Warhammer 8th Edition Tournament - 1250 pts. at Ancient Wonders - 2/20/11

This Sunday was the 1250 point Warhammer Fantasy tournament at Ancient Wonders.  The tournament format was a 1250 point list and three unique scenarios.  There were nine players competing and we had a pretty interesting mix of armies.
Armies present:
The Great Hunt (Wood Elves at 1250)
The Green Tide (Orks at 1250)
Delicious Pustules? (May have name wrong but as you can guess it was a Nurgle themed Warriors of Chaos)
We Wear Pink Dresses (Tzeentch themed Warriors of Chaos army - hi Jeremy =D )
Army of the Elderly Statesmen (High Elves)
Samurai themed High Elf Army
Warlord led Skaven army
Empire gunline army
Vampire Counts


Army Roster for The Great Hunt at 1250.

Lord: Highborn - 145, Extra Hand Weapon - 6, Shield - 3, Light Armor -3, Bow of Athel Loren - 35, Arcane Bodkins - 25.
Total: 242

Rare: 10 Waywatchers: 240

Special: 6 Treekin: 390

Core: 10 Dryads: 120

Core: 20 Glade Guard - 240, Musician - 6, Standard Bearer - 12: 258

Total: 1250
(Lord: 19.4%, Core: 30.2%, Special: 31.2%, Rare: 19.2%)


The tournament was played in a Swiss style format and had as mentioned before three unique scenarios.  I'll give a brief description of the scenario and the battles themselves per round.

1. Game 1 - Mist Shrouded Forest
Samurai High Elves vs. The Great Hunt.

This mission we deployed as normal in a Pitched Battle deployment with the single exception that all Core units had to be within 12" of the road that bisected the entire forest.  The entire playing field were forests for this mission yielding a -1 to shooting right off the bat and dangerous terrain tests for many units.  Also, the neat little special effect of the forest was that the mist was so thick that a unit could only see an artillery die x3 inches per turn.  A misfire signalling that they can't see anything and as a result can not attack or move.

The Victory conditions stated that the player who had the most units in this opponents deployment zone would win.  The game went fairly fast since half of the time units could not see each other to attack and I was able to table my opponent by the bottom of turn 3.

I managed to pretty much do everything right that game and my opponent couldn't make a leadership test or have a successful round of rolling wounds to save his life.  I think this win really culminated in my dice just happened to roll better than my opponents.

My opponent's army consisted of:
1 Lion Chariot, 15 Swordsmen of Hoeth, 20 Seaguard, 20 Archers, 1 Bolt Thrower and a Level 2 Wizard

Had his bolt thrower been successful at wounding my Treekin at the top of turn 2 and his Lion Chariot not forgotten to charge my Dryads after they broke and rallied , this would have been a substantially more interesting game.

Result - Wood Elves Win.

Primary Concern this game:  I may be telegraphing my planned maneuvers too early in the game, perhaps better deployment.


2. Game 2 - Treasure Hunt.
The Great Hunt vs. Delicious Pustules

This scenario took place on a desert map with some pretty slick terrain.  The mission was that both players receive 3 treasure tokens to play on the board after deployment.  In order to claim a token the unit must charge it in order to pick it up.  Once picked up the player rolls a die and on a 1 it blows up hitting the unit with a large blast template dealing Str3 wounds.  The player who has the most tokens at the end of the game wins.

This game was absolutely fantastic, I played against Larry who never provides you with an easy game.  He had a really strong list using 1 unit of Chaos Knights, 1 Sorcerer, 2 units of Chaos Warriors and 1 unit of Marauders.  Each unit had the Mark of Nurgle.

This game I made some pretty serious mistakes all in the first turn.  I chide myself for screwing up but looking back it kind of made the game even more enjoyable because I was on my heels for most of the game scrambling to figure out what to do.  I personally enjoy that level of competitiveness during a game and the best part is when you play with a buddy it can be competitive AND fun.  I think we were laughing the entire game which seriously took the edge off this pretty intense game.

A very brief play by play will follow:
Turn 1 resulted in my Glade Guard dying in close combat to his Chaos Knights.
Turn 2 resulted in his Marauders rallying 2 inches from edge and my Dryads breaking in close combat dropping a token.
Turn 3 ended with Treekin failing their charge and Dryads rallying all the while my Waywatchers and General can't seem to obliterate his Sorcerer's unit of Warriors.
Turn 4 resulted in Dryads being charged by Knights and dying and the Treekin causing the second unit of Chaos warriors to flee and the marauders flee off the board.
Turn 5 resulted in his Knights being charged by my Treekin after his Knights picked up their 3rd set of tokens and my Treekin LOSING combat and fleeing - also dropping their 2 tokens.
Turn 6 his Chaos Warriors route my treekin when they charge and his Knights grab his tokens making them possess 5.  My waywatchers move into position and slaughter his Knights of Chaos and they drop their 5 tokens.
Turn 7 Larry charges the tokens with his last unit and claims all 5 and weathers the hail of arrows loosed at him from the Waywatchers and general.
Turn 8 Wood Elves last ditch effort to secure a draw - I unload and fail to cause a panic test in Larry's unit which would have resulted in one hell of a tie game.

Warriors of Chaos - Victor.

Mistakes made:
1. Huge and I mean HUGE mistake of mine was to not follow my standard operating procedure when I go first.  Kill the heavy cavalry with the Waywatchers.  This was seriously dumb.  Why?  Those Chaos Knights ate 2 units and caused my Treekin to flee.  That's pretty much 800 points of success they pulled off.

2. Standing and Shooting against the Knights instead of fleeing - this caused my Glade Guard that would have been waaay more effective at short range to get routed and put his Knights in good position to rear charge later.

3. Not multi-charging with Treekin and Dryads.  Once again I failed my standard operating procedure when engaging into melee, I did not double charge.  Had my Dryads been there to support the Treekin like they were supposed to then i doubt I would have lost some of the combats.  Stupid mistake but oh well.

Personally I had an absolute blast during this game and it was a seriously awesome match up.  I think Larry had 2 units at maybe 1/3rd strength and I had my General and Waywatchers left at the end.  Good game.

Also: Mark of Nurgle I think is perhaps the most powerful unit buff you can bestow on any army.  It's incredible and has soooo much usefulness.

Game 3 - Keep to the Standard
Empire vs. The Great Hunt

This scenario was a modified version of Blood and Glory where we deployed the same way and the mission objective is to kill/capture more standards than your opponent.  I had a rather large advantage in that I only had 1 standard in my entire list and my opponent had 3.

This battle was pretty brutal and up until the 4th round I thought I was going to get blown off the map.  Warmachines are so brutal now that you don't have to guess their ranges.

As you can see here I had to weather the fire as he shot at me with everything.  Thank god for Skirmishers and soft/hard cover.  This was also a fun game and I plan on playing this army at 2k.
Once I was able to reach his flank with my Treekin and Dryads then I was able to roll up on his flank when I got my Treekin in charge range.

Results:  Wood Elves victor.





Final Standings:
1st Place -Nurgle Warriors of Chaos - Grats Larry!
2nd Place - Me
3rd Place - Jeremy

I would personally like to thank Darron for running yet another successful tournament together.