Round #3: Zak Lopez - Warriors of Chaos
For Round #3, I played Zak Lopez and his Nurgle-themed Warriors of Chaos army. His list for the event was: a Chaos Lord of Nurgle on steed, an Exalted Hero of Nurgle on Deamonic Mount, a twelve-man warrior unit marked Nurgle with Banner of Swiftness, two chariots of Nurgle, three units of warhounds, a unit of Nurgle Knights with Razor Standard, another Exalted Hero of Nurgle mounted on a Disc, a Chaos Giant, a unit of Chaos Ogres, a Nurgle Sorcerer, and a Chaos Warshrine.
Zak's list hits very hard and has lots of units with awesome armor saves. Plus, he is marked Nurgle, so it is much harder to push wounds on the units with the additional -1 to hit. Luckily for me, this game relied on having Fortitude/command models on the beach blankets at the end of the game and I had more command/banners in my army (which were all very fast) than he did. Plus, it was Round #3 and Zak was looking a little worse for wear and wouldn't be throwing his best game my way. Rather than adapt to the situation for the scenario, he came at me like it was primarily a battle for VP which allowed me to sacrifice lots of expensive units to hold up his key units throughout the game.
In the early turns of the game, Zak and I pushed right at each other hoping to make combat. I swung in as many of my units as possible in order to prevent his units from reaching the beach blankets and controlling any objectives. In the center of the board, I sent my BSB and a unit of warlocks into his general's unit of knights.
In the combat, I managed to cast Soulblight, but killed two warlocks in the process. I then challenged out the general, hoping to roll some killing blow. Unfortunately, I failed to cause a single wound to the knight. Luckily, the warlocks killed two knights and I won the combat, but Zak made his break test.
I also charged the large warrior unit with the Kharybdis, a hydra, the manticore, and the other unit of warlocks. I would eventually destroy the whole unit of warriors, but not before losing the warlocks, and both the manticore and rider (and having some severely wounded monsters left on the board).
During the middle of the game, I would focus on killing the Ogres and Giant while Zak tried to position his units to push through my combat units and make it to the center of the board.
In particular, his knights and a chariot would crush the BSB and warlock unit on the right flank after his general turned into a Daemon Prince. The newly elevated prince would then fly to one of the blankets and hold it until the end of the game.
The final turns of the game saw me trying to wipe out any unit that could claim a blanket. His newly anointed prince and his exalted hero would each take a blanket, but I would be able to swing two dark rider units, one to each blanket, to contest the objectives. On the far right objective, I would kill off the last Chaos Ogre (who happened to be the champion) and take that objective and the game. I would go on to take all the bonus points (because his general turned into a daemon prince and broke his fortitude) for this round and would end Day 1 with 44 out of 60 battle points!
Round #4: Bretonnians
To start of Day 2, I would be playing Brets. The list was a standard Bretonnian list with two trebuchets, a level four life wizard with silver chalice, a level two beast wizard, three units of knights, two Pegasus heroes, a mounted BSB, a general with heroic killing blow, and a lot of peasant bowmen with flaming shooting attacks.
The early turns of the game were spent by the DE sweeping forward toward the peasants and the trebuchets in order to wipe them off the board. The peasants would show great courage by leaving the protection of their stakes and charging the dark elves, only to be drawn into combats they could not win. Going into the third turn, all the peasants were destroyed and only a single trebuchet was left on the board (which would eventually be destroyed by game's end). The Dark Elves would then work their way around to the flanks of the knight units in order to charge the knights.
In the middle turns, the game would swing back towards the Bretonnians. In one massive combat in the center of the board, I would get a charge off with both a hydra into the front and a dragon into the flank of a night unit. The dragon would be challenged out, but kill the champion. The hydra would kill a few more knights, but the steadfast unit would hold for a turn.
In the bretonnian's next turn, the trebuchet would target the unengaged hydra, drift onto the hydra in combat, and kill it before the combat phase. This left only the dragon in combat on the flank. The Bretonnian BSB would then challenge out the dragon, die heroically, but cause the Dragon to lose by the unit's musician (flank and 1 wound on the BSB - he was already wounded - to banner, rank, and musician). The dragon would then fail his break test (twice!) and got run down by the six knights. Talk about a game changing swing.
Alas, poor Dragon. I knew him well.
The last few turns of the game saw the Dark Elves outrunning the knights, destroying the trebuchet, and setting up a final turn charge. On turn 6, the Dark Elf BSB charged the Bretonnian General's unit in the read. The general, with his heroic killing blow, challenged out the BSB but failed to roll any 6s to wound. The BSB would get lucky, and roll a 6 on his killing blow attack, killing the general outright. The knight unit would then break, but outran the BSB who was obviously too excited to follow the knights more than 4 inches.
Come on Pegasus, you are supposed to be faster than a horse. That's why you have wings.
At the end of the game, I would take a minor loss (too many big monsters dead from one lucky trebuchet) with a single bonus point (for killing an enemy spell caster). I would end the game with nine battle points (taking me out the running for any award) and putting me at 53 battle points going into the last game.
Round #5: Pete Romanowich - High Elves
For the last round of the tournament I wound up playing Pete and his High Elves. Pete's army was a pretty hard-hitting list, but Pete is a newer player in the tournament circuit and hadn't seen much of the new Dark Elves, or anything close to my list. This would prove a significant advantage and even with the plethora of bad dice I suffered through during the game, I was able to systematically disassemble Pete's army.
His list for the tournament was a mounted prince with dawn stone and giant blade, a mounted Level Four with Lore of Life, a mounted BSB with the Other Trickster's Shard, a large unit (14 strong) of Silver Helms, two units of reavers, a small ten-man unit of archers, a horde of White Lions with the Banner of the World Dragon, two Frostheart Phoenix's, and two bolt throwers.
The early turns of the game were spent showing Pete how fast the Dark Elves could be. I vanguarded up full, and pushed fast so that all of my units were in front of his archers and bolt throwers on turn 1. I would easily kill all the bolt throwers, archers, and reaver units by the end of Turn 3.
The middle turns of the game were spent trying to get the Frostheart phoenix into combat with either the BSB or the Dragon, but the phoenix would keep fleeing behind Pete's lines. I would eventually bait out the White Lions and force them to charge across the center of the board only to be surrounded by the hydras and remaining dark riders. Between two breath weapons and several turns of combined shooting, all of the White Lions would be killed without ever making it into combat.
The final turns of the game were spent trying to bring several units to bear against the helm-star. I would sacrifice several small units of dark riders to hold the unit roughly in place until it could be charged by the dragon and several remaining monsters. I would kill almost the entire unit, but the general would be alive at the end of the game. A clear victory for the Dark Elves. I would take a major win this game with two bonus points (didn't get Pete's general) and would end up with 18 battle points for Round 5, bringing my grand total of battle points to 71 and putting me in 11th place for the tournament.
For the Fourth Round of the BAO, I played Henry. This guy on the left. Henry is perhaps better known by his twitter handle @Johnnycrass in which he constantly engages in various Warhammer discussions and hobby projects.