I'm taking the empire with a comp score of two.
First of all it's important to note that this is not the list I wanted to take. I wanted some skirmishing archers and crossbow men in the list, but painting time was against me. In the end the only new models that I have added are a new Hurricanum and three more demigryph Knights. I have also played around with the unit of spearmen and added in a couple of guys as I only had 28 painted. The list is similar to what I took to the Mersey Meltdown where I had some problems, and I suspect I will have similar issues in Portsmouth. Saying that I did go 3-2 at the meltdown and was on table 3 for game 3, so the list isn,t terrible.
I am running the double level 4 (light and heavens) which are traditionally strong laws for the empire. Lots of cheap buff spells plus magic missiles and comet to hit things that want to stay in a corner are all good. There are also very few spells which are situational.
One of the issues is having these guys on foot in the state troop block with the general and the bsb makes for a very tempting target. The bsb has the scarecrow banner to stop the unit getting terror bombed early by scary fliers, but generally these guys advance slowly behind the Demi's to buff and shoot magic.
The rest of the core is made up of 2 units of Knights. These both have banners for fortitude but do need to be used as throwaway units sometimes too. This is one of the problems! Against a brettonian player at Mersey he pushed three units of peg Knights at me with the lances 12" behind and ran over me.
The canon is there to do what it does. You hear all these bros saying cannons never do what you want. I say rubbish! Cannons are great! That's why I also have the SteamTank. I generally keep this back to protect the block with the random move. And did I mention it has another cannon?!
The rest of the army is made up of 2 units of demigryph Knights. These boys will be doing the fighting! They should be backed up by the Hurricanum which is a great synergy piece, giving the Demi's plus one to hit and improving the magic phase.
That's pretty much the plan. It's not new or particularly innovative, but it does work well in some games, and hopefully I'll do ok. There are problems. Good players are an issue! The list only goes so far, and the games I have lost recently have been to Luke Morton, Ben Curry, Andy Potter, and Jake Corteen. All very strong players with lists equal to or better than my own. I also struggled against by direct lists. Warriors and brettonians can be issues, and if there is a lot of undeath running about that could be a problem as I only have magic missiles to deal with ethereals.
Still, I am looking forward to the event and hopefully I'll play well enough to sneak two or three wins...