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This last weekend I attended my fourth Crossroads GT over in Elmira, NY, and while it was the largest event I’ve been a part of - a new hotel this year allowed for more players - my end result (56 of 102) was just about the same as all of my 8E showings … which is totally fine by me, I was there to roll dice and drink cider

102 players meant there were many nice armies on display, which you can see not even half of over in my photobucket album. You can totally see some bias in what I took shots of - how did I miss all of the VC armies, many of which looked great?! And not a single shot of my clubmates' work! - but so it goes. Three armies to highlight though:

BEST APPEARANCE - Peyton Shipman’s Empire



PLAYER’S CHOICE - Mike Norton’s Lizardmen



TROLLING THE SQUAREBASERS - Jake Martin’s Dark Elves



Peyton’s army is just awesome - that Dirty Birdy! - and a pleasure to play against, Norton’s lizards I knew would be headed for player’s choice as soon as I saw them Friday night … but Martin’s dark eldar-elves got my player’s choice vote out of solidarity for another dude messing with fantasy players by using cool 40k models where able That giant green thing is a Folding Fortress

------

Originally I was only going to go this year if I could get my Daemons of Tzeentch done in time … but alas I wasn’t anywhere close once lists came due. I had already paid for my ticket and honestly always have a good time, so I decided to just bring my Nurgley Skaven for the third year in a row. First year was screaming bell + double doom wheels, second was fell blade + abomb + mortar spam, this year would be one last ride with an old friend:



Vermin Lord
Warlord - great weapon, dragonhelm

Warlock Engineer - level 1, dispel scroll
Chieftain - BSB, charmed shield

50 Stormvermin - full command, poisoned wind mortar
30 Stormvermin - full command, poisoned wind mortar
25 Stormvermin - full command, poisoned wind mortar
20 Slaves - musician
20 Slaves - musician

10 Plague Censer Bearers
5 Gutter Runners
5 Gutter Runners

Doomwheel
Doomwheel
-------------------------------------
2500 points // 13.9 Swedish*

*Aside on Comp: the Crossroads GT, like many 8E tournaments, uses restrictions to police the more heinous configurations available to various armies. Of course, filth still makes it through no matter what, as any one, fluffy bunny or hard core pro, can attest to. As a player who actively self-polices and intentionally builds soft lists, I naturally gravitate toward soft comp systems, where players are rewarded for tuning down their armies and avoiding Obviously Good Things. 8E has not been kind to soft comp … However Swedish Comp has surfaced somewhat recently as a way to compare the ‘hardness’ of lists against one another, and I’ve heard tell of even US tournaments beginning to institute the system in various ways - initial pairings based on similar comp, in addition to VP modifiers based on comp differences, come to mind. Regardless, Crossroads did not use Swedish Comp, so the comp scores attached to my opponents’ lists are my calculations, done purely out of curiosity to see how my dudes stacked up against other dudes’ dudes. It should be noted that 13.9 for Skaven is very high, as the Swedish is particularly brutal against the busted-in-the-face rat men!

GAME ONE - Brian Rizor’s High Elves



Archmage - level 4 (SHADOW), dispel scroll, crown of command, opal amulet, elven steed
Prince - giant blade, dragonhelm, dawnstone, potion of foolhardiness, heavy armor, shield, elven steed
Noble - BSB, star lance, enchanted shield, golden crown, iron curse, heavy armor, elven steed

18 Archers - full command
6 Reavers - champion, musician, spears, bows
6 Reavers - champion, musician, spears, bows
6 Reavers - champion, musician, spears, bows

12 Dragon Princes - BotWD, full command
8 Shadow Warriors - champion

Flame Phoenix
Bolt Thrower
Bolt Thrower
Bolt Thrower
Eagle
Eagle
------------------------------------------------------------
2500 points // -1.4 Swedish (6.5 due to BotWD)

My army is built to deal with knight bus builds, largely thanks to the mortar spam … but not when they’ve got 2+ wards vs. magic damage, of which everything in my army that can break armor is. I told Brian as much before we started, and it was pretty much true come game end. He dropped one doomtoad with his impressively mobile S3 shooting alone, as he shoved the bus down my throat. I obligingly hit it with the stormy horde, and managed to pull the level 4 down before being ground out. At some point Vermy went in to help, with plans of exploding the prince … but then I remembered the BotWD, and there was much lamenting. Vermy would actually break from combat before he was finished off - thank you no Unbreakable - rally and preserve his 500 points. While all that was happening, Vermy kept Warp Gale up every turn of the game (including 6 dicing it at some point), keeping the phoenix and eagles grounded and shooting a little less brutal, which allowed the other doomtoad to get into the Elf lines. He killed: 2 bolters, both eagles and the archer block, before biting off more than he could chew with the phoenix and getting run down. Thanks to that derpy toad’s wild ride I netted a 14-10 win … though it wasn’t the obliteration it would have been without that accursed banner *shakes fist*

This first game was also a club-wide grudge between my club (Shambling Horde) and Brian’s (Unplugged Gamers). On the line was this sweet axe:



Spoiler: we handed the axe over to the Unplugged crew when all was said and done Our wins were fairly small ones, while some of our loses were total losses. Ah well, just means we’ll have to claim it back next event!

GAME TWO - Bob Gidding’s Daemons of Slaanesh



Keeper of Secrets - level 4 (SLAANESH), greater gift (Soul Stealer), lesser gift (Sword of Swift Slaying), lesser gift (S2 breath weapon)

25 Daemonettes - full command, lichebone pennant
25 Daemonettes - full command

4 Fiends
4 Fiends
5 Furies - MoS
5 Furies - MoS
5 Seekers - champion

Soul Grinder - MoS, daemonbone claw
Soul Grinder - MoS, daemonbone claw
-----------------------------------
2495 points // 11.4 Swedish

Bob’s another Unplugged dude - add to that my soft spot for Slaanesh Daemons (ewww?) and I was looking forward to the match up, though pretty concerned how I was supposed to get through those big critters and also deal with the stabbiness of the small and medium things!



I opened up by trying to slam the right toad (just visible above) up into laser range of a soul grinder, looking to trade heavies … but 6” meant I had simply given him away. Bob responded by running that toad off the table, then going aggro with his fiends and shredding the censers, then skipping into a mortar and generally violating the Skaven backfield (which is waaaay bad for my army build). Mortars were proving ineffective vs. the left daemonettes, so the horde went into them and commenced grinding, which worked, at the cost of 20 or so stormies. At this point Vermy took care of those rampaging fiends in combat, and the Keeper came to play with some slaves:



My gutter runners came on his table edge and I remembered: you can shoot into combat with slaves! The Keeper died shortly afterwards to a Wither followed by double Warp Lightnings and a storm of poisoned slings. Things were definitely looking up at this point, though the right flank still had a lot of nasty in store for my dwindling resources, not the least of which was double grinders … Once the horde was free of the daemonettes, Skaven HQ bailed out of their bunker and started shoving units in the way of the incoming monstrosities:



Admittedly this was mostly getting stormvermin killed Then I took a deep breath and put Vermy to work. Thanks to multiple Withers, the lord would eventually hack through both grinders, as well as a counter-charge from those lurking fiends. Come game end all Bob had was about 15 daemonettes cruising his backfield and some seekers and furies I couldn’t catch, for a hearty 22-2 win, and a great game all told.

GAME THREE - Rob Kopp’s Dark Elves



Dread Lord - magic great weapon, pendant, moar defense, black dragon
Master - BSB, rerollable 1+ armor, pegasus
Master - sword of might, ring of hotek, 1+ armor, pegasus
Sorceress - level 1, dispel scroll, pony

6 Reavers - full command, weapons?
6 Reavers - standard, musician, weapons?
6 Reavers - standard, musician, weapons?
6 Reavers - standard, musician, weapons?
5 Harpies
5 Harpies

7 Shades - champ, weapons?

Hydra
Hydra
Bolter
Bolter
-----------------
2500 points // <1.2 Swedish (includes no shooting negatives, as no army list to double check reaver gear)

So I’ve had one of two routes through Crossroads every year: rock all three games on Saturday, have a rough fourth on Sunday morning, and a commiserating fifth to finish; or rock first two games on Saturday, get whooped by a pro in the third game, drink heavily, then have an ok Sunday. This was the latter.

Rob’s an extremely solid player with an army he knows very well, and has taken to the top of probably more events than I know about. Also, I don’t do well with evasion/shooting style armies, nor do the armies I build. Also, my Vermin Lord dimensional cascaded himself away in the second turn, putting up Warp Gale to keep the lid on all those flyers. I spent most of the game struggling to get my doomtoads into the only three models that mattered (read: the monsters) as they devoured block after block, but Rob quite effectively kept them away. Pretty sure I got a single laser run in against a hydra at the end of the game … then rolled up S2, and Rob regen’d the single 6 I could get through.

Here’s a shot after Warlord Uberyn had his bunker devoured all around him (the BSB having just been swallowed by the dragon):



Uberyn broke (!), escaped (!), rallied (!), and was recharged by the dragon:



Sadly the little lost Necron lord was gobbled up, for a 1-24 loss.

And then my converted Vermin Lord broke -



- and I commenced to Drink All the Ciders

Be back with Day Two soonish!

- Salvage

Love the reports and pics! What an interesting "evasion" DE list. Is a low or high number "more friendly" in the Swedish system?

Glad your Sunday was fun too, can't wait for the last 2 reports!

Day two saw me at 37 points, and far more tired than hungover. Couldn’t say the same for my fourth round opponent, who couldn’t remember how many beers he killed the night before

Oh, and as for the broken Vermin Lord … I brought a spare



So I re-racked …



… and tabled up for my Obligatory Warriors Match.

GAME FOUR - Chris Hanes’ Warriors of Chaos



Daemon Prince - MoN, chaos armor, charmed shield, dragonbane gem, flight
Sorcerer Lord - MoT, level 4 (TIZZ), chaos familiar
Exalted Hero - MoN, BSB, scaled skin, dragonhelm, dawnstone, ironcurse, great weapon
Sorcerer - level 1 (SHADOW), dispel scroll, enchanted shield

21 Warriors - MoN, standard (discipline), musician, great weapons
19 Marauders - standard, musician
Chariot - MoS
5 Warhounds
5 Warhounds
5 Warhounds

Gorebeast Chariot - MoN
Gorebeast Chariot - MoN

3 Skullcrushers - standard (eternal flame), musician, lances
Hellcannon
----------------------------------
2500 points // 3.2 Swedish

I was dreading the inevitable WoC match, almost entirely because I’m not sure how to kill a fully loaded DP, and skullcrushers can tear my army apart single-handedly. Thankfully Chris fronted up with a much lighter prince than most, and the single small crushers meant I could mess with them and even weather the storm with some luck.

Shots after he won first turn and his dogs headed out to do doggy things:




Space was jockeyed for in the early game, and our Epic Pointing Lords pointed at each other epically:




But otherwise he steamed forward at about half-mast, using Treason + Hellcannon to try to panic my bunker off the table. I won’t lie, Treason gave me so many tense LD tests, because it was either on my bunker, or it was on the stormvermin bus as it ground the warriors to death (credit goes to the mortars for nuking them, as well as the VL for Cursing a massive 7 of them ). But Salvage, you ask, why would you keep letting it through if it’s so sad for Skavenses? Well Reader, because his level 4 Gateway’d my Vermin Lord back to hell in turn two, and made a rough match quite a bit rougher … and a little less awesome, with no uber lord showdown

As to the game post-VL, eventually the warriors (with level 1 and BSB in tow) were reduced to champion + two characters at the cost of 50 stormvermin, who were finished when the ‘crushers arrived to bring the pain - I had redirected them with 160 points of censers, but didn’t feel like shoving mortars in the way too. Because they were busy melting the warrior remnants, and then getting in the way of Be’lakor …



… who was totally swooping in to decapitate the army himself:



Spoiler: that mortar died, and the DP set to work killing everything he challenged (champ, BSB, then warlord):



The real pisser was probably that I was winning on CR every challenge, but the Unbreakable WoC DP cares not. Le sigh. Anyway, the bunker was stomped down, broke and rallied last turn, giving up half points. Meanwhile the ‘crushers docked with the 30 stormies, who would break as well and rally last turn, also giving up half points. Which is something.

Can we talk about happier things? Like doomwheels Well, one was Gateway’d to death, but the derpy one on the hard right flank somehow took on two gorebeast chariots and a regular chariot, and killed them all by turn five or so. Lots of getting charged, breaking, rallying, shooting lasers, shooting more lasers, that sort of thing. And then his last wound was Hellcannon’d off, but whateva!

And can we talk about ridiculous things? Those 19 marauders were being used to shelter the level 4, and generally hanging pretty far back, just keeping the s-lord in range for Gateway & Treason. While the stormy bus was grinding the warriors, the mortars showed the chaos bunker a little love, melting around half of the unit, but otherwise I didn’t have much to send their way, except for 20 slaves. Eventually those slaves managed to charge the marauders, mostly for lulz … and then they won combat, three times in a row in fact. The first couple times were no biggy, but by the third time the BSB and DP were far away, and the bunker broke and was run down by the slaves. This was around his turn five, leaving enough time to spin the slaves around and sprint for the central objective, netting even more bonus VP. In fact, those slaves earned a total of 769 points and lived to be ground into Skaven Chow once they got home. Whoa.

Despite that I still got wrecked pretty solidly, for an 8-14 loss. As WoC games go, I’ll take it

GAME FIVE - Jeff Egan’s High Elves



Archmage - level 4 (HEAVENS), book of hoeth, talisman of endurance
Mage - level 2 (METAL), ironcurse
Noble - BSB, talisman of preservation, halberd, dragon armor
Noble - reaver bow, charmed shield

15 Lothern Sea Guard - full command, shields
15 Archers - full command
15 Archers - full command
5 Reavers - spears
5 Reavers - spears

28 White Lions - BotWD, full command
28 Swordmasters - full command
5 Dragon Princes

Great Eagle
Great Eagle
------------------------------------------------------------
2498 points // 1.5 Swedish (7.5 due to BotWD)

Jeff is another Unplugged Gamer (my third of the GT!), and strangely enough I also played his elves in the last game of Crossroads 2012, though this time around he wasn’t running a fever and generally busy dying! I’d lie if I said I was looking forward to another BotWD deathstar game, but at least I could Curse this one as opposed to the dragon princes, and the lack of 2+ armor was also appreciated

With neither of us in the running, we got down to the business of playing some friendly warhams …



… and he took it away, with a general advance, as well as a healthy dose of doomwheel paranoia (a theme throughout the weekend on my opponents’ parts ). I countered by moving up a little too aggressively with censers and stormy horde, resulting in the censers getting shot to a gribble by small arms - seriously, when will I stop underestimating HE bows?! - and the horde getting double charged by both swordmasters and white lions. Now, I wanted the lions to bring it, because my horde had the best chance of dismantling them … but when the swordies made their 10” charge I knew I was fakked. Weirdly though it might have worked out: yes, I lost about 35 stormvermin, and the rest when the unit broke and fled the table next turn; however, I was able to allocate attaks and kill both the level 4 and the level 2, giving Vermy magical dominance. Even more impressive is that the stormvermin did this through a hex that made them hit on 5+. A solid final performance, horde o’ dudes.

That didn’t solve the problem of either choppy unit up in my junk though. It took all game and a few sacrificial redirectors, but the swordmasters were mortared, Gutter’d, Scorch’d, Warp Lightning’d and eventually Vermin Lord’d to death:



The white lions I ended up feeding a mortar and 30 stormies too, and letting them charge off. I didn’t believe I could a) get off two Curses or b) cause enough wounds to get significant points for the unit (I may have forgotten we were doing half points for 25% left, but even then). As to the rest of our armies, the dragon princes won their faceoff with the left toad, breaking him on the charge and running him off the table, while the right toad ran down some reavers and headed into the corner to preserve his points (including bonuses for dead rares). His archers went pretty much unscathed, as did my bunker, and Vermy and the mortars tore a chunk out of the sea guard, for half points - 8 or so died to a successful Curse, in fact. His eagles were both fried by Warp Lightnings from Vermy and my scroll caddy (earning bonus BP), though stupidly I got said warlock pincushioned in return (also for bonus BP, as cheapest character).

Tl/dr, lots of stuff died …



… and I finished the game with a 12-14 draw, going 2-2-1 over the tournament, and ultimately landing just about bang in the middle of the pack, a familiar place for me all told. More importantly I had a lot of fun playing Warhammer with good peeps, something I don’t get time to too much, and really ought to make happen more often. A new painted army would help matters quite a bit, because despite what I said this summer, I really am done with these Nurgley Skaven and all their shenanigans

 RiTides wrote:
Is a low or high number "more friendly" in the Swedish system?

Higher is softer. I've heard of a few tournaments that ban armies under a score of 10, but those I've seen in America so far don't seem to hard ban anything, just make it more difficult to those bringing hard core builds, often in the form of VP or BP modifiers.

- Salvage

Wow, so you have a sweet (soft) score then!

Very nice reports, I enjoyed them a lot . Makes me wish for the days of Red_Zeke and Salvage burning up the GT circuit with non-net-lists and lots of sweet tactics... and humor to boot

Cheers for the effort put in here!

Great reports man! Nothing that makes me want to play WHFB again, but really great to read. Glad to hear you had a good time!

What sweet awesomeness. I think you have shown just why anyone would want to/not want to play a vermin lord, either kills everything or dies tragic hard.

I have just started playing fantasy and skaven is the army I'm trying, I hope to take some pointers from your games to get better.

RiTides wrote:Wow, so you have a sweet (soft) score then!

Only in my own mind though

Wehrkind wrote:Great reports man! Nothing that makes me want to play WHFB again, but really great to read. Glad to hear you had a good time!

Thanks Wehr! Speaking of you playing fantasy, you know your Marauders of Chaos army is probably close to 3000 points now? Given how much they've jacked the points on marauders, as well as your warrior block too. I'd actually be interested in seeing what I can do with your army and the new book, though I'm pretty sure you have far too few chariots to make the most of the changes Some possible options for your giant naked gal now too: giant or slaughterbrute if you keep the chariot base, shaggoth or even DP with a rebase? And DP are, even without wings, the sex, to an irritating extent ...

Ecstasy in Service wrote:What sweet awesomeness. I think you have shown just why anyone would want to/not want to play a vermin lord, either kills everything or dies tragic hard.

I have just started playing fantasy and skaven is the army I'm trying, I hope to take some pointers from your games to get better.

Cheers EiS! Yep, if VL lived, I did ok (but not auto-win levels of ok); if he died, I lost ... Wish he had got to punch out more big things in combat - one of the reasons I busted him back out is the meta shift towards monsters / monstrous cav / infantry - but even then he's kinda gimp with no rerolls, only S6, T5 in return, etc. Meh.

If you'd like to see more Skaven antics from me, have a search here in Battle Reports for my other posts. I've got several years worth of reports to slog through, using lists that are certainly not Clan Internets, unlike the vast majority of Skaven armies

- Salvage

Wow, they made marauders more expensive? It isn't like they ever did much previously :(

I was wondering if DPs were going to be more punishing in the new book, given the new models and disappointing results from the last one. (I had fun writing that sentence.) I just can't handle the swings in the rules anymore. I suppose I could stomach a game or two if you come down this way, but the idea of spending 2+ hours in a game at a store and having my caster dissolve herself is just vomit inducing. Definitely would need some alcohol to hold down the puking... which isn't normally how things work.

I think I still have the army lists posted up on my Google drive if you want to look at the available models. Hell, I will loan them to you if you want to slam some metal warriors around a bit. Just taking up space on the shelf alongside some 4000$ in GW armies. *sigh*

Too true on the magic dissatisfaction - my unrelenting problem with magic is that, utterly unlike WM/H, I can do all the careful positioning and risking of my caster all I want, only to roll crap for power dice or roll crap for casting my spells or be shut down in some other way. The possibility of being rewarded for your risks / investments is pretty maddeningly low, even if you just plop your lazy shadow caster behind your battleline, no matter exposing them to enemy retaliation should the dice fail. And yet one cannot play entirely magic-free, as it adds at least the possibility of considerable depth to the game ... and also ups the chances that the other player's casters' efforts will pay off

I think you'd like the new Slaanesh lore still, maybe not as much nuance but still some nice effects. A number of spells make their target(s) ASL and Random Move (D6) as a side effect, of which the latter is stupidly brutal for things that want to get into contact with your dudes. Plus if you get as frustrated with magic as I am, you can just throw six dice at Cacophonic Choir ftw

Actually, I can drag this back on topic at this point. Not just because I faced Slaanesh magic in game two (the keeper died before she could thoroughly CacoBomb (tm) my army to an ASL hell), but on the topic of Skaven magic and what I ended up using. See, I figured I'd just slam all my dice into Curse all the time and splatter deathstars with wild, if somewhat guilty, abandon. This wasn't how things turned out ... Here's a brief rundown of what my casters ended up with:

Warlock
Warp Lightning - Always taken, and generally failed to cast it by 1 on 2D6 Seriously, I have never felt the angst of only adding +1 as I did with this little dude trying to reach Power 6

Verminator
Pestilent Breath - Taken in game five, never cast due to never being in range. See: too risky vs too little reward above.
Bless with Filth - Taken in game four, bur VL died before he could give it to the gutters and increase their poison vs DP.
Wither - Taken in game two, cast multiple times against keeper and soul grinders, often at max dice. The reason I took a roll on Plague at all.
Vermintide - Taken in game one, never cast due to range / intervening Skaven models.
Cloud of Corruption - Never rolled, never taken.
Plague - Never rolled, never taken.

Skitterleap - Never taken, as VL can't be teleported and the other characters are too frail / too important to the battleline.
Warp Lightning - Taken nearly every game, to surprising results. My opponents would consistently let it go, and be punished with 5+ S5 shots ripping into monsters or erasing their chaff. Crazy brilliant spell, particularly when you never roll that 1 and shoot yourself
Howling Warpgale - Taken nearly every game, and really shockingly important, to the point of max dicing when able. Warpgale is often a sort of shrugger of a spell, as BS shooting and meaningful flyers tend to be rare ... but not when you play against multiple elves, particularly under the new HE book, and quite a bit of the meta in general, as winged monsters and other solos are proliferating. This was easily the most useful spell VL had access to, and I wouldn't have guessed it.
Death Frenzy - Taken in game one, and if it was in other games it wasn't cast. DF is a long standby for me, and I've expounded at length elsewhere how it's the most important Skaven spell, as it's the only combat buff that can help us crack armor (one of the reasons BwF is so meh). I've long used and abused DF in other events, particularly with all these stormvermin, but weirdly I didn't miss it. The auto-overrun / pursue of Frenzy is a real turnoff for me and the build I was playing here, and I dunno, I didn't have all that many instances where I got control over combat with the enemy center. I did flub it in game one when my horde hit his BotW knight bus, as I knew I needed DF to have half a chance, yet half-heartedly tossed four dice for the spell, instead of slamming through all six.
Scorch - Taken in game five, and perhaps others. Scorch is an old favorite, particularly for nuking elves, but I either didn't roll it up or prioritized it below Lightning and Warpgale. Scorch has definitely fallen in power with the rise of MC and solo targets.
Crack's Call - Taken in games one, three and four, though cast only in one and three. I didn't face all that many targets that cared about Initiative tests (HE, DoS, DE, WoC, HE), but it can drop chariots 2/3rds of the time, and hydras hate it. Which is why Rob never let me cast it when I had a real chance of hitting his beasties, except for an incredibly speculative 22" Vermy did use it to suck the flame phoenix down a hole at the end of game one, which was entertaining. But yea, way match up specific.

The Dreaded Thirteenth - Taken every game. First game, never cast due to so few targets (shadow warriors & archers). Second game, never cast because busy with low rolls, Withers and Warp Lightnings. Third game, never cast due to lack of targets (shades were it). Fourth game, fragged 7-8 warriors for 1 wound on Vermy. Fifth game, fail cast vs white lion deathstar, double handful dead in second cast against sea guard. For a spell that's supposed to be uber-broken, it definitely rarely showed it. And a bit of trivia, I can't remember removing all that many models with it. Maybe once I made it to 15 or so? But the sheer possibility of earning insta-points for nuking stuff that may or may not be unnukable is worth taking, and sometimes it's nice to have brainless "I'mma throw all ma dice at one spell!" magic phases to fall back on. Not that that happened here (or I was throwing all ma dice at other spells )

- Salvage

Nice analysis of the spells, and interesting about not really using the Thirteenth, in particular.

Ugh, Dread 13 makes Warriors cry, and since they are the only functional part of my army, that makes me cry

The other problem I have with magic, other than just nuking my own caster, is spell selection. I wish it was less random. I often felt like there was a unit build that would be really decent and unusual if I could keep this buff spell on it. By buying a caster, and getting lucky on spell selection, and getting lucky in casting. Wheeeee, feth it, take more warriors.
Lore master seems so good, I think I would be willing to pay extra to get an ability to pick one spell from the list every game. Which would actually be a good reason to take a level 1 or 3 caster: get 1 or 3 spells, and spend a bit to pick one of them you really want.

I dunno, I might pick up the warriors book if I see it cheap. Maybe the Wood Elf book if it ever gets done... never did make that centaur army.

Some nice looking armies there, love the nurgly skaven

Nice to see a report from you Salvage!

When I first started traveling to this site it was the high days of Red_Zeke and BossSalvage battle reports... gods, those were the days!

Good reports, and glad to hear that you had fun. Interesting to see the Vermin Lord in action - he reminds me of a treeman, this ultra-annoying single model that is best used to dance around, annoy the opponent, and provide mobile and flexible danger zones. Also: damn those are some pretty armies on display. I've heard that American gamers take the painting side of thing more seriously than do UK gamers.

 Charles Rampant wrote:
Interesting to see the Vermin Lord in action - he reminds me of a treeman, this ultra-annoying single model that is best used to dance around, annoy the opponent, and provide mobile and flexible danger zones.

I actually ran the VL throughout that sweet overlap of new skaven book and 7th Edition, and had a surprising amount of success. His maneuverability - and the slightly more reliable nature of magic back then - made plague magic really superb, plus without step up attaks and such he could more safely toss into combat without as much fear of being mulched. Despite the attraction of t-stomp, 8th mostly just made me paranoid, with the ability of units to spin after winning combats and jump on the VL at his most vulnerable. I still think the meta has changed enough to make VL more functional in combat (more big things to kill, fewer large blocks), but the flip side is that the up swing in armies with cannons makes him keeping his life vaguely less likely

Also: damn those are some pretty armies on display. I've heard that American gamers take the painting side of thing more seriously than do UK gamers.

Many of the tournaments here, or at least up in the northeast, have pretty substantial soft scores, which probably adds to our inherent skill, dedication and good looks

Happy to hear ya'll enjoyed the reports, we'll see if I can't make some more happen in the coming months. My club is headed into an escalation league starting Nov 1, so there will be games happening!

- Salvage

Some great photos of great armies, sounds like a good tourney and wish I had a few fantasy players up here to use my Slaaneshi WoC army with.

So... you mentioned retiring the green skaven for a new army, any ideas what it'll be yet?

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:
So... you mentioned retiring the green skaven for a new army, any ideas what it'll be yet?

Most definitely. I spent the summer building a Daemons of Tzeentch army, which you can see much of the process of over on my project blog here on Dakka. Chosen because I've always wanted a Tizz daemonic legion, and because they come with enough dice shenanigans to keep me interested no matter how badly I'm losing - after all, I play Warhammer to roll dice and see what happens, not necessarily for the W The downside of that is that while the Skaven have plenty of dice shenanigans, when they work the enemy vanishes, and they do tend to work more often than not. I'm finding with the DoT that all that dicing ends up not really resulting in much, even with average rolling, as random hits at random strengths is mostly random

But that will be a tale for future batreps

- Salvage