A little background before I get into full pontificating mode:
The background Though it was back in 7th edition, April 2010 was my first ever
GT, I'd brought the Dwarfs, finally getting 2500 points fully painted despite having owned Dwarf models since about 1998 (having played
40K exclusively since 1992). I loved the experience, but didn't get back on board till the following year, with Lonewolf. From there, I managed to make a run of 5 8th edition
GTs, hitting each of Texas' big events. Speaking of which…
Texas GTs Though not entirely homogenous, the Texas
GT scene shares some common threads: Each has 100 battle points possible, and while painting and sportsmanship usually offer up to 80 points each, scores for the top spots only vary by about 10-15 and 6 points respectively.* The battle points are usually on the order of 16-8-4 for W-D-L with up to 4 bonus points in any given scenario. Some of the tournaments offer an extra two point swing (i.e. 14 point win, 6 point loss) for keeping the game to within a 500
VP difference.
The games are to 2500 points, with open lists, and very minimal comp- typically a ban on Book of Hoeth, Folding Fortress (and Power Scroll prior to the errata). Special character permissions vary, but may be heading towards a more permissive attitude. No
ETC style restrictions exist, and while organizers retain the right to reject a list deemed utterly unsporting, I'm unsure how frequently this actually happens. Players may mark an opponent down sportsmanship points for bringing a rough list, but I hadn't actually heard of this happening until a friend of mine got dinged by a couple opponents at last year's Alamo for his (admittedly brutal) Empire list.
*Note: No data analysis went into this figure- merely observation and estimation.
If that's not enough waffle for you on the Texas
GT scene, then I've included links to each of the tournaments web pages for your perusal:
Lonewolf GT Cap City Carnage (now part of Wargames Con) Bayou Battles The Alamo GT Apologies for the long intro, but I think one of the more overlooked facets of internet Warhammer discussion is the fact that we aren't all playing the same game. A tactic that is the hotness in closed list might not be applicable in open lists. A unit might perform brilliantly when protected from heavy comp packs, and so on... In other words, I include all the above to provide something of a context for my thoughts below...
The Results After 5
GTs, at 5 games apiece, I can lay claim to a 15-8-2 tournament record. (That's 4-1 at Lonewolf IX, 2-2-1 at Cap City, 2-2-1 at Bayou, 4-1 at Alamo, and 3-2 at Lonewolf X). These were good enough to get me into the top 25% each time, courtesy of decent soft scores, and scoring some bigger wins than my losses (except for Cap City) and occasionally into the top 10. Lonewolf were my best placings, but Alamo was the closest I came to getting to one of the podium spots, losing game 5 to the Best Overall Mike Hengl.
This was enough to propel me briefly to 11th nationally on the U.S.
WHFB Rankings
HQ site, which I feel speaks more to a flaw in the rankings system, than any reflection on my actual ability. I don’t want to get into this too much here, as it may be more of a topic for another time, but a few words-
You can’t make it to the top of the rankings unless you play at least 4
GTs. But you can play 5
GTs, never leaving the state of Texas (as I did) and somehow, despite never making the podium in any of the events you attend, and still find yourself ranked favorably relative to players on the East Coast, West Coast, or Midwest whom you’ve never met or played against. I don’t mean to denigrate any of the players on that list, I’ve played against a number of them, and respect many of them, but just think its important not to take the whole thing too seriously. As I mentioned earlier, events in different parts of the country/world vary greatly in terms of comp/scoring systems, and such. I’m not saying I could design a better system- I can’t. But grain of salt and all that! I can go down to the local store and get my teeth kicked in by players that have never and will never attend a
GT.
Sportsmanship I also had the honor to take home a 2nd Sports at Cap City, 1st Sports at Bayou, and 3rd Sports at Lonewolf X, which was extremely flattering. I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that for many of these I was tied with someone else, either above me (but they were receiving a more prestigious award- like best general) or below me (where the tiebreaker was battle points).
The only advice I’d have is to make sure you’re having fun, don’t take your bad luck too seriously, and engage with the guy across the table. The rest is out of your hands- especially in TX where, the sports awards are based on “bad game” and “best game” votes. You can’t control if your opponent hits it off better with someone else in one of his four other games.
My tendency was to give my best game vote to the player who seemed to have the chops to bring it competitively, but still be a gentleman on the other side of the table. Matt M, David B., Paul D., Joshua F., and Russell H.- hats off to you guys. Towards the end of the season, I got things together enough to award a (not-so-much) coveted Fabulous Unicorn Lord trucker hat. Josh, and Russ wear them with pride! Or hide them in their closets…
The Painting GTs have proven to be something of a double-edged sword for my painting. They have clearly motivated me to get things painted that I would otherwise never have gotten around to doing. But they’ve also perhaps rushed me a little more than I’d like on a couple projects.
That said, I’ve been motivated by seeing the gorgeous armies out there in person- Jody Tucker’s, Casey Clement’s Orcs & Goblins (and many of the
Ld 2 crew), and of course Ryan Smith’s armies are something to behold. Although I don’t consider myself up to that standard, it has driven me to push the envelope a little- improving my wet blending, refining my recipe for dwarven skin tones, and trying some freehand banners, I’m quite proud of-
What, no “witty” word bubbles? RZ, I am disappoint. One drawback of the Dwarf army is that they are, by and large a bunch of short infantry blocks. If you go to the trouble of finding rare models, or converting an entire unit, it’s still easy to overlook, because really, there’s a beard, there’s a shield, there’s some armor, it’s a dwarf. That’s not to say they can’t be done well- Joe G. has some very well executed painting on his army, and both he and Aaron Chapman have some spectacular display boards, that I haven’t even attempted. Aaron has also done well to provide some height changing unit fillers into the mix.
The Dwarf Army I was going to take a little bit here to talk about some general thoughts on Dwarfs on the table. One of my goals with the Dwarves has always been to take a list that wasn’t simply another gunline. It didn’t feel like it would be fun to play with or against, and not really that interesting in general.
I had the added challenge of playing in the same area as Mr. Aaron Chapman and his patented Furgil build- 3 blocks of dwarfs with 40 great weapons a piece, and a 5 stack of artillery pieces. I only managed to finish ahead of him once out of the four
GTs we both brought Dwarves to. It was also added impetus to keep running my list as it was- if I switched to his (generally considered to be more competitive) then any victory gained was that much less of my own making.
The list itself has only had minor tweaks, usually including a couple blocks of warriors, some rangers, hammerers, a smattering of war machines, and my beloved gyrocopter. Small chaff units, or a Master Rune of Challenge character would periodically cycle in or out. In the last outing, the anvil even came out to play.
These latter components were a relatively small piece of the army, but consistently made it more fun to play. Having a small unit to act as war machine guards, or chaff clearance patrols, or redirectors gave me some hope of dictating the flow of the game beyond just shooting things I didn’t want to fight.
Ultimately, though, this has proven pretty difficult, in a great number of games, I found myself setting up defensively, and despite my best intentions, many games I found myself not advancing until late game, if at all. Some of the main limitations here:
1- Limited movement army, with the only real redirector (gyro) coming in at a pricey 140, only maneuver enhancer (anvil) prone to misfire, and runic items (Dismay, Challenge) ineffective against anything Immune to Psych (3 armies, and many crucial units). This makes it very difficult to dictate the matchups, which pushes many dwarf players into the arms of their artillery.
2- Relatively low reliable damage output in combat- only slayers have multiple attacks per model, and a lack of re-rolls means dwarf infantry can be vulnerable to individually bad phases of rolling, despite high
WS and strength.
3- No access to unit augmenting/
de-buffing magic. Not being able to play the magic phase “shell game” of where will Mind Razor/Withering/Wildform/Flesh to Stone be cast means that the opponent can see all your cards right from the start.
4- Limited flee/pursue means it is harder to benefit from combats that go well, and easier to pay the price for combats that go poorly.
All this isn’t to be overly negative about the army- I love the dwarfs and have found some success with them (and others have found more!) but- these factors do work against the risk/reward of advancing your infantry blocks into the field of battle, when it’d be so much easier to sit back and let the artillery pound away. The net result is that its been really hard to play in the back and forth maneuver way that I’d like to.
There are, of course, strengths that help mitigate this- our units are pretty durable, and pretty good at not running away. Powerful anti-magic helps keep the playing field fairly level too. And of course, the artillery can cripple monsters that would otherwise ravage the blocks. It’s these strengths that I’ve attempted to capitalize on as much as possible over the course of the year.
Favorites from the year Favorite loss: Game 5, Alamo, to Mike. Great guy running an army that defied conventional Internet wisdom, playing a sharp but friendly game with a well painted army. Awesome!
Favorite win: Game 5, Lonewolf IX. Matt’s Ogres. Maybe the friendliest game I’ve played in my life, with both of us up on a much higher table than we expected to be. I was disappointed Matt wasn’t playing this year, but glad to run into him and shoot the breeze at this year’s Lonewolf.
Favorite quote: Upon telling David L in San Antonio that I’d gone 4-1, losing the last game of Alamo to the eventual winner:
David: “What happened?!”
Me: “Oh man, that last game was looking good, I just had a bad round of shooting and kind of panicked a bit, pushed a block forward, and everything made it in to my lines.”
David: “No, I mean how did you win 4 games?” Favorite drink offering: Whisky of unknown provenance, courtesy of Casey when I was riding high after Game 1 of Lonewolf X and discovered there was no in hall bar available.
Favorite toast: Tequila and beer for a gazillion dollars at the hotel bar for Game 3 of Bayou, in a toast to Spicy Weiner’s demise (the carnosaur ridden by Paul’s Oldblood general).
Favorite model (mine): Gyrocopter. Grungni bless you for giving me something interesting to do in every game, even those where I was pinned down.
Favorite unit (mine): The A-team. So dubbed by Jesse G. 5 ironbreakers with a musician. Frequently achieving nothing, sometimes achieving great things, always drawing confused looks from opponents and passers-by.
Favorite model (opponent): Big fuzzy spider in Casey’s Orc & Goblin army. Way cool.
What’s Next? After a flurry of tournaments, I’ve got to hunker down with some school and family responsibilities. I’ve no intention of abandoning the dwarves altogether, but I
do need a change of pace. I’d love to put together the kind of project that draws the “wow” factor and would be over the moon to take home even a 3rd place Player’s choice. Barring that, I’d like to be running an army people don’t often see (Beastmen, Wood Elves) or an army built in a way that is atypical for lists of that style, and absolutely intend to steer clear of conventional Internet wisdom for any project I run.
I have at least half a dozen ideas for different Warhammer armies I’d like to try out: Legion of Hawks Tomb Kings, Araby goblins, Outcasts Beastmen, Clan Misfire Skaven, battered & bloody high elves, all skink Lizards, Slaaneshi cav army, maggoty daemon army, forest fire Wood Elves, etc, etc
Also on the table- trying out some different systems. I have a Black Legion
40K army, though
40K doesn’t really appeal, and they’re rather embarrassingly painted at this stage. RiTides has pointed out the Dropzone Commander minis which are pretty sweet looking, and might pull me in if the ruleset is worthwhile. I periodically muse about Warmachine/Hordes, and now that Kiwidru has come into some Circle of Ouroborus, there’s a low intensity entry point for the game. Trollbloods? Minions? Skorne?
And in the meantime, I’d like to paint/assemble enough Dwarves to try out some no warmachine armies. Just something that absolutely forces me to push it forward and play. Gonna need some slayers and miners, me-thinks…
Wrap it up already This has been way, way more long-winded than I intended. If you skipped most of it, I don’t blame you. If you read it all, I’m not sure what’s wrong with you. I would like to say a big thanks to all the tournament organizers here in Texas- hats off to them for tons of hard work running events that I enjoyed greatly.
Thanks to everyone who read, and especially to everyone who commented on the Relentless reports, the encouragement and criticism make it worth the hours put into assembling these things. It helped me improve my play for sure.
Thanks also to Bobo on TWF for high quality reports that changed the way I think about writing batreps. I have since endeavored to write something half as entertaining as what he was putting out when he was still writing them.
Thanks to those who take the time to write a battle report or tourney report. A special nod to Boss Salvage and his crusade to defy the wisdom of the Internets with his lists. I know how much work it can be to write, and my hat is off to all of you- thanks for taking the time. I’m still warming up to video reports, but I’ll get there.
And finally, just in case you haven’t become utterly disgusted with the idea of reading even one more word from my rambling mind- here’s a brief index of the 8th edition reports from a year of Relentless.
Thanks all- and if you're ever going to one of the Texas
GTs, drop me a line. I'd love to buy you a beer, shake your hand, and shoot the breeze.
Relentless at Lonewolf IX Relentless at Capital City Carnage 2011 Relentless at Bayou Battles 2011 Relentless at Alamo 2011 Relentless at Lonewolf X
