AoS Tournament 2/4 Completed 3/3 !

[Seraphage]

Hey guys !

Joined my 2nd tournament this Sunday. 2000p of 3 rounds and scenarios were rolled before each round.
Was a really nice one, 16 or so people took part and some of the oldest and highly experienced players took part !

My list ( thanks again for the tips @Bowser ! )

Sunclaw Starhost
Sunblood (L)
- Master of Defence
- Phoenix Stone
Saurus Warriors x30 with Spears
Saurus Warriors x10 with Clubs
Saurus Warriors x10 with Clubs

ScarVet on Carnosaur
-Celestite Warblade ( Wrote wrong weap by accident, wanted Spear, really made a negative difference I think )
- Phoenix Stone
Skink Starpriest
Skink Priest
Bastiladon
Bastiladon " @InfamousBeany approves. "
Chameleon Skinks x5
Chameleon Skinks x5 2000p

1st Battle

- Against Khorne : 1st time ever against them so I 'll just do my best describing the units

- Lord of Khorne on Juggernaut
- Blood Secrator
- Blood Stoker
- Tzeentz on Disc thingie really strong spells
- Khorne Skull Cannon x2
- Khorgorath x2
- Skull Reapers x10
- Blood Reavers x10 2
- Bloodletters 20 *to be summoned
- Blood Warriors x10

Scenario : Escalation



He put 10 bloodletters to the token on my left flank, entrenched his mage, Secrator and Blood Stoker in the middle with 10 blood reavers, the 2 Khorgoraths so I could not snipe him with Chamos and the 2 cannons and 10 bloodreavers to my right and the 10 Skull Reapers in the middle.

I placed as seen. 1 unit of 10 warriors with clubs were placed in font of the unit of 30 to be used as a shield and the starpriest, priest and Sunblood in the middle.

Turn 1
He placed 1st and gave me the 1st round. I ran my 10 warriors to the right within the right token's range. Forwarded the huge blob closer to the middle on the token. Bastiladons moved forward, one to the left of the blob and one to the right. ScarVet moved onto the right flank just in case my right token would be threatened. Starpriest bathed the blob with starlight and priest gave the reroll protection.
He shuffled around cannons - 1 threatening my right flank along with 10 reavers, reavers and heroes and put his blood warriors to the token of my left. Forwarded skull reapers towards the blob and failed both of the cannons with the help of starlight.

Turn 2
I win the roll. The big horde of Saurus marched forward and on the centre objective along with their mighty general. So did the 2 skinks after casting their spells successfully once more. Khorne make a bit of shuffling to cover his back lines even more, the general moved towards the centre and the Blood Secrator along with the Stoker moved to a place that would allow them to buff most of these blood thirsty khornes. Reavers and Red Cannon threated right flank.



The middle strength of Khorne proceeds. The right flank cannon and reavers dread the mighty Scar Veteran and his Carnosaur and retreat. Cannon shoots the fearless Bastiladon. He takes it like the man he is and takes just 2 wounds. The other cannon hits the skinkpriest leaving him with 2 wounds. Banner is planted and the Skull Reapers get stoked.
Khorne get ready to battle as the mighty lizards can't wait to start ripping some Khornes.



The fanatic Skull Reapers charge, dealing immeasurable damage to the Saurus Horde. The ones left however, hit fearly and harsh.
Seraphon's turn : The priests successfully cast once more. The Sunblood forgets to give any command this turn.The 3 monsters move further up the middle. The mighty Bastiladons shoot at the Reapers and the Warriors that still holded their ground left 3 standing.
2 points for Seraphon vs 1 Khorne



Turn 3
Khorne get to act first. The 2 cannons rush ahead towards the right Bastiladon, mighty Sunblood general and the remaining Saurus that would stand their ground till the last lizard. 20 Bloodletters get summoned from the depths of Warp to threaten the middle force of Seraphon.
The blood reavers of the right flank decide to ignore the Scar Veteran and move to the right objective and the 10 saurus warriors defending it since the start of the battle, as the ScarVeteran seemed to ignore them and pay attention to the movements going on in the middle. As the Tzeetz mage gets hidden inbetween the reavers and blood warriors the Khorgoraths decide to rush to the middle ground as well.
First cannon disembodies the starpriest. Second one hits Carno wounded it gravely.
The bloody Khorne General charges and disembodies the remaining warriors. Along with him goes the Black Cannon and the 2 Khorgoraths.

Time for Seraphon to strike back.
Left flank Bastiladon shoots the bloodletters and then charging them to prevent them from closing the middle VP. Right Bastiladon joins the battle along sunblood and scarvet against the 2 Khorgoraths, Juggernaut and Black cannon. Chameleon Skinks pop out to the right flank inside terrain, destroying the reavers and securing the right objective. Lots of wounds come and go, ending to multiple wounded targets and a dead Carnosaur..
and this is where the mighty Bastiladon to the right makes the decisive move of the battle :

It's Seraphon's 1st activation turn in battle and Bastiladon realises that if he piles in towards the Khorgoraths and lock them down they will NOT be within 6" the VP and Seraphon will get this point since it would be Sunblood, Bastiladon and Priest inside range vs Juggernaut and Black Cannon !
No one dies but Seraphon manage to hold the middle objective ! Left Bastiladon died bravely.
Seraphon 6, Khorne 3 !



Turn 4
Khorne move again. Blood letters finish the left flank bastiladon but were slowed enough to fail their charge. Brave and game changing was his value. Cannons hit hard but kill none. All of the remaining heroes are too tough to go down from some wounds. Blood letters move up but they're slowed to the point that they couldnt make their charge this turn. Lots of wounds exchanged in combat phase but nothing died.
Seraphon : Chameleon move up and hit at max range in the middle. Some wounds were dealt but again, nothing died. Seraphon once again hold the objective !
Seraphon 8, Khorne 4

Turn 5
Khorne proceeds and overwhelms the middle but it is too late.. nothing can be changed by this point.
9 - 6 VP

Major Victory for Seraphon !

*** Real life is really busy for me nowdays, but here comes the 2nd round ! ***

 

[Bowser]

Looks awesome! Good luck!

 

[Seraphage]

1st Round is finally done guys, hope you'll enjoy it !

 

[Bowser]

Nice! Got to like a major victory! Sounds amazing! Can't wait for round 2!

 

[Lachlin]

Great write up!

 

[Fruzzle]

Great write up so far, don't keep us hanging Seraphage!

 

[Seraphage]

*** Will start editing the 2nd battle here - couldn't upload more than 10 files in the first post so I 'll just make a 2nd one. Sorry for the delay, real life has been really busy these days !

2nd battle

I was up against Death. Unfortunately I could not find his list but I 'll do my best to describe it through the photographs

- Arkhan the Black
- Necromancer
- 30 skellies
- 10 skellies
- 30 skellies
- Settra the Imperishable
- 6 Necropolis Knights
- 300 reserve points for summoning

Alright, it's been quite a while unfortunately and things got a little bit blurry - placement order for example and some other details but will do my best.

Battle Senario : Mind Stuck and can't find it right now. The one that each has it's own and the only way to win is to have at least 5 models on the opponents objective and 5 at yours without any enemy models interfering.

He won the roll and made me place first.
- Hid the first skinks. He placed the 30 man skellies to the left flank.
- Hid the other unit of Chameleons. He placed another 30 to my right flank.
- I replied with 10 saurus to my right. He placed the Necropolis Knights behind the skeletons at my left.
- Put another 10 to my left flank. 10 skellies in the middle
Placed the Skink Priest towards the middle so the bubble could affect most of my army. Necromancer at the left flank behind skellies.
Skink priest to the left flank, Arkhan in middle, Sunblood to the left, 30 man spear block behind the 10 man to the left, ScarVet to the right flank to hold and then decided to place both Bastis towards the middle to block the battlefield and be able to snipe most of the units of wanted.







Turn 1

He lets me go first. As I know I cannot reach him and will be in charge range if I fully move, I hardly move the army, just a few inches forward so that after his turn and his move I would charge him straight on, except the Bastiladons who I both move forward in a way that it would allow me to control the map later on as much as possible. Only one of the Bastis' get in range of 1 unit - the 10 skellies. Kills 2.. and guess what. They came back next turn

He moves forward pretty much everything and casts a mean spell with LOTS of mortal wounds *it really hurt* leaving my Bastiladon with 3 wounds or so. That was pretty much the turn.



Turn 2

I win the initiative. Failed Priestly tappings *spoiler alert : failed them all game*, used the command ability to the 30 skeletons to my left and progressed to it with my combination of 10 + 30 Warriors and the Sunblood.
Moved the 30 warriors in such a way that some would remain in range of the starpriest celestial rites, near my objective and block his knights as much as possible when they'd get +10 inch something movement AND flying that would allow them to fly behind me.
Progressed the Bastiladons further up the board to block and bring them in range of more stuff. Moved the warriors of the right flank further up to block the way towards my objective and went ahead to move the Carnosaur to the far right, towards the flank of the other 30 skeleton unit.
Shot Arkhan with both Bastiladons dealing some damage. Sun blood, the 10 warriors and the blob of 30 charged the skellies and one Bastiladon charged the 10man unit in the middle. Carno charged the skellies to the far right.
The unit of 10 gets to act first dealing some damage to the skeletons. They strike back nearly annhilating it. 30 warriors get activated then - he had a spell that allowed him to attack twice so had to go for it - dealing a lot of wounds *he was generally ok at saves, HORRIBLE at Death Saves* to the skellies. He then activates the skeletons on the ScarVet dealing 4 wounds or so. I activate Bastiladon vs 10 skellies - nothing happens. Same goes for him. Sunblood does 1 wound or so and ScarVet fails to damage them at all * spoiler alert : that's what he did pretty much all game with that unit *







Death Turn 2

Photographs get less at this point because the battle was on fire and was too focused on making decisions to remember taking as many as I'd like

He casts some spells, gives the knights the flying movement and brings them along my left flank of warriors and sunblood. My block worked out pretty well to be honest, he didn't get close enough to my objective and spread them along my 30 saurus unit. Casted some more spells that I cannot recall * What I do recall though is that Master of Defence on Sunblood made a HUGE impact yet again, it is almost an autoinclude for me nowdays ! *
Then moves forward into seing where he would use his 300 summoning point - rolls a 12 ! Can summon 10 strong skeleton riders whose name I cannot recall.

And at this point, one of my best plays happens - UNINTENTIONALLY since I did have it in mind on my movement, but of course I didn't do any measuring so I couldn't have known that my placement was THAT good - he cannot find ANY useful place to summon them ! He abandonds the idea of summoning 10 and he goes on to summon 5. SAME THING ! Had to be 15" from the caster and 9" from me and there was literally NO place at all for it ! *I did take a photo of it of course, I couldn't believe it myself it went that well


*the skellies that never managed to be summoned can be seen dropped in this photo while he was measuring
He finally decides to summon 5 of them behind the skellies and the carnosaur to my right flank.

He moves the AWESOME Settra * I am really satisfied with my decision to just ignore / kite this guy, too strong to be dealt with - if not pointless - straight on* in charge range of my right flank warriors.
Settra succesfully charges. 8 warriors are disappearing - 2 heroes survived somehow !
Huge battle going on to the rest of the battlefield:
Bastiladon at middle keeps being stuck with the 10 skellies *well it was ok, all I needed him to do was block the way while sniping which he did* with no real result. I 'm in range to activate my right Basti and I throw it to Settra to stop its way.

The Necropolis Knights hurt my warriors like hell - 7 out of 30 survive after the end of the phase. Skink priest in cover was too agile for the beasts, surviving with 1 wound !
Sunblood took lots of damage like the man he is but still survived.
ScarVet once again does nothing and almost dies in return - *I am NEVER sending this duder alone again vs a horde. It is obviously the worst possible play for him*
These events happened to HIS Turn 2 and HIS Turn 3 as he won the initiative.

By this time, our time was up. All we could do was finish the turn - Seraphon turn 3 - and see who wins.
What I realise at this point is that I actually have a chance for a Major. Never had a good chance to use my chamos so far and I saved them for the proper moment. What also happened is that he had forgotten about them as he had only left Arkhan inside the 6". All I needed to conquer his objective was 5 models and none of his and I had 2 units of Chameleons !

I had to manage to take Arkhan down first though. Both the lovely basti shoot at them damaging him further and then 1 wound was on him.. Chameleons do the job and boom ! I now control his objective ! I keep making good decisions and suddenly a game that seemed like a sure tie *although if it wasn't for the senario I would surely get tabled - as I 've learnt from our lovely forum though : ALWAYS go for the senario * is on my hands.

At this point forward I took many valuable lessons at once.
People made it clear that we had to end it in the next 5 minutes no matter what which is fine.
What was not fine however : I lost my focus due to it although I had no reason to and not sure why I did but it happened. So at my turn :

1. I had his Knights as said really well block well outside my range. Besides my warriors, I only had the Skink Priest and 1 Bastiladon inside of range. To control your objective you need 5 models as stated. All I had to do was retreat my 7 warriors and take my Major Victory home.
I did not. Didn't even think about it.

- Lesson n.1 : I won't ever be in a hurry again. I 'll take my time to the last second. If it 'll be time that make me lose so be it. I will not allow myself to sabotage my efforts !
- Lesson n.2 : I will NEVER EVER forget retreat again at any kind of circumstances.





2. So now - again due to lack of coolness in mind - I didn't think that now that it's a tie *since I do have both the objectives but I do not have the models needed* it's going down to points.. At this point I somehow do realise that I can retreat and save the points but I liked the opponent and decided to "give him some more kill points to help him later on" WAIT WHAT?
Oh yes. I let him finish ScarVet, 30 Warrior unit and the 10 Warrior unit. That's 660 points.
So the judge comes and says, ok no major let's count points to see who wins. I lost by 60 points.
Minor Loss. *facepalmed*

Lesson n.3 : I will never ever forget again, no matter the circumstances, to SAVE as many points as possible !

Overall, I was really satisfied with the way I played, totally disappointed with the decisions made at the end but definitely got many valuable lessons that will make me a better general later on !

2 / 3 games of this tournament and I am having the greatest time.

 

[Bowser]

Never ending skellies can be tough! Sounds like the dice were too!

 

[Seraphage]

Never ending skellies can be tough! Sounds like the dice were too!

I promise I ll finish this until tomorrow. Working 12 hours a day while also trying to do my hobbies and see some friends really kept me away from finishing the reports. I will though !

 

[Seraphage]

Finally finished the 2nd round as well, hope you 'll enjoy !

 

[Bowser]

That was awesome! Always good to learn a lesson or three! Got to like it when you can take Arkhan down in a turn.

 

[Fruzzle]

Thanks for the report so far Seraphon! Was facepalming for you at the end of it, but these are the lessons that stay with you best. I think in the game vs deah you really miss out on not taking the thunderquake battalion; tossing a re-rolling bastiladon that regens D3 wounds solves so many problems of stuff you can't kill but can grind out your warriors.

The chamo skinks are golden in this scenario, already won it a couple of times because opponent forgot skinks or because I could clear their objective with ranged power as they tried to push onto mine.

The Points/objective/presure you'll get used to soon enough, it's another skill you have to put in your locker for tournament play.
And as a Seraphon/Skink player you should have really remembered the retreat.

 

[Seraphage]

I must admit that although I started Seraphon with the pure goal of a skink army, haven't played one so far because I started with the Start Collecting and decided to build on it ! But ye @Fruzzle definitely not something I'll be forgetting from now on !

@Bowser was a really fine game overall ! *I had already shot him with Basti's at turn 2 but yeah, dealt him like 9 wounds or so !

 

[Seraphage]

FINALLY ! After so long this tournament write up will be completed !

Round number 3. Title : I was NOT prepared.

Scenario : Border War * as you 'll soon read, didn't really matter ! *

I was up against Chaos.
- Sayl the faithless * had heard stories about him but never knew what he could do until I saw it. And I shall not forget. *
- 2 units of Blood Letters x30
- 2 Hell Cannons
- Banner that boosts the charge etc.
- 2 units that don't really matter as I was dead long before they got to do anything
- Bloodreavers * he completely camped the Hell Cannons with them at the one side. Had the bloodletters all around at the rest of the sides *

I won't bother describing the placement order - didn't make any difference. Just check the photos ! Overall I had my army in a line, had some plans for the game but didn't make any difference as I was destoyed before doing anything

Turn 1 * and last *

He lets me go first.
As I knew he could go far away *never realised how far that was* I didn't move my army at all. Only the 2 bastiladons at max range in order to block anything that would come my way. I finish the round.

Chaos Turn
He had a terrain on the bloodletters that you could sacrifice one and get the +1 to wound. He used the ability of Sayl to give flying + movement on 1 unit of bloodletters after he sacrificed 1. He placed them in such a way with the coherency that they 'd get the buffs from the banner / aura ending up doing mortal wounds at 1+ - that always fails which gets us to 2+.
Long story short : He annhiliated 1 Bastiladon, sunblood left with 3 wounds thanks to master of defence, the skinkpriest, 1 unit of 10 saurus warriors and the skink priest. It was about 75 - 80 mortal wounds. In the first activation. It hurt. * Hell Cannons even did only 3 wounds at the other basti to the far right because he rolled badly.

Although I got crushed and conceded before even get to play and had to stay at 2 Major without even trying the third one, I really appreciated this round because I 've learnt a lot about one of the most powerful meta Chaos List.






Next time I 'm going up against this list, I will place my units to the far back and use my warriors / skinks *whatever I have as battleline* to screen the rest of the army and keep at least 4" distance in between - although he 'd still have the shooting power of the Hell Cannon to shoot me.

Most importantly I would have my army spread wide in such a way that 1 unit wouldn't be able to target more than 2 targets.

A great tournament over all ! Had so much fun and learnt way too many things for the future ! Sorry it took so long to complete

 

[Bowser]

Sounds like a fun tourney all in all! The last list is pretty killer. Chaos can be quite devastating. Sayl is really tough.

 

[Aginor]

Also Hell Cannons are a ridiculously overpowered unit IMO. Right up there with the Mourngul and the Stonehorn. If you lose against them, shrug and walk away. The only way you can win against them is extreme luck. They can snipe you on the whole battlefield, doing loads of damage.
An army like hours who relies heavily on synergies loses its heroes and/or tank units and that's it.
IMO people playing them have a pretty high a-factor anyway, especially people who play two.
Hellcannons (and people playing them) are one of the reasons why many people would like to ban compendium warscrolls from all tournaments, thus killing our (pretty harmless) Skink Chief for example.
I say boo.

 

[Killer Angel]

Just noticed now this thread.

2nd battle

I was up against Death. Unfortunately I could not find his list but I 'll do my best to describe it through the photographs

- Arkhan the Black
- Necromancer
- 30 skellies
- 10 skellies
- 30 skellies
- Settra the Imperishable
- 6 Necropolis Knights
- 300 reserve points for summoning

Alright, it's been quite a while unfortunately and things got a little bit blurry - placement order for example and some other details but will do my best.

You did truly well. Settra + 6 Necroknights, backed up by powerful magic, are almost a guaranteed win, they hit wherever they wants and huts like hell. The weak point in that list is the lack of shooting

Also Hell Cannons are a ridiculously overpowered unit IMO. Right up there with the Mourngul and the Stonehorn. If you lose against them, shrug and walk away. The only way you can win against them is extreme luck. They can snipe you on the whole battlefield, doing loads of damage.
An army like hours who relies heavily on synergies loses its heroes and/or tank units and that's it.
IMO people playing them have a pretty high a-factor anyway, especially people who play two.
Hellcannons (and people playing them) are one of the reasons why many people would like to ban compendium warscrolls from all tournaments, thus killing our (pretty harmless) Skink Chief for example.
I say boo.

Just the fact that you can use them in units of three models, thus letting Daemons have the triple of warmachines of any other army, is sufficiently broken.
But do we want to talk about the disgusting battallion that works around skull cannons? the one that let you field up to EIGHT (8!) cannons, alongside with a Bloodthrone, and that let you shoot for free also in the hero phase?

 

[TheSkeptic]

Also Hell Cannons are a ridiculously overpowered unit IMO. Right up there with the Mourngul and the Stonehorn. If you lose against them, shrug and walk away. The only way you can win against them is extreme luck. They can snipe you on the whole battlefield, doing loads of damage.
An army like hours who relies heavily on synergies loses its heroes and/or tank units and that's it.
IMO people playing them have a pretty high a-factor anyway, especially people who play two.
Hellcannons (and people playing them) are one of the reasons why many people would like to ban compendium warscrolls from all tournaments, thus killing our (pretty harmless) Skink Chief for example.
I say boo.

I imagine a shadowstrike could probably handle a fair number of Hellcannons fairly proficiently, provided it includes chameleon skinks and ripperdactyls

 

[Seraphage]

I imagine a shadowstrike could probably handle a fair number of Hellcannons fairly proficiently, provided it includes chameleon skinks and ripperdactyls

The problem were the blood letters to be honest ! And actually it wouldn't due to his placement *check photos* He had it literally boxed at the edge of the table with the rest of the units. And I had decided to sacrifice chamo skinks and risk for the crew myself but it was not visible at all ! Just the cannons ! He was really experienced

 

[TheSkeptic]

The problem were the blood letters to be honest ! And actually it wouldn't due to his placement *check photos* He had it literally boxed at the edge of the table with the rest of the units. And I had decided to sacrifice chamo skinks and risk for the crew myself but it was not visible at all ! Just the cannons ! He was really experienced

Yeah, didn't so much mean your game (Some ripperdactyls may have been able to get at the hellcannons, but I know you couldn't have prepared for every eventuality and, as you said, he was clearly experienced with them), so much as against hellcannons and other artillery in general.