HE Spearmen Conversion Complete and Southern Assault Day 2

To finish my tournament report, I came into the second round at 1-0-2, which was good enough to be on table 6.  I knew that the two draws meant I didn't have any shot at any generalship awards, but I thought with a victory or two that I might crack the top ten.  It turns out that I didn't need to worry about cracking the top ten.

Game 4 (Lizardmen):  I originally thought I was up against another daemon player (which I was looking forward to); however, when I saw Lizardmen, I knew I was in trouble.  For some reason, I always struggle against Lizards; I personally think they are one of the more powerful 8th edition armies.  This list was a little atypical in that it featured four units of skinks; however, he was using the slann with all of the bells and whistles.    In the end, this game showed the power of augmentations in 8th edition.  He primarily focused on the ward save spell, the shield of thorns, and the toughness spell, using dwellers primarily as a bluff.  The extra slann dice meant that I couldn't hope to stop everything, and he was typically able to get off two of the three spells with no problem.  The swordmasters did manage to sneak around and get a rear charge off on the exposed slann, but they did no damage.  My opponent had some bad luck with leadership tests early but his skill at manipulating the magic phase ensured him a perfect victory.  Only my archmage survived at the end.   The archers were my best unit here again, further cementing my plans to use a more archer heavy force next time.

Game 5 (Beastmen):  For the final game, I ended up in the middle of the pack against a veteran player's beastman army.  My opponent was a lot of fun and as often happens at the end of tournaments like this, neither of us took the game as completely as serious as we might have.  One thing that impressed me in his play was his use of Transformation of Khadon as magic defense.  He would cast it at the end of every round, leaving me with the decision of whether to use 4 of my power dice to dispel it or whether to allow a dragon to charge the next turn.  In hindsight, I probably should have just let the dragon go. I don't know that he would have actually used it, and if he had, it's possible that I could have dispelled it and killed the mage during my phase.  I was worried about him flying into my BSB though, so I kept throwing dice at it. This was really a close game, and I actually thought we were heading for my third draw.  However, after I moved a chariot to block a charge from his largest unit, we found that he was still able to nick my unit as it wheeled in.  It was close, bu this brought my archmage's bunker into a fight they couldn't win.  After that, I ended up retreating away to maintain narrow defeat.  The white lions were my best unit this game, but my opponent did an excellent job of using magic (the difficult terrain spell) and redirectors to keep them out of combat.  I think we ended up about two hundred points a part, making this my third really close game of the tournament (which is fine by me).


 In the end, this was my least successful tournament this year with a 1-2-2 record; however, because the games were so close, I had a lot of fun. My soft scores were good which was enough to put me right in the middle of the pack overall.  In addition,  I was pleasantly surprised to have been awarded the "Player's Choice Award" for best army.  I understand that the voting was very close. Honestly, I'd rather win awards like that than generalship awards as it shows that people appreciated the hard work I've put into my army. 

I also finished tied for second (with about five players) for best painted army.  Both voting results were also interesting to me because my technical skills are not up to some of the other players.  However, I noticed that many of the best technically painted armies had limited conversions or a very basic display board.  On the other hand, I have several notable conversions and a fairly elaborate (if still unfinished) display board.  As I move forward with this army, I plan to add more extras like that in hopes of augmenting my painting (I also think my painting is getting better, so eliminating some of my older miniatures should help as well).  I think the lesson here is that the extras help an army stand out during voting, so they are worth the time (I also think that some armies stand out more than others, but that is a topic for another time).

That's one reason that I am converting these spearmen.  I'm hoping that this unit will stand out on the table, and they will definitely look better than my current spears which were both my first fantasy unit and speed painted. I have the models finished; here's how the unit turned out:

As you can see, there are only nine.  This is because the Phoenix Guard kit is rather annoying in that certain bodies only connect with certain arms.  My tenth figure's arm wouldn't fit.  Hopefully, I'll be able to correct that out of the next box.   I've been alternating between modeling these guys and painting a unit of TK chariots.  Hopefully, I can get a test model painted before next week's post. 

HE Spear Conversion and Southern Assault Day 1

I'm going to use this post to give a quick run-down of my games.  I'm not going to do a blow-by-blow report, but I will share some of what I learned from each.  For those that might not have read last week's post, I attended Southern Assault at Parker, Banner, Kent, and Wayne in Cornelius, NC.  It is a two-day GT style event, and there were 38 players in attendance.

I posted my list last week, and it's pretty close to what I've been playing in the tournaments that score paint.  As I pointed out, there are some flaws in the list, and this infantry heavy set-up has not been nearly as successful as my dragon lists.

Game 1:  We left the house at 5AM, so I was a bit tired and grumpy for the first game.  Luckily, I drew a pleasant opponent whom was playing a Bloodthirster led Daemon army.  This was my first matchup against a Thirster, and they absolutely wreck stuff.  HEs can be vulnerable to big monsters, especially those with ward saves.  Magic probably gives us the best chance of dealing with things like hydras and Thirsters, but Lore of Life is a bit limited in that respect.  Outside of the big daemon, my army had the advantage in combat.  I wanted to use the PG to bog it down, but its fly let him pick his combat.  He really wanted to go get my Archmage's bunker, but I managed to maneuver them an inch behind the white lions, so he contended himself with eating that unit.  It took him several turns to massacre them which gave me enough time to pick up some points elsewhere, and the game ended in a 45 point draw.

The key moment in the game came in the last round when he moved his screamers, whom had been whittled away by archers, to apparent safety.  Unfortunately, he didn't notice that if the PG won their combat that they could potentially charge them in my my half of the turn. The scenario played out in my favor, and I was able to grab some much needed victory points.  The MVP unit for this game was probably the archers, who destroyed some flamers and forced the screamers into a tight spot.  I'm thinking I definitely need more ranged power in future tournament lists.

Game 2:  With my draw and a decent collection of battle points, I moved up a few tables and found myself playing a Dark Elf player.  I've been to enough tournaments to know most of the local players, but this was my second game against a new player.  I like meeting and playing new folks, and this guy seemed to be a very astute player.  He did not have the Sacrificial Dagger in his list, which was a nice change of pace from  typical DE lists; however, he did have the Pendant, which really gave me fits.  He had the Pendant on a Pegasus hero so he was able to fly him right into my white lions, neutralizing my best unit for the whole game.  As you can see, the ability of flying heroes to pick their spots is recurring them of this tournament.

This game really demonstrated the random nature of 8th edition.  Some people hate this aspect of the game; I actually like it. The uncertainty of pulling off charges and the calculation of risk is where some of the most enjoyable strategy lies.  Anyway, we went through about two rounds where no one could land a charge or overrun.  I thought I had picked up the early advantage when I got two units into his corsairs.  He only rolled a 6 for his break roll, so I figured with two units (one of them being swiftstrider!) I had that unit.  I rolled 5 1s.  That's not exaggeration.  This set him up for a combined charge with his blackguard going into my unit's front and a hydra into the side.  The hydra needed a four on its roll to complete the charge.  He got a 3.  That was pretty much the whole game.  Ultimately, the game came down to whether his Pendant pegasus could eat my whole unit of white lions.  Thanks to some judicious use of Regrowth he came up one model short (my least favorite part of 8th -- you kill that many white lions and you deserve some points), and the game ended in a 27 point draw.  This made my archmage the MVP for this game.  In the end, this was a really fun game which featured lots of maneuvering (more fun than just meeting in the middle); a fun opponent and a close ending made this my favorite game at the tournament.

Game 3:  In a game that has made it difficult to draw, I now had two. The tournament gave draws a 10-10 split in battle points which meant that given some decent battle point scores, I was moving slowly up the tables.  For the third game, I found myself up against a TK army that was at 2-0.  I'm pretty well acquainted with TK since they are my backup army.  His list was set up around a Tomb Guard deathstar that contained a Destroyer of Eternity's king, a necrotect, a BSB, and his hierophant.  Needless to say, killing that unit was not going to be easy.

I generally don't fear armies that lean on a single unit. I can use eagles to hold them up while I kill the rest of the army.  However, during this game, I got some early luck and managed to take down his support units quickly.  I also had the chance to combine charge the Tomb Guard, so I took it.  Please note for future reference that even under optimal circumstances that  TG deathstar is a hard nut to crack. Eventually, it broke every thing I threw at it.  Luckily, I got all the TG, but the King lived to plot his revenge.  There's not much to say about this game; I took a lot of points without giving many away.  The MVP was my noble on great eagle who hopped from fight to fight wreaking havoc. Having that flying hero along with a life mage to heal him really helped the cause.

So that's day one.  All in all, I felt pretty good at 1-0-2.  I knew I wasn't in contention for any of the generalship prizes, but I figured that I'd be in line for some challenging games at the top table.

Now, back to the hobby side of things, my phoenix guard into spearmen conversion continues.  I have several mostly completed now.  Last time I suggested clipping the hand of the spear and pinning it back together.  Don't do that.  It makes the spear too short.  I didn't think anyone would notice, but it looks silly.  Instead, it's possible to shave the hand off and then file it flat.  I think that works far better.  I thought I was going to use silver helm bits for the shield arm, but they don't fit.  Therefore, I went with regular spearman arms which seemed to work just fine.  Here's what I have so far.

Looks like a couple need a little more file work, but they look fine to the naked eye. Any thoughts or suggestions?

Southern Assault (10/1-10/2 in Cornelius, NC) and High Elf Spear Conversion

It's aliiiiiiive!  Obviously, it has been a while since I posted.  I went on vacation and later took on some extra responsibilities at work.  The net result has been an almost total hobby freeze.  However, I was able to make it down to NC's newest GT this weekend, and I have picked up enough steam to post once more.  Hopefully, I'll be able to pick up my forgotten wargaming projects and keep this thing rolling.

Primarily, this post will be a review of the new tourney, and I want to say up front that Southern Assault has what it takes to become the WHFB experience in NC.  Jerry and Dan run a great event.  They are super organized and added a lot of unique touches such as the gaming club competition (congratulations Kobra Kai) and a hobby knowledge quiz.  Events like this really bring the gaming community closer together, and I am   hopeful that they can build on this great inaugural event.  If you're interested in the game and can make it up next year, I highly recommend it.

One thing positive that I noticed was the variety of armies present.  I believe there was at least one representative from each army except the Bretonnians.  The so-called power armies (VC, DE, and Daemons) had the most entries (along with Empire) as usual, but I never had to play the same army twice (I drew Daemons, Tomb Kings, Dark Elves, Lizards, and Beastmen).  The final battle point standings help make the case that 8th edition is more balanced as only the Lizardmen placed two entries into the top ten.  Furthermore, some of the "softer" armies were at the top of the heap:  an Ogre player took best overall (and had the most battle points) and a Wood Elf player took home a well-deserved best general.  For those interested in such things, the top ten (out of 38) in battle points were as follows: Ogres, Wood Elves, Dwarves, Lizardmen, Warriors, Lizardmen, High Elves, Beastmen, VC, and Orcs.

I thought the tourney also offered a good display of the hobby side of the game as the painting scores were very close, and I saw some great boards and got some conversion ideas.  I have a few pictures to show off, but I want to get permission from the owners before I put them up.  I did get to take my kids through the displays, and they were thoroughly impressed.  My son was especially taken by the Nurgle army that won best painted while my daughter enjoyed the Christmas themed Dark Elves (including Santa in his chariot ... er sleigh).  Good stuff.

As usual at tournaments like this, the list I took was balanced between looking good and being effective on the table.  Here's what I ended up with:

Archmage (Level 4, jewel of dusk, general)
BSB (Armor of Caledor, Dawnstone, GW)
Noble on Great Eagle (Helm of Fortune, Shield, GW)

27 Spearmen (FC)
15 Seaguard (FC, standard of discipline)
12 Archers (Standard)

27 White Lions (FC, banner of eternal flame)
19 Phoenix Guard (FC, champ with amulet of light)
12 Swordmasters (Standard)
Lion Chariot

Great Eagle
Great Eagle

I made this list pretty quickly since the tourney was a last minute affair for me, but the phoenix guard, great eagles, and eagle lord are all winners.  The white lions are dangerous, but they get whittled down pretty quickly.  The swordmasters shine against non-shooting foes, but in small numbers, they work best off to the flanks.  As far as the list losers go, the sea guard are too expensive for a bunker.  I believe the points would have been better spent giving the archmage the Talisman of Saphery and Forlariath's Robe and shifting the archmage to the white lions.  This also serves to make Earthblood a dangerous spell as it gives the white lions a much needed defensive boost.

In retrospect, my final verdict is that life < shadow.  I won or drew every game in which I got the toughness spells, and I lost every game that I didn't.  In addition, in the game I was massacred, I drew awakening of the wood, throne of vines, shield of thrones, and regrowth.  That's not exactly the most fearsome set of spells, and outside of some special situations, a savvy opponent knows that he doesn't really need to stop anything except regrowth.  That's really the problem with running a lone Life caster.  Outside of Dwellers and Flesh to Stone everything else is pretty situational.  If you head to battle without one or the other, and your opponent can save his dice for the one you do have.  Shadow has some bum spells, but I think the possibility of getting two really dangerous spells is much higher there than with Life.  My next list will probably change the archmage to Shadow and  add a level 2 High caster so that I can get the white lions a much needed ward save.  We'll see how that goes as I get ready for the next tournament.

Anyway, I'll do a rundown of my games in my next post.  I somehow managed to take home a prize, but I'll leave you in suspense about what it was.  In the meantime, I took my prize money and picked up a box of Phoenix Guard to convert into Spearmen.  My spears are very rough having been speed painted before a tournament when I first got back into the game.  The models are also among the worst in the High Elf range.  Therefore, I'm hoping to upgrade with a sweet conversion (I have no idea who to credit for this idea.  I've seen a few such conversions on Ulthuan.net, but I'm not working from any specific guide).

In the box, you get 6 one-handed and 6 two-handed halberds.  The one handed ones will just need to be clipped from this:

To this:

However, the two handed ones need to have the extra hand clipped out like this:

You can then take your hand drill and drill a hole to pin the weapon back together (I used a 52 bit here). Once you are finished, you have a sweet looking spear (hopefully I can use some liquid green stuff to even out the jagged edge at the joint):

That's enough for now.  Next time I'll give you an update of the games and show you how the conversion is progressing.

My New White Lions

Before I get into my weekly dose of miniature goodness, I want to make a personal plea to vote for Rod Spellman for Ennies Judge.  You can vote here:  http://www.ennie-awards.com/vote/

Rod writes the general gaming blog "On First," which you can find in my favorites.  He knows more about gaming than anyone I know, and as you can see from his reviews, he is able to analyze them with a keen eye.  I am certain that he would be an outstanding judge, so I hope you will head to that page and give him your vote.  If you have your own blog or are the member of any gaming related fora, feel free to evangelize the masses:  Rod Spellman for Ennies Judge!

Now that I've made my shameless plug, it's onto miniatures.


I've been working on rounding out my white lion unit this last week.  I've been running a unit of 30, which despite its high cost, has been working very well.  They do boatloads of damage, and their stubborn trait helps protect them from a bad round.  Currently, I managed to finish off the unit; however, I used a unit filler to do so.  I'm still deciding on whether I like it.  On one hand, I like the lion models, and when I run two lion chariots along with this unit, the army looks very nice together.  On the other hand, I'm not sure I like having two lions leaping out of ranked infantry.  What do you think?

Looking at the picture, I see that I need to paint the lion's eyes.  A handler might also look nice.  I have an idea for a conversion using the chariot driver, so I might add that next.

Incidentally, the white lions are the only of the new releases that I bought.  I think they far outstrip their metal predecessors.  On the other hand, I was happy with the old Dragon Princes and Phoenix Guard, so even though the new models are nice, I wasn't moved to purchase some.  I will say that this kit upset me a bit because it was far less customizable than most GW kits.  Each body was only matched with two out of the four available torsos, and when I tried to deviate from the guide, the models were left with gaps.  The end result is nice, but I guess I am spoiled by the freedom of the other kits.

It looks like I might get to try Hordes of the Things this week, so look for a reaction to that game in the coming days!

Storm of Magic Tournament (7/10 ~ Durham, NC)

In the last post, I said that I was going to take a tougher High Elf list to the uncomped tournament at Sci-Fi Genre in Durham.  This is the list that I ultimately took:

Archmage w/ Book of Hoeth
BSB w/ Armor of Caledor and Dawnstone

40 Spearelves
20 Archers (standard of discipline)

24 Phoenix Guard (Banner of Sorcery, Amulet of Light)
30 White Lions (Ironcurse Icon)
14 Swordmasters (Gem of Courage)

Eagle
Eagle
Eagle

My plan was to use the irresistible Dwellers Below to soften up units for my capable close combat troops.  However, when I got there I learned that this was not a straight tournament.  Instead, it featured three of the scenarios from the new Storm of Magic expansion.  Needless to say, this changed the dynamics of the game quite a bit.  Here were the scenarios we played:

Scenario 1:  The only change was that players rolled 4d6 for power dice (with the top two being the dispel pool).  It seemed like 20 to 11 was the regular spread in my games.  At first glance, I thought this was a big advantage to high magic armies.  However, what really happened was that the increased dispel dice allowed  opponents to kill the most important spells.  I'm thinking that if people knew that they were playing this kind of tournament that they might have been able to take more high level casters.  As it was, this rule definitely boosted magic defense rather than offense.

That said, my high elf opponent (who went on to tie for third in the tournament) used his extra dice to power all three of the lore of death character sniping spells and managed to take out my BSB and my archmage by the end of his second magic phase. Despite this set-back, I was able to use my combat troops to claw back into the game.  Some lucky leadership tests and timely applications of the steadfast rules allowed me to squeak out a three hundred point victory.

Scenario 2:  During this round, the rules from scenario 1 stood; however, new rules added a chart on which we rolled each round to see which lores of magic could be cast at +4 power.  This really didn't come into play much.  Most of the time we rolled lores that neither player possessed.

I drew a Vampire Counts army this round, and my increased dispel pool helped me mitigate his magic phase.  I was able to pull the Drakenhoff Grave Guard away from my battle line which allowed the rest of my army to mop up his ghouls.  My irresistible magic phase was annoying for my opponent; I can definitely see why it is banned in most tournaments.

Scenario 3:  The rules from the first two rounds stood; however, this round added the fulcrums. These terrain pieces boosted the defense of the casters (who had to stand on them outside a unit); however, miscasts had to roll on the chart from the core book as well as a different chart than included all kinds of crazy results (turning the caster into a monster, turning all casters on the board into frogs, etc). 

In my third game, these didn't come into play much at all.  I was paired against a Tzeentch/Khorne Daemons army on the second table. His caster got off the fulcrum at the first opportunity, and his whole army shot everything it could at my archmage, slaying him before she could flee into the safety of a unit.  However, I was able to rally by dragging his Bloodletter horde away with my eagles.  His horrors and flamers really had no answer for High Elf combat troops.  Without my mage to protect me, I took a beating in the magic phase, but most of it was magic missiles.  I lost troops, but he wasn't able to eliminate whole units.  In the end, I got everything but his Lord of Change and his Bloodletter horde (which is a ton of points); however, he only got my eagles and my archers.  I knew it was close, but after we added the points for banners and my general, it ended up being a 109 point spread (ten points from a draw).

Ultimately, I can't say I was that impressed by the Storm of Magic magic rules.  To me, they just seemed to slow the game down without adding all that much.  However, we didn't use any of the new spells or army build rules, so perhaps when those are added in, it will work better.  My guess is that the next Sci-Fi tournament will use the full Storm of Magic rule, so it's time to start building up my army of Lammasu (I'll also be sure to have a Bloodthirster to hang out with my High Elves).

Listwise, with my shiny new Book of Hoeth, I was expecting to have plenty of dice with which to destroy my opponents.  However, what really happened was that my opponents used their magic dice to snipe my wizard in the first round of the game.  I only got to use her in the second game (and in that game he did indeed revel in his brokenness).  Despite losing the lynchpin of the list, I was still able to win all three games (1 massacre, 2 regular victories), taking the second place prize (1st place was the Beastman army to which I lost in the first round of the Mocksville tournament.  He had 2 massacres and a regular victory).

The way the tournament went down makes me wonder if I just shouldn't drop wizards all together.  I could take another solid combat block for the points of an archmage.  If I knew that I could get 10 dispel dice every turn, I just might do that.  Sadly, there are no more tournaments around here any time soon.  After the recent flurry, I doubt we have another until September.

That break should give me a chance to work on some of my non-Warhammer models.  I still need to finish my DBA Carthaginians.  I started to use my prize money to buy a Perdita warband for Malifaux (I saved most of it, so I still might), and one of the players in Durham and I have been discussing starting up Field of Glory.  So many models; so little time.

I feel odd closing a post with no pictures, but I haven't painted anything lately.  In lieu of new content, here's a shot of the model that drew the most attention at the tournament: my swordmaster's standard bearer.  This model inspired several discussions about the laws of physics.  Do you think the flag is too much?

Mantic Dwarves

Or is it dwarfs?

Anyway, I've long been interested in a dwarf army.  Even when my wargaming consisted of nothing but 40k, I was interested in fantasy and had plans of starting an army.  My first aborted attempt at a fantasy army was when I picked up a box of the brand new, state of the art plastic, mono-pose high elf archers back when 2nd edition 40k was current.  That army never went past that one box.  Later during the height of my 40k period, I grabbed three army books to explore the possibilities of starting Fantasy: Orcs and Goblins, Empire, and Dwarfs.  Ultimately, the lack of Fantasy players in NE Tennessee discouraged me from beginning, but dwarfs were always a favorite of mine.

Ten years later, I am sitting on two Fantasy armies (Tomb Kings and High Elves), and even though both are getting quite large, I still find myself adding to them.  I also have limited play time (one tournament per month and one day of weekend gaming per month), and finding the time to play both armies is challenging.  Nonetheless, the siren call of a new army is always strong, so I decided to take the plunge.

However, I did not want to sink a lot of money into them, so I set a limit.  I decided that if I couldn't get a fully functioning army for under two hundred dollars (US) I wasn't going to start one.  Mission accomplished.  Using the Battle for Skull Pass sets from GW, a heavy helping of Mantic's dwarf models, Ebay, and an after-holiday sale from the Warstore, I was able to put together the following list for a grand total of $107.25:

Runesmith (Reaper Margera)

40 Dwarf Warriors
30 Quarrelers
35 Hammerers
2 Organ Guns (all of this from the Mantic Dwarf boxed army and one extra box of Hammerers)

20 Battle for Skull Pass Miners (dirt cheap on Ebay)
2 Battle for Skull Pass Cannons (a little more expensive on Ebay)

At this point, I have about ninety more dollars budgeted with which to get 2 grudge throwers and some character models, which I think is highly doable. 

My biggest concerns with starting this project were appearance based.  I didn't know how well the Mantic models and the Skull Pass models would mix together, and I wasn't sure how I would like working on Mantics figures.  I have one painted now, and I'm pretty happy with the model.  Here's a shot:

As for the first concern, I think they will look fine together.  Here's a comparison shot:

You can see that the Mantic model is actually more bulky, but not outlandishy so.  The two models' beards also are strikingly different.  I will say that the beard was my favorite part of painting the GW model.  However, I do like the braided beard look of the Mantic figure.  I did an informal taste test with some non-gamer friends and family, and they actually preferred the Mantic model, saying that "he looks mean." Ultimately, I think that people will notice a definite difference in the two company's models, but no more so than when old GW figures are mixed with the new (and larger) ones.

As for working with the Mantic mini, I have no complaints.  They are not nearly as customizable as the GW ones.  Most of them are basically two or three part models, so you end up with fairly similar poses throughout the army.  That's no big deal for me as I think dwarves should be fairly orderly.  That minor quibble aside, working with the models was very easy. They were very clean of mold lines, and they went together easily (very quick construction).  Overall, I found them to be excellent models, and you really can't beat the price (and I'm really looking forward to seeing what they do with their new Sci-Fi game).

Here's another comparison shot of the two figures:

That's it for this week.  I'll be playing a tournament this weekend.  There's no comp rules (except for no power scroll and no special characters) and no painting score in this one, so I'm going to take what I think is a powerful high elf list to see what kind of damage I can do.  I'll post a report sometime next week.

Tournament Report (6/25 ~ Mocksville, NC) and a High Elf Army

This weekend, I was fortunate to play a tournament at Heroes Headquarters in Mocksville, NC.  The store seemed new, and it is in a good location with lots of room to play.  I believe there were 22 players in attendance which is a pretty good crowd, and once again, it looked as if the tournament drew players from a wide area.  GameonGW (one of NC's gaming clubs) hosted this event, and I've always been impressed with their events.  I've attended some of their Games Day events (held around Thanksgiving), and they always do a top-notch job.  One thing that I was really impressed with was the scenarios.  They set some specific victory conditions beyond victory points.  This changed the games from "meet in the middle and fight" or "stand at the back and shoot," and I really appreciated that.  I imagine that messing with scenarios is a tricky proposition, but I found the second and third rounds of the tournament to be far more interesting than the core scenarios.

Speaking of local events, I did have the opportunity to discuss the upcoming NC Grand Tournament with one of the organizers. Because I'm not sure how much information he really wants out there at this point, I won't share specifics, but from what he told me, I'm really excited about the format.  They seem to have taken the best aspects of some of the larger national tournaments and fused them into what I think will be a welcome (and long overdue) addition to the local gaming scene.  I'll be following the discussion over at WarhammerNC with great interest.

Anyway, I had three really great games at the Mocksville tournament.  I ended up finishing a disappointing 1-2, but both of my losses came down to one roll in the last round.  I also had three really great opponents, and I ended up taking home the prize for Best Army (an amalgamation of paint and composition, I think).  All in, it was a fun day.  I had painted up a couple of new models for the army, so I thought I'd just take a picture of the army in all its glory:

When tournaments score paint, I tend to base my armies less around tabletop strategy and more around what I think will look best.  I was a little surprised that I got such a high composition score.  Clearly, this shows the effects of 8th edition on army lists.  At a 7th edition tournament, when I dropped a dragon on the table, I worried about getting punched in the face.  In 8th edition, I'm given a high comp score. I weep for what has become of my poor, poor dragon.

Here's a quick run down of my games:

Game 1:  I drew a Beastman army played by a player whom I know fairly well and whom I always enjoy playing.  When the game started, I felt pretty good about the game.  He had no shooting with which to harass my flyers, and I felt like my combat troops would match up pretty well.  I'd like to claim that there was some awesome tactical movement, but basically, our armies just plowed into one another in the center of the table.  Overall, the Beastmen really surprised me with their magic, and I really like the way that this player has his list set up.  I don't normally think of that as a dangerous magic army, but he played a level 4 with death, a level 2 with death, and 2 level 2s with beast.  He was able to boost his magic with the herdstone, and combined the miasma/purple sun combo with some nice buffs and debuffs.  My poor level 2 was pretty badly outclassed, and his magic dominance pushed the combats into his favor.  Still, I had a chance to win at the end as my Prince (on foot by this time -- the dragon had died turn 2) ran off the most expensive Beastmen block. I had whittled the 400 point block down to 4 models, and they finally broke.  Unfortunately, I came up one short on the pursuit, which means I got nothing for all of those kills (how I hate that rule).  I lost by 300 and some odd points, so that might have pulled me into a draw.  Even so, it was a fun game with some excellent banter.


Game 2:  I've been seeing a lot of Lizardmen armies lately, and I met with another in game 2.  This one was unique, however.  He was only running 1 level 1 wizard.  I wonder how many Lizardmen vs. High Elf games have been fought in 8th edition with a grand total of 3 wizard levels on the table.  This was the dragon's game to shine (although some skinks killed him in turn five) as he killed a unit of Salamanders, a unit of Saurus, and an Ancient Stegadon.  This was a pretty one-sided game in my favor, but honestly, I can't take much credit for it.  Every key moment went bad for my opponent whether it was difficult terrain, charge distances, pursuits, or magic.  I definitely applaud my opponent for running a cool, fluffy list regardless of its power level as well as for keeping a good spirit even though the fates had clearly lined up against him.

Game 3: At 1-1 with what I felt was decent number of battle points, I was still technically alive.  I matched up against a Vampire Counts player whom I had played before.  His list revealed a couple of holes in mine: I had no magic attacks or magic missiles with which to challenge the wraiths, and I didn't have enough fire attacks to fend off the Drakenhoff banner.  However, the objective made this game interesting.  Basically, we each got to declare two pieces of terrain as objectives, and whoever held the most at the end of the game won.  This game ended up with one of the most intense endings that I've had in a while.  My army had pretty much folded, but I had placed my two objective pieces over on the right flank, and my spearmen and swordmasters had gone over to hold them.  The way the game had progressed, there was really no way for my opponent to claim them.  The Drakenhoff unit controlled one for my opponent, leaving one free.

The VC player moved two units over in an attempt to claim the fourth objective (and send the decision to Victory Points).  My dragon threw himself in front of one of the units to cut them off.  I was hoping that he'd flank with the other unit, so that I could tie both up.  However, my opponent didn't fall for that, so I figured I was done.  I moved a chariot across in the top of the 5th, hoping it could do something, but the dragon had my path to the other unit blocked.  However, things turned around when the ghouls took the dragon down.  With it out of the way, my chariot was able to hit a very long charge to stop the other unit's advance.  My prince held the ghouls, and it looked like it was my opponent who had snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.  He then made his own hail mary pass in the bottom of the sixth round.  He marched his vampire to where it was barely in range, and landed a banishment which knocked the swordmasters down to 3 models.  He was hoping to panic them, but I held.  However, the casualties were actually enough to move me one base width away from the building, which meant that I had literally lost by one model.  Although the outcome was disappointing, the game was exceptionally satisfying.

This tournament drops me below .500 for the year, but I can't complain.  I won my second prize of the year and had three great games.  All the talk about the GT in October has me stoked as well.  Although I have some Tomb Kings looking longingly at me from the paint station, I believe they will have to wait.  I have three projects that I think will improve the appearance of my army leading for the GT.  Look for some updates soon in which I replace my spearmen with some conversions, build and paint a new centerpiece model, and redo my display board (or I'll continue to be lazy in which case, you won't see anything here).

Oh and Rod, I used the prize money to buy the Malifaux rules.  Just saying.