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.
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.
My spells. Invoc/Hellish Vigour on the Level 2, Invoc, Vanhels, Raise Dead, CoY on the level 4.
His spells.
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.
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.
...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.
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.
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...
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.
Warshrine at least rallies on his turn.
Skeletons beat the gorebeast chariot on SCR and chase it down.
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.
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.
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.
My spells. Invoc/Hellish Vigour on the Level 2, Invoc, Vanhels, Raise Dead, CoY on the level 4.
His spells.
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.
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.
...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.
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.
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...
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.
Warshrine at least rallies on his turn.
Skeletons beat the gorebeast chariot on SCR and chase it down.
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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