Painlord Titan Princeps of Slaanesh
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Well another fine tournament with a much bigger turnout at Lone Star Comics #1 in Arlington, TX. My vampire counts did me so well in round 1, I brought them again! This time, since they'd done so well, several units graced the board with....well not shiny, but nonetheless new paintjobs. I didn't get as much work done as I'd wanted to, but at least most of the skeletons looked like skeletons now rather than plain plastic.
My list:
Vlad von Carstein
Vampire Lord, level 3, Red Fury, Infinite Hatred, Beguile, Sword of Kings, Nightshroud, Gem of Blood
Wight lord BSB, greatweapon, Drakenhoff Banner
Vampire, Level 2 power, Lord of the Dead, Staff of Sorcery, Black Periapt
Vampire, Level 2 power, Lord of the Dead, Book of Arkhan
Vampire, Level 2 power, Lord of the Dead, Helm of Commandment
10 skeletons, full command
10 skeletons, full command
10 skeletons, spears, full command
10 skeletons, spears, full command
Varghulf
6 Cairn Wraiths
20 Graveguard, full command, Royal Banner of Strigos
3k on the dot!
Game 1: Dark Elves
Scenario: Choose a character [not the general]. This person has offended the enemy general in some way, and has to die! If the general [or the unit he is with] is ever in charge range of that character [or its unit] then they MUST charge and issue a challenge. This proved very problematic for my army, as my vampires are all M6, but my units are M4! If he was ever 9-12 inches away, my lord would go charging out on his own. Quite a problem!
He took 2 level 4 sorceresses. One on a cold one, in a unit of knights with the +d3 combat res and a BSB, the other on foot.
2 level 2 sorceresses also came along. Two units of shades, two units of crossbowmen, a unit of spear elves [for the general to use her sacrificial dagger on], a big unit of corsairs, and a smaller unit of knights. A hydra and three bolt throwers finished the list.
The game started very poorly for me. VERY poorly. I'd never seen a DE player actually use power of darkness, really. He cast it the first turn for every wizard and my thinking was to let him blow all those dice, and hope for some miscasts. He didn't. I had originally planned to use my wraiths as a screen in front of my general's unit, so he could never see the enemy to charge out of it. After lots of spells, the wraiths were severely depleted, and I had to go on to plan B. I moved flat to the far corner and turned the unit almost so it was facing the side of the board, so that vlad wouldn't have the enemy in his LOS and thus wouldn't be forced to declare a charge.
After about three turns of my army barely breaking even, struggling to keep casualties resurrected and failing to dispel ANYTHING, things began to change. The DE player rolled quite high for all his spells, getting 15 attacks from bladewind, etc. This was to be his undoing. His sorceress on the cold one kept failing stupidity tests [thanks to Vlad's -1 leadership!], and thus couldn't cast. Then the panic set in. After getting a good curse of years on the corsair unit, it broke and ran. It ran through several units, forcing yet more panic tests. These units failed to rally and were still running on turn 6. To make matters worse, in the final turn it was found that his general and the 4 remaining spear elves she was with was within charge range of my graveguard with the offending character, the other vampire lord. She used Soulstealer and got herself up to 6 wounds - and in the ensuing challenge, I got a killing blow, giving me 6 more attacks from red fury. 11 points of combat res, thanks to overkill! It was looking like a major victory, but I managed to win combat against the knights with a unit of skeletons with a vampire, and they ran. What remained was two squads of crossbowmen that were in combat with spirithosts.
Massacre.
Game #2 - Dark Elves
Four players scored massacres, and so we played each other. In this scenario, double 5 or double 6s were irresistable force, and double 2's and double 1's were miscasts - but if you got an IF AND a miscast, you would first cast the spell, then apply the miscast result.
He had two lords on dragons. One had Caledor's bane and the pendant of kaeleth, the other the Life Stealer crossbow and armour of eternal servitude with the ring of hotek. Two masters on dark pegasi, 4 units of dark riders, 4 units of shades, 1 unit of harpies, and 6 bolt throwers.
I expected a very nasty game, with lots of running around and shooting down my units. I was quite surprised.
Varghulf moved to where shades had scouted to force terror checks. Wraiths looked at the board, realized only one model had a magic weapon, and rejoiced! They made a beeline for the ringbearer. The last thing I needed this round was more help miscasting!
In magic, I summoned units of zombies out way in front, to prevent the dark riders from marching. I expected him to move around and shoot, but he decided to charge! One unit of riders failed their fear test, but one succeeded as did the shades. Harpies and a unit of riders charged the second unit of zombies. I also cast wind of undeath this round - with soooooo many small units, it was devastating. A unit of 4 spirit host bases appeared, ready to wreak havoc and remain invincible.
He eradicated the zombies, forced to overrun, ended up in front of skeletons. I charged him, doing a little damage. My second turn I also moved the wraiths forward, and used danse macabre to charge the hotek dragon. He fled, going through the pegasus rider, who panicked. He also went through a unit of shades, which also panicked. I cast wind of undeath again and wounded almost every unit except the boltthrowers. Now starting at 4 models, the dark riders had to make panic checks, which several failed. He thought about his next turn for a while, and decided in order to get ANYTHING good out of this battle, he had to charge with his dragon lord. He charged my unit of graveguard, lost the combat, fled, and was caught. He called the game, having very little remaining on the board.
Massacre.
One thing worth noting is that he killed a vampire right out of a unit of skeletons. After reducing them to 4 models, he shot a bolt thrower and got 3 hits. Randomizing between 1-4 skeletons and 5 the vampire with 6's being re-rolled, I got 2 5's and a 6, re-rolling for another 5. So despite being in a unit, one of my vampires got shot right out from under me. Darn the luck!
Game #3 - Warriors of Chaos
This game was to be against my turn 1 opponent during the preliminaries. His list consisted of Vilitch the Curseling, A level 4 Slaanesh sorceror, Festus, a BSB with the Armour of Zhrakk and collar of khorne, and 2 nurgle sorcerors in a unit of 30 chosen of tzeentch with the banner of rage and the favour of the gods, with 3 tzeentch warshrines, 3 units of marauder horsemen, and a unit of marauders. The characters were all in the chosen, making it 9 by 4 with some to spare.
The first time I faced this list, I marchblocked the chosen, used my wraiths and varghulf to hunt down the marauders and shrines, and killed everything but the deathstar. He in turn killed my graveguard via magic along with two of my vampires and the game was a draw.
I knew if we both got draws and one of the solid victory players got a massacre, we'd be knocked out of first and second. We needed massacres to secure our spots, so I was going to go after that deathstar! He cast some magic after marching forward, reducing the wraiths to 2 models. I ran the Varghulf forward maximum distance, within charge range of his deathstar, turned to the side to cause him to align sideways. Everything else marched forward. I tried using 1 dice at a time to summon skeletons, and each time I failed Vilitch gained a dispel die. I learned my lesson, but too late, and nothing was summoned this turn. Wraiths marched to get out of LOS of his unit.
His turn, deathstar charges Varghulf. ALL THREE of his warshrines fail their terror checks thanks to the varghulf and wraiths, and run almost to the board edge. Magic does next to nothing, Varghulf finishes after regeneration to have 2 wounds remaining. His front rank is all sorcerors, who have a hard time wounding the varghulf!
My turn, graveguard charge the flank of the deathstar. Everything else moves up, wraiths move around behind. I lose combat by a little, but manage to wound Festus. His BSB declares a challenge, which my unit champion accepts, and is summarily killed. I lose combat by 1, which the BSB wight lord prevents anyone taking any damage. That Varghulf is a liability, he keeps getting hurt! I decided to stop trying to heal him.
By the way, his buffs are +1 armour save, +1 leadership, Cause Terror, and the 4+ [made 3+ with mark of tzeentch] ward save and stubborn. So this unit is very tough to crack!
Basically, this is the game until about turn 4. We fight back and forth, but once the Varghulf is dead, he stops doing much damage. The BSB re-challenges, and Vlad accepts. He's afraid to move any of his characters to the fighting flank for fear of killing blow - and they aren't that deadly to begin with, being just S4. My helm of commandment makes my unit WS6, so he's hitting on 4+. Eventually the wraiths join the rear, and are healed back up to 6 models, giving me 18 attacks a turn and the rear bonus.
Finally, in turn 4, after winning combat by 1, he makes his break test on stubborn 8 [reduced by 1 because of Vlad]. He rolls an 11, then another 11, then flees through a block of skeletons. Massacre!
"Hey, did you roll the leadership checks for Aura of Acquiescence for those wraiths?"
The game grinds to a halt. I hadn't, we both forgot about the spell. Quickly, I grab dice and start rolling leadership checks, backtracking through the units. Vlad, the graveguard are all fine. The wraiths, though... ONE wraith fails their Ld check, which means they wouldn't have been able to attack. The wraiths collectively killed 1 model. Without that extra casualty, that round would have been a draw, and he wouldn't have had to make a break test.
The result was pretty decisive - if they caused the casualty, it was a massacre. If they didn't, the game would go on. We decided to go on, but I was going to revisit this later because the odds that THE ONE wraith that failed his test was THE ONE that managed to kill a guy was 1 in 6 - since they all had the same stats, etc.
We kept playing, and it ended in a draw. Though he killed my BSB, I consistently won combat, but he never failed his stubborn test twice again.
After this, we went back to the questionable round. I maintained that, logically, the odds of the wraith that failed being the wraith that caused a casualty was 1 out of 6. He didn't want to chance the massacre on rolling a 1 [or whatever number we nominated]. Someone suggested we just roll off for it. Someone said we forgot to make the checks and he rolled the break tests, so the result was final and he was wiped out. Then someone else chimed in that if we were going to backtrack and re-roll the leadership checks, we should have just re-rolled the wraiths attacks altogether.
We decided on that. The 5 that passed their checks would re-roll their attacks. If they managed to kill a model, the result would stand and the unit would be destroyed. If he passed all his saves and they did no casualties, the game would be a draw. After the dice were thrown the wraiths managed to kill 2, as he rolled a 2 and a 4 for Festus's regeneration saves. He questioned whether he had cast the nurgle spell that grants normal regeneration for that round, but the 2 sealed it. The unit was destroyed, and this game was another massacre.
The entire process of debate was calm and productive, and nobody got very upset about the whole thing. I was glad we were able to reach an agreement on how it should have been handled. I wanted the questionable round dealt with somehow, even if a roll-off decided it, so that it would be done with, and I'm really glad my opponent was really cool about it. I really think the 1 in 6 was logcal reasoning, but the tourney organizer's suggestion to re-roll everything related to that unit was a good one that we could both agree on.
Final results:
First place - me, Vampire Counts
Second place - 2 bloodthirster Daemons
Third place - 2 Steam tank empire.
My final opponent was bumped to 4th with the loss, but the guy in second can't go to Chicago, so I'll be seeing him at the finals! I'm glad he gets to go.
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