Cancon 2015: broken broken Skycutters

Hey

Long time no post. Long weekend in Australia for comfortably racist/patriotic day = epic road trip up to Canberra for Cancon. 3 days of Warhammer goodness in a massive events centre with hundreds of fellow nerds in 30+ degree heat and no air con.

Tried to think up a witty pun but I couldn't...this is the closest I got

...con

Anywho:

120 players Swedish comp needing to score between 12-16 with 15pts per 0.1 of difference to the "softer" list.

My Epic 15.3 High Elves

Prince: Stardragon, Heavy Armour, shield, Dragonhelm, Talisman of Preservation, Warriorbane
Mage lvl2: Ring of Fury, Shrieking Sword, Sceptre of Stability
Noble BSB: Dragon Armour, Shield of 4+ parry, Sword of Anti Heroes
Noble: ASF/AP Eagle, Dragon Armour, Enchanted Shield, Starlance, potion of foolhardiness
27 Seaguard: FC - shields
6 Reavers: spears and bows, champ
6 Reavers: spears and bows, champ
Skycutter: Eagle Claw Bolt Thrower
Skycutter: Eagle Claw Bolt Thrower
Skycutter: Eagle Claw Bolt Thrower
Repeater Bolt Thrower
Repeater Bolt Thrower
5 Sisters of Averlorn
Eagle: AP
Eagle: AP

So for the astute amongst you I have themed the list around the Seaguard...defending the shores of the (now sunken) Ulthuan. Now days I don't even know how to fluff justify. This is what happens when I attempt to get involved and caught up in the fluff...BAD THINGS.

For the first time in AGES I actually got in quite a few practice games in with the list before the event. During the practice games I played the list the opposite of how I designed it to play. This may sound crazy, but I wrote the list to win 12-8, but I needed to test it's ability to win 16-4+, which meant understanding the limitations of aggressive combat orientated play.

The Event

Now I'm not going to bore you with "and then I rolled a 6" style battle reports, but I'll give a run down of how I felt the event went for me and stuff.

First of all the tables. 60 tables = I can understand having no cloths over the wood (bouncy dice all the time!) but having this on tables...

Yup...that's printed cardboard for terrain...

For an event I was lead to believe was THE premier Aussie tournament was a little bit of a downer. Maybe Fields of Blood events have spoiled my expectations, but I 100% believe that this hobby is a visual one, so stuff like this is a little disappointing...with nothing to add about TLOS implications! But at the end of the day given the "competitive" nature of events I am grateful there was ample terrain on the tables to allow for tactical deployment etc.

But other than that niggle the event was super well run...if not dominated by Kiros one-up-man-ship What was interesting was that both players had to present to the TO table together at the end of the game to get scores entered. This made things efficient, but if I actually wanted to sports hit someone (and not simply because my opponent had the gall to buy, assemble, paint, submit, and bring a dwarf list to an event as I usually do) it would have been a little awkward...

My games

Game one: vs Hellebron Dark Elves Dawn Attack
Hellebron did not make combat. My speed gave me a very important edge as I was unaffected by the deployment. Stardragon killed 2 RBTs. Final Trans killed my BSB. Mage spent 5 turns as a frog. Won the shooting battle and with that 12-8

Game two: vs Warriors of Chaos Battleline
Usual sort of list. I won the shooting war, because Hellcannon kept rampaging. My opponent was a little new to the game so didn't really know how to handle double flee. Final Trans killed by mage. Stardragon and Eagle Noble tag-teamed a block of Tzeentch warriors, the BSB and then a Chimera. for a 16-4

Game 3: Ogres - meeting Engagement.
I had 1 chariot off the board, he had 2 units of 3 guts and his kitty. T1 I took off 1 unit of 6 leadbelchers. T2 the other unit died. Stardragon took out 5 Maneaters and 1 of the gut units whilst using big LoS blocking hill in middle to dodge the ironblaster 14-6

Game 4: OnG - Battleline
End of t2 the game looked like this:

I just avoided the blocks and killed everything else with shooting. Stardragon ate a Rock lobba and t6 killed 13 Orc Big Uns with his breath weapon for lolz, Eagle noble killed a bolt thrower and the doom diver. Foot of Gork killed 5 Seaguard and sniped by BSB with a failed LOS! OnG MVP was a Boar chariot on 1 wound that survived 2 turns of my shooting and magic, casually charged my seaguard and sniped my mage before an eagle charged into break and run it down. 12-8

Game 5: Woodies - Blood and Glory
Basically I got first turn and took out a unit of Gladeguard. Seaguard hid in combat vs a Treeman with a late game saving charge from Eagle noble and Stardragon to sneak the points. He cleaned out my easy points while I killed anything that got near me (scouts). Probably my favourite game of the event. 10-10

Game 6 Dark Elves - Battleline
This list had a dragon, manticore and only 2 units of Xbows...yet somehow his shooting was more effective than mine! Seaguard died to riderless dragon in front and manticore in rear. RBTs were useless. Skycutter charge finished off the dragon a turn too late. Stardragon and Eagle noble ate a unit of coldones, the BSB, a unit of 30 corsairs (Failed terror test with run down BOOM!), and cleaned out a unit of 30 Executioners. Somewhere in between the Eagle noble managed to also get a unit of xbows for a 16-4

Game 7 VC - Battle for the Pass
Zombie dragon? 2 Vargulfs??, Undead Orc themed? Won best painted for the 2nd year in a row = This game had it all going for it. His terrorgiest pops his nose out...DEAD to shooting. Sisters casually flee a vargulf charge...seaguard bunker fails a re-roll ldship 9 panic test and run 11 inches off the board t3? yeah...game went from "I have this for a cheeky 11-9/12-8 to "how do I not lose this big" fast. Stardragon and Eagle noble killed a unit of doggies and a unit of zombies in their break through to safely. Rest of army (2 RBTs, 12 reavers, 3 skycutters, 2 eagles) managed to kill 2 fell bats and do 3 wounds to a vargulf in their noble sacrifice to keep my dragon alive...yeah expected better boys! lose 5-15

Game 8 Woodies - Battleline
Beautiful Halfling woodie army. Got my best sports vote. He got first turn and killed my reavers. In response I kill 1 wildrider from each of his 2 units BOOM! Yeah. Trueflight FTW in this game. Eagle noble in a moment of super lazy completely unforced error kinda way casually took the sisters in the rear (BEHAVE), held with no wound taken, turned around, won combat and ran them down...yeah. Stardragon was 3 turns short of surviving the entire event when 2 skewed magic phases in a row = 4d6 searing doom total to take him out followed by 40 trueflight shots to kill the prince. I could have held him back, but I needed to press his army back to stop the trueflight wrecking me (more than it did). Skycutters did  their only triple charge into 6 wildriders and wiped them out with impact hits. Seaguard won a combat rear charging the other unit! Mage firey convocated 6 glade riders and killed them all! Losing General - lose 8-12

Overall result:

I ended up on 92 Battle points...8 short of my goal. Vs ETC opponents (game 5 and 7) I held my own = nice and encouraging. Only getting 13pts on the final day really hurt. Overall I ended up 31st out of 120 players. getting my goal of 100 battle points would have been good for 15th, so I wasn't that far out of the race given first place was dirty Kiros on 119.

The Shirts Off Crew I travelled up with all placed in top 50 with 2 top 10 placings and a 2nd best painted award too. Not bad for 6 hungover nerds in singlets!