It has been a little while since I’ve put something up here, and in all likelihood I’m probably just talking to myself but in further lurking on Australian forums, and talking with people still involved in the game, it appears a strong motivator for discontinuing warhammer as a hobby has only grown more prevalent.
When the elite can act as judge jury and executioner when dismissing representatives of Australia’s tournament environment in the shadows away from public the question begs to be asked who are tournaments run for in Australia.
Australia is now little more than an antipodean offshoot slave to the direction set by Europe via our ruling class of elites. Whilst the game is set in feudal times actually adopting a feudal system for the governance of the game seems a little out of place in a modern society.
Thankfully for myself witnessing the continued devolution of the tournament scene has reinforced that going forward this is not something I ever want to be involved in again.
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Sayonara
Well so I know I promised an article a month but it turns out I inadvertently may have mislead people.
After Convic, which I’m not particularly psyched for but have tickets paid for with Mr Joyce, it will be so long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, good night from myself hopefully only temporarily but more than likely permanently.
For many this may be time to rejoice and sing to the heavens for the respite from the tyrannical flamer. I have offended many unapologetically and those who oppose my style of communication have every right to dance in the streets. But a warning for those please stop reading now – honestly don’t spoil this joyous moment by reading my last piece of criticism of Australian gaming.
For those interested as to why I’ve pulled up stumps I’ve basically narrowed it down to four reasons:
One
I think the game is broken at the moment. The advantage of DoC, VC and DE is such that part time comp panels can’t effectively adjust. This is not the fault of players who use VC, DOC and DE, this is the fault of a games company which has employed people in games design that I wouldn’t entrust to photocopy a pitch book and personally I no longer see the reason behind shelling out a few thousand a year to play a game which is broken?
I’ve discussed this with a couple of people and I think Mr Dennison has a good concept in train and I am seriously considering designing something more balanced to play amongst friends using my now redundant figures.
Two
Recently the list of “guys I would forfeit a game if I was drawn against them because I want to enjoy my tournaments” grew to five the number I always promised myself I’d reconsider everything at.
Ironically the guy who first made me consider both the list and the rule is no longer on it, alas five other guys have now taken his place. I figure I work a minimum of 70 hours a week so why pay money to waste my leisure time playing a game where there is a decent chance of meeting up with someone who would ruin my weekend?
Also ironically at the same time it has been made clear that I’m on at least two other player’s list of weekend ruination, something I also always thought should be a big signal to reconsider if you should be playing. [Though perhaps not that ironic given that there is probably a high correlation between someone making my list and me making their’s]
Three
The direction of the game, I don’t know if was entry into the ETC or what but the game to me is going down a spiralling path that I’ve seen before and would rather not be a part of. I was unfortunately part of the machine driving this the first time round and refuse to be involved in the second iteration of what I consider an obviously fundamentally flawed concept.
I think we are at the point that this is almost a foregone conclusion that this is adopted, some of the more influential people have firm shoved the game on this route and I think it will take something radical to move it off that path.
As I’ve said before adopting a system which attracts [admittedly according to the data I have] a smaller portion of the pan European gaming population compared to the percentage of Australians playing warhammer tourneys [my estimates based on sales data from GW’s accounts you can refute me but hell I won’t read it so I don’t care] because it “works for them” is nonsensical.
I see overseas boards having discussions we had 7 years ago so by adopting a system that is the result of old conversations seems to me to be devolution not progress
I also offer the following piece of advice do not take one data point as evidence that all is good. When you have one single data point supporting where the status quo was largely maintained do not use that as an indicator that it will be forever maintained.
At the end of the day I have been brainwashed with the notion that we are rational beings and that when we see a way to gain an advantage we will take it, once that advantage is both identified and deemed socially acceptable. [admittedly this is based only on what I’ve read and not on my personal research so I am taking the risk that the plethora of guys with sir, dr and prof in front of their names may not have more insight than a few gamers]
I liken viewing the first tourney as an indicator that the “cheese” will never creep in the same as thinking that because you had unprotected sex once with a $2 hooker and no funky growth has emerged that you will never get an STD via unprotected sex (despite logic dictating otherwise)? So please go forth rubber free with a $50 note in your hand?
Four
The politics of the game has perhaps been the biggest driver. As the game has become more national [my apologies to NZ I’m making you an Australian warhammer state] the politics have become more concentrated. I have recently bitterly offended the head of the game’s most influential club [whilst their may be more vagabonds than Catholics in Australia you aren’t the most influential], his primary misgiving for our altercation was that it was public.
For me the public nature of it was the only positive part of being called the biggest problem with Australian warhammer tournaments [yes I am more than a little bitter about that but I do believe everyone is entitled to their opinion].
The guys who effectively run the tournament scene are unwilling to actually have disagreements in front of the “plebs”.
Perhaps if people with a controlling role in the game were actually willing to have public disputes the notion of an overarching elite caste running the game would be dispelled. But hey I know I’m virtually alone in the transparency is a good thing argument, I think vigorous public debate is the only way ideas are tested and the only way people can feel involved.
So a few key parting messages – Ken you win the bet, looks like I’ll have to find something else to do one those weekends I booked in for tourneys.
To the guys I’ve gone out with after tourneys, when in the city give me a call always happy to grab a beer with anyone, to the Brisbane boys, I’ll certainly make time to keep in touch.
To those left playing I hope you enjoy the game like I have for the past 17 or so years. I’ll probably be still lurking on the old off topic so to those that want to keep in touch send me a PM.
Stay strong WAU
After Convic, which I’m not particularly psyched for but have tickets paid for with Mr Joyce, it will be so long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, good night from myself hopefully only temporarily but more than likely permanently.
For many this may be time to rejoice and sing to the heavens for the respite from the tyrannical flamer. I have offended many unapologetically and those who oppose my style of communication have every right to dance in the streets. But a warning for those please stop reading now – honestly don’t spoil this joyous moment by reading my last piece of criticism of Australian gaming.
For those interested as to why I’ve pulled up stumps I’ve basically narrowed it down to four reasons:
One
I think the game is broken at the moment. The advantage of DoC, VC and DE is such that part time comp panels can’t effectively adjust. This is not the fault of players who use VC, DOC and DE, this is the fault of a games company which has employed people in games design that I wouldn’t entrust to photocopy a pitch book and personally I no longer see the reason behind shelling out a few thousand a year to play a game which is broken?
I’ve discussed this with a couple of people and I think Mr Dennison has a good concept in train and I am seriously considering designing something more balanced to play amongst friends using my now redundant figures.
Two
Recently the list of “guys I would forfeit a game if I was drawn against them because I want to enjoy my tournaments” grew to five the number I always promised myself I’d reconsider everything at.
Ironically the guy who first made me consider both the list and the rule is no longer on it, alas five other guys have now taken his place. I figure I work a minimum of 70 hours a week so why pay money to waste my leisure time playing a game where there is a decent chance of meeting up with someone who would ruin my weekend?
Also ironically at the same time it has been made clear that I’m on at least two other player’s list of weekend ruination, something I also always thought should be a big signal to reconsider if you should be playing. [Though perhaps not that ironic given that there is probably a high correlation between someone making my list and me making their’s]
Three
The direction of the game, I don’t know if was entry into the ETC or what but the game to me is going down a spiralling path that I’ve seen before and would rather not be a part of. I was unfortunately part of the machine driving this the first time round and refuse to be involved in the second iteration of what I consider an obviously fundamentally flawed concept.
I think we are at the point that this is almost a foregone conclusion that this is adopted, some of the more influential people have firm shoved the game on this route and I think it will take something radical to move it off that path.
As I’ve said before adopting a system which attracts [admittedly according to the data I have] a smaller portion of the pan European gaming population compared to the percentage of Australians playing warhammer tourneys [my estimates based on sales data from GW’s accounts you can refute me but hell I won’t read it so I don’t care] because it “works for them” is nonsensical.
I see overseas boards having discussions we had 7 years ago so by adopting a system that is the result of old conversations seems to me to be devolution not progress
I also offer the following piece of advice do not take one data point as evidence that all is good. When you have one single data point supporting where the status quo was largely maintained do not use that as an indicator that it will be forever maintained.
At the end of the day I have been brainwashed with the notion that we are rational beings and that when we see a way to gain an advantage we will take it, once that advantage is both identified and deemed socially acceptable. [admittedly this is based only on what I’ve read and not on my personal research so I am taking the risk that the plethora of guys with sir, dr and prof in front of their names may not have more insight than a few gamers]
I liken viewing the first tourney as an indicator that the “cheese” will never creep in the same as thinking that because you had unprotected sex once with a $2 hooker and no funky growth has emerged that you will never get an STD via unprotected sex (despite logic dictating otherwise)? So please go forth rubber free with a $50 note in your hand?
Four
The politics of the game has perhaps been the biggest driver. As the game has become more national [my apologies to NZ I’m making you an Australian warhammer state] the politics have become more concentrated. I have recently bitterly offended the head of the game’s most influential club [whilst their may be more vagabonds than Catholics in Australia you aren’t the most influential], his primary misgiving for our altercation was that it was public.
For me the public nature of it was the only positive part of being called the biggest problem with Australian warhammer tournaments [yes I am more than a little bitter about that but I do believe everyone is entitled to their opinion].
The guys who effectively run the tournament scene are unwilling to actually have disagreements in front of the “plebs”.
Perhaps if people with a controlling role in the game were actually willing to have public disputes the notion of an overarching elite caste running the game would be dispelled. But hey I know I’m virtually alone in the transparency is a good thing argument, I think vigorous public debate is the only way ideas are tested and the only way people can feel involved.
So a few key parting messages – Ken you win the bet, looks like I’ll have to find something else to do one those weekends I booked in for tourneys.
To the guys I’ve gone out with after tourneys, when in the city give me a call always happy to grab a beer with anyone, to the Brisbane boys, I’ll certainly make time to keep in touch.
To those left playing I hope you enjoy the game like I have for the past 17 or so years. I’ll probably be still lurking on the old off topic so to those that want to keep in touch send me a PM.
Stay strong WAU
Monday, March 16, 2009
Sometimes you got to be positive
Well we all like to complain and criticise, I think mainly because you need to be more vocal about change, or opposing proposed change, in order to achieve the desired outcome. But sometimes it can appear with enough complaint and counter complaint that the game is in a poor state. [note: Now when I say “game” I mean tournament game].
Now before I push forward I would argue that for Australia to regularly produce 50 and 100 player tournaments we need a system that is far stronger than Europe or the US, simply with how small and dispersed our population is means we need to provide tourney goers with a greater level of enjoyment than our European cousins.
This is one thing that frustrates me when people hold up European systems and suggest that if it works there it must work here? Now setting aside the inevitable cultural differences that could lead to a concept working in one and not the other the fact remains that you need a lower percentage of both the general and war gaming population in Europe to accept the system in order to make it successful.
So with that in mind I thought it might be time to put out a positive stock take of the 5 best things about the Australian game I see today versus the game I saw in 1992.
Attendance: I don’t think I ever would of envisaged being able to pick and choose between 50 player tourneys. Back when the tourney scene first started heating up in Brisbane (special thanks to Ken Remington and Adrian Roberts who drove that and strangely composition in QLD) we were stoked at 35 players and most tournaments had a circa 20 field. Now 50 seems to be the standard benchmark for a good sized tourney and many “small” events are coming in at 40 players and shocking the organisers.
For me the most positive sign is that these tourneys aren’t being propped up by the travelling contingent anymore. The past few years you really needed to attract the 10 or so guys who would travel in order to hit 50 plus, now we have 50 locals trotting out once a month.
Now it’s impossible to determine what led to the increase, was it online forums giving players access, a successful GW marketing ploy etc. But I’d like to think that soft scoring actually contributed somewhat – I’m sure it pushed some players out but I’m relatively confident it brought more players into the game as it gave the impressions that hyper competitiveness was tempered and that opponents were considered a part of the game not an obstacle.
The Cliques: Remember I said this would be wholly positive? Well I’m using the cliques in an entirely positive manner. I see it as exceptionally positive that the scene has developed into almost a sub society. Players care enough about the game to actually form social groups that are bigger than a simple extension of their playing group or club. To me I think this is more encouraging to a newcomer that this is indeed social atmosphere and that the different groups give someone to relate to.
General quality of play: Moving to NSW I noticed a sharp increase in the depth of quality players, the ability of the top players was roughly the same but it was the second tier guys who were substantially tougher in NSW. I’m still not sure if this was a product of NSW having a more competitive “tourney” club set up or that I just moved to NSW in 2002 which was probably the year tourney play started to really take off here following on from dogcon.
Either way I think currently with the increase in tournaments, and a lot more tournament focused clubs propping up, the depth of quality players at tournaments have improved dramatically. More importantly the quality of play in the mid tables has, form my observation, lead to a muck quicker progression for new players to the tournament scene.
Soft scores: Now that the pro painting debate ahs been seemingly put to bed by making painting scores something eminently achievable by anyone willing to put in a measure effort I think it is fair to say most tourney goers believe sports and painting scores are a positive for tournament play not part of a black box system.
Composition: yes that’s right I think this is one of the 5 best things today. Sure composition will always be a somewhat controversial issue as people invariably succumb to self interest in these matters. But I think we’ve come a long way to a point where the majority of the arguments are more at the fringes than fundamental opposition. Anything which improves the balance, or at least has players thinking about their opponents enjoyment, has to be a positive for new players in general.
There will always be people alienated by comp these are generally the more hyper competitive [because comp only affects you if you are really concerned with winning] who will be alienated under any system which doesn’t allow them to gain an edge.
Furthermore I think that having a system which only disallows the most abusive of builds provides the freedom necessary to attract new players and encourage diversity.
So there we go 5 positives amid the quagmire of negativity.
Now before I push forward I would argue that for Australia to regularly produce 50 and 100 player tournaments we need a system that is far stronger than Europe or the US, simply with how small and dispersed our population is means we need to provide tourney goers with a greater level of enjoyment than our European cousins.
This is one thing that frustrates me when people hold up European systems and suggest that if it works there it must work here? Now setting aside the inevitable cultural differences that could lead to a concept working in one and not the other the fact remains that you need a lower percentage of both the general and war gaming population in Europe to accept the system in order to make it successful.
So with that in mind I thought it might be time to put out a positive stock take of the 5 best things about the Australian game I see today versus the game I saw in 1992.
Attendance: I don’t think I ever would of envisaged being able to pick and choose between 50 player tourneys. Back when the tourney scene first started heating up in Brisbane (special thanks to Ken Remington and Adrian Roberts who drove that and strangely composition in QLD) we were stoked at 35 players and most tournaments had a circa 20 field. Now 50 seems to be the standard benchmark for a good sized tourney and many “small” events are coming in at 40 players and shocking the organisers.
For me the most positive sign is that these tourneys aren’t being propped up by the travelling contingent anymore. The past few years you really needed to attract the 10 or so guys who would travel in order to hit 50 plus, now we have 50 locals trotting out once a month.
Now it’s impossible to determine what led to the increase, was it online forums giving players access, a successful GW marketing ploy etc. But I’d like to think that soft scoring actually contributed somewhat – I’m sure it pushed some players out but I’m relatively confident it brought more players into the game as it gave the impressions that hyper competitiveness was tempered and that opponents were considered a part of the game not an obstacle.
The Cliques: Remember I said this would be wholly positive? Well I’m using the cliques in an entirely positive manner. I see it as exceptionally positive that the scene has developed into almost a sub society. Players care enough about the game to actually form social groups that are bigger than a simple extension of their playing group or club. To me I think this is more encouraging to a newcomer that this is indeed social atmosphere and that the different groups give someone to relate to.
General quality of play: Moving to NSW I noticed a sharp increase in the depth of quality players, the ability of the top players was roughly the same but it was the second tier guys who were substantially tougher in NSW. I’m still not sure if this was a product of NSW having a more competitive “tourney” club set up or that I just moved to NSW in 2002 which was probably the year tourney play started to really take off here following on from dogcon.
Either way I think currently with the increase in tournaments, and a lot more tournament focused clubs propping up, the depth of quality players at tournaments have improved dramatically. More importantly the quality of play in the mid tables has, form my observation, lead to a muck quicker progression for new players to the tournament scene.
Soft scores: Now that the pro painting debate ahs been seemingly put to bed by making painting scores something eminently achievable by anyone willing to put in a measure effort I think it is fair to say most tourney goers believe sports and painting scores are a positive for tournament play not part of a black box system.
Composition: yes that’s right I think this is one of the 5 best things today. Sure composition will always be a somewhat controversial issue as people invariably succumb to self interest in these matters. But I think we’ve come a long way to a point where the majority of the arguments are more at the fringes than fundamental opposition. Anything which improves the balance, or at least has players thinking about their opponents enjoyment, has to be a positive for new players in general.
There will always be people alienated by comp these are generally the more hyper competitive [because comp only affects you if you are really concerned with winning] who will be alienated under any system which doesn’t allow them to gain an edge.
Furthermore I think that having a system which only disallows the most abusive of builds provides the freedom necessary to attract new players and encourage diversity.
So there we go 5 positives amid the quagmire of negativity.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
My best advice is...
If I had two pieces of advice to new tournament players the first would be always pack deodorant and jeans for any tournmanet. Jeans just in case some of your fellow gamers are socially adept enough that you wouldn’t mind spending an evening drinking with them in town and deodorant so those same gamers won’t mind drinking with you. If there is one piece of advice I’d like to be remembered for – it is that.
The other, and far more on table top performance related, is never post your list in the army list forum. Seriously it is perhaps the most counter productive exercise.
See both the problem and the benefit of an open forum is that everyone is able to put forward their view. This means it is often tough to distinguish between who is a really eager guy to give you comments, but doesn’t know crap and guys who know what they are talking about but are a little more reserved. So for someone soliciting genuine feedback to try and garner a deeper understanding of what is or is not effective it is impossible to distinguish between the posts which are going to help or hinder you.
I know a lot of the top players steadfastly refuse to provide comments on army list forums. Why because they typically get drowned out by either inexperienced commentators or by the original poster who hasn’t really looked for criticism but rather validation.
So if army list forums aren’t any good how do I fix things? What I recommend instead is that you read some of the other threads in the general discussion on what ever boards you frequent. Try and search for people who seem to have either had success with the army you intend to play or seem to think about the game in a similar fashion to yourself. Once you’ve identified those people PM them directly and engage in a direct discussion.
Now in this discussion you don’t need to accept everything they say in fact back and forth on both the pros and cons of choices and why you want the army to play a certain way will only make the other person more engaged in the discussion. But bear in mind these people might get a fair few of these PMs so don’t be offended if you get a luke warm response, either follow up or go looking for another opinion.
The other, and far more on table top performance related, is never post your list in the army list forum. Seriously it is perhaps the most counter productive exercise.
See both the problem and the benefit of an open forum is that everyone is able to put forward their view. This means it is often tough to distinguish between who is a really eager guy to give you comments, but doesn’t know crap and guys who know what they are talking about but are a little more reserved. So for someone soliciting genuine feedback to try and garner a deeper understanding of what is or is not effective it is impossible to distinguish between the posts which are going to help or hinder you.
I know a lot of the top players steadfastly refuse to provide comments on army list forums. Why because they typically get drowned out by either inexperienced commentators or by the original poster who hasn’t really looked for criticism but rather validation.
So if army list forums aren’t any good how do I fix things? What I recommend instead is that you read some of the other threads in the general discussion on what ever boards you frequent. Try and search for people who seem to have either had success with the army you intend to play or seem to think about the game in a similar fashion to yourself. Once you’ve identified those people PM them directly and engage in a direct discussion.
Now in this discussion you don’t need to accept everything they say in fact back and forth on both the pros and cons of choices and why you want the army to play a certain way will only make the other person more engaged in the discussion. But bear in mind these people might get a fair few of these PMs so don’t be offended if you get a luke warm response, either follow up or go looking for another opinion.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Clash of the Titans report
The army lists on display here were, as is typical for a tournament attended by a tight knit gaming group, were “different”. I’d say 50% of the field was probably balanced or tuned lists and the other 50% were scissors paper rock armies.
Some feedback on the tourney: Positives, now these far outweighed the negatives: Played in excellent spirits, great to see so many young WHFB guys play in the open rather than the junior. Clearly the CTA guys are doing a great job of encouraging young fantasy players. Quality of game play was actually well above what I expected.
The negatives were firstly that transparency was very low I still don’t know how the sports and comp scoring actually worked including what mark I gave my opponents? I’d normally expect to know what the score I gave was. The scenarios, okay capture the flag and kill the general, a couple of hundred points at most here and there is fine, it skews the game a little but not disastrously so. The take and hold style scenario was in my view an utter diaster that completely destroys any balance in the game,.
Army List
My list was very similar to the list for dog con minus the useless unit of marauders.
Characters:
Level 4 MOT – collar of khorne, enchanted shield, black tounge, demon steed
BSB MOT – favour of the gods, armour of damnation
Lvl 2 MOT – puppet
Core
2 x 5 hounds
2 x 5 marauder horsemen with shield flails and MOS
20 Marauders – MOT LA/SHLD
Special
2 x 6 Knights – MON, one with War banner other banner of wrath
Rare:
Warshrine (mos)
Hellcannon
Game 1: Louis Samuels (Dwarfs)
First game up against an unknown young guy with dwarves. Great a 15-5 at worst and a good start to the tourney unfortunately it became the old age lesson of never underestimate your opponent.
Louis had a moderate dwarf army with 2 bolties, a cannon, a unit of thunderers, 2 units of quarrellers, a unit of hammerers, a unit of clansmen, 2 rune smiths, 2 units of ogres, a BSB and a lord. Magic items were heavily weighted towards defence.
Louis made only one mistake in deployment putting a unit of thunderers, with rune smith on the extreme flank that best case could only claim a unit of horsemen. His placement of artillery thought was perfect, aligning them so there was no way for me not to offer a flank on both of my knights when I pushed forward.
I on the other hand screwed my deployment and first turn something fierce. I didn’t screen the flanks of my knights from the bolties (idiot) and for some reason spent a runt dicking around rather than pressing forward. That one turn cost me my knights and saved his clansmen (with rune smith) from a 6 knight + BSB charge (all with +1 attack from the shrine).
In the end his shooting took care of the knights and the hell cannon (well his engineer in combat killed the hell cannon but hey...)
End result: 8-12 loss and me left wondering about my case of muppetitis.
Game 2: Joel Espinosa High Elves
Joel is a former club mate of mine but we had only really played once, thanks to my sporadic attendance, in that game Joel made a couple of deployment errors that cost him.
In this one he had a rock hard He army with the obligatory two units of sword masters, dragon princes, 2 mages, phoenix guard, two min units of sea guard, 2 eagles, 2 bolties and of course the obligatory lord on star dragon (seriously they should rename it COTD clash of the dragons).
Game was kind of decided turn 2 when Joel brought his star dragon and lord out from behind cover hoping to get him in combat ASAP to stop gateways being opened up left right and centre. So I got one turn to shoot at it with the Hell cannon, after a perfect guess the cannon hit killing the lord.
Next turn he threw the dragon into the flank of my unit of knights which had the Stubborn 4+ ward gift bestowed on it by the warshirne along with banner, BSB, warbanner. Knowing he would otherwise lose combat he threw the phoenix guard into the front of the same unit. Over the course of the next 4 turns it went back and forth him beating me, me passing the stubborn, me beating him, him holding until eventually both units broke. I didn’t get the dragon but got half points.
Across the rest of the battlefield my magic held sway (after black tongue killed his best wizard), still Joel was able to eventually shoot down my knights and do enough to keep the result close.
Result: 13-7 (21/40 points)
Game 3: Tom Goldie (Wood Elves)
Tom had a relatively typical wood elf army – 2 units of war dancers, a treeman, an eagle, wild riders, 5 units of dryads, 2 units of archers, warhawk riders, a bsb, 2 mages and a branch wraith.
I kind of knew what was going to be the problem for tom his screening units of drayds couldn’t stand up to my knights and his archers weren’t going to be able to punch through them.
Tom made the mistake of firing at my knights first turn which gave my marauder horse one turn of not being fired at and allowed them to charge one unit and kill it, whilst the knights took care of the other. The BSB’s unit (with +1 attack) ploughed through the dryads and over ran into the treeman, he made the Ferris error of throwing the wardancers into the knights and ended up losing his flank as a result.
He had a massive combat in the middle where the dryads hit my marauders front whilst an eagle and warhawks hit the rear. He won the first turn by one, I held and then broke them the two turns later. After that it was a bit of mop up. Tom had taken enough off me to prevent the 20-0 though.
Result: 19-1
Game 4: Chris Ball (VC)
I had a bit of a spit before this game when I found out that the game was decided only by table quarters nothing else (the players pack I read on the net was, lets say, light on for detail and as such did not talk about this hence a rude shock that we would play a 40k scenario at a WHFB tournament).
I was playing against a VC army with 9 pd and a dragon, essentially without copious amounts of luck, a great game by me and a few errors from Chris the best I should be able to do was a draw given that he can raise units in every quarter and is unbreakable.
To me this scenario had no place in WHFB it is a 40k scenario that just straight up does not work in WHFB. It was far and away in my top 2 worst scenarios I’ve ever played. [side note: the other being where the centre of the battlefield had a mystical crevasse and when you went near it you had to roll on a table and anything could happen to you from being attacked by 4 vampires to auto destroying all units with 2D6 inches that was tops.]
Chris had a lord on dragon, two other vamps, one with +1 level, 1 a BSB, 2 units of zombies, a unit of skellies, a unit of black knights, one large unit of wolves, wraiths, varghulf and some bats.
The game basically went:
Step 1: got some good luck Chris’s dragon went stupid two turns in a row so couldn’t cast and I rolled up two pandemoniums for spells which meant he kept miscasting and I kept altering his miscasts to get rid of his best spells and magic levels. With me holding sway over magic it was tough for Chris.
Step 2: Chris made a mistake of drawing the battle line inside his two table quarters allowing me to meet him there and control all 5 (there was an objective in the centre that counted as a “quarter”) when he should instead pushed to get across the middle and force me to fight my way into his half. He probably did this because at the start of the game he had a bazillion options for getting each quarter that the strategy wasn’t needed
Step 3: Fired up by the stupid scenario, plus being hangover free, I played tactically my best game of the weekend coming up with a plan and executing it perfectly
End result: 15-5 (55/75)
Game 5: Darren Donaldson (Khorne warriors)
Darren had an uber combat army with 4 units of Khorne knights (eep), 3 or 4 units of dogs for screening, 2 units of khornate marauders with great weapons, a unit of khornate warriors with GW, 2 level 1s with 4 scrolls and a lord on jugger with the demon sword and some ridiculous negative on his save.
On an open table he would have been able to hem me in and control the game but our table had a diagonal river through it splitting it in two and on one side a Forrest splitting it into three.
I deployed the fast cav on the open side of the river knowing they had the move to redeploy across if he weighted that flank, and kept the knights close by with the hope of neutralising one unit of knights on the far side of the forest and hopefully redirecting and punching through the other three with my diverters and two units of knights.
The game went pretty much to plan Darren made two rules based errors that essentially cost him the game:
1. one with where my chargers were going to end up after his hounds fled. He thought they go straight ahead not centre to centre following the hounds, this meant that instead of my unit being in no-mans land it hit the flank of one unit of knights carved it and then over ran into the flank of his marauder block supporting the two units of knights over the river. Which allowed my BSB’s unit to charge another unit knights and pursue them into the unit behind. This was pretty much the game.
2. the other mistake, though less costly, was he brought up the general in a unit of hounds but positioned him so I could avoid him with the hell cannon (as the dwarfs can’t reach they go to the back) meaning I broke him and at least got rid of his frenzy and immunity to psychology and many panic tests ensued (though none failed).
Taking those units out meant I could focus all of my magic on his one remaining unit of knights that was bottled up behind the forest eventually whittling them down to two and forcing them to charge my generals bunker.
End result: 20-0 (75/95)
Well second tournament with these guys so have to be happy to pull in a second place behind the immortal Jeff Traish. I must admit I’m enjoying having tactical options after the beastmen and the O&G generally being forced to concede certain elements of the game.
Breakdown
Things I did wrong over the weekend that I and hopefully others may learn from.
- Kept forgetting my bound spell and using that at the end, rather than trying to drag dice with it at the start. Rookie error.
- Have to think of blot throwers as a ranked up unit when in my flank, never present the knights flank to the bolties; or
- Screen the freaking flanks of the knights for Christ’s sake Brad (seriously how many shots to my flank will it take before I learn)
- black tongue was nice but I could think of more effective uses of the 50 points.
- Hellcannon is over rated and I was still uncertain how to use him. However my opponents very much over rate it which gives it a fear factor (that ironically by writing this I’m helping to dispel – so ignore that point)
- Marauder horsemen are shite with flails, may as well throw some axes on them.
Some feedback on the tourney: Positives, now these far outweighed the negatives: Played in excellent spirits, great to see so many young WHFB guys play in the open rather than the junior. Clearly the CTA guys are doing a great job of encouraging young fantasy players. Quality of game play was actually well above what I expected.
The negatives were firstly that transparency was very low I still don’t know how the sports and comp scoring actually worked including what mark I gave my opponents? I’d normally expect to know what the score I gave was. The scenarios, okay capture the flag and kill the general, a couple of hundred points at most here and there is fine, it skews the game a little but not disastrously so. The take and hold style scenario was in my view an utter diaster that completely destroys any balance in the game,.
Army List
My list was very similar to the list for dog con minus the useless unit of marauders.
Characters:
Level 4 MOT – collar of khorne, enchanted shield, black tounge, demon steed
BSB MOT – favour of the gods, armour of damnation
Lvl 2 MOT – puppet
Core
2 x 5 hounds
2 x 5 marauder horsemen with shield flails and MOS
20 Marauders – MOT LA/SHLD
Special
2 x 6 Knights – MON, one with War banner other banner of wrath
Rare:
Warshrine (mos)
Hellcannon
Game 1: Louis Samuels (Dwarfs)
First game up against an unknown young guy with dwarves. Great a 15-5 at worst and a good start to the tourney unfortunately it became the old age lesson of never underestimate your opponent.
Louis had a moderate dwarf army with 2 bolties, a cannon, a unit of thunderers, 2 units of quarrellers, a unit of hammerers, a unit of clansmen, 2 rune smiths, 2 units of ogres, a BSB and a lord. Magic items were heavily weighted towards defence.
Louis made only one mistake in deployment putting a unit of thunderers, with rune smith on the extreme flank that best case could only claim a unit of horsemen. His placement of artillery thought was perfect, aligning them so there was no way for me not to offer a flank on both of my knights when I pushed forward.
I on the other hand screwed my deployment and first turn something fierce. I didn’t screen the flanks of my knights from the bolties (idiot) and for some reason spent a runt dicking around rather than pressing forward. That one turn cost me my knights and saved his clansmen (with rune smith) from a 6 knight + BSB charge (all with +1 attack from the shrine).
In the end his shooting took care of the knights and the hell cannon (well his engineer in combat killed the hell cannon but hey...)
End result: 8-12 loss and me left wondering about my case of muppetitis.
Game 2: Joel Espinosa High Elves
Joel is a former club mate of mine but we had only really played once, thanks to my sporadic attendance, in that game Joel made a couple of deployment errors that cost him.
In this one he had a rock hard He army with the obligatory two units of sword masters, dragon princes, 2 mages, phoenix guard, two min units of sea guard, 2 eagles, 2 bolties and of course the obligatory lord on star dragon (seriously they should rename it COTD clash of the dragons).
Game was kind of decided turn 2 when Joel brought his star dragon and lord out from behind cover hoping to get him in combat ASAP to stop gateways being opened up left right and centre. So I got one turn to shoot at it with the Hell cannon, after a perfect guess the cannon hit killing the lord.
Next turn he threw the dragon into the flank of my unit of knights which had the Stubborn 4+ ward gift bestowed on it by the warshirne along with banner, BSB, warbanner. Knowing he would otherwise lose combat he threw the phoenix guard into the front of the same unit. Over the course of the next 4 turns it went back and forth him beating me, me passing the stubborn, me beating him, him holding until eventually both units broke. I didn’t get the dragon but got half points.
Across the rest of the battlefield my magic held sway (after black tongue killed his best wizard), still Joel was able to eventually shoot down my knights and do enough to keep the result close.
Result: 13-7 (21/40 points)
Game 3: Tom Goldie (Wood Elves)
Tom had a relatively typical wood elf army – 2 units of war dancers, a treeman, an eagle, wild riders, 5 units of dryads, 2 units of archers, warhawk riders, a bsb, 2 mages and a branch wraith.
I kind of knew what was going to be the problem for tom his screening units of drayds couldn’t stand up to my knights and his archers weren’t going to be able to punch through them.
Tom made the mistake of firing at my knights first turn which gave my marauder horse one turn of not being fired at and allowed them to charge one unit and kill it, whilst the knights took care of the other. The BSB’s unit (with +1 attack) ploughed through the dryads and over ran into the treeman, he made the Ferris error of throwing the wardancers into the knights and ended up losing his flank as a result.
He had a massive combat in the middle where the dryads hit my marauders front whilst an eagle and warhawks hit the rear. He won the first turn by one, I held and then broke them the two turns later. After that it was a bit of mop up. Tom had taken enough off me to prevent the 20-0 though.
Result: 19-1
Game 4: Chris Ball (VC)
I had a bit of a spit before this game when I found out that the game was decided only by table quarters nothing else (the players pack I read on the net was, lets say, light on for detail and as such did not talk about this hence a rude shock that we would play a 40k scenario at a WHFB tournament).
I was playing against a VC army with 9 pd and a dragon, essentially without copious amounts of luck, a great game by me and a few errors from Chris the best I should be able to do was a draw given that he can raise units in every quarter and is unbreakable.
To me this scenario had no place in WHFB it is a 40k scenario that just straight up does not work in WHFB. It was far and away in my top 2 worst scenarios I’ve ever played. [side note: the other being where the centre of the battlefield had a mystical crevasse and when you went near it you had to roll on a table and anything could happen to you from being attacked by 4 vampires to auto destroying all units with 2D6 inches that was tops.]
Chris had a lord on dragon, two other vamps, one with +1 level, 1 a BSB, 2 units of zombies, a unit of skellies, a unit of black knights, one large unit of wolves, wraiths, varghulf and some bats.
The game basically went:
Step 1: got some good luck Chris’s dragon went stupid two turns in a row so couldn’t cast and I rolled up two pandemoniums for spells which meant he kept miscasting and I kept altering his miscasts to get rid of his best spells and magic levels. With me holding sway over magic it was tough for Chris.
Step 2: Chris made a mistake of drawing the battle line inside his two table quarters allowing me to meet him there and control all 5 (there was an objective in the centre that counted as a “quarter”) when he should instead pushed to get across the middle and force me to fight my way into his half. He probably did this because at the start of the game he had a bazillion options for getting each quarter that the strategy wasn’t needed
Step 3: Fired up by the stupid scenario, plus being hangover free, I played tactically my best game of the weekend coming up with a plan and executing it perfectly
End result: 15-5 (55/75)
Game 5: Darren Donaldson (Khorne warriors)
Darren had an uber combat army with 4 units of Khorne knights (eep), 3 or 4 units of dogs for screening, 2 units of khornate marauders with great weapons, a unit of khornate warriors with GW, 2 level 1s with 4 scrolls and a lord on jugger with the demon sword and some ridiculous negative on his save.
On an open table he would have been able to hem me in and control the game but our table had a diagonal river through it splitting it in two and on one side a Forrest splitting it into three.
I deployed the fast cav on the open side of the river knowing they had the move to redeploy across if he weighted that flank, and kept the knights close by with the hope of neutralising one unit of knights on the far side of the forest and hopefully redirecting and punching through the other three with my diverters and two units of knights.
The game went pretty much to plan Darren made two rules based errors that essentially cost him the game:
1. one with where my chargers were going to end up after his hounds fled. He thought they go straight ahead not centre to centre following the hounds, this meant that instead of my unit being in no-mans land it hit the flank of one unit of knights carved it and then over ran into the flank of his marauder block supporting the two units of knights over the river. Which allowed my BSB’s unit to charge another unit knights and pursue them into the unit behind. This was pretty much the game.
2. the other mistake, though less costly, was he brought up the general in a unit of hounds but positioned him so I could avoid him with the hell cannon (as the dwarfs can’t reach they go to the back) meaning I broke him and at least got rid of his frenzy and immunity to psychology and many panic tests ensued (though none failed).
Taking those units out meant I could focus all of my magic on his one remaining unit of knights that was bottled up behind the forest eventually whittling them down to two and forcing them to charge my generals bunker.
End result: 20-0 (75/95)
Well second tournament with these guys so have to be happy to pull in a second place behind the immortal Jeff Traish. I must admit I’m enjoying having tactical options after the beastmen and the O&G generally being forced to concede certain elements of the game.
Breakdown
Things I did wrong over the weekend that I and hopefully others may learn from.
- Kept forgetting my bound spell and using that at the end, rather than trying to drag dice with it at the start. Rookie error.
- Have to think of blot throwers as a ranked up unit when in my flank, never present the knights flank to the bolties; or
- Screen the freaking flanks of the knights for Christ’s sake Brad (seriously how many shots to my flank will it take before I learn)
- black tongue was nice but I could think of more effective uses of the 50 points.
- Hellcannon is over rated and I was still uncertain how to use him. However my opponents very much over rate it which gives it a fear factor (that ironically by writing this I’m helping to dispel – so ignore that point)
- Marauder horsemen are shite with flails, may as well throw some axes on them.
Monday, February 2, 2009
Baby with the bathwater?
So here we stand at the window with our baby bath full of dirty tiered composition water and question do we just chuck it out the window? So I think it maybe time to consider checking if it is absolutely necessary for the panel comp baby to take the four story drop with the second hand suds?
Now on the tier comp side I think it was a worthwhile experiment half bringing the objective and subjective comp guys together. [side note: We kind of already knew it wouldn’t work at dogcon given it didn’t work at masters, but despite this its failure at DC seemed to catch people off guard. I personally went in expecting a 6 point range]
There were several problems and many can be argued over and over from both sides but the central problem I think is it combined the “non-core” attributes of both the objective and subjective approaches.
From an objective system stand point it didn’t take into account what was in the army just what book and from a subjective view it constrained the reviewer and prevented them from assessing the army against the rest of the field.
Now the first question I have from here is can it be salvaged or is the combination a fatal flaw. I think it may be possible to get the train back on track.
Some potential changes that I think may give both more freedom and direction and hence better results:
- The tiers need to not be hard tiers that appear to cap and floor an army’s score. Rather I’d prefer to see what score we expect the average army for any book to achieve. Don’t then have a restriction on the pluses and minuses just say score this army out of 5, 7, 10 or what ever keeping in mind average army for this type is (for example) a 2 out of 5. This way the panel can mark not only in regards to that army book but also against the field as a whole.
- We need for each book a sample “average” list for each tourney. Happy to admit I WAS WRONG in opposing this earlier. I have finally come round to this after being an opponent of it as I thought people would try and loophole the standard list or take something different and cry like roger federer when they get a comp hit “what do you mean my regenerating grave guard bunker is significantly harder than the two units of zombies in the standard list? Lets have a 37 page thread on how unfairly I was treated”. But heres the thing people will cry over those four or five points either way, so if clarity will produce more consistent results and make people feel more aware of their score I’m all for it.
With those two changes I think we get a system that is more flexible and consistent. The flexibility, I believe, is the most important thing. Speaking from professional experience, as soon as you overlay multiple static rule sets you can loophole them.
[side note: it is interesting that people can consider that objective comp will eventually be the answer when if you say look at another system of overlaid complex rules tax and ask how have governments around the world started to cut down on tax structuring and arbitrage? By putting place subjective tests because people consistently found the new loopholes with every change in the traditional objective tests. But hey I’m sure we are better at designing an objective system to overlay than every tax lawyer engaged by the governments around the world who only live and breath those systems and specialised in them academically.]
But the next question is: are tiered and panel comp inextricably linked? Can you only have one if you have the other? This appears to be the argument conveniently being pressed home with vim and vigour by the formula composition guys. [Side note: I was taught this as a negotiation technique: link two elements together then argue against one and effectively get them both conceded.]
I personally thought panel comp was working pretty well prior to the introduction of the tiers and that whilst there was the occasional outlier whose results weren’t justified but we sure abandoned the approach very early given how well it seemed to go. Sure army bias was exaggerated but I think tiering in conjunction with it only compounded that bias.
One other thing I would like to encourage is for panel members to look through their results and test to see if the “average” they’ve given for each race is appropriate. Any panel I’m a member of I do this and if I vary too much for one race or seem to be displaying bias I look through again and try to form arguments against my initial feelings. This isn’t to say that I always change them just that if I’m not giving an average mark for the race then I want to be certain it isn’t because I’ve misread the “hardness” of the tournament or because of unreasonable bias.
So I guess what I’m suggesting for the way forward is, for at least larger tourneys, revert to straight panel composition, preferably with the guidance for average scores for each army provided.
The next few months will be an interesting time in Australian warhammer, I get the feeling that the ETC (a system that I actually agree with in the environment it is intended for – a battle points only tourney bringing many different tourney scenes together) is being used to shoe horn comp formulas into Australian tourneys which will be primarily for the benefit of the elite players.
Now on the tier comp side I think it was a worthwhile experiment half bringing the objective and subjective comp guys together. [side note: We kind of already knew it wouldn’t work at dogcon given it didn’t work at masters, but despite this its failure at DC seemed to catch people off guard. I personally went in expecting a 6 point range]
There were several problems and many can be argued over and over from both sides but the central problem I think is it combined the “non-core” attributes of both the objective and subjective approaches.
From an objective system stand point it didn’t take into account what was in the army just what book and from a subjective view it constrained the reviewer and prevented them from assessing the army against the rest of the field.
Now the first question I have from here is can it be salvaged or is the combination a fatal flaw. I think it may be possible to get the train back on track.
Some potential changes that I think may give both more freedom and direction and hence better results:
- The tiers need to not be hard tiers that appear to cap and floor an army’s score. Rather I’d prefer to see what score we expect the average army for any book to achieve. Don’t then have a restriction on the pluses and minuses just say score this army out of 5, 7, 10 or what ever keeping in mind average army for this type is (for example) a 2 out of 5. This way the panel can mark not only in regards to that army book but also against the field as a whole.
- We need for each book a sample “average” list for each tourney. Happy to admit I WAS WRONG in opposing this earlier. I have finally come round to this after being an opponent of it as I thought people would try and loophole the standard list or take something different and cry like roger federer when they get a comp hit “what do you mean my regenerating grave guard bunker is significantly harder than the two units of zombies in the standard list? Lets have a 37 page thread on how unfairly I was treated”. But heres the thing people will cry over those four or five points either way, so if clarity will produce more consistent results and make people feel more aware of their score I’m all for it.
With those two changes I think we get a system that is more flexible and consistent. The flexibility, I believe, is the most important thing. Speaking from professional experience, as soon as you overlay multiple static rule sets you can loophole them.
[side note: it is interesting that people can consider that objective comp will eventually be the answer when if you say look at another system of overlaid complex rules tax and ask how have governments around the world started to cut down on tax structuring and arbitrage? By putting place subjective tests because people consistently found the new loopholes with every change in the traditional objective tests. But hey I’m sure we are better at designing an objective system to overlay than every tax lawyer engaged by the governments around the world who only live and breath those systems and specialised in them academically.]
But the next question is: are tiered and panel comp inextricably linked? Can you only have one if you have the other? This appears to be the argument conveniently being pressed home with vim and vigour by the formula composition guys. [Side note: I was taught this as a negotiation technique: link two elements together then argue against one and effectively get them both conceded.]
I personally thought panel comp was working pretty well prior to the introduction of the tiers and that whilst there was the occasional outlier whose results weren’t justified but we sure abandoned the approach very early given how well it seemed to go. Sure army bias was exaggerated but I think tiering in conjunction with it only compounded that bias.
One other thing I would like to encourage is for panel members to look through their results and test to see if the “average” they’ve given for each race is appropriate. Any panel I’m a member of I do this and if I vary too much for one race or seem to be displaying bias I look through again and try to form arguments against my initial feelings. This isn’t to say that I always change them just that if I’m not giving an average mark for the race then I want to be certain it isn’t because I’ve misread the “hardness” of the tournament or because of unreasonable bias.
So I guess what I’m suggesting for the way forward is, for at least larger tourneys, revert to straight panel composition, preferably with the guidance for average scores for each army provided.
The next few months will be an interesting time in Australian warhammer, I get the feeling that the ETC (a system that I actually agree with in the environment it is intended for – a battle points only tourney bringing many different tourney scenes together) is being used to shoe horn comp formulas into Australian tourneys which will be primarily for the benefit of the elite players.
Monday, January 26, 2009
7th Place not a bad start
Well never having played the list I was very glad I was able to get the teams event in prior to the main tourney because I didn’t know the rules for my army very well at all and subsequently got things wrong a lot, going both ways though admittedly more going my way than the other [he says embarrassingly as he looks at the ground and shuffles his feet], over the course of the team event. Also it meant I got an understanding of what the units could do.
Rather than a battle report I thought I’d give a run down on what I think performed well and what needs adjusting or dropping for future tourneys.
The results were very good for the weekend kicking off with 3 wins in the team tourney from the number 2 slot whilst team muppet road head long for victory.
A quick run down of the main event games:
Game 1. Sean Myles (savage orcs). 17-3. Got the vast majority of the points after my chaos knights luckily broke through his savage orc biguns in the final turn.
Game 2: Trevor Cowper (ogre kingdoms). 12-8. It all looked bleak when my knights got beaten by his iron guts (WTF!) but brought it all back with the miscast result on the hell cannon misfire killing off the butcher.
Game 3: Matt Willis (dark elves).16-4. It was a cut and thrust game where a failed stubborn role for matt took the game.
Game 4: Andrew Galea (dark elves). 4 – 16. Both of us had a lot of luck – Andrew’s got him more points (1400 from two big roles versus my 800 odd) and from there he used his 2 to 1 advantage against me too well. Strange game.
Game 5: Luke van Kyke (dwarfs) 18-2. In what should have been a tough match up for my knights, Luke instead had a brain explosion with deployment that took his war machines out of the game. Thanks Lukey much appreciated.
Game 6: Ken Ferris (woodies) 16 -4: In what Ken confidently called the Karma match up he got a shot at retribution for my recent cracks at his decision making responsibilities. Unfortunately the forces of the universe obviously agree with me and ken struggled to get much to go his way and didn’t add to it with a foolish charge.
Overall I came 7th which I’m happy with. Puts me off to a good start for the year and with a little more practice with the list hopefully I can improve on that start.
But anyway back to discussing what did and didn’t work, let’s start with the characters.
The level 4 and level 2 in the bunker of marauders were very effective. The only game I lost was the game where I unnecessarily put it in a 1/100 risk when keeping them alive would have allowed me magic superiority for 4 more turns (only 2DD left). My only thought is I might look at a way of getting the black tongue on one of these guys to put a little fear of god in people during their own magic phase.
The infernal muthafarking gate way basically means your opponent lets through your other spells, whilst I didn’t get the gateway off a few times nothing got “sucked in” but the 1/12 risk is just too great to let through.
The BSB with favour of the gods and armour of damnation was nothing short of sensational, in most games his ability to buff up a unit of chaos knights made it into a killing machine. Plus the armour of damnation allowed me to neutralise a fair few attacks that saved the knights skin when ever it got in a little trouble.
I don’t think I’m going to make a lot of changes here. As I said maybe the black tongue for against other magic heavy armies and also the demon steed could use a review after it chipped in for a total of zero wounds caused for the tournament.
The Impact Boys:
The 2 units of knights performance was quite mixed, in the end they have limited static res which means they are at the whim of the dice. Still they are a very reliable and effective hammer and will undoubtedly stay in the list.
The Hell Cannon:
I’m still undecided on this bad boy, he was very tough and every opponent seemed in awe of it. Sure in a few games the miscast result on the misfire chart bailed me out, but I just don’t remember any games where it shot well.
Typically he just filled the role of an anvil unit and provided a ranged threat that rarely (2 hits all weekend) came into play.
Is the threat of the cannon blast enough that it doesn’t need to hit? Maybe.
Is 205 points a good investment for a tough to kill anvil unit? Once again maybe.
Is it worth trying something else out to see if it works better? Probably.
The war shrine
Gold, absolute gold this little beauty definitely helped out the chaos knights enough to essentially win two games.
The diverters
Well surprisingly I don’t think the little unit of 10 really performed a 54 point role and will be left behind with more time to paint a better alternative [really who would of thought that!!]
But some discussion here with other players was that whilst they did perform a role they were essentially points given straight over to your opponent, meaning I was starting off giving over 270 odd points. Would it be better off to instead just take a few things that didn’t really need diverters?
What now?
So in standard post tourney mode I am currently playing around with a couple of different things and I’m entertaining running a “different” list switching out the marauder cav and hellcannon for a unit of warriors and unit of khornate marauders.
Of course this would involve me painting more little plastic guys which may or may not ever happen.
Rather than a battle report I thought I’d give a run down on what I think performed well and what needs adjusting or dropping for future tourneys.
The results were very good for the weekend kicking off with 3 wins in the team tourney from the number 2 slot whilst team muppet road head long for victory.
A quick run down of the main event games:
Game 1. Sean Myles (savage orcs). 17-3. Got the vast majority of the points after my chaos knights luckily broke through his savage orc biguns in the final turn.
Game 2: Trevor Cowper (ogre kingdoms). 12-8. It all looked bleak when my knights got beaten by his iron guts (WTF!) but brought it all back with the miscast result on the hell cannon misfire killing off the butcher.
Game 3: Matt Willis (dark elves).16-4. It was a cut and thrust game where a failed stubborn role for matt took the game.
Game 4: Andrew Galea (dark elves). 4 – 16. Both of us had a lot of luck – Andrew’s got him more points (1400 from two big roles versus my 800 odd) and from there he used his 2 to 1 advantage against me too well. Strange game.
Game 5: Luke van Kyke (dwarfs) 18-2. In what should have been a tough match up for my knights, Luke instead had a brain explosion with deployment that took his war machines out of the game. Thanks Lukey much appreciated.
Game 6: Ken Ferris (woodies) 16 -4: In what Ken confidently called the Karma match up he got a shot at retribution for my recent cracks at his decision making responsibilities. Unfortunately the forces of the universe obviously agree with me and ken struggled to get much to go his way and didn’t add to it with a foolish charge.
Overall I came 7th which I’m happy with. Puts me off to a good start for the year and with a little more practice with the list hopefully I can improve on that start.
But anyway back to discussing what did and didn’t work, let’s start with the characters.
The level 4 and level 2 in the bunker of marauders were very effective. The only game I lost was the game where I unnecessarily put it in a 1/100 risk when keeping them alive would have allowed me magic superiority for 4 more turns (only 2DD left). My only thought is I might look at a way of getting the black tongue on one of these guys to put a little fear of god in people during their own magic phase.
The infernal muthafarking gate way basically means your opponent lets through your other spells, whilst I didn’t get the gateway off a few times nothing got “sucked in” but the 1/12 risk is just too great to let through.
The BSB with favour of the gods and armour of damnation was nothing short of sensational, in most games his ability to buff up a unit of chaos knights made it into a killing machine. Plus the armour of damnation allowed me to neutralise a fair few attacks that saved the knights skin when ever it got in a little trouble.
I don’t think I’m going to make a lot of changes here. As I said maybe the black tongue for against other magic heavy armies and also the demon steed could use a review after it chipped in for a total of zero wounds caused for the tournament.
The Impact Boys:
The 2 units of knights performance was quite mixed, in the end they have limited static res which means they are at the whim of the dice. Still they are a very reliable and effective hammer and will undoubtedly stay in the list.
The Hell Cannon:
I’m still undecided on this bad boy, he was very tough and every opponent seemed in awe of it. Sure in a few games the miscast result on the misfire chart bailed me out, but I just don’t remember any games where it shot well.
Typically he just filled the role of an anvil unit and provided a ranged threat that rarely (2 hits all weekend) came into play.
Is the threat of the cannon blast enough that it doesn’t need to hit? Maybe.
Is 205 points a good investment for a tough to kill anvil unit? Once again maybe.
Is it worth trying something else out to see if it works better? Probably.
The war shrine
Gold, absolute gold this little beauty definitely helped out the chaos knights enough to essentially win two games.
The diverters
Well surprisingly I don’t think the little unit of 10 really performed a 54 point role and will be left behind with more time to paint a better alternative [really who would of thought that!!]
But some discussion here with other players was that whilst they did perform a role they were essentially points given straight over to your opponent, meaning I was starting off giving over 270 odd points. Would it be better off to instead just take a few things that didn’t really need diverters?
What now?
So in standard post tourney mode I am currently playing around with a couple of different things and I’m entertaining running a “different” list switching out the marauder cav and hellcannon for a unit of warriors and unit of khornate marauders.
Of course this would involve me painting more little plastic guys which may or may not ever happen.
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