Game 1 Vs Glen 'Beastman' Tibbles.
Glen had leant his entire repertoire of armies he owned to competitors of this event and he came shot guns loaded to our game. I've never really been too wary of a Beastmen army and have been told that you need to stop 'Wildform' and you're a go. I'm sure that not viewing them as a threat was going to be hampering for my game. Glen's been playing them for a while and I've had a couple of games against his army with H Elves and it's never ended pretty for the Beast's army as shooting tends to reduce the entire army to shreds. Well the army I was using today had no real shooting except for the Hell Cannon and 5 axes so it was going to be interesting and a bit hairy. He's a great guy any way so I was looking forward to a chat and some hammer time.
Beastmen army had two large unit of Gors, Gore Bull BsB led by a Lvl2 Sharman. the Army didn't look too threatening except for the unit of 4 Minotaurs. Razorgor & a Chariot and some ambushing chaff seemed fairly containable so I was expecting a full force battle it out in the middle for our contest. Little did I know that with Primal fury a Beastman army is just epic. The Gor blocks stomped apart my infantry and with re-rolls to hit they had no problems wiping out Blocks of Forsaken, Khorne Marauders and Tzeentian warriors and stood firm in the centre. I Manoeuvred the Knights around the flank and the Hell Cannon rampaged from the first turn to gain me some valuable points from the other flank. I think the Gorebull had 8 attacks by the time I high tailed and camped away from his charge at the end of the game.
Lesson learnt that Primal Fury is something to watch out for and swings combats significantly. Beastmen with their WS4 and T4 may look a easy target but they definitely punch above their weight for sure.
10 - 10 Draw
Game 2 Vs Andy (Mr UK) Potter, Woodies.
Andy had come fresh from the UK Masters but also with a freshly borrowed Wood Elf army. For my second game some drastic concrete pill would probably be needed to pull off a alright game against someone as experienced as this man. He was fielding a very solid list which included a Treeman, Treekin, accompanying 2 units of Dryads with a symphony of Glade guard shooting. The great thing about my opponents army was that it also had a double unit of wildriders in 5 formation being used as a duo purpose redirecters and solid combat cav.
The deciding factor of the game I think giving me a good solid advantage was getting the first turn. this gave me ample opportunity to deal some damage and whittle down a flank and move my blocks of infantry up to put pressure on the centre and right flanks. With the Marauder Cavalry matching his wild riders I got what I wanted which was to let my army decide when combat was to start and left Andy with nothing to redirect the combats. The Chaos knights ran through Treekin and cleaned up the right flank and it was up to the Forsaken to absorb all the glade guard fire and they were reduced to two remaining at the end of the battle.
Andy showed how good an opponent he was and with his Treeman commanding the centre he collected some solid points from the Marauders & unit of Chaos warriors who were no match for the gnarled Oak going wild. I learnt a lot more about wood elves this game and the the importance of Dryads in a forest which benefit from stubborn and in a close game would be a game decider. So Andy had his Treeman left and I had a fair chunk of my army still around.
17-3 Win
Game 3 James "The Battle for the Favour of the Gods!!!!",Warriors.
James is from the same club as me and we both play High Elves usually so great bloke. We both were coming into this tournament discussing how it would be to be driving Warriors about and not having a clue what the army was designed for so here's the battle to decide the fates at the end of day one and it was gonna be a stunner of a game, let the battle commence!
James had Zuggernaut mounted Bsb in a unit of Chaos Knights and LvL2 Tzeentch Mage luckily for me not rolling gateway for this game. Large ~40 man block of Slaneesh marauders, Large unit of Slaneesh Warriors supported by a warshrine, Chariot, a unit of 4 Dragon Ogres and three units of Marauders Cav. So a very similar force to my army but with less chaff and from where I was sitting better one for one combat troops when it came to face off. With deployment with us both matching unit to unit the Hill that counted as the watch Tower for the mission would be a hard ask to hold and it would be the last man standing to see who won.
So with my tournament game plan of not firing the Hell Cannon this would be a game that I would definitely have to take a chance and lob some rocks. Evening and perhaps tipping the odds to my favour if the rock would hit the intended target, as his marauders were far too many in numbers for a straight out combat. First turn of lobbing the big rock see's the Hell Cannon misfire and I rolled a 3 and flicked through the pages to see what devastation this would unleash... To all those Hell cannon enthusiasts, you'd know that this makes every mage on the table suffer a miscast, such unplanned dastardliness this cannon is.
So with the Infantry face off on either side of the hill stuttering and both of us trying to magic away numbers before engaging the battle would be decided by the flanks and the Fast Cav duel on the fringes. On one flank my BsB and Chaos Knights charged into James's BsB and Chaos Knights and on the other flank my Ogres needed to hold his Dragon Ogres for at least a couple of turns which was highly unlikely as Chaos Ogres are just really bad. Even with my Hell Cannon whittling down the opposition it was gonna be a real close finish and we both knew it and it was head down and see what the dice gods had to say...
The Battle of chaos Knights is rather epic as you can imagine Daemon possessed Elite hulking warriors bashing the day lights out of each other but so heavily armoured that it's just a cacophony of tank against tank hammering blows. The combat was like that and it went for at least 6 fighting turns neither of us getting an advantage until finally I managed to dispatch his BSB in the challenge and raised the sword for a warriors blessing. Mean while the Ogres were wiped out to a man but not before reducing the Dragon Ogres to a single lone figure which would defo earn them the MVP award as they were shite and they actually held James flank advance to have one of the most decisive roles maybe in the battle.
With the Chaos Knights winning and sweeping back around the flank James army tried the last ditch charge but I had superior numbers at this stage and the the control of the hill. This was the most epic game ever for a long time and we both were captivated by how cool it was. High Elf vs High Elf is so vanilla, but Warriors vs Warriors deserves an epic beer yeaaahh! In no way did the score reflect how close the game was, top game of the day and top opponent.
20-0 Win
End of day 1 and possibly in the lead of the pack. No submarining this tournament it looks to be a matchup against the Brets on day 2.
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