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This is a report from the ‘Ard Boyz 1st round that took place at Borderlands in Greenville, SC. This was my first chance to play in an ‘Ard Boyz event, as it was the first time one rolled around when I had a large enough army to play in it.

I think there were around a dozen players, with the breakdown being roughly
3 Daemons
1 Vampire Counts
3 Lizardmen
2 Warriors of Chaos
1 Dwarfs
1 Empire
1 Bretonnian

I don’t recall seeing any form of Elves on any table, other than the ringer army that would have been used if there were an odd number of players.

I brought Daemons along, as did a friend of mine that rode up with me. I went character-heavy mono-Tzeentch:

Characters:
Kairos Fateweaver
Lord of Change, level 4, Tzeentch’s Will, Power Vortex
Herald of Tzeentch, BSB, Chariot, Power Vortex, Winged Horror, Banner of Hellfire
Herald of Tzeentch, Chariot, Master of Sorcery, Spellbreaker (dispel scroll)
Herald of Tzeentch, Chariot, Master of Sorcery, Spellbreaker
Herald of Tzeentch, Chariot, Master of Sorcery, Spellbreaker
(yes, that’s 2260 of 3000 points spent on characters—glad there’s no comp score)

Core:
10 Pink Horrors
10 Pink Horrors
10 Pink Horrors
10 Pink Horrors

Rare:
6 Flamers, Pyrocaster

It’s a very small army, very mobile, with ridiculous magic and next to no melee ability. It clocks in at 24 PD (and a bound item) and 14 DD (with 3 scrolls). I had initially had the idea to use a Great Unclean One in place of the Lord of Change. It would give me at least some combat ability (he can dismantle things like Stegodons, STanks, or Dragons), access to the Lore of Nurgle, and he’s much tougher to kill than a Lord of Change. However, the GUO was going to be a loner from my friend (we’ll call him “Player R”) when he was planning on taking something other than Daemons… he ended up deciding to go for Daemons, so he used the GUO and I went back to the Lord of Change, since I already had one.

Player R’s list was a different take on Daemons… he ran (roughly):
Keeper of Secrets with Torment Blade, and Siren Song, and the one that requires a Ld test to attack him (can never remember if that one is Allure or Enrapturing Gaze)
GUO with Noxious Vapors and Balesword
The Masque
Tzeentch Herald with Winged Horror who was the BSB with the Icon of Despair
Nurgle Herald with Palanquin, Slime Trail
16 Plaguebearers
10 Daemonettes
10 Daemonettes
10 Bloodletters
3 Fiends
3 Fiends
3 Bloodcrushers

Some of the units were last minute additions to his army, and had never been used before. Also, he’d just settled on the army a couple weeks before, and had not had time for many practice games.

So upon arriving, I see one army that I’d rather not face…another mono-Tzeentch army. The rest of the field looks like I wouldn’t have too many problems with most of the lists, though the Dwarf list may be scary (Lord on Shieldbearers, Thorek, Hammerers, artillery) and the store’s ringer army has two High Elf Lords on Dragons that apparently have the wargear that gives immunity to flaming attacks… definitely something I don’t want. Notably, I completely misjudge the VC army, thinking at a glance that it looks like a caster-heavy build. No knights of any kind, no dragon.

Round 1
Well, true to the nature of Tzeentch, I got paired up against the other Tzeentch Daemon army. This should be interesting. His list:

Kairos
Lord of Change with Twin Heads, Dark Magister (I went back and forth over whether to equip mine like this or the way I did it… I think this way may be stronger than the one I chose)
Herald, BSB, Banner that makes Daemons around it stubborn, Scroll, Master of Sorcery
Blue Scribes (ouch)
4x 10 Pink Horrors
3x 5 Flamers
5 Screamers
6 Screamers

All the missions involved winning by 2600 VP for massacre, something (maybe 1900?) for major, 1200 for minor. The mission rules never came into play in my games until the 3rd round, but this one had the army BSBs being stubborn.
There’s a forest and a hill on each side, and a couple of hedges. I line up pretty much across the board, with my Flamers in the middle, 2 Horror units each side, and the characters behind slightly, concentrated more heavily on the right. He’s got flamers in the middle with 3 units of Horrors bunched up around (1 on each side, 1 behind) with Flamers around them. Kairos and the Scribes are hiding behind his forest, LoC is on the other side. Other Flamers are out on sides.

Also, before set up, we spent about 10 min picking all our spells for our units. I was hoping he wouldn’t think of Pit of Shades, as Kairos is I1, but he did. My Kairos took Cleansing Flare, Pit of Shades, Steal Soul, and a bunch of magic missiles, most notably Burning Gaze. His list was similar. My Heralds all took Lore of Light, mostly for Burning Gaze (D6 S6 against Daemons is no laughing matter). His Herald took Heavens.


Turn 1
He won the roll and let me go first, mentioning as he did so that he had no idea if it was the right call. I didn’t know either. My Horrors and Flamers stayed still, and most of my casters shifted to the right. A bunch could draw sight on the Scribes past the forest, including Kairos, but I couldn’t get sight to his Kairos. I decided to try to take the Scribes out immediately. Unfortunately, my magic was mediocre, particularly when trying to batter through another Tzeentch army’s DD. I managed to do some damage to some Horrors and Flamers and put 2 wounds on the Scribes… not going to do enough.

His first turn was very brutal. All 4 Horror units successfully cast Flickering Flames, and rolled up 6 S6 hit, 5 S7, 7 S5, and 6 S6… brutal. I lost 2 Heralds (one chariot was left floating aimlessly, the other wrecked by the S7 hits). The Scribes rolled on the Lore of Heavens chart and got Comet. I failed to dispel. Finally, his lords went to town. The LoC tried to use Glean Magic to fire my Kairos’s Pit of Shades at Kairos. I had to scroll that. I also scrolled his Kairos’s Pit attempt and his Glean on my Pit. I take no chances with stuff like that. The Flamers are brutal too. My Horrors and Flamers take some damage. All in all, my magical force has been depleted and I’m out all scrolls, and I’ve barely scratched him. Very bad.

Turn 2
I take a look at his setup: cluster of Flamers, Horror unit with BSB directly behind, Scribes directly behind that, and have a random urge to charge with my LoC. The Flamers ineffectually S&S. In magic, I hope that Tzeentch is favoring the Horrors, but mine whiff. Two failures, one dispelled, and one gets 3 S2 hits. My Horrors and Heralds do some damage to his LoC but don’t kill it. Kairos attempts Pit of Shades and it’s scrolled. With his last 2 dice (and my last 2 of the phase other than the LoC), he attempts a Glean on the other Kairos’s Pit. High roll (11ish), with the +2 to cast makes him roll 4 dice to try to dispel. Failure: 1, 1, 1, 2. Kairos fails his I1 test and falls into a hole. Suddenly this game is looking up. I’m so excited about it that I completely forget about the 4 dice on my LoC. He was in flare range of the Flamers in his combat, 3 Horror units, and the Scribes with 1 wound left. There were no DD left for my opponent, so a successful Gift of Chaos could have ended the Scribes (who were a gigantic pain this game, and had an active Comet waiting to fall) as well as doing some other damage. Barring that, he could have attempted to dispel the Comet. Instead I forgot all about them and went to shooting. What a noob. The LoC takes a wound or two but reduces the Flamers down to 1 after Instability test.

His turn 2, the Comet comes down. It reduces one unit of Horrors below 6 (so it’s no longer a Wizard) and brings two others down to 6-7. His Screamers get into my lines, tearing up a wounded Horror unit (now it’s not a Wizard either). His magic phase isn’t nearly as scary without Kairos, although the Scribes have given him a giant pile of dice in the pool. Significantly, his LoC miscasts on a Bolt of Change attempt (ignoring it because of Dark Magister), then miscasts on a Glean attempt. The miscast ended the magic phase, though I think he was about done anyway. His shooting does some more damage to my Horrors (think it finished off a wounded squad) and drops about half my Flamers. The LoC finishes off his combat, but the Scribes are long gone now.

Turn 3
The Horrors and Kairos blow away the LoC with a collection of missiles, and my LoC and Heralds make short work of his Screamers that are now in my backfield. My remaining flamers go gun after a Horror unit.

On his turn 3, a unit of 5 Flamers charges my unit of 3, although the S&S drops them down to 4. He now has about 9 dice in the pool from the Scribes, but only his Horrors and one Herald to use them. He attempts some spells, but I dispel most of the action. The combination of his few remaining Screamers and his Horrors take out my LoC. His Flamers whiff and my do a wound, leading to a drawn combat.

Rest of the game
The rest of the game involves me trying to turn this into something other than a draw. I got a lot of points out of his Kairos + LoC, but he made up most of that on my LoC + 2 Heralds. I’ve only finished off 1 Flamer unit and the Screamers… his Horrors are all still alive, as are 2 Flamer units, Scribes, and BSB. When it’s all said and done, we bloody each other some more, but it’s ultimately a draw. Final score is 11-11.

Elsewhere, Player R absolutely wrecked a Lizardman army, 24-0. My game took a long time, so I didn’t get to see any of his. But apparently Terror test at -2 Ld sent 2 units fleeing on bottom of turn 1 and Siren Song sent another following it, and R fell in love with Daemons. In other games, the Vampire player beat another Lizarman army 21-4, and the Dwarf list got a 23-point massacre (not sure of opponent). So R is in first, and I’m hanging out at less than half the 1st place points.

Round 2
I get paired against Warriors of Chaos. He tells me during the course of the game that he’s only played this particularly army about 3 times, as he’s normally a Wood Elf player. Not sure Ard Boyz is the best time to playtest a new army, but he said he likes chariots. The list:
Vilitch the Curseling (uh oh)
Tzeentch Sorcerer, no clue of gear
2 units of 20 Warriors, Mark of Khorne, Shields
1 unit of 20 Warriors, Mark of Tzeentch, Shields, Blasted Standard
4 Chariots, Mark of Khorne
5 Knights, no mark
20 Marauders, no mark
Giant, no mark

Vilitch could be trouble. I’m encouraged that he doesn’t have the full magical blast list (significantly, he can’t have both Black Tongue and Infernal Puppet, something I wouldn’t want to see at all).

The mission has a totem in the dead center that makes Wizards within 12” use an Ork miscast table, which is brutal. Also something about Animosity, but it doesn’t affect units that are Immune to Psychology.

With all the high armor saves around, plus Vilitch and war machines, I take Metal on all my Heralds. Kairos take Spirit of the Forge, Commandment of Brass, Rule of Burning Iron, Pit of Shades (not sure why, couldn’t come up with anything else), Drain Life, Steal Soul, Beast Cowers, and Uranon’s Thunder Bolt. I’m going hard at those expensive, high armor units.

Turn 1
I win the roll and go first. My Heralds glide forward to be within 24” of Vilitch, as do the lords. I fire off a Burning Iron at him, and then have to show him in his armybook that Vilitch actually has a 4+ armor save, so the spell does a S4 hit with no armor save. Part of the problem of playing an unfamiliar book. He then take a 4+ ward save on Vilitch. I ask how he got that save, and he says the standard gives the unit a 5+ ward, and then the Mark of Tzeentch. I was pretty sure the banner gave a ward against shooting attacks, and say so, and he pulls out the book and looks it up. He didn’t show it to me, but said it affects magic missiles. I just figured I had my banners mixed up, but I double-checked later and it was definitely only in the Shooting phase. So he had a unit with a 4+ ward against my whole army. Trouble. After futilely bouncing off the ward save with everything I had (I think Spirit of the Forge killed 2 Warriors and I dealt 1 wound to Vilitch), with my last 2 dice I cast Glean Magic on his Infernal Gate. He had no DD left. Rolled for number of hits, got an 11, rolled for strength, got another 11! Entire unit and Vilitch whisked off into the warp. Tzeentch giveth, Tzeentch taketh away. He said (pretty accurately) that that was pretty much game.

His turn one, he marched everything forward. This was when he discovered chariots can’t actually march. His Sorcerer stayed in the back in a unit of Marauders.

The rest of this match doesn’t bear much scrutiny. After Vilitch died he had zero magic defense. The Heralds picked apart the Knights one by one with Burning Iron, the Chariots on the near side were stopped by Commandment and Beast Cowers, and the Warriors were brutalized by 2 Bolts of Change and Spirit of the Forge. By the bottom of 3 all the units of Warriors were dead, along with the Knights, Giant, and 2 Chariots. The other 2 Chariots couldn’t move. He had not dealt one wound or one single casualty to me, or even caused me to roll a save. I almost felt bad. He gave me the full 24 battle points, simply to save a little time, as there would have been nothing to finishing off 2 Chariots and the Marauders while minimizing miscast risk.

The entire game took less than 25 minutes.

So, I got to see what was happening elsewhere. Player R was up against the Dwarf army, and it looked to be quite a game. At least, until I got there. Just as I walked up, the Dwarf player made a mistake about the order of some charges that had been declared. He had fled with his Shieldbearer lord’s unit to avoid a rear charge, thinking that the nearby Fiends would move first. He then realized they went in the other order, and he was forced to flee before the Fiends moved, destroying his lord and unit of Hammerers. Not good. R was talking about how much of a pain Thorek has been. He mentioned hoping Thorek would blow up first turn, when the Dwarf player rolled a 2 on the anvil, with a 1 on the re-roll, then a 2 on the miscast table. He double-checked, thinking a 2 would kill Thorek and the anvil, but it didn’t. After hearing this, I mentioned to R that Thorek subtracts one on that table if the reroll was a 1 (represents Kraggi making a mistake, something I remember from my Dwarf days). I thought briefly about whether I should bring it up, but it occurred to me that it’s a rule that is a drawback to the Dwarfs, but one that most people wouldn’t know about, and forgetting it gives the Dwarf player an unfair advantage. It’s not like a play mistake on the part of Player R that I brought up to aid him in the tournament or anything. Well, I mention it to R, and he mentions it to the opponent, in a sense of just asking if that’s true. The Dwarf player realized he had forgotten it and thinks about what to do for a second. He says he doesn’t think it would be possible to go back and undo what Thorek did the previous turn (used the move ability to make charges), but he takes Thorek off the board. Certainly a stand-up guy, and I didn’t think for a second he had done it on purpose. Those things just happen.

Well, once both lords were dead, the Fiends and Bloodcrushers pretty much ran rampant among the artillery and gunners. Final result was a major victory in favor of the Daemons, with the bonus points making the final result 20-2. Elsewhere, the Vampire player played a second consecutive Lizardman army, demolishing it 24-0.

Finally, a game that had a very big impact on the overall tournament results: the other Tzeentch Daemon player played the Empire army, being piloted by someone who had apparently been out of Warhammer for a very long time (multiple editions ago) and so didn’t have a solid grasp of the current state of the rules. The game apparently went fairly slowly, with turn 4 being finished around 2.5 hours into the round. At that point, the Empire player just conceded, giving the Tzeentch player full battle points. Now, this is very similar to how my round ended, with the large exception that I was up more than 2000 VP to 0 after 3 turns, while this game would have timed out long before turn 6 and possibly before turn 5 could be finished. Now there’s no question that the Daemon player won and won big, but at the end of the game, I’m not at all sure the Daemon player had a margin of victory of more than 2600 VPs. I would have at least liked to see the totals to see if a full massacre was achieved. There was also a comment made by the Empire player that he had gotten one of the greater daemons down to a single wound and it was healed completely up with Stream of Life, a spell that specifies in its description that it has no effect on Daemons. I’m certainly not suggesting that the Daemon player did this intentionally, but the fact that it happened may also have shifted the game balance. Notably, had the Daemon player received only a major victory, even with all modifiers (which he wouldn’t get if one of his Wizards died) it would have changed the final outcome of who went to the second round and who didn’t.

Now I’m not at all saying the Daemon player did something wrong by accepting the concession. He just benefited from luck of the draw, being paired up against someone who didn’t understand the tournament format and so conceded all points when all points may not have been earned. He just may have gotten a little extra boost in a tournament that ended up being extremely close.

After 2 rounds, the Vampire player led with 45 points, with Player R in second with 44. The other Tzeentch player and I are tied at 35 points each, and the Dwarf player is at 25. There is at least one Lizardman who has had a decent showing and is sitting in the 20’s. Round 3 will pit R against the Vampires, and since the two Tzeentch armies can’t play twice, we’ll each be paired down. It should be an interesting final round.

Round 3
I got paired against the Dwarfs. I’m not too worried, but it could be troublesome, particularly if Thorek decides to go crazy. His list:
Lord on Shieldbearers, Great Weapon (?), armor kit that gives him a rerollable 1+ and reduces strength against him to 5, possibly a ward save—typical fare
Thorek with Anvil
Thane—fighty, no idea of gear
Thane—BSB, no idea of runic standards
Runesmith, Master Rune of Balance, scroll (this seems like too many points now that I think of it, but I’m sure there was only 1 Runesmith)
10 Warriors
20 Longbeards (2 Thanes went here)
10 Thunderers
10 Thunderers
20 Hammerers (lord went here, naturally)
10 Slayers
Cannon, reroll rune
2 Bolt Throwers, +1 strength, engineer (Runesmith joined crew of one)
2 Organ Guns
Gyrocopter

After some deliberations I take Heavens on the Heralds, thinking I can use it to outrange some of his shooting (thunderers, organ gun) and blast at things like artillery crews. Kairos takes Sprit of the Forge, Commandment of Brass, Drain Life, Steal Soul, a few magic missiles, and Pit of Shades, my game 1 MVP. Of note about this mission, it has a requirement that if the army’s general can see and charge the opponent’s general, he must charge and declare a challenge. Trouble. I let my LoC be the general in this game (I wasn’t really sure if that’s a decision that’s supposed to be made at army list creation or at game start, I’ve never really heard one way or the other).

He deploys Hammerers, Longbeards, Warriors, and Slayers in the center, with Thunderers on each flank, a Bolt Thrower on each far flank, both Organ Guns to the side of the center block, and the Cannon and Thorek on the back table edge, centered. The table was entirely without terrain…one small hill (my deployment zone) and two small lakes that we treated as impassible but no LOS blockage.

I pretty much just lined up the Horrors and Flamers on the line with fliers behind, like usual. I won the roll and chose to go first.

Turn 1
Kairos and the Lord of Change hop forward. The Heralds shuffle sideways to get LOS to various points. The Horrors and Flamers don’t move. Kairos and LoC are somewhat centered in the table, but on the far side from the Organ Guns, so they don’t have 24” to them. The LoC is further from the center, with the goal being to get within 24” of something to blast while staying more than 26” from the Dwarf general. I completely didn’t even consider the idea of Thorek marching him forward an extra 6. Noobing it up again. (It turned out not to matter…he didn’t use Thorek to move units but it turned out I was a couple inches closer than I thought and he pulled out the LoC anyway.)

Magic was uneventful. He had 9 DD and I was out of range with some of my spells. I did pull out the one scroll. The Heralds bolted artillery crews, getting a few kills here and there but not enough to bring any guns to non-operational.

His turn 1, he marched forward with the block, sat the Thunderers and Organ Guns still, and shot with what had range. The cannon clipped Kairos but he saved. One Bolt Thrower missed, the other smashed a Herald’s ride (S7 shots). Thorek grounded a chariot and dealt it a wound and put a wound on the Flamers.

Turn 2
My misjudgment is revealed as my LoC is forced to charge. This doesn’t bode well. My forces mostly shuffle around. Magic is weak. The LoC casts Gift of Chaos in the midst of the block but it fails miserably (1 S1 hit, 3 S1, 2 S2, 1 S4). It was unimpressive. I couldn’t fly into the midst of the block for Cleansing Flare or Drain Life + Gift of Chaos + Banner because of the possibility that the units could reform to face me then get Thorek-charged into me. Horrors do a little damage to Warriors, Flamers put a hurting on Slayers. The LoC predictably fails to hurt the Dwarf Lord, and takes 2 wounds from instability. Heralds blast some more crewmen, knocking one Organ Gun down to a single crewman and a Bolt Thrower down to 2 (plus Runesmith).

His turn two, his shooting is almost as anemic as my magic. Cannon whiffs, one unit of Thunderers move forward for range, another tries to shoot Kairos but is short, Thorek does little. A Bolt Thrower wrecks another chariot. Instability tests end the LoC at the end of combat. At least it happened on his turn.

Turn 3
More shuffling in the movement phase. The grounded Heralds move to get sight on as much of the field as possible (glad I went for unlimited range magic missiles). In the magic phase, Kairos finally realizes these tiny little Dwarfs don’t scare him, and throws 5 dice at a brute-force Pit of Shades attempt. No 6’s, but no 1’s. Good enough for a 19. The Dwarf player is nonplussed for a moment, trying to figure out the optimal way to dispel a 19. He tries with 7 dice and rolls three 1’s. Half his Hammerers plus the Lord fall down a hole. Apparently I should have just hidden the LoC in the corner until that happened. Horrors do a little damage to the Longbeards (while creeping backward), Heralds plink at a few more crewmen. Notably, I fail to take out the last remaining crewman of the Organ Gun. I whittle down the Warriors (or possibly finish them off). The Flamers give the Slayers the battlefield death they crave.

His turn 3, he’s getting close with his two remaining units (Hammerers and Longbeards) and flies his Gyrocopter up to get a broadside on a Horror unit. Should be easy enough to take that out next turn. Kairos continues to play dodgeball with the cannon. Thorek pounds on the BSB’s chariot, some Horrors, and the Flamers. The BSB’s chariot is destroyed and the Flamers and Horrors each take a couple casualties. The Gyrocopter does grievous damage to a Horror unit (no longer a Wizard). The Thunderers who advanced fire on the Thorek’ed Horror unit, making it no longer a Wizard.

Turn 4
Time to get in the midst of the units out there. They’re too small at this point for the Thorek-charge threat to be major. The BSB marches up alongside, out of charge range. (He has his full movement allowance this turn because he has Winged Horror, so he can fly. Therefore Thorek only grounds him, he doesn’t lose half his movement.) Kairos flies behind, everyone else gets ready. Kairos throws 5 dice at Pit again, 21. The Dwarf player picks up 6 dice, considers, picks up 7, considers, picks up 8, back down to 7. And rolls four 1’s. Ouch. The already-depleted Longbeard unit loses all but 2 models, and both Thanes fall down the hole. A Herald takes revenge on the Bolt Thrower that smashed his chariot, blowing up the gun and leaving the crew to run for it. I whittle the Hammerer unit down to 3. The remainder of the magic phase consists me failing utterly to hurt the Gyrocopter, and multiple flares which only kill one of the two Longbeards (leaving the banner) and do nothing to the 3 Hammerers.

His turn 4, the Hammerers and single Longbeard advance to charge range (ha!) and the Gyrocopter repositions to hit more Horrors.

The rest of the game is fairly uneventful other than a couple of hilarious combats…after my next magic phase ends a little prematurely (*miscast*) he has a lone standard bearer Longbeard and a lone standard bearer Hammerer in my lines, along with the Gyrocopter. The standard bearers charge depleted Horror units on his turn 5, and we bounce, with my outnumbering countered by his banner. With them in combat, I’m forced to rely on flares to try to kill them, but fail utterly. I used the Flamers to try to shoot down the Gyrocopter, which also failed. I should have just charged the Flamers into combat, but I didn’t expect all my magic to fail. In turn 6, a standard bearer killed a Horror, won combat by one, and the Horror unit disintegrated in the instability test. The other one lived right through the end of the game. When it was all said and done, those two standard bearers were still alive, hanging on to half the VPs of their respective units. Most of the artillery were still alive (I killed an Organ Gun to add to the Bolt Thrower), Thorek was still active, the Runesmith had 1 wound left, the Gyrocopter was still up, there was 1 member of a Thunderer unit alive…all in all I did a ton of damage to his army but left an unbelievable number of points still on the table in units I didn’t quite finish off.

My army was pretty much in shambles too, other than my Heralds (now on foot) and Kairos. I couldn’t believe that the Gyrocopter almost single-handedly took out my entire core. The final VP total: I had 2 more VPs than him. Yes, three bloody hours later, we were separated by a difference of 2 VPs. (It was 202 when table quarters were taken into account, but still…quite a showing.) So, another draw, this one 12-12, leaving me with 47 points.

Elsewhere, Player R was absolutely wrecked by the Vampire Counts list. Apparently it was not as magic-centric as I had thought. A highlight was apparently a Vampire Lord on foot, with the Movement 9 talisman, with Infinite Hatred, Red Fury, and maybe Beguile, with Bear’s Anger being cast on it by another Vampire. R didn’t even give any thought to Bear’s Anger, cast about halfway through the magic phase, until a Vampire Lord with 7 attacks at WS7, I7, S7, rerolling hits and wounds, and getting an extra attack per wound inflicted, rampaged through most of his army. It tore the Keeper apart like it was made of paper (it also took away ASF and had a ward save).

There was one very significant thing that happened early on, that R didn’t catch thanks to a combination of a long day of gaming and no sleep the night before. The Great Unclean One was his general, and the opponent’s general was a Vampire Lord mounted on a horse. The GUO walked forward turn 1, and then, as per the mission rules, the opposing general had to charge. There was some discussion about whether the mission rules would make him charge out of the unit if the unit was out of range (a la Frenzy), but R and I had already checked on that before the game, and it was ruled that he had to. So the general ran out of his unit into the certain doom of a Balesword GUO. After finding out the general had to charge, the Vampire player had the other lord charge too (movement 9). R supposed that he could have made the argument that the general is moving under a compulsory movement so it’s too late to declare charges, but he let it slide. It would be another call for the judge, and besides, if the general were killed in combat and the other lord lost by more than 3, it would die too.

So here’s the significant thing: after the other phases finished up and combat rolled around, the Vampire player apparently forgot to challenge with his general, as per the mission rules, and R didn’t catch it. It’s significant because after the GUO completely bounced off the general’s 4+ ward save (and failed to hurt the GUO in return) the Angry-as-a-Bear Vampire tore the GUO a new one. The GUO lost by so much that instability killed him, and suddenly R is down one of his heavyweights turn one. The rest of the game is a slaughter. R ends up getting only 1 point, leaving him at 45, two points behind me. The Vampire player is by far the uncontested winner, the only one with three big wins. He has 68 battle points after getting 23 off R. This puts us in the situation that if the other Tzeentch player pulls a 10-point draw, he’ll tie with R and it will come to tie-breakers. If he gets 11+ points then R will be in 4th. If he gets 9 or less than R will be third and qualify for the next round. When the smoke clears, the Tzeentch player gets the better side of a 13-10 draw, putting him at 48 points, one ahead of me and 3 ahead of R. The final standings:

Vampires 68
Tzeentch Daemons 48
Tzeentch Daemons 47
Mixed Daemons 45
Dwarfs 37
Rest of field less

Quite a showing for the Immune to Psychology crowd. R was initially bummed by the near miss, but looking back is happy to have finished so close and is now a huge fan of the Daemons. I scraped by on the skin of my teeth, relying on the strength of my army to make up for quite a few noobish mistakes. I’ve been out of plaing Fantasy too long. I’ll be tuning my game up for the second round. R was somewhat hopeful of getting the 2nd round spot passed down to him, but apparently round 2 will also be held at Borderlands, so it’s unlikely any of the top 3 will miss it, as they’re all locals.

All in all, it was a great tournament. I love the 3000+ point games of Fantasy. Dual-lord is just the way the game should really be played. Kairos was (unsurprisingly) the MVP of all three rounds, with Glean Magic and Pit of Shades (and a combo of the 2) doing most of the heavy lifting. Glean Magic accounted for one general, Pit of Shades for a second, and they tag-teamed to take out a third.

Sorry about the length of the report, but it’s been a while since I’ve been in a serious tournament (the last one may have been Adepticon), so it was refreshing to get back to it.

Nice report, length is never a problem when its a good one. Glad to hear how well things went at borderlands, in Augusta out of the original ten that were going to come only 7 showed and one bailed after a 1st round massacre. I guess ill be seeing you in the semi's which will hopefully be somewhere in georgia. Good luck and choas speed!!

Awesome report and damned nasty list. This report does go to show how several seemingly minor rules mistakes can have a huge impact in the end.

Way to represent! I think there's an 'Ardboyz Fantasy round 2 in ATL too....hint hint. How've things been?

Excellent Report!!

I really enjoyed it.

It's typical with WHFB for players to forget many details. There's just too many little things from each army book to know all of it by heart.

Ouch, he failed the Look Out, Sir! against the Pit and then also the initiative test with his dwarf lord? Harsh.

I took a similar list to yours since the TO at Phoenix ruled that the masque & icon of despair are trumped by using general's leadership (was planning on a mixed-daemon LD-foo list). I kept the masque, though, which is still just awesome in general.

Great Report, thank you for sharing!

Player-A wrote:Ouch, he failed the Look Out, Sir! against the Pit and then also the initiative test with his dwarf lord? Harsh.

I took a similar list to yours since the TO at Phoenix ruled that the masque & icon of despair are trumped by using general's leadership (was planning on a mixed-daemon LD-foo list). I kept the masque, though, which is still just awesome in general.

Yeah, I read your report... I had given some thought to that list, more or less, but when it came time, all the Tzeentch Daemons were already assembled and ready to go, so it seemed easier. Grats on round 2.

As far as Look Out, Sir!, I didn't think that applied to Pit of Shades. The intro to LO,S! says "In the case of missile weapons that can be fired this way..." (emphasis mine). It does go on to say this applies to "any other ranged attack that uses a template (like some spells...)" but then below in describing how the rule actually works, it says "On a roll of 2 to 6, the character is alerted to the danger and avoids the missile. The character is not hit and the missile strikes another model." I had been under the impression that templates that do other things (I test, T tests, whatever) don't benefit from Look Out, Sir! The TO thought the same...were we in the wrong there? I can't pull up the FAQs at work.

40kenthusiast wrote:Way to represent! I think there's an 'Ardboyz Fantasy round 2 in ATL too....hint hint. How've things been?

It's been going well. I may have to check out the ATL tourny, but I dunno... there sure is one less bonedoc in SC. Might have better odds. You staying dry down there? Last I saw it seemed like half the city was underwater.

Also, Chaos Dwarfs? What's next, you taking Zealots to the 40k Ard Boyz? But grats on round 2 also. Cool report. I especially liked Thorek blowing himself up in the face of chaos onslaught.

It's not mentioned specifically in the main rulebook faq (either of them), but I always figured the "any other ranged attack" part would cover it.

Anyway.. Heh, maybe I can convince bonedoc to head up there for round 2 again this year. FFS, I looked back and I'm 3-9 against him in the last 12 times we played. Makes me sad inside.

And no, not Zealots for him next - IG. Not just IG, but infantry horde IG. He's lost it.

Well I will definitely check with a TO ahead of time next time just to be sure. Still a great spell against Dwarfs, but not quite as ludicrous without that part.

And you better not send him up here. I'm fairly sure of the last 5 times I played him, I'm 0-6 (somehow).

Hey man, you can't rune of challenge an immune to psych target - your lord of change got hosed on that one. I guess the dwarf lord wasn't so honorable after all.

Of note about this mission, it has a requirement that if the army’s general can see and charge the opponent’s general, he must charge and declare a challenge.

It wasn't the MRoChallenge - it was the scenario that forced the LoC to charge.

(Hijacking... well not really.)

I was the Lizardman that got demolished by VC in the 2nd round, ouch. Par for the course for me though. I'm pretty bold to post here though right?

I don't really think a concession should give the opponent full points in a tournament. Are we sure that's what happened for Daemons vs. Empire? It's not really fair to the other players, plus it opens the door for collusion. Oh well, I'm not stressed about it or anything. (The core of the problem was a player who wasn't prepared to play, i.e. didn't know the rules well enough.)

My list:

Slann: BSB, Totem of Prophecy, Cupped Hands, Bane Head, Scroll, Becalming Cogitation, Focus of Mystery, I forget... extra power die Discipline
Oldblood: Blade of Realities, Jag Charm
Skink Chief: Stegadon, Warspear
Skink Chief: Terradon, Staff of the Lost Sun
Skink Priest: Lvl 2, EotG, Scroll, Plaque of Tepok
Skink Priest: Lvl 2

20 x Saurus Warriors w/Spears, FC x 2
10 x Skink Skirmishers x 2
14 x Temple Guard
5 x Cold One Cavalry
3 x Terradon Riders

Game 1: Bretonnians
My opponent was a good guy, and not very experienced. (Neither am I for that matter--this was my first game vs. Brets.) He had the Fay Enchantress, Green Knight, and a fairly standard list with every kind of knight, trebuchet and some peasants.
He miscast 1st turn and I got to cast a spell. I put Spirit of the Forge on his Grail Knights. I tried to make it clear he could use a Scroll (in his case a Mirror) to dispel it, but he rolled and failed and 7 Knights died. That stuck in his craw a bit, I know the feeling. He did the same miscast on his next spell, but *I* blew it and cast a 24" spell at something 24.5" away.
So this game went my way. He put his Green Knight behind a building, then couldn't see him and forgot to move him. The Ancient Stegadon killed the Enchantress later in the game. The Oldblood Realitied his BSB, but I forgot to challenge, so I lost the combat, but escaped and rallied later (whew).
Unfortunately we only got through 4 turns. I won by about 1820, not quite enough for a major victory. The score was 16-6.

Game 2: Vampire Counts
Ah, one of my worst wargame (I also play 40K and Warmachine) performances ever, and that might be saying something.
This was against a good guy, and one of the best players in the area. I did my best to fail during deployment. I didn't have enough room to put my full line of Saurus and TG between two forests, so I put one Saurus block behind the other. I should have just put them in the trees since I wasn't planning to move them! I tried to put my Stegs with my Saurus, but my opponent said that units of higher than US 5 cannot join units. I wasn't sure about that, I should have asked the TO. I cannot find this rule; the RB just says that US 5+ units can be targetted within units, which implies that they can join units. Sigh, making Saurus Immune to Psych would have been useful against VCs. Life will go on though.
His list had two Vampire Lords, Konrad and one other named char, and two other Vamps. He had skellies, GG with Drakenhof, the Black Coach, Banshees or whatev. Every unit except Banshees had a Vampire.
It went badly. My Terradons lost combat to Banshees and exited the board, forcing two panic checks for my Skink Priest + Skirmishers, the 2nd one of which they failed, and they left the board. The Saurus behind my line failed a Terror check and also left the board. A chilling sensation filled me as I realized I hadn't gotten any VPs. I used six dice for my Slann in hopes of getting a Cupped miscast; nope, no double ones. So I got wiped out, it was a Panic at the Disco! (Sorry, I just saw one of their T-shirts.) 24-0

Game 3: Warriors of Chaos
I only recently met this player. I figured this would be an even matchup.
He had an Ex. Champ General joined to 15+ Chosen, 2 x Nurgle Sorcerers, 1 other Sorcerer (mark?) 12 Nurgle Warriors, 12 Slaanesh Warriors, 12 Unmarked Warriors, 5 Nurgle Knights, 5 Khorne Knights, 5 Marauder Horseman and the Hellcannon (plus maybe stuff I can't remember?).
I deployed my line behind a hedge so my Slann wouldn't have to charge his General. This game developed slowly since I didn't move my line. I tried to set up his Knights for a COC charge w/skirmishers (those units were all alone to my left; the hedge was toward the right.) I blew it though and lost both units, but the Knights didn't make it to my line, so that was good.
I had to use my 2 scrolls early; both Nurglers had Quagmire. So a pivotal moment was when my Skink Chief on Steg had the Nurgle Warriors lined up in the flank, and he got Quagmire off and killed the Steg but not the Chief. The Nurgle Warriors got in with Saurus, Chief, and Oldblood. Thanks to the chars I eventually won and caught them. I sniped his General dead with that Lore of Metal spell + Bane Head.
He picked up a few points in the last turn by wounding the EotG Priest, killing the dismounted Chief, etc. We both made "flee in the last turn" mistakes. He fled two Slaanesh Warriors from my EotG, giving me full points. I then fled my Terradon Chief from his Hellcannon, giving him full points! (Smacks head.) After the dust settled I had 250ish points on him, a draw by all accounts. The tally was 13-12.
So I got 29 points, 3 out of 6th place. Yep a goose egg never helps. Last year I got 4th and was out by 1 point. That was with a Thorek list remarkably similar to this year's Dwarf player's.

What I learned:
* I may have used too many dice casting for my Priests, should have saved more for you-know-who.
* Joining a 100-pt Priest to 70-pt Skirmishers: too many points in a sacrificial unit.
* Frenzied units don't have to charge the nearest unit, oops.
* I always roll 5 or 6 for CV 5ish spells, which doesn't help drawing Scrolls in this 4-Scroll era.
* I need to work on redirection w/my Skirmishers.
There's probably more.

A good time was had by most I think. The organization was good as always.

@Zygomax,
Not sure about the us5 rule but there is a rule that says that monsters may not join unit's. So for instance all greater daemons, shaggoth generals (for beasts). Dragon's etc. That may be what the person was thinking of.

Yes, but I believe a character with a monstrous mount doesn't count as a monster but a character. I'll have to study the RB more for clarification.

Not sure of the unit strength involved or if it does make a difference, but I do know that VC necromancers with a corpse cart mount can join to infantry blocks, because the corpse cart is counted as a monstrous mount.

On the other hand, nothing that flies can join units. Doesn't apply in this case, but just wanted to put that out there.

On the other hand, nothing that flies can join units. Doesn't apply in this case, but just wanted to put that out there.

Monsterous characters may not join units, characters on monstrous mounts MAY join units. Fairly common tactic with skink characters on stegs.

Never be afraid to question your opponent on the rules!

gardeth wrote:Monsterous characters may not join units, characters on monstrous mounts MAY join units. Fairly common tactic with skink characters on stegs.

Never be afraid to question your opponent on the rules!

Too true... I thought he was wrong, I just didn't feel like scanning the rulebook during this tournament. Don't know why I didn't ask the TO; other disputes I did, he's very helpful.

@Warmaster: I see you're from Denver. I'm in SC now, but I grew up in Longmont.

Well I look foward to seeing you at Borderlands for the Semi finals of Ard Boyz. There will be three of us makeing the trip that way.

Good to hear. I've been wondering about how many would be there. I don't really know of a whole lot of gaming stores in the area. With Atlanta holding one too, I wonder what the Greenville turnout will be like. We know we're up to at least 6 now! (Of course that's already as big as the Augusta round, so I guess it'll work out.)

Wtf, somehow Tower games also got one. So there's two in Atlanta now... Stupid, but I guess I'd rather have two than none.

Be careful with the steg char in a unit though. As it's a large target he can still be picked out for shooting etc.

Player-A wrote:Wtf, somehow Tower games also got one. So there's two in Atlanta now... Stupid, but I guess I'd rather have two than none.

Do you know how many quals there were down there? Could still be a decent turn-out if you have 3 each from the Pit, Phoenix, Tower, Treefort, Gigabites, etc.

(Also, now this gives you a chance to go to whichever store bonedoc doesn't.)

Borderlands will probaly also get people from North Carolina. Perhaps maybe even a couple other border States

Hah, yeah, but I already told Ken I'd be there for the semi's.. and unfortunately, I couldn't convince bonedoc to head up to borderlands again!

As for stores here that held the prelim's, it was only Phoenix, Tower, and Giga-bites. Most everyone seems to be headed to Phoenix (even some of the Tower qualifiers). Will be interesting to see how many show up to each store.

Hey, don't forget us west-siders... Hobby Hangout will be represented at the semi's as well.

Which location, Greenville or Atlanta??

Atlanta. Had my visit to Borderlands last year for 40k, would like to visit all the "local" shops sometime so think I'm headed to Tower (since I've been to Phoenix this year for 40k semis).