I’ve been a bit slack on updating the blog so it’s about time I wrote something!
I suppose I better start with a round-up of how I got on at Sheffield Slaughter…
Travelling up there…
This proved to be the first problem! With heavy snow and freezing conditions forecast we decided to travel up on the Friday night instead of Saturday morning. Half way there and all is well – and then the snow came down… and boy did it come down! Having left with no snow on the ground we arrived in Sheffield to 6-8 inches of the white stuff! Driving conditions were a bit dodgy to say the least but we made it there in one piece – just!
The List
Slann Mage Priest (General); Level 4, Lore of Life, Battle Standard, Focus of Mystery, Focused Rumination, Becalming Cogitation, Dispel Scroll, Standard of Discipline 440
Skink Priest; Level 2, Lore of Heavens, Plaque of Tepok, 115
Scar Veteran; Cold One, Light Armour, Great Weapon, Venom of the Firefly Frog, Dragonhelm, Amulet of Itzl, 166
Scar Veteran; Cold One, Light Armour, Burning Blade of Chotec, Charmed Shield, Dawnstone, 160
10 Skink Skirmishers; 70
10 Skink Skirmishers; 70
10 Skink Skirmishers; 70
10 Skinks, Musician, 56
10 Skinks, Musician, 56
10 Skinks, Musician, 56
30 Skinks / 3 Kroxigor, Musician, 321
21 Temple Guard, Full Command, 371
3 Terradons, 90
3 Terradons, 90
3 Terradons, 90
5 Chameleon Skinks, 60
1 Salamander Hunting Pack, Additional Handler, 80
Day One.
After registration, a strong black coffee and a bacon butty we got straight into the games:
Game 1 vs Tim Fisher’s Ogres (double tyrant, double firebelly, double stubborn fighty, combat list) – I can’t fight everything so I set up in the opposite corner, chaff him up on the way across and look to kill what I can of the cheap points – easily taking out the ironblaster, all 3 sabretusks and one of the firebellies. I finally manage to isolate and get into combat with one unit – I fight the Maneater block with my Skrox. Over a couple of rounds I kill a load including the BSB, eventually leaving just 1 Maneater and 1 Tyrant (the general). They flee 5 inches, I rub my hands with glee and then fail to catch them by 1 inch… It finishes with an 11-9 win to me. Could / should have been much bigger but fairly happy with that. Playing Tim made for a great game – it was full of banter, good humour and very relaxed.
Game 2 vs Dan Heelan’s Lizardmen (an almost mirror match – except he has Saurus and I have Skrox) – My reward for a tough first game was an even tougher second game – I get the honour of playing an internet superstar and former Team England ETC captain. I out drop him on deployment and set up my blocks in the opposite corner to his – if he wants to fight he’s gonna have to slog it across the board… The game turns out to be very tactical as it is a chaff battle on one flank, a chaff stand off on the other flank and fairly tied up in the centre. Our big blocks don’t make combat. Dan is far more experienced and he clears up most of my chaff and I get very little in return. I try to push for a few points near the end without over committing and throw my mounted scar vets into his foot scar vets. They pop a wound off him, but he holds and then wallops me with potion of strength next round. I lose 14-6. Still felt I played OK and kept my loss to minimum versus a very good player and more importantly I learnt a lot just from watching him play.
Game 3 vs David Parker’s Lizardmen (3 Steg, 2 Skrox list that wants to come and fight) – I’ve set up my blocks in a corner of the board, protected on one side by impassable and the other by a building creating a funnel – if he wants to come and fight he has to send it in 1 unit at a time. On the far flank we have a fairly even chaff battle. In the middle of the board there is a Scar Vet stand off – which I win when his fails a stupidity test and stumbles forward. Also in the middle I set up a few double flees and manipulate a flank charge with the other Scar Vet into a Steg. At this stage I am up on points so he starts to push for combat looking to get some points. A Skrox unit is now facing off my Temple Guard. I get a big 11 dice magic phase and attempt to cast Throne of Vines on 3 dice (expecting him to let it through) – I get it off with an Irrestiable Force. No problem, the spell grants me a 2+ miscast avoidance. I rolled a 1. Shit. Roll on the miscast table – Dimensional Cascade. Double Shit. Luckily the Slann doesn’t fall down a hole but thanks to the big boom template inflicting Str 10 hits 16 out of 20 of his Temple Guard mates disappear… Next turn his Skrox come into combat and kill the remaining Temple Guard. Slann holds. Slann continues to hold for 3 rounds of combat before eventually being killed. I lost 15-5.
Day One – Evening’s Entertainment
The venue is a proper Northern Working Men’s Club and one of the attractions of Sheffield Slaughter is that they do a very job of keeping everyone there for both the day and the evening. Supplied as part of the ticket price is a Saturday Evening hot buffet so that’s the food sorted! Being a Working Men’s Club the bar prices are more than reasonable so that’s the drinking sorted too! Add in a rather raucous dice game, plenty of people looking for casual pick-up games and lots of people to talk to and you’ve got yourself a great Saturday nights entertainment…!
Day Two
After a mixed bag of results on day one I was hoping day two might prove to be slightly more fruitful…
Game 4 vs Andy Isherwood’s Beastmen (2 big Gor blocks, 1 big Bestigor block, Mino block, tooled up Doombull, herd stone, lots of low level shamans and a Death Level 4…) – Another combat army… I dragged one Gor block out wide and held the other Gor block up in his back field – effectively keeping them out of the game. Killed a few Minos with Terradon rocks and poison and then shoved the Skrox in their face – a favourable match up for me. He took the bait and charged. Elsewhere I was fleeing charges so he declared to redirect a couple of long attempts both at the Skrox – the Doombull into one flank (16” away) and the Bestigor into the other flank (17” away) – both a bit cheeky but it won him the game when they both got in – the Doombull rolled a 10 and the Bestigor rolled a double 6. From there he wiped the Skrox in one round and with overrun’s he mopped up the 2 scar vets and the Temple Guard (who were waiting to pounce as counter charges) and caused the Slann to auto pop when he failed the break test… Big 20-0 loss.
Game 5 vs Josh Heald’s High Elves (2 x 30 White Lions and Life Magic) – I deployed almost on the base line with impassable terrain anchoring my one flank. Chaff dragged the one big block out wide and again kept them out of the game. Early on I irresistibly cast Dwellers on the other block and reduce them by half (but also killed 4 TG with the miscast). A 5 man white lion unit in conga with champion pins the Temple Guard in place and I get a very low magic phase and can’t get any buffs up. Then the bigger (but previously reduced) unit of White Lions go in – they only have 16 attacks but they hit and wound with all 16 and leave the Slann stood on his own. He auto pops again. At which point I thought I was going down big again… Until… Josh had over looked the two Scar Vets when he was positioning his character bunker. I charged with both and the bunker opted to flee – but only ran 3” leaving them 16” from the scar vets (needing a 9 with swift stride) – the first one failed…. But the second one didn’t and I wiped out a unit of 15 archers as well as his BSB with Banner of Sorcerey, Level 4 General and his Level 1 Mage…. In the same turn I charged the Skrox into the depleted White Lions. They ground at each other for a few turns until the Scar Vets went in as well and killed them all in the last combat round of the game. It was hard work but I managed to pull enough back to leave a points difference of 8VP’s meaning a 10-10 draw.
Game 6 vs James Jenkinson’s Lizardmen (Light Slann, Death Slann, Saurus and 2 x Skrox) – awesome, my third Lizard off of the weekend… Cagey first turn and then went down hill in the second turn. Remember what happened to my Slann earlier in Game 3? Yep I did exactly the same again. 3 dice cast of Throne of Vines. Irrestible Force. Roll a 1 to avoid the miscast. Roll a Dimensional Cascade. This time though I suck off my Slann along with 14 Temple Guard. I backed off for the rest of the game and just threw the Scar Vets forward to pick off some of his chaff and try and make a few points back. I had the chance for a big swing in points when both Scar Vets out manoeuvred his chaff and declared a charge at the Slann General and his unit of Skink Skirmishers. Unfortunately only one Scar Vet rolled to get in (despite them both only needing a 7 with swift stride…) and then whiffed his attacks. The Skinks squeezed through a cheeky wound onto the Vet and he broke from combat…! I fought as hard as I could but still ended up going down to a 16-4 loss.
Post Tournament Musings
I finished a disappointing 76 out of 82. I didn’t go into the tournament with any high expectations but I expected my list to be fairly safe – it was never going to 20-0 anyone but was designed so that it wouldn’t get beaten heavily either. However the one thing you can’t equate for is bad luck and poor dice.
I was happy with Game 1 although I could have been more aggressive and pushed for a bigger win. Game 2 was tricky as it was a very experienced player in a mirror match – the upper hand was always going to be with Dan yet I played fairly tight and minimised my losses as best I could. The two big miscasts in Game 3 and Game 6 hurt and really cost me as well – in Game 3 I felt like I had the upper hand and was headed for a medium sized win and Game 6 I felt like I had the tools to pick away at his list and I had the better set up following deployment – again I was hoping for a small – medium sized win. Game 4 was always going to be tough as there was no chance of being able to fight all of the blocks and his trickle magic phases were hurting. The long charges I should have seen and with better choices over unit placement and flee paths I could have done better – this was the only game that a little bit of inexperience showed and although a 20-0 is a heavy loss I think I could have played tighter and at least got a few points out of the game. Game 5 was the best rear guard action fight I think I have ever played – it was a real scrap to get it back to a draw an din all honesty probably a fair result.
I feel like over the course of 3 games (3, 4 and 6) I dropped at least 16 points through bad luck (mainly the miscasts!), which may not sound like a lot but would have jumped me up enough places that I would have finished somewhere I would have been much happier with.
Oh well, better luck next time…
So, what is the plan for next time?
The honest answer? I don’t know.
The next tournament planned at the moment is SCGT, and I haven’t really studied the comp in too much detail but my initial thoughts are:
At first glance, I’m not too keen on the comp for Lizardmen – its quite restricting on the double Slann build which I wanted to try but it’s also heavily penalising the single Slann / chaff build that I have just used. It seems to be forcing you down a combat route and from the models I have I would struggle to write a list at the moment, unless it involved several Stegadons and some Razordons… It would also mean buying and painting at least one unit of Saurus if not two…
The comp for Dark Elves looks OK though… but I’ll have to write a few lists and see how much I need to paint. I’m also a little worried that the current meta-game is heading towards high strength, high toughness and 1+ Armour Save armies – traditionally my Dark Elves have struggled in this arena.
My other option is to try and spray, paint and dip a Skaven army so I hit the trifecta… three tournaments with three different flavours of top-end filth!
Or there are always the Orcs…
When the God(s) of dice decide that today’s not your day there is nothing you can do to change it….
That is the danger of relying on an expensive unit/character to win. But it is what the lizardmen are normally good at
You haven’t have lizards for that long have you? It’ll probably take a few more games to get used to the army. I was playing with dwarfs for a couple of years and I still didnt get used to them. I’d probably check out eBay for a while and see if you can get some cheap models to add. Either that or use your orcs if you’ve got enough models already. Remember, you are the archief after all.
I meant to say Warchief but my phone didn’t want to put a W at the beginning.
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