Waaughpaca is a long running GT held in the dead of winter in Wisconsin every year, roughly 30 miles from where I grew up as a kid.
The Basics-
Years Active: 6 years (I have attended the last three)
Format: 5 games, 2000 points, generally standard style
Comp System: None (see below)
Sports System: None (see below)
Painting System: Checklist with three judges conferring
Battle System: Win/Loss/Draw with Bonus Points
Venue-
This event is held at the Waupaca Ale House. You are isolated out in the north woods in the middle of winter, but that is ok. The venue is a giant wedding reception hall with an attached bar and supper club, where you can get great meals between rounds and open up a tab for really cheap booze. The hotel is very nice and affordable and sits a mere 30 foot walk from the bar entrance. This venue is, for my money, tied with WCGT for the best in the nation for Fantasy GTs.
Tables-
These are a bit more hit and miss, with a variety of custom tables which some people may not like due to excessive amounts of terrain types on some tables. There decent setup room on the tables and the terrain is all of good quality. Terrain charts at each table tell you exactly what every piece does, which is a nice amenity.
Swag-
This has varied from year to year, but the one constant is the reroll dice. The glasses and T-Shirts from prior years are missed, but hopefully they are back next year. The trophies are custom made warhammer equipment and weapons, which puts them above everyone else.
Scenarios-
The scenarios are fairly odd, but well mixed. In three years going, they have not seemed to favor any particular army type, aside from punishing people who min/max. They also handled End Times better than any event I have seen tackle it. This event is tied with QCR for the best around, in this department. There is enough variety to make people behave with army selection, but simple enough that you can be drunk as hell and still know what you are doing.
Crowd-
This is the best crowd to play with in all of the nation that I have ever been. Despite the lack of soft scores of any kind, nearly everyone runs completely reasonable and tame armies, even in the year End Times was allowed. In three years I have never had a negative gaming experience here. There are Mustache Contests, Strength Contest, Raffles, and rampant drunken revelry. This is everything a GT should be.
Boozing-
You can open a tab at the bar and get cheap booze all weekend. The wait staff are excellent and friendly and you can take your drinks and snacks right into the hall, if you want. This one is tied with Alamo for boozing and second only to WCGT.
Competition-
A lot of the best Bay Area guys are regulars here and the best of the Midwest hang out here. The skill level of the room runs the full range with a fairly even distribution. If you are looking for a challenging game, you will eventually get your turn with Ryan Nichol or Mike G, if not one of the top dog L2 crowd. Even though the tone of the event is not super competitive, there are good hard games to be had.
Overall-
This is obviously my favorite event of the entire year and I am not alone in this view, though some of that is personal since this is also a trip back home for me. If you like good compy events with a lot of fun sideshow antics and a great crowd, this one is the one to go to. It sells out its 100 man capacity in under a day each year for good reason. If you like QCR or WCGT, this one is probably right up your alley. If you are a serious business kind of guy, its still worth it for the chance to square off against the toughest players in the Midwest.
6.03.2015
Reflecting on CoC
After a couple weeks to decompress and barely escape the Texas flooding, I figured I would update this with my general thoughts about Paul's CoC. Most of what I have to say about this event has more to do with the event itself, rather than my personal experiences in the games. As such I think I am going to do a series of posts talking about individual events I have attended over the last couple years and their various pros and cons. This post will instead talk about my personal experiences in the games at the event. It is sufficive to say that several things are going to relate to the quirks of this event and some of the brief battle recaps are going to talk about some things that are really event related. This is somewhat unavoidable. Most of it will be confined to the game three discussion.
Our Friday was spent with the Texans, getting drunk at breweries all afternoon and going out to eat at some place that was basically a shack with fried shrimp for sale. The wife got to see enough of the French Quarter to satisfy her curiosity and we opted to get a decent nights rest to counter the jet lag.
Game 1- John Klauk w Tomb Kings
John's list was basically Settra with some chariots and a couple blocks and casket to bolster him. The scenario involved capturing tokens with core banner units, which I was ready for. Short version of this game is that John was a nice guy with a well painted themed army, but was just not ready for how fast I was all over him. He also had some horrendous luck, culminating in Settra being physically beaten down by Eternal Guard in the Venom Thicket. The eagle was surprisingly clutch in this game, blocking the mega chariot unit until Orion could deal with it in combat. Other than some really bad rolls on charges, this game was pretty much just me swarm charging things.
So, 20-0 win for me. Elsewhere, my wife used her no magic nurgle daemon army to dismantle a poor unsuspecting dark elf player with similar results.
Game 2- A Dwarf Player, who's name escapes me
Ok, dwarves are an army I hate to face but this was by far the tamest dwarf army I had ever seen. He had no war machines beyond a pair of plain jane organ guns, which I deleted almost immediately. His copters ended up getting chased down by my Sisters. His main block with the super killy Lord on a trash can lid ended up eating a combined charge from Orion, my BSB, and the Eternal Guard. Much to his dismay, I put the BSB up against his General in the challenge, which negated most of his tricks (no S8 D6MW, no 3+ ward) and chewed him up in two rounds of combat. This freed up Orion to mow down 10+ stunties a round on his own and secured me the win.
Another 20-0 win! Elsewhere, my wife managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory by throwing six dice at her one spell and losing her Papa Nurgle against a mixed god DoC army, losing 9-11.
Game 3- Cheaty McCheaterson w Lizardmen
I am not going to dignify this game by describing what happened, beyond that it mostly involved me shooting up skinks and Orion skunking a knight bus while all the other guy did was 6 dice Kroaks spell from flying skink delivery systems all game long. What I am going to mention is how 6 different people _including the TO_ came up to warn me that this guy was a known cheater. Knowing this in advance, I watched his dice rolls and basically let him get away with minor stuff and only called him on things when it mattered, mostly because I was having a good day one and did not want to spoil it by having a giant argument with some guy who obviously cared more about winning than I did. What I did not catch was that he had provided me with no copy of his army and had taken it upon himself to add extra models to all his units, most critically his Cold One Rider bus, which Orion would have decimated early enough to finish tabling him if it had contained the correct number of models. I also would have not had to spend extra rounds mopping up skink units that magically doubled in size.
Now, this was the TO's first major event, so I do not want to bag on him. We all make errors running these things and stuff happens. Having said that, if you have a known cheater playing an out of town guy, maybe someone should verify he is not doing the same cheats in this game that he had already been busted for in prior events, if you are even going to let him into the tournament. Worse still, I never should have been paired against this guy in the first place as he entered the round with 20 BP and I had the full 40. Worse than that, had this guy not dropped (he got wind he was about to be busted for the extra models thing by someone else) out after our game, he was about to be paired up with someone with 48 BP in that round where he would have only had 28. I am not sure how the pairings were being done, but post round 2 is should have been raw BP and most assuredly so by round 4. The pairings thing would continue to be.... odd... all weekend.
Anyhow, despite rampant cheating and all that other jazz, I pulled a 12-8 win out of my butt. My wife had similar luck and score defeating a wood elf player running a pretty much stock net list. I guess all the beatings she put on my woodies paid off.
Saturday Night-
We went en masse to a nicer restaurant and talked nerd and warhammer. The slipped disk and general jet lag meant getting to bed early, though. Over dinner, Julian (the French Texan) gave me the rundown on the list cheating thing and we talked about how the pairings were wonky. I resolved myself that I had a decent shot at doing well, as long as I didn't pull any of the Dwarf Juggernaughts that were all sitting near perfect (due to the scenario designs).
Game 4- Peter Reese w 40k Dwarves
Shit. Well, lets see.... two cannons and two organ guns that reroll everything and mostly hit on 2s... the unkillable lord... 3 copters for objective claiming and denial.. and one whole hill to hide behind. Yeah, I am screwed. With the tournament letting copters score and every models that could have a gun in its hands being equipped with one, this was a no holds barred ass whooping with zero chance of pulling anything out of it. The game was effectively sealed when Orion poked his head out to try and pick off a chopper only to eat the dirt from a single cannon ball. There was just no way I was going to win against this army and my normal strategy of playing for the draw was rendered pointless due to the gyros being able to claim table corners.
I salvaged one BP out of this debacle, which is one more than I expected. I think Peter was antsy about me hiding all game because he bad game voted me for some reason, which is the first one I can ever recall getting in a GT. Interestingly, my bad game vote of him (for comp which the packet said reflected on those votes, Peter was a perfectly nice guy to play) got overturned by the TO when scores were finalized without them ever even discussing it with me. Finally, this is another pairing head scratcher, because I entered this game with 52 BP and Peter came in with a perfect score. My spidey sense was tingling a bit at this point.. Elsewhere, the wife fought to a bloody draw against a skaven army.
Game 5- Richard Vogt w Undead Legions (aka Marching Tomb Kings with some Ghouls)
Three big blocks, some war machines, and a little chaff. At least our BP were close this time and Richard was a really great guy to play. I jumped out early, dusting off his war machines but over exposing one of my archer units as a result. While my wild riders were able to destroy his ghoul unit and the escape to safety, I was unable to get real pressure on his main Tomb Guard unit early enough with Orion to be as aggressive as I wanted. Richard played tough and pulled what looked like an early route into a narrow loss for himself. He was by far the best game I had all weekend and I felt like our armies were well matched.
I walked away with a 12-8 win and gave Richard a well deserved best game vote. My wife ate another narrow loss to a Night Goblin gunline running billions of great weapon heroes, which she was not familiar with facing, so while I ended on a major positive, she ended on a tad of a downer.
Results-
To no one's surprise, the Texans cleaned house with Julian taking overall and Justin nabbing Best General. Despite decent painting and a 4-1 record, I ended up a disappointing 15th, from a combination of the one bad game vote and some odd paint scoring (more on that in the event review post later) and my wife came in a few places back. I did the best on Battle Points of all the wood elves, in a field rife with Dwarf Gunlines, while rocking Orion, so I am pretty happy with how I did. I was just a little salty about playing a known cheater I never should have been paired against and likely being paired up against the toughest army in the room the round following. The scoring and pairing oddities added to that non-plussed feeling. The Texans were awesome to hang out with and I in no way regret going to this event, but its not one I will be coming back to for a variety of reasons.
Unit by Unit Breakdown-
Eagle-
Strangely, this guy was more productive than he normally is, but that may have been due to all of the other fast threats in my army and not needing him very often. He ended up basically winning the first game for me and the worst game he had was dying to copters while cowering behind a building in game four. I think his appearance helps my painting score, so I guess I will try and keep him for now.
Wild Riders-
Another day at the office. The charged, stuff died. I don't think they let me down at all this weekend.
Sisters of the Thorn-
Amazingly enough, I did not miss having extra magic and my phases were productive with just these two units. They also did well in their combat role, engaging isolated chaff and monsters in multiple games. I forgot how much fun these five packs are.
Eternal Guard-
Again, they did what was expected. That is to say, sat in a Venom Thicket and secured objectives. Their major moment of glory was punking Settra in game one, but they did their task dependably all weekend.
Glade Guard-
Despite the guy plopping almost 20 extra skinks on the table beyond what he should have, they still erased an entire skink cloud in two and a half turns. They also ganked war machines fairly quickly, aside from the game 4 guy with the ward banner. Very solid performance against less than ideal targets all weekend.
Glade Riders-
I brought them to help with objectives and they did just that. Aside from that one task, they were pretty much a non factor but people did over react to their ambush potential. Unless an event goes nuts with the objectives again, there is not a lot of chance I will use these guys very often, though.
Stag BSB-
I threw her away needlessly a couple games, but when I didn't she really came through for me. She tied down a giant skeleton block, beat down a dwarf lord, and killed some salamanders, among other things. Very solid weekend from her.
Orion-
I brought him to fight with, but often I was stuck just shooting with him for various reasons. Sometimes people just did not want to engage him. Sometimes, the deathstar was just to big to engage late game. Sometimes they had more guns than the entire state of Texas and he had to hide. When he did fight, he was effective and decisive, but he was not as fun or versatile as the Dragon Lord. I probably could and should have been more aggressive with him.
Our Friday was spent with the Texans, getting drunk at breweries all afternoon and going out to eat at some place that was basically a shack with fried shrimp for sale. The wife got to see enough of the French Quarter to satisfy her curiosity and we opted to get a decent nights rest to counter the jet lag.
Game 1- John Klauk w Tomb Kings
John's list was basically Settra with some chariots and a couple blocks and casket to bolster him. The scenario involved capturing tokens with core banner units, which I was ready for. Short version of this game is that John was a nice guy with a well painted themed army, but was just not ready for how fast I was all over him. He also had some horrendous luck, culminating in Settra being physically beaten down by Eternal Guard in the Venom Thicket. The eagle was surprisingly clutch in this game, blocking the mega chariot unit until Orion could deal with it in combat. Other than some really bad rolls on charges, this game was pretty much just me swarm charging things.
So, 20-0 win for me. Elsewhere, my wife used her no magic nurgle daemon army to dismantle a poor unsuspecting dark elf player with similar results.
Game 2- A Dwarf Player, who's name escapes me
Ok, dwarves are an army I hate to face but this was by far the tamest dwarf army I had ever seen. He had no war machines beyond a pair of plain jane organ guns, which I deleted almost immediately. His copters ended up getting chased down by my Sisters. His main block with the super killy Lord on a trash can lid ended up eating a combined charge from Orion, my BSB, and the Eternal Guard. Much to his dismay, I put the BSB up against his General in the challenge, which negated most of his tricks (no S8 D6MW, no 3+ ward) and chewed him up in two rounds of combat. This freed up Orion to mow down 10+ stunties a round on his own and secured me the win.
Another 20-0 win! Elsewhere, my wife managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory by throwing six dice at her one spell and losing her Papa Nurgle against a mixed god DoC army, losing 9-11.
Game 3- Cheaty McCheaterson w Lizardmen
I am not going to dignify this game by describing what happened, beyond that it mostly involved me shooting up skinks and Orion skunking a knight bus while all the other guy did was 6 dice Kroaks spell from flying skink delivery systems all game long. What I am going to mention is how 6 different people _including the TO_ came up to warn me that this guy was a known cheater. Knowing this in advance, I watched his dice rolls and basically let him get away with minor stuff and only called him on things when it mattered, mostly because I was having a good day one and did not want to spoil it by having a giant argument with some guy who obviously cared more about winning than I did. What I did not catch was that he had provided me with no copy of his army and had taken it upon himself to add extra models to all his units, most critically his Cold One Rider bus, which Orion would have decimated early enough to finish tabling him if it had contained the correct number of models. I also would have not had to spend extra rounds mopping up skink units that magically doubled in size.
Now, this was the TO's first major event, so I do not want to bag on him. We all make errors running these things and stuff happens. Having said that, if you have a known cheater playing an out of town guy, maybe someone should verify he is not doing the same cheats in this game that he had already been busted for in prior events, if you are even going to let him into the tournament. Worse still, I never should have been paired against this guy in the first place as he entered the round with 20 BP and I had the full 40. Worse than that, had this guy not dropped (he got wind he was about to be busted for the extra models thing by someone else) out after our game, he was about to be paired up with someone with 48 BP in that round where he would have only had 28. I am not sure how the pairings were being done, but post round 2 is should have been raw BP and most assuredly so by round 4. The pairings thing would continue to be.... odd... all weekend.
Anyhow, despite rampant cheating and all that other jazz, I pulled a 12-8 win out of my butt. My wife had similar luck and score defeating a wood elf player running a pretty much stock net list. I guess all the beatings she put on my woodies paid off.
Saturday Night-
We went en masse to a nicer restaurant and talked nerd and warhammer. The slipped disk and general jet lag meant getting to bed early, though. Over dinner, Julian (the French Texan) gave me the rundown on the list cheating thing and we talked about how the pairings were wonky. I resolved myself that I had a decent shot at doing well, as long as I didn't pull any of the Dwarf Juggernaughts that were all sitting near perfect (due to the scenario designs).
Game 4- Peter Reese w 40k Dwarves
Shit. Well, lets see.... two cannons and two organ guns that reroll everything and mostly hit on 2s... the unkillable lord... 3 copters for objective claiming and denial.. and one whole hill to hide behind. Yeah, I am screwed. With the tournament letting copters score and every models that could have a gun in its hands being equipped with one, this was a no holds barred ass whooping with zero chance of pulling anything out of it. The game was effectively sealed when Orion poked his head out to try and pick off a chopper only to eat the dirt from a single cannon ball. There was just no way I was going to win against this army and my normal strategy of playing for the draw was rendered pointless due to the gyros being able to claim table corners.
I salvaged one BP out of this debacle, which is one more than I expected. I think Peter was antsy about me hiding all game because he bad game voted me for some reason, which is the first one I can ever recall getting in a GT. Interestingly, my bad game vote of him (for comp which the packet said reflected on those votes, Peter was a perfectly nice guy to play) got overturned by the TO when scores were finalized without them ever even discussing it with me. Finally, this is another pairing head scratcher, because I entered this game with 52 BP and Peter came in with a perfect score. My spidey sense was tingling a bit at this point.. Elsewhere, the wife fought to a bloody draw against a skaven army.
Game 5- Richard Vogt w Undead Legions (aka Marching Tomb Kings with some Ghouls)
Three big blocks, some war machines, and a little chaff. At least our BP were close this time and Richard was a really great guy to play. I jumped out early, dusting off his war machines but over exposing one of my archer units as a result. While my wild riders were able to destroy his ghoul unit and the escape to safety, I was unable to get real pressure on his main Tomb Guard unit early enough with Orion to be as aggressive as I wanted. Richard played tough and pulled what looked like an early route into a narrow loss for himself. He was by far the best game I had all weekend and I felt like our armies were well matched.
I walked away with a 12-8 win and gave Richard a well deserved best game vote. My wife ate another narrow loss to a Night Goblin gunline running billions of great weapon heroes, which she was not familiar with facing, so while I ended on a major positive, she ended on a tad of a downer.
Results-
To no one's surprise, the Texans cleaned house with Julian taking overall and Justin nabbing Best General. Despite decent painting and a 4-1 record, I ended up a disappointing 15th, from a combination of the one bad game vote and some odd paint scoring (more on that in the event review post later) and my wife came in a few places back. I did the best on Battle Points of all the wood elves, in a field rife with Dwarf Gunlines, while rocking Orion, so I am pretty happy with how I did. I was just a little salty about playing a known cheater I never should have been paired against and likely being paired up against the toughest army in the room the round following. The scoring and pairing oddities added to that non-plussed feeling. The Texans were awesome to hang out with and I in no way regret going to this event, but its not one I will be coming back to for a variety of reasons.
Unit by Unit Breakdown-
Eagle-
Strangely, this guy was more productive than he normally is, but that may have been due to all of the other fast threats in my army and not needing him very often. He ended up basically winning the first game for me and the worst game he had was dying to copters while cowering behind a building in game four. I think his appearance helps my painting score, so I guess I will try and keep him for now.
Wild Riders-
Another day at the office. The charged, stuff died. I don't think they let me down at all this weekend.
Sisters of the Thorn-
Amazingly enough, I did not miss having extra magic and my phases were productive with just these two units. They also did well in their combat role, engaging isolated chaff and monsters in multiple games. I forgot how much fun these five packs are.
Eternal Guard-
Again, they did what was expected. That is to say, sat in a Venom Thicket and secured objectives. Their major moment of glory was punking Settra in game one, but they did their task dependably all weekend.
Glade Guard-
Despite the guy plopping almost 20 extra skinks on the table beyond what he should have, they still erased an entire skink cloud in two and a half turns. They also ganked war machines fairly quickly, aside from the game 4 guy with the ward banner. Very solid performance against less than ideal targets all weekend.
Glade Riders-
I brought them to help with objectives and they did just that. Aside from that one task, they were pretty much a non factor but people did over react to their ambush potential. Unless an event goes nuts with the objectives again, there is not a lot of chance I will use these guys very often, though.
Stag BSB-
I threw her away needlessly a couple games, but when I didn't she really came through for me. She tied down a giant skeleton block, beat down a dwarf lord, and killed some salamanders, among other things. Very solid weekend from her.
Orion-
I brought him to fight with, but often I was stuck just shooting with him for various reasons. Sometimes people just did not want to engage him. Sometimes, the deathstar was just to big to engage late game. Sometimes they had more guns than the entire state of Texas and he had to hide. When he did fight, he was effective and decisive, but he was not as fun or versatile as the Dragon Lord. I probably could and should have been more aggressive with him.
4.30.2015
Paul's Carnival of Chaos List
Deadline for lists arrived, so after debating some lessons from WCGT and Broadside, here is the list I submitted:
Orion
Captain on Stag, BSB, Shield, Spear, Starfire Arrows, Armor of Destiny
20 Gladeguard w Banner, Musician, Trueflight Arrows
20 Gladeguard w Banner, Musician, Trueflight Arrows
20 Eternal Guard w Banner, Musician
5 Gladeriders w Banner, Musician
6 Wildriders w Banner
6 Wildriders w Banner
5 Sisters of the Thorn w Banner, Musician
5 Sisters of the Thorn w Banner, Musician
Eagle
So, rather than rely on terrain that may or may not be there, I decided to add more core shooters and infantry. I also yanked the metal wizard, since I have Orion and the Wild Riders to punch armor. While I am uncomfortable running two large archer blocks, the need for core units with banners for the scenarios. Also, the archers are simply the most productive units in core. I am hoping that the Eternal Guard can delay attacks and that my glade rider unit can show up late and grab some objectives late. The eagle is there purely for the painting score and final objective.
Will I do ok with the limited end times? Unclear with the large amount of Skaven and Dwarves out there for this. It is going to involve a lot of hiding Orion until cannons have been addressed. I can move fast, hit hard, and shoot well. But I am pretty frail, so I will need to be selective in my fights.
Orion
Captain on Stag, BSB, Shield, Spear, Starfire Arrows, Armor of Destiny
20 Gladeguard w Banner, Musician, Trueflight Arrows
20 Gladeguard w Banner, Musician, Trueflight Arrows
20 Eternal Guard w Banner, Musician
5 Gladeriders w Banner, Musician
6 Wildriders w Banner
6 Wildriders w Banner
5 Sisters of the Thorn w Banner, Musician
5 Sisters of the Thorn w Banner, Musician
Eagle
So, rather than rely on terrain that may or may not be there, I decided to add more core shooters and infantry. I also yanked the metal wizard, since I have Orion and the Wild Riders to punch armor. While I am uncomfortable running two large archer blocks, the need for core units with banners for the scenarios. Also, the archers are simply the most productive units in core. I am hoping that the Eternal Guard can delay attacks and that my glade rider unit can show up late and grab some objectives late. The eagle is there purely for the painting score and final objective.
Will I do ok with the limited end times? Unclear with the large amount of Skaven and Dwarves out there for this. It is going to involve a lot of hiding Orion until cannons have been addressed. I can move fast, hit hard, and shoot well. But I am pretty frail, so I will need to be selective in my fights.
4.27.2015
Broadside Unit by Unit After Action Report
Until I get a decent video recorder, the most useful information I can post after a drunken GT outing is likely unit by unit performance reviews. So, here it is for the Bash.
Waywatchers-
One five pack was extremely versatile, without being over the top. They chipped at knights and hunted down war machines, which is exactly what I brought them for. Scouting let me hose other people's vanguarding, which was also very clutch. These guys were, once again, solid performers in every game.
Treewoman-
While I knew this model would be good against elves, I did not expect Strangleroot to be as productive and I was continually impressed at her ability to hold the line. Against Empire, she ate a unit of flagellants. In two games against dark elves, she held up entire flanks on her own while clearing out many threats. In losing efforts, she still pulled her weight, helping me secure a draw against Filip and threaten the dwarf player in various ways. I think I have to reconsider her in the present meta, especially now that Wild Riders are filling in for the knight killing role I was used to using her for in the prior book. And when teamed with a High Mage for Walk Between Worlds and Apotheosis, she just performs that much more amazing.
Wild Riders-
These guys pretty much did what they usually do, sealing games against Empire and Dark Elves for me. I positioned them a bit wrong against Filip, but outside of that, they were the ultimate fire and forget missile in the army. I do think with all of the big stuff in this army, I could have dropped one unit for some sisters, but I have zero complaints.
Glade Guard-
I really felt like at times that I simply had too much shooting in my army. The problem is, nothing else in core troops even comes close to them in terms of performance. The Eternal Guard are an ok tarpit, but I lack the ethical dubiousness to conga line them like I should at times and they just die to armored enemies. Glade Riders are just.... terrible, though the objective based nature of that event means I will run them at Paul's CoC next month. And Dryads.... well, yeah. So I am at this weird place where I feel I have too much shooting, but taking anything else is just spotting my opponent 300 points. I will have to contemplate this....
Waystalker-
One single stalker is always a great choice. He can snipe out champs to clear the way for the dragon to do work, scout to give me vanguard defense, chip wounds off of wizards and BSBs, and act as late game chaff to protect the archers. This guy did something useful every game, even against chaos and dwarves. I think any more than one is a waste, but one of these is a dynamite utility unit.
Stag Rider BSB-
I was worried about the reduced ward save (AoD had to go to the dragon rider), but the fact is that with the Treewoman, Unicorn, and Dragon out there, this guy was so far down everyone's list that it did not matter. I was not as good at getting him in this weekend, but when he did it was decisive. I probably would have been better served by doing a moonstone on foot BSB, but the stag looks great and its really fun to use. Outside of one positioning error against Filip, it did ts job all weekend.
Unicorn-
Word is kind of out on her, so she did not see as much action, but she still was dominant. The only time I lost her was against the dwarf player (who rolled 11 on a charge to flank her with slayers), but that game was a lost cause anyhow. Having the dragon on the table takes a lot of heat off of her and she combos amazingly well with the treewoman. All told on the weekend, she bagged a Tz Warshrine, Cold One Knights, two bolt throwers, and a gyro copter. And, oh yeah, she also cast a lot of spells. Once again, she was the star of the army.
Dragon Lord-
After WCGT, I had more experience under my belt with this guy, though I was still at a loss at what to do with him at times, mostly due to the frail nature of the rider. Obsidian Blade was clutch again, giving me real threat against the numerous 1+ armor guys I faced. The dwarf game made him a big liability, but he did manage to at least see combat. The biggest issue with him is that he just cannot compete with less expensive combat lords from the chaos books, but in the games against T3 armies, he facerolled his way through the ranks. His best two games were against Donavan and Manual, where he laid waste to armored cavalry and rampaged in the rear ranks of armies. The biggest bonus he brings to the table is taking heat off of the other big solo models I run, so I guess he was a net positive. Tack on the ludicrously good paint job my wife did on him, and I am loath to leave him home. I do think I need to find a good unit to pair with him, like warhawks or Sisters, though.
BSB Batreps
The Broadside Bash went down this weekend. I ended up adding a unit champ to a unit to be able to score a point in one scenario, but I otherwise ran the list I posted earlier. With the sciatic nerve killing me, Bama (the TO) was very gracious and let me set up camp on one table all weekend. Also my club mates, the Choops, helped my wife and I out all weekend. So many thanks to them, as well. Anyhow, here are some basic overviews of what went down:
Game One- Manual w Empire, messed up random deployment scenario
Manual had a small mix of everything empire had to offer, including some knights, demis, a cannon, a luminark, and a life mage. The odd deployment (see broadsidebash.BlogSpot.com for scenario details) more or less doomed him and I was able to use my superior archers and movement to remove his shooting and isolate his army. There was not much tactical about this game, beyond a couple sacrifices I made to pull his grandmaster unit out to where the Wild Riders could flank charge them. It was basically all over in 3 turns. Manual was upbeat about it and would net my theme vote for the weekend.
Game Two- Donavan Stoddard w Dark Elves, Dawn Attack
Donavan is likely the most fun person to play in all of warhammer and his armies are extremely well painted. It was also very tame by DE standards, sporting small witch units, a mix of shooters, a Charybdis, Cold ones, and a centerpiece unit of corsairs with two assasins and his L4 Beast wizard. Unfortunately for him, my army was tailor made to take this kind of army on and despite losing the wild riders and scouts to early action, I did my normal plan in this matchup. I retreated in the center to let him move forward, while the dragon and solo characters pounced on the smaller chaff units. While this goes on, my archers are drilling his shooters, giving me ranged dominance for the game. The two key moments of the game for me tactically, were the tree woman belting his hero (rolled 6 vs tree whack !) and then flanking his main block. This let the dragon go to work on just about everything else until it ultimately mopped up that block at the end, leaving one assassin as Donavan's sole survivor. Another massacre with full bonus for me and I would end up giving Donavan my appearance and sports votes.
Game Three- Filip w Warriors of Chaos, Modified Blood and Glory
Filip is my clubmate and runs balls hard armies. He also knows just about all my tricks and tendencies. His army was pretty unforgiving, with trolls led by a Mounted Tz BSB, Tz Disk Lord of rapage, and flying Tz Metal Wizard of nope. He bolstered this with a Warshrine, Skullcrushers, dogs, some fast cav, and chariots to control his flanks. This was going to be uphill for me all the way, but with Swedish Comp, I at least had a 500 point edge going into it. The game that followed did not disappoint. Normally Filip and I manage to do 6 turns and have time to spare, but thisgame had so much random dancing around and strategic magic and shooting, that we barely made it to the bottom of five. The main highlights were his chariots getting ground out by the archers, my unicorn taking down the shrine, and the tree woman. Filip charged crushers in on the tree expecting to blow through, but the tree held firm and allowed my dragon to rear charge the unit. This ultimately cost me the dragon, but I netted the crushers and kept his Tz Lord busy for most of the game. This enabled me to eek out a hard fought draw, which against Filip is a gift, since I cannot fool or overpower him. IT also meant we likely knocked one another out of contention, but alas 13 point draw is something I gladly accept. I really wish I had taken a video of this game, because it was easily one of the most tactically complex games I have had in the last two years, rivaled only by my game with Micah two weeks ago.
Day 2-
Game Four- Xavier w 40k Dwarves, Meeting Engagement.
Four war machines, engineer, two spell eater runes, slayers, long beards, thunderers, three copters, and the 5+ vs shooting banner. Did I forget to mention Meeting Engagement? Yeah all my big stuff started in reserve and he just built his little castle in the corner. Somehow this list, that should have been playing in the other side of the room with the rest of the 40k players, comped out at a 14. My normal list might have been able to do something, but this fluffy noodle and his hot dice meant I pretty much got shot off the table without killing anything. In retrospect, when I saw that half my army was going to reserve, I should have just hid and taken a draw. But Xavier was a bit squirrely, as most dwarf players are, and might have zeroed me out for not agreeing to die to him piecemeal, and 6 points of sports were more than the 4 battle points I might have preserved, so who knows? I do know that I hate dwarves and the fact that the hardest army in the room capped out the comp just confirms what I always knew about Swedish. Ah well, I did net three bonus points, so 10 point loss for me.
Game 5- Andrew w Dark Elves, Battle Lines
Finally a game with normal deployment! And after the last soul crushing game, I was going to take it out on someone else who probably did not deserve it. That someone was Andrew, a faily nice guy running a very reasonable dark elf list. He had the usual two Xbow and two Bolt Thrower setup for shooters. He also had three big infantry blocks (Executioners, Black Guard, and Witches) with their own support characters, along with a single chariot to guard a flank. For magic, he had a L3 Peg Mounted Shadow caster and a five pack of Warlocks. This was a good solid army for the comp system, but unfortunately my army was tailor made to destroy it. What followed was not pretty. On one flank, my scouts and wild riders hassled his shooters, while the stag and unicorn did the same on the opposing flank. The dragon and tree woman lit up his executioner unit, leaving them to be ignominiously thunderstomped out of existence. In the center, I calmly ignored and retreated from the other two blocks. He had one chance to open the game up, when his chariot charged the dragon, but he rolled average and I managed to kill it in one round. At the end of three turns, he had the witches, a handful of blackguard and his wizard left. I had lost nothing (though the Waystalker was about to fall on his sword to get the archers clear) and was setting up all of my final mop up charges. He politely conceded and I packed up early.
Final tally had me at 83 Battle, max sports and comp, but I fell a little short in each trophy category. I did take 4th overall, though I never got a chance to play the guys ahead of me due to that round three draw derailing me. Of note, this is the first event I went two with Woodies where I was not the top scoring wood elf since the new book hit. Clifford managed to go 4-0 with an all forest spirit army, somehow managing to play only one of the many chaos and daemon players there. For my part I did well enough, especially given that I faced two of the roughest three possible matchups in the room for me (my wifes mono Nurgle DoC being the third) and I had a great time. Our club also did exceptionally well, on thw whole, nabbing most of the top ten, though hats off to Brian Brown of Capri for hauling in his first overall win. Despite being tired as hell from WCGT being two weeks prior, this event was well worth it and Bama did a grat job for his first year running it after Wade stepped down from the job.
Game One- Manual w Empire, messed up random deployment scenario
Manual had a small mix of everything empire had to offer, including some knights, demis, a cannon, a luminark, and a life mage. The odd deployment (see broadsidebash.BlogSpot.com for scenario details) more or less doomed him and I was able to use my superior archers and movement to remove his shooting and isolate his army. There was not much tactical about this game, beyond a couple sacrifices I made to pull his grandmaster unit out to where the Wild Riders could flank charge them. It was basically all over in 3 turns. Manual was upbeat about it and would net my theme vote for the weekend.
Game Two- Donavan Stoddard w Dark Elves, Dawn Attack
Donavan is likely the most fun person to play in all of warhammer and his armies are extremely well painted. It was also very tame by DE standards, sporting small witch units, a mix of shooters, a Charybdis, Cold ones, and a centerpiece unit of corsairs with two assasins and his L4 Beast wizard. Unfortunately for him, my army was tailor made to take this kind of army on and despite losing the wild riders and scouts to early action, I did my normal plan in this matchup. I retreated in the center to let him move forward, while the dragon and solo characters pounced on the smaller chaff units. While this goes on, my archers are drilling his shooters, giving me ranged dominance for the game. The two key moments of the game for me tactically, were the tree woman belting his hero (rolled 6 vs tree whack !) and then flanking his main block. This let the dragon go to work on just about everything else until it ultimately mopped up that block at the end, leaving one assassin as Donavan's sole survivor. Another massacre with full bonus for me and I would end up giving Donavan my appearance and sports votes.
Game Three- Filip w Warriors of Chaos, Modified Blood and Glory
Filip is my clubmate and runs balls hard armies. He also knows just about all my tricks and tendencies. His army was pretty unforgiving, with trolls led by a Mounted Tz BSB, Tz Disk Lord of rapage, and flying Tz Metal Wizard of nope. He bolstered this with a Warshrine, Skullcrushers, dogs, some fast cav, and chariots to control his flanks. This was going to be uphill for me all the way, but with Swedish Comp, I at least had a 500 point edge going into it. The game that followed did not disappoint. Normally Filip and I manage to do 6 turns and have time to spare, but thisgame had so much random dancing around and strategic magic and shooting, that we barely made it to the bottom of five. The main highlights were his chariots getting ground out by the archers, my unicorn taking down the shrine, and the tree woman. Filip charged crushers in on the tree expecting to blow through, but the tree held firm and allowed my dragon to rear charge the unit. This ultimately cost me the dragon, but I netted the crushers and kept his Tz Lord busy for most of the game. This enabled me to eek out a hard fought draw, which against Filip is a gift, since I cannot fool or overpower him. IT also meant we likely knocked one another out of contention, but alas 13 point draw is something I gladly accept. I really wish I had taken a video of this game, because it was easily one of the most tactically complex games I have had in the last two years, rivaled only by my game with Micah two weeks ago.
Day 2-
Game Four- Xavier w 40k Dwarves, Meeting Engagement.
Four war machines, engineer, two spell eater runes, slayers, long beards, thunderers, three copters, and the 5+ vs shooting banner. Did I forget to mention Meeting Engagement? Yeah all my big stuff started in reserve and he just built his little castle in the corner. Somehow this list, that should have been playing in the other side of the room with the rest of the 40k players, comped out at a 14. My normal list might have been able to do something, but this fluffy noodle and his hot dice meant I pretty much got shot off the table without killing anything. In retrospect, when I saw that half my army was going to reserve, I should have just hid and taken a draw. But Xavier was a bit squirrely, as most dwarf players are, and might have zeroed me out for not agreeing to die to him piecemeal, and 6 points of sports were more than the 4 battle points I might have preserved, so who knows? I do know that I hate dwarves and the fact that the hardest army in the room capped out the comp just confirms what I always knew about Swedish. Ah well, I did net three bonus points, so 10 point loss for me.
Game 5- Andrew w Dark Elves, Battle Lines
Finally a game with normal deployment! And after the last soul crushing game, I was going to take it out on someone else who probably did not deserve it. That someone was Andrew, a faily nice guy running a very reasonable dark elf list. He had the usual two Xbow and two Bolt Thrower setup for shooters. He also had three big infantry blocks (Executioners, Black Guard, and Witches) with their own support characters, along with a single chariot to guard a flank. For magic, he had a L3 Peg Mounted Shadow caster and a five pack of Warlocks. This was a good solid army for the comp system, but unfortunately my army was tailor made to destroy it. What followed was not pretty. On one flank, my scouts and wild riders hassled his shooters, while the stag and unicorn did the same on the opposing flank. The dragon and tree woman lit up his executioner unit, leaving them to be ignominiously thunderstomped out of existence. In the center, I calmly ignored and retreated from the other two blocks. He had one chance to open the game up, when his chariot charged the dragon, but he rolled average and I managed to kill it in one round. At the end of three turns, he had the witches, a handful of blackguard and his wizard left. I had lost nothing (though the Waystalker was about to fall on his sword to get the archers clear) and was setting up all of my final mop up charges. He politely conceded and I packed up early.
Final tally had me at 83 Battle, max sports and comp, but I fell a little short in each trophy category. I did take 4th overall, though I never got a chance to play the guys ahead of me due to that round three draw derailing me. Of note, this is the first event I went two with Woodies where I was not the top scoring wood elf since the new book hit. Clifford managed to go 4-0 with an all forest spirit army, somehow managing to play only one of the many chaos and daemon players there. For my part I did well enough, especially given that I faced two of the roughest three possible matchups in the room for me (my wifes mono Nurgle DoC being the third) and I had a great time. Our club also did exceptionally well, on thw whole, nabbing most of the top ten, though hats off to Brian Brown of Capri for hauling in his first overall win. Despite being tired as hell from WCGT being two weeks prior, this event was well worth it and Bama did a grat job for his first year running it after Wade stepped down from the job.
4.21.2015
WCGT Unit by Unit After Action Report
So, when I do these events, I like to evaluate the units one by one. So, here is the breakdown:
Eagles-
Sort of useful, but mostly pointless. They look nice, but they had no real functional impact on any of my games. I expected as much, but they were there for looks.
Wild Riders-
These suicide sized units were great disposable killing units, but not having the larger units against Jeff in round 3 hurt me. Still, they sold themselves dearly every game and outright won me the game against Jacob. I prefer the bigger units, but there is no wrong way to run these guys.
Eternal Guard-
Another unit that I took for looks and comp, but they did alright, mostly thanks to camping in a venom thicket and daring people to charge them all weekend. A general lack of killing power hurt, but being a core tar pit worked out well enough. Obviously archers are better, but for the comp and appearance factor, I was satisfied with what they did.
Gladeguard-
A single twenty man trueflight unit was all I needed to dominate every shooting phase all weekend. These guys are the best troops in the army, bar none. When combined with Walk Between Worlds, they are awesome at picking up late game points and securing objectives.
Shadowdancer-
Overpriced, but still good utility. I doubt I would take one without using it as a scroll caddy, but having the utility in the spearmen unit was handy and she was productive in every game, including letting me get the frog points risk free in round 4.
Waystalker-
Dynamite every game. Pretty much mandatory as far as I am concerned from now on. Sniping champs, knocking wounds off of wizards and BSBs, and scouting to inhibit movement, he did it all for me. I should have had two of him and no eagles.
Stag BSB-
A little more frail than normal with only the 5++ ward, she still put in work collecting points and generating combat resolution. This unit, in tandem with the unicorn, did most of the heavy lifting for me all weekend.
Unicorn Weaver-
She lived all weekend, never even getting touched. She absorbed tons of damage, ran off dragons, hunted chaff, preyed on war machines, and was generally the single most productive model in my army. If there is a superstar in the army, it is her.
Dragon Lord-
Obsidian Blade wound up being clutch for me numerous times. He died a lot, but generally made the enemy pay for killing him. I probably could have used him better and/or more conservatively, but there is no fun in that. I will get another chance to learn from my mistakes at the Broadside this weekend, but really I enjoyed playing him and he was always at least pulling even for me.
4.13.2015
West Coast GT basic Batreps
Well, $600 of bar tab and two tired nerdy days later, the event is over. I think I had more fun this year than the prior two, particularly thanks to the Elks Lodge being such gracious hosts to our raucous community. I got five excellent games, but I was largely too busy moving models and holding a margarita to take pictures, so here are some basic rundowns of my games.
Game 1 vs Victor Herrara (Ogres), Scenario Mad Mickey
Victor had one of the other super soft armies in the room, sporting two hunters riding stone horns, two ogre blocks with his BSB and wizard, plus a Thundertusk, and some random chaffy stuff. With all of the fast moving monsters, I was going to have problems and the Snow Blower and Ironblaster meant that I was going to face immediate pressure. Most of the bonus points were tied up into killing Mickey, who is murderous against MSU armies, so I decided on a two part strategy. First, I was going to burn down Mickey as fast as possible, both to get free protection counters (spells against him could not be countered) and to get him out of my path. Second, I planned on using an all out rush to bottle him in his own deployment zone so that he would not be able to get ogres into my infantry units late in the game. The downside is that I had to more or less allow the Snowblower and Ironblaster roam free for a while.
For my part, I executed the plan pretty well, trading wild riders for one stone horn and the wounded dragon for the other. The Snow Blower eventually made it to my lines and my unicorn had to eat a ironblaster charge after burning the mouse down, but she held all game until some counter charges ran off the ironblaster. When the dust settled, I had my wizard, archers, shadowdancer, and BSB left. Victor had his two Irongut units and two characters remaining. We ended up with a draw and three bonus points each in what was a crazy dice game. But, I was glad to take a high draw early and avoid the slaughterhouse lists at the top tables for a while, so it was all good.
Game 2 vs Jacob Berry (Woodies), Scenario House Wife
Jacob is undoubtedly the most fun guy you will ever play at any event. His list was the crazy 3 dragon army with one wild rider unit and some archers to back it up. The downside for him in this was that my larger trueflight block was able to delete his smaller units piece meal, while I slugged it out in the table center and kept his dragons bottled up. In what would be the epic moment of the tourney for me, I declared a flank charge with Wild Riders against one dragon, where I needed box cars to get in.... and made it, slaying the dragon before it got to swing. My general ended up hanging in there long enough to gank the Sisters of Twilight and his general, before getting munched, but this allowed the Unicorn girl and BSB to collect two of the riderless dragons at the end of the game. I ended the game with a major win and all the bonus points.
Game 3 vs Jeff Sues (High Elves), Beach Blanket Bingo
Jeff had basically a Phoenix Guard deathstar and a Dragon Prince deathstar, with associated bits of chaff scattered around. Since VP meant nothing in this scenario, I was at somewhat of a disadvantage due to all of my scoring units being small and frail, which would require me to address his shooting and chaff. For his part, Jeff rammed the Prince bus in my face, where I met it with the dragon and Eternal Guard. In what took far to long, I was able to murder the entire unit to the man, since Jeff kept holding on 4-5s all the time. Ultimately, I was kept completely off of the blankets and Jeff held one with his last remaining unit, so major loss with all bonus points.
Day 2-
Game 4 vs Jon Milano (Vampire Counts), Feeling Froggy?
Jon had a pretty well rounded Vamp list, with the blender lord in the Knight bus, some infantry blocks, and a terrorgeist. For my part, I planned on using Arcane Unforging to detooth the vamp lord to something my dragon could engage. Jon had other plans and sucked his general along with half his bus into the warp on the very first spell of the game. I felt like a jackass winning that way, but it is a tournament and so I engaged in mop up operations. Full points to me in what was a seal clubbing.
Game 5 vs Micah Pierce (High Elves), Center Stage
Micah had a star dragon, two knight bus units, some eagles, and some fast cavalry. While his list was soft, his armor saves presented a challenge and he had a better dragon than I did. In my mind, the plan was to avoid the dragon and engage everything else. Without pictures it is impossible to convey the close maneuvers and blood bath that ensued, but short version is that my general sold his life dearly to keep his dragon away from the rest of the battle while I won the chaff war. When the dust settled, I had my Wizard, BSB, and archers. Micah had a half dead star dragon with no one riding it. So, minor win for me with most of the bonus points.
Final results-
I came in 5th overall, which with the super soft army I took, I was more than happy with. There were chances to secure more points if I had rolled better in places, but I also got freebies when I made the huge charge on Jacob and Jon's Vampire decided to take a vacation into the warp with seven of his pals. I have no complaints and am pretty happy with my score.
Unit by unit recap to come.....
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