After my big win at the first tournament on January 9th, I felt pretty good entering day two. The one thing I didn't like was my list. Since the tournament on the 10th was a League tournament, we had made our lists long ago and been playing with them for a few months. Unfortunately, I had decided after my first game or so with the list that I really hated it. It violated two of my cardinal rules, in that it was slow (or at least felt slow) and the units were too expensive. It also didn't have a lot of "shock" hitting power. The list was:
Lord with ASF Dagger, Potion of Strength, Pearl of ItP, Regen Armor
Hero with Pendant, Soulpiercer
Cauldron with Rune of Khaine, Manbane
Scroll Caddy
2 Assassins with Rune of Khaine, Manbane
23-24 Spears with War Banner
2 Units of Dark Riders
20 Black Guard, ASF with the Ring
Seven Shades
Hydra
1 Bolt Thrower
The Lord and Hero go in the Spears.
Game One
In my first game, I played Todd and his High Elves. He had big units of Phoenix Guard and White Lions, two Tiranoc Chariots, mounted Lord and Hero in a Unit of Dragon Princes, two Level 2 Mages and the Banner of Sorcery, a bolt thrower, and two giant spear units.
Todd played very aggressively, charging all his folks forward. He was pretty bent on destroying the Black Guard with his High Magic, despite the Ring of Hotek being in there, and this went pretty badly for him. He also liked to save dice to cast the High Elf spell that raises my casting values, despite the fact that I had no magic phase. I think he may have been worried that I had some sort of cunning plan, unaware of the fact that I learned to play with Bretonnians and thus developed no strategies in this game except for "Charge!".
Todd had deployed his White Lions off to one side of the board, and they were pretty much a nonfactor in the game. He also inadvertently let me shoot his Dragon Princes in the flank with a Bolt Thrower a couple times as they chased Dark Riders around, which led to just the Prince and Noble Surviving. Without the White Lions and Dragon Riders around, my Spears and Black Guard were able to kill the rest of his army, and by the end, he was charging his Noble and Lord into the Black Guard, which used their Combat Res. to run him down. I had a few bonus points, and was sitting near the top of the tourney at this point.
Lunch was the finest (non-alcohol serving) place to eat, ever. That's right, the K&W Cafeteria. At this point, a scary lady who was serving broccoli gave me the evil eye, and I'm pretty sure that's what led to round three. Crikey!
Game Two
In the second game, I ran into Blair, who is our local VC player. While he's been playing for less than a year, Blair is very talented and a great guy to play against. However, he had been making disparaging comments on the quality of the K&W Cafeteria, so I was ready to take him down. Blair will also write a much better Battle Report for this match, hopefully, and then I'll post it here.
He brought a Lord Vamp, a Hero Vamp BSB, a Necro on Horse, and a Corpse Cart. To ride shotgun, there were Blood Knights, Wraiths, Grave Guard, and some Ghouls and Zombies. Lots of magic dice, and some bound items. Yum.
More or less, we managed to create an ubercombat in the middle of the Board, as everything charged everything else. Although I almost broke once, I managed to hold on and eventually kill his Lord and BSB. Meanwhile, while he killed lots of guys, most of them were Spearmen, so pointswise I had a big win.
Round Three
For the third round, I was tied for first place. Unfortunately, so was Lance, who is an excellent player, and who also had a lovely Dwarf Gun Line. He had two units of Longbeards, two Units of Hammerers, four bolt throwers, two Organ Guns, a BSB, a Thane, and the Anvil. Before the game began, I was pretty excited about my upcoming draw/minor win or loss.
Basically, he had an excellent answer to most of the things in my army, like the Hydra, in the form of one billion flaming shots each turn. If I had been in super cunning tournament mode, I guess I could have hidden a good part of my army in the woods for the whole game. I'm just more friendly/aggressive than that, though. Plus, I hate thinking. See the "Charge!" strategy, above.
His anvil did explode on the first turn. So I had that going for me. When this happened, though, he pulled the rest of his army behind a hill, and formed his Hammerers two wide and ten deep with the BSB (and the remaining army) behind them. In practice, this meant that I now got to use my two blocks of troops to pound away at his Stubborn LD9 rerolling units for the the rest of the game, with neither side really doing much of anything. I killed one unit, and hacked on the other, and we called it a game. I had a little bit of an advantage on scenario points, and edged him 13-12.
Overall
I ended up in third place for the day, behind Ian Holland and Chad Hoggan. The tournament was a great time, and I enjoyed all my games. Thanks to Chad and Chris for organizing and running the league/tourney. I'll be there next year!
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