• It's time once again to ferret out those murderous vampires in a new VAU - Vampires Amongst Us. A cross between Cluedo and a roleplay, sometimes gory and often hilarious! Find out more and sign-up! here.
Nov 13, 2013
927
Vancouver, Canada
Hey everyone.

For those who have been following my painting log HERE, the tournament I've been tirelessly grinding out models for finally arrived. Gottacon 2015 is an uncomped, Win-Loss-Draw event in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. Its a 40 man event (38 after a couple players dropped last minute, as they were burnt out from attending the US Masters the previous weekend), with a heavy emphasis on painting and sportsmanship for the Best Overall. That said it's also notorious for being a filth fest, where players from all over the region congregate to start the season off with the nastiest, dirtiest lists they can cobble together.

Comp pack for the event can be found HERE. I'll basically say that, other than the second scenario, it basically doesn't affect my game plan at all.

Scoring is:
16 points for a WIN
11 points for a DRAW
7 points for a LOSS

You could also score up to 4 points a game for sportsmanship (3 being standard) and 40 points for paint. Best Opponent and 1st to 3rd favourite painted also counted for points.

My list for the event is as follows:

Level 4 (Vampire Lord): Potion of Strength; Armour of Destiny; Dispel Scroll; Red Fury; Quickblood; Level 4 Wizard; lance; shield; Hellsteed 543
General (Vampire Lord): Ogre Blade; Talisman of Preservation; The Other Trickster's Shard; Red Fury; Quickblood; Level 2 Wizard; shield; heavy armour; Hellsteed 474

Wight King: Nightshroud; Dragonbane Gem; Ironcurse Icon; great weapon; shield; Skeletal Steed (barding) 164

39 Skeleton Warriors: Banner of Eternal Flame; Skeleton Champion; musician; standard bearer 235
40 Skeleton Warriors: Skeleton Champion; musician; standard bearer 230
5 Dire Wolves 40
5 Dire Wolves 40
5 Dire Wolves 40
5 Dire Wolves 40

10 Black Knights: Banner of Swiftness; barding; lances; Hell Knight; musician; standard bearer 305
4 Vargheists: Vargoyle 194
4 Vargheists: Vargoyle 194

2,499 points

GAME ONE - WARRIORS




I was up painting until 3:30am the night before, so with just 4 hours of sleep under my belt I groggily make my way to the venue and to my first round table. I'd found out my matchup the night before, playing a guy named Ricky with his warriors.

Ricky and I hadn't played each other before so I didn't know what to expect from him. His list I've seen plenty of times before though. To summarize, because I stupidly gave him back the original copy, he brought:

Level 3 wizard on Shadow with a chaos familiar
(General) 3++ Lord on a demonic mount with GW and some other stuff.
3++ hero on a demonic mount with halberd
4++ reroll 1s BSB on a demonic mount with GW

2 marauder horsemen units
big brick of halberd warriors (don't remember if nurgle or tzeentch...guessing tzeentch)

Tzeentch warshrine
gorebeast chariot

double hellcannon

Unfortunately I got no pictures of the man's army, which is gorgeously converted.

ai.imgur.com_76qmHFYl.jpg

Round one is Meeting Engagement. There's an additional silly rule about loot counters for magic items and untis destroyed that I'm too tired to care much about. I win the roll off for sides and pick the right side of the table in the picture, as I was already standing there. He wins the roll for first deploy and first turn.

ai.imgur.com_P3WRjYWl.jpg

My spells. Invoc/Hellish Vigour on the Level 2, Invoc, Vanhels, Raise Dead, CoY on the level 4.


ai.imgur.com_tzZPEhRl.jpg

His spells.

ai.imgur.com_Q0f7ye3l.jpg

Picture of deployment.

He rolls 1s for reserves on his sorceror and one hellcannon, but everything else stays on. He deploys his other hellcannon really close to my line on the left with a unit of marauders, while everything else is in the middle.

I look at his line and figure I'll deploy my black knights on the left and scoop his hellcannon, then swing around at his army behind that building (impassable where the wall is, we rule).

However this is impeded by my reserve rolls.

ai.imgur.com_vLz4C6Dl.jpg
This is all that doesn't come on. Yup...that's the BK off the table, but all three of my characters on with their dicks waving in the wind ready to be pelted with hellcannon rocks. Lovely.

Not to mention that I'm missing half my chaff and a unit of vargheists.

So what to do?

I figure that he's going to shoot his hellcannon at my vampires anyways, so I might as well knock one of them out before he kills all of my vampires. So I deploy them right on the line, 3-wide, with the dogs 3-wide behind. That way I'm slightly protected from static res from his 3++ ward characters and from shooting.

Vargheists deploy on a hill behind them to threaten as much area as possible. Skeletons go in the centre to threaten his 3++ characters if they try to swing around to intercept my bus.

I fail to roll a 6 to steal first turn.

ai.imgur.com_4zi3PO7l.jpg

...and then on his turn his Hellcannon decides to fail his panic check and come barrelling towards me. Totally into that. Other one moves onto the table and can't shoot either.

Not pictured here is his general and another 3++ ward character, the former of whom comes onto the board here from reserves, and the latter of which swings around the back.

I charge it on my turn with the vargheists and the bus....and fail to kill the damned thing.

ai.imgur.com_AEA1krZl.jpg

His turn he puts the one 3++ ward save character into my vargheists, and the other into my bus. He declares a challenge with his general (vargheists don't have a champ, so can't accept), and I accept with my OTS vampire. He swaps places with the lady vampire.

It's at this point that he realizes that he's made a huge mistake. He learned of the matchup too and his clubmates said "just charge your 3++ characters into his bus and grind him out." They failed to account for the WK with nightshroud in the bus. With him I out-grind his characters easy.

His lord fails to do any wounds to my OTS lord, and I slip 2 wounds past his ward with OTS. Between lady vampire and the WK I slip the last wound through on the Hellcannon and split the combats, saving my bus from the vargheists bleeding wounds.

ai.imgur.com_7xdBK6al.jpg

Vampires polish off the general and reform to face his other character.

See that little base up in the top though? That's really important. It's his BSB, who swung around to give rerolls to his general in the fight with my bus. Totally unnecessary since I don't generate much CR what with his ward and my complete lack of SCR. However...


ai.imgur.com_XA6fdBql.jpg

It's very important when my black knights charge his warshrine. I needed an 11 I think to get in, but swiftstride that's not unmakeable and he wants none of that. His warshrine flees through the warriors with sorceror...who promptly fail their panic check and bounce through the warshrine and straight off the board.

HUGE swing in points, and super unlucky for my opponent.

Skeletons charge into his gorebeast chariot.

ai.imgur.com_Y6oV1q2l.jpg

Warshrine at least rallies on his turn.

ai.imgur.com_Da0h8aSl.jpg

Skeletons beat the gorebeast chariot on SCR and chase it down.

ai.imgur.com_8HMsAAXl.jpg

Turn before his BSB finished the vargheists and swung around to threaten my dog bus in the flank. My characters instead just bailed out in the the BK bus facing his rear. Without a wizard I hammer through raise dead and vanhels and box him in like so. There isn't enough space in any of those gaps for him to fit through and escape.

He tries to charge his BSB through the dogs into my bus and turns his other character around, but I pin him with zombies and he can't cut free. Lord kills the other character and he shakes my hand.


RESULT: BIG WIN FOR VC

Unlucky for my opponent for sure, but I was really confident about this matchup going in. So long as not all 3 of the 3++ characters get in at once I'm not concerned, as I can grind them out with my OTS vampire lord no problem while the NS protects him from incoming attacks. The hellcannons are concerning, especially when my vampires are outside of the bus. But once inside he can't kill enough of my black knights to remove my LOS!, and so long as I don't fail the 2+ 4++ I'm golden.

Furthermore he has to come to me to earn points. Nothing in my army really gives up points to the hellcannons, and I can beat out whatever he throws at me in combat so long as I'm not fighting it all at once.


Next game coming up soon.
 
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Nov 13, 2013
927
Vancouver, Canada
GAME 2: VAMPIRE COUNTS

Funnily enough this is the first time I've ever come up against a mirror match before. There aren't too many active VC players in the local meta, everyone having moved on to other armies or playing something else while they put off painting hundreds of shambling undead.

My opponent was another player I've never faced before. A really awesome guy with another amazingly converted army. He had these really awesome cobblestone bases and lots of great conversions all around. Sadly I didn't seem to have taken a picture, as on top of being fried from not sleeping I was also running a bit of a buzz from beers at lunch.

I couldn't find the copy of my opponent's list that I thought I had kept, but given my familiarity with the army it's a little easier to remember:

Vampire Lord (General)
QB, RF, Enchanted Shield, barded nightmare, HA, Ogre Blade, Tal of Pres, Level 4 (Vampires).

Hero Vampire
HA, shield, barded nightmare, sword of swift slaying, potion of strength, charmed shield, level 2 (death?)

Scroll Caddie
Level 1 necro, lore of vampires, dispel scroll

Core:
big brick of ghouls
20 zombies (bunker for scroll caddie)
2x5 dogs

Special
10(?) black knights, FC, no magic banner, barding and lances
5 hex wraiths
3 vargheists

Rare
Terrorgheist
Terrorgheist

Pre-game analysis

So my immediate impression is that the terrorgheists scare me, but not overly so. Average rolls he'll chip a few black knights off every turn, but it shouldn't be enough to chew through the whole bus or start killing characters. I'll allocate hits to my vampires to hopefully absorb with their ward saves first.

Otherwise I'm not particularly concerned. His big ghoul horde will mulch my skeletons but I really don't need them for this matchup. His hex wraiths can't be allowed to catch my vargheists, but they're fast enough that it's my fault if I let that happen. I should win in a vargheist-off so long as I don't lose one to death snipes or screams. I think my vargheists should be able to chip some wounds off a terrorgheist as well, and at least neuter it.

However the really important thing here is the bus. I will throw my bus face first into his bus any day of the week. Hell...I'll push it right into his face and dare him to charge me.


Side note: This is the one time scenario mattered. Magic dice for CASTER ONLY are halved for the first turn of the game, ending on a 5+ turn 2, 4+ turn 2, etc. The effect doesn't go away the whole game, and I don't think either myself nor my opponent get a single damned spell off all game. As a result I neither remember what spells I got, nor remember what my opponent had either.

The Game:

I also have more drops, so although the +1 means he goes first I get to outdeploy him, with my bus on the right flank bearing down on his plus his terrorgheists, with the vargheists outside to support.

Or buses dance around each other for a bit. He brings his terrorgheists up to scream at my vargheists, but gets too aggressive allowing my bus to wheel past the dogs he tried to screen them with to annihilate one of them, then reform to face his bus again. Meanwhile I try to charge both of my units of vargheists into his but only the one that was knocked down to two bodies by the TG scream makes it in, the other one deciding to be lazy and fail an easy 8" swiftstride charge. Bah. At least they stick it out. I believe I also put a unit of dogs into the side of his hex wraiths just to hold them up. My charge and flank to his wound and he crumbles 1 and turns to face on general's LD.

His turn and he's in trouble. He's looking at my bus and trying to decide whether it's better to charge in than to be charged. I pop my potion of strength and he decides he wants none of that and tries to charge out of my way into the unit of vargheists who failed the charge last turn. He needs something like an 8 swiftstride as well...

...and fails it. That parks him right in front of my bus again, about to take a charge to the face. His vargs finish off my vargs and reform. His terrorgheist chips off a couple knights. His hexxies finish off my dogs, but they've done their job. Ghouls move towards my skeletons.


My turn and I close the noose. Bus slams into his bus. Skeletons go into the hex wraiths. The undepleted vargheists go into his vargs (who had taken a couple wounds by now). Skeletons back up, and dogs move up to chaff the ghouls to give me another turn.

Magic is a non-event so right into combat. I do my varg combat first just to see what they do, and both of us kinda whiff IIRC. I think I knock him down to 2 models and he knocks me down to 3.

Then we go with the bus. He is deployed 5 wide as follows

BK..BK..BK..BK..BK
VL..BK..CH..BK..HV

His hero vampire popped potion of strength beginning of my turn so she's S8 right now, with ASF and RF. Whats worse is that the S bonus isn't from a weapon, so night shroud does shit all.

I should also mention at this point that I'm running my bus 3wide. In this matchup it means that I can mitigate the number of attacks coming against the unit. However the OTS kind of screws with how I place my vampires, as I don't want to risk having to reroll ward saves on one of my vampires.

I think about it for a while, then decide to do this. My WK goes onto the left, to touch his VL and knock off his Ogre Blade. My general (with the lance) then makes way to go after the hero vampire. I don't want him chewing through my unit at S8, and with only 4A and without ASF rerolls I should be able to tank his attacks.

This puts us something like this (for front ranks):

VL..BK..CH..BK..HV
.....WK..BK..VL
.....VL...CH...BK

My level 4 with his OTS then stays in the second rank and challenges. Since I'm issuing and not accepting I don't have to move, and since he can't move to me we just "pretend" that they're in contact. He accepts with his unit champion as expected, and I blend him for overkill. My general then puts all of her attacks into the unit, hoping to just push through combat res, and kills 7 knights or so. The WK fails to do any wounds to the vampire, but at S5 he fails to do much of anything back. One of my black knights behind the general KBs his hero vamp, but he charmed shields it.

Crumble destroys his unit and allocates some wounds on his vampires, and he pretty much realizes it's over. He rams one spell through to get a wound back on his general but it's too little too late. I reformed after last turn to get into my standard formation of VL-WK-VL. He challenges with his general and my level 4 accepts. With NS cancelling out his ASF I blend chew through him in no time. My other VL and the WK finish off the hero vampire.

Vargs finish off his vargs and turn to face his bunker. Bus turns to face his terrorgheist. He sees the writing on the wall and shakes my hand.


RESULT: Big win for the...uh...VC.

Great game! I know that's easy to say when you get a result like this one, but my opponent was an awesome guy and I really truly enjoyed the game. Afterwards we shot the shit about VC and modelling for quite a while, as we finished our game fairly quickly. If not for something that happened in my last game this guy would 100% have gotten my favourite opponent vote.

Also always cool to see another VC player. Not enough of us around these days.

Post Game Analysis:

My opponent made a couple mistakes here that really cost him. He had an advantage over me in the form of his terrorgheists, and I think had he played a bit more conservatively he could have pressed that to his advantage more. Instead he got really aggressive with them and it cost him one early on, which meant he couldn't really do much to the bus at all.

Speaking of buses, there is no question that mine was just outright better than his. OTS on my blender beats a 1+ save on his blender any day of the week, and nightshroud seals the deal. His second vampire also doesn't hold a candle to my second one, either in terms of combat viability or defense.

In the end I felt like my list just kinda outclassed his, and he was at an uphill battle from the beginning. I could bully him around with my bus and hide my easy points, while he would have to be giving up points to keep me from bowling him over. And with a 100 point margin of victory there isn't much hope he wins that way either.


This game puts me at 2-0. Halfway to my goal of 4 victories and a solid top 10 placing. Next game to follow.
 
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estwheadn

Black Knight
Jun 4, 2014
301
nice wins! I think you got lucky facing another vc army in the second round lol, the magic thing screws him as badly as it screws you so it was able to be a more even match up
 
Nov 13, 2013
927
Vancouver, Canada
nice wins! I think you got lucky facing another vc army in the second round lol, the magic thing screws him as badly as it screws you so it was able to be a more even match up

I'm not overly reliant on magic so I kind of liked that scenario no matter the matchup. With no real early game threats my first few magic phase are basically raising chaff, moving stuff around, and maintenance on the bus. I would happily forego all that to not have to deal with three rounds of dwellers, searing doom, final trans, doombolt, etc.

Definitely can't complain at all about my matchups thoug . Two rounds, two fighty armies that in confident in my ability to outfight. Well see if that continues into round 3 :-p
 

luntan

Zombie
Sep 22, 2010
11
Sweden
Nice reports as always Pirate! Looking forward to read the rest of the matches.
Your list likes other close combat armies so you have had nice matchups so far. Hopefully you keeped winning the rest of the games!

Btw you have painted the models realy nicely, I realy like the dune-bases. Wish I had the skill and time to paint minis, usualy buys them painted. :(
 

heldantes

Black Knight
Oct 21, 2013
389
Awesome stuff. Hooray for VC! Is it open lists at the beginning of the game then and so you knew what the other Vampire Lords were tooled up with? Either way, I like the craftiness of three wide to be able to make tactical decisions with the make way.
 
Nov 13, 2013
927
Vancouver, Canada
Awesome stuff. Hooray for VC! Is it open lists at the beginning of the game then and so you knew what the other Vampire Lords were tooled up with? Either way, I like the craftiness of three wide to be able to make tactical decisions with the make way.

Yeah open lists, so I knew exactly what he had. I think he underestimated how much more effective my bus would be a little bit, but as I said it's tough to say he had much other choice.

The bus 3-wide is amazing. So savage. So cheesy. Love it. I hope 9th changes the attack allocation rules as this sort of thing just plain isn't good for the game.
 

Alabaster427

Minister of Thriftiness
Dec 9, 2013
1,315
I actually prefer playing against VC. The game goes much quicker and I find that many VC players rely too heavily on TGs. They just aren't that good against Undead.
 
Nov 13, 2013
927
Vancouver, Canada
I actually prefer playing against VC. The game goes much quicker and I find that many VC players rely too heavily on TGs. They just aren't that good against Undead.

Totally agree. They're a crutch and have way too many bad matchups. I like having one just as a fire magnet to draw artillery hate away from my bus, but I'm totally happy with the double vargheists instead. And they're cheaper to boot :P
 
Nov 13, 2013
927
Vancouver, Canada
Thanks, everyone!

GAME THREE - BEASTMEN

After hazily walking around the venue for a bit, blankly perusing the stores, and picking up a desperately-needed $4 gatorade, I head to the TO table and get my matchup: beastmen!

Even funnier, where my last game was against an opponent with the same army, this time I'm against an opponent with the same name. THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE! :tongue:

I have a copy of his list, but it's at home. Thus here's what he was running from memory:

Level 4 (Shadow) Scroll, tal of pres

Level 4 (Beasts) something giving him a 4++ and his unit a ward save against shooting

BSB - beast banner

giant brick of gor (BSB and beasts here)

giant brick of beastigor (shadow here)

unit of 20 ambushing gor

2 chariots

2x5 harpies

razorgor

Gorgon (yeah you heard me right)


I'll post pictures of his army when I get back to the office. However I'll just say right now that it was also a gorgeously-converted all-female beastmen army! Every model in the army was converted, with legs from beastmen models and upper torsos from witch elves, demonettes, and all manner of other models. His Gorgon has to be seen to be believed.


Pregame Analysis

No disrespect at all to my opponent, but I am absolutely unafraid of his entire army. The beastigor are kinda scary with 2A each with hatred and S6...but so long as I'm not fighting them in the flank (spoilers) I should be a-okay. He has to come at me to get points, and my vampires will rip his ladies limb-from-limb and play around in their blood.

I should also mention that this game is WATCHTOWER. BRB rules, save that the tower is worth 500 vps instead of an automatic win.


He wins the roll for sides and sticks his small gor unit in the tower and the rest of his army (save the gorgon, a chariot and razorgor, and one unit of harpies) onto the left side of the building.

I'd deployed nothing but dogs by the time his entire army was basically down, so I put my vargheists backwards on the line to my extreme left to get around behind his bricks while a unit of skeletons and the bus stare them down. The other unit of skeletons deploys on the line in front of the tower, while a unit of dogs sits way out left to maybe redirect the gorgon. He scouts his harpies in behind them to stop just that.


The Game

I get first turn and put my skeletons into his unit in the tower and push my dogs up to try and get out of the way of his harpies. I'll just go ahead and say right now that the skeletons charge the tower every turn and kill all but one gor before getting locked up with razorgor/chariots/harpies, and I swing another unit of dogs around to redirect the gorgon out of battle (it never sees combat). That's all that happened on my right flank, and all the action was on the left.


With my first turn I zoom my vargheists up as far as I can along the left. I use one unit of dogs to chaff his beastigor from counter-charging them. I hum and haw a bit and decide to face them backwards thus committing to a turn 3 charge at the earliest, since there's really nothing other than miasma+pit that's going to threaten me outside of combat. I want at least one of those units in the rear of them, supported by skeletons, so that I don't get ground out. I believe I also raise a unit of zombies in a line chaffing both of his gor, which he lets go through to stop CoY on his beastigor.

His turn 1 and he just clears chaff with everything and reforms. I let withering through and dispel the rest.

...to be continued momentarily...
 
Nov 13, 2013
927
Vancouver, Canada
CONTINUED

My turn and I declare charge my bus into his Gor, looking to snipe out his BSB. His general is the shadow wizard, who is in with his Beastigor. I chaff them up by charging a unit of dogs across them into a chariot sitting right beside them, as the dart-formation wolves extend to block the wheel of the beastigor. I move my skeletons up to protect the flank of my bus but then double-guess myself and pull them back a little bit. This comes into play later and I'll explain my thinking then.

Otherwise I zoom my vargheists around behind his beastigor and face them towards the action. No matter where he goes they will now have a guaranteed rear-charge on the beastigor (unless he turns them around or something stupid like that).

In magic with dice and channels we have about the same number of dice. I throw two dice at viggour on my bus and he lets it through. I throw 2 dice at raise dead and he stops it. I then throw the rest of my dice to dispel Withering and leave him sitting on a couple wasted dice.

In combat I do the direwolf combat first and totally whiff, and the dogs crumble down to where they're no longer chaffing his beastigor. Hmm. That's worrisome. With them now definitely going into the bus I make way with only my lady vampire into the front corner (on the flank facing the beastigor) and leave my WK and OTS lord in the second rank. OTS lord challenges and he declines, and I send his wizard to the back. Lady vampire strips a rank off the back of his unit, and I kill a few more with horses and the unit.


His turn I pop my potion and he declares a charge immediately with the beastigor. He wheels past the direwolves easily as I'd feared, but it's SUPER tight whether he can make it past the skeletons too. We get a neutral party to measure the gap and it looks to be a fraction of an inch too small. He asks if he can declare against the skeletons instead and I say sure. He needs to roll like a 10 and makes it. Harpies get out of the way of my vargheists to save their points.

In combat the beastigor lay into my skeletons and cut them in half. Bus chewed his gor down to models but they stuck. My turn the vargheists went into the rear of his beastigor, bus finished off the ungor and turned to face, and he called the game right there.


RESULT: Big win for the VC

Postgame analysis:


Opponent didn't have enough big meanies or redirectors to really do much in this game. His list was cool, and I can certainly see how some people would have problems with it (like a clubmate with a skink cloud who just got bullied right off the table). However my list outfights everything in his list so long as it's not all at once, and again I have the chaff and tarpits to keep it that way.

I'm going to have to roll out the dice to see what happens if he hits me in the flank, so correct me if I'm wrong but I think I take that fight nine times out of ten. Might be that I dodged a huge bullet there. Either way I was really tired and it showed, and I shouldn't have taken that risk even if it does usually go my way. I reallocated a unit of dogs to redirect the gorgon which was stupid, as the real battle was with the beastigor and I knew it.



After the game I pack my models up and wander like a zombie back to the room. I'm ready to crash out, but see the time and it's only 7:00. With a groan I head out with everyone to the bar instead. I have a few drinks but not too many, have a cool conversation with the paint judge from last year who was a big fan of my army when he saw it walking around and get to wax on about all of my conversions and how much work all the bases were. After all that work it really does make it feel worthwhile to hear other hobbyists enjoying my work.

Day two games to follow. I am now 3-0-0, and need only one more win to meet my goal.
 

Alabaster427

Minister of Thriftiness
Dec 9, 2013
1,315
Those models make me think of snu-snu... I wonder how much is sculpted and how much is basically just a GI Jane action figure.
 

Nicreap

Ghoul
Dec 2, 2014
187
How does scoring work when your opponent calls the game? do you get maximum points or just what you have killed to that point? I have been in only one tournament, so I don't know how it works, but I hear it mentioned often enough.
 

Alabaster427

Minister of Thriftiness
Dec 9, 2013
1,315
How does scoring work when your opponent calls the game? do you get maximum points or just what you have killed to that point? I have been in only one tournament, so I don't know how it works, but I hear it mentioned often enough.
It depends on the tournament comp. This tournament only awards points by W-L-D, whereas other tourneys award points based on objectives or actual victory points claimed.
 

Nicreap

Ghoul
Dec 2, 2014
187
Woops, I forgot it was a W-L-D, so that is an obvious answer. So in the case where it is victory points do you have to play it out to the end? or does the opponent concede all his victory points if he calls the game? Or is it somehwere in the middle?
 
Nov 13, 2013
927
Vancouver, Canada
Woops, I forgot it was a W-L-D, so that is an obvious answer. So in the case where it is victory points do you have to play it out to the end? or does the opponent concede all his victory points if he calls the game? Or is it somehwere in the middle?

This is actually a much more involved question than it might seem on the surface.

Gottacon is a bit of an outlier, in that most WLD tournaments are typically quite heavy on objectives and scenario points. That is, you'll typically get a certain number of tournament points for the victory, a certain amount for scoring the scenario (be it personal objectives with cards, or global objectives like "capture the hill" etc), and a certain amount for capturing some sort of objective marker. Sometimes the scenario is just worth victory points, but it's rare for WLD to just do straight VPs with scenarios that are worth more VPs.

Generally speaking, once the game is called (either for lack of time or because your opponent doesn't want to play it out) there's a bit of negotiation that goes into who gets what scenarios. If there's a couple turns left you point out the obvious ones that you capture that your opponent can't contest, then for the rest you kind of have to hash it out. If your deathstar is sitting right next to one that your opponent's mage bunker is sitting on, for instance, you can probably convince him you'll claim that. If you call the game because the time limit is up and it's your opponent's deathstar sitting on that objective instead you probably will have to give that objective to your opponent.

Generally speaking though, if your opponent gives up part way through the battle it's because he's about to have all of his toys taken off the board. Thus unless you lack the units to score all of the objectives you can usually claim max points. Note that this is often detrimental to your opponent, as even when you've gotten crushed on battle points it is STILL possible in WLD to pick up quite a number of objective points. You can suicide a unit into his deathstar to snipe out a mage/BSB, for instance, or stuff sacrificial units between your deathstar and an objective you're trying to hold. However sometimes an opponent getting crushed will try to claim some of the objective points without wanting to actually roll the dice out for it, and in that case you get kinda stuck between wanting the points for objectives and not wanting to risk points for sportsmanship. Best Overall is considered the top prize here, so sports and hobby are often just as big of consideration as points for battle. The difference between a 3/4 sports and a 1/4 sports is often as important as those couple extra objective points. Thus negotiation.


Here, though, it's just straight VPs. Once it's clear that someone has broken so far ahead of you that it's not possible to fight your way back, you can basically shake your opponent's hand to save everyone the time and yourself the indignity of watching your opponent systematically take all your models off the table.
 
Nov 13, 2013
927
Vancouver, Canada
Those models make me think of snu-snu... I wonder how much is sculpted and how much is basically just a GI Jane action figure.

They're both converted from some large sculpts that he shipped in from spain. They were both sci-fi themed models, and he had to substantially convert them with new arms, GS'ed leather armour over cybernetic bits, the facemask, a new head in place of a helmet hanging from her arm, etc. The legs were apparently naked with heels, which she GS'ed into hooves and hairy legs. Pretty conversions all around. Not on the same level as the really spectacular armies in the running for best painted, but then that's the PNW for you. When paint counts towards the big prize people really go to town on things.
 
Nov 13, 2013
927
Vancouver, Canada
DAY TWO
Alarm goes off at 8:00am on Day Two, but I've already been up for an hour and am showered and dressed. Was awoken by the cruel light of morning blaring through the open window at around 7:00 am with the sound of rolling dice already rattling around in my head, and that was that for sleep. Still exhausted from my previous all-nighters, but after crushing 3 glasses of water to stave off the dehydration of gaming, drinking, and sleeping in dry, temperature-controlled hotel air I'm feeling chipper and ready to go.

We clean up the room, check our bags at front desk and check out of the hotel, then I grab some breakfast from a deli down the street before heading over to the venue.

GAME FOUR: WARRIORS OF CHA-...wait what do you mean I had an opponent swap?


I checked matchups the night before on my way out of the venue and I was told I would be playing another Warriors of Chaos player. I thus drank happily all evening in the knowledge that I would be starting the morning with another fighty opponent eagle to feed his army unit-by-unit into the woodchipper.

But nope. A few people had apparently taken an issue with some of the matchups, as a bunch of the "known players" had easy matchups and the concern was that they would cake-walk to the final tables. Also another couple players were up against the folks they'd driven in with, and one guy was even playing his own brother.

Thus I get to pick up my tray and bring my models to a different table where I'm facing off against...

GAME FOUR: GREEN DWARFS

If you run an army with trolls, night goblins, loads of chariots, and black/savage orcs that charges forth to meet the opponent head on I will give you the satisfaction of referring to your army as Orcs and Goblins. If you castle up in a corner with a half-dozen warmachines behind giant bricks of ItP infantry you get the ignonimous title of Green Dwarfs.

Which I don't mean as a sleight to my opponent in the slightest, as his army isn't any filthier than mine by a long shot and I don't begrudge him taking a competitive list. I just find it rather offensive from a fluff perspective to see Orcs who barely move off their deployment line. He didn't even shout "WAAAAAAAAAAGHHHH" at me! Not once :tongue:


In any event, my opponent's list went something like this. I have his actual list at home, so I'll update if there were any mistakes:

Wurzag (General)
Savage Orc Shaman, level 3, lucky shrunken head
Night Goblin Shaman, level 2, dispel scroll
Night Goblin BSB, poison banner

Big fuckoff horde of savage orc bigguns

Big fuckoff horde of savage orc arrer boys (not bigguns)

3 goblin chariots

20 night goblins with 3 fanatics

2 rock lobbaz

2 doom divas

2 mangler squiggs​

Scenario for today is BLOOD AND GLORY.

His fortitude is Wurzag (2), BSB (1), savage orc banner (1), and arrer boy banner (1) for 5. The night goblins don't have a banner.

My fortitude is my general (2), the BK banner (1), and the two skeleton banners (2), for the same 5.

PREGAME ANALYSIS:

So after having people feed their lists into my woodchipper all day yesterday, I'm finally up against a list that isn't fighting me on ground I'm comfortable with. One look at the board and it's pretty clear that my opponent is going to set up in a certain corner of the board and make me come at him beneath a hail of artillery fire. My opponent is a savvy OnG player who's been playing the army for years (and against whom I have a lifetime record of 0-1-1, though the loss was with my TK). He's going to whittle my bus with the doomdivers below LoS levels and drop rocks on my vampires trying to snipe them out. He's going to try and use some impassable on the board to trip me up as I come in at him. Once I hit, Wurzag is going to throw 6-dice at the spell that lets him try to turn my wizards into squiggly beasts, and which (unlike dwellers, final trans, and purple sun or pit) can hit me while I'm in combat and has no chance to misfire.

So I'm somewhat concerned. My plan is to run the bus at him as fast as possible, and try and get my vargs to where I can dismantle his gunline ASAP. His two big bricks are easily redirected with my dogs though, given that they're frenzied and can be made to run around.

I also get a bit of a gift from the scenario. It basically makes either of his big blocks worth 500 extra victory points for breaking him. Chances are I break him first, and since there is no reward for second break I can throw away my skeleton units all I want. Thus I kind of park them in the middle to where they can charge in late game to break steadfast but won't risk themselves before I'm able to break him. If I lose neither skeleton unit I just have to protect my vampire bus and I'm golden.

THE GAME

He wins the roll and deploys his goblin chariots in the middle. I deploy dogs.

Then he puts a mangler squigg in the middle, still trying to obfuscate his deployment strategy. I drop more dogs.

I think that's the moment where he really wakes up, and realizes that I'm going to know exactly how his entire army deploys before I have to put down anything even remotely meaningful. Thus his next drop is his warmachines, to make sure his spacing is perfect, then puts his orc units on the line.

He gets the +1 and wins the roll to go first. Mangler squiggs bump into the board edge and nothing else moves. Magic phase he casts hand of gork on four dice and rolls ridiculously high. I know he's going to try and throw his night goblin unit at my bus and release fanatics, which is extremely dangerous. However I figure in my head that, given the random distance of the move, and the random movement of the fanatics, and the random number of hits, and the fact that they're only wounding on 3s and I still get a 5+ save against them, that this isn't worth burning my scroll for.

My opponent rolls really high for the distance on the hand, but really low on the distance for the fanatics. All told only one of them pops through the unit (the rest rolling 5" needing 6") and he fails to do any wounds. I think one doom divah hits doing a couple wounds to the unit and the other scatters off as do the catapults. Big break for me.


After my turn one the board looks like this:


ai.imgur.com_AiM3AKZl.jpg

So I'm actually somewhat disappointed with myself looking at this picture now. My plan was to deploy my bus on the far right and swing around him on the 9" flank gap given to me by Blood and Glory deployment. His BSB is in that savage orc arrer boy unit on the right, along with a banner, meaning that I drop him to breaking point by killing that unit for a big swing.

However looking at the board now I'm not sure if that's the right plan. I should have put the bus just inside that one orc hut then come at him in an angle. That would give my bus more room to maneuver while making him trip his hordes up and come at me in waves. I would also be able to protect my vargheists from those chariots with the bus and could be a lot more aggressive with the vargheists. Instead I tried to pin those chariots by charging in my dogs, and moved the vargheists up cautiously instead when the dogs failed to make their charge (needed a 9, which isn't always going to happen). This was a huge blunder on my part that I'm really kind of frustrated about. It ends up costing me later.

That said, I'm reasonably happy with the state of the board after deployment here. That single dog unit in the top middle caused my opponent to stand there swearing to himself for a good 15 or so minutes while he thought about what to do. It is chaffing Wurzag's horde on the right from getting into a supporting position to help out against the arrer boys. It is also chaffing the arrer boy from charging my vampire bus.

What's more, since it's a dart I was able to turn it to where his horde is in my FLANK. Thus his direction of overrun is out in front of Wurzag's unit. He's basically forced to overrun one unit or the other, since otherwise they trip each other up. But that puts him into a really bad overrun position.

However if he backs both units up to shoot then he can clear at most one dog unit before I put my bus into him and just chaff up the other brick with the other dog unit. That or shoot warmachines at the dogs too, which I guess he felt was unacceptable.

Instead he decides to charge in the arrer boys and move Wurzag up into range of his spell. He throws a bunch of dice at that and I dispel with dice. Then he throws the rest at boosted foot on my BK bus and I burn my scroll. Ain't having none of that.

In combat he blows through the dogs and rolls 10" for overrun into the other dogs. Wasn't really expecting that but it's no problem for me. He closes the door to where my skeletons can hit him in the flank.


His giant overrun took me out of LoS of his savage orc unit, which is annoying. I briefly consider charging a character out into the warmachine line but the big mangler squigg right there dissuades me against that rather quickly. Instead after charging in the skeletons I swift-reform my bus around that rock to threaten his savages in their rear (which will still be their flank after they reform to face my skeletons). Vargheists zoom up to have a charge into his warmachines next turn, but I've stupidly left myself a few inches short of optimal distance and one of my vargs needs a 10 while the other needs an 8. I'm extremely frustrated with myself right now. I should have just chaffed the chariots with a unit of vargs and kept the other one to where I could have been charging into warmachines THIS turn. Who knows, perhaps he would roll low and the vargs might even win combat?

In magic I think I get rerolls to wound off on the skeletons but he dispels Invoc on the bus and burns his scroll to stop Raise Dead in front of Wurzag. The savages smash the dogs as expected and reform to face. Skeletons put a few wounds onto the savages but that's it. He reforms them into ranks.

TURN 3:
His turn again, and now I'm really sweating. Wurzag moves up to try and cast his stupid spell on my bus again. His mangler squig careens towards my bus but staying 1" away from that rock means he can't get a good angle to actually clip me. He's right there to threaten once I hit combat though.

Magic phase and he throws half his dice at hand of gork and gets it off. He's going to stick his mangler squig in front of my bus, and both of us know it. I sit there swearing to myself for about as long as he did after that movement phase above. After a long time I decide it's not worth failing to dispel this (as he rolled quite high) and let it go. He throws the rest at wurzag's spell and I throw all my dice to dispel. He might store a die for next turn.

In shooting he drops my bus below Look Out Sir! levels and I'm holding my breath as he rolls for his catapults. However one had misfired last turn, and the other scatters way off. I take a sigh of relief, but not for long.

ai.imgur.com_NTvR6bUh.jpg


Shit. Shit shit crap shit crap fuck. What the hell do I do hear?

Charging in means VOLUNTARILY jumping my 1,348 point vampire deathstar onto a mangler squigg. 3d6 S6 AP hits will chew that bus apart.

We've been at it for a while as we're both taking long turns (knowing that once combat hits it will be too late for that), so I have a bit of an audience going. After looking at the board I realize I really don't have any other choice.

I stand up on my chair and declare the charge. BALLS TO THE WALL!


Fortune favours the brave!

I really do have no choice but to charge through the mangler. There's a risk I lose my bus, but with both of his catapults back in commission next turn and my vargs too far back he'll prioritize dispelling the invocations and start dropping rocks onto my vampires. There are exactly 5 black knights left in my bus, four and the champion, meaning no look out sir against those catapults. All it takes is one hit, and odds are too good to risk that.

However, it also means that I am at exactly the level I need to begin allocating some of those hits to my characters. Both my vampires are (thank Nagash) on full wounds, as is my wight king. All I need is a bit of luck and my bus should survive unscathed. I can then force through an invocation on the backs of raise deads and hellish vigour and be good to go.

My opponent is giddy as he picks up his dice. He rolls 14 bloody hits. To be fair my dice have been rolling hot all game, and his haven't been pulling it out for him, but I'm sweating bullets now. I allocate two each to my characters and the remaining 8 onto the unit.

All 6 of the wounds on my characters wound. One vampire makes one ward save, while the other fails both. The WK fails both armour saves. My general is sitting on a single wound, as is my WK, and the other is at 2.

On the unit, he wounds with 5/8. About average...but enough to wipe the unit. I pick up five dice. I only need to roll one 6 and I'm golden. I stand up on my chair and...

...stick a 6. Champion is alive! I give a whoop and another goes up from the crowd.

On the other side the vargheists charge doesn't go so well. I janky charge in both vargheist units but one of them fails and comes up short. The other hits a rock lobba.

Oh, and skeletons charge his goblin wolf chariot. They need an 11...and fucking MAKE IT. SKELETONNNNNSSSSS. My opponent is actively cursing my dice luck now.

Magic phase. I need a big phase to raise some knights back up. Instead I roll 3-1. No channels. Crapsticks.

No use messing around. I declare two dice on invocation off my level 4, which I tell my opponent will raise up 5 black knights. He groans. I chuck the dice and he curses. 11 again!

He looks down at his 3 dice and realizes that on average rolls he's going to fail to dispel. He's not happy about it but he lets me have it. Bus grows back to 6 rank and file and I'm cheery as chips.

Next I declare two dice at raise dead, which is what he was saving his dice to stop. With it I'm going to chaff Wurzag's unit from coming in to aid his buddies. I throw two more dice and...11 again! What's more he throws all 3 dice and fails to dispel. With the signature I put wounds back onto my vampire and WK, putting them all back up to 2.

In combat my vargs eat the warmachine and overrun. My skeletons break the dog chariot and chase it down.

But in the combat that really matters my vampires lay into his unit wounding all 10 on first pass. He makes a ridiculous number of ward saves, but Other Trickster's Shard! Both vampires are directing attacks against the same model so they both get the advantage. He fails all of them on the reroll. I end up killing 18 savages. Horses and black knights kill a few more. As do skeletons. When he finally gets to attack back I save a bunch with parries and shields. He's on double 1s and breaks, and my skeletons roll high enough to cut him down. SKELETOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONS.

TURN FOUR

Magic he throws all of his dice at Wurzag's spell and gets it off really high. I can't risk any of his other spells so I keep my dice rather than fail to dispel. He doesn't roll a 6 for either vampire.

Sadly my vargheists being too slow means that he has half of his artillery still available to barrage me. Doom diver whittles my bus down below 5 non-champ RNF again and he lands a rock directly on my head. He wounds and I stand up on my chair again and roll the ward...


... and roll a 3. 6 wounds and my general is dead. Nooooooooo!



My turn the bus careens into Wurzag's unit. MY QUEEN SHALL BE AVEEEEENGED. The vargheists who failed their charge last turn come in on the flank. The other vargheists continue chewing down the artillery line. Magic I get 10 dice to 5. 5 dice at bubbled vanhels goes off IF and I lose all my spells but vigor. 5 dice at viggor and I he fails to roll high enough to dispel. King Mekhet goes to town on the savages and kills 10. His wight king kills a bunch more, as do the black knights. The Vargheists roll like champs and make up for being lazy before. I kill half the unit in one fell swoop.

He's on steadfast 8 and breaks. Everything pursues. That's game.
 
Nov 13, 2013
927
Vancouver, Canada
Postgame Analysis

What a game! Oh man was it a nail biter. Charging through that mangler squig was so fucking tense, I was sweating bullets.

Despite the end result this game was a LOT closer than it appeared. There were several points where my opponent was very close to chewing through my bus and dropping rocks on my characters. Had that first barrage of fanatics done more damage, for instance. Or if his doom divers had done more hits. He also hit me once with Wurzag's spell and failed to kill my vampires, but a double 6 right there would have spelled my doom.

I'm also really frustrated in how I managed my vargheists. I was a turn too slow dismantling his warmachines, and it could have cost me a lot more than it did. Can't make those kind of mistakes in a tournament. I should have shoved both my units of vargs right up into his face and just taken the charge from his wolf chariots, then gotten into his lines a turn earlier with the other unit.

However my dice were rolling hot and cushioned me from my mistakes. I might not be happy with my play but I was certainly happy with the outcome. Hit my goal for the tournament with one game to go!


I pack my minis back up on to my board and shake my opponent's hand, then run and grab something to eat. There are currently two other 4-0-0 players, one running warriors this truly nasty dark elf army and the other the mother of all ogre deathstars. I think it was 13 ironguts plus a full compliment of characters and two ironblasters. Four straight players had bounced right off it. The DE list had me really concerned too.

However only two of us could fight each other, and they were drawing names out of a hat to see who fought the next highest-ranked player. I left for lunch not knowing who my opponent would be.

After half-heartedly eating a sandwich, I returned to find that I had drawn the other player! The TO's didn't know what he was playing, and my excitement lasted until I tracked down a player who did.

GAME FIVE - DWARFS

Two runed up organ guns
Two runed up cannons
Two master engineers to go with the organ guns (one is the general)
two giant stubborn bricks, one hammerers one longbeards
BSB
two copters


.......


......


fuck.


I get to the table early and just sit down, nibbling on the other half of my sandwhich and trying to come up with some sort of plan. I suss out from the board where he is likely to deploy, but for plan I don't get much further than "run at him and pray."


THE GAME
ai.imgur.com_7ngt8Zul.jpg

Here's the pic after vanguards. I deploy my bus wide, then vanguard all my dogs in front of the bus to protect it from the organ guns.

He wins the roll to go first (of course) and pushes forward with his blocks to protect the organ guns. The gyros fly up to flame the dogs. He fires both cannons and organ guns into my leftmost vargheist unit and cuts them down in half.

My turn and I push...hard. The bus goes up to just outside short range of his organ guns. The dogs push right up in front of him to provide more cover. Vargheists on the left push up to just outside LoS of his one gyro, the full unit flies up to easy charge distance from his cannons. Magic he burns dice and scroll to shut me down, but doesn't eat any spells.


TURN TWO
Master engineers charge out to clear some dogs. Gyros drop bombs on my vargheists then move up to flame the dogs. Warmachines fire and annihilate both vargheist units. Whelp.

My turn and I declare a charge with the bus into his left unit of longbeards (the 2A ones). The bus is wide so I'm REALLY concerned about him chewing through me. Everything else charges out of the way of the bus, and chaffs the other unit up some more. Skeletons push forward.

ai.imgur.com_IBy9VCXl.jpg

My turn I try and cast Raise Dead and he dispels. I cast rerolls to wound on the bus and it goes through. I cut his unit in half and in return he annihilates my bus but they're stubborn and stick. I reform to touch his BSB. Dogs bounce off the warmachines.

TURN THREE

He charges his hammerers into the chaff in front of them and reforms to face the back of my bus...<whelp>. Gyro goes into the front of one unit of skeletons. Other gyro flames the skeletons, warmachines fire and the unit is smashed down to 10 models. Cut the longbeards down to 15 models or so, and take no wounds on the characters.


My turn. Skeletons free reform into a congaline for extra movement and pass their test on a 3. In magic I try to bubble out vanhels to hit them, so that they can move forward and chaff up his hammerers. He sees it coming and throws all his dice to stop. I throw the rest of my dice at Raise Dead to do the same, and he spelleaters it (though doesn't take the spell). Skeleton combat is a push.

TURN FOUR
His turn and his hammerers now have a clear path into the rear of my bus. 9" distance...he needs a 6. He picks up the dice. Rolls them...

...gets a 5.

Elsewise his other gyro goes into my skeleton congaline in the front. He does no wounds and I win by 1 but he sticks. Other combat is a push.


My turn I charge my bus into the organ gun and overrun to face the next one. My congaline wins combat and the gyro breaks. I fail to catch him but plow into his hammerers, pinning them in place. My other skeleton unit also wins and fails to catch, but falls short of the hammerers.

TURN FIVE
He charges engineers into my skeleton congaline, and the board looks like this.

ai.imgur.com_TblpaKEl.jpg

The two engineers beat the congaline and overrun into my other bus, preventing it from assisting against the hammerers. I smash the organ gun and reform to face...


...I really don't know what to do. Everyone else is finished now and about 20 or so people are watching this game. We're both playing friendly, but the game is very tight. I'm tense as fuck.

"Let's count it up."

A quick tally of the points has me down by about 200 points. I've just got vampires, WK, and the one skeleton brick left. He's got cannons, hammerers, his two engineers and both gyros.

I look at the table and try to figure out how I can pick up the points I need. The hammerers are the only way, but with stubborn there's no way I chew through them in a single round of combat. His general will flee, and it'll be a tough charge to catch him, and I can only do it if I charge my vampire out, leaving them all open to cannon fire. I say fuck it and throw them all into the hammerers, hoping I can chew through them before the game ends.

We fight the combat out, and then when I say "it's your turn" my opponent realizes it was actually turn 6. I had been too stressed to keep track. I have no idea. It might have been, and I'm compressing the game somewhere to miss a turn.

"well if I'd know that I would have played last turn differently"

"how?"

"I would have charged off the cannon for the tie"

"Oh, go for it."

I take the cannon and overrun off the board. Everything else stays as is.


We count up the points...
 

Alabaster427

Minister of Thriftiness
Dec 9, 2013
1,315
That sucks about the overrun off the board. Did it count for casualties? What was the end result?
 

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