So, at the store I went to only 4 of us showed up for 'Ard Boyz! That means really, we're just playing for to see who doens't qualify to advance, and for the different values in store credit. I'll give you a hint before I begin: three of us ended up with the same record (the remaining person recorded 3 massacres!) and it came down to battle points
On to the summaries!
My List:
treeman ancient with cluster and nettlings
5 units of dryads (3 12-strong, 2 14-strong, one branch nymph)
3 units of 6 treekin
2 treemen
2 eagles
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Game 1: Vs. Daemons
Daemon List:
Kairos
Herald of Tzeentch
Block of Horrors (30 strong or so)
Block of Bloodletters
2 units of 6 Blood Hounds
4 units of 5 Flamers
Oh no, the kryptonite to my list!!! He has tons of flaming attacks, and whenever I've faced flamers before, I didn't know what to do. This was the random deployment mission (1 = left, 2 = right, 3 - 5 = center, 6 = choose) and he ended up with a unit of flamers and hounds on the left, bloodletters, flamers, horrors, then Kairos in the center, and a unit of hounds and 2 units of flamers on the right, deploying and going first.
I decided to try to (for the most part) take the flamers on the right out of the equation, with only a lone treeman who was forced to deploy over there facing them (and at the far edge of the table). The rest I deployed on the center-left, with all 3 blocks of treekin lining up across from the bloodletters.
His magic was not too devastating- after the first turn I'd only lost some dryads, 2 treekin, and taken a few wounds on treemen. In the second turn he hopped Kairos behind my line and fried a treeman. I'd used an eagle to block his hounds on the right, and we incorrectly played overrun (thinking that when he killed it, he could only reform) so they were stuck on the right with the two units of flamers. Then it got interesting in my turn! The treeman on the far right was able to charge a unit of flamers (being inside stand-and-shoot rnage) and scare them off! Unfortunately, my treeman ancient in the center tried the same trick, and 2 flaming close combat attacks got through (multiplied into 4) finishing him off. The treekin all tried to charge the bloodletters (2 units at full strength, 1 down to a single treekin now from the second phase of magic) and only one made it, with the others rolling a 3 and a 4!!
End result: the bloodletters rolled the treekin that made it, overran into the next, and with the exception of the treeman on the far right still kicking for a bit, and some dryads briefly holding stubborn against the horrors in a forest (but dying to their radius effect) that was game, set, match! We did roll out what would have happened if all the treekin had made it in (it would have been 13 instead of 6) and I'd have won combat why a whisker. Curse the 12 treekin-to-a-unit limit!
Looking back, I think I have no chance at this match-up no matter how I play. I think my strategy was pretty good, but flamers are insane! And I always have a tough time taking on blood hounds, too. For some reason, his magic did not end up doing anything Too scary, given the possibilities.
So it's a
Massacre Loss for the tree-people! I'm off to face the Empire player who also was massacred by
WoC.
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Game 2: Vs. Empire
Empire List:
Archlecter with a large (20 at least) unit of knights
Archlecter and
BSB with 30 crossbowmen in a magical tower
6 Cannons
6 Mortars
3 Rockets
3 Hellblasters
The
WoC player laughed when I said I was looking forward to playing the Empire gunline list. I said it was because I'd heard a lot about it and wanted to face it, but also had had decent success against Empire so far. With dryads being so spaced out and toughness 4 with a 5+ ward save, mortars really don't scare me at all (I found this out against Jin, although his cannons still dropped my treeman ancient easily enough when they weren't misfiring!).
It turned out to be the same here. He deployed his knights and tower on the left, with the hellblasters nearby, and the cannons, mortars, and rockets strung out along the back edge of the table to the right, with a few farther up than the rest.
I also strung out my line, but my first two drops were 2 units of treekin across from the tower and knights. I regretted this, since his next drop was ALL the warmachines, then characters- I could have waited before committing my expensive units. As it was, those treekin were pretty much committed to fighting the knights- which might have been OK, had I been a better general! The other treekin I put in the center, with dryads strung out along the whole line, treemen in the center and one on the right, and the eagles on my left (to try to get to the hellblasters).
His shooting was (
imho) INCREDIBLY ineffective for having it be so much of his army. It's true, whenever he decided he felt like dropping a treeman, he did so (usually with 2 cannonballs) and soon my ancient and other treeman in the center were gone. But he only killed a few treekin (despite my forgetting to deploy them in a line, rather than with a rank!) and a number of dryads- but I've got 64 of them! Soon, I was close enough to see the white of his eyes. I put the eagles in front of my line, and he put a fair bit of fire in to drop them and keep the hellblasters safe. He couldn't kill enough dryads, though, and the 2 survivors from one unit, a fresh unit, and my treekin all separately charged each hellblaster.
I have to say, I need to look up the rules for multi-charges and charging warmachines- there were some shenanigans going on here! I don't think there was a single instance in this game where he allowed me to multi-charge 2 warmachines, even though they were line up on the back edge of the board! He also somehow always angled his crew (or I angled my charge!?) so that in about half of the instances I didn't hit anything with my overruns. It was insane! I finally wised up and hit one on the far right from the side, so that my overrun HAD to go into the next one over.
Meanwhile, on the left, his knights charged my angled unit of treekin, and chased them off the board. I sort of did this on purpose, allowing him to hit just one of the units and then leave the board, thinking by the time he got back, there'd be nothing left! But here's where my tactical error reared its' ugly head. With the unengaged treekin, I decided to move up, then charge the tower- rather than face where the knights would return from in order to get the charge on them. What a mistake! Units are stubborn in a tower, I had no chance of him running with the archlecter and
BSB in there (which he didn't send down the tower to fight, of course) and I bounced back an inch and was rear-charged by the knights on the turn after they came back on!
This was enough to cost me the game, even though he had nothing left but the knights and the tower. However, I decided to add insult to injury and turn my
third unit of treekin away from the knights before their charge, to kill a single warmachine, as well. So after his re-form he was able to rear-charge my last unit of treekin, too! He restrained to stay out of range of my treeman, and that was that- the knights killed about 1200 points worth of treekin (3 units) singlehandedly!
Result: A
Minor Loss for my trees (by about 650 points) in a game that I really SHOULD have won, I think. Empire gunlines are a GOOD matchup for me against dryads, and after losing this game, I was ready to despair! But we were still close in points (I had 7 + 2 = 9 for the minor loss, and he had I believe 13 + 1 = 14 for the win) so we would play one more round. There was only one person we hadn't faced yet, so I was on to
WoC! (Who had just been massacred by the daemons)
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Game 3: Vs. WoC
WoC List:
Lord,
Lvl 2 Sorcerer, and
BSB in a unit of 30 warriors with
MoT, shield, AHW, and frenzy banner
40 Marauders with
Lvl 1 Sorcerer
40 Marauders
2 Chariots
2 War Shrines
Hellcannon
7 or so units of 5 chaos hounds!
The mission was the slant-deployment one where the armies can start as close as 12" from each other! I knew this was a bad one for the Empire army, so I went into this game thinking I only needed a minor loss to get enough battle points to win. On the second to last turn, though I found out that win-loss record comes before battle points, so I actually needed a win of some kind in this match to advance! That makes sense- it'd be a shame to move on to the semis with 3 losses in the regional
He deployed first, right at the 6" line on the slant from the center line of the table. Marauders with sorc on the left, followed by hounds, 2 war shrines, Hellcannon, the large unit of warriors, and more hounds on the right. A chariot, unit of marauders, and 2 units of hounds end up in reserves for him.
I decided just lining up and pulling off the gloves against
WoC isn't a good idea, but obviously I need to get into combat. On the left, I line up against the marauders with dryads and all 3 units of treekin (one behind my lines) with my treeman ancient and treeman next. There is a small rock which we agreed was impassable terrain in the center, which shields my treemen from the hellcannon's charge. To the right of this I deploy parallel to my back edge (off of the center line) with some dryads to keep distance from the huge, scary block of warriors. I get a treeman and 2 units of dryads in reserve.
On the first turn he elects to charge nothing, but moves 2 units of hounds right up in kissing range of my treekin, and some more closer to dryads on the far right. I charge the ones on the far right, hoping that his huge warrior block will charge me and take itself away from where the real action is (he doesn't fall for it). On the left I charge the dryads into his marauders, and 2 units of treekin into his hounds. Unfortunately, I'm unable to kill the hounds and overrun into the marauder combat to help, since I'll run into my own unit. So I elect to hold, not sure what would happen if I overran, since I'd have two units of treekin behind the dryads, and if the marauders overran they'd strike both but be unable to "close the door" on either. I thought it would pull both into combat, and in hindsight if this is the case I should have overrun into this position. Another rule to look up!
He does polish off the dryads nicely, and overruns into the single unit of treekin, while the other looks on helplessly, and ends up killing them, too! My treemen had both moved up next to the rock, and the treeman ancient in front is charged by both warshrines. They end up being a very even match, both having a difficult time wounding the other, and stay locked there the rest of the game! Fortunately, the rock shields my ancient from being flanked by some VERY nasty stuff just on the other side- namely the hellcannon, and warriors with lord/
bsb/sorcerer. The dryads there continue to back up, and successfully evade being charged by the warriors. His hellcannon does pile into them, but the warriors play ring-around-the-rosy with the rock the entire game!
In other combats, on the far right the dryads eat warhounds, and he just puts another one unit behind the other to keep them occupied. On the left, a unit of treekin breaks through and ends up charging his marauders that came in from reserve. When he charged my treekin with his other block, it was a fairly even match, and with the +1
CR from charging I'm able to win this one and run him down. Finally a unit other than puppies dead! The other treekin were able to charge a chariot that wiped out my eagle, reform and take on the marauders in my deployment zone in conjunction with a treeman. They break them, but don't catch them, and I foolishly only overran with the treeman.
At this point things are really close, and everyone has come over to watch (albiet there's not that many of us in the store). I've lost 2 units of dryads, a unit of treekin, and 2 eagles. He's lost lots of hounds (almost worthless!), a large unit of marauders, and has a chariot fleeing. Once I found out I needed the win, I realized this wasn't going to be good enough. Something special would have to happen the last turn to give me the win!
Several things did happen: earlier, he had detached his lord from the warriors, to squeak him past the rock and join in the fight on the treeman ancient. With both of these being our generals at 400 points apiece, this would decide the game if one could kill the other. In a few rounds we both put 2 wounds on each other, and if we'd had time for the last turn my feeling is that I would have been able to kill him (thunderstomp and annoyance of nettlings
ftw!). But there was no time for it, so I would need the points from somewhere else.
He had also detached the sorcerer from the warriors, to try to get closer and cast purple sun (which was never successful this game, in a rather lackluster showing for magic). I was able to charge him with my treeman who had come from reserves, and kill him (note: he'd moved him out thinking we might have another turn, but given that I probably would have killed his lord if we did, I think it's fair that I was able to get the sorcerer). In the marauders that had run and re-formed, I charged with my other treeman and targetted the sorcerer in that unit this time, and was able to kill him, too!
We added up the points, and he had 2,083 remaining, and I had 2,181. 98 points different, and I congratulated the Empire player on getting 3rd place, since it was a draw and not a win for me. But wait!!!! The
WoC remembered that I had gotten a banner from the marauder unit I'd killed, giving me 25 more points, for a 123 point difference. It's a
Minor Win for the tree-people!!! And given that the Empire player was massacred in this mission, I easily take 3rd place on battle points.
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Results
So in the end, the standings were:
Daemons (3 massacres)
WoC (1 massacre, 1 minor loss, 1 massacre loss)
Wood Elves (1 minor win, 1 minor loss, 1 massacre loss)
Empire (1 minor win, 2 massacre losses)
It was neat that 3 of us ended up with 1 win and 2 losses, and that it came down to points! The
WoC player was in second by a landslide with the points from his massacre. I'm pretty pleased with how I did (given my low standard of performance at tournaments
) especially considering that I could/should have pulled out a win in the second game, too. The trees might not be up to the top tier standards, but they're better than they were in 7th edition, I can tell you that!! Interestingly, the Empire player won the 'Ard Boyz Seminfinal at mikhaila's store last year!
So I'll be going up to mikhaila's store at the end of September for the second round
