I hate dice

Seriously my game last night the dice were going crazy.

1150pts for the campaign WE vs Ogres.

Diagonal deployment I have to set up first, only lose 1 unit which should really have been 2 on averages so started up!  After that though...

Magic - First spell, dispelled, 2nd spell 3 dice = irresistable and lose all 3 mage levels...
Shooting - 8/10 hits for my first few bunches of shots, 3 wounds caused from 30 archers.  HoD arrow rolls up a total of 4 shots and then proceeds to only wound with 1 of those that hit.

Basically this continued for most of the game barring one stand and shoot which caused 5 wounds from 10 shots but then in combat over 4 round 10 elves couldn't cause a single wound to the last remaining maneater until they were all killed.

My dispelling I missed dispelling 3 spells due to the Ogres +1 for casting multiple spells in a turn and the forest i needed to hide my dryads in for stubborn decided to be a blood forest, cause a load of wounds to my stuff then moved perfectly off the dryads so they were no longer stubborn.

Basically I came away thinking this game is utter garbage.  I should just run an army with lots of the hardest combat troops I can get my hands on and not bother with any kind of tactics because none of it mattered.

Play wise I think I out played him. My dryads blocked him up in a forest, I pinned him for a turn as he didn't want to chage due to the wild form (remember diagonal deploy meant he started very close to me so this was my T1). I then maneuver to get a unit in his flank and unit in his rear, so he just passes the march block and moves 12" away and I fail my charge rolls to rear charge him needing a 7 on the dice and he powers off into the heart of my archers.

Also fecking me off was my opponent running 7 Iron guts & Butcher with the +1ld banner and stubborn crown, now stubborn did nothing but the ld8/9 whichever it is takes away the only weakness of that unit I could possibly exploit.

DWARF Winter War review

My list
Slann, BSB, Loremaster - Death, Rumination, Ethereal, Reroll all miscasts, bane head, feedback scroll, 2+ flaming ward, +1 LD banner

Scar vet - Cold one, LA, +1 to hit sword, charmed shield, potion of strength
Scar vet - Cold one, LA, GW, Venom of firefly (magic & poison attacks), dawnstone, dragonbane helmet
Skink Priest lvl 2, scroll
Skink Priest lvl 2, curse charm (force opponent to reroll 1 miscast)

20 Saurus std, muso
24 skink, 3 krox, FC
10 Skinks, Std & Muso (for blood and glory to sit in a back corner)
10 Skink Skirmishers, Javelins
10 Skink Skirmishers, Javelins
10 Skink Skirmishers
10 Skink Skirmishers
6 Chameleon skinks
6 Chameleon skinks
3 Terradons
Salamander, extra crew
Salamander

Reasoning on the list, 2 combaty blocks one of which shoots quite well, a load of chaffy skinks to gun stuff down, slann to zap characters, skink priests to zap heavily armoured stuff

Game 1 Brian - WoC - Battleline
List was
18 Tzeench warriors, shields, FC, 5+ ward vs shooting
45 Khorne marauders, FC, Flails
2 x 5 dogs
30 Nurgle Chosen, FC, Banner of Rage
Warshrine
lvl 4 shadow
lvl 1 tzeench
BSB - no idea
Festus nurgle special character dude - in chosen to give them regen 5+ and for wither & rot combo

T1 Pushes all forwards, gets off withering to drop the skrox to T1, irresistables RgR, I take off the unit, puppets miscast to only kill 3 chosen and wound festus

I try to snipe the Shadow guy who was bane headed both snipes fail (1 dispelled 1 wound from the str one which he warded), I shoot off both dogs units

T2 pushes it all forwards, I stop some spells think he killed some chaff with the 18" d6 sd6 bubble spell.

Snipes fail again, skink priest miscasts with a chain lightning and cascades after the puppet adjusts it down

T3 Same again from him, shut down his magic.

Move slann in range of festus, both scar vets into the tzeench block with lvl 1 & lvl 4, challenge from champion & S7 scar vet takes it so other guy can pummel the lvl 1. Magic, does nothing. Combat, kill his champion and then 3 wounds on lvl 1, 2 x 6+ AS, 1 x 6++ ward and zero wounds caused... I hold in the combat having lost by 1.

T4 khorne guys chage some skinks with over run into front of impassable terrain I flee roll low and he catches me. Nurgle advances forwards. Magic 4 dice wither gets a high roll and I let it go as only 3 dice left, rolls 5 for -3T on my slann & saurus. 3 dice rot, double 6's take the slann & saurus off, miscast loses all levels. Should have scrolled the withering really, my mistake. Scar vets on 2 characters both flub their dice I cause 1 wound he causes 1 to each of mine, Both fail their break tests on a 4 or 5 I think, both low flee rolls both run down (realised this isn't possible now I think about it as can only chase one unit, oops my mistake again).

Skink priest goes for comet at the tzeench guys, goes off but they are able to move away before it lands.

T5&6 He just shuffles around as no combats on any more. I continued shooting on the khorne stuff & shrine as only points left I could possibly get barring a lucky comet/thunderbolt. Irresistable the thunerbolt on 4 dice and puppet makes it cascade, take priest off.

Shoot the warshrine dead and khorne guys down to about 8 but not enough, I get 190 vps for 1-19 loss.

Game 2 Sean - Skaven - Blood & Glory +500vps

Seer on bell, BSB, ~30 stormvermin
Priest on furnace ~45 Plaguemonks
2 x 40 slaves in horde formation
2 x 20 clanrats
2 x doomwheels
2x WLC

Only got 5 turns in and my 5th was about 5 mins long, for an army that needs all 6 to harvest points that's frustrating. One thing he did forget was the MR2 on the bell, I didn't pick it up either so would have had a 2+ ward on his seer against snipes but suspect it wouldn't have mattered in the end.

One question for me to look up, when the bell rings can that move be a charge?

I killed 1 wlc, 1 wheel, Seer & Bell (in T5), 1 slave unit.
He killed skink krox - I fluffed in combat versus slaves for 3 rounds then wheel went in the flank. My error as should have charged the wheel earlier anyway and not left the charge on for the slaves. 1 priest 3-4 units of skinks for a tie.

Most frustrating moment letting plague go on skinks when he 6 diced it and didn't irresitable so I could use feedback scroll, didn't roll a single 5+, good chance of killing his seer right there...

10-10 draw (neither achieved breakpoint)

Game 3 Russell Empire - Capture the objective.

Total mismatch of armies, mine was basically designed to kill his. Skinks death clouded everything, every second artillery dice he rolled was a misfire, think he managed to kill 2 saurus all game or something like that. I sniped off all his characters except the warrior priest but miscast on one spell to lose 3 levels when taking a wound off the tank and lost purple sun just before I was about to cast it on the tank. Knights died to salamanders after fighting through the Skrox and losing a load of them & the character. He had about 8 halberds left & priest and tank at the end of the game. I'd lost the skink krox unit when the tank went in after they had done some grinding on the knights. T6 slann charged the tank to stop it from charging my saurus who were on the objective.

20-0 to me (would have been an 18-2 without the objective)

Overall quite frustrating event given how hard my army was I really expected to do better than 1-1-1 record ending on 31/60.

DWARF - Winter War Charity Event

So we've rolled round to November and for the first time ever I'm actually going to manage to make a local tournament that isn't at my own club!  You'd think 2.5 yrs of tournament gaming I might have managed to make something in Scotland but no.

The event is a 1 day, 3 game max 50 players event and it's currently got 48 but just saw another possible sign up today so seems it might max out.  Restriction wise it's very light touch, ie no comp at all, only hero level special characters are alowed but otherwise it's 2400pts of all out nastiness.

So what to take, well having bumbbed about with dwarfs, WE and TK for a while I've finally decided to go for my lizzies.  And  my god is there a power difference in those books.  List isn't optimised I don't think but it's massively hard,  taking a slann with all the toys for 535pts and a bunch of other characters, basically it means I've got a hell of a lot of safe points in the army unless people are able to snipe them out. 

I've been running the slann on death magic, the sniper spells tend to frustrate your opponent as the tough decision is toss dice at it or chance a lucky dice roll taking off their characters because so few people build their armies to combat it.  Plus if you get lucky you can get all your dice back when you do cast a spell!

But the lore lacks any good zappy spells for targetting infantry, after a rather brutal game against a WoC list where his wards held up all game and I didn't snipe a single character (did kill 2, 1 with shooting, ran 1 down who fled) I decided a couple of skink priests on heavens means a quite high chance of getting thunerbolt, chain lightning or comet All of which are good against troops so give me something benificial to the list.

The other change was to drop the second skink-krox unit, they are fantastic when combined with light magic but with death there are no synergies, so I'd rather have more chaff shooting away where possible, plus chaff just frustrates people which is always nice.  That dropped me to 2 blocks and as blood and glory is a scenario I added in a unit of 10 ranked skinks with a standard who's job will be to standin a back corner and try not to die!  With the slann holding 3 breakpoints I only really need one other unit to ensure I'm above and best it's not one I'd ever consider fighting with!

There were a few posts asking about the power level for this tournament.  I'd describe a number of the players as taking very hard armies.  I know there will be Daemons, WoC and DE players who will have pretty much maxed out lists (I've played 2 of them already), so that's the level I'm looking to compete with.  I've surfed mid table mediocrity for quite some time now, it would be good to see if I can mix it with the big boys but I have sold my soul to a filthy list in order to do so!

So the question I'm asking myself now is do I really want to go down that road?  For those that follow the scene there is a rankings website which tracks how everyone is doing relative to each other in the UK.  Scoring is based upon everyones top 4 events, with a max score of 100pts for 5 game+ events with 60+ players, it gets pro rated below that, so at 3 games and 50 players even winning the event won't get me a max score.  Add to that the whole thing of 'who cares?'.  And to be honest other than as a bit of a laugh with some mates the usual answer is - nobody.  But I do wonder if the additional thing of being an ETC player but ranked way way outside where most of them are makes me think I should really show that, actualy, yes I am ok at this game.

Anyway my list is written, the fun is there to be had.  Fingers crossed I don't ruin anyones days (there was a suspicion I somewhat upset someone at the forgotten heroes event, oops!) and I get to play some toy soldiers.

I'm just not that good

It's a strange thing, I've been playing Warhammer pretty solidly for the last couple of years, played a bunch of tournaments and face a fair number of decent players.  Locally I play against a lot of pretty decent players who've won tournaments and regularly place well, my record versus them is pretty mixed but generally sub 50%.  At some point presumably I've got to accept that I'm just not that good?

The thing is every time I play someone with a good record their comment is that I've given them a really hard game and they struggled to beat me, though usually they do in the end!  So I'm not sure where this leaves me, is it that I'm not that good a player, or I don't design good army lists or some other intangible factor.

One thing I'm famous for is my dice rolling, as a general rule I buck the averages, unfortunately this tends to be rolling low, apart from those occassional games where my dice will catch fire and I'll burn someone up badly.  But I had a game recently where my dice were running pretty hot, pretty much everything I put into combat was hitting above averages, and wounding about normal, so overal I was up on the average, but I still lost the game badly.  Partly due to not hitting the averages when I needed it.  In one turn there were 2 ogre characters standing in the open <15" from 50 Wood Elves, 3's to hit, 5's to wound and armour and wards to negotiate. One character was 5+ armour, 4+ Look out sir, 4+ ward.  Other was 3+ Armour, 5+ ward.  Avg is 33 hits, 11 wounds before saves.  After armour & wards I did nothing, thinking about it I was dreaming that I would drop a character, even with a 3+,5++ that should negate most of the wounds.

I hear tales from other people of regularly gunning things down in that same state, I can only assume they approach things differently to swing the odds, but I can't see how!  More than anything else I struggle with armies which run at you and try to smash you off the table.  I think I play it right, I generally avoid setting up directly opposite them, I spread my units, concentrate my fire, put out diverters, blockers and yet somehow it always seems to cave in on me and I'm left dodging characters around the gaps between their units in a desperate effort to survive whist everyone else dies a horrible death.

Another game recently I lost due to a tactical blunder, plus my opponent having missed something that was critical to my decision making process which left a slightly bitter taste but for a fun practice game of no significance.

The tactical blunder was my being too cautious with my super slann who should have been thrown into combat with a big unit of knights to pin them in place, they had magical attacks so I ran away instead, but I forgot they had a character in them who didn't and with WoC having to challenge I'd have been taking ld 9 tests on 3 dice for the rest of the game with a reroll to pin 8 chaos knights and a hero in place so my army could have shot off his other blocks.  His error was not testing to restrain a frenzy charge from a nurgle block with the banner of rage, as a result I stuck 24 saurus into them after thinning them down thinking I could whittle them before they did me.  The extra attacks meant I poped in quick order and I'd have just backed off and shot him with skinks and salamanders if I'd known (which because of the test I should have been aware of the frenzy).

As a result he got my breakpoint, the unit, their banner and his unit survived. with the BP being worth 500vps at the tournment this was practice for that equates to 800 additional vps from me and him not giving up 300vps.

Again I felt my luck screwed with me on this one.  T1 I go to launch a bit of death magic at my opponent and double 1 my first spell needing a 3+ to cast it.  I then shoot 10 skinks at a guy on a disc, 2 poison hits, 2+ AS and he double 1's the armour and fails his 6+ ward losing his only mage in the process.  From then on I've a death slann with utter magical dominance and he achieved a grand total of 2 wounds from his 3 snipe spells virtually every turn.  My opponent just let me cast them then out diced me in the LD test, I rolled low on the S & T test and then he warded eveything on his 3+/4+ wards on his characters.  Seriously nothing close to averages.  I did get to beat up his general 3+ ward, stubborn general in combat with a skrox unit and I'd doom and darnessed to drop his LD to 6 and he broke.  Next turn he remembered that his disc had an attack rolled the dice, hit wound, would have been enough for him to win the combat, ah well hindsight.

I just wish death magic would do what I expect, banehead combined with death should equal dead characters early in the game.  My slann has killed next to none.  The most useful thing he ever does is D&D and soulblight units so the salamanders can flame them and make them flee, only reason it seems to work is that is an uncontested dice roll.

Anyway, I'm going to take him to the tournament this weekend and see how it goes, but it might be the death knell for death magic if he still refuses to perform. 

Dreadfleet & other stuff

I picked up dreadfleet from GW on the basis of they seldom made a bad game.  I've not played it yet so can't comment upon that but got round to clipping it all off the sprue and gluing it together yesterday.  The figures all look pretty nice, not the most amazing thing I've ever seen but for what they are I don't have a problem at all.

Most peoples gripe seems to be the price.  Given you're getting 10 ships, plus the rules plus some terrain I don't really see £70 as a ridiculous pricetag.  But I can see how younger hobbiests who don't have the disposable income I've got might be put off.  It seems that they haven't flown off the shelves in the same way that space hulk did, probably because a) it wasn't as well anticipated/marketed b) It's not a reworking of an old favourite and c) the figs don't look quite as stunning.

Speaking of space hulk I've still only played it whice and painted zero of the models.  I should really put it up for sale on Ebay to cash in the upside of the game but the terminators are a tad too nice for me to want to part with despite my not playing 40k at the moment.

Other stuff, I've updated my Malifaux pages with most of the latest additions to my crews, still missing a few which I'll need to get pictures taken but I have to say for a game I've only played properly about 4 times it's got me hell of  a captivated.

Warhammers - I've been churning out Skaven, now at 80 clanrats and 40 slaves with another 40 slaves only a couple of steps from completion, think I've now worked out the correct approach to painting these guys with the most efficient manner.  Hopefully get the army out on the table at some point next year but I'm really looking to get the WE going again but TK keep tempting me and the lizards too.  Damn you temptation!

WE are going to be used in a club campaign which kicks off this week, starting at 1000pts and building from there.  There are a few restrictions in place to prevent some of the worst excesses but the biggest limitation is the 'don't be an idiot' request.  I've gone for a fairly balance list with a bunch of archers and some dryads.  Deciding between either a mage or a hero for my general is the hardest part.

Lizards are getting a run out in a couple of weeks at a tournament, will be going with the death slann again along with all the usual lizard nastiness.  Just a 1 day event with 3 games of no comp 2400pts nastiness!