Runefang V: The endless march of Sigmar's finest

So, another fantastic Wellington tournament with lots of positive Warhammer goodness (even with lots of dwarf armies attending). As per the previous post I took an Empire army that upon reflection should not have been written on a lunch break, but oh well.

Anyway the games:

GAME 1: vs Dwarfs Simon
The draw went up, my heart sank as I saw that I had Dwarfs first up. However I was playing Simon who I had the pleasure of playing at Vermintide (and losing to grumble grumble). His army was very cool made up of mantic stuff including a cool as Celtic forge for his Anvil. Anyway it was the random deployment mission and we deployed. I got everything rather central with the Flagellants on the left flank looking at 17 rangers and the Anvil (though with an Organ aimed at them most of the way). I vanguarded my Outriders to get shots at the rangers to help thin them down. Simon is the sort of Dwarf player that is only spoken of in hushed voices in the mountain strongholds-he MOVES his army forward...crazy I know. However with no chaff it was his undoing as it meant I could position myself without much worry. My rocket battery had a field day vs his 3 blocks as they advanced under the cover of a 5++ vs shooting. Each hit (3 in total before combat) killed 12-15 dwarfs...ouch. I was also VERY LUCKY to get my Pegasus into his Grudge thrower turn 2. His cannon and my cannon were useless, but having 2 meant I eventually won the artillery battle. There was a hairy moment where my Knights punched through 1 of his blocks (GW warriors who had been reduced to 10-thank you rocket battery and final transmutation). I ran though then turned around to get a sandwich charge on his BSB unit. He promptly turns around and anvils into the Knights. Epic armour saves later (7 out of 8 4+ 2 rounds in a row...) I got the sandwich charge off. BSB had nowhere to hide so got sword of fated. His Rangers sadly fled the board having been shot 1 too many times by the outriders...but not before they killed 8 flagellants from a failed charge S&S. Had they not fled I think they could have taken out my flagellants due to them been shot so much! However at the end of the game he had 5 miners and Anvil left (on 1 wound in combat with flagellants) = 20-0 to me. 

GAME 2: vs Darkelves Andy

So top of the table WOOT (along with everyone else who 20-oed first game). Game 2 was the diagonal deployment one. Andy is a Brit on holiday in NZ casually dominating the local tournament scene before heading home. He came 2nd at Fluffycon and eventually came 2nd at Runefang. I suspect he will unwittingly get an invite to Masters haha. This game can be summed up rather easily: cannons failed to kill the cauldron (despite many hits etc) and being able to outshoot me ( 2x5 shades, 2x10 xbows, 5 Driders, life taker). The only game where my Archlector died I might add (Kblowed by spears). I played poorly and got unlucky vs a very good opponent and threw away my flagellents carelessly. eventual score was 19-1 to Andy....back down the table I go.

GAME 3: vs Brets Henry

Watchtower vs Brets with 10 archers...easy eh? nope I made a HUGE mistake of not putting my flagellants into the building. Instead I relied on 5 archers and got greedy trying to take out his knight buses with the flagellants-almost succeeded too grrr to poor flagellant placing. My 5 archers had to get out the building turn 5 to avoid a charge, hoping to tie up his peg knights for 1 more round of combat...nope.  oh well. Searing DOOM FTW here. Took out 1 knight bus in 2 castings-even with 1st casting vs 4++ from MR. My knights took out another of his knights with a CR run down (1+ as and s6 BSB FTW). VHS was a lifesaver as my pope got a character bus to the face and spent the entire game slapping a paladin FINALLY killing him last round of combat. (seal of destruction removed the +3 attacks, +3 strength spell!) I almost died-on 1 wound left = 6 dice healing spell = roll 6 6's...like a boss. 2 units of 4 Peg knights and some beardy long range charges took out all my support and halberd block + mages. a 13-7 loss in the end that should have been a 10-10 or even 11-9 to me taking into consideration the 600pts I lost for not holding the tower end of turn 6...DONT BE GREEDY!


GAME 4: vs WoC Sam.

Banners mission.
So what happens when you cross a flying Chaos lord with charmed shied, 2+/ 3++ with xbows and 2 cannons? I'll tell you what. turn 1 -crossbows remove charmed shield, then cannons open up and get 2 wounds on the lord (grrr bad wounding roll). Turn 2 10 xbows unleash at close range and kill Lord! Also what happens when you cross a rocket battery with Marauders? BOOM is what you get. This game I fell in love with the Rocket battery. Casually killing 3 ranks of troops, "miss" target and still kill 8 guys. Carnage is all I can say. His knights + BSB cleaned up the flagellants in 2 rounds of combat with wasn't nice, but not unexpected. The hairy moment was when my knights charged a very depleted unit, killed all but 2...only for them to hold on snake eyes! I had spent AGES arranging my archers to stop a flank charge...nope. Horde of Marauders into the flank...3rd eye mindrazor and then sad face. Thankfully he has to challenge my BSB who survived long enough for my halberds to flank charge for the victory (having successfully killed 4 remain halberd warriors...5 wounds 5 failed 5+ AS). The knights died next round, but I still got enough points out of him (and took enough banners) to get a comfortable win built on the back of some of the worst rolling I have ever seen from Sam. Dice whispering...IT WORKS :P 19-1 to me.

GAME 5: vs Skaven Dan

Final game vs Skaven. Battleline. Little did I know, but my opponent is a member of this years ETC team...which explains the "deploy in opposite corner and rely on the fact I have more shooting" tactic :P SO that's exactly what happened. I killed 2 rat darts, 1 unit of gutter runners, 1 engineer with brass orb, WLC and Plague claw (got 2 wounds through then it exploded). He killed lvl4 and xbows (13th grrr), my artillery, outriders and my archer detachments. Worst moment was my archers sucking vs rat darts and running away sigh. ETC game play for a 12-8 win to the rats. I was an interesting game though. The cautious advance is a style I want to get better at, and it was a good lesson in how it is done.

END RESULT. 54 battle points, max sports and painting = NINTH. Top 10 is a fantastic result considering I won 2 and lost 3. Had I won the watchtower as a should have, I would have placed even higher. Oh well. My goal was to come out with more points than if I had drawn every game, and I achieved that.


THOUGHTS ON LIST:

Well, didnt need the Crown of Command after all in the end :P If I had had it I might have been more willing to commit to charges-and I really think that is the key point. I was cautious with the knights because I did not want to get bogged down. When I charged they were awesome so knights are a keeper (well, until April when everything changes). BSB Somight is too many points to pair with "beard of command" (my bsb has no helmet, but has an epic beard), so will need to think hard about how to arm him-though I suspect he will get access to normal items...GW and dragonhelm for s6 1+ As!

Flagellants: Take or leave them with lore of shadow. They really need lore of  light to shine.In fact I was very unimpressed with the lore of Shadow all tournament. Only spell I ever cast was miasma. I was using my dice to cast searing doom or banishment to cause actual damage on stuff. OH- in the Bret game I cast light of battle for the first time EVER. wow. I think for future games I will revert back to lore of light on lvl4 and stick with metal on the lvl1. With the Walter providing bound spells I should have a very effective magic phase...and a lvl4 that wants to cast.

Rocket battery? YES PLEASE. Best shot of the event: killing 25 clan rats at max range...scatter brought me dead center of the unit. Would I bring 2? possibly, but would need to lose something and not too sure what that would be. 1 is heinous enough 2 is just plain filthy!

Did I miss the stank? Short answer "no". Long answer "without lore of light I would take it over flagellants". However bringing back lore of light = stick with flagellants. Too much lore of metal (6  armies at Runefang) to risk a stank, and there is always the shadow threat too.

Halberds over Swords? I keep hearing "Swords are better: ws4, i4, parry etc". I keep thinking "s4 ftw" + lore of light makes most of that irrelevant. The new book might change that...and if it does expect mass conversion of my flagellant meets graveguard swordsmen to get an awesome unit...


So back to the drawing board to get a cool list for gaming on Wednesday night. The Armies of Sigmar continue to march on.