Gw uk doubles tournament weekend

[Visitor Q]

12/13th Warhammer Doubles Tournament.
Just got back from the GW warhammer doubles tournament. Rules were simple, pick a legal 1000pt army pick someone to go with and fight 5 battles each a different scenario from the Rule Book. 5pts for a win 3 for a draw and 1 for a loss. You also got 1 point for bringing a piece of scenery you could place on the board. Finally every player got a secret mission every game which gave between 1-3 points if completed.

I went with a High Elf Army while my partner went with Brettonians.

Our army was called Terminal Violence with a Chance of Rain at the Weekends

1 Brettonian Lord, full armour horse etc. Birth sword of Carcassonne + lance + virtue of Impetuous Knight
1 Brettonian BSB with Virtue of Duty
1 Damsel with a Silver Mirror + horse (Dispel Scroll + enemy wizard takes St6 hit)
X11 Knights of Realm + The War Banner + full Command
X3 Grail Knights + Banner of Chaislon (enemy can’t stand and shoot).
X1 Trebuchet
X1 Level 3 Mage + Dispel Scroll (Lore of Light)
X1 Noble + Great Weapon + Dragon Armour of Caledor (2+ Armour save Dragon Armour)
X25 Elf Spears + Banner of Ellyrion (auto pass dangerous terrain)
X12 White Lions +Musician
X12 Phoenix Guard + Musician

Terrain Piece: Khemrian Quick Sand.

Basic Plan was Knights charge enemy and break through lines, spears rush through Quick sand to support. Meanwhile White Lions and Phoenix Guard act either to refuse a flank or support main battle line (essentially they are detachment units). Grail Knights are there to hunt machines, pick on units of weak missile troops (remember no stand and shoot) and ethereal troops (Grail Knights attacks are magical).

Day 1

Game 1: Battle For the Pass. Ogres/Empire [Yell and Sprawl]
First game was against a couple of Norwegians. Really top guys. The game was very fun. Their army consisted of Voodoo themed Ogres with Mournfangs and Ironguts (and a couple of sabre tusks) and a Knight/Gun line Empire army with a level 4 wizard.

Our general miscast first turn and blew half the Knight unit to pieces, the grail knights were killed through shooting and the trebuchet misfired (survived though)…but we got moving and managed to turn the game around. For turns 3-5 it looked like we might just snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. The sheer amount of fireballs, cannon ball shots and general nastiness was scary; kudos goes to the spearmen for wiping out the Ogre Iron Guts with a bruiser and sending a Knight Regiment fleeing. However the enemy were able to just wipe out the Knights and Brettonian heroes and in the last turn I failed a lookout sir roll and lost the hero. Finally in what became a running theme the White Lions failed an unmodified Ld. check which led to them being run down by some Demi Gryphon knights.

RESULT: Loss.

Game 2: Meeting Engagement. Tomb King/Skaven [The Brass Host]
Game two was quite fun. Played against two guys who were talking at a million miles per hour. There army consisted of huge unit of Tomb King warriors, Skaven clan rats a couple of rat Ogres a Catapult and a Casket of Souls and 15 or so Tomb King Archers and a Grey Seer as well as Tomb King characters.
Before I knew it both my special troop choices had succumbed to the dreaded 13th spell cast with Irresistible force and there were 2 units of 12 clan rats running around. Thankfully the greyseer sucked himself into the warp (apparently the second time that day).

Things then proceeded a lot smoother with our knight regiment ploughing through the tomb kings supported by the Grail Knights and Spears. 40 tomb kings, a necrotech and a Tomb King later and we were rolling up their line. Our Trebuchet team did well by hitting the Plague Claw Catapult and destroying it. Our mage did very little other than dispel magic and blast an assassin to ash.

By turn four we had basically won the game. I then did something very stupid, I charged into the flank of the unit of clan rats with 10 spears and the hero. I ended up losing combat and being chased down. This cost us a secret mission (having no units flee).

Anyway we still ended up winning!

RESULT: Victory

Game 3: Battle for the Watch tower. Chaos/Chaos [Cardiff Chaos]
The notorious watch tower mission. There were a lot of top table teams who complained about watch tower mainly because there armies were designed for pitched battles rather than objectives. Oh well, our army was ace at this mission. We were determined to occupy and hold the tower at all costs. Our mantra was mission mission mission!

The Chaos army we faced was a virtual mirror of itself, two sorcerers, two units of 20 Warriors 2 Hell Cannons 3 Ogres and two units of 10 marauder horsemen.

First turn Chaos surge forward towards our line and the watch tower. Our first turn we charge and rout one of the Chaos warrior units inc Sorcerer and run them down. Meanwhile our grail knights destroy a unit of marauders.

The Elven contingent advanced and took the watch tower and then proceeded to get all over it like a rash. The Phoenix Guard destroy the Ogres with a flank charge and then lock themselves in combat with the hellcannon for most of the game while the Knights of the Realm get locked in combat with the other hellcannon. The game is effectively won when the three grail knights charge the flank of a Chaos Warrior unit and sorcerer and rout it. All that was left to do was for the Knights to destroy the final Hell Cannon and for the Elf Hero to charge and rout the second unit of Marauder horsemen.

RESULT: Victory

Day 2

Game 4: Blood and Glory Chaos/Ogres [The Chuckle brothers]
Game Three was blood and glory. We had a fortitude level of 6. Our opponents had a fortitude level of 4. As you may know having your fortitude go down to 2 or less loses you the game immediately.
Our opponents had 15 Chaos Knights two chariots along with x2 units of Ogre iron Guts and a Stone Horn.
The Chuckle brothers outmanoeuvred us with deployment and our Knights found themselves facing most of the Ogre army along with a Chaos Chariot. The Knights threw caution to the wind and hurled themselves forward smashing into the chariot which fled.

Meanwhile the Elf spearmen charged forward routing a unit of 3 Iron guts and overrunning into the Chariot. The Chaos Warriors and Hero charged their flanked and issued a challenge. My Elf Hero accepted, and obliged the Chaos Hero’s quest for an honourable death by decapitating him!

This reduced the enemy fortitude to 2 and won us the game.

RESULT: Victory!

Game 3: Battle Line Undead/Undead [Can’t remember might have been something Thundercats?]
Last Battle, we had come along way reaching table 17 (which meant our ranking was somewhere in the high low 30’s high 20’s. Winning this battle and a couple of secret missions could put us into the teens.
Our opponent’s army consisted of a veritable hoard of undead. Three units of dire wolves, spirit hosts 36 odd ghouls with a Vampire Lord, Hex Wraiths, a TerrorGhast a Varghulf and a Some kind of Winged ogre like creatures (can’t remember the name of them I haven’t played the new undead) as well as a level 4 necromancer and about three units of 10 skeletons.

The game was quite tense. Basically my mage did his best to blast the undead back to whatever pit they called home. He destroyed a unit of Hex Wraiths first turn and vaporised a spirit host as well before playing tag with the Terrorghast dragon thing (he eventually lost and got screamed at).
The Trebuchet had a good go at killing the Varghulf hit and wounded it but it saved its regeneration (curses!)
Meanwhile the Spears thrust through the Undead lines destroying a unit of direwolves a spirit host before crashing into the Ghouls and vampire. They were quickly joined by the Knights of the Realm who charged the flank of the ghouls and were in turn counter charged by some skeletons.

What followed was a really slug fest as the knights and spears hacked their way through the Ghouls Skeletons and Vampire. In the midst of the carnage the Elf Noble was killed. The end result was the entire Ghoul and 10 man skeleton units and Vampire Lord were killed while the spears were reduced to two last survivors.

At this point we were running out of army. Our Phoenix Guard Mage Grail Knights and Trebuchet had all been destroyed. It was down to the White Lions to win us the game. They came storming towards the Varghulf and caused an impressive three wounds on it (annoying not to have killed it outright). They then suffered six casualties in return and took their stubborn test and once again failed their LD (they failed their stubborn LD in every game they were called upon to take it inc practice games). They fled and were chased down.

To add injury to insult the spears tried to charge a dire wolf unit in the flank to get out of line of sight from the flying Ogre things but rolled double one for charge distance. They were destroyed next turn.
We lost the game by 345pts which is annoying. The spear unit cost 265pts and the White Lions 180pts not to mention the Varghulf costs 200 odd points.

If either of these combats/situations had gone differently (and I just mean average rolls rather than unlucky ones) then we probably could have forced a draw. Me Bitter? Noooo (We wuz robbed!)

RESULT: LOSS

Conclusion
Final result we came joint 53rd out of 114 odd teams so decidedly mid table. If we had completed a couple more secret missions (particularly not fleeing in second game) then we would have got up into the low 40’s high 30’s.
The whole tournie thing is quite expensive for ticket, place to stay and travel arrangements. However the food served is really good, bugmans bar is nice and the event is very well organised.
The games I played were all fun in their own way although I was starting to suffer a little from battle fatigue by the last one. None of the opponents were annoying to play against and actually the games had a bit more of a friendly atmosphere to them than many ‘casual’ games. Now I don’t know whether this was because most of the time we were down amongst the mid table crew and so didn’t intrude on any ‘serious business’ top table games but anyway I would highly recommend a doubles tournament to anyone of any ability.

As a final interesting note GW was taking feedback on whether to allow rules from Tamurkhan to be used at future tourneys. I suspect this is aimed at Chaos Dwarf players (of which I am one). With any luck this time next year I will be returning from a doubles tournie having taken my Chaos Dwarfs!.

[Sidewinder]

For the tournament, were the percentage point limits based upon 1000 points or 2000 points?

Sidewinder

[Visitor Q]

1000pts. That is to say each 1000pt contingent had to be legal in its own right.

[The Maned Wolf]

Nice Report! good to see someone fielding brets!
If you had to change your list what would you do? it seems as though the brets in particular were a little light on troops, or do you think that was a good amount for them?
(I ask because i am a new bretonnian player)

[Blackheart]

Great report! Thanks for the fun read!