Home-Con 2011 quick battle reports

Ok, so just attended Home-Con hosted by Pete Dunn. The event was a standard 10 man tournament with Pete-lite comp. I took the following list:

A.lector: Ha, sh (general)

Lvl4: Light, Rod of Power

W.Priest: Ha, 2hw

BSB: FPA, Charmed Shield, Opal Amulet, Wrymslayer Sword

Captain: Pegasus, FPA, sh, Sword of Fate, Dragon helm

2x38 Halberds: FC with 5 Free Company Detachment

10 xbows

2x30 Flagellants

2 Cannons

Stank

Other lists can be found here: http://www.thefieldsofblood.com/2011/09/homecon-lists.html

My thinking going in was “yay 4 WoC lists that love to get into combat with my combat army.”

So anyway the games:

Game 1: vs Tom Dunn DoC. Battleline 15-5 to me

Game one got off to a great start when I was half an hour late due to my car having a hissy fit at the supermarket. I was a little concerned with the GUO, but the rest of his list wasn’t too much of an issue as I was confident I had the numbers to deal with it....underneath that 5+ ward is a t3 guy who is wounded just as easily as any other t3 guy. The game really swung my way turn 1 when the GUO sucked himself into the warp in exchange for 1 flagellant. Good trade if you ask me. Other highlights included flags with timewarp rolling snake eyes for support charge...then basically getting shot to bits. My Sword of Fate sat at the back guarding my cannons. I managed to get his fiends, 1 unit of Bletters, 1 unit of furies and the GUO of course.

Game 2: vs Jack Dunn Empire. Random Deployment. 6-14 to Jack.

So the mirror match. The game started badly with turn 1 the stank getting pitted, then in my turn the lvl4 decided to join the GUO in the warp. This was my death blow...540 points down is a bit of an ask. I managed to destroy the alter turn 1, and got the A.lector turn 5 when my flagellants ripped his Halberds a new one. This flagellants ripped my other unit a new one. Shadow miasma was really good here when have identical stats! I think I fought back well from the initial loss, but a few things like only 1 wound on the stank from cannon etc meant things didn’t really work out for me. But a really fun game.

Game 3: vs Tim Norling’s WoC. Battle for the Pass. I won by 220 points so I assume 11-9

THE UBER MAURUDER HORDES! I have been looking forward to playing against this army for a long time. Basically Cannons with clear field of fire FTW. This game was a bit of a tactical thinker. Tim made a crucial mistake when he forgot you cannot pursue off the edge of the table. This enabled me to get flagellants into the front and halberds into the flank of one of the hordes. The other horde got a stank to the front and slowing ground down. I then charged one of the Free Company units into the flank (to get it out of the way to allow the other halberd flank charge). I won the combat by lots, the horde failed its re-roll ldship 9 test, to get run down by an angry redhead lass. In other news, I lost a halberd unit to a tzch warrior unit with HW/SH + BSB and combat lvl4, but I got the other unit in a grind with the other halberd unit. Best part of the game was getting a 12 dice dispel phase...yeah.

Game 4: vs Pete Dunn. Blood and Glory lose by 335 points So I assume 12-8 or 13-7

Having faced the sons, I finally face the father. Last time we met on the table my army fell apart sceptically. I played this game really carefully. I got his Abomb with my flagellants-losing 1 unit in the process. My cannons got his plague furnace, but the priest passed his opal amulet ward when the first ball of iron picked him off. I then spent the rest of the game trying to get them to fail a frenzy test and run into my trap...sadly they kept passing their restrain tests...no matter how many ranks I stripped off them. My “golden ticket” failed to pay off. The Warp lightening cannon exploded, I banished the catapult, and the points swing was losing my 2^nd unit of flagellants on the last turn....I can dispel magic, cant dispel gutter runners! Lamest part was my Pegasus guy charging the engineer worth points in a building and failing to do anything! This is after failing 2 of 3 poison s3 wounds when attacking gutter runners in combat. Captasus was worst performing part of my army. A very thinking close game which could have gone either way...I’ll get you yet Pete!

Game 5 vs Sam Whitt’s WoC. Diagonal Deployment Draw 10-10

This game was a draw for 2 reasons: my super Tory deployment, and me rolling all the crap lore of light spells with no doubles. To be fair, my stank, lvl4, A.lector and W.Priest all started in reserve. Basically vs WoC to go toe to toe (esp with 2 units of knights) I need the buffs. Only combats were my xbows vs Marauder horsemen (I won that one), knights on Flagellants (Had 1 left at end of game woot!). The other flag unit took out the other fast calv, and then got stuck on a building. I screwed up their deployment. They should have been 7 wide to squeeze though and support my halberds getting pulverised by knights. Good thing I regularly play Sam, so plenty of chance for less boring a re-match. SORRY SAM FOR CASTLING.

Game 6 vs Neil Williamson’s Brets. Battleline. Win 14-6

This game was rather fun. I took bets from all in the room as to what turn my stank would be Heroically killing blow’ed. They all said turn 3...it was turn 4. I managed to delay this by parking my stank behind a marsh. It was only when the one time all tournament I went for 5 steam points and rolled a 6 that he got his knights around and into the stank (I went into panic mode and re-arranged my line to absorb the charge with the stank as "bait"). Having a lvl4 vs 2 lvl1’s really swung the game my way. Casually giving flagellants Timewarp and my halberds ws and I 10 meant I could grind against his 2+as casually. I was lucky to take out the general’s unit. After HKBing the stank, he needed a 9 on the overrun to get into my halberds. He rolled a 7, giving me a casual flank charge. Timewarp later and his general’s unit was rolled on the charge. My Captasus was once again a massive fail at killing. It managed to hold up the peg knights all game, but didn’t do any wounds. Neil played well, just getting a little unlucky with the general and not having the ability to control my magic. 

RESULT.

In the end I drew for 4^th place with Tom’s DoC. 3 wins, 2 loses and a draw was a good result given that of the two loses, 1 could have swung in my favour by the same amount, and the other was a turn 1 fail. No one managed to win all 6 games, and no one lost all 6 games; so a really fun, close tournament. Hopefully there will be another event soon.

My army:

I was happy with my list. The only change I would make is to drop the Sword of Fate, replacing it with the sword of might. The captain just wasn’t killy enough, and I found that I had killed the target with cannons before he could get into combat, or the target was so good that it would be fluky for me to get the kill. Sword of might makes him more “all round useful”. The spare points could give him a ward of some sort, or more xbows (who were on FIRE all weekend).

Still though, hopefully I can get the High Elves looking good before the next event as I’m keen to get them blooded.