Chicago Battle Bunker, Downers Grove. 3/1
I took a ride out to the Battle Bunker for the first time on saturday for the Adepticon tourney primer, I've been meaning to get out there forever as it's less then 20 miles away, but normal weeknight traffic and the construction on 88 leaves the my only real option to get out there left to the occasional free saturday so the tourney preperation was the motivation I needed. I brought my standard 2250 Empire Army that you see listed in my recent posts. I knew I was in for tough lists all around and wasn't too shocked by anything I saw. I had pretty rough day offically going 0-3, but the second two games were very close, close enough I didn't mind losing at all. My first game however was a disaster. Rather than explain the complicated scoring, I'll just rate these games 1-5, in "Fun", "Comp" and "Sportsmanship"
Game 1- Empire vs High Elves (Dustin)
The Elven Army was two blocks of spearmen, a block of Sea Guard, Trianoc Chariot, two bolt throwers, two units of 5 Dragon Princes and huge Dragon ridden by an Elf Prince who was the Army General. This was a relatively low model count, low magic, melee army for High Elves very different than the few games I've played against High Elves, the Dragon was totally over the top but you got to expect this in a tourney enviroment. I just need to learn to deal if I am going bring my fluffy campaign Army to a competitive tourney. This is one of those games where everything that could of have went wrong, did. At the bottom of turn 2 the Terror causing dragon broke the game wide open because my main block of swordsmen 30 strong with my BSB Hero and my general attached, failed the damn terror test at the top of my turn with double 6"s when I only needed a "9"to make matters worse my flee was short enough I need to roll a double 6"s the next turn when he charged them while fleeing, of course I didn't so by my third turn I had lost the focus of my army and about 600 points without even a single combat dice roll!!. Everything else the could have went wrong did, I made very few psych test and barely any rally test, both my cannon crews ran off the table I dont think I did more damage then a few spearmen, and 1 dragon prince with my cannons, my stubborn greatswords lost combat vs 4 dragon princes broke (again need a 8) and got run down. I had one chance to light the dragon with the Hellblaster, I rolled 16 shots, scoring 8 hits and 4 wounds so an average result which was great except Dustin saved all 4, with ward saves. My only saving grace where my knights who I held, saving off repeated bolt thrower shots for 3 turns, getting into it with 5 dragon princes on turn 4 breaking them and running them down, I then charged his bolt throwers only in turn 6 to get rear charged by the dragon and flanked by the chariot. It was so over by that point anyway, my whole army was dead or had run off the table. I think I only killed 6 dragon princes and a handful of spearmen, undoubtedly a out and out massacre. I made a few key errors due to my lack of experience playing HE, I choose lore of life for my Magic knowing the Dragon Princes where immune to fire. In retrospect I should have took lore of fire anyway as Dustin had really low dispel dice for an HE army and I could used it on lots of other units. I attached my General to my Swordsman as I was worried about getting individually targeted his bolt throwers, I should have just moved over to the forest and turn back at my troops so when he made the dragon move, flying over the forest. I could have had a rear charge on him, (of course I would have still needed to make the psych tests).
FUN = 1 ( games like this are never fun. Its no fault of my opponent but when everything goes wrong for you and right for him it's never that good a time. Compounding that was some annoying kid watching the game was making annoying comments for about the first half of the game, ( basically he was heckling me during a tourney!, WTF???) Dustin said he was friend of his so I let it ride, thankfully he told him to get lost, but that's just not cool. That shit would never fly at GWOP, that kid would have been bounced asap)
COMP= 3 ( interesting list, standard tourney fare, I scored it better yesterday at the table. When I though about it later and saw two other High Elf armies there that day, I would have much rather played those.)
SPORTSMANSHIP= 4, ( Dustin was easy going and humble, even when crushing me to dust- the only reason its not a "5" was he only brought one army list, and I wanted one to keep. You're supposed to bring one for each opponent.)
Game 2- Empire vs Dark Elves ( John W)
I had seen this Army before, either at Adepticon last year or just pictures posted of it online. The game was against John W who posts as Frozen Dark Elf on the IWFB boards. Nice display base, great looking army- Knights on cold ones, executioners, 2 groups dark riders, a Hydra, big block of Corsairs, pair of bolt throwers. This was a great game, a lot of fun to play and John was great sport and player. Our armies were very evenly matched. It was a back an forth close game until last turn and a half. I killed his Hydra and took out his wizards, but my Greatswords could not handle the DE Knights and my swordsmen couldn't handle the DE General, I couldn't get my general into combat in time and he got taken out by Bolt Throwers. In the end I had my Huntsmen and Hell blaster left, while john had his knightsm executioners and three Darkriders all above 50% unit strength and 4 crossbowmen, due to point cost of his big units left, I'd say he probably had a solid victory ( we didn't figure out the score as it was clear he won and tourney scoring is different so there is no need if there is a clear winner) although it seemed allot closer than that until the very end.
FUN = 5 ( games like this are why I love Warhammer)
COMP= 5 ( A great well balanced army, the way an army should be- tourney or not.)
SPORTSMANSHIP= 5, ( a great General and a gentleman)
Game 3 Empire Vs Dwarfs ( Rob K)
I am at the point now where I hate playing dwarfs. I was pretty surprised that of all the people there and I had only played two of them before and that I ended up playing Rob K. I was really hoping that all my games would have been against new people but that's just the way it worked out. Robs army was a bunch of warriors and longbeards supported by crossbowmen, rangers, 2 stone throwers and two bolt throwers. All his warmachines had engineers and tons of runes to beef up there effectiveness ( entrenched, to hit bonuses) he actually had runes that let him reroll every artillery die all the way through the process, which was pretty cheesy. He also had like 7 dispel dice so there was basically no magic phase. The game went like this, he went first, held his troops and shot the crap out me, I went second moved my troops up, put some good shooting on him, My Flagellants got in fast tying a up a big block of warriors all game breaking them and bring them below half- so it was nice that they earned thier points. My Knights immediately marched out and charged his warmachines on the right flank ( which for some reason it didnt seem like he was expecting) I tied up his general and basically both warmachines the whole game as ten knights fought his general round after round and neither could kill each other as we both making armor saves even thou I wasted the regular crew. This combat also blocked the LoS from that side bolt thrower from doing any shooting, while my huntsmen tried in vain to shoot that up all game. Even though the never ending combat with his unbreakable general was retarded it kept my knights alive who where my most expensive unit and part of scoring for the scenario. I managed to take out the other stone thrower with my cannon by turn 3 and by then his Longbeards and other unit of warriors where engaged with my swordsmen, greatswords and general. In the end he broke my swordsmen, got the banners and that's what did me in, as I destroyed his other block of warriors (somehow lost the banner) sending his expensive runelord fleeing at bottom of turn 6. In the end it was a last round shot from his quarrelers that brought my crossbows to below half strength giving him an extra +40 points over a Draw, so he had a marginal victory.
FUN= 3 ( better than I thought it was going to be, mainly because I thought I had him for about 2.5 turns, I just could not close the deal)
COMP=3 ( Bleh, I hate gimmicky armies, just play a balanced list, it Dwarfs for pete's sake, its not hard and it's fun. I would have much rather seen a Gyro and some Miners than a bunch of entrenched, triple rerolling stonethrowers)
SPORTSMANSHIP= 3 ( Rob is a nice guy but he needs to work on his game etiquette a little.)
Overall- A long but good day and met some great new people. I would have loved to have gotten a chance to play some Orcs, or new VC or Chaos, something I am used to playing all the time, but that's the breaks. I need to give a BIG "5" to the tourney organizer Marty, I've heard he runs the best tourneys and this was run perfectly as far as I could tell. On the flipside I need to give a FAT "1" to the Bunker for letting this be on the same day as the Bizarre Bazaar, and a bunch of other stuff going on too. The place was freaking packed which gave annoying loiterers plenty of opportunity to be annoying loiterers On top of that I go to buy 1 damn blister from the counter and freaking Allen (whose met me about a dozen times between the OP shop Adepticon and Games Day) decides to spend 10 mins trying to hardsell me on VC stuff, I was like gimme a break guy, you don't need to worry about me spending money. I would have liked to stick around and BS and see the final scores ( at 0-3 I am pretty sure I am at rock bottom) but I had to get home asap to let our nanny go home which failed miserably as I got stuck in horrendous traffic going east on 88 for over an HOUR because of some bullshit year long construction project...next time I take an alternate route both ways.
Anyway still questioning my army list and wondering how I am going to do anything other than go 0-4 at Adepticon with my current Army. I don't feel compelled to run special characters or add a steam tank in order to compete, so my best hope is to practice my ass off for the next six weeks and hope someone gets the dice I had in game 1 this day, and maybe I can squeak out a win. On the positive side, I must gotten twenty compliments on my painting from various passersby so thats something.
