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Adepticon Size Matters - 2,999 Pts - R3: Daemons vs. Dark Elves (pics)

3K views 10 replies 5 participants last post by  sirisaacnuton 
#1 · (Edited)
So on Friday at Adepticon, I participated in the WHFB Size Matters tournament. It's a 2,999 point event with no comp. Similar in concept to the gladiator event, but without all the crazy units you see from apoc. There still is painting and sportsmanship as separate awards, but the primary are the "biggest hammer" awards that only factor in the battle points.



Battle points were scored off of the VP difference each game, with the breakdown as follows:
1-250: 11-9
251-500: 12-8
501-750: 13-7
751-1000: 14-6
1001-1250: 15-5
1251-1500: 16-4
1501-1750: 17-3
1751-2000: 18-2
2001-2400: 19-1
2401+: 20-0

So you'd have to win by a significant amount to get a full 20 points.





I ended up bringing daemons, since my fighting vampires don't expand to 2,999 from 2,250 very well - I've already used the good magic items and maxed heroes there, without many useful slots left available. Daemons, on the other hand, can expand pretty well. They do just about everything well, I guess.

With a few varieties to choose from, I went for a casting heavy list that has some fighting elements to it.


Characters:
Kairos Fateweaver
Tzeentch Herald - BSB, Standard of Sundering, Power Vortex, Winged Horror
Tzeentch Herald - Chariot of Tzeentch, Master of Sorcery, Spell Breaker
Skulltaker

Core:
35 Pink Horrors - Changeling, Standard, Icon of Sorcery
10 Pink Horrors
10 Pink Horrors

Special:
4 Screamers of Tzeentch
6 Flesh Hounds of Khorne
6 Flesh Hounds of Khorne

Rare:
6 Flamers of Tzeentch
6 Flamers of Tzeentch





I would have liked to get the big pink horror block up to 36+ to be a level 4, but I just don't have the models to do it.


In the end, I was happy with the list. Depending on what the opponent had, if they were likely to try and close the distance wanting to fight, I'd stick Skulltaker in with the pink horrors for some protection on my big expensive block. If they didn't (a gunline type list), I'd stick him with some flesh hounds and run across the board to fight right away.

Kairos and the heralds + big horror unit would support by blasting away as appropriate.



Just before the tournament, I walked around and saw about as expected in this type of event:
- Lots of Daemons, Vampires, Dark Elves, Lizards
- Decent amount of Warriors of Chaos, High Elves


Dark Elves would probably be the hardest match for me, with their Ring of Hotek potentially shutting down my magic phase. Depending on how it is set up, and what other magic defense they have, I could potentially get around it, but it's not a great thing to go up against.







---------------------------------------------------------------

Round 3:

Doh! The Dark Elves won the last game. Unlike the other games, I think I might have the short end of this match-up.

I don't have a copy of his list, so not sure of all the item layouts

Characters:
Dark Elf Lord - A weapon that always strikes at S6, regen armor, pendant of kaeleth, cloak or what not to get a 2+ to ranged attacks. Or was it 1+? Not sure.
Dragon for the lord
BSB with Cauldron of Blood - not sure on banner or items
Sorceress - 2x dispel scroll

Core:
5 dark riders - crossbows
10 repeater crossbow guys - shields
10 repeater crossbow guys - shields
20 spearmen - FC
5 Harpies
5 Harpies

Special:
Cold One Chariot
Cold One Chariot
20 Black Guard - FC, ASF banner, ring of hotek
7-8 Shades - great weapons (I think)

Rare:
Hydra
Reaver Bolt Thrower
Reaver Bolt Thrower

Misc:
Assassin - Rending stars, manblade, not sure if anything else
Assassin - Rending stars, manblade, not sure if anything else


With only 1 sorc, I know he must have the ring of hotek, but I wasn't sure where.... though really the only places I figured it could be was either the black guard champion, or the dark elf lord. I needed to find out which had it, since the game would be very different depending on who was holding it.


Spells:
He takes shadow and gets Pit of Shades. Keeps it since Kairos is I1.


My BSB gets Flickering Fire and Bolt of Change again.
My Herald picks lore of death
Kairos takes...
Left: Cleansing Flare (light), Distillation of Molten Silver (metal), and two spells I can't remember [I didn't use this head this game]
Right: Unseen Lurker (shadow), Fiery Blast (fire), Wind of Undeath (death), Beast Cowers (beasts)

** I realize I have made a big mistake in the first turn.


All missions are victory point based, with some objectives to score more. In this scenario, you place your objective in your own DZ, at least 6" away from a board edge. Objective Marker is treated as an enemy unit that cannot move and must hold if charged (doesn't march block). You receive +300 victory points if you reclaim your hammer (charge the objective) and the unit is not dead/fleeing at the end of the game. You CAN NOT overrun when you charge the objective.


Assessment: Hmm. Well, I've theory crafted playing against Hotek Dark Elves before, but never actually done it. Not many people play dark elves at my local store.. and I don't play daemons that much outside of 'ard boyz type events. This will, unfortunately, be a learning experience for me. Never a good thing at the final round of an adepticon event, heh.

Anyway, I figure if I can get the ring of hotek guy early, I'll run him over with magic. If I can't, it will be a tough game that I'll probably lose in the end. One thing I need to do is not let Kairos just got shot down by all the repeater bolt throwers.

Something I'd love to do is track down the dragon with skulltaker. He may have the pendent, but that won't protect him from having the dragon KB'd from underneath him. Unfortunately, that will require an unseen lurker, which will probably need to be cast under the threat of the ring of hotek.

Not going to be an easy game!



Deployment sees me put, from left to right:
10 horrors, screamers, Kairos, flesh hounds, big horror block, flesh hounds, 10 horrors, both flamers, and on the far side the chariot herald.

He castles everything together on the right flank.

BTW, the army was gorgeous. The pictures don't really do them justice, can't see all the shading in the orange.








I get the +1 again, but he wins the roll for first, electing to take it.



DE 1:
He advances with his fighting stuff, staying pretty clustered.. Shooting from the RBT's is at Kairos, who makes his saves.





DoC 1:
(sorry no pic)
Pre-Turn Thoughts: Well, I need to find the ring of hotek now, and get it over with. What I need to do is cast beast cowers on the dragon, every turn that I can. He can't let that go, since that's the biggest damage dealer he has... so it will be eating up his scrolls. Then if I can, use steal soul on the hotek guy (if it's not the dragon rider). I would actually prefer it to be on the dragon rider, since his hatred could force him to overrun out of range of the rest of his army, which even one turn of free casting could be very damaging.

It's here that I realize my huge mistake in spell choices. The master of sorc herald should have lore of beasts, not death. Beast Cowers goes off on a 7+ as opposed to steal soul, which needs a 9+. Beast Cowers is very possible to get off with two dice, even with the ring of hotek around... steal soul will need 3 dice, which gives around a 40% chance to miscast.

Kairos, on the other hand, should have taken steal soul. So stupid, I started kicking myself immediately when I began my turn. His +2 to cast with the 1d6 reroll would have gotten it by turn 3 at the latest. Ugh. It's even on the same head as Beast Cowers, he could use both in one turn.

I try to put these thoughts out of my head and begin focusing on what I CAN do in the game instead of what I should have done.



My army hangs shuffles forward a little bit to get into spell range, with my tzeentch herald on the right hiding behind the building to avoid getting charged by the dragon. Only significant movement is the hounds on the left move up to within charge range of the hydra, but make it so they're only just in range for their charge (ie, more than 12" from the black guard).

I throw bolt of change from the horror block with 4 dice to see where the ring is (or just get a very lucky spell off if I get no doubles) at the dragon. I get doubles, find the ring is on the black guard champ. That's useful, since there's no MR in the unit.

Kairos casts beast cowers on 2 dice on the dragon, but it's scrolled. I then cast unseen lurker on the hounds who are out of the hotek ring range. He tries to stop it with dice but fails, I charge the hydra.

Shooting is aimed at the dragon, but do no wounds. Find out he's got the regen armor, pendent of kaeleth, and 2+ to shooting. Tough guy to kill!

Combat sees me cause 4 wounds to the hydra, but all of them are saved. He puts some wounds back, after instability I have 4 hounds left, one of which is wounded.



DE 2:
Cauldron gives the Hydra a ward save. That's not good!

Charges sees one chariot hit some horrors and the dragon charge the flesh hounds to the right of the horror block. The furies move to block off his dragon from skulltaker.

He pumps a lot of S3 shots at Kairos, along with the RBT's, and puts a wound on him.

Combat has the horrors stick to the chariots, losing only a few (he rolled poorly). Dragon kills a few hounds, and the hounds wound the dragon once in return - I pass instability. In the Hydra fight, craziness happens. Despite his now 4+ armor, 4+ regen, 4+ ward, I do 2 wounds to the hydra. I also kill both of the handlers with the one who isn't in contact with the hydra... he only wounds me back once, then breaks and is run down. He passes morale checks, I overrun into the shades.






DoC 2:
Pre-Turn Thoughts: This is going to be a crucial turn. I need to stop that dragon rampaging through my lines right now. If I get skulltaker in there with it, the guy's dead.. but it will require either a beast cowers to lock him in place, or an unseen lurker on the horror block to let me charge him this turn. Both of which are going to be cast within range of the ring of hotek. He does also probably have a scroll left with his sorceress. Fingers crossed!


In the movement phase, I prepare for the lurker attempt with the big horror block.

I also move the herald on chariot over in an attempt to cast steal soul on the hotek ring carrying champion. If I can get that off, the game's over. Even if he scrolls it, it will allow Kairos to most likely be able to get one of the two spells off that will allow me to get the dragon.

And so I start the magic phase. Really, I should have started with Kairos. He's throwing 2d6 at beast cowers with a reroll of 1d6 if he gets doubles. Instead, I start with the herald and he needs 3d6 to be able to get off a spell on a 9. It's around 40% chance to get doubles, and sure enough I miscast. Then I end the magic phase. Ugh. That hurts so hard. I didn't even get out his second scroll.

Flamers wound a chariot with shooting.

Combat sees me break the shades and run them down, hitting a bolt thrower. The dragon kills the rest of the hounds, and the chariot + horror combat continues.






DE 3:
I didn't think the dragon had sight to anything at this point (other than maybe the big horror block which would be his death), but it turns out he could *JUST* see the very back corner of the horrors fighting the chariot. As it turns out, he shouldn't have, since his base was further back from where it was actually standing since he sticks over it so much and didn't get into b2b with the hounds when he charged there.. but I didn't think of that until too late, and now it will cost me a unit of flamers.

A second chariot also joins in the horror fight for major overkill.

Otherwise, he continues to block the dragon with the furies, and threatens my horror block with his black guard. It gets killing blow from the cauldron.

Combat sees the horrors easily killed with the new impact hits plus dragon. Dragon overrun hits some flamers. Hounds that overran into a bolt thrower easily kill the crew.






DoC 3:
Pre-Turn Thoughts: It's getting a little desperate here. I still have a chance to pull out a small win, but the hotek ring needs to die this turn, else all I can do is try to survive.

I have little choice at this point, I can't get out of the black guard's charge, and with the hotek ring blocking my magic, I decide to send in skulltaker & crew. Hounds in the back aim at the second bolt thrower.

Kairos backs away from the hotek guy, herald resumes hiding from repeater crossbow guys. One chariot that had to overrun from the horror combat is out of range of the hotek ring, and it gets nuked by a bolt of change. Beast cowers is cast on the dragon by Kairos, too, but it eats the second scroll.

In combat, the dragon's attacks + instability kills all of the flamers and he overruns into the corner.

He reveals two assassins in the black guard unit, and is able to touch skulltaker with both, while avoiding the changeling so neither get stat swapped. Skulltaker issues his mandatory challenge and he refuses. I put an assassin to the back. He's remaining assassin gets a killing blow, and I fail the ward save - losing skulltaker. This means eventually I'll lose the unit, with no chance anymore of killing the champion. He also gets the changeling. I lose a guy or two to instability.





DE 4:
He turns his spearmen around to try and catch sight of the flesh hounds behind him, and then moves his dragon + chariot in such a way that the flamers are trapped. Shooting at the hounds in the back from dark riders and some RBT guys leaves two unwounded hounds left. He also flames the horrors and does 3 wounds.

Combat sees some more BSB + horrors die, I lose more to instability.





DoC 4:
Pre-Turn Thoughts: At this point, I'm trying not to lose. I'm trying to get any points I can and conserve any points I can. So much so that I put my Tzeentch herald on a chariot (wounded by the miscast) in charge arc of the dragon. I do this because if he charges, he'll crush me and then overrun off the board. This means he won't be able to charge my objective for 300 VP (more than the cost of the wounded herald + chariot) on the last turn.

Movement sees the herald stare at the dragon with contempt, but nothing to actually do.

Flamers have a better shot against a T5 3+ save chariot in combat than shooting, and if I get lucky and break him, I can overrun out of charge arc of the dragon, so I throw it in there. The two hounds in his backfield charge his second RBT.

Kairos breaks left to get some VP's over there against non-ring protected units.

Magic sees beast cowers fail to go off, but some magic missiles kill off the 10 man crossbow unit on the left of his old castle.

He rolls insanely awesome with his attacks and wipes out the horror block this turn with the black guard. The flamers cause a wound, and we have mass, but he passes his break check unfortunately.

Hounds kill RBT crew and overrun off the board.






DE 5:
Dragon joins the flamer combat, not taking the bait of the herald. He moves some dark riders up to shoot at it instead.

The black guard reform and face Kairos on the left. Both assassins have rending stars and manblade poison, so they'll throw 6 stars needing 2's and 2's. Kairos is unimpressed, though, and makes all 5 saves.

Combat has one flamer survive after instability, so he doesn't overrun. Unfortunately, he's locked in combat (he's out of hotek range). Amazingly, though, the flamers actually killed the chariot.





DoC 5:
Pre-Turn Thoughts: I've pretty much lost, but I'm trying to keep the VP margin as narrow as possible at this point. What I really need to accomplish is to get his objective and keep him off of mine.

Looking at his position, he has three threats to charge my objective for 300 VP - there are two harpy units and the dragon that can do it (when it kills the last flamer). I move the chariot herald in such a way that it will be able to charge if harpies do it, while still being able to throw around some magic missiles this turn at unprotected guys.

Kairos moves back towards the dragon and away from the black guard assassins.

The hounds in his backfield move back on the board and up to 1" away from his objective, with plans on charging it on the bottom of 6 for 300 VP.

Magic sees the dragon get beast cowered. That will cost him my objective. I throw some magic missiles and kill the 5 harpies that are just off the screen of the picture. That leaves only the 2 man harpy unit that can charge the objective.






DE 6:
He does charge the objective with the harpies, hoping I can't kill them. The black guard + assassins move to throw stars at the 10 man horror unit that started on the left and is in one of his quarters. The second crossbow unit that was in the building with the sorc leaves (the sorc leaves in a different direction to not join them). The move up flush with his objective, so that I'll need to charge both if I want to get his objective. He's hoping that I won't get past his rank + mass with attacks, he causes a wound back and I pop to instability to preserve the 300 VP's.

His assassins throw rending stars at my horrors, and they're not Kairos. He hits and wounds all 6 times, they fail 6 saves and are reduced to 4 strong. Below half and no longer contesting a quarter.


DoC 6:
Pre-Turn Thoughts: Objective securing is all set, I'm still down but not by quite as much as my opponent thinks - and if Kairos has a good phase, I can get it even closer. I'll still have a loss, but a small one.

The chariot herald, for the third time this tournament, charges! The harpies fail their fear check and break (no overrun allowed when charging the objective, so they were stuck in the open). That takes the 300 VP back away from him.

The hounds in his DZ charge the unit + objective, he fails fear check so will only hit me on 6's.

Kairos lands in front of the dragon, asking the dark elf lord where his ring is now.

Magic starts, and Kairos nukes the dragon out from underneath the DE lord with a bolt of change. Looking back at it, I still had my reroll for the turn... I should have done an unseen lurker on Kairos to charge his lord. I have mass & terror causer, as long as I was able to save vs. his attacks with the 3+ ward + 1d6 reroll, I would have auto-broken him.

It didn't occur to me at the time, though, so I went on casting magic missiles. I killed 2 of the dark riders (below half, but passed LD check), and some other random stuff but didn't get anything else below half.

In combat, the hounds killed 3 crossbow guys, they lost by 1 and broke. That netted me another 300 points for the objective + the unit. A good last turn, since I had important stuff to kill that wasn't protected by the hotek ring.






At the end of the game, we tallied up our VP's. He had 1 extra quarter than me, and had captured the horror block's banner, but I had his objective for 100 extra soft points than him. After counting everything that was dead, he won by right around 400 points. That's enough to give him a 12-8 point win.


It was a very tough game against a good list commanded by a solid player. Very fun, and I learned a lot about my spell selections when playing against a hotek list, that's for sure! Even lore of light with rule of burning iron would have been better for the chariot herald. Would need to roll to wound, but it goes off on a 5 instead of a 9.

Next time, Gadget, next time!





My opponent in that last round wins "In Search of a Bigger Hammer" (third place). The other full point tables were daemons vs. lizards, with I think the Lizards coming out on top of that one? Not completely sure, but one of them got a 16-4 win for "Big Hammer" (second place). The third full point table had daemons vs. daemons, where one of them received their third full 20-0 win for "Biggest Hammer" (first place).

Grats to the winners!
 
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#2 · (Edited)
Thanks for posting, it sounded like you had some really good games.

Does it ever annoy you when you play these tournaments that the games seem to be decided more by the lists than by the ability of the players. What I mean is that had you drawn Lizards or another Demon Player you probably would have won for and therefore placed, but because you ended (just through luck) against Ring of Hotek Dark Elves you were basically stuffed when you chose slightly wrong spells, and your opponent didn't make any major errors, (although I think he did make a few minor ones especially with his assassins and black gaurd in the late game).

I also think that he was wrong to have 2 assassins in one unit, I don't think that is allowed unless he moved one in there after revealing him. (P95 of the Dark Elf book)

Anyway thanks heaps for the report and the photos are a really nice touch, all your opponents armies were quite tidy and that is better than at alot of tournaments I have seen.
 
#7 ·
Great reports. I had really been giving a lot of thought to your list after playing against it. I may steal some ideas from it for the next Ard Boyz. And clearly it's much better than 120 Pink Horrors.

As an additional thought about the ring, did you consider taking Skulltaker out of the Horror block and running him with Dogs? Dogs + Skulltaker could be Unseen Lurker'ed from outside Ring protection range to try to set up a flank charge on the BG unit or an assassination run on the Dragon.

Does it ever annoy you when you play these tournaments that the games seem to be decided more by the lists than by the ability of the players. What I mean is that had you drawn Lizards or another Demon Player you probably would have won for and therefore placed, but because you ended (just through luck) against Ring of Hotek Dark Elves you were basically stuffed when you chose slightly wrong spells, and your opponent didn't make any major errors, (although I think he did make a few minor ones especially with his assassins and black gaurd in the late game).
Honestly, I've always considered lists as a major part of the ability of the players. Sure there are obviously better or worse match-ups for each list, but making the list is a major part of being a successful player. A better player may have slight tweaks to his list that gives him an edge in a bad match-up that a worse player might not think of, or perhaps he brings an army that minimizes the effects of bad match-ups, or develops specific strategies to try to address poor match-ups.

Bad in the day when I played Magic at tournaments (I know, I know...), the top players and tournament winners typically had decks that were very similar to the general "top decks" being discussed on the net, but with slight differences or tweaks that gave them better games in their bad match-ups. And those choices are what generally gave them the edge needed to win tournaments. After all, it's not like people just show up to a tournament and get assigned Daemons, or Vamps, or DE... players choose the army they play and the list they bring, and those decisions are the first step in how they end up doing in the tournament.
 
#3 ·
Thanks - yes, the event was a lot of fun.

And I don't know, for as long as I've been playing, both WHFB and WH40k have always seemed to be a bit rock-papper-scissors. Getting good or bad match-ups is a part of tournaments. As you mentioned, though, I made mistakes (chose wrong spells, cast in the wrong order on turn 2, etc) and my opponent didn't make any major mistakes that I was able to capitalize on. So did I play a better game than him? I don't think I did. Perhaps if we played again with what I've learned I could do better... but I certainly don't feel like I was cheated out of a placing by drawing a bad match in the last round. Hm, poor choice of words, I don't think that was the implication at all, but you know what I mean.
 
#4 ·
Second picture: what on earth is that green stuff supporting the horrors?

I like the look of both armies, they really have a nice theme both ofem. Love to see pictures a bit closer to the models aswell :D

How long did you have to play a 3k match?
 
#6 ·
Yeah, the hills were rounded on top. With the pink horrors (plus characters) all being metal models, the tray can get quite heavy - especially skulltaker. For the initial deployment, I had to take out the front rank of models and place them nearby for balance purposes... but the movement tray still wanted to fall forward, so I put my tape measurer underneath the front to keep it from sliding. It's very bright, easy to find in games. :p

We had 3 hours each game, if anything the time per round was a little long. My first two games were each done in 1h 45m. Last game was longer, taking around 2h 30m or so.. but only because at the start of 5 in the last game my opponent took some time to try and calculate where we stood in terms of VP's since the other top two games had already finished. And before anyone jumps on him, he asked if I minded and I told him not at all since we had a lot of time left (and still finished with 30 min to spare). Maybe it's just that I have a smaller army and play pretty quick, but I certainly had a lot of free time during the event.
 
#9 ·
Ouch, didn't realize those Black Guard were so vicious. I've only run across them once, in Ard Boyz. But it was a smaller unit, and contained the Ring, so I just avoided that entire side of the battlefield and tried to roll up the core and RBT's for as many VP's as possible. But that's a pretty brutal unit. Are they ItP?

Also, I just had an issue come up and won't be able to make it down this weekend. Grr...I'm never going to make it to one of these fantasy circuit events. Guess I just need to stop scrubbing at 40k.
 
#11 ·
You know I have never played against his empire? I think I've only played him once in Fantasy, against his Dwarfs, and I won. Maybe I should just retire with my undefeated streak intact.

On the other hand, one time he beat me in 40k when he thought we were playing 1850 and I thought we were doing 2000, so.... :\
 
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