Painlord Titan Princeps of Slaanesh
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Well I didn't do as well as I'd hoped at the 'ard boyz finals, due in no small part to my own poor tactics.
My army was similar to the one I've posted before. The main changes were that I added a banshee, I switched my general from Vlad von Carstein to a vamp lord with level 3, Forbidden Lore, Dark Acolyte, Ghoulkin, the Carstein Ring and the Flayed Hauberk, my second vampire lord switched Red Fury for Forbidden Lore and Summon Ghouls powers, and I traded a vampire for Mannfred the Acolyte. Oh, and I changed the 4 skeleton units to units of ghouls instead! This involved a rather sickeningly large purchase of ghouls, but I didn't much regret their addition to the army.
Round 1: Chaos Dwarves
I have played very little against chaos dwarves. His army:
Lord with kill-flammable hammer and 5+ ward save armour on great taurus.
Lord with 100-point "instead of attacking, do d3 wounds to each model in btb, ignore armour saves" item on a great taurus.
2 priests with 2 dispel scrolls, one priest with staff of sorcery
3 units of 15 blunderbuss warriors
1 big block of 25 warriors in armour, no command
10 hobgoblin archers
6 hobgoblin bolt throwers
3 rockets
3 big earthshaker cannons
From my point of view, he put 2 earthshakers, a boltthrower, and a rocket on a hill to the left, with blunderbusses, a taurus, and the warriors on the ground in front. He put two units of blunderbusses in the center, then another two boltthrowers, 2 rockets, and the other earthshaker on another hill towards the right, with the archers in front. The remaining boltthrowers deployed between those units on the ground.
I put 2 units of ghouls with summon ghoul vampires on the left with a third unit with mannfred, my varghulf and a unit of ghouls on the right, and my graveguard deathstar in the middle, with wraiths on its left side.
What ended up happening was that while my vampire lord with summon ghouls could make the right side ghoul unit large enough to be dangerous, it was too far away to assist the left flank. Those units suffered quickly, and after a lord destroyed one unit of ghouls, he then flew away to harrass my deathstar while his other units killed mannfred's unit. The other taurus lord charged the wraiths, and popped his d3 wound item. He killed all 4 wraiths in btb, won combat by 9, and the unit vanished. He overran, and was now also behind my deathstar. My deathstar and the ghouls/varghulf pair on the right were cripplingly slowed down by the earthshakers. The varghulf eventually got within terror range, but he passed all his leadership checks, even one for the archers. He dropped a taurus in front of the ghouls, who managed to get a rear charge via danse macabre. The lord fled, flying over my deathstar to land on the left, then rallied.
At about turn 4, all I had was about 6 ghouls with a vampire on the left, my deathstar down to just the front rank of graveguard command, 2 vampire lords and my regeneration BSB, and about 10 ghouls left on the right.
Then everything changed. I cast wind of undeath, creating a 3-base spirit host unit on the right side. It charged hobgoblin boltthrowers, who consistently failed their fear tests. The hosts repeatedly redirected their charge after that, sending another, then another boltthrower unit running before hitting dwarves. They defeated them, and continued on to wipe out the rest of the right flank artillery brigade.He charged both taurus lords at my deathstar, which had turned to face them, as well as a unit of blunderbusses in the flank. I managed to killing blow both of his lords, as well as wound the tauruses, and won combat by a devastating amount. All units fled, one bull into the woods to die, and another in front of the rest of my army on the left. Some danse macabres and my corpsecart and what remained of my deathstar swept the artillery and remaining units from the left. My vampire lord with summon ghouls, now finally within range to assist the vampire on the left, was able to bring the unit high enough to outnumber the dwarf warriors and a blunderbuss unit that the final unit of ghouls on the left were fighting. Both ran. At final tally, he had only a unit of blunderbusses that had rallied remaining. Massacre, 24 points.
Game 2, High Elves
I thought I had this game in the bag, but my opponent was a higher calibre than I'm used to playing. He didn't fall for many tricks, and when I thought he had, he rolled too well for it to matter.
He brought 3 units of archers, a prince on a star dragon, teclis, a mage, 2 units of dragon princes (one with banner of terrain movement), 2 lion chariots, 10 phoenix guard with the banner of sorcery, a great eagle and 6 bolt throwers.
I moved all my ghouls up and tried to add some numbers to their units. Nice dispel rolls saw those stopped, and Teclis's spelleater scroll devoured my general's Wind of Undeath. I hoped he would charge a chariot each at some ghouls, and the dragon at a third. He didn't. Instead, the dragon and a chariot charged one, and the other chariot went into mannfred's unit. The great eagle charged my corpsecart.
Naturally the dragon and chariot wiped out the ghouls, killing that vampire. The other chariot, I thought I had a chance. Running the odds and with Mannfred's Walking Death power, I should have only lost by a couple and still had a unit remaining. But after some nice impact hits, and all-hit-all-wound by the lions and crew, Mannfred and his unit evaporated. The chariot overran into my wraiths. I deliberately exposed my deathstar's flank to some dragon princes on the left, but he didn't take the bait.
In the end, my deathstar had to about face and use several castings of Danse Macabre to send the dragon packing to prevent him spending the whole game harrassing and marchblocking while breathing fire. The rest of my army got shot to pieces. I charged his phoenix guard in a building, and because I didn't know the rules for buildings and couldn't wound elves with S5 attacks, the wraiths stayed there most of the game until the 2 remaining phoenix guard fled - just barely not off the table - and robbed me of their VPs. Teclis then cast fury of Khaine and wounded with all but one shot, killing the wraiths.
Since table quarters weren't supposed to be counted, the game was a draw - we didn't know that though, and it was recorded as a minor loss for me. If I'd known the wraiths would be pushed back from the building when they didn't win combat....well sure maybe they'd have been blown up by magic after that, but that's no guarantee and they could have charged and wiped out teclis's unit the next turn if that had been the case. As it was, though, my deathstar getting deployed on the side to try to draw his princes into my flank was silly. Expecting your opponent to make an amateur mistake is not good strategy, and it put my hardest hitting unit out of the action. Sure they killed the dragon, but more sound strategy would have been to make a beeline for Teclis with that nigh-unstoppable unit, and let the dragon kill itself in an attempt to stop me.
Game 3: Chaos Daemons.
This game looked good for 2 turns, and then he got in range.
Kairos, Scribes, Bloodthirster, 17 flamers, 3 units of 10 horrors, 1 tzeentch herald BSB, 1 Nurgle herald in 10 plaguebearers, Skulltaker, 5 flesh hounds.
I took Lore of Beasts on one of my vampires, thinking The Beast Cowers would work on the bloodthirster. I was wrong, and hadn't read the faq's carefully enough. I actually made some fairly smart decisions that kept the game from being a complete and total wipe. On the 5th turn I made a bad overrun move with a unit of ghouls that cost me a bit [they would have been able to flank charge a bloodthirster that charged the rear of my deathstar if they'd stayed put, thoroughly changing the outcome of that battle], and in hindsight honestly that would have made a huge difference. Not losing half my deathstar, probably not losing that unit of ghouls, and killing his bloodthirster would definitely have turned the battle towards more the minor loss range.
As it was, when I added up victory points, he was only 32 points shy of a massacre. When HE added up points, he was slightly above the threshhold. I scanned over what he'd added up, and it all seemed to make sense. I THINK what happened was that he thought that when he killed my general, who came back via the Carstein Ring, that he got points for slaying the general. We had a long discussion earlier about whether or not the Carstein Ring was a SAVE - it came up when he tried to pit of shades my general. I told him that no, it was not a save - Pit of Shades would work and if I rolled a 6 he would die - but that then he would come back on a 2+. He may have taken that to mean that he DOES in fact DIE, and that he should get points. Honestly I'm not quite sure how that wording works but either way it seemed to be an honest mistake if it even was at all, he was a lot of fun to play against, and with so close a margin it wasn't worth arguing over. Plus I'm not sure I added in half points for my general being only at 1 wound after coming back anyway, so I definitely felt he should have gotten the massacre, and marked it as such. Highlight of this game was when I allowed the scribes to cast Conflagaration of Doom on a big, 25+ strong unit of ghouls. He had been rolling quite well for the game, and I wanted to see this happen.
Sure enough, once we'd finished rolled dice, the unit was down to about 8. We went through 7 or 8 rounds of him beating my roll and continuing to do damage to the unit. I'd had a feeling such a thing would happen, and wanted to see it actually take place. In the end I managed to kill his flesh hounds, his nurgle herald and plaguebearers, skulltaker and a unit of horrors, and half of his BSB after he miscast and hurt himself. Another cool moment was getting Killing Blow on Skulltaker. Love that Sword of Kings!
With smarter decisions, I think I could have gotten Massacre, Massacre or Major, and then Minor loss. I think for my next attempt, I will take out the Varghulf [he's good against "human" armies, but not so great against other vampires or daemons] and use the points to have my ghoul units start out at 15 or so, rather than minimum size so that I have some buffer. Larger ghoul units in the high elf game would have definitely been much more effective.
Also, I think I want one unit of ghouls to run behind my deathstar in games with a flying combat beast around. If they go into the flank or rear of the rearguard unit, I don't much care, and I can tarpit a bloodthirster there forever if I need to. But when he charges the rear of my deathstar, it never goes well. Keeping a unit back that doesn't get shot at much in order to backup charge into something large that goes for the flank or rear of my main unit seems like a good idea. I tried using the wraiths like that in a few games in the semifinals and at the finals, but they're really too much of an investment to charge to that sort of task.
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Daemons
