Tournament: Uncharted Seas Team Tournament 5/21

Hello everyone Slick here. We will be having our first ever team-tournament at our local store on May 21!

Requirements are as follows:

• Each player will use their faction's starter fleet (no variations are allowed)
• Teams may sign up beforehand & any race/fleet combinations are allowed
• All ships must be painted to a 3-color minimum
• Tournament will consist of 3 games
• Scoring will be in the following categories: battle points, sportsmanship points, and appearance points

Prizes will be for 1st & 2nd place

Prizes TBA.

Uncharted Seas: Tournament III Pics

8 of 9 hits with a lot of re-rolls - ftw

Tournament: Uncharted Seas

Hello all, Slick here. Information for the upcoming Uncharted Seas tournament can be found here:

http://gamepreserveindygt.blogspot.com/2011/01/uncharted-seas-800-point-tournament.html

Fantasy Tournament: Dogs of War vs Empire (Game 3)

Hello all, Slick here. Today I am going to add a recount of the final game from the Fantasy tournament where the Dogs of War took home the top spot. I knew that after winning the first two games I would be playing one of the other two top players. I ended up being paired against Empire. His army list featured quite a few troops. I was definitely going to be outnumbered. His list was something like the following:

Lvl 2 Wizard
Captain on a warhorse
6 Knights + FC
Mortar
Archers
2 large blocks of infantry: Spearmen and Halberdiers
Each infantry block had detachments

Deployment for this battle was diagonal. He put all of his infantry on one flank while the mortar was in the middle with a commanding view of the battlefield. His archers were up on a small hill on the other side of the table along with the unit of knights + captain. I deployed my duellists close to where his knights were, my x-bows were arranged along the center and my pikes were on the flank, hoping to somehow beat over 40 empire troops. To support them, my other duellist unit deployed in a forest on this flank hoping to get through it quickly and march block his troops so that the pikes could at least get a one on one battle. My cannon was deploy towards the center of my line at the edge of another forest. Although I should have gone first, my opponent ended up stealing the first turn and promptly ended up declaring a charge against the duellists with his knights. After debating the stand & shoot I decided to flee and came within an inch of the duellists running off the table! Not a good beginning. The failed charge brought his knights past the hill his archers were holding (this will be important on my turn). His mortar and archers kill off a few x-bows and marksmen. His magic phase was uneventful.

My pikes advance along the flank, moving onto a low hill, edging along the forest my other duellists were advancing through. Checking the angles, I reform the marksmen so that my cannon now has a clear flank shot on his knight unit led by the captain. My duellists rally at the table edge. My magic phase saw a fireball blast apart a few spearmen. I opened my shooting phase with a cannon shot against his knights. The ball lands just in front of the knights and then bounces the full 10 inches! All of his knights and the captain die! This was the shot of the tournament and it took my opponent a good minute or two to pick his jaw up off of the table. He had lost nearly a third of his points with that unit and this left only his archers on that side of the board.

His second turn sees his mortar scatter off and his magic killed a pikeman. His infantry blocks advanced toward my pikemen with a spearmen unit making a successful charge against them. He decided to buff his wizard with the flaming sword. Shooting saw the archers kill 2 duellists. In combat my pikes ended up killing about 12 spearmen altogether and the paymaster eliminated his wizard while taking a wound in return. I ended up losing about 5 pikes in return. He broke from combat and I pursued and caught the spearmen. My turn saw the duellists advance to be able to shoot the archers as well as the xbows move up to support that attack. My cannon tried a shot at the morter and stuck in the ground 1 inch before the machine. The duellists killed off two archers while the other duellist unit shot up a detachment which promptly panicked and fled off the board. I decided to be proactive and charge with the pikes against a detachment. The detachment held, were wiped out, and I overran into his big block of halberdiers. The halberdier detachment then got the flank of the pikes. This was making the best of a bad situation as he could have positioned himself to surround the pikes on three sides if left alone. The pikes hot streak cooled down as they only killed about 8 halberdiers total (including attacks from the captain and paymaster!). In return the pikes lost another 7 but altogether combat ended up as a draw (lucky for me).

His third turn saw the mortar misfire and explode! His archers killed a duellist. Combat saw the pikes get bloodied further with only a few more halberdiers being killed. This was finally too much for the Leopards and they promptly fled through the woods with a lot of angry empire soldiers in pursuit. My turn saw the x-bows and duellists kill 8 archers who did not panic. The pikes continued to run through the forest. My wizard blasted his halberdier detachment while my other duellists put a few more shots into his big halberd block, killing 2. His fourth turn saw the infantry blocks charge the pikes who fled further, emerging the forest near the xbows. His archers whiffed. My next turn saw the archers finally eliminated, the pikes rally and a few more shots against the halberd blocks. Time was called and we tallied up points with a hard fought victory going to the Dogs!

With a massacre and two wins, plus good soft scores, the Dogs won the tournament by a comfortable margin.

Lessons learned:

The lessons from game 2 and really the entire tournament were reinforced here. Pikes simply cannot compete as a main combat unit in 8th. It may seem counter-intuitive, but pikes (if used) will be best served as smaller units to hold flanks. In my opinion Pizarro's becomes the premier RoR pike unit now and they should be able to handle most opposing flankers. I really like the buff spell available from lore of metal (+1 armor save). I am going to see if this will work well with Ricco's: 4+ save pikes could at least provide a measure of resiliency albeit still a points sink.

Getting a flank shot with a cannon is pure awesomeness. The fact that Dogs of War cannons are no longer D3 is a major boost and for a mere 85 points, they are virtually mandatory in any list.

Overall Impressions of 8th:

There are many changes to the game brought about by 8th and surprisingly, almost all of them good. The game is quite balanced at the moment and I sincerely hope that the next crop of army books does not destroy this. The game does not need a second coming of the issues that resulted from the Demons codex. While GW has all but officially disowned the Dogs of War, 8th edition actually made our list more competitive. Taking away our ability to use Ogre Kingdoms ogres is a real blow, but overall the positive changes with this edition tend to outweigh this dark spot. Dogs of War players have a lot or rethinking to do with regard to our army list. The tournament was definitely a learning experience and it will be fun to delve deeper into the varies strategies and tactics that this new edition allows.

Tournament: 1000 Point Uncharted Seas

Hello all, Slick here. Information for our upcoming Uncharted Seas tournament can be found here!

http://gamepreserveindygt.blogspot.com/2010/10/uncharted-seas-1000-point-tournament.html

Uncharted Seas Tournament 2010

Hello all, Slick here. Here are several pics from our recent Uncharted Seas tournament where my Shroud Mages took first!

Fantasy Tournament: Dogs of War vs Dwarfs (Game 2)

Hello all, Slick here with a summary of my game 2 match vs Dwarfs in our recent 8th ed tournament.

Going into the game I kept reminding myself that Dwarfs can actually get off charges in 8th and it would be best to not underestimate them. I ended up playing against one of my favorite local players. We've had several battles in the past so I was eager to see how things turned out in the new rules. Our scenario for game 2 was the Dawn Attack scenario which ended up having quit a large effect on how the game played out as virtually all of our units were deployed on the flanks and only 1-2 in the middle on both sides. My left flank had my large xbow unit, the center had a unit of duellists and the Marksmen and the right had the Leopards who deployed in a forest as well as the cannon and the other duellists. My opponent took a quite shooty army with 2 bolt throwers, a stone thrower, 2x10 xbows, 19 warriors, a runepriest, and 5 miners. My opponent ended up rolling a 6 and so he got the first turn which gave him a chance to do some serious damage with shooting. My right flank was facing xbows, warriors, and a stone thrower. His bolt throwers really didn't have any good angles the entire game and basically just nipped off an xbowmen or duellist a turn. The left flank saw my big xbow unit running up the flank to hopefully charge into his concealed bolt thrower. His turn was saw the stone thrower hit the pikes (rune of rerolling scatter is evil), taking out 3. His xbows killed another despite long range and me being in the woods. His warriors advanced toward the Leopards. I was hoping to have enough left alive to eventually fight them at this rate.

For this game I had taken Lore of Metal. Everyone had forgotten that you choose your lore while making your army which is a major change and really requires you to consider how you want to use magic in your army. I ended up getting Glittering Robe and Enchanted Blades of Aiban, which proved to actually make a significant difference in the performance of the pikes this game. My first turn saw the big xbow unit racing up the left flank, the Marksmen advancing left-center (they really got shafted by the deployment). Both my duellist units raced to a hill on my right-center to seek cover from the stone thrower and to intercept an advancing dwarf xbow unit. The pikes advance through the forest and to the left hoping to cut off the dwarf warriors a bit while still staying in cover. Magic proved fairly powerful and I cast Glittering Robe on the Leopards which gave them a solid 4+ save. The duellists, the Leopard Company captain and the Paymaster took potshots with their pistols at the Dwarf warriors and dropped 2 of them. My cannon was hoping to take out the stone thrower but stuck in the ground an inch in front of it!

His turn two featured more advancing and a little more shooting with the stone thrower thankfully scattering off the pikes. The xbows again managed to hit 2 Leopard company but I made 1 of their saves! Scaly skin ftw! He had marched his one xbow unit to the top of the hill, presumably to shoot down into my Leopards and duellists but this would prove to be a bad move. His miners also failed to show up. My turn two saw both duellist units take out 7/10 of the xbows but they passed the panic test. I had buffed one of the duellist units with the Enchanted Blades which was pretty damn cool. My xbows advanced as did the Marksmen. Their goal for the game was to get in range of a bolt thrower and hopefully kill off the crew (which they very nearly did!). My cannon decided it was a good time to try out the new and improved grapeshot and I rolled an 8, and killed as many warriors! They did not panic however.

His turn 3 saw the miners arrive behind my big xbows as expected. His dwarf warrios decided to charge my duellist unit rather than the pikes which was really the tactical blunder that cost him the game. The deuellists fled and his charge wasn't enough to catch them so they ended up moving just far enough to present a perfect flank charge for the Leopards! The duellists later rallied and then found a good place to hide. Despite that, I was worried after their lackluster performance in game 1. My big xbows reformed so as not to face a rear-charge. The Marksmen moved into range of one of the bolt throwers. The Leopards declared their charge and with a loud battle shout charged out of the woods into the Dwarf flank! They ended up rolling 11 on the charge which easily got me to the Dwarfs. To help the Leopards out I buffed them with both spells, giving them +1 to hit and scaly skin again! My cannon decided it was a good time to misfire but thankfully it would be ready again next turn. The duellists blasted the remaining xbows and wiped them out. In combat the pikes took out 6 dwarfs off of 11 hits with the captain taking out 2 by himself. His runepriest decided to challenge and so the paymaster stepped up to the plate and killed off the rune priest who rolled snake eyes for his saves! The warriors in turn knocked off 2 pikemen despite the 4+ save. Nevertheless I had racked up enough combat resolution to force him to test on insane courage which he did not get. The dwarfs ran and were caught by the Leopards! Their pursuit however put them in a really terrible position as they were up against the lip of the hill which had a tower on the second level (impassable). They were now wide open for the stone thrower.

His turn 4 saw the miners charge the xbows who did not have time to stand and shoot. The miners killed about 4 xbowmen, losing none in return. The xbows apparently had had enough and promptly fled with the dwarfs in hot pursuit. His bolt throwers picked off a few random duellists. The stone thrower landed dead center on the pikes killing 7 Leopard Company. The scaly skin save prevented this shot from wiping out the whole unit right then and there.

My turn 4 saw the one duellist unit move down the other side of the hill and head towards the stone thrower. The Leopards adjust their position and started to walk around the back of the hill to hopefully get out of the LoS of the stone thrower soon. My big xbows rallied and checking the battlefield I saw an opportunity for a long range flank shot on the miners to hopefully give the xbows a chance. The shot took out 3/5 of the miners who of course did not panic. In the magic phase I had buffed the Marksmen giving them +1 to hit. This was so successful that it may become a major combo piece for my army in the future. BS4, +1 to hit and armor piercing for the Dogs of War is really amazing. It was a costly spell though as it was IF and my wizard took a wound. The result though was that the Marksmen shooting at the bolt thrower took out 3/4 crew (engineer was there) and even put 2 wounds no the machine! Against RnF troops I can see this turning the Marksmen into a real menace. My cannon crew decided it was time to earn their pay and got a perfect shot on the stone thrower landing on the machine and rolling a 6 on the number of wounds!

His turn 5 saw the miners again charge the xbows. His 2 miners killed 2 xbows while I failed to kill either of the miners in return (very frustrating). The xbows run and are chased down by 2 miners! Still having an outnumber bonus for combat res would have been nice... He had no more combat troops and so was only able to take a few more pot shots at my units taking off a duellist and a Marksman. My turn 5 saw the Marksmen finish off the miners while the duellists ended the threat of the previously damaged bolt thrower. I decided not to risk shooting with my cannon as it could only have killed 2/10 xbows (not enough to panic them) - no need to risk blowing it up and giving away free VPs in a close game. The game ended and it turned out to be a good victory for the Dogs. The loss of the warriors and his general in combat really tipped the game in my favor. Still, his shooting was brutal, taking a heavy toll. Deployment really made for a wacky but fun game. This scenario really forces you to make the best out of potentially bad situations.

Lessons Learned:

• Lore of metal is really good!
• These two buff spells (Robes and Blades) really provided a stimulus for rethinking my approach to the Dogs. I will most likely be retiring the Leopards for the time being and switching to Ricco's as their heavy armor combined with the 5+ scaly skin will make for 3+ save pikes. They still will not be a center unit for me. There are in fact so many useful targets for the scaly skin spell in our army. It really annoys me now that we can no longer use Maneaters --- can you imagine a 3+ armor save unit of these guys?
• The Blades spell as mentioned above is simply awesome! Whether you're buffing shooting or combat units this is really a powerful tool for us. It makes mediocre units good and good units great. S5 armor piercing marauders? Yes please. 30" armor piercing xbows? You bet!
• Deployment wins battles. As I mentioned above, this scenario can really mess up your 'regular' deployment style. Working with the limitations imposed upon you by the deployment in this scenario really forces you to plan out the battle several steps in advance. This is another phase of the game that really requires some skill and will help level the playing field vs stronger armies and/or opponents.
  
• Once again, duellists are so good now!
  
• D6 wounds with cannons is a big step up in power for us.
• The new grapeshot is really good imo.
  

Fantasy Tournament: Dogs of War vs Demons (Game 1)

Hello all, Slick here. Today I'd like to provide a recap from our recent premiere 8th Edition Fantasy Tournament. There was a good mix of old and new players and everyone was still in the process of learning the ins and outs of 8th! I decided to take my Dogs of War although I was pretty uncertain about how they would perform in the new edition and the fact that I haven't had any practice games with the new edition prior to the event itself.

Round 1 vs Chaos Demons - Demons are always a tough match. My opponent had a Tzeentch herald and a small horror unit, a fairly big unit of bloodletters, and a smaller unit of daemonettes with a herald, and a unit of fleshounds. I was running a big unit of xbows, the Marksmen of Miragliano, a big unit of Leopard Company, 2x units of duellists, a cannon, paymaster and a lvl2 wizard as the general. Deployment was fairly straightforward and I did have a nice hill to setup on near the center. Turn 1 saw some extremely good results in the magic phase. The one thing I noticed playing these three tournament games was that even 1 wizard can cause a great deal of damage now! I decided to use lore of light against the demons and I managed to get a boosted version of a damage spell (can't recall the name right now) which my opponent failed to dispel. The spell ripped up 9 of the 12 daemonettes as the spell required my opponent to re-roll successful ward saves :) Shooting saw me concentrate my big unit of xbows at the remains of the daemonettes, wiping all but the herald out! My cannon rolled through the horror unit but the tzeentch herald jumped out the way and instead 2 horrors died. The Leopard company and duellists both advanced during the turn with both duellist units making use of woods to stay out of charge arcs or LoS for spells.

In his turn he advanced with everything and decided to blast away with a few spells, taking out 4 of the xbows. The flesh hounds were coming in on my right flank and I would either have to face the bloodletters or them head on while getting flanked by the other. Shooting needed to thin one of the out as much as possible. He moved his solo slaanesh herald to join the bloodletters (a mistake which we didn't catch until late but no big deal). We were both still in the mindset of 7th ed, thinking that units charged double their move value which really takes some effort to rid yourself of.

My turn 2 sees both duellists advance, the left flank duellists advance for shots on the horrors while the right flankers move to block the hounds through the woods. My wizard angles for better sight of the bloodletters. The Leopard Company advance more to the bloodletters. Magic proves effective again with my wizard putting a wound on the fleshounds and taking off a couple of bloodletters. My cannon burned through a fleshound as well. The xbows tore into the horrors and bloodletters dropping a fair number of them. The duellists also accounted for a horror. The new longer range of pistols is AWESOME! His turn 2 saw some more advancing. His magic picked off a few Leopard Company and a few of the duellists in front of the horrors. Thankfully they didn't panic. His hounds advanced to within likely charge range of the Leopards. Here I made a mistake as on my turn 3 I moved my duellists alongside the hounds to take shots at them when I should have moved in front of the hounds so that they would have to charge the duellists in order to prevent the flank charge on the pikes. My turn 3 saw the Leopards charge the bloodletters. Magic wasn't too effective this round as I only had a few power dice. I did put another wound on a flesh hound luckily, leaving 3 remaining. Shooting saw my cannon explode. The xbows put another wound on the hounds while the Marksmen and duellists dropped the horror unit enough to negate their wizard status.

Combat was pretty brutal with the pikes only dropping 2 bloodletters, while the Paymaster and Captain dropped 3 more. The bloodletters in turn savaged the pikes dropping something like 7 but thanks to my bonuses I won this round and he lost a few more demons. The tournament provided some interesting insight into pikemen usage in 8th which I will discuss at a later time. They definitely cannot perform in the center anymore. I think my dismal rolling helped this along but still, they just didn't have the staying power as we will quickly see. On his turn he manages to get the flank charge off with the hounds. His magic phase saw the loss of a few Marksmen and thankfully I blocked his attempt at my duellists. Combat was extremely bloody (Khorne get it?). I lost all but my front rank of pikes who did kill a bloodletter. The Paymaster finally took out the Slaanesh herald with a mighty swing from the Sword of Power, sending her back to Slaaneshi heaven. The captain also killed off the bloodletter champion. Despite these heroics, I broke and was caught. Thankfully, none of my units panicked at the loss of the paymaster.

My turn 4 saw the xbows blast the remaining flesh hounds. My flanking duellists on the right moved back to the center to help support. My wizard got off a spell which dropped another horror. My duellists sensed it was the right time and charged the horrors passing their fear check, eager to extract some payback for the loss of the Paymaster. The Marksmen reformed to face the remaining khorne units. Combat was pretty quick as the duellists cut the horrors to pieces. The tzeentch herald whiffed and then subsequently popped. His turn 4 saw the bloodletters charge the xbows who killed a few on the S&S. The bloodletters dropped like 8 xbows although the xbows struck down 3 bloodletters in return. Essentially they fought as well as the pikes. The xbows broke from combat but managed to elude the bloodletters who were now within short range of the newly reformed Marksmen. My turn 5 saw the big xbows rally. both duellist units moved up to unload into the bloodletters. The wizard again found the winds of magic favorable and blasted the bloodletters with 2 spells this turn. He got irresistible force on both spells, but luckily only put a single wound on himself. The Marksmen finished off the job wiping the last of the Daemons off the board.

Whew! That was a tough game. We were both surprised at how much damage a single wizard can do as both the herald and my wizard were dishing out some serious spells the entire game. I think the only thing really hurting my opponent was his overall lack of experience playing. He scored some big points by wiping out the pikes and paymaster. I think he was a bit timid in advancing, forgetting that charge ranges are generally much further in this edition which gave me an extra turn to thin his numbers out. Getting lucky the first turn and wiping the Daemonettes off the board also really put me in a position to compete in this game as there is absolutely no way the pikes could have withstood his 3 combat units. I was fortunate to beat him though, as he went on to get massacres in his next to games. He would have in fact won the tournament were it not for his unpainted army. A great opponent all around, who took losses in stride. A good learning game for both of us.

Lessons Learned

• Lore of Light helps level the playing field against Daemons
  
• Pikes cannot function in the center of the battlefield anymore
• Duellists are even better than before - I might build another unit in fact
• Magic - is deadly even with just one wizard, but still more balanced than before
• The new spells are all excellent and the revamped lores, boosting spells, signature spells, and lore features make the magic phase far deeper than ever before
• No longer having to guess with cannons is just plain evil :)
  

Fantasy Tournament: Pics

Hello all, Slick here. Today I've got some pics from our recent Fantasy tournament! This was our first event using 8th edition and it we had a pretty good turnout with several newer players participating! 8th edition is definitely a whole lot of fun and has really revitalized interest in playing Fantasy!