Core Comp 2009 Report.

November 14 & 15 @ Chicago Battle Bunker

Another Comp Competency has come and gone, props to Mr Alex Gonzalez for turning his fun idea of a tournament with fluffy/fun armies into a major Mid West Indy GT in just 3 years. Final turnout out was either 48 or 50 (not sure) and we players coming from the East Coast. I'll just say if you dig classic Warhammer this is the event for you. No cookie cutter lists pulled off of Warseer here.You will truly see some nontraditional stuff here that only a 900 point Core requirement, unique scenarios and $1000 worth of prizes going to categories like "the fluffiest bunny"can provide. I personally had blast all my games were great and even when the chips where down, its was still a great time! Here is the a brief recap of my games.

Friday
Game 1, Vs Dark Elves ( John W)




This was my 3rd or 4th time playing John W., he's one of my favorite local guys to play, like myself he's laid back looking to have a good time. We're into the fluff and geeking out our armies..so when we meet up it's classic warhammer. John's theme a slave raiding party coming ashore in the Empire looking for captives. His army had numerous place holder models of Empire Slaves in tow..with a nice display that had his blue Dark Elves overrunning some Empire buildings with the villagers on the run. Of course it was up to the Empire ( that'd be me!_ to put a stop to this nonsense and the battle was on!.

John's list.

Dreadlord/ Cold One
Master BSB / Cold One , Pendant
Master
19 Corsairs- FC Assassin- Manbane, RoK
18 Corsairs- FC- Banner of Murder
5 Dark Riders, Musician X 2
5 Dark Riders, FC , Shields
12 Crossbowmen, musician, champion
10 Cold One Knights FC , Ring of Hotek
7 Shades, Champion.

I'm thinking no Hydra, No Cauldron, No elite infantry, No Magic, No problem?, Deceivingly difficult army that illustrates the power and flexibility of the Dark Elf book..my setup was pretty standard...Infantry in a line with Flagellants protecting one flank and the Stank on the other, with Knights, Pistoliers stacked my opponents soft flank. my huntsmen bunkered up in some woods try to get his crossbows. First couple turns went to John, where I failed miserably to take out his fast support troops...bad dice plagued me hard, Cannon misfires...shooting in general couldnt hit anything , My Pistoliers got trapped in and killed by the Shades after a big wiff. Once we got into combat ..I thought it looked good for me but then we went four rounds of numerous drawn combats as I just couldn't break him..his master BSB prove un-killable and despite limited numbers the DE survivability is way better than the Empires. At one point I had 25 strong swordsmen in his BSB's front with 20 Flagellants on the Side and I couldn't break him unbelievable!

That pretty much summed up the game, neck and neck until he whittled me away and broke my blocks at the top of six. Stank was a non factor in this game it ended up out of position. I tried a risky bid to generate some extra Steam points and came up short losing a turn. Scenario was based on capturing the enemies standard, plus we had to capture each others objective markers

Result LOSS
5 battle, 3 bonus

FUN 5, SPORTS 5, COMP 5

Game 2, Vs Beasts of Chaos (Scott T.)




I knew of Scott from our the local IWFB.org boards but have never met or played him, great guy, nice Beasts of Chaos army themed around Graktar, a Beastlord, who once usurped by Khazrak, has now returned to Drakenwald to march again.

Scott's list

Beastlord
Bray Shaman x 2

16 Beast Herd FC x 4

Tuskgor Chariots X 3

6 Centigors FC x 2

4 Minotaurs

3 Dragon Ogres
Ambushers
13 Beast Herd X 2
5 Warhounds x 2

I have played a few games against Beast of Chaos lately mainly against my pal Rich who I've only beaten maybe half the time with them, its confusing army to strategize against because of the ambush. Despite the old book and being a 3rd tier army, I was taking nothing for granted. Standard deployment for me with the expection my knights and pistoliers in opposite corners diagonally at the back of my deployment zone waiting for the Ambush. Thankfully Scott split his Dragon Ogres and Minotaurs and different flanks , So the Stank only had to deal with one thing that could easily destroy it. The game started out with my Huntsmen popping taking some shots and getting chased by his general and herd into the woods...this led to General overrunning thru and getting caught on three sides by block of swordsmen and Flagellants with other support (flaggies at the point who killed one the Centigor units) and his general and herd eventually got killed. The ambush came in turn 2 and thou the killed my Cannon it was that bad..my knights sitting in wait got one unit of dogs...and Pistoliers shot up the other (although the herd rallied and came back and killed them. One of Shaman was in one of ambush herds and rear charged my Arch Lector, BSB and block of Swordsmen. Scott's dice were light and my static res broke him and they ran off, never recovering. The biggest problem for Scott was the Stank during my turn two, I gamble on 5 Stream points made it and did a 15 inch charge at herd near his back field..he had set up the Centigors as bait and the Dragon Ogres were looming however when I charged the Herd..he fled and it caused a bunch panic checks and the Terror from the Stank the following turn caused those Centigors to run away and then that herd failed to rally..so with all that running away...I did get into the Ogres and chew them up...one broke and got away..but was eventually killed. Chariots also failed some panics which lead to a couple disorganized frontal charges against my blocks that didnt pay off, even when the minotaurs got into things late they had been hit by a fleeing chariot and beat up. In the end the Beasts fell hard. Scott is clearly a good general who knew what he was doing, everything that could have went wrong for him did, psychology being numero uno, I also had a few painful hot dice streaks and when Empire Swordsmen are taking down Minotaurs on their flank, things are clearly going poorly for the Beastmen. This scenario was also my favorite of the day, you received a secret mission in an envelope before the game and dont reveal it until the end to your opponent, mine was kill the enemy general which I did, I ended up with 19 for the round..not all the bonus's point I could have, about half.

Result WIN
15 Battle
4 Bonus

FUN 5, SPORTS 5, COMP 5

Game 3 Vs Dark Elves (Robert E)



I played Robert and his Chaos Dwarfs at last years Core Comp and he was back with all new Dark Elves. Well themed as a Lustrian raiding party he had nice Lustria backdrop as a display with all his models with lots of lizard bits as Trophies. Again another non traditional DE list as follows-

Robert's List

Dreadlord, Heartseeker, Armor of Eternal Servitude, Pearl
Master, BSB
Sorcerer

24 DE Warriors FC, Spears, HW&S x 2
20 Corsairs FC
10 Crossbowmen w Champion
10 Crossbowmen
5 Dark Riders
5 Cold One Knights - Banner of Cold Blood
5 Cold One Knights
18 Black Guard FC, Banner of Murder
Repeater Bolt Thrower.

The Scenario here was a real game changer, at the start of everyturn every unit you have has to test on a D6 for either stupidity (1) or Frenzy (6) this caused some real hassles for me mainly due having mixed infantry and cavalry in large blocks and getting frenzy at the worst possible time which caused my Arch Lector and BSB to solo charge the Corsairs 13 inches away...I thought that was game right there, but thankfully there was no Assassin. I stuck a turn and my knights in as support and busted the Corsairs who ran.. this game went back a forth like game 1, Rob puts 2 wounds on the Stank turn 1 with the RBT, I started folding on one flank but came back on the other, I thought I had Rob on the ropes turn 6 when my Captain (dismounted, pegasus dead) Is fighting alone againt a unit of crossbowmen from the flank...I wiff on three attacks with the Sword of Striking .. lose and get run down moving the unit away from getting hit by my Arch Lector and BSB coming back on the board. I broke his general's unit it rallied ( on a 11!, more on that in moment) then got the Stank in on his General, who had to make a "3" on the break test or run again and I had chasers in the combat...but he rolls the damn "3"!!. He held on to his big units and the game broke his way by 312 points initially then driven up by table quarters and a Banner..so I clearly lost...a hard, hard loss...Damn Ye, Dark Elves my new nemesis. I made alot of mental errors this game due to the stupidity/frenzy thing I am just not used to dealing with, added with some shit bad luck (2 key cannon shots stick in the mud), The rally on 11! thing was Robs error- his General had leadership 10 and with a musician we he said the 11 was good, after playing all day it being close to 8pm...I forgot that 10 is total maximum even with a musician, (someone watching pointed it out after the match) No telling how that failed rally could have changed the game considering his closeness to the board edge. Cest La Vie, regardless a well played match.

Result LOSS
5 battle,
3 bonus
FUN 3 (the scenario was annoying, the blown rally thing made it more so) SPORTS 5, COMP 5

SATURDAY

Game 4 - Vs Kislev (Oleg V.)



Oleg's been around along time playing Warhammer and his name is always in the top ten of every local event I see him in. Even though I am up against 2000 points of core Kislev troops, with two hero level character and no magic items and I am redundantly protected against psychology from his panic causing Cavalry and he has little to know answer for the Stank, I figured he had something up his sleeve other than experience. He had some nice fluff about his Kislev Garrison with plenty of Russian Vodka to supplement things.

Oleg's List

Kislev Boyar- General
Kislev Boyar-BSB
24 Kossars FC,Bows, GW x2
10 Winged Lancers FC x 4
10 Horse Archers FC X 2

Kislev didn't stand much of chance against the Stank or my dice this game which were very good, his shooting dice were horrible so those horse archers didn't do to much with lots of chances...he did have a big unit of archers with his BSB behind an obstacle that slowed me down and allowed his Generals block of Cavalry to flank charge my Command Unit breaking me, a big loss but that was the only thing I lost. The Stank returned the favor killing the whole unit running his general off the board, while his BSB got run down by a flank charge by my other block. In the end I had lost only my Command Block which was a base 600 points plus the bonus 2 banners and my General, but I had 4 table quarters, both Objectives, a couple of his standards and his general to offset it..all he had on the table at the end was a dozen archers, I had almost my whole army- a big win for the Empire. I have to commend Oleg on bringing such a fluffy, all core list to this event, I know he won or drew at least 2 games with it, plus he was giving away bottles of Vodka (minis) to all his opponents I voted for him for the esteemed "Fluffy Bunny" award for the event and for the booze I am much obliged.

Result- WIN
15 Battle
9 Bonus
FUN 5, SPORTS 5, COMP 5


Game 5 vs Warrior of Chaos (Dennis G)



Haven't run into Dennis before, nice guy, great looking traditional Slanneshi army with Tzeentch casters and some really nice modeling, I heard a couple of complaints about his list it being Core Comp and all, it read like a Championship list...but Alex (tourney organizer) gave it a pass...and it in the end it wasn't that bad. Not much in the way of theme other than being Slanneshi, and a couple paragraphs about marching to war..not too much of a stretch..but no big deal.

Dennis' list

Sorceror Lord Lv 4- Tzeentch
Sorceror Lv 2- Tzeentch
Exalted Champ BSB
5 Marauders / Flails x 2
20 Marauders FC x 2
16 Warriors FC, warbanner
10 Warriors, GW
5 Knights w/ lance, shield
3 Dragon Ogres.

9 power dice, plus the spell familar meant maxing out the lore of Tzeentch big time..I was facing 5 die Eternal Gateways at my the whole game 5 turns at my command block, and one at my knights (none at the stank which was odd) had five dispel dice and saved them all every turn
to block the Gateway, allowing Flickering Fire and Pandemonium to go off at will. I stopped 4 Eternal Gateways die fo die never coming up with double ones, I blocked 4, he came up short on one..the other that went off irresistible turned into about 6 kills. Dennis miscast twice once on each, losing a level on the Sorceror on the disk, making him not so useful and he was quickly killed. The Stank played cat and mouse with the Dragon Ogres all game which allowed my pistoliers to shoot them up...I think my play style with Stank the Captain on the Pegasus and a general unfamiliarity with Empire (not to mention the wacky scenario) made Dennis more cautious then he should have been, misjudged the rank breaking, static res of my Swordsmen and free company had some bad dice and lost 20 Marauders and his BSB, I killed all his support, my Cannon blew itself up (1st time all tournament a new record) things generally went pretty good for me, I gave away the win turn 6 by not being smart and playing point denial, My Pistoliers could have stayed hidden and protected leaving the points on the table, but I stupidly brought them out to try shoot his general in the 10 man unit of Warriors, 3 kills would cause a panic check...but its wasnt worth it and next turn he flickering fired them and they died. The game end with a 274 point difference..so that 114 points I gave up cost me the win.

This was also the crazy "revenge of fluffy bunny scenario" where a Monty Python style killer bunny sits dead center and attacks anyone within 6" sticks with then until another unit comes into range.. you got bonus BP for being attacked by the bunny...the scenario had dramatic outcome on how the game was played..its tough to tell what would have happened in a standard pitched battle

Result DRAW
10 Battle
1 Bonus

FUN 5, SPORTS 5, COMP 4

2-2-1 , Total Battle points for event = 70

Final and full scores and placing weren't available as I write this, but considering how my soft scores usually go I am hoping I make the top 3rd...last year I placed 5th and won the Best Appearance..this was a whole new ball game as the event double in size, and went from a single day event to a 2 day. James Wappel was the clear Best Appearance winner this year with his mostly scratch built Lustrian Army that has to be seen to be believed most every unit is Golden Daemon material. I stupidly don't have photos of it because I wanted to wait to take photo's of until I set up the tripod during a lull..and missed the chance, shouldn't be too hard to find photos thou I think alot of the Army is over at CMoN. Second up was a guy named Brian McMillen who shows up out of nowhere with most gorgeous Bret Army I have seen to date, he well deserved the players choice award he won. This year they ranked at the awards 1,2,3 even though only the top slot got a prize. I was pretty shocked given the overall level of paint that I was in the number 3 spot!!, behind both those guys..I am honored. I'll leave talking about Core Comp 2009 with some shots of Mr McMillen's Brets..just awesome.










Looking forward to next fall!!