This post will not only go over my six (yes, six) Master's games for the weekend, but will also provide some information and opinion on the tournament itself. So be prepared for random comments and asides in my battle reports.
For those few of you still in existence that haven't yet heard, the United States Warhammer Fantasy community go together about two and a half years ago to create an invitational Masters Tournament that was designed to grow the Warhammer community in the United States as well as crown an overall U.S. champion for the year. The rules pack for each year has changed as the game has progressed and various issues arose. Last year's rule pack was quite extensive and contained a lot of changes from normal, out-of-the book Warhammer.
In brief, these are the rules that the players at the 2015 U.S. Masters were using for both army selection and games.
- All current, standard issue Games Workshop army books were allowed along with the Chaos Dwarf Forge World rules.
- No special/named characters.
- No Folding Fortress.
- A maximum of 12 Power or Dispel dice can be used in any phase from any source including Lore of Death, Warpstone Tokens, and Magic Mushrooms.
- No mysterious terrain rules were in effect, but full building rules were used.
- Players did not need line of sight to the point on the ground where a cannon shot was aimed, but the cannon had to have line of sight to the ultimate target.
- 2500 point army lists using full Swedish comp rules and a comp bracket between 8 and 14.
- Units that are reduced to below 25% or are fleeing at the end of Turn 6 award 1/2 victory points. Additionally, characters and ridden monstrous mounts, give up victory points separately for each unit.
- 20-0 battle point system was in use with 150 point brackets.
- All games were Battleline deployment as laid out in the rulebook.
- In addition, for each of the first four games on Day 1, you could use one of four scenario cards which would award up to an additional 600 victory points if you achieved the scenario conditions. These cards included (1) killing opponents general (300 vp), highest magic level character (150 vp), and battle standard bearer (150 vp); (2) breaking your opponent (450 vp) and remaining unbroken yourself (150 vp); (3) ending the game with fortitude in the table center (300 vp) while also causing a unit to panic with either shooting or magic (150 vp each time, max 300 vp); and (4) either ending the game with your most expensive unit in your opponent's deployment zone or preventing his most expensive unit from entering yours (450 vp) while controlling more table quarters with fortitude (150 vp).
Before I get into my games, I want to comment on these changes. Many of them are harmless and are present at most tournaments like no special characters, banning of certain items, etc. The magic cap is similar to the ETC rules which dislike long magic phases and spell lores/items that give additional dice taking some of the randomness of the magic phase out of the game. My biggest complaint with the rules changes stem from the 50% victory points for units at 25% and the scenario cards. These two changes significantly impacted my games throughout the weekend and in total cost me somewhere around 50 battle points for the tournament.
For example, I ended up playing three unbreakable armies and an ogre army with only three units on Day 1. This made it so that most of my scenario cards were worthless, particularly the one about panicking a unit. This basically meant that by simply taking an army that doesn't break, like Daemons or Vampires you kept your opponent from being able to get additional victory points in every game while you did not suffer any effect. This had the effect of keeping me from being able to achieve 300 vp and score two additional battle points simply by the armies I played. This is something that needs to be rectified so that every army has a chance to achieve the bonus objectives (if any, and I don't really like the idea of them in general) against any other army.
I also did not like having the bonus objectives as a general change to the tournament. Most armies are designed to play a certain way. When I was playing someone with lower comp, I played in a specific manner because I was already up 12-8 or 13-7 before the game began, but because of the scenario cards, they could rush a death star that I couldn't kill into my deployment zone (which happened three times) and gain all of those victory points back. So not only am I playing against a much harder list, but any bonus I gained from coming in at a higher comp was wiped out by these cards. It became clear that instead of being up or close to a draw, these scenario cards made it so I was consistently starting the game in a losing position, which is not how the games should have been. These cards were a late change into the tournament concept and adversely affected both my army choice and army design. I feel that these bonus points were unneeded when there was already a victory point based comp system in effect. It made my feel that armies that came in lower on the comp score were given a leg up, because it was much easier for them to complete the objectives which negates the entire point of the composition system. I know I won't be voting to use these scenario cards next year.
The other rules change that I had a problem with was the 50% points for units under 25% or fleeing at the end of the game. These rules made certain builds entirely useless. Build a list with fast cavalry to screen troops? To bad, your last turn flees may cost you the game. Have an MSU build with lots of units of ten models? Better not only have two left at the end of the game, or now that unit is giving up its points. Throughout the tournament these points changes swung entire games out of my grasp as I was only able to keep certain units alive, but at low model counts. In normal games I would not have been giving up so many points, but because I was playing Wood Elves, which supports both small units and flee-type builds, I was watching as games I would normally win by 100 were suddenly ripped from my grasp by the 50% victory point and objective point bonuses. These are rules that will have to be addressed and fixed for next Masters so as to allow other army types and designs to be playable at the national level.
Now onto the games!
Round #1: Warriors of Chaos
Round 1 I played Eric Weidus and his Warriors of Chaos army. If you listened to the pre-game match-ups, I was favored to win this game. And looking at the army lists, this should have been a solid win for me in all but the worst circumstances (which of course happened). Eric brought a 14 comp Warriors list which included: a Chaos Lord on barded Chaos Steed; Sorcerer Lord of Tzeentch on Disc; Chaos Sorcerer on barded Chaos Steed; Exalted Hero of Tzeentch on Daemonic Mount; a Chaos Chariot of Slaanesh; two Chaos Warhound units; a unit of 12 Forsaken of Slaanesh; a unit of 10 Marauder Horsemen of Slaanesh; 5 Chaos Knights of Tzeentch; 3 Dragon Orges; and 3 Skullcrushers of Khorne. This is a tough list for being at a 14, but it really lends itself to getting picked apart as the units aren't that large. So if two units can't charge together, there is a good chance of wiping a unit out over multiple rounds of magic, shooting, and combat.
In this game, my goal was to kill all the small units (where a lot of points were) and to break Eric in order to gain an additional 600 vp from the objectives. The first two turns the game went as expected. My shooting dropped both warhound units, the chaos chariot, and all 12 Forsaken. From there, however, the game quickly fell from my fingers. I had set up a unit at maximum charge range from the skullcrushers in order to force a frenzy check. The test was failed, the charge declared, and I chose to stand and shoot to take off a Skullcrusher. Unfortunately, Eric rolled the double "6" to make it into combat. I knew this was a possibility, but thought the sacrifice with the unit was worth it to drop a crusher (it was scouts only after all). The 'crushers quickly killed the scouts and overran a whopping 11 inches into the flank of an archer bunker on a slightly weird angled overrun that I didn't see could happen by the death of one 'crusher. This pulled the archer unit from my shooting phase and forced me to run units forward to prevent the 'crushers from charging another unit after it killed the archers.
I continued to focus on the other units killing off all 5 knights and putting two wounds on the BSB. The 'crushers killed the archers and were able to charge one of my blockers and overrun into another while I continued to focus on the units not in combat. I eventually killed the horsemen and dragon ogres through combined shooting and magic, but the 'crushers continued to wreck havoc on my lines. At the end of the game, the BSB was down to one wound and there was a single wound left on a single crusher denying me the unit's points (as it was above 25%) and the points from breaking Eric as he was still at four fortitude. Had either unit died, it would have been a 900 point swing for me bring the game from a 4-16 to a 10-10. Had I gotten the other unit as well, Eric would have lost his board quarter objective and the game would have been a 13-7 or 14-6 in my favor (which is what I was expecting). Heck, if there wasn't 50% points for units under 25% or fleeing then the game would have been an 8-12 as Eric wouldn't have gotten as many points.
The most disappointing part about this game was that the BSB and crusher were both on 1 wound for turns 5 and 6 and I was unable to push through an unsaved wound with two turns of magic and (limited) shooting. Statistically, I should have killed both with the number of 4+ saves that had to be rolled, but dice were not with me the last two turns as I couldn't roll to wound, and Eric made both saves he needed to. It was after this game that I realized my list would have been better off with 5 waywatchers. In fact, had I a single unit of waywatchers I would have won the game handily. This was a tough loss to take at the start of the tournament and would continue on as the dice landed out of my favor.
Now onto the games!
Round #1: Warriors of Chaos
Round 1 I played Eric Weidus and his Warriors of Chaos army. If you listened to the pre-game match-ups, I was favored to win this game. And looking at the army lists, this should have been a solid win for me in all but the worst circumstances (which of course happened). Eric brought a 14 comp Warriors list which included: a Chaos Lord on barded Chaos Steed; Sorcerer Lord of Tzeentch on Disc; Chaos Sorcerer on barded Chaos Steed; Exalted Hero of Tzeentch on Daemonic Mount; a Chaos Chariot of Slaanesh; two Chaos Warhound units; a unit of 12 Forsaken of Slaanesh; a unit of 10 Marauder Horsemen of Slaanesh; 5 Chaos Knights of Tzeentch; 3 Dragon Orges; and 3 Skullcrushers of Khorne. This is a tough list for being at a 14, but it really lends itself to getting picked apart as the units aren't that large. So if two units can't charge together, there is a good chance of wiping a unit out over multiple rounds of magic, shooting, and combat.
In this game, my goal was to kill all the small units (where a lot of points were) and to break Eric in order to gain an additional 600 vp from the objectives. The first two turns the game went as expected. My shooting dropped both warhound units, the chaos chariot, and all 12 Forsaken. From there, however, the game quickly fell from my fingers. I had set up a unit at maximum charge range from the skullcrushers in order to force a frenzy check. The test was failed, the charge declared, and I chose to stand and shoot to take off a Skullcrusher. Unfortunately, Eric rolled the double "6" to make it into combat. I knew this was a possibility, but thought the sacrifice with the unit was worth it to drop a crusher (it was scouts only after all). The 'crushers quickly killed the scouts and overran a whopping 11 inches into the flank of an archer bunker on a slightly weird angled overrun that I didn't see could happen by the death of one 'crusher. This pulled the archer unit from my shooting phase and forced me to run units forward to prevent the 'crushers from charging another unit after it killed the archers.
I continued to focus on the other units killing off all 5 knights and putting two wounds on the BSB. The 'crushers killed the archers and were able to charge one of my blockers and overrun into another while I continued to focus on the units not in combat. I eventually killed the horsemen and dragon ogres through combined shooting and magic, but the 'crushers continued to wreck havoc on my lines. At the end of the game, the BSB was down to one wound and there was a single wound left on a single crusher denying me the unit's points (as it was above 25%) and the points from breaking Eric as he was still at four fortitude. Had either unit died, it would have been a 900 point swing for me bring the game from a 4-16 to a 10-10. Had I gotten the other unit as well, Eric would have lost his board quarter objective and the game would have been a 13-7 or 14-6 in my favor (which is what I was expecting). Heck, if there wasn't 50% points for units under 25% or fleeing then the game would have been an 8-12 as Eric wouldn't have gotten as many points.
The most disappointing part about this game was that the BSB and crusher were both on 1 wound for turns 5 and 6 and I was unable to push through an unsaved wound with two turns of magic and (limited) shooting. Statistically, I should have killed both with the number of 4+ saves that had to be rolled, but dice were not with me the last two turns as I couldn't roll to wound, and Eric made both saves he needed to. It was after this game that I realized my list would have been better off with 5 waywatchers. In fact, had I a single unit of waywatchers I would have won the game handily. This was a tough loss to take at the start of the tournament and would continue on as the dice landed out of my favor.
End of Round #1 score: 4
Round #2: Bretonnians
Round 2 I was playing a guy with a solid Bretonnian list with decent comp. His list included a lord with Virtue of Heroism and the Sword of Swift Slaying; a lord with Virtue of the Impestuous Knight, Gauntlet of the Duel, and Ogre Blade (so very hitty); a Prophetess of the Lady with Lore of Heavens (but did not end up getting Comet); Paladin BSB; Paladin with Virtue of Duty; Damsel of the Lady with the Lore of Undeath (interesting, but ended up making no difference whatsoever in our game); 9 Knights of the Realm; 12 Knights of the Realm; 8 Knights Errant; 11 Peasent Bowmen; 5 Mounted Yeomen; 5 Mounted Yeomen; Pegasus Knights; and two Trebuchets.
This was another game where the dice were really letting me down. I started the game as the Bretonnians prayed to the Lady. I managed a decent first turn killing off both units of mounted Yeomen, killing two knights of the realm from the large unit, and pushing a wound through on a Trebuchet. However, from then on the game began to slip out of my grasp. I successfully cast Comet of Cassandora the first three turns of the game (one right in front of the Bretonnian deployment zone, once in the middle of the board, and a desperate shot in my deployment zone once engaged in combat). However, none of the comets came down until turn 5, when there were no units even close to them. Yes, you read that right. I have several comets that were strength 8 or higher that had absolutely nothing to do but decimate terrain. I can understand one of the comets not coming down right away, but waiting until there were no units at all even close (as my opponent had several turns to move away from the counters as he raced towards my line was disappointing).
My opponent played this game like he should have. He raced forward and eventually got into some of my line as I had to sacrifice units as he kept making all his armor saves (or ward saves) and I never had anything strong enough to punch through. This was another game where I really needed just a single unit of Waywatchers which would have turned the entire game around with their no-armor shots. As it was, I lost several small units, ran away most of the game, and only cleaned up a few random points. We both got out objectives so that was a wash and in the game ended up with a 10-point draw. Rather disappointing for Game 2 after my big loss Game 1.
At the end of Round 2, I was sitting at a disappointing 14 and had dropped further behind in the pack.
Round #3: Vampire Counts
For Round 3 I was playing the lowest comp in the entire tournament. My opponent was non-other than Southern Superstar Julien Lesange and has mighty 8.6 Vampire Counts army. His list included a super killy Vampire Lord (red fury, quickblood, etc.), another vampire lord with dispel scroll, another vampire character (all three of which went into the same massive skeleton unit), a cairn wraith, two units of 45 zombies, a 42 strong unit of skeletons with banner of swiftness, three units of dire wolves, a massive unit of 8 Vargheists, a mortis engine, and a Terrorgheist. This list was filthy and Julien played it to perfection.
Going into this round I decided that I really needed to make up some points. I know that I was up over 500 points just to start the game (putting me in a solid 13-7 before a single shot was fired). But I wanted to really push this game to bring me back into middle territory. I played the general bonus card knowing that if his general ever died, the game would be a solid 20 for me that Julien could never come back from.
This game turned on turn 2. During Julien's magic phase I frogged his Vampire Lord general and then charged it on my turn with the unit of sisters with all my characters. I knew that this was my one chance for a massive win. Looking back, I should have been happy with a 13 or 14 point win which would have been fairly easy to get by playing conservatively and just taking out the mortis engine and Terrorgheist. But I got greedy and had a good chance to take the whole game. In fact, killing Julien's general would have been 1300 victory points alone (plus whatever died from the leadership test) and ended the game right there. When I charged, we both stepped back, recognized that the game was in a single combat phase, and drank a beer.
Julien challenged with his Vampire Lord that got to keep always strike first, but was a mighty three wound, toughness 1, weapon skill 1, no armor save creature. I, forgetting how to play this game in all the excitement, accepted with my BSB who only had 4 attacks total. I rolled out the dice and whiffed, only putting a single wound on the vampire which then became unfrogged in Julien's turn and killed my entire bunker unit. I was an idiot. I only realized it the next day that I should have declined the challenge and put six poisoned sisters (plus three steeds) into the Vampire killing it for sure. Instead, i got spanked for my own bad play and came out of the game with a 1. After losing the bunker there was nothing I could do to stop the bleed of points and I had nothing to blame but myself for getting into a rush and not paying attention to what happened.
Thus, at the end of Round 3, I was at a low 15 battle points putting me firmly in the bottom brackets for the tournament.
Round #4: Tomb Kings
For the last round of Day 1, I played a guy from the mountain region, John Spelz and his Tomb King army. I don't have his list because I was never provided a copy (despite requesting one) but it did contain a massive unit of archers, a hierophant, hierotitan, casket of skulls, and other pretty standard Tomb Kings stuff.
What I remember about this game was that it was a complete mess. This game was not fun or competitive. We only made it to turn 4 do to my opponent's critical "thinking" about all of his decisions which is code for slow playing with an army that have 160 shots a turn. The game itself wasn't a great match up for my army to begin with, but with sloppy measuring, crazy 12 dice magic phases for three turns for the Tomb kings, rules arguments, and a few other issues, this game was not a good way to end the day.
John ended up beating me 13-7 as his shooting and magic decimated my units. Plus there were some issues about which characters had which items when I was attacking them (something that could have been remedied with an army list) so it seemed like I couldn't kill anything. But despite losing most of my units John never touched the sister star and characters. So when the game ended and he saw that he only got a 13 he started complaining and throwing a fit about "star" units and point heavy units taking all the fun out of the game. I tuned him out, turned in my 7, and went to party ready to hang out in the bottle barrels for Day 2 with my might score of a 22 out of 80.
Round #5: Chaos Dwarves
Round 5 I played Zack Harrison and his Chaos Dwarves. Zack was a good guy and the game was good, but I was surprised that Zack was sitting in the kiddie pool with his list. His list included a Sorcerer Prophet on Arabian Carpet with Lore of Death, Bull Taur'ruk, 23 Infernal Guard, two units of 20 Hobgoblins with Bows, 5 Bull Centaur, two Iron Deamons, and a K'daai Destroyer. This list still managed to comp a 13.3 so I wasn't starting off very high.
This game just went against Zack. I had four comets come down in this game. Three on a single turn when all of his major units were bunched up around a hill I had bottle-necked him onto with sacrificial charges. In that one turn I dropped the Bull Taur'rak, one Iron Deamon, the Bull Centaurs, and severely wounded the K'daii, other destroyer, and lord. These units were easy to pick up over the next several turns. The K'daii did make its points back up before it died by hitting some archer units that decided to stay around too long, but by then the game was over with a solid 16 point win in my favor. Strength 6 and 7 comets are no fun for anyone. Going into the final game I had managed to claw my way to the top of the bottom barrel with 38 points.
Round #6: Ogre Kingdoms
For the final round of the tournament I played the great Wayne Berry. I've met Wayne before at other major events like Waaghpaca so I knew that at least I could end the tournament in style. Wayne was playing a decent Ogre Kingdoms list. His list included a Slaughtermaster with the Lore of Great Maw, Bruiser with Rune Maw Banner two Firebellies, 14 Ironguts, a unit of 20 Gnoblars, 7 Maneaters with Banner of Swiftness and Poisoned Attacks, two Sabretusks, an Ironblaster, and a Giant. This list was actually very hard for me to deal with as all the characters went into the gut-star which was so large that shooting wouldn't bring it down. But, his army was not super fast, so if I could clear out the chaff, I knew I could prevent combats and just give up chaff points.
Wayne got the first turn and rushed his army towards mine hoping to make combat quickly. However, I had deployed around an annoying piece of impassable terrain that let me jump from one side to the other and focus on the maneater unit. I killed the sabretusks first, giving me freedom of movement and then took down the ironblaster (though with an amazing flank cannon shot it killed a whole unit of Wild Riders before it died). I put 5 wounds on the giant quickly, but then Wayne wisely moved the giant back forcing me to move my archers forward and closer to the gut-star. I would follow that giant for the entire game, but with limited shooting and poor dice rolling, the giant lived to fight another day.
The best part of the game was when I ate a fireball on a unit to turn a firebelly into a frog. This kept the gut-star pinned for the last two turns of the game as the unit wasn't able to move more than 2". Wayne eventually moved the frog out of the unit, but between the limited movement and terrain, I was in the clear. In the end, we calculated it up and the damn giant cost me a win. Instead, we had a solid draw less than 100 points difference.
I ended Round 6 with 10 points and ended the tournament with a 48. This was disappointing as it was less than 50% of the total battle points. I ended up 62 out of 78 and with my worst tournament showing in all of eighth edition. Maybe next year's Masters with the end of 8th will give me a chance to perform better, but for now its all about the West Coast GT and then the Quake City Rumble.
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