Adepticon 2008 Part III

Warhammer Fantasy Championships, 4/12/08.

This was my first major sanctioned event...I was of course painting up until the last minute
but I got my 2250 rounded out. Once again I will save you the complicated scoring and just rate these games, 1-5 on Fun, Sportsmanship and composition.

My Empire Army

General of Empire- Sword of Power, Holy relic, enchanted shield, Barded Mount

Luthor Huss, Prophet of Sigmar

Battle Wizard, Level 2, Dispel Scroll x 2

Captain of Empire- BSB- Icon of Magus, Armor of Meteoric Iron

29 Swordsmen , Full Command/ War Banner- Detachment- 10 Free Company, Detachment- 5 Archers

10 Handgunners / HLR

10 Handgunners/ Repeater Handgun

10 Crossbowman/ musician

10 Spearmen/ Sgt./ musician

11 Inner Circle Knights/ Full Command + Banner of Valour

5 Pistoliers/ Outrider w/ Repeater Pistol

Great Cannon x 2

Helblaster Volley Gun

Helstorm Rocket Battery

2249

GAME 1

Player Jon
Army- Ogres (The Feast Masters)

Tyrant- General

Bruiser- BSB

Butcher- Dispel Scroll

Butcher- Bangstick

(2) Bulls x 3- musician

Ironguts x 3- FC

Ironguts x 4- Banner

(2) Gnoblar x 20

Trappers x 8

Scraplauncher

Leadbelcher x 3- Musician

Leadbelcher x 2- Musician

Maneaters x 3- Heavy Armor, Brace of Handguns

This game started out great for me, I had some the best shooting ever, rolling a natural 30 with the Helblaster and converting it to 15 wounds taking down a full unit of Ogres. My Pistoliers, Handgunners, Crossbows, couldn't miss. I even took the scrap launcher with my cannon before it could hurt me, once close combat got going with out big units things went down hill. Those 3+ Ogre spells are hassle to stop as there are so many of them, then they dispel on a "7"..once my wizard got killed I was hurting for dispel dice..and the Ogre Characters were tough as nails in CC especially supported by spells like trollguts and tooth cracker I could not get rid off due to lack of dispel dice. my Knights and Pistoliers, got side tracked all the way one side of board, completely wiping him out on one side, but I couldn't get them back in time in order to be the desperately needed help my General and Swordsman needed on other side of the board., a well earned win for my opponent, who was super cool guy with beautifully painted army. This guy was my vote for favorite opponent.

This was the best game of the day, despite the LOSS,

FUN-5- (Great Guy, Great Game ) SPORTS-5 ( Gracious and Fair player) COMP- 5 ( balanced List)

GAME 2

Player Jake
Army -Skaven

Grey Seer on Screaming Bell- General

Warlock Engineer X 2
Master (can’t make it out some other character)

Stormvermin x 30- Fangleader/ FC

Clanrats x 20- Clanleader/ FC

Rat Ogres x 6

Packmasters x 6

Ratswarms x4

Ratling Gun Team

Warp lightning Cannon

Skaven was the one army I had never played so I started out this game at a serious disadvantage. He had the Screaming Bell and a couple wizards everybody with the Warp Lightning spell, the Seer w/multiples. He also had a Warp Lightning cannon and big group of Rat Ogres on the flank, Having 12 power dice versus my 4 in the magic phase, was brutal, not to mention the screaming bell is irresistible on a roll of 13 and my opponent whose warp stones could effect his power dice with rerolls ended up with 4- 13's meaning I only had a chance to stop the bell, twice. I ended up taking on the chin from magic, but I held my own, even thou the Bell blew up all my war machines by turn 4. My pistoliers took out the warp lighting cannon and my detachment took care of the swarms, My Knights got held up in trying to take out some annoying warp lightning throwers and hid from the Grey Seer until I could get decent charge in. My swordsmen got into it in turn 4 with the main unit with Grey Seer on the Screaming bell, because the bell had givne the unit death frenzy, I lost enough guys that I ended up breaking but I escaped,I failed my second rally attempt in turn 5, and his turn 5 magic phase, he further hit me with spell causing more wound, which I was told ( by my opponent and a judge) that wounds futher wounds while fleeing me make a immediate continued flee reaction which took my swordsmen and BSB off the board. (This has since been a matter of debate because I have since been told that was incorrect and the Judge made a bad call here, Fleeing troops are immune to psychology and just continue to flee as normal. .IF I did get my due chance rally in turn 6 (I needed a 9) that would have saved me 300+ points and the game would have been a draw or even a slight victory for me, not much I can do it, live and learn the rules better myself).
My General, Pistoliers and remaining Knights with Luther, finally got into the fray too late wiping out a unit of clan rats and all over running into the main block but it was my last turn and there wasn't a chance for the battle to go on. In the end I lost by a few points., Failing my rally check that second time...really screwed me given the bad call in turn 5, If I had made that roll...I had him..
To top things off when I check his list out later, I realized that the Ratling Gun team wasn’t even on the list,-(which was hand written, which is against the tourney rules) so I don’t even know if the army is legal or not. In retrospect this game was a disaster, this guy actually should have been DQ’d for the illegal list.

FUN – 1, ( I didn’t have that bad a time in the actual game, as I thought about it more and things came to light my opinion has changed. SPORTS-4 ( nice guy ) COMP-1 (either an illegal or incorrect list, not sure which, either way..not good)

GAME 3
Player-Mike
Army- Chaos

Chaos Lord on Two headed Dragon - General

Blade of Blood, Gaze of the Gods, Enchanter Shield

Exhalted Champion x 2 – Barded Mounts

Sword of Battle, Great Fang

Chosen Chaos Knights X 6, Banner of Rage

(2) Chaos Knights X 4

Chariots of Khorne X 2

Dogs of War Cannon

Halfling Hot Pot

This was an odd one, my opponent seemed almost gleeful in his losing record and that his list was terrible, it look pretty damn intimidating to me, especially the dragon. I started out bad with both my cannons, that I desperately needed, blowing up on misfires in turn 1 and 2 before I got to shoot at the dragon (his blows up turn 2 as well). Fortunately he flew the dragon in alone right away charging my swordsman and detachment, I had my spearmen blocking a flank charge from his main block of knights while my free company counter charged the dragon. his Dragon and rider came up short on kills and my resulting static CR plus a couple wounds courtesy of my BSB and I broke him. His flee was crap and my swordsman ran all 685 points of him down in turn 3...pretty huge. My huge block of knights is on the flank and with some forest in the way, I get tied moving around it and cant them combat, His block of knights with his characters blast thru my spearmen and overuns right into my swordsman flank....my Pistoliers are setup to rear charge and general flank charge so I think I am ok, HOWEVER, my pistoliers are short by 1/2 an inch and I dont get I needed that read charge desperately for the +2 CR since General isnt getting a flank bonus..combat ends being a big mess, his Lords go to town on my and Damn General with WS 5 STR 6..totally wiffs...I lose combat by 5 and need "4's" two chances with BSB.....everybody fails and they all get run down. Brutal. Still I have my helblaster and rocketbattery blasting away...I actually score a nice rocket hit on his knights taking 2 or down and my Crossbowmen single handledly take down the a chariot., but my Helblaster can't hit the broad side of a barn this game. He's got this unit of 4 guys on horseback hiding behind a building that I cant do anything about. Finally I left with choice, I have my pistoliers and my knights both full strength, should I be conservative and keep them alive, or charge them and hash it out with his sicko broken Chaos lords...I stupidly decide to be conservative and hope to get lucky with the rocket battery and it cost me, I should charged everyone in and hope to break him. In the end with bonus VP, I lose this game by couple hundred points on objectives. I was annoyed because If I hadn't lost game 2 under sketchy circumstances, I wouldn't of taken the conservative approach which ended up costing me. While my opponent was a nice guy..in retrospect I kind of felt like his disarming jolly attitude was in the end just a tactic and his list while probably not very good, was unbalanced all hell as far as his characters went...over half his army points went into characters, their mounts and items. I dinged his comp and judges comp scores must have brutal.

FUN 2, (Ok game, I get sick of losing to chaos the same way..they are so many point wrapped up in indestructible characters, you kill of practically the entire table and he still has half his points on the board. SPORTS 5, (nice guy, friendly) COMP 2 ( Too character heavy, the dogs of war stuff was dumb- had no theme)

GAME 4

Player- Jonathan

Army- Wood Elves

Treeman Ancient- General

Wood Elf Noble

(2) Dryads X 8

(3) Glade Rider x 5

(3) Glade Guard x 5

(2) Wardancers X 8

Wild Riders X 5

Warhawk Riders x 3

Waywatchers x 6

Last game of the day and I was glad to see it was against something I am extremely familiar with- Wood Elves, I even played an Ancient Treeman Thursday night in preparation for the event. I figured there was no surprises here, hell this was a pretty unothadox list, I have never played a Wood Elf army with no magic. It was pretty clear this was all about having a shooting war while the Ancient treeman did his thing. I was as prepared as any for this game, and I really thought I had this one in the bag, after all if you want to a shooting war the last army you want to have it with is the Empire. Deployment was big line across the whole table, I saw he had way watchers so I put two units “in the forest” that was close to me, to block them. This is where my first mistake comes in, I haven’t played waywatchers in awhile and I forgot what HUGE pain in the ass they are, you can’t shoot them (-3 to hit in the forest) and they shoot killing blow, and thanks to the 2 beers I had with Dinner, I forgot the don’t need to be 10 inches away from you lines like normal scouts, they just need to be hidden. My second error was that I assumed this guy would behave like a normal player and Tree-sing his Treeman over to me and have at it, but this guy doesn’t use his tree-sing period, he just blows over the magic phase like it is not even there, I am actually thinking he’s doesn’t know about treesinging. Anyway I deploy my Knights to close to my swordsmen in preparation for the treeman that doesn’t come,

My cannons are on my left flank and I stupidly put my hellblaster on the opposite flank…instead of using to protect my cannons. He immediately pulls all his fast wood elves away from the HBVG side of the table. The shooting war begins and I am throwing “1’s” like nobody’s business while this guy is rolling “6’s” like Satan on Halloween. His waywatchers are raising hell behind my lines,..he freaking snipes my general with a killing blow and I am PO’d, his shooting is killing me, I can’t hit a thing and if I do he’s making all his saves….I can’t protect my cannons from the dryads and my knights dropping from ranged fire from Glade Guard as I keep rolling “1”s on their 1+ save….I should have called it a day but it was the last game so I grin and bare it.

I finally get my knights busting thru some glade guard and overrun into the waywatchers…I kill a lot but can’t close the deal, my swordsmen are tied with the Treeman over round 3,4,5,and 6…he never supports the treeman, and it loses combat EVER turn but its stubborn and this guy can’t roll higher than an eight. In short everything that could have went wrong in this one did.

I can’t tell if this guy was a tactical genius or just a knucklehead getting by on lucky dice…anyway a loss fair and square and a bitter one at that, as I was sure I was going to win that one, as I knew what to do, it just wouldn’t happen.

FUN-3 ( last game of the day, tired), SPORTS-4 ( quite guy, easy to play, he didn’t see that into being there) COMP- 5 (hey I can’t knock what is basically an all core army in a major tourney props to him)

So officially I went 0-4 although I really should have been 1-3 either through a DQ for my round 2 opponent of getting that call correctly. even though I went 0-4 I came out with 114 points which put me 82nd out 115 players coming in ahead of two of my opponents who beat me. and extra 10 points for that robbery in my round 2 game would put me in the top 50. My soft scores (Sportsmanship, Painting, and Composition) were very high, in fact they had to be close to maximum in order for me to get that score while losing all four games I must have gotten every soft point to be had with the exception of few.

I got alot of compliments on my painting as well, personally I thought I had the 3rd best looking Empire Army there, after Jeff who won the day Saturday and the guy whose got the converted witch hunter Empire Army that's been in White Dwarf a couple times. It tough for me to compare paint jobs after a certain point when stacking it up against different armies, its easy when its your own army. I like the way my Empire Army is coming out but both of those I mention are better. I am glad my stuff can stand on its own and I will continue to try to improve my skills. There were a ton of awesomely painted armies overall this year and that being so I've been told that choosing the top 10% from the top 25% was as difficult as picking a winner. It's a credit to the community that people put that much effort into their armies, it just makes the event that much better.

Edit- so I just got my scores so I removed the paragraph here griping about not getting your scores, looks like I got -
44 Battle Points
18 Composition (max)
16 Painting out of 20 (Top 25%)
36 Sportsmanship (max)

Total- 114

The only disappointment out of the soft scores was I was sure I got top 10% in painting...but that's just gives me something to strive for next year.

I be remiss if I didn't give props to Scott (whose blog you should check out if you havent already) and the HTR gang for stopping by giving me some great moral support on saturday...it's great to have friends there when you are bumming out about that last game...so thanks guys!