Tempest 3

Tempest 3

After those practice games I ended up making a couple more tweaks to the list and had a final warm up the night before.

My list:

Lvl 4 Beasts, fireball ring, wand of wych elm

Lord, Bodkins, Bow of Loren, Stone of rebirth, GW

BSB, Hail of doom, 2+ ward vs flaming

12 Archers, FC, flaming banner

12 Archers, FC

12 Archers, FC

12 Dryads - champion

8 Dryads

8 Dryads

4 Treekin – champion

4 Treekin – champion

7 Wardancers

6 Waywatchers

Eagle

Treeman

45 shots

45 combat troops

1 flier, no war machines

Basically fully compliant with the comp restrictions despite not needing to be because it’s wood elves!

Warm up game was vs Kevin Gillett and his Bretonians. In short he ran across the board at me with all his lances and did horrible things to me!  My treeman was heroic killing blowed and lances bust up my units pretty badly.  I killed a load of stuff back, but didn’t get any of his big points in lances.  Big win to Kev making us all square over the last couple of years.

Tournament was all 6 missions out the rulebook played on w/d/l 30/10/1 with vps as a tiebreak.

Round 1 – diagonal deploy

Round 2 – Battle for the pass

Round 3 – Watchtower

Round 4 – Random Deployment

Round 5 – Blood and Glory

Round 6 – Battleline

Special rules meant I got to pick the type of woods all weekend and magic levels weren’t added to casting attempts, plus some other pretty standard stuff.

Round 1 I had grudged an opponent.  Bernard Lewis is one of the most enjoyable opponents and friendliest guys on the tournament scene.  And thankfully we generally play at about the same level too.  He’d beaten me last time out to go 2-1 up so I grudged him for the chance to pull even.  Unfortunately it didn’t work out!

The other good thing about playing him is he brings the most interesting lists you’ll see pretty much anywhere, in this instance:

2 x 15 marauder horse of slannesh with exhalted champions on steeds of slannesh (quite scary when in your face T1)

5 Dragon Ogres

6 Chaos Ogres (Khorne maybe?)

5 Chaos Trolls

20 Marauders (who sat in the back corner)

Lord on Jugger

warshrine

Think that was about it, lightning fast and quite scary in combat, so not really what my army wants to face.

Usual fun game with loads dying on both sides and combat from T1, unfortunately I blew up my mage on my first spell of the day so no magic on either side! Ended up coming down to a single dice roll at the end. I had my treeman fighting his lord on jugger and a single dragon ogre.  He took 4 wounds but had a 6+ save due to the warshrine, I kill him and it’s the best part of 500 more vps to me and possibly breaking the lord too.  Unfortunately 1 dice comes down a 6 and he wins the game by ~350vps.  Awesome way to start the tournament.

Game 2 and I face... Warriors of chaos (Tris), much more standard list with 2 x blocks, 2 x knight and various chaff.  Lots of magic. Early he pounds me with magic till I suicide in the treekin to try and take the mages out.  Get one and wound another other.  My shooting hammers his chaff and then his knights.  Basically that’s about it.  He kills treekin and dryads, I kill knights and mages.  I just get enough to win.  I was a bit lucky on the dice but was a fun game.

Game 3 Warriors of... Really! Watchtower 18 khorne warriors halberds and as my treeman discovered flaming banner.  Non game, opponent still whined for 2 turns when his hellcannon rolled a 1 to wound my treeman T1.  My shooting did nothing all game and he rolled me up.  Was pleased to have it done quickly.  Also had his GF at the table, which is weird, I can’t see why she had come along, looked bored and made him ignore me because of talking to her.

Game 4.... Yup you guessed it, warriors of chaos.

Pete Bradley, who I last played at Sheffield in 2010.  He was rising off the bottom tables in game 3 to face me as I sunk down.  Another fun game where we both smashed up each others armies. I thought I was in trouble when a unit of treekin decided to leg it away from a marauder block with HW&S when they fluffed their attacks.  They were run down and the pursuit put him into my archer block that was shooting his rampaging hellcannon. Not good, but then my treeman decided he’d solo a chariot then a block of warriors with halberds and the flaming banner that I’d shot up badly, I survived the attacks and a 6 for the thunderstomp meant they all decided to go bye bye.  A bit lucky and it gave me the win by 350ish points

Game 5 Nick Price and Oh thank god, not warriors! High Elves

All I can say is that curse of Aranrahir and lots of terrain was brutal to his combat units.  I also outdeployed him quite well and was able to take off all his shooting in 2-3 turns.  In the end it was 1 sword master with a lord and mage and 8 phoneix guard was all he had left.  Pretty brutal fight and one I didn’t think I was losing from early on.  I was a bit scared he might get my breakpoint though as archers were getting chopped up late in the game.

Game 6

Woodelves.  Only he had 80 archers!  But to be honest we didn’t really play much I ran down flanks in cover, he shot me.  We chatted and only got 3 turns done in the round time.  Points dead was a draw and we both just accepted it.  Good fun to chat and pretty sure he’d have had me if we’d played all 6 turns.

Fun tournament and I came 31^st of 84.  Unfortunately that was still bottom wood elf!  Mark (game 6) was 1 place above me, Ben around 20^th and Paul in 4^th had all played their socks off and gad winning records leaving me with a positive result but sadly nothing to show for it.

Still the rankings points put me back into the top 200. I now have 4 scores again, 2 in the very low ~10 region, 2 at 30ish but unlikely to score many more until 2 results drop off so will just have to accept that as my normal teriotory (as it has been in the past anyway).