To Madicon and back

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.

Miscasting for Fun and Profit

Got in another game of 8th Edition this past week at Game Kastle. This was the first full sized (2250 points) game I'd played and it was against a Warriors of Chaos army that was a bit of a hybrid. See, the guy had wanted to do a 'Troll King and his Court' army of all monsters and beasts, which I thought was a cool idea. But he didn't have enough points of just those so instead it was trolls, monsters, and a couple of small units of Warriors and Mauraders on foot.

By the start of the 3rd turn, both of us had miscast our wizards off the table, and mine had taken half of her bodyguard unit of Spearmen (Spearelves?) with her. The last few turns went very quickly what with us skipping a whole phase.

I did manage to win the game and can make a few observations.

1. Black Guard are still sick. Even with being limited to 20 per unit, and the other side getting to swing back, the extra rank's worth of supporting attacks and the ability to take a magic banner other than ASF and still be able to strike first due to their ridiculous initiative more than make up for it. They are pretty much guaranteed to out-kill anything the come up against since you can give them the armor piercing banner or flaming attacks banner.

2. The Pendant BSB is even better at holding up big monsters now. He still gets +1 combat resolution for having the banner, but the monster doesn't get +1 for outnumbering anymore. Now instead of the most likely outcome being a (GALLERY????) tie, the most likely outcome is that the monster loses combat by 1. The cheese, it is great. I foresee that I shall feel even dirtier using that combo in the future.

3. Bait and Flee is still a viable tactic, but it is much riskier and only really viable with Dark Riders and only really reliable against slower units. Harpies are still good for getting right up in the enemy's face on the first turn and directing them where you want them to go, but now that they flee on foot they are not likely to escape. Dark Riders are slightly more likely to get away as they get to roll 3 dice and drop the lowest, but enemy cavalry is still likely to catch them if you get close enough to force the issue. I had noticed previously that the longer I managed to keep my Dark Riders alive, the more likely I was to win the game. That was sort of when the Dark Elf army started to click for me, when I learned how to Bait and Flee to setup counter charges and keep the Dark Riders alive to rinse and repeat. I think in 8th Edition that will be an even more telling factor. I should keep track of that...... I suspect that I tend to win if I still have a unit of Dark Riders alive in the 4th turn.

4. Magic is dangerous. The Ring of Hotek is still nasty, you just have to get up close and personal.

Lastly, congratulations to Rushputin on being a Golden Demon Finalist two years running!