2500 VC at QCR 2011

[Tomalock]

Hey all, I was fortunate to attend the Quake City Rumble this year in San Francisco. It is one of the bigger fantasy only GTs on the west coast, with over 100 players signed up. I think we only had 93 show up, but its still a pretty good turnout for a mono-system tourney. I was originally going to take Skaven, but the number of models proved to be too much, so I went back to my Vampires. I am glad I did, because I had a lot of fun playing them and they actually all got painted to at least 80% of where I wanted them. Not too bad for making the decision to switch right at the deadline for list submissions about 3 weeks prior to the tourny.

It was a standard format with 5 games spread over 2 days. We used their scenarios, of which 4 were variations on pitched battle deployment with different special rules and bonus points and one based on meeting engagement. My list was:

Lords

Vampire Lord w/ General, Helm of Command, Forbidden Lore (Vampires), MotBA 320pts

Vampire Lord w/ Blood Drinker, Forbidden Lore (Light), Dread Knight 305pts

Heroes

Vampire w/ BSB, Drakenhof Banner, Dreadknight 275pts

Vampire w/ Ghoulkin, Summon Ghouls 140pts

Core

Ghouls x20 w/ Ghast 168 pts

Ghouls x28 w/ Ghast 232 pts

Ghouls x28 w/ Ghast 232 pts

Specials

Black Knights x10 w/ Barding, Standard of Hellish Vigour 321pts

Rares

Blood Knights x8 w/ Musician, Royal Standard of Strigos 505pts

Total: 2498

Basically the way I ran it was the Light lord and the BSB with the Blood Knights, and the General and ghoul vampire with a unit of 28 ghouls. So thats the basics, on to the action!

(continued)

[Tomalock]

Round 1:

The scenario was one of the pitched battles. The special rules was that anyone with a 3+ or better armor save was at -1 WS for the entire game. Bonus points were awarded for killing the enemy general, controling more table quarters, having more standards (yours, captured enemy, and destroyed enemy), and destroying the enemy unit (not character) with the best armor save.

I drew a mono Khorne daemon list for the game. No one plays deamons really in my local area, and I have not played against them since 7th, so I was looking forward to fighting them. His list was:

Thirster w/ Armor of Khorne, firestorm blade, immortal fury, spell breaker
Herald w/ jugger, BSB, armor of khorne, firestorm blade
Herald w/ jugger, armor of khorne, firestorme blade
herald w/ armor of khorne
Bloodletters x21 w/ full command
Bloodletters x21 w/ full command
Bloodletters x21 w/ full command
Hounds x6
Hounds x6
Hounds x6

We basically set up so that I was in my left corner and he was in his right corner, facing each other. I had my black knights on the far left, my unit of 20 ghouls next to them, a unit of 28 next to them, the general's unit behind those two, and my blood knights on the right.

I won the roll off and elected to go first, since I had lore of light and he only had MR to really protect him from magic. For the first turn I sort of shuffled around, not really moving up that much. I wanted to whittle him down a little with magic before he hit me. With all the killingblow and my WS taking a hit I figured that I wanted to hit reduced units with my cavalry and let him beat on my ghouls without support. First cast of the first turn I throw two dice at the lower magic missile in lore of light and promptly roll double six! My light lord then precedes to roll a 2 on the miscast chart and blows himself, and some blood knights, up. Talk about rotten luck. Atleast I killed 2 fleshhounds with the spell.

On his turn he moves his units up, keeping his thirster in the backfield . Otherwise uneventful.

On my turn 2 I charge his left most unit of hounds with my black knights and throw my blood knights at his wounded pack that had lost two models. All of my ghoul units shuffled backwards, hoping to buy some turns with the cav in his face before he hit my lines. Magic was largely uneventful and we moved to combat. His hounds proceded to wipe the floor with my black knights. Due to the scenario I needed 5s to hit him and did nothing. He killed me on combat res, leaving my ghouls exposed on the flank. My Blood Knights killed his hounds outright and overran beyond the front arc of the thirster, thankfully.

On his turn he moved his units forward, declining to charge yet. The Thirster flew backwards and kept the blood knights in his front arc. Again, quite uneventful.

On my turn I did a fast reform with my Blood Knights and moved them right off the rear of his left most unit of letters. I shuffled my ghouls back some more. Magic was again largely forgettable except that I got off Vanhel's on my blood knights (my BSB had it) and moved into his rear. His jugger herald made way to the back and I lost a few knights. I hit him back and wacked the unit pretty good, swinging combat my way. He lost more models on the combat res, bringing them down to about 10 total.

On his turn he opened up on me. His thirster charged my Blood Knights and most of his front units charged me. His unit of hounds on the right failed their charge, leaving my general's block untouched for a turn. My ghouls took a beating and I believe I lost my unit of 20 at that point. My unit of 28 in the front held on, but was reduced to around 18 or so models, being saved from greater devastation by the helm. His Thirster, herald, and remaining letters wiped out my BSB and Blood Knights handily.

At that point it was all but over. Long story short, I lost everything, my general being the last model to go down. I had raised 2 units of zombies at the end to try and protect her, but both were ignored and that cost my opponent full victory points, not getting the quarters since we were all crammed into mine.

Overall that was a brutal fight for me. It was the worst possible scenario for my list out of the whole tournament since I rely heavily on my Blood Knights to mess stuff up. Losing the WS really hurt my black knights though, bringing them down to 5s to hit the hounds. And of course my Light lord blowing him self up on a 2 dice casing of the weak magic missile on the first turn is never a good way to go. I learned a lot from the game though, and had a great opponent so I was pretty upbeat leaving that. It is totally possible to lose several games and still be in contention at QCR so I was just happy to have that scenario behind me.

Round 2:

For this one I drew a Dwarf player. This was the meeting engagement scenario with bonus points for killing the enemy general, having more units in the enemy deployment zone, having your most expensive core alive and not fleeing, and killing the enemy's most expensive unit.

His list was:

Thane w/ runic weap (might), runic armor (gromril, resistance)
Runelord w/ anvil, tailsman (balance, spelleater), armor (resistance, stone)
Quarrellers x40 w/ full command
Quarrellers x40 w/ full command
cannon w/ burning, forging
grudge thrower w/ accuracy, penetrating
organ gun
hammerers x25 w/ full command, master rune of grugni

Last week I went to the bi-monthly tourny in Sacramento and got crushed by dwarves, so I decided to take a chance and try something risky, and really not all that sporting (in my opinion).

He won the rolloff and deployed back in his corner, castling up and only had his BSB off the table. I decided to take a chance and put everything in my corner, with my blackknights being off the table. My plan was to stay out of range of his war machines and just cast wind of undeath every turn. I lucked out and rolled it on my ghoulkin vampire, so I had two of it. I was playing for a draw more than anything because I was pretty gun-shy after my game the previous weekend.

He won the roll and had me go first. My Blackknights trotted on in front of my line and moved to take up a position at the top. I didn't leave any room for them so they had to be exposed for a couple turns. I was hoping it wouldn't be an issue. I got wind of undeath off twice and killed a few guys, getting two spirit hosts with 3 wounds each.

On his turn he just moved straight to shooting and I begain to realize that I had miscalculated a little bit. He hit my knights pretty good, killing 6 or 7 with all his shots. That I was expecting and shrugged it off. He then used his anvil to pop my spirit host. At that point it suddenly became clear that relying on wind of undeath was going to be very costly. I felt that since I had the models, based on the wording of the spell I was required to place a spirit host unless I just didn't have one (I made 2 for the tourny).

The next turn my black knights booked it up to the top edge of my line and settled in mostly out of range. I didn't get a lot of dice in magic so only cast wind of undeath once. I IF'd it and got it off, doing wounds to several of my casters as a result.

I am going to skip ahead to turn six. A basic recap of the other turns was me throwing all my dice at winds (since he had so much magic defense I could only get a single spell off if I IF'd it). I did manage to heal up my vampires once or twice to keep the wounds down from miscasts. He started moving his units forward towards me but gave up around turn 5 since he was not going to get anywhere close to me. He kept killing my spirt hosts and I got most of his warmachines down to one model, killing the cannon in turn 5.

On turn 6 I IF'd Wind again and got his organ gun, assuring myself a draw. However it was not to be, and in the miscast all my wizards took a str 6 hit. My BSB, who was already wounded, failed his armor and his regen and died. At that point he was over me by a good several hundred points and we just called it. We each got the points for our core being alive but none of the others.

It was a risky move to take, and looking back I was well suited to take on his units with my knights. He had them stretched out into two ranks, so while he would have hit me hard on the charge, I think I would have broken them. I hadn't taken the anvil into account and he just kept killing a spirit host a turn pretty much and I lost 4 by the end. Our game ended the fastest and I won some Unseen Lurker dice for being the fastest loser in the round haha. I felt kinda bad after the game since I wasn't really doing much, but honestly he was built to sit back and shoot armies to death and with him stealing a dice and generating 3 before we considering the roll, it is a tough army to overcome even in combat, since VC rely so heavily on magic. In any event, I don't get to play dwarves much so I learn something new every time I play them.

Ok I have to run now, I will finish up the other three rounds later on tonight. I hope everyone enjoy's reading it. I apologize for not having pictures, but I wanted to concentrate on my games and not recording everything that happens. I am doing this off of memory, so hopefully I don't mess up the order of things too much. In any event, I'll be back to finish this up later. Thanks!

[w3rm]

Good reports sorry about the losses so far

[Tomalock]

Hey w3rm, thanks for the comment! They were tough losses, especially the first since I just really had no answer after my light lord suicided, but I went to have fun and play armies that I never otherwise get to, and both games were very much that! Not to mention both were excellent opponents and I had a good time losing to them. Now on to the next!

Round 3:

The scenario was a pitched battle with a twist (which both of us completely forgot for the entire game). Basically each magic phase the player whose turn it is roles a dice. Whatever the number is, all dice that come up as that number are ignored for that phase. It is unfortunate that we both completely forgot it (although to be fair it was the 3rd battle of the day and we were wiped out) but we both had strong magic phases, so magic was never a deciding factor in the outcome of the battle. The bonus points were +2 for killing an enemy caster and +2 for destroying your opponent's most expensive magic item.

My opponent was a Dark Elf, which was good because I don't get to play them very often. Our LGS owner is a diehard DE player but I didn't get to play him before we went (he went too) and they get hit hard with the comp system at Sacramento so I haven't seen many people play them there. It was really nice to get to play them and my opponent was a very nice guy.

His list:

Supreme Sorceress w/ level 4, tailsman of preservation, Shadow
Supreme sorceress w/ Pendant of Khaeleth, Feedback Scroll, Death
Master w/ heavy armor, sea drago cloak, shield, BSB, Obsidian blade
Corsairs x24 w/ full command, banner of murder, Assassin (2nd HW, bow, rune of Khaine, Touch of Death)
Crossbowmen x12 w/ shields, musician, champ
Crossbowmen x12 w/ shields, musician, champ
Crossbowmen x12 w/ shields, musician, champ
Blackguard x20 w/ full command (champ w/ crimson death), Standard of Discipline, Assassin (2nd HW, Rune of Khaine, Touch of Death)
Hydra
Hydra

This battle is probably the foggiest for me since it was in the middle of the tourny and the 3rd of 3 on the 1st day. However I will do my best to lay it out as I remember it happening.

He set up with a Hydra on each flank, his black guard on the inside of the right hydra, his corsairs in the center of the line, and his crossbowmen on either side of the corsairs, with 2 on the right of them. He put his level 3 in the corsairs on the left most crossbowman unit and his level 4 was out of the unit but right next to it within look out range. I deployed with my blood knights on the left flank, two of my units of ghouls in the center of the line, with my general and level 1 in the 2nd unit of 28 behind them and I believe my black knights were on my right flank.

I really dont remember who went first, but I think it was me. I marched my ghouls forward with ghoulkin and then on the first turn moved everyone forward, with my two knights staying either in line with the ghouls, or just behind them. I don't believe anything exciting happened in my magic phase.

On his turn 1 he charged the blood knights with the hydra and failed. His corsairs charged my small unit of ghouls and the rest of his line moved up. In the magic phase he made a crucial crucial mistake. He did not even attempt to cast mindrazor on his corsairs. Instead he tried to purple sun my general's unit with the big template and it scattered completely off the unit. He might have killed a few ghouls with magic and shooting from my unengaged forward unit but nothing came of it. In combat I gave the unit WS 7 and he didn't do much. I don't remember the outcome of the combat, but it didn't work out in his favor (my unit wasn't destroyed).

On my turn two I charged the hydra with my blood knights. I am pretty sure I sent my other unit of ghouls into his corsairs and kept the general's unit back. I backed up my black knights to keep drawing his second hydra away from the center combats. With magic I most likely summoned an undead horde to replace my unit that was in combat, but I honestly don't remember. In combat my Blood Knights beat down the Hydra and overran very close to the crossbowmen with his level 3. Who I think might have fled from the Hydra popping. My ghouls won combat against the corsairs and ran him down (his BSB was with that unit so he lost his highest magic item).

On his turn he rallied his crossbowmen and positioned them so they were out of the arc of my blood knights. His general moved to the left, behind his crossbowmen. The hydra kept moving towards my black knights. His Black Guard started moving back towards the center. Magic was largely uneventful. He had a nasty habit of rolling a single dice at the power of darkness and failing, ending his magic phases for either of the mages that he did that to. It was something that cost him dearly later on. I don't remember what the death mage did, but I think she tried to lower some stats and I threw all my dice to stop it.

Ok from this point on it all blends together so I am going to just give the rundown. He tried to sacrifice a unit of crossbowmen to the blood knights by giving them mindrazer and putting them an inch in front of me. The blood knights killed them outright and hit the flank of his level 3's unit. The blood knights killed that unit and then overran towards his Black Guard, who were in combat with a unit of ghouls by that point. He did the single dice for power of darkness again and failed, costing himself a necessary magic phase with 12 dice for his death sorceress. The game ended with his hydra trying to flame my black knights and only killing one or two. He killed my 20 man ghoul unit at some point and my blood knights and the other unit of 28 (w/o the general) were locked in combat with his black guard at the end.

I won handily with full battle points, although I think we only got to turn 4 or 5. I think he really misplayed his magic phases badly, and it cost him. I asked him after it was over why he didn't mindrazor the corsairs in the first turn and he said that he screwed up. I think he was pretty tired and just wasn't thinking clearly. He was a real nice guy from Team Misfire and I had a lot of fun playing with him. It also did not help him that once my Blood Knights offed his Hydra there was absolutely nothing to stop them from rampaging through his rear units as his other hydra was chasing the Black Knights and his Black Guard were out of position until my Blood Knights came to them. All in all it was a pretty wild game with both of us getting big dice magic phases for most of it (I did have one that I rolled snake eyes for but by that point it didn't hurt me). I was worried about the dual hydras and the corsair/mindrazor combo, but neither ended up being a big factor. All in all, it was a nice way to end the day after two big losses to start the tourny.


Round 4:

This was our first game on sunday. The scenario was another pitched battle where once per game each player could be affected by an earthquake. If that happened then all movement was halved for that player turn for each unit on a 1-3(4+ they were ok). At the start of each turn you rolled a die, and if you ended up under the turn number your earthquake happened.

For this game I was playing an empire army. This is yet another one that I never ever get to play so I was very excited to face it. He was another awesome opponent and I enjoyed the match a lot.

His list:

Arch Lector w/ war altar, sword of justice, van horstman's speculum
Captain w/ BSB, Armor of meteoric iron, ruby ring of ruin
warrior priest w/ gold sigil sword, dawn armor
warrior priest w/ sword of antiheroes, enchanted shield
captain w/ pegasus, doomfire ring
flagellant x24
knightly orders x5 w/ banner of flame, musician
Swordsmen x43 w/ full command
great cannon
mortar
mortar
Greatswords x18 w/ full command
Outriders x5
Hellblaster
Steamtank

We set up facing each other in the center. I put my Black Knights on the far right flank, away from my line. My usual setup in the center with the two ghouls in front and my general's unit in the back. My blood knights were to the left of them. The terrain deserves a mention in this one because they played an important role. directly in front of my ghouls was a hill, with a forest in front of that just offset to the left. This forest ended up being the poisoned forest with dangerous for all. My black knights were set up directly in front of a water feature. He set up his army with the outriders on the far right and the knights directly behind them, facing my black knights. He had a cannon and mortar on a hill with the swordmasters in front of it and extending to the left. His hellblaster was next to them and the steam tank just to the left of that. His flagellants were next to the steam tank and the war alter was just next to that. Behind and to the left of the alter was the last mortar. His flying captain was somewhere on the right but I don't remember the exact placement. Same with the great swords.

Before the start of the game all my ghouls marched forward. I got first turn and promptly rolled a 1 to have my earthquake right off the bat. My black knights and my unit of 28 ghouls failed, so they both had to move half speed. I just put the black knights in the water feature and the ghouls moved up 4 and angled slightly to the right. The 20 ghouls went down into the poison woods and lost a few. My blood knights moved right up to the edge of the woods, facing the war alter, and stopped. The general's unit moved up behind the earthquaked ghouls and lined up more behind the unit of 20 in the woods. My magic wasn't very exciting due to his strong magic defense.

On his turn his battle line largely just moved forward a little bit, preparing for later charges. His flying captain moved up to the flank of my stalled ghouls and his units on the right moved to get a charge on them. The outriders, who had vanguarded up the right closer to my black knights, just backed up a little bit. His magic was just buffing up a couple units. I think he gave the swordmaster unbreakable and he failed to get off his light spell from the war alter. Shooting saw some dead ghouls but not much else. He started his trend of missfiring on atleast one shot of the hellblaster every turn of the game.

On my turn two I charged his war alter with my blood knights, losing one or two through the forest. My black knights charged his outriders and he stood and shot. The ghouls readied for the coming charges. His magic defense was still strong so I didn't get much off. In combat I butchered his outriders and overran off the table. In the alter combat he took my Lord's stats but my blood knights all targeted his alter and wrecked it totally. I won combat handily and ran down his general, who was too far away from the BSB.

On his turn he charged my slow unit of ghouls with both the swordmasters and the flying captain. The flagellants charged the small ghoul unit in the woods. His steam tank turned around to light up my blood knights. The knights positioned themselves to prepare for the return of my Black Knights. The greatswords moved up to the right of the swordmasters but ended up being ineffective for the rest of the game. In magic he only cast unbreakable on his great swords and I used my dice to dispell his unbreakable that had been cast on the swordmasters. Both of his bound spells were locked in combat at that point too. Shooting saw my blood knights take a total pounding. Between the steam tank, the missfiring hellblaster, the great cannon, and the mortar, I was down to my BSB and standard bearer for the unit when the smoke cleared. The bright spot was his mortar on the hill blowing up. In combat I made a mistake and held off giving the WS7 out. We fought the flagellants combat first and they won and overran into my general's unit. However by that point they were down to just a handful of models. However that meant that I couldn't give it to the big combat. In that fight he didn't kill nearly as many as he should have. I had an amazing streak of luck and I wounded his flying captain twice and when he went to make his armor saves of 2+ he rolled snake eyes!! So with the flank secured I didn't lose that badly and was able to keep atleast a rank standing.

On my turn three I brought the black knights back on and just made them 7 wide on the edge of the board (think I had 9 total at that point). The blood knights tested to march and passed on a 7 (which is what they needed). That let me scoot around behind the hellblaster, putting it between me and the steamtank so he couldn't easily flame me. It also lined me up for a charge on his great cannon. All my ghouls were still locked in combat. With his magic defense much reduced thanks to the alter going away, I was able to bring back my unit of ghouls in combat with the swordmasters. I don't remember exactly how many I raised, but it was just enough. In combat I did the general's unit first, killing the flagellants handily. I then gave the WS7 to the ghouls in the other unit. In that combat we beat each other up a bit and stayed in for another round.

By this point we were almost out of time, so this was the last player turn played. He elected not to charge my black knights, a decision that I really don't understand as time was almost out and he was already losing. He was unable to charge with his great swords because they were within range of the ghouls in combat but were in the front arc of them. The swordmasters were in a horde formation extending atleast 4 beyond my unit on either side, so he couldn't make it in. The steam tank stayed where it was at. Magic was uneventful for him. In shooting he just could not do anything to the BSB and the last knight. Killing either would have netted him major points, but he was unable to do so. In the final combat the dust settled with a single ghoul still standing, giving him no points for that unit!

The game ended with a victory for me. Whew, that was a close one! He just couldn't do enough damage to kill off that last ghoul, although not killing either of the knights truely cost him the victory. I was far enough ahead by that point that even if he had killed my 2nd ghoul unit, I would still have won. I think I psyched him out with the reforming the black knights coming back on the table. He said he didn't want to charge because I was getting more attacks, but I had the same number going at him either way (minus 2 crappy horse attacks) as they only have 1 attack each. I guess with killing blow, it might have been a good call, but he was far enough in the hole that it wouldn't have hurt him to do it. Granted its hard to predict all those war machines not killing the BSB or a blood knight (thank you regen banner!) but I probably would have made the charge. In the end we both ended with a single bonus point, but I was pretty happy with how that turned out. I was sweating badly after that shooting phase saw my blood knights and light lord get mauled, but in the end it worked out. He had a very tough list, I think (not an expert on empire though), with the steam tank, alter, all the magic defense, and the artillery park, but the undead managed to pull it off! Like I said before, he was a great opponent and I learned a lot from that game.

(continued)

[Tomalock]

Round 5:

This was the final pitched battle scenario (surprise surprise). In this one, the bonus points were to shanghai as many of the opponent's characters as possible. You got +1 for killing each champ, +2 for heroes, and +3 for lords. Whoever had the most total shanghai points was the best sea captain and got +3 bonus points. The other point was for the most standards (yours and ones you captured).

For the final game I drew Skaven. We have a few Skaven players at the LGS so I am more familiar with this book than most of the other armies I played at the GT. I also have been playing them myself for the last 5 months or so, although opted not to take them this time due to the sheer amount of painting. My opponent was a team mate of my Dark Elf opponent so we started off the game saying nice things about him (and his son who was also playing in the GT, as VC).

His list was:

Grey Seer w/ 2 plague 2 ruin, foul pendant, dispel scroll
warlord w/ heavy armor, shield, bonebreaker, fellblade
chieftain w/ heavy armor, shield, BSB, standard of the horned rat
chieftain w/ halberd, heavy armor
chieftain w/ halberd, heavy armor
Stormvermin x36 w/ shields, full command, banner of eternal flame
clanrats x30 w/ full command, shields
clanrats x30 w/ full command, shields
clanrats x30 w/ full command, shields
Rat Ogres x17 w/ 3 packmasters
gutter runners x7 w/ slings, poison
warp lightning cannon

He set up with his rat ogres on and two units of clan rats on the far left. A unit of rats with the grey seer was to the right of the ogres and on the far right was a the stormvermin who had the bsb and warlord in them. He set up his WLC behind the stormvermin and a little to the right of them. On my side I had my ghouls set up in their usual formation with the unit of 20 on the left, the 28 on the right and the general's group behind the unit of 28. I put the blood knights to the right of them and the black knights behind them. All of my units were across from his stormvermin or to the right of them. He set up his gutter runners to my left behind a hill from my ghouls. I marched my ghouls a little bit, positioning to give a refused flank.

I had first turn and I moved the blood knights forward into a forest that was to the right and front of his stormvermin. I positioned them so that they were facing the stormvermin to the front and were just inside the forest. It turned out to be another poision forest. The black knights went to the right of that forest, looking to swing wide around it. My ghouls moved towards the forest, but kept his stormvermin and clan rats to the front. In magic I cast winds of undeath and got a full spirit host stand. I placed them directly in front of the gutter runners on the hill.

In his turn he charged my blood knights with the stormvermin. His grey seer's clanrats charged my unit of 20 ghouls. The gutter runners moved away from the spirit host but couldn't get out of its front arc. The Rat Ogres were in horde formation and had been deployed inside a fungus forest. This was to have dire consequences for him as he struggled most of the game to get them out of it as they failed many stupidity tests. His magic was mostly uneventful with him not getting vermintide off into combat. He missfired the WLC and it shoot wildly to no effect I believe. In combat I gave the ghouls WS7 and they held the grey seer's unit. In the woods he challaged with his warlord and I accepted with a normal blood knight. He killed him but blood knights beat him up pretty good, although I did lose a few due to the flaming attacks. However I won overall and he barely made his leadership, having forgotten that because he was in a woods he was not steadfast (I intentionally positioned the blood knights for that very reason).

On my turn my unit of 28 ghouls charged into the combat. I was only able to get a single file into the fight along the front, but it was added combat res that I was looking for. My spirit host charged his gutter runners who fled and my failed charge brought me to the edge of the hill. My general's unit moved up behind the grey seer combat, towards the woods and the blood knights. The black knights moved around the other side of the forest, lining up on the WLC. In magic I raised back the loses from the 20 ghoul unit and brought back a blood knight or two I think. In combat I soundly beat the storm vermin and they did not pass their test this time and I ran them down, overruning with the blood knights right in front of the WLC. I also broke the grey seer's unit but I was unable to catch him.

On his turn he had no charges, as the rat ogres continued to struggle mighitly with the fungus. His other two clan rat units slowly made the trek towards my lines. His grey seer's unit needed snake eyes to rally and unsurprisingly did not. However he had a huge flee that put him right in front of my spirit host. His WLC didn't do much and there was no combat.

On my turn I charged the WLC with the Blood Knights. The spirit host charged the grey seer's unit and even though they fled off the board, he rolled a 17 on his charge and actually caught them, taking him off the board. I believe this caused one of his clan rat units to break but I don't remember exactly. My black knights swung around the forest and lined up with the ghouls to greet the oncoming ogres and clanrats. Magic I don't recall what happened, but I probably raised my units back up again. In combat my lord brought the blood knights back to full strength with the blood drinker, killing the crew and overruning past it but not off the board.

On his turn he finally passed a stupidity test and got the ogres fully out of the woods and moved them down towards the hill I had started next to. His gutter runners had rallied at some point and moved behind the fungus forest to take shots at my blood knights. His clanrat unit moved forward on the left of his ogres. In shooting his gutter runners did nothing.

On my turn I moved my blood knights into the forest, threatening his clan rat unit. The black knights stayed put, being a menace to anything that came across the center of the board. I moved my general's unit into the poision forest, away from the rat ogres. I left my unit of 28 ghouls where it was, keeping it in line with the black knights. I just reformed my 20 ghoul unit to face the ogres when they came around the hill. The spirit host loitered where he had run off the board. In magic I just raised all my units back to full strength.

On his turn he finally got the ogres into position to charge me. He decided it wasn't worth the clanrats time to come at me and chose to back them away from me instead. His gutter runners kept shooting at my blood knights and did nothing.

On my final turn I moved my unit of 20 ghouls right up in front of his ogres, but kept them within 12 of the general for the helm. All of my other units just stayed put. I believe I cast pha's protection on the 20 ghouls.

In his turn he charged with the ogres and left his other units alone. He shot at the blood knights again but didn't do anything. In combat I gave the ghouls WS7. He needed 6s to hit me and didn't kill enough to wipe the unit and thus the game ended.

It was a very tough game for my opponent. He deployed his ogres first so I just put my whole army on the other side of the board from them. I think from start to finish this was my best played game. I deployed just where I needed to and then was able to isolate his units and kill them with the bulk of my army on my terms. I wanted the storm vermin to charge me in the woods, knowing that would only end well for me, but I wasn't really expecting the grey seer charge. Unfortunately for him those 20 ghouls did their job and him losing the stormvermin with all those characters (especially the BSB) and the general (and all his magic) in a single turn just killed any real chance he had. It didn't help his cause that in addition to playing a strong game, I also had everything go right that needed to for me. I don't think I was abnormally lucky, but I was not unlucky either, which hurt him when he needed some luck the most. With all that said, he was a fun opponent to play and I really respect the fact that he didn't take a standard Skaven tournament list. Every other skaven player (and there were a ton of them) were rocking atleast an HPA or dual WLCs, or both, and he didnt have any of that stuff. I think that game was a bad matchup for him in terms of the power of my list vs. his.


And that was the last of my games. All in all I had a great time at my first major fantasy GT. It was a well run event and I met some really cool people. My group goes every year and if by some miracle I am not in Afghanistan next year hopefully I can come back to it. If not, there is always the year after that! As far as results go, even though I lost my first two games I finished 36th out of 93. Not a bad result at all for my first big tourny with this system. I was very pleased with that and even more happy that I managed to eek out a winning record. Of the eight that went from Reno, I was right in the middle of the pack of results, with our best getting 4th overall and our worst getting 42nd (we have a pretty strong group of fantasy players). Our guy that got 4th overall also had a 3-2 game record, so that goes to show that all of the scoring is pretty important, not just winning every game on the table. I just want to say again that I had 5 awesome opponents, so I feel very fortunate that I had such fun games. It was really nice to play such varied armies from what I normally do and to meet new people who were so cool.

I hope everyone enjoyed the report! I am sorry I didn't have any pictures and that my memory was spotty at times. I went to have fun playing, so I didn't really get hung up on recording everything. I am already eyeing a couple more GTs in our vicinity over the next few months, so maybe I will have some more reports to share. Until next time!

[Gabacho Mk.II]

Tomalock,

A very well written thread! [you do practice excellent grammar!]


As to the contents of the thread; well, you did quite nicely and had fun in the process. What else can you ask for?






Thanks for your time in writing this up...and, there really ARE WFB gamers in Reno???!!!

[w3rm]

Very nice reports gratz on the wins!

[Tomalock]

Hey guys, thanks for the comments!

I am sure my graduate adviser will be happy to know that I am writing well on internet forums haha, although looking back I made a fair number of mistakes.

We do indeed have many WFB players in Reno, although a number of gravitated towards 40k in the past year. All in all we have a pretty healthy gaming community here at our LGS and beyond.

Thanks again w3rm! It was a very nice way to end the tourny. Although even if you take away the wins I still accomplished all of my primary goals: play new people, play armies I don't get to play against normally, and to have a lot of fun. So walking away with a winning record was just icing on the cake (although it did make the drive back to Reno much brighter).

Thanks again, I hope everyone enjoyed the read!

[Seabo]

Grats on the placement!
Some rather whacked out lists lol.
You played very well and most of your opponents...did not...
Lol.
Several times well reading I was like !
That's tourneys for ya I guess. I have never been in a GT before even though I have played this game, off and on, for close to 15 years. Part of the problem is that they don't have them up in my neck of the woods and I would have to travel thousands of klicks to even get to one, a rather daunting prospect.
Biggest one I ever went to was about 40 or so players.
Anyways, nice writeup!

[Hinge01]

Tomaloc-

I am glad you had a good time. Nice bat rep!

Hinge

[SevenSins]

nice writeups and some nice victories

(that meeting engagement did not sound like much fun though)

[Tomalock]

Hey guys, thanks for the comments! Yeah the meeting engagement was the one battle I wish I had played differently because I think I could have beaten him in combat. It turned out to not be the most exciting game for either of us, minus the BSB blowing up in turn 6 (he was pretty excited about that haha). Oh well, I took a chance and it did not pay off for me. In the future that is a battle plan I will only employ against dwarf lists without the anvil if I decide to go that route again.

Thanks again for reading! I am eyeing a tourny in CA at the end of the month, but I am not sure if I will be able to get my next army painted in time. I could take the VC again, but I do like to change things up. We will see!

[SevenSins]

well getting a proper skaven army table ready does take time, that's for sure

[Rhuell]

Finally got around to reading your thread. Next time take a better army and don't suck so much. Should have played Skaven. So says your friendly Reno skaven player.