Tournament Report (6/11 ~ Cornelius, NC) and Dwarf Miners

So, I took the High Elves to a tournament at Parker, Banner, Kent and Wayne in Cornelius, NC.  It's the first time that I've played a tournament here, and I really enjoyed it.  There were close to thirty players, and every fantasy army was represented. Painting wasn't judged, which is always disappointing, but otherwise I thought the organizers did an excellent job of running the event.  I'd definitely be willing to make the drive again.

One thing that I was most excited about was the discussion of expanding the Warhammer community in the Southeast.   The organizers made a couple of announcements of note.  First, they will be hosting a GT in Charlotte in October.  This means that we will have two two-day tournaments a year in NC (Brawler Bash is in April) about six months apart.  They also made an announcement about the Masters event that they've hosted the past three years in December.  In the past, local clubs have run mini-leagues and sent their champions to compete.  This year, they will be expanding to encompass other SE states (especially SC and VA).  They will also be opening it to winners of RTT.  In addition to these new or expanded events, they've developed a new website (WarNC) to facilitate discussion between the various areas.  I think that the website helped to contribute to what seemed to be a good turn out at the tourney.  All told, I think that these changes harken an exciting time for the hobby in NC and the Southeast.  Maybe some of my old friends from Tennessee will come over and join in the fun.

Anyway, here's the list that I took:

Archmage (F. Robe, Talisman of Saphery, Jewel of Dusk)
Archmage (Seerstaff)
BSB (Armor of Caledor, Dawnstone, Great Weapon)

40 Spearmen
20 Archers

19 Phoenix Guard (Banner of Sorcery)
30 White Lions (Banner of Discipline)
Lion Chariot

2 Eagles

Both the archmages took life so that I could use the Seerstaff to double life spells.  I wanted to buff the heck out of the White Lions and use dwellers when needed to soften the opposition and take out problem characters.  I had mixed results:

Game 1 (v. Lizardmen):  In this game, everything went pretty much as planned.  I dwellersed his Slann in oblivion, and my buffed unit of white lions pretty much massacred his whole army.  In addition, the dice went very poorly for my opponent, so the game pretty  spiraled quickly out of control.  In the end, I had picked up max. points and felt pretty good about the list.  I figured the only thing I had to worry about was a good dwarven or empire gun list.

Game 2 (v. Dwarf): So, when I traded lists with my opponent, I knew I was in trouble.  High elves have trouble with shooting lists anyway, and I had eliminated all the fast moving elements from my list.  Essentially, the only strategy available to me was line up straight across the board, march as quickly as possible, and hope for some irresistible force spells.  Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get double 6s, and his magic defense was pretty stout (Master Rune of Balance, Rune of Spelleater, 2 x Rune of Spellbreaking).  In the end, I was down to a handful of troops by the time I made it across, and his blocks of greatweapon dwarfs made short work of them.

As part of my post-game therapy, I came home and finished my first dwarf unit, some BfSP Miners.  I started painting them because I thought they were horrendous models, and I wanted to see what I could do with them.  I'm pretty happy with the results, and they don't look nearly as awful painted up:

Game 3 (v. Empire):  With a loss under my belt, all the pressure was off, and I was just looking for a fun third game.  Unfortunately, I showed up at the table to find even more war machines than the dwarfs had had: 3 mortars, 2 cannons, and a volley gun.  Despite the wall of shooting, this game ended up close.  I absorbed the empire shooting a little better than I had the dwarf guns, and my elite troops bested his.  If my chariot had made it into his warmachines (it dodged three canon balls before being dropped) or if my spears had been able to get through his flagellants a bit more quickly (40 spears and 30 flagellants spent the better part of three rounds wailing away on each other), I might have been able to pull it out.

In the end, I paid for eliminating the fast moving elements from my army.  I hadn't seen much in the way of shooting lists in 8th edition, with most opponents favoring large blocks of troops.  Ultimately, this was a good lesson in the need for balance in list design.  Anyway, there's another tournament in Mocksville on 6/25.  I'll post a report in couple of weeks.  Hopefully, I'll have more luck there.