

Against this I committed my plague bearers (both units) in the middle, my plague riders on my right facing a zombie unit and the chariot and nurglings on my left, facing the ghouls, banshee and zombie unit.

Within turn two my daemon prince was charging the lone necromancer and killing him in one turn. My plague riders were within charge range of the zombies in front of them, with no possibility of getting charged themselves and the nurglings changed formation so at one end they were near his zombies, and the other, towards my deployment. This meant the ghouls and banshee had no choice but to charge, or waste the game going round. It also gave my plague bearer unit and chariot the opportunity to charge the second zombie unit on my left on my next go.

On his turn two, he raised more zombies (by now the count was getting close to 60 in one unit and 50 in the other) and didn’t move at all except for a charge of his ghouls into my nurglings, and his grave guard into the plague bearer unit in the middle. They manage to hold by killing three dead things against his two kills. All those kills caused by his vampire and my daemonic herald. The nurglings do very well, killing three ghouls for the lose of…..none. That’s right, nurglings rule.

Ha, turn three, time for my daemon to go hunting. Declarations first though. Chariot and plague bearers into he zombies. Chariot makes it, plague bearers fall an inch short. On my right, the plague riders declare and hit their target, the second zombie unit.

It is then I realize my mistake, My daemon has no line of sight to charge, no units left to magic to death, and unless he goes well out the fight, no one to stream of corruption. I move him to hit the flank of the zombies my plague riders just hit on the next go. If by some bad rolling, they do lose and fail their instability, the zombies won’t be able to line up a flank attack on the plague bearers locked in combat with the vampire and his now severely depleted unit.

Magic goes well, with me casting an irresistible force and reducing his zombies WS, S, and LD by -1.

Chariot first. 6 chariot hits at strength 5 and 4 more beast hits. We decide at this point that poison doesn’t affect zombies as we can’t find any supporting evidence that it would (I really enjoyed this battle, the guy was great. There he is losing his entire army and getting massacred for the second time in the day, and he’s telling me my beasts have poisoned attacks. I then query if it affects zombies, he shrugs his shoulders and says he doesn’t know. Then he says, roll a D6. I lose, poison doesn’t work. But hey, he actually reminded me so if he hadn’t have said anything, I’d have forgotten them anyway).

Anyway, 10 dead zombies later (plague bearers on chariot killed 2) and he loses a load more. Great, three more rounds of that and they might all be dead.

The battle in the middle turns into a stalemate. His vampire kills on average three plague bearers, leaving only my daemonic herald whose soul hunger no longer counts and is now killing one grave guard a turn. Thanks to his icon, they hold for another turn.

Next door the beasts are doing their thing. I roll D6 for each ones attacks. 6, 6 and a 5. 17 attacks + 6. Roll to hit, roll to wound, 17 dead zombies. He then proceeds to remove another handful from the unit from combat resolution loses. There must be 25-30 left from the 60 strong unit.

In his turn combat commences, more zombies die, more grave guard die, more ghouls die, the plague riders kill another 10 zombies and his vampire miscasts and cannot cast for the rest of the game until he rolls a 6.

My turn four. Charge the plague bearers into the zombie unit in combat with my chariot. Charge Dracus into the plague rider combat. Many, many dead zombies.

It pretty much goes like this until the end of turn 6 and we shake hands and count up the points.

I look at my dead pile. I have 8 dead plague bearers. Hmmm, not even under half strength. This has to be a massacre.

Nope, 35pts short. I don’t challenge it because he was such a good sport in the game. I take my 17-3 win.

Games 3vs Tomb Kings 

What kind of run is this? Undead, undead and more undead. I need some poncy high elves to fight so they run away lots.

Anyway, this was a great game in the end. We both gave each other awesome game at the end because this is how Warhammer should be played (For a review of how Warhammer shouldn’t be played read game 5).

Anyway, back to the start, and the deployment phase.

This guy had chosen his army and deployed right out of the tomb kings textbook.

He had tomb king in chariot with the oh so unfluffy chariot of fire in a unit of three chariots, associated Liche priests, light cavalry, carrion, tomb scorpion, screaming skull thingy etc etc. No bone giant though, which I was surprised about.

My deployment didn’t really change much from the last two battles, except my plague riders and nurglings were on the left flank, separated from the rest of the army by a large house.

This was to try and shield them from the casket of souls for a few turns. It was also to either sweep around his flanks or protect from the tomb kings unit that was currently sitting opposite them. However, the problem, as I later discovered, was that they would be well out of range of the instability re-roll offered by my daemonic herald for the whole battle.

He started the game by moving forward his infantry (tomb guard or whatever the hell they are), tomb scorpion, cavalry and chariots. His carrion moved around my left flank to try and slow my chariot.

The tomb kings spurred his chariot unit towards my plague riders.

It was my turn 1. I moved everything forward, ignoring the carrion on my right. My plague riders failed their charge against the tomb king and I put my daemon prince in a vulnerable place, hoping to get the charge against his hierophant in the next turn.

His turn 2 and he charged the tomb king into combat with the plague riders. The carrion loitered in the corner and his units moved ever closer. Then the game changed radically in his favour. Casting, smiting onto his skull thrower, he managed a direct hit against my daemon prince, causing a Strength 8, multiwound hit. He wounds, I fail my ward save and 6 wounds later, my daemon is banished to the realms of chaos for a day. He then magic’s his cavalry and tomb scorpion into the plague bearers and chariot respectively. With two dispel dice, there’s not a lot I can do

I then lose combat against the chariot unit and my plague riders roll a double six. Off they go too. It wasn’t going well and by this point, I was beginning to work towards playing the game safe to conserve points. However, the next two combats changed all that.

The plague riders, for no wounds taken, kill about 5 horsemen, causing the unit to nearly crumple into dust. The chariot takes one wound and causes one back. That’s to a unit strength of 5, he loses another wound. Things aren’t going too badly.

I retaliate. My nurglings charge the side of his tomb kings unit. I knew I wouldn’t get the flank bonus, but it did mean they were now tied up and only one chariot was able to fight back. I also had fives bases against his 4, so I also outnumbered.

I manoeuvred my plague bearers not in combat to plug any gaps and then moved to combat.

The nurglings cause two wounds. The chariot fails to hit the little plague midgets. I outnumber, 2 wounds, against his single banner. Goodbye chariot number 1. The plague bearers in combat with the cavalry destroy the unit through combat resolution and the chariot and tomb king stare menacingly at each other, failing to cause any more wounds. I await his next move.

He charges the carrion into the chariots flanks; I wonder why anyone would be so stupid. He moves the tomb king across to face the nurglings tying him up.

Magic, he casts smiting on pretty much everything he can. My plague bearers take casualties from the skulls screaming down. The tomb king manages to miss the nurglings and then the casket of souls opens. I laugh as it miserably fails to kill anything. Leadership nine was however fairly crucial in preventing that.

The next few turns become static. The nurglings finally destroy the tomb kings chariot and then his unit through combat resolution. My lucky hits, combined with outnumbering started to take its toll on the fragile chariots.  The tomb king (now on foot) charges the nurglings and dies in the attempt.

The chariot kills all the carrion and then the scorpion. I move my units towards him. I then take magic, shooting and artillery fire until turn 6 to capture all but one table quarter.

Result, a draw. Only just. If I hadn’t have lost my daemon prince, I could easily have won. Not only did that give him 600 odd victory points, but I also missed out on attacking his unprotected lines with him.

Game 4 vs. High elves. 

Now I was happy. Hopefully I could make the pointy ears run away.

The army was pretty much standard high elf stuff. Three magic users, one who was able to choose master of stone and master of wood. One unit of 10 silver helms, sword masters, spearmen, two bolt throwers, archers, lord in sword masters unit, two chariots and two giant eagles.

The battle started well, and he advanced towards me, foolishly. My main plague bearer unit entered combat with the sword masters, but only after my daemon prince reduced his lords’ toughness by -1. 2’s to wound from plague bearers, great. This combat then lasted until the end of turn 5 with me losing the whole unit through attrition.

The smaller plague bearer unit was charged by the silver helms, who lost two wounds and caused three. I then moved my plague riders into the combat, causing him to lose combat by quite a bit due to no ranks, and having a flank bonus. He auto broke and ran away like a girl. 15 inches in fact. I chased, hot on his heels.

My daemon moved around quite a bit this game, throwing magic around, flying behind his spearmen, causing them to turn and therefore removing them from the game for several turns. He then used stream of corruption for a turn or two to bring them below 50%. He then moved into his main spellcaster, the one with the two nasty wood and stone spells and cut him down, over running into the bolt thrower and killing them on the next turn.

He then finished the game by using stream of corruption and spells to kill off the archers.

The great eagles were a pain, tying up my nurglings for the games after they had killed and run down his first chariot. They couldn’t wound the little guys, and kept autobreaking and flying away.

His second chariot and my chariot traded impact hits for a turn and then he also autobroke off the table.

All in all, pretty good job well done. However, he did make it hard for me by casting master of stone and wood a lot, and everything I had always seemed to be near one of them. I had continuous bolts and arrows coming my way, but high toughness and ward saves made it a little easier to swallow.

I gain a minor victory.

Game 5 vs. High Elves. 

Another high elf army, this one nearly the same as the last, but with the silver helms split into two units of 5. He must have had a lot of nasty magic gear as he didn’t seem to have any visible points for the lack of chariots. Other than that, it was a carbon copy.

I hated this game, and marked it down as such. I don’t mind getting massacred; it’s the way it was done that annoys me. He played it well, maximising all the usual power gaming, close to cheating tactics he knew, which I actually managed to counter okish. It was the cheating that annoyed me. I know for a fact that my daemon prince, his unit and the spell caster behind them didn’t move for a turn, because I didn’t move, and I watched him, and he didn’t move them. So why does he get line of sight for spells, but I can’t have line of sight to charge.

Another one I just let go, was my chariot was in base contact with three sword masters (lets remember that he charged into me and positioned the unit like that. When rolling to hit he said that my base size was 50mm, so he could get four into base contact, one of which was his lord who WASN’T in base contact. The four attacks, plus the lords attacks finished it off. I’m pretty sure, if he could get four bases in, he should have positioned it so he could.

Game 6 vs. Nurgle Daemons. 

The best way to describe this battle would be to line up your army, put a mirror in the middle and charge yourself. The only real difference between the armies was my lord was better equipped than his. Mine was a level 4, his a level 2, mine had a plague flail, he had blade of the ether, not the best weapon to fight daemons with. I also had diabolic splendour, giving me a better save than him.

Having spend so many points on a lord, and having a tooled up daemonic herald, had stopped me from having more core. My opponent on the other hand had two units of 25 plague bearers with full command, an extra plague rider and an additional beast of nurgle on his chariot.

The extra troops soon started to show, and if I hadn’t have made his lord charge mine, the battle would have been close to a major defeat.

It was somewhere around turn four or five that he positioned his lord behind my Daemonic Herald still in combat with his nurglings. I knew what was coming and had two choices. Do I continue to kill Plague Bearers, or move my lord to intercept. In the end I flew him over to within an inch of his lord, right between him and his next target. He had little choice but to charge next turn. In magic I hit him with D6 Strength 4 hits but managed to only take one wound of him. In shooting, a stream of corruption failed to wound.

In his next turn, he charged me, and in combat, both managed to show their fighting prowess by hitting each other once, and then failing to wound. Maybe they were friends? The next turn was different, and he had a Daemon Prince minus a head.

This battle was a minor victory to him.

Overall I came 96th out of 148. Not bad for my first Grand Tournament. Only the cheating elf I played managed to rank higher then me, the other five players finished below me, so I’m fairly happy. I also made a few friends who have invited me up to their club to play Warhammer.