Headed back East to Madicon this past weekend to see friends and get some gaming in.
The Battlefoam continues to be a good investment for army transport. I just got around to fully unpacking my stuff and the total damage from the trip is one banner and one crossbow cross beam. Both should be easy to repair by just gluing them back in place. If you ever intend to take your models on a plane, accept no substitutes.
The actual Warhammer tournament at Madicon was very poorly attended. So much so that I doubt they'll attempt another one. I got to play a good friend for three straight games as we were the only two people there for it. In the end, I told the ConChair to keep the prize since I didn't have room in my luggage for it and would feel weird taking a second place prize in a two person tournament.
I won one out of the three games. My opponent is really good with his army, so I'm not terribly upset by it. I think I took him by surprise in the first game since he'd mostly been playing hoard-y Dark Elf armies and mine is quite a bit more flexible and maneuverable than he is used to.
In the second game I rolled poorly pretty much the whole way through. The third game scenario dictated that I had to wipe out one specific unit of his and in the second turn I completely failed all the rolls I needed to bring sufficient force into combat with that unit, so at that point the game was pretty much over.
I think the experience was good and showed me a couple of things about my army. I built it to play to the Dark Elves' strength, offense. As such, this army works best as the aggressor and getting the first turn helps out tremendously. Also, getting a good magic phase in the second turn when the first serious combats start is key. Getting a good magic phase in the third turn is also big, and if I haven't pretty much crushed my opponent by turn 4 then I'm probably not going to win.
Both games I lost, I went second. Since I seem to have more deployment drops than most of the armies I'm facing, I'm going to be going second a little more often than not. In 7th edition, the entire trick with the Dark Elf army was using your small, fast units to manipulate your opponent into fighting on your terms. Those units can't really do that job as effectively now. If I'm going to be seriously competitive with this list, I need to get better at using my Harpies and Shades to delay or distract my opponent when he gets the first turn so that combat doesn't really start until my second turn. It punches fine. It needs to counter punch better.
