Skitterleap day 2

Alrighty, day two.

My submarining was coming along..err...swimmingly. My goal for day 2 was to get 2 decent sized wins and I would be in the top 5.

After a beauty pagent (I voted for Matt's Dwarfs as I really like the effective simple colour scheme he has on them...very dwarfy) we were ready for game 4.

GAME 4 Meeting Engagement vs John D's Delves

So Eww...list number 2 I was hoping to avoid for the event. Cauldron of Blood buffed Black Guard and, lots of shooting, and a metal lvl4. To top it off I failed to roll up Final Transmutation giving me very little long range threat vs his list. So this was looking like draw central.

We deployed-John went first and had a unit of xbows, spears and the general off the board. I didnt have my lvl4, engineer, or stank on the board.

SO it was looking like a shoot off right from the get go. conveniently I stole first turn-getting my lvl4 on the board phew! My first actionw as to run down his darkriders with my Captasus and kill the chariot with cannons. In return I fluffed my dispelling, Captasus lost 2 points of armour and got shot to bits-Still up on points.

The game quickly devolved into a stand off with John  using the building to great effect to hide the cauldron, black guard and hydra from my cannons + blocking my lvl4's searing doom with lots of shooting with range on where I would have to be grrr.

So a quick bit of math (and betting my ICKS could wear some bolts) I moved my Demigriffs up as bait. However, my ICKs failed a swift reform, so I didnt have ldship and BSB support. This drew out the hydra and the coldone knights who I was fairly confident of at least holding against, allowing Stanky stank to flank in and win the day.

However, I forgot to factor in +1 attack from the cauldron =  lost combat and got run down. However, I then managed in turn to run down the hydra and Hellblaster the crap out of the coldone knights. 300 points traded (sadly) to take 345. Why didnt I just wait a turn? Well if I had waited his entire army would have been in hiding meaning it was 45Vps I would not have gotten given the draw like nature of the game-it also freed up my cannons to kill the smaller xbow unit and the lvl2-so yay!

And that was pretty much the game. As I moved my army outside of his xbow range and hoped like crazy my ICKS could hold out (2 left at end!)

Counting up points I had pulled it from a 10 all to 12-8 in my favour-trading the Demigriffs had paid off! Though I have to admit I've never, ever, ever until this game had the gross "play it like the ETC" vibes - and gone with it.

Of note is how amazing John's army was presented. He got 2nd place with an army that was full of theme and character...sadly being Delves it is a little NSFW for close up pics! I spent most of his movement phase spotting and admiring the little scenes built into his units. I suspect he didnt win best painted because the real beauty of his army could be easily missed with a casual glance-heck I missed it during the pagent!

 GAME 5 Battleline vs Tom D's DOC

Last game and I get my 2nd repeat match...however since our last encounter I had the benefit of a "stealth buff" on my Demigriffs...and the day before they had eaten a Billy's brother, and was hungry for the family feast of wicked wings (and other really bad KFC references).

Anywho deployment:

So yeah, as I'm sure Tom knows all too well, the scary part of his army is NOT the letter blocks, it's the super fast chaff-please note it is on the flanks. Also note that fast chaff (lots of) is one of the key counters to new Empire...not up there with Book of Broken searing doom, but close. Anyway, I digress.

Turn 1 involves Tom moving up (Special agent protection on Billy) and really hammering my flanks. Cannons Open up, kill the protection agent and then gets a single, super fustrating wound on Billy. The other cannon does something exciting. Turn 2 it is looking like a 20-nil to Tom.

So fiend, crusher and Billy on left flank, 2 screamer units and fiend on right. Please note my bad attempt with vanilla knights to try protect my flank. Stank kills some Bloodletters with steam gun and hellblaster strips a few Blood letters as well.

Turn 3 Billy, crusher, letters all charge.

Billy in flank of Demigriffs, letters in the front, bloodcrusher into vanilla knights. So vanilla knights break and run having had 2 Kblowed. Billy and bloodletters manage a few wounds between them, but then the Demigriffs get their peck on and win the combat B.O.O.M! One thing I had prepared in my panic (see above pics) was making sure my ICKS could get the flank charge in, so they rock on in. Sadly my BSB get's KBlowed, but I do more than enough wounds to the bloodletters that everyone is testing on double ones. With a cry of "TAKE IT OFF!" Billy is Cres'ed out!

So I set up for the 2nd unit who had finally chomped through the Stank.

Tom takes the bait. Crusher and Bloodletters charge into ICKS. My Art collector takes 2 wounds, but passes KBlow ward and then promptly kills the hearld who was BSB and had the -2 ldship icon. I hold the combat and then flank in with the demigriffs.

Lots of wounds later the letters and crusher pop leaving me to clean up the lvl2 with captasus and the fiend with ICKs.

One thing of note is that all those key combats I was sans lvl4 and reliant on prayers. When Billy charged in my bunker + wizards fled a screamer charge and popped out the other side of my line. They were then counter charged my fiend and ran to safety. They failed to rally and fled some more, then fled some more and eventually rallied in a forest. HOWEVER I forgot that skirmish = stubborn, and didnt bother setting them up to take the fiend charge. Fled charge and was run down. However at that point it didnt mean much...however it would have meant at least 1 more VP...So I won this one  18-2 (when it could have been 19-1), and got my revenge from the schooling Tom had given me just before the event.

END RESULT

My submarning was ALMOST successful as I ended up in a 3 way draw for 6th place (see all the incidents where I could have nabbed 1 more VP in games). Still very happy of that result, and a very enjoyable.

RESULT FOR THE YEAR

So apparently according to the ratings I am 16th in NZ. I did not anticipate ever making the top 20, so aiming for an invite to Masters next year is very achievable...just gotta not take a lolz list to vermintide and leave the woodies on the shelf given my very, very poor placing at Horned Gobbo! Might also require a trip up to one of the events in Hamilton/Tauranga/Auckland next year.

THOUGHTS ON MY LIST

To me, my list for Skitterleap was 85% of where it needed to be. I now officially love the lore of metal (causally 3 dicing Final Transmute), however it would have been nicer to have more from my support caster in the way of choices.  I still have some easy points that I need to shed/protect. So my post tournament Empire refinement has resulted in this:

Alector:            223
     Bsteed, AoDestiny, Sh, COC, Biting blade
lvl4: metal, scroll        225

BSB:                159
     Bsteed, FPA, sh, 4++, ICI
Captasus:            141
     FPA, ch.shield, DBGem, Somight
lvl2: light            100

13 ICKS: FC-Sodiscipline    370
5 Knights: m            120
10 archers            70
5 archer detach            35
5 archer detach            35

2 cannons            240
5 Dgriffs: m, sb        310
4 Dgriffs: m            242

Hurricanum            130
2400

So bye bye stank, hellblaster and engineer. These 3 things did nothing of note that justified the easy points they gave up.

Hello 4++ on BSB (trade off is Art Collector down to 2+/4++) and ICI,
Hello 4 more Demigriffs,
Hello standard on the Big unit to give me blood and glory protection and also give the unit some SCRes,
Hello 2nd lvl on light magic to give me more choices
Hello Hurricanum to make the Demigriffs super scary and compliment my lore choices + extra dice. Also at the end of the day it is a t5, s5 chariot + gives up less points that Stank.

If Crown is banned in comp I can swap it for re-roll armour on Artcollector and sheild of shielding (dropping ICI) to help protect vs lore of metal/MMissiles trying to get my bunker....in fact I will need to playtest this with no Crown...

Anywho post getting a little TL/DR so back to Stargate Atlantis and painting Demigriffs and my soon to be revealed fire mage