Hi,
I just finsihed the tourney this weekend. 123 players with many ETC veterans and tough armies with a score of 9 out of 16 in the comp system. I had only played 2 games in last 6 years and I had only old models at my disposal. It was going to get tough!
I asked here on the forums about which ranking I would get, and I got many answers between Place 60 and 120, most of the bets being around the bottom of the list...
My list comp 13 (which was a crappy list according to the comp system).
1 Arch lector on Altar, hvy, enc shield, opal amulet
1 General on Griffin, charmed shield, dragonbane, sword of might, ironcurse Icon
1 Capatsus Bsb, Lance, dawnstone, OTS, shield, fpa, dragonhelm
1 Death wizard, lvl2, ruby ring
1 Heavens wizard, scroll
20 halberdiers
10 handgunners
5 Archers det
10 crossbowmen
5 Archer det
5 Knights banner of eternal flame
5 IC kights
5 Reiksgard Knights
5 Outriders
10 greatswords
10 flagellants
1 great cannon
1 Steamtank
11 deployment drops.
So, I Went MSU empire with 11 drops (crucial) I planned to fight like Wood elves with empire clothing.
Game 1 vs High Elf comp 11He had an all mounted list with 5 scouts
1 Star Dragonlord
1 Bsb (2+ vs magic banner) in dragon princes
1 level 2 with princes
1 level 2 with princes
12 Silver helms
8 Dragon princes
10 Reavers
5 reavers
5 Reavers
2 eagles
1 Frost Phoenix
6 bs 5 scouts
maybe something else
I deployed in my typical fashion, trying to mask my plan and trying to confuse my opponent by deploying odd stuff in an odd order. He had a hard time to know where I would put the Hammer (my most expensive units stank+chars). I deployed all my expensive stuff after he was done, opposite corner from his dragon lord and Phoenix to buy me some time.
He got first turn. I Think he thought my list was absolute cakewalk so he basicaly moved Everything forward max range more or less in a typical HE disdain. This was actualy was going to cost him the initiative i a way.
I had a nice flank charge with my 20 halberdiers + possible altar in front and/or griffon in front at his dragon princes with 3 chars.. He rightfully opted to flee and escaped , I redirected my valiant "HalberStar" (as i liked to call them ironicaly) at his silver helms, he chose to hold and my halberdstar was now engaged in a grind fight with decent odds. Even my crossbowmen charged both eagles to lock them up, bypassing the frostphoenixs charge arc doing so. My Archers and other units decided to march forward past his units to avoid their charge arcs or move back, just to buy time by denying them any turn 2 charges. I fired cannon+ Stank (shooting some bs shooting first to get the charmed shield) at his DragonLord, managed to kill the rider and wounding that dragon abit (I Think he had 7 wounds or so).
Now his princes where fleeing, his eagles and silver helms were locked in fights he didnt see coming and his reavers where weakened by magic or simply out of range or charge arc to do anything, Even hsi Frostbird was unable to find any good target. With loss of his Dragonlord i Think he started to play more cautiously and I Think that spelled his doom. He didnt go all in at that Point and started hiding the Frostbird from cannons and Went chasing some of unimportant units. He rallied princes but they were still in a bad dangerous position.
The rest of the game was me charging his Dragon princes with multiple units (he had to flee every time or get rolled over from all sides) while his dragon and Phoenix didnt get much done (they killed my valiant crossbowmen and Archers). With the dragon+birdie killing some of my crappy units and his princes fleeing or retreating, I had time to take care of the mutiple reavers.
Win 14-6, he killed 235 (10 greatswords, 10 crossbowmen, 5 Archers), I killed 1000 or so!
Aftermath: he got outdeployed, but more importantly he got too Confident and didnt expect me to countercharge/lock his units to allow me to pick apart some of his more dangerous units. He also started to play cautiously after the loss of the Lord (on the dragon) chasing my crappy units instead of going all out and roll over my more valuable units.
Game 2 vs Lizardmen comp 111 Slann
1 Special character (dunno, great weapon charcater god in challenges he said)
1 saurus char with shield
1 more saurus char
25 saurus
25 saurus
12 skinks
12 skinks
12 chameleons
20 skinks with 3 krox
1 Salamander
3 terradons
3 terradons
Early turns:
I was worried about the 2 saurus blocks with multiple characters, so I opted to win this game in the deployment phase (like deploying stuff that would make him Think I would castle in a spot like many empire players do). He had to drop both big saurus blocks Before I had to commit my last 1500 pts , lets call that the
"Hammer"(read steam tank, my 1k characters, cannon and other stuff). I baited him with some units in both corners, making it hard for him to know where I would put the bulk of my Points.
I opted for weighted flank with
the Hammer on the left supported by some Knights facing skinks+ chameleons+ terradons while the far left was held by greatswords and some Knights vs skinks+ both saurus blcoks with all his chars. In the middle I had flagellants, all my Bs shooters and reiksgard on the board edge just waiting to shoot and countercharge if needed.
He took first turn, advance skinks+terradons+ chameleons, shots some units but nothing too bad realy. Realising he got outdeployed he had to start moving his Saurus blocks the long diagonal way to maybe reach my Hammer in later turns.
He got a bit too Close with 1 unit of terradons and i charged with my crossbowmen (he didnt expect me to charge lol) and I got 1 unit locked in combat while I shot the other. Because his big blocks of saurus where so far away I felt Confident to push my central reiksgard straight at the chamelons skinks for a good turn 2 charge which would be hard to escape.
In turn 2 he marched the saurus some more and shot some Knights with skinks on my right (god skinks shoot well, my 5 Knights were down to 3). crossbowmen won vs terradons, pursued (failed to Catch) but were in good position for a turn 2 charge on the chamelons. I charged the crossbowmen+archer+reiksgard in chamelons and wiped them out quickly pushing Deep into the Lizardmen side of the board. The other small Knights cheagred the skinks but only 1 unit made it, the other got shot to pieces wih stand shoot!
Turn 3 he still couldnt do anything useful with the saurus blocks so he had to tackle my army with salamander+ skinkkrox unit+ some odd magic. I combo charged the krox unit with Altar+ Reiksgard+Archers and outrdiers in flank lol (he wasnt expecting the outriders to flank charge them!). Krox unit got realy beat up which allowed me to Catch them and consolidate. Still those saurus units where too far away. Turn 4 to the end was uneventfull. I retreated while killing Everything possible except the 2 saurus blocks and his characters.
Result 14-6! He killed 235 pts of my army and I killed 850 or so.
Aftermath: That game was actualy won in the deployment phase
Game 3 vs Bretonnia comp 15, ETC 5 years Captain and Veteran!After 2 wins, I knew I was bound by the pairing system to face some realy good players, and ofc I had to play against one of the most experienced players in the tourney with my nemesis, a MSU bretonnian list. Furhtermore the scenario was a modified blood and glory (i had only my general + bsb + 1 banner vs 6 banners+bsb+ his general) making the odds realy bad for me. And finaly to add bad to worse, my opponent is a ETC Captain with many years of experience at high level.... God I would have to realy do something extraordinary to even get any Points here.
His list
1 Level 4
1 Lord with heroic killing blow (I found out later, he was eyeballing my stank)
1 bsb
1 Captasus
8 or so Grail Knight with +d6" charge (I found out the hard way)
4x6 KotR
1x8 KotR
5 Fast cav
1 Trebuchet
4 Peg knights
maybe something else, probably more small Knight units
So this was going to be tough, in a bad scenario for me vs so many small and faster but better units....
He prayed , I had deployed my 3 Knights units spread evenly across the board as Close as I could to try to stall his small units from gainnig ground by doing the face off game keeping distance while the rest of my lines basicaly hugged the board edge. He was abit too cautious while advancing giving me time to Cannonball the treb. He also didnt scroll a well aimed spirit leech at his general (ld9 vs 9) which he rolled 1 and I got 6... ending in 5 wounds of which he didt pass enough ward saves... (he realy got mad at himself for not scrolling that one). Which actualy meant he couldnt KB my stank and also gave me a small chance to actually have a chance in the blood and glory part of the scenario.
Then he suprised me with a 27" inch charge at my Altar with his Grail Knights+bsb (they had 2 banners with lots of movement bonuses) which got my altar and lord killed /runned down! 1-1 in lord kills in turn 2 lol. Luckily I had my stank nearby so I charged the grailknights did some wounds and locked them there which allowed my Griffin general time to join in and finsih them off.
The rest of the game was a serie off cat and mouse game with us trading Knights units vs my Knights+flags+greatswords. He landed a couple of devastating Comets that killed my wizards, cannons. In the end it was a bloody mess tha resulted in both of us having lost most of our standards/general etc so both got the B.Gory bonus Points of the secnario!
A big crowed of players gathered around our table and most of them couldnt understand I was able to give the ETC captain a run for his money! It was a very intense and challeninging game, and with the crowd around it felt like some kind of finals game!
End Result Draw 10-10 we killed 1850 Points each.
Aftermath: This was my second game only vs Bretonnia ever vs one very experienced army commander with my subpar empire list in a very difficult secnario for me... I had to pull my hair off to do Everything possible vs an army that denied my only advantage, to play the MSU game. I couldnt even outdeploy him effectively... I Think this was one of my best game ever tbh.
I was exausted after this first day. We Went for a beer + chinese food. I was absolutely dead and Went to bed early like 21.00 with 2 wins and 1 draw, exausted but undefeated!
Game 4 vs Daemons, Another ETC veteran and top 5 ranked players in Sweden.So lol, I had 2 wins, 1 draw vs 1 realy good player.... I was 100% to get Another realy tough opponent... and yes I did! An ETC hero with many tournament wins at his belt playing Daemons Nurgle flavour.
His List
Great Unclean One level 2
1 BSb with Death snipe
1 Level 2 metal+ tzeentch combo i Think or maybe it was the tzeentch horrors that casted tzenthc spells dunno
20 horrors
30 plaguebearers
3 Drones
4 Nurgle beast of doom
10 furies
1 Khornecannon thing
8 Flamers
2 nurglings scouts
maybe something else, not sure.
Scenario was giving bonus Points in turn 3 and 6 to hold objectives... Looking at his army I had no chance in hell to even try to hold these. I managed to do my deployement tricks, and he Place the Greater unclean toprotect his Cannon and flank at first. So I deployed all my expensive stuff as far as I could while the rest of my army hugged the edges (proved absolutely game changing, but I didnt know why untill his magic phases).
I took first turn killed a couple of drones and started working on flamers with all I got (shooting on 8+ anything + any magic that could make it). I also Placed my wizard+cannons + Stank in a perfect Cannon bait (So he would be tempted to aim at all 3 with his khorne cannon). He took the bait, the shot bypassed my stank and cannon and landed perfect on my heavens wiz... she died, not as planned... (I was hoping the shot would land on stank which would mean it wouldnt Bounce any further since the stank cant die from d6 wounds). I returned fire at the cannon butdid only a couple of wounds back with 2 Cannonball hits.
The middle turns was him trying to get any meaningfull combat while his Great unclean had to go the long diagonal road (abondoning the cannon) and me starting to encircle the plaguebearers with 2x5 Knights + Griffin + Altar + Captasus. I had no intention to fight them , but I wanted to make it look like it so he had to be cautious with them , effectively paralysing them. His more dangerous units like plague beast had been out deployed and oly reached some of my non important units (greatswords I had dpeloyed in middle on edge).
Oh yeah, I learned soemthing new, daemons get to roll on some crazy table that affected all my units on a 6 roll, placing templates that could potentialy decimate my MSU army. They hurted me abit, but most of the time since my army was spread out and hugging edges, most scattered without totaly wiping my units or lone charcaters... Phew...! I managed to spirit Leach his bsb which was nice!
In the end, I combo charged a few units that I was sure I could overrun to get past his charge arcs grabbing a few Points here and there.
Result 12-8 he killed 400 pts or so while I got maybe 1000 or so Points.
Aftermath: This game looked realy bad for me on paper, especialy vs a ETC hero like him, but here again my many deployement choices meant I could somewhat outdpeloy him and avoid his greater unclean one and beasts of nurgle most of the game (they killed only 10 greatswords and 5 vanilla Knights) which gave me time to kill a few of his units and still the win. Daemons looks like a fun army and powerfull army to play too. Are they considered OP btw?
Game 5, final game vs HE infantry list, Another ETC veteranHis list
1 Loremaster
1 Lv4 Shadow mindrazor etc
1 bsb with antimagic banner on 2+
30 White Lions
25 Phoenix guard with razor banner
20 Sisters i Think (spearmen that had bows)
20 Archers
5 Reavers
1 Eagle
2 RBT
maybe something else not sure.
Okay, this list was going to be tough for me to get any Points, since I have more or less nothing that could engage his blocks. On the plus side, his army was infantry based and compact which meant I could outdeploy him, which I did
I Went for split up on both sides leaving only my bs shooters+ greatswords hugging the edge in the center while he deployed a perfect infantry battle line. He had to abandon 1 RBT in a corner (to get his units moving the long way to my corner where I had all my expensive stuff) vs my 5 nilla Knights + 20 halberdiers (I wasnt going to feed my halberds to his elite infantry anyway so I might aswell walk the long way to a RBT to help the knights).
He took 1 st turn, shot a few Knights and got unlucky miscating dead his loremaster turn 1 (wita some template casualities in his inf). This was more or less going to cost him the game since it meant he had "only shadow lore" left, which is absolutely worthless vs a MSU army like mine since there is no Point debuffing my 90-120 pt units or mindrazoring to kill my units. He needed lots of magic missiles more than anything.
I danced around him, redirecting, double fleeing you name it, anything to make sure none of his big blocks could Catch anything meaningfull. My bs shooters in the middle board egde had a field day shooting all his units passing past them at short range since his somewhat slow infantry elites couldnt afford to waste turns killing them (had he had the loremasters alive he could have zapped them). My greatswords managed to flank charge his eagle and get a good flank charge later vs his sisters and crushed them with lucky rolls (sisters 3 wide, I rolled 7 wounds+ charge+ flank vs 1 wound + flag and he lost steadfast since I had whittled down that unit prior to the charge)
His White lions had the longest walk and got abit unlucky with a couple of failed charge at my stank that was locked in combat with Phoenix guards. When the White lion horde (down to maybe 13-15 models by now, since all my shooters had a free turkey shoot) finaly reached my stank, they also exposed themselves to a most devastating flank charge by Griffin+Altar+ Captasus doing enough wounds to wipe them out. I also killed the bsb netting me more Points.
Result 17-3
Aftermath: my opponent had some realy bad luck (crucial failed charge in a infantry army, bad miscasts on 2-3 Dice spells....aswell which realy made Everything so much easier for me. His army also suffered from having too few and slow units to counter my evasive MSU army- With a bit better luck for him this could maybe have been a draw or a small victory for me. Anyway he took it okay, but its not very fun for me or for him when the Dice rolls are like that.
Also him playing an infantry army meant time was against him vs an army like mine, he had to keep pushing to try to get any Points and allowing my crappy units to whittle him down without hinderance... (I had charged my reiksgard at his Archer unit to keep them busy most game, and my greatswords to keep those sisters busy while my cannons+ chaffs killed the RBTs)
Final result... Drumroll......
Place 17 out 120+ players!!! 4 wins 1 Draw, still undefeated!
It felt realy nice to make such a comeback with so few games played vs top players in the 3 final games!!!!
MSU empire actualy works nice, It made it realy hard for my opponents to Catch any meaningfull Points since most of their armies are built to deal with Deathstars and not a horde of chaffs.
On the minus side, MSU army meant I had a realy hard time myself to Win big at all since none of my units can kill anything by itself, which requires enormous coordination and luck to achieve anything decisive.
I Think my next army will try to fit in 1-2 medium unit (demis or something) that can push abit more unsupported to achive bigger wins.
Also, 2 levels 2s + lots of bound spells IS a realy powerfull magic phase and is very safe aswell (both heavens and spirit Leach spam dont need many Dice). I dont miss a level 4 at all, and I realy Think the lv4 is overated and is a very risky and miscasty strategy in a tourney setting. IMO and from what Ive seen from my opponents, a lv 4 by himself is not enough, it should be lv 4 + lv2 to allow flexible spell combos. Only going for the Spells of doom on a level 4 and six dicing it, at least vs a MSU army like mine proved more risky to the caster than to my army of empire chaffs!
Cheers,
Mortim