Class of Phil Wu 2014 battle reports

Day of Gaming with Ryan getting in some Swedish practice for him in the run up to Runefang. Sadly I wont be attending, so it was an exercise in writing Swedish lists in record time. 

Game 1: Empire Swedish Comp Score 12.something

My list: 

Grand Master (general): Runefang, Charmed Shield

Arch Lector: War Alter, 4+ ward, HA, GW, shield

BSB: barded steed, , Fullplate, GW, Dhelm, Dawnstone, OTS

lvl2 Light

lvl2 Light: scroll of shielding

Engineer

Witch Hunter: Brace of Pistols

5 Knights

5 Knights

8 Inner Circle Knights: FC

34 Halberds: FC

7 archers detachment

4 Demigryphs

Steam Tank

Helblaster

Very exciting Swedish Compy looking list I whipped up around midnight. 

Ryan's list: was pretty cool. choppy characters, block of warriors, chariots, some chaff, hellcannnon, skullcrushers, token magic etc etc. Swedish Comp really makes WoC players think outside the square...Empire players just have to rely on fewer warmachines. 

We rolled up a mission (Meeting Engagement) and I deployed first. 

I was lucky and only my engineer slept in (in pic next to helblaster)..Ryan had his BSB, and the Warriors sleep in.

I went first and did that traditional Empire thing...clogged up my own battleline and moved the combat stuff slightly backwards to see what Ryan would do. HOWEVER I did do something risky! my Witch Hunter and his posse marched up...

Went to Pwn the Chaos Lord on a Disk (played in the film by a Daemon Prince) with some sweet Killing blow goodness. Shots were fired...I rolled to wound...

...Almost! Oh well, that would have been a very nervous ward save to start the game. In other news my Stank rolled a 1 to wound a Skull Crusher, and s5 banishment on the Chaos Lord rolled 12 hits and did a single wound (I THINK that is about right vs t5, 1+ as, 3+ ward...)...either way a nice middle finger salute to the Chaos Lord of Darkness pretending to be a Daemon Prince. 

So in return my Archers tools some doggies to the flank so Mr. Witch Hunter got his combat on, lost on SCres and reformed to face. In other news some Hellstriders failed an easy charge on some knights...and so did a chariot SKILLZ. Mr "Lost a wound already" Chaos Lord landed right in front of my Demis as the bait while the rest of his army rolled up to rush my flank without the Helblaster and Stank. 

So of course I charged Mr Chaos Lord and threw up a couple of buffs.

and promptly put him on 1 wound. In the fluff-fest in the middle of the table...

yeah - super annoying as the daemonic mount lvl2 and 2nd unit of doggies were in position to combo charge in support. 

In other news my knights didn't fail their charge on the Hellstriders (HA!)...instead I passed all my armour saves and failed all my rolls to hit to win by a charge!

They fled 12 and I chased 10, which I thought was good effort.

I really should mention it for completeness sake. My ICK bus failed a charged on a disk Exhalted (needed a 10) by 1 inch and shuffled forward a little bit AND the stank misfired and did nothing :)

Fluff-fest gets interesting with the addition of doggies and lvl2 = Witch Hunter steps up to challenge! Queue lots of missed rolls to hit and stuff (I think over the rounds of combat I got a single wound through).

However that wasn't the main attraction any more...over on my left flank I had entered the Danger Zone.

The mighty WoC army in all its Glory was raining down the pain on my Humble Demis (with ws10, i10, and -1 to be bit) and Inner Circle Knight "Bus". Dice were rolled and stuff and the end result...

Yeah - whose the greatest combat army now huh? Mr scary Chaos Lord of death...DEAD, and the Skull Crushers are running. Disc Exhalted was lucky with BSB enabled successful passing of ldship 5 break test (oh yeah - s4 with hatred pwns...especially when the Grand Master hits only once with the Runefang)

So what's a boy to do? Well I did some sneaky mathematics stuff and got my Waralter all up in their faces and got the 6 inch prayer radius to benefit both the Demis and the ICKs. Lots of dice later, IFing and losing Banishment and stuff I got phas off and gave my combat units a 5+ ward (and then realised my OTS BSB was right next to my Grand Master who was winding up to gank the Exhalted in a challenge - who needs a normal ward anyway?) So Combat happend and...

Mr BSB broke from combat (having provided the re-roll allow the 9 remaining warriors to stick around) and the Grand Master Runefanged the Exhalted TO THE FACE. That was a little tense...3 hits and 3 failed wards.

In other news my Stank failed the supporting 12 inch charge to get my archers and Witch Hunter out of trouble. Naturally that was the turn they all died :(

In the next round Demis vs Warriors went my way with a nice run down. Ryan moved his 2 chariots up to get my Helblaster working on the assumption that 5 knights will lose vs his chariot. Well...in my turn he was proven almost right! my Helbaster shot for the first time in the game and blew apart 1 of the chariots and the knights charged, passed all their armour saves like a boss, promptly fluffed all their attacks and won with the charge SCres for the run down!

Knights - winning with the charge only since forever!

So with a Hellcannon, lvl2 and 1 unit of doggies left Ryan tied to hide (failed all march tests) and the Hellcannon exploded :)

1 banishment (only casting from the waralter all game), and helblaster later the battlefield was property of the EMPIRE!!!!

Result: Big win to the Empire (or more correctly their armourers...I was rolling those saves like a boss!)

GAME 2: High Elves Swedish Comp Score 8.something (or 11 if seaguard "bows" dont count towards the cap...)

Off for lunch and beer and then back into round 2. For this game I took a very, very, similar list to Ben Mitchell's US Masters list...did the USA masters comp pack exclude seaguard from the shot cap because that was the difference between a score of 11 (as advertised on Raffazza) and 8.something????

Anywho the list:

lvl4 shadow: 4+ ward (general)

BSB: Armour of Destiny, GW

Noble on Eagle: Dragon Armour, Enchanted Shield, Starlance

28 SeaGuard; FC (super broken in Swedish...gave me -41)

6 Reavers: M, Champ

6 Reavers: M, Champ

21 Phoenix Guard: FC - Razor Standard

6 Dragon Princes: FC - Banner of World Dragon (fluffy!)

Lion Chariot

Lion Chariot

5 Sisters of Avelorn (their first game awwww)

RBT

RBT

RBT

Eagle

And when rolling for spells I rolled Mindrazor 3 times! This game was shaping up to be Class of Phil Wu 2014 MMMMMMMMMIIIIIIINNNNDRAAAAAAAAAZZZZZZZZORRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (still havn't forgotten Phil...still haven't forgotten...)

Anywho we rolled up Dawn Attack and I (once again) got the pleasure of deploying first (rather boringly). Ryan (with same list) was stuck with the infamous "split forces".

Sorry as this is Wellington where in the Hills you lose the sun at like 9am these pics are a little dark.

I got the first turn (naturally) and shuffled forward a bit and stuff. I chucked a -3 Movement miasma on the Hellstriders to limit their charge options and shot them down to 2. -2 Toughness on a chariot and it was down to 1 wound. In return Ryan shuffled forward, except for his Hellstriders who made the crazy charge ( needed an 11) despite my best efforts and took out a bolt thrower.

And his Exhalted thought he would try his luck vs my Seaguard

And the Hellcannon (for the 2nd time in a row) splatted the Eagle noble t1...sigh. Nice authoritative first turn for the WoC. 

In my turn the phoenix guard and it's lion chariot shuffle forward. Doggies and a chariot flee my charges. Shooting does 1 wound to Mr Chaos Lord and my Mage skillfully IF's MINDRAZOR and Exhalted on disc is no more! 2 Phoenix Guard die for that. 

SO what's a WoC to do? well Hellcannon goes crazy and almost charges the Dragon Princes who are now in not the best situation...

And Ryan pulls off the beardiest of beardiest rally rolls EVER.

Rallies the chariot first (BIG smile on my face...) and then the doggies rally (grrrr). Mr Chaos Lord charges reavers (flee) and redirects into my bolt thrower that found itself on the front lines of a very, very, very stacked flank! 

In my turn I throw caution to the wind and charge my Phoenix Guard and a lionchariot into the Skullcrushers. Dragon Princes (reluctantly) charge the Hellcannon and manage 2 wounds(!) before the fluff-fest set in. 

Anywho - I pick up my dice and IF...MINDRAZOR!!!!! for the 2nd turn in a row. 2 wounds on the Skullcrushers, 1 wound on the chariot and 3 dead Phoenix Guard and the following happens...

1 whole skullcrusher removed with impact hits

and 1 whole unit removed with mindrazor

Oh -and on top of that the eagle blocked off the warriors so they couldn't kill the sisters who finished off the chariot like the pros they are. 

Reasonably hard to see in the next pic, but Mr Chaos Lord charges the Eagle and the Warriors reform to take the Phoenix Guard to the face. The lvl2 fire mage on Daemonic Mount is rocking in the font row...the sisters look on from the safety of their tower.

And Mr Chaos Lord fails to Kill the Eagle who holds! and Mr lvl2 decides to Cascade, kill 8 warriors and fall down a hole flame caging the Phoenix Guard...life is cruel. Mr BSB also charges into the Seaguard who were closing in on the action to lend their support (still yet to shoot their -41 comp hit bows for anything other than very ineffective stand and shoots). Champ dies and the BSB gets +1 Ballistic skill!

Meanwhile the rallied chariots and doggies moved back into the action.

In my Turn I play it cool. Reavers charge and kill the doggies sure, why not. Phoenix Guard charge the warriors (meh - 5 die to flame cage) and then I play the magic phase (crazy 11 dice) cool...

Say Hello to t1, s3 Warriors...

and If'ed MINDRAZOR for the 3rd time (a few more things die)..I'm such a pro at warhammer...

Ryan's head drop and loud sigh was priceless

And something odd happened...the BSB DIDN'T DIE???????????? He WON THE COMBAT...and I held phew...stupid no re-rolls to hit due to high I and 3+ ward. Still 1 wound down...2 more to go. The WoC however felt the sharp end of my (rather diminished) Phoenix Guard's sticks and were run down...oh and the mighty Mr Chaos Lord finally killed the eagle :)

However all was not good in the hood. Mr Chariot charges into support the Hellcannon and kills 2 knights (I hold) and Mr Chaos Lord charges into the flank of the Phoenix Guard...

and the Champ dies as I play for time...doesn't help that I also fail my reform to face roll...oh Mr BSB finally dies to MINDRAZOR'ed seaguard...2nd round of combat's the charm.

In my turn the chariot kills the Dragon Prince unit champ (not before taking a wound) and finds itself un-engaged and free to move in its turn. Vs Mr Chaos Lord things go very, very, very, very, very, very, very wrong. I get MINDRAZOR off...but character dies and I fail my steadfast test and I'm run down...Mr Chaos Lord nets himself 1029pts including all the bonuses :(

BIG swing in the game right there!

1029pts for the Blood God...yet still not granted Daemon Princeness despite appearances

MR Chaos Lord then goes into the flank of the Reavers (who were picking on the last unit of doggies) and takes their points over 2 rounds of combat. The doggies run off the board thanks to Sister induced panic test :D However I finally get the set up I was waitiing for...Lion Chariot on Slaanesh Chariot!!!

We draw the first round of combat (both super fluff) but in the final round of combat of the game my Whitelions and their Lions rip the chariot a new one! 120pts well spent!

Result: 13-7 to the High Elves! MVP goes to my lvl4 and Mr Chaos Lord. 

It was great to see the Lion Chariots (played in the film by Tiranoc chariots) in action and not sucking. Noice little support charges, and taking out a chariot at the end = awesome!

So that's my Swedish experience for the year out of the way....2 wins with 2 very different lists. Phil Wu would be proud of my 4 MINDRAZORS in a row - 3 of the IF. BOOM! 

Sisters of Avelorn - finally painted

Woah - Painting update!

Finally after goodness knows how long I finally bought myself a box of the new Shadow Warriors/Sisters of Avelorn - it's as if I've been playing the High Elves with one arm tied behind my back. I decided to assemble the box as 5 Shadow Warriors, and 5 Sisters of Avelorn. Given their importance - the sisters were first on the painting table.

No surprises on the paint scheme...except for the leather. I swapped my paint scheme to Steel Legion Drab washed with Agrax Earthshade and then re-layered with Steel Legion Drab. Dheneb stone would be the final highlight colour that I'll probably get around to doing.

Now to finish the final few Silverhelms and get the Shadow Warriors painted.

I've got 2 games on Saturday vs Ryan's WoC. I'll be running 2 Swedish 11 lists - Awesome Slaanesh themed Daemons, and one of the High Elf lists from the USA Masters.

I can't attend Runefang this year (sad face) so this will be my "Swedish event". I'll post up some battle reports of the fluff-fest.

Hobby Update stuff and things

Hi all,

Long break since the last post. Since NZTC I havn't played much (any???) Warhammer, so I'm itching for a game!

I have however managed to get in my first game of Killteam (the unofficial fan version - rules can be found here) and it is AWESOME. All the best bits of Mordheim + actual armour, and sci-fi goodness makes it a game I shall be playing a lot more of.

For those of you who care here is my Kill Team Roster (I havn't started a campaign yet or anything, so no character names or upgrades etc)

Salamander Kill Team
Veteran Sergeant 24
storm shield 15
Lightning Claw 15
special issue ammo 5
(mastercrafted boltgun) free

5 Tactical Marines 70
Missile Launcher 15
5 Tactical Marines 70
Meltagun 10

Sternguard Veteran 22
246

Tanky commander, and very shooty. Special issue ammo is the best (gets hot! is not so much...hence mastercrafted boltgun).

Speaking of Salamanders...I have got it all assembled and based (yay!) now to get myself the correct colour sprays and get painting. Naturally being at that stage = gotta get more stuff so I've got a Librarian and a box of Centurions to assemble...it never ends! I had a game the other day vs Glen's inquisition + 2 dreadknight list. Lots of fun, and definitely helped tighten my list down to what I actually need to be able to do.

WARHAMMER
Righty  - so on to the important stuff. I have been painting lots of "things" but not doing much finishing off. My main focus has been getting my High Elves to a competitive level. Looking over the lists submitted for NZTC has been really useful here. Basically Dragons = good, mounted mages = good (very good with death), speed = good, core shooting = bad, rare shooting = awesome. I'll still be sticking with a unit of Whitelions with Lolz banner because something needs to be able to hold a watchtower.

I FINALLY got myself a box of Shadow Warriors/Sisters of Avelorn. I'll be doing them up as 5 of each because I love both kits and I dont see myself using more than 5 of each - even in big games.

Painting wise - I've finished the next rank of my Silverhelms (played in the movie by the old Dragon Princes) so I now Have a unit of 10 painted!

And I've converted myself up a 2nd mounted mage from a spare Dragon Mage I had lying around

SO that's me so far. Sisters and Shadow Warriors to come hopefully not too far away.

NZTC 2014 Stone Falls Massive report

Hey,

So the New Zealand Team Champs 2014 have been and gone. Massive success, lots of fun, and everything went smoothly. Thanks to Pete and Peter for organising/To'ing and stuff.

This year I was captain of Stone Falls Massive (as in I was the one who sent and received the official emails and got to fill in the results sheet).

My team consisted of Ryan with his Warriors, Glen with a very-newly-painted Daemons army (and the cause of my radio silence as I have been playing lots of practice games getting him up to scratch!) and Will with his Ogres. I used my Empire.

My list:
Arch Lector "Otto": GW, HA, Skavenslayer helm, 4+ ward, potion of Foolishness
lvl4: light, powerstone
lvl1: light, scroll
lvl1: light, ruby ring
BSB: Fullplate, enchanted shield, warriorbane
41 Halberds: FC
5 archer detach
7 archer detach
5 knights: M
5 knights: M
Cannon
4 Demigryph Knights: M, SB-flame banner
4 Demigryph Knights: M
Steam Tank
Steam Tank

Basically a Joel variation on the light council with more emphasis on combat than shooting stuff off the board (though plenty of that too!)

Round 1: vs DILFS
Very exciting 1st round picking up where Team O.M.E.N. left off last year. This year however it wasn't to be a repeat of last time (ie they smashed us last round on their way to the podium).

With the match ups I came up vs Ant's Brets. My notes simply said "bad match up - I will lose" so I was going in with a positive mindset! The game went rather well for me given the mis-match. Turn 2 looked like this:

I heard a rumour that Bret lances are most effective when they successfully charge

and then everything that was a bret promptly failed their charge buying me a chance to not get 0-20.

Ant playing fast and loose with the unusual Bret formations to take advantage of the rail roading FAQ

However I screwed up a game winning move when my Halberd bus failed a support charge (needed a 5...rolled a 4 sigh) meaning I didnt break his BSB's unit and gloriously run it down and instead wore HKB in the flank....

Note: halberds are missing from the pic because they failed the 1 charge they attempted all weekend...

I almost ground out the BSB's unit (stupid 5+ ward saves!), and the Bret general finally remembered how to roll a 6 to wound on the very last turn of the game turning a draw into a 9-11 loss.

Overall we lost the round, but only just as we picked up 2 small wins, and had one bigger loss (Glenx2 blamed the dice!).

Round 2: vs HAM
Into the next round and we found ourselves vs the self described "nice guy + the death of warhammer fun" lists. I got myself a match up with Phil Wu who I had never met before. We had a great chit chat, lots of fun and stuff. The game was down as a "big win" for me and was looking that way until someone (looking at you Mr lvl4 on shadow) decided to IF Mindrazor 3 times in a row allowing Phil to delete 3 units while I consolidated my army and picked up the flank I was rushing. Didn't help that my lvl4 went down the hole in a massive brain fart moment where I banished the world dragon carrying Dragon Princes (killed 1 though and in my defence it is 99.9999999999999% of the time on the whitelions...)

Add Mindrazor for max effectiveness

End result was a 7-13 loss, however we picked up a win for the round

Round 3: vs Beauty and the Beasts
After 2 rounds we were where we wanted to be...we hadn't picked up a big round win, so we were submarining a wee bit, but not too much! We had picked this round as a round we needed to do well in..and it worked out we got the perfect match ups (Ogres vs light council,  Slannesh WoC vs Throgg WoC, DoC vs Dark Elves, Me vs Sam's Epidermus)

My plan for winning this game revolved around playing with the fear of banishment letting me pick wounds and points with the 4 other magic missiles I had in my deck and not give any nurgle unit cheap wounds. To this end I even fled a unit of knights off the board (failed a march test so couldnt get out of the way) to avoid giving obsidian blade carrying Nurgle herald some free tally tokens! The banishment trick worked and when I finally got around to casting it at the GUO it only had 2 wounds left thanks to Mr Ruby Ring and co. The tally only made it to the first benefit bottom turn 5 when the beasts charged my halberds in a building...but in return they got magic missiled off, so a nice trade off.

I'm building up a nice collection of these "solo beast holds up entire army" pics

 End result was 13-7 to me and as a team we maxed out on the points :D

Round 4: vs Panel Comp
So 8am start = the Aussies thought it was 4am and I forgot to take any pics. In this round we were completely foiled (as I suspect all NZ teams were) by the skaven list because a) no bell b) some special character called "Qweek" c) the glorious ginger beard. Our first off the rank anti-Skaven list was Will's Ogres on the assumption that "normal" skaven lists cant withstand a gutmagic supported gutstar + support smashing through the lines...however death frenzied s5 stormvermin with 2 assassins can do so just fine apparently...our first 0-20 loss of the event.

Trust an Australian to pull an under-arm tactic and not take the standard Skaven list

 I was pared with the WoC of Tim...basically 3x 1+ as flying tzeench guys with 3/4+ wards and s7. They basically flew around killing stanks (only game I lost both). My vanilla knights almost lost me the game with a fluffed combo charge on crushers...however with careful use of magic (only game my lvl4 didn't have banishment) I managed to wear down the tzeench warriors to gave me a game winning vanilla knight charge where 1 wound = win combat (assume my 1+ holds up vs s4) and break their steadfast for a run down...yup bottom turn 6 (with liberal application of timewarp and pha's)! That pulled the game back to a 10-10 when had my earlier combo charge worked I could have been in a much stronger position. Overall we lost the round 38-42 so not a bad effort considering the "Queek"


Round 5: vs Shirts Off 
Very exciting we must have found ourselves high enough up the table to be playing Shirts Off (eventual 2nd place takers!). We managed to win the match up process here as Shirts Off failed to use the "fit to 1 page" feature in Excel before printing the lists...ie they thought I only had 1 steam tank. However it was great because I found myself against a familiar foe.

Sadly Ronald Reagan couldn't make the journey across the ditch

Ben's list was rocking 7(!) warmachines vs my humble 1 (cough and 2 stanks cough) + chaff + stuff. I got first turn and took off 2 warmachines. OnG first turn = IF foot that goes 7 times and only scatters once...though the lvl4 did go down the hole and turn the "trukk" into a hatchback. I then suffered losing my final wound on my demigryph unit that wore the foot to gobbo chariot short bow shots... However I now had the magic advantage = 5 magic missiles FTW. My halberds also saw combat!  Their building got charged by Savage Orc Big un's...but it was late enough in the game that they simply hopped out the other side to safely. Ben's remaining lvl1 with headbutt earned his points back with an IF headbutt killing my lvl4 and I had to chuck a lvl1 under the bus turn 6.

Also for the 2nd time in the history of 8th ed stank use I succeeded in killing a Steam Tank all by myself! 3 misfires in a row + a cannon misfire to finish the job...sigh. To be fair I shot the cannon because I needed to kill the mangler!

End result 10-10...to be fiercely re-matched at Joel-Fest 2014 me thinks! The other games were an unlucky small loss for Ryan vs Mal (did everything right...Hellcannon decided to explode). Will got purple sunned to the face by the 6-dice-monkey renaissance man James and our resident DoC The Great un-Glen One" gave Sam's WoC a lesson in warhammer :P We lost the round but still came away with 30+ points, so not a pants off situation...cos that would have been awkward.

Round 6:  vs Plastic Krak
last round and before the games started I clarified that neither us nor them could podium with a max points win. This was to ensure the last round of the event was nice relaxed affair for all involved.

Ryan took the relaxed game vibe a little too far and moved his Hellcannon into Hagen's deployment zone

I was very "fortunate" for my last game of the event to also be my official last game vs the old Dwarf book (nice to know it was a conscious last game). Neil was rocking an Anvil (destined for the shelf), longbeard rangers with scouting BSB and challenge rune Thane, 2x25 miners, 5 miners, gyro, organ gun, 2 cannons and 20 warriors.

Neil got 1st turn and moved up to get the challenge charge thing on Demis. I felt really bad for Neil because from there on the game became an exercise in my 1+ armour unreasonably bouncing all his s5 and 6 to win the day. He picked up a unit of knights and my cannon and had 1 unit of miners, gyro and anvil on 2 wounds left. Though in these situations all you can do is laugh and remind Neil that this is overdue payback for Panzershrek :P

My notes on this game said "it comes from behind"

I didn't quite achieve my goal of running the anvil over with a stank

So a 20-0 to finish off the event. Glen lost his game vs Tim Joss with the GUO dying with the very last handbow shot of the game! Ryan won, and Will got himself a 20-0 to make up for the rest of the day!

Overall:
Adding it all up we came in 5th! When excluding the Aussie teams we came in 3rd (or 2.5 if you count expats as Aussies). We played 3 of the teams above us and were 1 points shy of 4th place (queue a massive list of "what ifs").

Stats:
We maxed in points once, and never gave away max points. We averaged 44pts/round which gave us a team average of 11pts/player/game which was a huge achievement (our goal was 10pts/player/game).

Thoughts on our team:
I think we got the balance right with our lists. If time was not an issue we would have dropped the Ogres for something else. Not having the 2nd Ironblaster has hurt them so much - especially as we opted for gut magic for survivability over heavens for punch (I think I'm one of the few people who would prefer the meta to have to accommodate double ironblaster/double skillcannon builds).

Though having the Ogres made our match up process rather easy as we had an army we needed to protect = made picking on the weak link in their team easy as we encouraged them to play for the Ogre points (with mixed results) with most match ups putting them up first.

I can't really speak for myself, but I thought the rest of my team played in a very friendly pro-warhammer way and frame of mind. Glen reminded Tim he had a handbow left to shoot bottom turn 6 = dead GUO and Ryan offered the Empire Player in Panel Comp a cannon shot at his Daemon Prince after the game because Ryan had mistakenly told him the charmed shield hadn't been removed = dead Daemon Prince. Both instances could have been resolved differently in other circumstances, but it is great to know that my team were above that sort of play and we still achieved better than we thought we would.

Anywho that's it from me. I'll stop the radio silence and get some painting pics up pronto!