Mocksville Fantasy Tournament: Fourth Place Beasts

I attended the Heroes Headquarters Warhammer Fantasy Tournament put on by Game On in Mocksville, NC this past weekend.   The venue was very nice, the event was well run, and I had a lot of fun.  In three games, I lost to a Lizardman Slann army, beat a Skaven army, and barely got a win against some Dark Elves in a wild back and forth game that came down to a 200 point difference.  Thanks to all involved for a great time!

The Battle of Five (or More) Warhammer Armies

So I've written up a scenario that we'll hopefully be playing here in the next few months.  I like to watch this for inspiration:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y30LAj502mY



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Scenario:  The Battle of the Five (or more) Warhammer Armies

Players:  Five (or more).  Fluffwise, these consist of two or more forces of order armies, Skaven, Beastmen, Lizardmen, and Orcs.  Feel free to swap out armies if convenient.

Points:  2,500 points outer (evil) army.  3,000 points per (center table) army.  These points should adjust to provide some semblance of balance (at about a 10:6 ratio), although evil should always outnumber good.

Deployment:  The center table defenders deploy anywhere on the center table.  The outer table attackers deploy within 12” of their outer board edges. 

First Turn:  Defenders go first

Game Length:  The Game will last for six turns, or until a time limit is reached.

Victory Conditions:  Each player has secret conditions. 

Scenario Special Rules:  Lots!  Coming Soon!

Map:   

Fluff: 

Bobo was scared.  He’d stolen the Ring from the scary dragon, Flogg, just like the old Sorcerer Randalf had asked him to do, but ever since then, things had gone horribly wrong.  Randalf and the Dwarfs that were supposed to protect him were drunk, Flog the Dragon was pissed, and Bobo’s pants were sopping wet down the front. 

“No worries, Bobo”, grinned Randalf, “I’ve got this here horn, and I’ll blow on it to summon some allies to help us out.  Pretty soon, we’ll be up to our arses in archers and eagles”. 

Randalf whipped out his horn and went to blow.  Unfortunately, his mouth was still filled with “pipeweed” smoke, and a hacking cough struck him just as he sounded the horn.  The resulting note sounded something like a cross between a startled sheep and a wet fart.

Beastlord (or Beastlady, as she preferred) Gortia Gorson led her herd through the woods around Mount Boom carefully.  No longer satisfied with petty loot and plunder, Gortia had become a militant anti-man zealot after a late night jam session with her Gor-crush Malagor at the Herd Stone last Boxing Day.  She was on the lookout for any settlements to defile, loot, and hopefully poop on. 

Randalf’s “note” sounded in the air.  To all the Beastmen, it sounded like the world’s most awesome Bray-Horn.  Gortia smiled and turned to address her herd.   

“Let’s get moving, boys!  There’s more Beasts ahead!

Randalf looked down at the horn and frowned.  Whatever note he had blown, it hadn’t summoned much help.  Bobo looked even more terrified, and several Dwarfs looked ready to sick up. 

“Ah ha!”, exclaimed Randalf, “I’ve got the ticket!  What I’ll do is jazz up the next note with a little Razzle Dazzle Magic ™.”  He sniffed at the Winds of Magic.  They seemed pretty ripe!

Glowing with power, Randalf blew into the horn.  On the plus side, the horn blew a perfect, beautiful note.  On the down side, Randalf exploded.

When the smoke cleared, Bobo and the Dwarfs found Randalf stunned on the ground.  “Well”, groaned Randalf, “I sounded the horn with Irresistible Force.  Unfortunately, that’s also a miscast in this edition”. 

To the east, the Eagles and their Wood Elf friends heard Randalf’s call, and took to the air immediately to go to his aid.  The majestically soared over the trees, true friends and allies to Randalf’s cause.  Sadly, as they flew, the air around them grew hot and then exploded in a white hot burning ball of unnatural miscasted Strength Ten D6 Wound Ouchies.  When the light cleared, only a few eagles remained, and the green fields and trees below had been replaced with a squalid swamp and unnatural temple.  Lizardy eyes glared up at the eagles.

“What. The. Croak.”, snapped the High Slann Slippimus Prime.  “I don’t know what jerk mage summoned us up on accident, but we’re going to follow those feather Pteradons up there and kick his butt”. 

Meanwhile, up in “Da Hills”:

“Boss, we’ve been after these Stunties for days”, complained a Big’Un, “When are we gonna bash sum heads?”

General Bork gave his troops the stinkiest eye an Orc can give. 

“Shut it up, you lot!”  He chopped a nearby Gobbo in half in irritation. “We’ve almost caught ‘em.  I can feel it.  Plus, listen to dat racket down there near the mountain. We’ll smash ‘em up good, and Gork’ll be proud.  Chargelzors!”

The woods were rustling, there was a new swamp to the east, the sounds of a Waaaagh could be heard from the hills, and most of the Eagles were BBQ.   Even Randalf looked worried. 

The only place left to look for help was to the west, in the small settlement of Durham nearby.  Randalf tooted despondently on the horn again, hoping to summon some men, at least.  Amazingly, he saw men approaching!  Unfortunately, they looked like they were in bad shape. 

One of them screamed, “We’ve been swarmed by rats!” and fainted dead away.  Bobo peed in his pants a little more. 

In Durham, Gray Seer Burns stroked his whiskers.  “Exxxxcelent!”, he hissed.

The plan to take Durham had gone well, using only some cheese, a Pied Piper, and twelve cucumbers.  His alliance with the Vampires was underway…for now…and no man-thing remained in the town.  Burns could now launch his raid on Mount Boom, and steal all of its magical artifacts.  Enough Slaves could take down a dragon, and no other inconveniences could stand in his way.  Mounting his Bell, Burns screamed to the sky.

“Rat-ulators!  Mount up!”

All around the Dwarfs, things were going badly.  Nowhere seemed safe, and the Dragon was coming out from the mountain.  They had some guns, and some knights, and quite a few peasants, but they were completely surrounded!

Bobo had to get out of here!   His hand crept towards the Ring….

First Eighth Edition Game Thoughts

I had a chance the other day to play my first Eighth edition game.  I seem to be a bit behind the curve on that, but Lon and I had a chance to run through a game with his Lizardmen and my Beastmen, and it was a pretty great time.  I ran the list in the previous post at 2,250, so it had less Minotaurs and a bit less core.

As to any jellyfish questions, Tony, I didn't have anyone pee on my sting, although I did have two of my older brothers offer.  Vinegar, followed by meat tenderizer (of all things), is the trick to make it less painful, although it takes a while to kick in. 

So yeah, my thoughts on the game:

*  Eighth ed. plays quickly and smoothly.  With two people who had read over the book, but hadn't played Eighth before, we finished our game in around two hours. 

*  Everytime I think "Warhammer Fantasy Eighth Edition" in my head, it's immediately followed by "The Ocho!" from Dodgeball.  I hereby recommend that anytime this game is played, it should now be referred to as "Warhammer Ocho!", as it hate typing the word, "eighth".

*  Turning my Shaman into a Giant Dragon of Doom with the upgraded version of Transformation of Kadon from Beast Lore was just as much fun as I thought, and just about as effective.  It was awesome, then he got Pit of Shadesed in the face.

*  Stuff move really fast.  Saurus Cavalry shooting nineteen inches across the table is pretty crazy. 

*  Initiative matters a lot.  Those same Saurus Cav charged their nineteen inches into my Minotaurs and BSB, and were beaten to death.

*  Steadfast is nice, but I wouldn't depend on it.  Big blocks of skinks die quick.

*  Slann are nuts.  Lon had the ability to generate an extra power dice every time he cast a spell, and it hurt a lot.  With Lore of Shadow, he was getting Pit of Shades, Pendulum of Cannonball in the Face, and Steed of Shadows off every turn. 

*  As much as Lon hurt me badly with his magic, I'm still tempted to go combat heavy eventually, once the fun of magic wears down.  Augmenting my units with Beasts magic was the most helpful thing that I did with my magic.  I managed to win the game because while Lon was magicking units down effectively, I was using my army to beat him down in the hand to hand.  Rerolling Primal Fury was excellent to help me efficiently kill everything, and eventually only his Slann remained, and was caught in hand to hand by my General.

*  We both had a blast playing Warhammer Ocho!  It's like somebody injected a little Michael Bay into Warhammer (not the dumb stories part).  The whole table seems to be exploding with quick violence all over the place.  Stuff dies in droves, and the game is bloody as heck.  I am really looking forward to my next games.

Team Blizzardmen: A Combined LIzardmen and Beastmen Force

Most times, I try and make the pictures make sense, but this is what came up when I searched Google, and I laughed so hard we're going with it instead.

Lon and I are going to play in the WFB Doubles tournament on the 19th with a combined force of his Lizardmen and my Beastmen.  We're working through several different ideas on how to best combine those armies.

Our original idea was to spam magic like crazy, using the Herd Stone and an Engine of the Gods.  We took four level two mages altogether, with the Stone providing each with more power dice.  We were generating near twenty dice a turn!  We figured this would be a pretty fun weird way to play, since we both usually play combat, plus it would be fun to surprise our opponents with the sheer craziness of the army.  We figured it would be effective, but we needed to play test it before the tournament to see if it would actually be fun to play, and not just mean. 

We got in a game against Brad and Blair, with their combined VC/WE force, and learned a few things about our combination.  We won the game, but more through combat!  Lots of dice are nice, but the magic wasn't particularly effective.  Worse, it was slow, and it wasn't fun to just roll a bunch of dice.  I've never played super magic/shooty heavy before, but I'm not sure how people stomach watching their opponents' faces as they lob buckets of dice at them.  Yuck. 

So I think we're back to the drawing board, to think about things like magic defense and combat goodness!  I hope anyone who can makes it up to the doubles tourney on the 19th, as it's going to be a great time and a fantastic way to say goodbye to 7th Edition!

The Ally Matrix?

Apparently, the Eighth edition has an ally matrix in it for people teaming up in games.  They've developed forces of order and destruction, with a couple neutral armies in the middle.  Now, I'm all for team games of Warhammer, but I'm not sure that it really needed official rules on who can team up and who can't. 

Warhammer has always been a rich, varied universe in both versions.  Lumping armies together into "the good guys" vs. "the bad guys" ignores the fundamental idea that everyone is more or less at odds all of the time.  Even then, some allies don't make sense.  Dwarfs and Wood Elves?  Lizardmen and Empire? Beastmen and Skaven? Sure, you could justify these, and I think you should play them if you want to, but is it really any easier than just playing what you wanted in the first place, without a matrix to limit things? 

Good ally rules will be a plus, though, so outside the matrix, I am really looking forward to seeing what GW has in store there!

The Camp Fire - Fluffing It

Kuffy over at The Trading Post sent out the following questions:

How important is fluff to you?  Do you base an army around the fluff and make the looks/minis suit the background you have for them or is it the other way around?  Do you use units that would never fight alongside one another fluffwise?  Do you care for the fluff or is it all about the rules for you?  Do you write fluff for your armies?

As a tournament player, this is a pretty common set of questions for me, because the fluff debate at tournaments is ever present.  So here's my take.

The importance of fluff is a personal thing, and is an important part of our hobby.  Done well, fluff can be used to bring an army to life on the table and in your mind, but "fluff abuse" is also a thing that we see around the area from time to time.  I think there are two keys to being a fun and fluffy player.  First, do what makes you happy.  Second, use some moderation and remember the other hobby aspects.  For me, fluff is a great and wonderful thing, but shouldn't dictate your fun.

Doing what makes you happy with fluff means different things to different people.  For some, playing their army as a certain faction, such as a Nurgle Daemon army or a Khainite Daemon army is the way to go, and so they limit themselves and build accordingly.  When I build an army, I love to have a theme or idea in mind, but I want to make it more big and general, because I want to use everything in the army book.  For instance, I always think of my red and bronze Dark Elves as a desert raiding force, plying the wastes to loot and pillage.  A little bit of everything shows up in the army, as each Dark Elf faction is represented and vies for glory and reward.  In this way, I enjoy my personal fluff without giving up some of the other things that I enjoy, such as collecting and painting.

My big joy is playing the game, mostly at a tournament level, and so I do notice examples of fluff gone too far.  There are two offenders that are related, and I call them the Intentional Gimp and the Hidden Cheese.  The Intentional Gimp is the player who intentionally makes his army terrible in order to make it what he or she considers "fluffy", and then complains about getting beaten by all the other armies.  While it's one thing to have a fluffy army, don't be a bad sport when you lose because you ran a Bretonnian all Peasant army.  On the other hand, the Hidden Cheese hides his cheesiness behind fluff.  When he shows up with your 25+ power dice Vampire army, he should still get a terrible composition score even if you painted your army to look like Necrarchs.  A cheesy army is a cheesy army, even if it has a great theme.

Finally, and this is my big offender, is the Fluff Nazi.  Don't be this guy.  Your opinion is your opinion, and while it's cool to share, don't condemn the guy who doesn't think the same way you do, or has other priorities with his army.  I'm going to play in a doubles tournament next month with my good buddy Lon.  We're running Beastmen and Lizardmen (or "Blizzardmen" if you will).  We both realize that it's not fluffy, but he's playing his army and I'm playing mine.  I'm okay with this combo because I'm going to the tournament to play Warhammer and to hang out with my friend, and that's my priority.  Years ago, when my brother and I started 40K, we were almost kicked out of a doubles tournament for bringing Space Marines (me) and Tau (him).  We had just started, and those were the only armies we owned, but we had to talk our way into being allowed to play.  My priority there was to go to a tournament with my brother. 

So like all things with the hobby, I guess what I'm saying is that you should be happy with what you do, and let others be happy with their hobby as well, be it in painting, modeling, fluff, or anything else.  I look forward to playing you with my Eighty plus power dice Dwarfs soon!

What's Your Local Meta?

 

It's my belief (and a not too controversial one) that the way we play is shaped by the players around us.  While there are many aspects to this, one of the most basic things we can look at are the armies around us.  While planning for a local tournaments, many of us think about the armies we are most likely to face.  For Warhammer Fantasy, I know that the following armies are in the area and likely to appear.

One Bretonnian

Two Dark Elves

One Daemons

Two Vampire Counts

One Warriors of Chaos

Two Lizardmen

Two Skaven

One Dwarfs

One Empire

One Orcs and Goblins

One Ogres

It's a good mix.  I also know that magic is not super popular in the area, but that I have to be prepared for a decent chance of hitting either Vampires or Lizards, who can maul you with the magic phase.  I know that with my Dark Elves, I can usually get a speed advantage on many of the armies.  I'm lucky in that Daemons are relatively rare in the area.

So what's your local meta look like? 

Video Battle Report: Dark Elves v. Lizardmen, 800 Points

Today marks my first foray into the world of video battle reporting. After going down to Charlotte and playing, and then those great video battle reports on Youtube, I really wanted to get into doing the same thing.

This is a test run, so to speak, for the real deal. Right now, we're having small, sub-1000 games at the local store here, and I thought that'd be a good way to work my way up to making real reports. The video is a bit of a mess (camera batteries died halfway through, so the second half is pictured via Iphone) and I kind of hate the sound of my own voice, but hopefully through time I'll make it pretty awesome with time.

Thanks to Chad Hoggan for giving me this idea.

PBKW Oct. 10th Warhammer Fantasy Tournament - The Third Round Cometh

Hi all,

So I'm writing up the third round battle report. I played against Bretonnians (my old army) in the third round, and Chad (the Bret player) mentioned that he made video battle reports and posted them online. In the second round, he had played Lon and his Lizardmen, and the game was apparently pretty darn entertaining. Without further ado, here are his battle reports from the second round versus Lon. I'll post up his videos from the third round as well once they're up, so that you can see both sides of the story.


Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaeaCjMiCKI
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FWeZ58arus

Ben