Clashing of Swords

On Saturday, I traveled down to Cardiff to take part in a one day Warhammer Fantasy tournament called Clash of Swords in Firestorm Games. It was being organized by Mo from the Channel 4 News Team (a Warhammer team/club, not actually part of Channel 4 news!), and he did a very Stirling job.

The event was 3 games of pitch battle with players bring 2400 points worth of armies and all armies had to be selected with some restrictions in mind thanks to the Comp Pack. I took my Lizardman army which didn't need to many changes doing to it, although my Lizardmen aren't like the standard Lizardmen tournament army.

I took a list very similar to what I used at the Midlands Open and used the following...

Slann Mage-Priest (General and Battle Standard Bearer)
with a Dispel Scroll, Divine Plaque of Protection, Focus of Mystery, The Focused Rumination and Knows The Lore of Life

Saurus Scar-Veteran
with Light Armour, Cold One, Burning Blade of Chotec, Dawnstone & Charmed Shield

Saurus Scar-Veteran
with Light Armour & Shield, Cold One, Biting Blade, Amulet of Itzl

28 Saurus Warriors with Full Command
10 Skink Skirmishers
10 Skink Skirmishers
10 Skink Skirmishers
10 Skinks
10 Skinks
10 Skinks
20 Temple Guard with Full Command & Standard of Discipline
5 Chameleon Skinks
Ancient Stegadon
Ancient Stegadon

Earlier in the year, I wasn't enjoying using the Lizardmen and I wasn't happy with the army. But now with a few more games, I'm starting to get used to the playstyle and I've worked out what does what.

So after an early start and drive down to Cardiff, I was prepared for my first game....

Game 1 - Annie and Chaos Dwarfs
Annie has been doing tournaments for a couple of years now and is also known as The Dice Bag Lady (she makes knitted Dice Bags - go to http://www.facebook.com/TheDiceBagLady if you are interested in one). She has  recently discovered Chaos Dwarfs and has been having success with them, but the Comp Pack had made some big restrictions on what they could take so she brought something along the lines of...

Lv4 on Death
BSB
Lv1 on Fire
Hobgobbo Kharn on Wolf
Bull Centaur Hero
20 odd Infernal Guard
2 x 20 Hobgoblins with bows
2 x Magma Cannons
4 Bull Centuars
Kdaai Destroyer

Chaos Dwarfs are a bit of a strange army to me as I love them as a race in Warhammer but I haven't quite gotten used to them yet in 8th edition due to me thinking of that they are unofficial and the tournament scene will drop them as soon as I start an army. Either way, they are an army I haven't had much practice with so as this was my second game against them I wasn't too sure what to expect.

Annie turned up to our game a little worse for wear as she had been out with some of the other folks at the event the night before and I don't think she got home until 4am (you could see some of the other gamers in a similar out of body state), plus she hadn't really used this list before. My plan was to quite simply rush at the evil short ones, as I know that they aren't that great in combat and on paper my army is better at that.

Highlights of our game were the Bull Centaurs charging one of my Stegadons and causing a few wounds to it. With my general nearby I easliy passed it's stubborn test and I was able to counter charge with a block of Saurus (with scar vet with biting blade), who killed the Bull Centaurs and then ran the hero down. They then ended up in combat with the Infernal Guard and got beaten and just managed to avoid getting run down! Near by, my Temple Guard got charged by the Kdaai and spent the next couple of turns chipping away at it until I was able to flank it with my other steg and was able to beat it on combat res. I also managed to pick off the Kharn and a Magma Cannon before the game ended. Annie had caused lots of damage to my army but hadn't be able to finish anything off apart from two skink units and I ended up with a 15-5 win, which I was pleased with. This also meant that our club was first in the team cup that was also being run as the other guys had done well too.

Game 2 - Richard and Chaos Warriors
Initially I was to play my mate Chris but we asked Mo if we could swap and he resorted out the draw and I ended up against Richard. He was using a very nicely painted and converted Chaos Warrior army with roughly the following....

Tzeentch Lord on Disc
Tzeentch BSB on Steed
Lv2 Wizard using Death
18 Tzeentch Warriors with Great Weapons
18 Nurgle Warriors with Shield and Halberds
8 Chaos Knights
2 Warshrines

So it was a very compact elite army, which I wouldn't be able to do much to. In hindsight I should have deployed in a corner opposite to Richard (thanks to my skink units I was able to see where he was going before I committed anything), but that would have been a bit of a boring game and I hadn't driven over 100 miles to play like that! I think if I want to play more competitively I need to be prepared to do that though. Anyway the game started off with both of us aggressively moving towards each other and then Rich was able to get +1 Toughness and 4+ Ward and Stubborn on his Knights thanks to the Warshrines. I then charged in a Steg to try and hold this unit up by casting Flesh to Stone on it.

The game was looking like it would be either a draw or very minor win to Richard, but for some reason I got greedy. During one of my magic phases, I had rolled quite highly for power dice and it was burning a hole in my pocket. I had failed to get off Throne of Vines due to Richard Scrolling it but I had got off Flesh to Stone on the Steg. This left some dice left and for some reason I decided to cast Dwellers on one of the targets available to me - A unit of Chaos Warriors (pretty much everything else was in combat, otherwise I would have chosen another target). So of course I irresistibled it, killed a couple of Warriors (not enough for a Panic like I was hoping) and rolled four on the miscast table. The Slann survived the explosion and didn't get dragged into the Realms of Chaos, but all of the Temple Guard apart from the Champion died!

To make matter worse, the Scar Vet who had been entertaining the Chaos Lord for most of the game, died and this left a gap where it could charge the Temple Guard Champion and Slann! So in my turn I was able to make it difficult for the Lord to charge in by leaving no space and then I frantically cast Regrowth on the Temple Guard and slowly started to build the unit back. Unfortunately it was not enough and Richard was able to get in a unit of warriors and his lord into the unit and slowly whittled them down and killed the Slann. This gave him a massive win and I wasn't able to score any points.  It was a fun game but strange due to the massive combat in the middle of the board but it did teach me to try not to be so risky with somethings.

Game 3 - Gareth and Empire
You may have heard of Gareth as he is part of the Bad Dice Podcast and he was doing a first this weekend by going to a Warhammer Tournament on his own. He said he was enjoying being away and it's not as scary as he thought it would have been. He was using what could be considered a 'standard' empire tournament army and had roughly...

Lv4 with Light
Lv1 with Light
BSB
Arch Lector
2 Engineers
50 Halberdiers
20 Swordmen (detachment)
2 units of 5 Knights
2 units of Demigryphs
2 Helblasters
2 Cannons
Steam Tank

So another tough match up. Gareth deployed centrally and set his army up so he had his Halberdiers up front, with Swordmen behind (which had a engineer in each corner). Then his war machines went around the Swordmen block and on his flanks he had Demigryphs and knights and finally the Steam Tank was on his far left. I deployed the bulk of my army on my right as I was going to try and smash up his left flank and then fight through to his centre.

The game started with me rushing up and sending a steg off to distract the Steam Tank whilst the rest of my army tried to break his flank. Gareth got fixated upon my Slann and tried to cannon him off but luckily I thought he might have a few cannonballs sent his way hence the 2+ ward save on him. After a couple of these Gareth changed tact and went for one of the Stegs and took it off. I managed to get a long charge off with one of my Scar Vets into the Demigryphs, and he then killed one and broke them and ran them down. This mean Gareth had a Scar Vet behind is lines to try and deal with whilst the rest of my army came rushing up.

So whilst this sounded like a fairly even game, Gareth was ahead on points so I needed to get into him. Unfortunately I suffered from a bout of bad luck where the Demigryph Slayer Scar Vet failed a Stupidity test and went to look at the board edge, then I managed to dwellers off a Warmachine but forgot about the Panic Tests! In the end it was a 12-8 win to Gareth but it was a fun and enjoyable game, plus I got a cookie and a cupcake!

In the end I placed 31st out of 40 but the Dudley Darklords came joint first with the WWW Big 'Uns, which we were pleased with. The event was well run and Mo did a great job with promoting the event and running it. I want to go to the next one and I would recommend it.