Another tournament. Another blog. Again, it’s been ages since I’ve last posted and I’ve been quite busy in between! Since last I wrote I got married, went to Japan for a honeymoon, decided to move house and throughout it all I still found time to do some hobby and get a few games in! The most recent of which were at Barglecon III in Devonport on the last weekend of May.
Similar to last time, this was a 2500 point Swedish comp. tournament. There were a few notable differences though. Firstly, the tournament was aimed at being more “fluffy” than last time. The armies were softer and the “soft scores” were worth more than they might have been otherwise. This meant that overall the standard of painting and gamesmanship was amongst the highest I’ve witnessed in my short Warhammer career. Kudos to Jay for another great tournament environment.
The second major difference was that this time the comp. scores actually meant something. At the end of the game, the player with the higher comp. score (softer army) added the difference in comp scores multiplied by 100 to their Victory Points. The submission range was from an 8 to a 13 so at the most, this could be a 500 point swing. Nothing to turn your nose up at!
This time I carpooled up from Hobart and we left at 5:15AM which was a massive struggle. We were halfway there before sunrise which was just pure madness. I’m also a bit stunned that we didn’t have an accident because the fog on the Midlands Highway was unreal. Literally <100M visibility for big, big portions of the drive.
Before I start the game-by-game rundown, I’ll touch on my list.
Eltharion the Grim, Warden of Tor Yvresse, Stormwing, The Lore of Death 490 pts
Dragon Mage of Caledor, Level 2 Upgrade, Dragon Armour, Charmed Shield, Dispel Scroll, The Gem of Sunfire 445 pts
Noble (Battle Standard Bearer), Shield of the Merwyrm 114 pts
6 Ellyrian Reavers, Bow; Spear; 114 pts
6 Ellyrian Reavers, Bow; Spear; 114 pts
15 Archers, Musician; Standard Bearer 170 pts
17 Lothern Sea Guard, Sea Master; Musician; Standard Bearer 234 pts
21 Swordmasters of Hoeth, Bladelord; Musician; Standard Bearer 303 pts
21 White Lions of Chrace, Guardian; Musician; Standard Bearer 303 pts
Eagle Claw Bolt Thrower, 70 pts
Eagle Claw Bolt Thrower, 70 pts
Eagle Claw Bolt Thrower, 70 pts
Total: 2497 pts
Swedish comp.:12.2
The first thing to note are the obvious omissions to a High Elf army; no Banner of the World Dragon nor Book of Hoeth nor Frostheart Phoenixes. Put simply – they are too expensive to fit in with the models that I own. If you take other sub-optimal choices you can fit them in but I decided against it. As would be obvious to most experienced High Elf players, I’ve gone for the softer choices predominantly in my Lords section. Both Eltharion and the Dragon Mage are not scored very highly because their mounts are not resilient; neither in combat nor to cannonballs. I found that in practice, they were perfectly useable characters however and that if I were playing a bit tighter, getting the points from them can be quite a difficult proposition. The rest of the army was pretty straight forward. A few medium combat units that can dish out some pain but don’t have much staying power and a whole lot of ballistic skill based shooting.
Round 1 – Orcs & Goblins Grudge Match – The Watchtower
This round saw me take on a friend from Hobart – in fact the girl who drove me up! We’d never met in a tournament before and though I’d seen what her savage orc horde could do, I was keen to pencil in a game against a guaranteed fun opponent. My opponent won the roll off for the watch tower but elected not to start a unit in it. We both slowly moved up on the sides around the building. She had two large blocks of Savage Orcs, a block of trolls, a Warboss on a Wyvern and a few bits of chaff…. Oh. And two Manger Squigs. Eep!
Some poor target selection on my left flank meant the Mangler took a lot of Elves with it while I managed to deal with the second by throwing some Ellyrian Reavers into it. I moved up my Swordmasters ready to enter the building or charge her if she entered the next turn. I failed to see that there was a very easy corner-to-corner charge for her big block of Savages around the left of the building and her trolls around the right of it. Luckily the trolls failed – needing only a 5 on the dice, from memory. The Swordmasters ran off but rallied again a couple of turns later.
My White Lions got stuck in and her Shaman managed to ‘Eadbutt Eltharion to death, the poor bugger. Things were looking pretty grim for me so I put the dragon into the flank of the trolls and used my Gem of Sunfire. The breath weapon took out two of the 8 trolls but I had a cunning plan! Up to this point I hadn’t mentioned that one side of the table had a river between the board edge and the watchtower and that was the side I opted not to take. with Steadfast removed, the dragon chased off the trolls and overran into the second group of Savage Orcs and chased them off too. This was also the turn that I realised that I am unable to get the benefit of the Gem of Sunfire from a close combat breath weapon and a fireball in the same turn. Very obvious when you think about it but up until then – I hadn’t.
Her Warboss meanwhile was flying around causing all sorts of havoc to my remaining bolt throwers and just managed to hide behind a building on the last turn, surviving on 1 wound. I couldn’t complain too much though because by rights, I should have been smashed up. I took a slight comp hit, with my opponent gaining 50 VPs but it still ended up a draw. MVP for that game was definitely the river.
10-10
Round 2 – Warriors of Chaos – Meeting Engagement
In round 2 I played against Warriors of Chaos. A slightly harder list than mine at 11.1. During deployment we realised that we’d set up 12″ from the centre line instead of 6″ so he shoved everything up another 6″. A predominantly Khorne army, there wasn’t much subtlety to what was about to happen. He had two units of 3 Skullcrushers each joined by a character on a Juggernaut, a couple of units of Marauders, a unit of Chaos Knights, a Nurgle Chariot, a Gorebeast Chariot and a block of Warriors up the back with a Sorcerer on Nurgle. My two units of ranged infantry started off the board and everything of his started on.
I had some reasonable luck with a river in between us that meant a lot of Dangerous Terrain tests; many of which he failed. I think I really lost this game in deployment, however. In trying to protect my war machines and ranged troops, I’d blocked their line of sight so they were at minimal effectiveness. To be honest though, this seems like once of the worst match-ups for my list; especially given the scenario.Round 3 – Warriors of Chaos – Blood and Glory
Round 4 – High Elves – Dawn Attack
This round I played against another High Elves player. His list was similar to mine but with a level 4 on High Magic and a level 2 on fire instead of the mounted characters and slightly smaller blocks of White Lions and Sword Masters in favour of a huge block of Phoenix Guard. Lady Luck was on my side again this game. His Phoenix Guard had to start on his right flank and most of my stuff was on my right flank. I deployed far enough back that he wouldn’t be able to shoot me with his Seaguard on the first turn and his archers would have to move but then I stole the first turn with a roll of a 6!Round 5 – Lizardmen – Battleline
He actually got comped quite hard for spending so much in core. This is presumably a precaution against Skinks but in practice he was penalised for taking Saurus which aren’t that scary. He would have been comped less if they were Temple Guard instead of Saurus but he didn’t have the models. This is one of my gripes with Swedish Comp. If you’re trying to do well you might have to buy models you’d never use otherwise. I was lucky to be able to borrow a Dragon Mage for the event because God knows I’m never building one of those, haha.
Anyway, back to the game. Turn 1, like the ultimate scumbag I am, I flew Eltharion up the flank and threw a Purple Sun through his Slann. I managed to kill 10 Temple Guard but the Slann and the Oldblood survived. I kept everything back and just whittled down at him from range. His magic phases were terrible, rolling very low for the Winds of Magic and not rolling that well for spells either. I got a bit lucky in turn 2 to charge into the front of Tetto’Eko. He had wanted to deploy hard up against some impassable terrain then realised he was too close so shuffled back and forgot to move him up the next turn. This left an Eltharion-sized gap just in front them them and he gradually chopped through all the Skinks and a later flank charge from the Ellyrian Reavers helped finish of Tetto’Eko.
My Dragon Mage went full retarded and got himself very out of position…
In the later turns, sick of just being shot at, he marched all his blocks up. He went to charge my BSB’s unit and I fled, confident that I would rally the next turn. I went to counter-charge his now-out-of-position. Saurus blocks and he fled also.
A decidedly low scoring game on both parts but comp. keeping me in it. I got zero points from killing Saurus or Temple Guard, despite killing probably 50 models across the three units. I needed to push earlier with my infantry. I was lucky that he didn’t realise that he didn’t get points for the general despite killing his griffon. I felt a bit bad pointing that out but we’d had an enjoyable game. As with the last game, playnig against an army I understand I feel a lot more comfortable. Having consistently rated Saurus poorly, I can say that I’ve realised their strengths after that game. Having a unit that resilient and hard to get points out of can be good for tournament gaming.
11-9