After a brief hiatus, my Empire army is finally underway. We are now wrapping up the second week of this year's Escalation League at Game Kastle. Since this sort of format is perfect for getting started on a new army, I've taken the opportunity to jump in with both feet. I'm focusing on getting the basics of the army assembled and gaining experience playing them. Painting and converting the army to fit the theme will come later.
So far I've played 5 games and lost all 5 of them. While I expected to have trouble with a new army, I didn't really expect to start out with such a poor record. Although.... I do seem to remember losing a lot when I first started playing with Dark Elves..... At any rate, I've made a couple of observations about the Empire in 8th Edition at low point levels. First, the Empire generally functions as a hoard army in 8th. Sure, they have core Knights and Outriders are really good, but the most common approach involves hoards (or buses) of Halberdiers as the center of the army. At lower point levels, you just can't get enough troops to outnumber your opponent to a great enough degree to be successful. This is a complaint I've also heard about Scaven at low point levels. I don't see this army really being competitive until we get to 2000 points.
The other thing I've noticed is that a Level 2 Life Wizard is pretty useless. Life, as a Lore, is awesome if the caster has Throne of Vines already cast. With just a 2 spells, you either end up with Throne and one awesome spell, or two spells that aren't as good as they could be. I felt kind of frustrated by it and switched to Light, which felt much more useful.
I'm going to experiment with different units between now and 2k to get a feel for whether I like them or not, with a goal of having a really solid 2k list in a couple of weeks. We'll see how it goes.
Saturday, October 15, 2011
Sunday, August 28, 2011
A little side project
My friend JC sent my a Jabberwock by Reaper so I painted it up for fun. I don't have a specific use for it, but it's already come in handy as a stand-in for other monsters in Storm of Magic and plus it's a pretty cool model.
Mega Storm of Miscasts!
Yesterday, Game Kastle attempted to have a Storm of Magic tournament. What actually happened was a Storm of Magic mega game with a $10 fee. Only 5 people showed up, which is actually pretty good for a casual game day but not enough to really call it a tournament. Fortunately, the store had a plan B for this contingency so instead we just played a 3 on 2 mega battle.
We took about an hour longer to get started than expected, because we had to figure out how to do the sides. Order versus Destruction was the way the store intended for us to do it, and that would have worked out fine with an even number of people since one of the armies was Ogres and could fill either role. We finally ended up with High Elves, Brets, and Ogres on one side and my Dark Elves and two Chaos Warrior armies played by one guy. We were lucky that he brought both his WoC and WoC Trolls and monsters lists otherwise I don't know what we would have done to even things out other than frantically calling people or running home to get another 1000 points of models.
Before we got started with the game, there was a little painting competition. It being SoM, the categories were Monster, Spellcaster, and Arcane Fulcrum. I'd sent some time over the previous week painting one of the Fulcrums I bought and I'm happy to report that my Eternity Stair won the category.
The prize was that I got an extra 200 points to buy SoM Mythic Artifacts. With my 200, I bought the Living Deadwood Staff. This might seem like an odd choice, but the scenario we were going to play was the one with the Mad Mage and the only terrain on the table was forests are Arcane Fulcrums. The Living Deadwood Staff would turn about 10 forests into Blood Forests and let me move them around the table. Plus they would all do more damage than a normal Blood Forest depending on how many Fulcrums we controlled. So there was potential for some really destructive combos.
We finally started the game. I lined up on the left flank opposite the High Elves and about half the Ogres. The WoC lined up in the Center opposite the rest of the Ogres and all their warmachines. The WoC Trolls lines up on the right flank opposite the Brets. As you would expect for a Storm of Magic mega game, the magic phase dominated every turn. There was some combat over on the right flank, but other than that it was pretty much all monsters smashing into each other and big spells flying around. The actual army units barely moved in the center and or left flank since ... well, it almost always would have been a bad idea. For example, my Corsairs had Flame Cage cast on the for the first four turns in a row.
So let me see if I can boil down what actually happened on my end of the table into something readable. Some highlights if you will....
Turn 1:
I hit a unit of Trolls with Pit of Shades and they all die. Bottom of Turn 1 a Life Mage casts one of their Cataclysm Spells and brings it right back to life. I hit a unit of Ogre Ironguts with a Purple Sun, killing half of them and blowing up my Death Mage. Bottom of Turn 1 a Life Mage brings them back as well. My line moves up to be ready to charge anything that moves forward.
Turn 2:
A Comet starts heading towards my far left. I Pit of Shades the Trolls again, and kill all but two causing them to Flee. My Chimera charges a Wyvern, kills it, and overruns into some High Elf Archers. I move some Forests around and we cast every little targeted spell we can across the whole table to do as much damage as possible with the Living Deadwood Staff. Our Giant charges into some enemy Skirmishers in the center and kills them all by the start of our next turn. A couple of enemy Mages turn themselves into Monsters.
After Turn 2, we break for lunch.
Turn 3:
My Dragon and Our Giant combo charge a small unit of High Elf Swordmasters, which opts to flee. The Giant redirects into some High Elf Spearmen and I redirect the Dragon into some High Elf Seaguard who fail their Terror check and flee. At this point I've got the far left under control, so long as I can get out of the way of the Comet. An enemy Mage casts one of the big Fire spells at my Mage on a Fulcrum and toasts him. The comet comes down and kills about half of what I had on the far left. I become aware that things are happening on the other side of the table as a unit of Grail Knights charges into the flank of the WoC unit on my right. Seems that the WoC Trolls had killed pretty much all the rest of the Bretts, so the last unit turned and headed towards the center.
Turn 4:
I summon a Level 1 Empire Wizard to replace the Mage I lost the previous turn. I Duel an enemy Mage off his Fulcrum with my Level 4 Sorceress. My Dragon charges the High Elf spears who finished off the Giant.
A big old miscast causes the entire game to change. Up until this point we'd been hammering on each other and ignoring the Mad Mage, even though claiming his Fulcrum meant victory. Well, we managed to get the miscast where you remove every Mage on a Fulcrum and then randomly redistribute them. Turns out that the Mad Mage dies instantly as soon as he's removed from his Fulcrum. So everyone gets redistributed but I don't think anyone ended up on the objective Fulcrum. The unit of Grail Knights hits my Corsairs in the side and I manage to roll a 10 and 11 for my Leadership test after losing combat by 1, so they break and get run down after sitting there in a Flame Cage for the entire game.
Turn 5:
This is the turn where I set myself up to win the game. First, my summoned Empire Wizard occupies my Fulcrum, giving us Dominance. I move forests around, so they are touching most of the remaining enemy units and then cast the Dominance Shadow Spell which targets every enemy unit on the table. So I reduce a bunch of stats 1 with the spell, but then the Living Deadwood Staff does 4d6 Strength 7 hits to all the units touched by a forest. After I'm done rolling all the dice, I've wiped out about half of what the enemy had left on the field. With my remaining power dice, I teleport my Level 4 Sorceress onto the main Fulcrum and get ready to fend off challengers. I felt pretty darn cool after that.
Unfortunately, in the bottom of turn 5 I manage to roll a big fat 2 to defend the Fulcrum and get bumped off it.
Turn 6:
Basically all that happens is that I fail to retake the main Fulcrum by losing a duel by a grand total of 1. So the forces of Destruction fall to the forces of Order even though I think we had more Victory points.
It's been a long time since I played a Warhammer mega battle. It was fun, but definitely not something I'd want to do often. I think that Storm of Magic actually worked pretty well for a mega battle. It took us a while to work out who should get to dispell what casting attempts and whatnot so I would want to think that stuff through and have it written down before we start next time around. But, I think the big spells, weird miscast effects, and lots of monsters made for a more fun mega battle than the standard rules would have.
We took about an hour longer to get started than expected, because we had to figure out how to do the sides. Order versus Destruction was the way the store intended for us to do it, and that would have worked out fine with an even number of people since one of the armies was Ogres and could fill either role. We finally ended up with High Elves, Brets, and Ogres on one side and my Dark Elves and two Chaos Warrior armies played by one guy. We were lucky that he brought both his WoC and WoC Trolls and monsters lists otherwise I don't know what we would have done to even things out other than frantically calling people or running home to get another 1000 points of models.
Before we got started with the game, there was a little painting competition. It being SoM, the categories were Monster, Spellcaster, and Arcane Fulcrum. I'd sent some time over the previous week painting one of the Fulcrums I bought and I'm happy to report that my Eternity Stair won the category.
The prize was that I got an extra 200 points to buy SoM Mythic Artifacts. With my 200, I bought the Living Deadwood Staff. This might seem like an odd choice, but the scenario we were going to play was the one with the Mad Mage and the only terrain on the table was forests are Arcane Fulcrums. The Living Deadwood Staff would turn about 10 forests into Blood Forests and let me move them around the table. Plus they would all do more damage than a normal Blood Forest depending on how many Fulcrums we controlled. So there was potential for some really destructive combos.
We finally started the game. I lined up on the left flank opposite the High Elves and about half the Ogres. The WoC lined up in the Center opposite the rest of the Ogres and all their warmachines. The WoC Trolls lines up on the right flank opposite the Brets. As you would expect for a Storm of Magic mega game, the magic phase dominated every turn. There was some combat over on the right flank, but other than that it was pretty much all monsters smashing into each other and big spells flying around. The actual army units barely moved in the center and or left flank since ... well, it almost always would have been a bad idea. For example, my Corsairs had Flame Cage cast on the for the first four turns in a row.
So let me see if I can boil down what actually happened on my end of the table into something readable. Some highlights if you will....
Turn 1:
I hit a unit of Trolls with Pit of Shades and they all die. Bottom of Turn 1 a Life Mage casts one of their Cataclysm Spells and brings it right back to life. I hit a unit of Ogre Ironguts with a Purple Sun, killing half of them and blowing up my Death Mage. Bottom of Turn 1 a Life Mage brings them back as well. My line moves up to be ready to charge anything that moves forward.
Turn 2:
A Comet starts heading towards my far left. I Pit of Shades the Trolls again, and kill all but two causing them to Flee. My Chimera charges a Wyvern, kills it, and overruns into some High Elf Archers. I move some Forests around and we cast every little targeted spell we can across the whole table to do as much damage as possible with the Living Deadwood Staff. Our Giant charges into some enemy Skirmishers in the center and kills them all by the start of our next turn. A couple of enemy Mages turn themselves into Monsters.
After Turn 2, we break for lunch.
Turn 3:
My Dragon and Our Giant combo charge a small unit of High Elf Swordmasters, which opts to flee. The Giant redirects into some High Elf Spearmen and I redirect the Dragon into some High Elf Seaguard who fail their Terror check and flee. At this point I've got the far left under control, so long as I can get out of the way of the Comet. An enemy Mage casts one of the big Fire spells at my Mage on a Fulcrum and toasts him. The comet comes down and kills about half of what I had on the far left. I become aware that things are happening on the other side of the table as a unit of Grail Knights charges into the flank of the WoC unit on my right. Seems that the WoC Trolls had killed pretty much all the rest of the Bretts, so the last unit turned and headed towards the center.
Turn 4:
I summon a Level 1 Empire Wizard to replace the Mage I lost the previous turn. I Duel an enemy Mage off his Fulcrum with my Level 4 Sorceress. My Dragon charges the High Elf spears who finished off the Giant.
A big old miscast causes the entire game to change. Up until this point we'd been hammering on each other and ignoring the Mad Mage, even though claiming his Fulcrum meant victory. Well, we managed to get the miscast where you remove every Mage on a Fulcrum and then randomly redistribute them. Turns out that the Mad Mage dies instantly as soon as he's removed from his Fulcrum. So everyone gets redistributed but I don't think anyone ended up on the objective Fulcrum. The unit of Grail Knights hits my Corsairs in the side and I manage to roll a 10 and 11 for my Leadership test after losing combat by 1, so they break and get run down after sitting there in a Flame Cage for the entire game.
Turn 5:
This is the turn where I set myself up to win the game. First, my summoned Empire Wizard occupies my Fulcrum, giving us Dominance. I move forests around, so they are touching most of the remaining enemy units and then cast the Dominance Shadow Spell which targets every enemy unit on the table. So I reduce a bunch of stats 1 with the spell, but then the Living Deadwood Staff does 4d6 Strength 7 hits to all the units touched by a forest. After I'm done rolling all the dice, I've wiped out about half of what the enemy had left on the field. With my remaining power dice, I teleport my Level 4 Sorceress onto the main Fulcrum and get ready to fend off challengers. I felt pretty darn cool after that.
Unfortunately, in the bottom of turn 5 I manage to roll a big fat 2 to defend the Fulcrum and get bumped off it.
Turn 6:
Basically all that happens is that I fail to retake the main Fulcrum by losing a duel by a grand total of 1. So the forces of Destruction fall to the forces of Order even though I think we had more Victory points.
It's been a long time since I played a Warhammer mega battle. It was fun, but definitely not something I'd want to do often. I think that Storm of Magic actually worked pretty well for a mega battle. It took us a while to work out who should get to dispell what casting attempts and whatnot so I would want to think that stuff through and have it written down before we start next time around. But, I think the big spells, weird miscast effects, and lots of monsters made for a more fun mega battle than the standard rules would have.
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Storm of Miscasts
Just finished my first Storm of Magic game and wanted to get my first impression down before I forgot it.
Ok, I'll be honest, I wanted to get my first impression down while I was waiting for dinner to finish cooking.
Ok, fine, while I was waiting for the frozen pizza to warm.
My first impression goes a little something like this. "Wow look at all the cool stuff I can try to do. Too bad I just kept blowing myself up trying."
Actually, it wasn't even that cool. The two worst miscasts of the game came when both I and my opponent were trying to do completely routine things, as opposed to any of the new shiny spells. I turned one of my casters into a rampaging monster while trying to case Power of Darkness, and my opponent blew his caster and the fulcrum he was holding off the table while raising six zombies.
In the other game that was going on at the store today, they managed to turn all the casters on the table into toads three times. They spent half the game turning their casters back to normal only to have them turn into toads again.
It was fun, it's got potential, but I'm afraid unless you have just the right mindset or are in the right mood for it, it's just going to annoy the heck out of you.
The monsters are cool, the spells are impressive, but mostly you play the game if you want to watch a comedy of errors unfold before you.
You also need to make some serious adjustments to your normal lists for this game. 'I need more casters' is going to be said by pretty much everyone after their first try. I took three and felt like I should have taken 4.
For my monster allowance I took a Great Black Dragon and a Hydra. The SoM Hydra is more expensive and lacks Hatred and Handlers, but you can spend even more and give it a better ranged attack. I think once I get a hold of some of the other monsters I'm going to skip the SoM Hydra. The Dark Elf ones are better. I suspect that when they get around to re-writing the Dark Army book the Hydra will cost the same as it does in SoM and lack Hatred, and in all honesty I think that would be more balanced, but in the meantime I think there might be better monster choices available.
I'm going to make some more list tweaks and give it another go.
At this point I see this expansion as providing a little different flavor and some spectacular moments every once in a while. Which is really all I expected from it. So I think it's safe to say that it accomplishes that goal. Whether it will be worth the money or not depends on how often I feel like playing it versus normal Warhammer, and it's still too soon to know that.
Ok, I'll be honest, I wanted to get my first impression down while I was waiting for dinner to finish cooking.
Ok, fine, while I was waiting for the frozen pizza to warm.
My first impression goes a little something like this. "Wow look at all the cool stuff I can try to do. Too bad I just kept blowing myself up trying."
Actually, it wasn't even that cool. The two worst miscasts of the game came when both I and my opponent were trying to do completely routine things, as opposed to any of the new shiny spells. I turned one of my casters into a rampaging monster while trying to case Power of Darkness, and my opponent blew his caster and the fulcrum he was holding off the table while raising six zombies.
In the other game that was going on at the store today, they managed to turn all the casters on the table into toads three times. They spent half the game turning their casters back to normal only to have them turn into toads again.
It was fun, it's got potential, but I'm afraid unless you have just the right mindset or are in the right mood for it, it's just going to annoy the heck out of you.
The monsters are cool, the spells are impressive, but mostly you play the game if you want to watch a comedy of errors unfold before you.
You also need to make some serious adjustments to your normal lists for this game. 'I need more casters' is going to be said by pretty much everyone after their first try. I took three and felt like I should have taken 4.
For my monster allowance I took a Great Black Dragon and a Hydra. The SoM Hydra is more expensive and lacks Hatred and Handlers, but you can spend even more and give it a better ranged attack. I think once I get a hold of some of the other monsters I'm going to skip the SoM Hydra. The Dark Elf ones are better. I suspect that when they get around to re-writing the Dark Army book the Hydra will cost the same as it does in SoM and lack Hatred, and in all honesty I think that would be more balanced, but in the meantime I think there might be better monster choices available.
I'm going to make some more list tweaks and give it another go.
At this point I see this expansion as providing a little different flavor and some spectacular moments every once in a while. Which is really all I expected from it. So I think it's safe to say that it accomplishes that goal. Whether it will be worth the money or not depends on how often I feel like playing it versus normal Warhammer, and it's still too soon to know that.
Sunday, July 10, 2011
So what's next?
There are a few things on the horizon for me, hobby-wise. I've been working on my Dark Elves for a couple of years now, and with the Quake City Rumble I finally feel like I can say I'm 'done' with my first army. Not 'done' as in 'done playing with them' or 'done painting them' or 'tired' of them, but I do feel a sense of accomplishment at having taken a fully painted and well performing army to a tournament. So at this point the only further things I'm planning to do with my Dark Elves are things I consider 'tweaks'. I've got some more Cold One Knights, and I want to bulk that unit up to 10 or 12. I've got some more Executioners and I want to bump that unit up to a good size and probably include a filler to help. I plan on continuing to use this army for fun and tournament play, and I'll probably make a fancier display board for them for next tournament season. I've got a couple more characters that I can paint and the new Black Dragon which I asked for as a birthday present. Those last two lead into the second thing on the horizon.
Storm of Magic was release this weekend. We had a release event all set up for today except for one small problem. GW didn't ship the books on time. I'm not sure if it was a global issue, or was specific to certain stores or regions, but we aren't getting it until Monday. So I guess I'll have to get a hold of it at some point this week and we'll reschedule our 'let's try out this new thing' event. Along with SoM are some new monster models, a few of which I've asked for as presents. I'm looking forward to painting those up and, from the sounds of it, a couple more spell casters. I've still got that GameZone Sorceress on Dark Pegasus that I've been looking for a reason to paint.
The third thing on the horizon is the one I've been thinking the most about this weekend. We've been talking at the store about doing another escalation league, and even better is that someone else is interested in running it. It seems like it would be cheating to walk in with fully painted Dark Elves, so I'm going to take this opportunity to spend some time with the Empire army I bought.
I had a fat gift card burning a hole in my pocket, so I purchased some additional stuff to give me some more list building options. Greatswords, State Troops, and...... Steam Tank! I couldn't resist, it just looked like it would be too much fun to paint. And with that my mind started working through how to go about painting them. After some reading and thinking, I've settled on not only a color scheme but a nice fluffy theme with some conversion opportunities that I'm already looking forward to.
For my Dark Elves I have a very loose 'Corsair' theme. Which basically means I put the big Corsair banners on as many units as possible. (Which reminds me.. I still have a couple of those to finish...) The colors, red and gold, were not typical Dark Elf colors. Most folks paint them something dark, like black, grey, purple, dark blue, etc. My Dark Elves are definitely more of a 'summer' looking army than the typical 'winter' look.
For the Empire I wanted something visually very different. Lots of the pictures of Empire armies are red and white, which was too close to my Dark Elves for me. So after some looking I settled on the blue and white of Middenheim. Middenheim has some nice fluff, being a fortress city on the top of a rocky mountain in the north of the Empire and home to the temple of Ulric, god of war, winter, and wolves. So I've decided to do a Middenheim 'Cult of Ulric' army. Lots of blue, gray, and white for colors, giving me a 'summer' army and a 'winter' army. (I guess then I'll have to figure out how to do Lizardmen and Vampire Counts as spring and fall.) Lots of conversion opportunities to add wolf bits here and there. I've already got some of the Knights of the White Wolf. No priests of Sigmar in this army, instead I'll be converting up some Warrior Priests of Ulric. Maybe even have a War Altar pulled by Dire Wolves instead of War Horses with a different statue on the back. I'm also trying to figure out how to make the mouths of the cannons look like wolves heads with open mouths. It should be fun.
So now I've got some bits hunting to do. The Space Wolves had a couple of bits that look useful. There are also just some plain wolves I could get to add to a unit here and there. The Warriors of Chaos cloaks are ok, but a little ragged looking. I'm also not sure about putting snow on their bases. Stone and gray gravel, definitely, but my concern with snow is that Empire models don't really look dressed for very cold weather and it might look odd to have them standing in snow.
Conversion thoughts and suggestions welcome.
Storm of Magic was release this weekend. We had a release event all set up for today except for one small problem. GW didn't ship the books on time. I'm not sure if it was a global issue, or was specific to certain stores or regions, but we aren't getting it until Monday. So I guess I'll have to get a hold of it at some point this week and we'll reschedule our 'let's try out this new thing' event. Along with SoM are some new monster models, a few of which I've asked for as presents. I'm looking forward to painting those up and, from the sounds of it, a couple more spell casters. I've still got that GameZone Sorceress on Dark Pegasus that I've been looking for a reason to paint.
The third thing on the horizon is the one I've been thinking the most about this weekend. We've been talking at the store about doing another escalation league, and even better is that someone else is interested in running it. It seems like it would be cheating to walk in with fully painted Dark Elves, so I'm going to take this opportunity to spend some time with the Empire army I bought.
I had a fat gift card burning a hole in my pocket, so I purchased some additional stuff to give me some more list building options. Greatswords, State Troops, and...... Steam Tank! I couldn't resist, it just looked like it would be too much fun to paint. And with that my mind started working through how to go about painting them. After some reading and thinking, I've settled on not only a color scheme but a nice fluffy theme with some conversion opportunities that I'm already looking forward to.
For my Dark Elves I have a very loose 'Corsair' theme. Which basically means I put the big Corsair banners on as many units as possible. (Which reminds me.. I still have a couple of those to finish...) The colors, red and gold, were not typical Dark Elf colors. Most folks paint them something dark, like black, grey, purple, dark blue, etc. My Dark Elves are definitely more of a 'summer' looking army than the typical 'winter' look.
For the Empire I wanted something visually very different. Lots of the pictures of Empire armies are red and white, which was too close to my Dark Elves for me. So after some looking I settled on the blue and white of Middenheim. Middenheim has some nice fluff, being a fortress city on the top of a rocky mountain in the north of the Empire and home to the temple of Ulric, god of war, winter, and wolves. So I've decided to do a Middenheim 'Cult of Ulric' army. Lots of blue, gray, and white for colors, giving me a 'summer' army and a 'winter' army. (I guess then I'll have to figure out how to do Lizardmen and Vampire Counts as spring and fall.) Lots of conversion opportunities to add wolf bits here and there. I've already got some of the Knights of the White Wolf. No priests of Sigmar in this army, instead I'll be converting up some Warrior Priests of Ulric. Maybe even have a War Altar pulled by Dire Wolves instead of War Horses with a different statue on the back. I'm also trying to figure out how to make the mouths of the cannons look like wolves heads with open mouths. It should be fun.
So now I've got some bits hunting to do. The Space Wolves had a couple of bits that look useful. There are also just some plain wolves I could get to add to a unit here and there. The Warriors of Chaos cloaks are ok, but a little ragged looking. I'm also not sure about putting snow on their bases. Stone and gray gravel, definitely, but my concern with snow is that Empire models don't really look dressed for very cold weather and it might look odd to have them standing in snow.
Conversion thoughts and suggestions welcome.
Monday, June 27, 2011
Quake City Rumble 2011
This past weekend was the 2011 Quake City Rumble, put on by one of the local gaming clubs, Leadership 2. It was the first time I'd been to a Grand Tournament and overall I'd call it a positive experience. There were, I think, 105 players registered and 93 attended. I think I'll go back next year.
It was held at Fort Mason Center in San Francisco, so there were different food vendors to choose from in the Farmer's Market on day 2 and a taco stand on day 1, ample parking, and was easy to find. The actual building was a little hard to find since the directions just said 'Fleet room' but none of the maps had a 'Fleet room' listed. But it wasn't too hard to spot the wargamers carrying their armies in from their cars. The Center is right on the bay so there was a nice cool breeze blowing through the whole time. All it in all it was a really nice spot for an event like this.
So, how did I do? Let's pull up my goals for this event -
Have fun.
Check.
I had a good time. Each of the 5 opponents I played, I would play again. Well, there was one army that I would prefer not to play again with this build of my army, but the guy was cool enough. I hung out with a couple of guys from Game Kastle between games. I talked with a few other guys from around the area. I saw some great looking armies.
Try to avoid stupid tactical mistakes.
Check
I don't think I did anything particularly wrong in any of my games. I'll go into more detail on the individual games further down.
Don't get annoyed at bad rolls.
Check minus
There were four specific rolls during the tournament that were particularly bad for me. The first one I didn't let bother me. The second one I watching in disbelief and was a little grumpy about, but then I got over. The third and fourth were during the same game and I was a little grumpy at them at first but then made sure to laugh about them.
Have my army fully painted.
Check plus.
So overall I did pretty well for myself in terms of my personal goals.
In terms of the numbers, I was 53rd out of 93. I won 2, drew 2, and lost 1. My painting score was 26 out of 30. Well, out of 33. The points went to 30 but they considered display board a 1-3 point bonus over that. My comp score was on the low side, but that's to be expected for a Dark Elf list with 2 Hydras. My sportsmanship score was fine.
I was actually tied with the guy above me, and the next two people were only a half point over us, and the next couple were only a point over. My overall total was 154.5 out of 200. If one of the draws had been a win I would have moved up about 10 places. So I guess the takeaway from all that is: if I'm going to bring a hard list I'd better win more.
Now to run through the games.
Game 1 versus Dan's Demons
Draw
I draw a Blood Thirster list for the first game. My Sorceress miscasts in the first turn and forgets Mindrazor and two other spells. This was the first really bad roll for me. I managed a draw by killing his big blocks of Bloodletters and Daemonettes, and by him being more cautious with his Bloodthrister than I would have been considering I lost Mindrazor. If I'd had all my spells for another round or two I might have won.
Game 2 versus Seth's Warriors of Chaos
Win
Seth was playing a list that was probably really nasty in 7th edition. I suspect this because he told me that it was his 7th edition list and he hadn't updated it for 8th yet. Lots of medium sized (for 8th, large for 7th) units of Marauders, a couple of Chariots, a Demon Prince, and a couple of small units of light cavalry. Unfortunately for him, my army is really really good at killing light infantry.
I think that pic is from turn 3, and a little more than half his army was gone. He was a great opponent though, took it all in stride, and he seemed like a really fun guy to play with. I'd be happy to play him again some time with better balanced lists.
Game 3 versus Dave's Vampire Counts
Loss
I don't know what it is about Vampires. I always have trouble with them. By this point I had a win and a draw, so I sort of felt the loss coming. And what a loss it was. Dave's army consisted of two hordes of Zombies, and a big block of Ghouls, and a Graveguard deathstar unit with the regen banner, 2 Vampire Lords, 2 Vampire Heros, and a Wight King. This was a hard Vampire list and I gave it the lowest comp score of any of the armies I played, but Dave was a nice guy and I gave him a fine sportsmanship score.
His combat Lord killed my entire unit of 20 Blackguard all by himself in a single round thanks to their Red Rage power or whatever it's called. It's the one where he gets to keep attacking so long as he keeps killing. Toughness 3 Elves in Heavy Armor against Strength 6 with Hatred..... so 20 rolls later the whole unit was dead and with it pretty much any hope I had of killing anything in his army worth any points. This was the second bad roll which I watched in disbelief and the end of day 1.
Game 3 versus Luke's Lizardmen
Draw
This game featured the remaining two very bad rolls. Luke was a nice guy playing a Lizardmen list with no Slann. Two Stegadons, one with the Engine of the Gods, a few Saurus blocks, only a couple units of Skinks and Salamanders, and an Oldblood on a Carnosaur. We both played cautiously with some good maneuvering, putting our expendable and harassing units out to redirect things in our favor. The first bad dice roll happened in turn 2. I failed to cast Power of Darkness with my Level 4 by rolling a 1, then killing a Spearman for a second die and rolling another 1. That left about 8 power dice on unused on the table and my Corsairs had just headed off down the left flank in the direction of the Stegs without magic support. As a result, the Stegs had my Corsairs for lunch instead of being cut to ribbons. In turn 3 my Blackguard and one Hydra charged his center Saurus block with his BSB in it and my Witches charged his right Saurus block that was worth a bonus Victory point. I won both combats by a lot and killed his BSB. But the center Saurus unit held with Insane Courage. This was the last really bad roll for me. As a result of those last few Saurus holding, my Blackguard was charged in the flank by his third unit of Saurus and my Hydra was charged in the rear by his General and Carnosaur. So that cost me a couple hundred points and the game ended a draw. If either of those rolls hadn't come out double 1's, it would have been a win.
Game 5 versus Scott's Orcs and Goblins
Win
Once again, my army is really really good at killing light infantry. Scott's army was a couple of hordes of Night Goblins, a horde of Orcs with spears, some Trolls, some Wolf Riders, a Mangler, and one of those new ginormous spiders. He was a nice guy, but just had no luck. My Shades shot his Mangler dead before it got a chance to move. One Hydra broke his giant spider by itself. My other Hydra charged his Wolf Riders, who failed their Terror check and ran off the table. My Blackguard with flaming banner, +1 attack from the Cauldron, and Mindrazor charged his Trolls and did 18 wounds killing, all 6 before they could do anything. It was nice to round out the tournament with a win, but the game was really one sided and I felt a little bad for the guy.
So, a good time all around. Now, here's a couple of pics of other armies that were there. Including this one that I'd seen on Bell of Lost Souls.
A nice looking Empire army.
An epic Skaven display board.
And lastly, a Tomb Kings army that won a couple of the painting awards.
It was held at Fort Mason Center in San Francisco, so there were different food vendors to choose from in the Farmer's Market on day 2 and a taco stand on day 1, ample parking, and was easy to find. The actual building was a little hard to find since the directions just said 'Fleet room' but none of the maps had a 'Fleet room' listed. But it wasn't too hard to spot the wargamers carrying their armies in from their cars. The Center is right on the bay so there was a nice cool breeze blowing through the whole time. All it in all it was a really nice spot for an event like this.
So, how did I do? Let's pull up my goals for this event -
Have fun.
Check.
I had a good time. Each of the 5 opponents I played, I would play again. Well, there was one army that I would prefer not to play again with this build of my army, but the guy was cool enough. I hung out with a couple of guys from Game Kastle between games. I talked with a few other guys from around the area. I saw some great looking armies.
Try to avoid stupid tactical mistakes.
Check
I don't think I did anything particularly wrong in any of my games. I'll go into more detail on the individual games further down.
Don't get annoyed at bad rolls.
Check minus
There were four specific rolls during the tournament that were particularly bad for me. The first one I didn't let bother me. The second one I watching in disbelief and was a little grumpy about, but then I got over. The third and fourth were during the same game and I was a little grumpy at them at first but then made sure to laugh about them.
Have my army fully painted.
Check plus.
So overall I did pretty well for myself in terms of my personal goals.
In terms of the numbers, I was 53rd out of 93. I won 2, drew 2, and lost 1. My painting score was 26 out of 30. Well, out of 33. The points went to 30 but they considered display board a 1-3 point bonus over that. My comp score was on the low side, but that's to be expected for a Dark Elf list with 2 Hydras. My sportsmanship score was fine.
I was actually tied with the guy above me, and the next two people were only a half point over us, and the next couple were only a point over. My overall total was 154.5 out of 200. If one of the draws had been a win I would have moved up about 10 places. So I guess the takeaway from all that is: if I'm going to bring a hard list I'd better win more.
Now to run through the games.
Game 1 versus Dan's Demons
Draw
I draw a Blood Thirster list for the first game. My Sorceress miscasts in the first turn and forgets Mindrazor and two other spells. This was the first really bad roll for me. I managed a draw by killing his big blocks of Bloodletters and Daemonettes, and by him being more cautious with his Bloodthrister than I would have been considering I lost Mindrazor. If I'd had all my spells for another round or two I might have won.
Game 2 versus Seth's Warriors of Chaos
Win
Seth was playing a list that was probably really nasty in 7th edition. I suspect this because he told me that it was his 7th edition list and he hadn't updated it for 8th yet. Lots of medium sized (for 8th, large for 7th) units of Marauders, a couple of Chariots, a Demon Prince, and a couple of small units of light cavalry. Unfortunately for him, my army is really really good at killing light infantry.
I think that pic is from turn 3, and a little more than half his army was gone. He was a great opponent though, took it all in stride, and he seemed like a really fun guy to play with. I'd be happy to play him again some time with better balanced lists.Game 3 versus Dave's Vampire Counts
Loss
I don't know what it is about Vampires. I always have trouble with them. By this point I had a win and a draw, so I sort of felt the loss coming. And what a loss it was. Dave's army consisted of two hordes of Zombies, and a big block of Ghouls, and a Graveguard deathstar unit with the regen banner, 2 Vampire Lords, 2 Vampire Heros, and a Wight King. This was a hard Vampire list and I gave it the lowest comp score of any of the armies I played, but Dave was a nice guy and I gave him a fine sportsmanship score.
His combat Lord killed my entire unit of 20 Blackguard all by himself in a single round thanks to their Red Rage power or whatever it's called. It's the one where he gets to keep attacking so long as he keeps killing. Toughness 3 Elves in Heavy Armor against Strength 6 with Hatred..... so 20 rolls later the whole unit was dead and with it pretty much any hope I had of killing anything in his army worth any points. This was the second bad roll which I watched in disbelief and the end of day 1.
Game 3 versus Luke's Lizardmen
Draw
This game featured the remaining two very bad rolls. Luke was a nice guy playing a Lizardmen list with no Slann. Two Stegadons, one with the Engine of the Gods, a few Saurus blocks, only a couple units of Skinks and Salamanders, and an Oldblood on a Carnosaur. We both played cautiously with some good maneuvering, putting our expendable and harassing units out to redirect things in our favor. The first bad dice roll happened in turn 2. I failed to cast Power of Darkness with my Level 4 by rolling a 1, then killing a Spearman for a second die and rolling another 1. That left about 8 power dice on unused on the table and my Corsairs had just headed off down the left flank in the direction of the Stegs without magic support. As a result, the Stegs had my Corsairs for lunch instead of being cut to ribbons. In turn 3 my Blackguard and one Hydra charged his center Saurus block with his BSB in it and my Witches charged his right Saurus block that was worth a bonus Victory point. I won both combats by a lot and killed his BSB. But the center Saurus unit held with Insane Courage. This was the last really bad roll for me. As a result of those last few Saurus holding, my Blackguard was charged in the flank by his third unit of Saurus and my Hydra was charged in the rear by his General and Carnosaur. So that cost me a couple hundred points and the game ended a draw. If either of those rolls hadn't come out double 1's, it would have been a win.
Game 5 versus Scott's Orcs and Goblins
Win
Once again, my army is really really good at killing light infantry. Scott's army was a couple of hordes of Night Goblins, a horde of Orcs with spears, some Trolls, some Wolf Riders, a Mangler, and one of those new ginormous spiders. He was a nice guy, but just had no luck. My Shades shot his Mangler dead before it got a chance to move. One Hydra broke his giant spider by itself. My other Hydra charged his Wolf Riders, who failed their Terror check and ran off the table. My Blackguard with flaming banner, +1 attack from the Cauldron, and Mindrazor charged his Trolls and did 18 wounds killing, all 6 before they could do anything. It was nice to round out the tournament with a win, but the game was really one sided and I felt a little bad for the guy.
So, a good time all around. Now, here's a couple of pics of other armies that were there. Including this one that I'd seen on Bell of Lost Souls.
A nice looking Empire army.
An epic Skaven display board.
And lastly, a Tomb Kings army that won a couple of the painting awards.
Saturday, June 4, 2011
Painty painty paint paint
Insert typical "wow it's been a while since I've posted" opening.
It's now June and the next big thing coming up for me, hobby-wise, is the Quake City Rumble Indy GT. This will be my first GT style tournament and I've set what I feel are reasonable goals for myself.
Have fun.
Try to avoid stupid tactical mistakes.
Don't get annoyed at bad rolls. (What? Me? Pout at bad dice luck? Never!)
Have my army fully painted.
That last one is the reason I haven't posted in a while. I've been spending all my available hobby time painting to make sure I'm done in time.
I've also got to make a display board, which will be a first time thing for me. People put a lot of effort and creativity into display boards, but I'm trying not to get too far ahead of myself. First, finish painting the army well. Then, make an acceptable display board with whatever time I have left. At a bare minimum I should have a flat board based like my models mounted to a breakfast tray, a la Rushputin. (Kinda cool how you're the first google search result for 'warp stone pile, eh?) If I finish painting in enough time I might try to throw some scenery on there to bump my painting score up another point.
So all this points in an obvious content direction for this blog, I need to take some photos. We have a pretty good digital camera with macro settings, but I have no backdrop / light box to speak of. Anyone have good recommendations for how to put together a decent model photo setup without spending an arm and a leg?
It's now June and the next big thing coming up for me, hobby-wise, is the Quake City Rumble Indy GT. This will be my first GT style tournament and I've set what I feel are reasonable goals for myself.
Have fun.
Try to avoid stupid tactical mistakes.
Don't get annoyed at bad rolls. (What? Me? Pout at bad dice luck? Never!)
Have my army fully painted.
That last one is the reason I haven't posted in a while. I've been spending all my available hobby time painting to make sure I'm done in time.
I've also got to make a display board, which will be a first time thing for me. People put a lot of effort and creativity into display boards, but I'm trying not to get too far ahead of myself. First, finish painting the army well. Then, make an acceptable display board with whatever time I have left. At a bare minimum I should have a flat board based like my models mounted to a breakfast tray, a la Rushputin. (Kinda cool how you're the first google search result for 'warp stone pile, eh?) If I finish painting in enough time I might try to throw some scenery on there to bump my painting score up another point.
So all this points in an obvious content direction for this blog, I need to take some photos. We have a pretty good digital camera with macro settings, but I have no backdrop / light box to speak of. Anyone have good recommendations for how to put together a decent model photo setup without spending an arm and a leg?
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