Monday, August 30, 2010

WHF 'Ard Boyz report: Lizardmen.

So Rhellion convinced me to go to the WHF 'Ard Boyz tournament and since he did build a box of Saurus for my army I felt obliged... if anything to get my Saurus from him! I dialed back my usual Friday night debauchery and went rolling into the tournament on 5 hours of solid sleep which has been par for the course the last 2 weeks due mostly to work.

It should be known that I am a total N00b at WHF and even though I have probably played more games of 8th edition than most people there I would be facing off against veteran players of 7th edition with probably 100's of games more experience than I.

That being said I think Lizardmen are one of the better armys out there and I took the following list.

Slann: General, BSB w/ Eternal Flame. Cupped Hands, Cogitation, Rumination, Life Loremaster.

Skink Priest: lvl 1, Dispel Scoll.
Saurus Hero: ASF sword, Gambler's armor, Potion of Speed.
Saurus Hero: Great weapon, Armor of Destiny.

30 Spear Saurus: FC
25 Saurus: FC
24 Saurus: FC
10 Skink Skirmishers
10 Skink Skirmishers

6 Chameleon Skinks
6 Chameleon Skinks
5 Cold One Riders: Warbanner
3 Terradons

Ancient Stegadon
2 Salamanders
2 Salamanders


Game 1 against Bretonnians

General on Pegasus
Green Knight
Hero on Pegasus
Hero BSB
Level 2 Lady
2 Trebochets
some bowmen
5 Pegasus Knights
A crap ton of Knights

I know nothing about Bretonnians having never faced them.

During deployment we both rolled a ton of 1's which stuck a lot of our units on the left flank including my Slann which put him out of range of helping a lot of my army let alone hurting anything in the Bretonnian army. Wouldn't have mattered anyway because...

My Slann rolled horribly. Rolling two 1's on three plus casting dice and failing to cast three times during the game... even rolling three 1's and a 2 on four dice failing to cast Regrowth. So magic was pretty much a non-factor. My Salamanders managed to misfire 3 out of their first 4 shots as well. Awesome!

I did manage to beat down his largest unit of Knights but my opponent rolled double 1's on his leadership test two times in a row to keep a large portion of my army locked in combat! And when I finally broke them they ended up bouncing through 4 units and a building ending up over 30" away from their starting point to safety and easily rallied.

My opponent had his share of badluck with both Trebuchets destroying themselves to misfire on the last turn but I had the worst of it.

Hero of the match was my Warbanner Cold One surviving endless combat with a unit of Knights and the Hero on Pegasus for 4 rounds and actually forcing the unit of Knights along with the attached Lady to flee!

In the end we hardly killed anything of each others armys completely. Apparently fleeing at the end of the game means nothing so I ended up with a minor loss like 700 to 400 in VPs (seriously!). But I captured more standards and had more core choices alive for +2 BPs.

My opponent was a good guy though and we went to Taco Bell after the game.


Game 2 against Lizardmen (Life vs Death!)

Slann just like mine for the most part but he had the Lore of Death!
Old Blood on Cold One with Blade of Reality.

Skink Priest on Engine of the Gods.
Skink Chief on Stegadon w/ War Spear.

2 large unit of Saurus.
Small unit of Skinks.
2 units of Skink Skirmishers.

Huge unit of Cold Ones.
Large unit of Temple Guard.
Stegadon.

This army was a real 'Ard Boyz list maxed out on Lords and Heros and three Steggies.

This was billed as Life vs Death. I ended up getting off an IF Dwellers Below which took out his Slann in Turn 3. We ended up smashing each other up pretty good. His 3 Stegadons just rolled through my Saurus blocks like nothing. I was only able to take out one Stegadon and even though I killed his Chief and Priest I get no VPs unless I kill the mount as well.

If the game ended on turn 5 I would have won but we pushed to turn 6 and his Stegadons crushed my last unit of Saurus to paste. I ended up with another minor loss but got +3 BPs.

I made soooo many mistakes in this game which I blame on being near delirious with sleep deprivation and also lack of experience:

1. Not attacking the Stegadons in combat but their riders. Even though I needed 6's to wound I would have been better off trying to kill the beasts... all my efforts attacking the riders got me 0 VPs.
2. Over-running with my Stegadon against one of his Saurus blocks which put me in range to be murdered by the Old-Blood's BoR... not sure what I was thinking here.
3. Casting Dweller's Below the second time on a Stegadon when I should have cast it on the remains of the Temple Guard. Killing that unit off would have got me a draw as I ended up losing about 1700 to 1400 in VPs but I did gain +3 BPs.


Game 3 against Vampire Counts.

He had 4 Vampires. Lots of wolves and 4 large units of Ghouls (half of which ended up in reserve). A large unit of Knights and Grave Guard and a Varghulf.

This is the game where the gods of luck pay me back 100 fold. First turn I cast Dweller's Below on his unit of Ghouls with his Lord. He rolls a 6 and dies along with half the unit of Ghouls. My skinks obliterate his Wolves with shooting. It's just ugly and a foregone conclussion after 2 turns. Then he starts to come back.

My Slann gets caught on his own by a 22" charge from his Fell Bats. By the time I turn some units around to assist him he is killed. On the same turn my Stegadon is also killed by mass Ghoul poison! But it was too little too late and I end up crushing the rest of the Undeads with my 3 relatively untouched Saurus blocks AND I gain all 4 BPs!

In no small part of gaining bonus BPs and some people actually leaving after two games I ended up pulling third place with my one glorious victory! All glory to the Hypnotoad!

Congrats to Rhellion for winning with his Skaven. 2nd place went to Warriors of Chaos featuring what else? Tons of Chaos Warriors!
 
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