Our store had a 2000 point tournament this weekend with the express purpose of getting people to use high level lords and monsters. Here's a link to the rules and the list I ran: http://www.lustria-online.com/threads/hero-hammer-tournament-need-advice.5218/ I did end up going the safe route and using Life, which worked well as always. I did end up wishing I had something more offensive in nature, but anyway... Battle 1: Vs Tomb Kings Settra the Imperishable (General) Tomb King with GW and chariot; other stuff Prince with GW and chariot; other stuff 2x Bone Giant 2x Chariot units (both King and Prince in one unit, other solo) Scenario was Blood and Glory. Army fortitude was one for each character and monster, two for general. Tournament scoring was one point for each monster or character slain. In this and in all scenarios, no challenges had to be accepted unless the scenario called for it. Right off the bat one bone giant and the unit of chariots without the characters went after my camo skinks and ended up on the other side of the board. I didn't get to cause many wounds with them, but it got two of the enemy nasties out of the way for the rest of the battle, which ended up being critical. The king and prince's chariot unit failed a magic charge and got hit in the front by my regular stegadon, while Settra slammed head on into the Temple Guard. The second bone giant failed to charge the Slann's unit. Settra slew the Saurus hero and some Temple Guard, but still took a wound on his chariot from combat res. The stegadon broke the regular chariots with his charge and attacks, but the king and prince cut it down with their great weapons. On my turn I was able to charge Settra in both flanks with the Carnosaur and the Skink Chief's ancient stegadon... Settra somehow survived all the attacks against him, but died from combat loss instability. Time was up before I could score any more points, so it ended in a draw: A point each for him for the stegadon and scar-vet, and two for me for getting Settra. Battle Two: Vs Skaven Grey Seer (General) Vermin Lord Plague Priest Engineer Deathmaster Snitch Clanrats with machine gun Scenario was Dawn Attack. Each character that slew one or more characters or monsters and was still alive at the end of the game was worth one point. Yes, I was fairly surprised not to see HPA's in his list. I sniped a number of wounds from his characters with the camo skinks before the plague guy gassed them; he in turn was blasted by the ancient steg's blowpipe cannon. (I didn't score for this though; it had to be the character or his mount actually doing the killing). The Grey Seer teleported behind the Slann's unit and caused mischief, but Becalming stopped him from trying the 13th spell. Snitch failed terror and fled from the Carnosaur, who was then charged by the Vermin Lord. Cracks Call nearly ended the combat before it started, but a lucky dispel roll stopped it. The Oldblood's new setup I was trying worked marvelously, and the vile beast was slain before it could cause any more problems. The oldblood charged the engineer next, who fled (and kept going, leaving the board on turn 5). Snitch stopped running eventually, and slew the carnosaur before being cut down himself by the Oldblood. The Temple Guard and stegadons went after the Grey Seer, and he was put down with a lucky poisoned giant bow shot. The clan rats, who had unfortunately been forced to deploy away from the rest of the army, got into range to fire their weapon just as the game ended. I only got one tournament point out of the battle, as the oldblood could only claim one, and the other enemy characters either fled or were shot by skink crewmen. Battle Three: Vs Daemons Great Unclean One- Balesword, Stream of Bile, level 4 wizard (general- the HUGE Forge World model) Daemon Prince of Nurgle- Soul Hunger, Stream of Bile, level 1 wizard Epidemius Herald of Nurgle- palanquin, banner, level 1 wizard 15x Plague Bearers, full command Nurgle Beast Scenario: Battleline. The objective was to capture a magical statue in the center of the battlefield. Only a character could pick it up, and could not march with it. If slain he would drop it. A point was earned for each turn a player held the statue, and holding it at the end of the game was the sole condition for victory. I had forgotten how far the huge Nurgle could move; I held back and tried Dwellers on the plaguebearer unit, which was dispelled, while he rushed forward with everything and got the statue with the greater daemon. Camo skinks started sniping at it, causing wounds. He fired off a torrent of magic at the Temple Guard, and, despite Becalming, killed many of them (Sadly, I had not rolled up Rebirth this round); he then got to create some nurglings from their remains. He also got the spell off that makes any enemy in contact with the daemon have WS, S, T, I, and A stats go to 1... basically, that meant I'd be crazy to charge the Great Daemon. A side note: Epidemius, if you're not familiar with the special character, grants various effects the more kills Nurgle daemons make in the battle. At a certain point, Poison attacks start working on a 4+ to hit instead of a 6, and since many Nurgle attacks are poisoned this is nice for the daemon player. The thing is, it affects all poison... Presumably thrilled with the dwindling numbers of my Temple Guard, the Great Nurgle and Daemon Prince charged into the the Slann's unit, and despite me stopping the Stats-To-1 Miasma of Pestilence spell, unleashed everything they had, including both breath weapons. The nurglings created earlier attacked from behind as well. The Saurus hero and all the Temple Guard fell, and the Slann made his last stand with the army standard. Disaster seemed immanent as the two daemons burst through my lines- -But that put the Great Nurgle out in the open, surrounded by camo skinks, an Ancient Steg's blowpipe cannons, the giant bow, two skink crews... And Jungle Poison was most definitely working on 4+ now. Thinking that the Carnosaur might charge him to take the statue, the Great Daemon put up Miasma of Pestilence again and braced for impact. Inevitably, though... Well, remember the end of the game Mass Effect, where basically every tiny spaceship in the universe opens fire on the gigantic alien mothership? Yeah, that happened. Long story short, the Carnosaur rider swiped the fallen statue, the Daemon Prince slew the Ancient Steg and chief with the hated Stats-To-1 spell, then was in turn slain himself by the Carnosaur. The Nurgle beast got some camo skinks before the Oldblood cut it down as well. Epidemius, who won the battle single handed (for the wrong side) and his unit never made it into combat. We each scored two points for holding the statue for two rounds, and I got more points for winning. When points were tallied I was in second place going into the final round, just a couple short of the Tomb King player, who had scored well in his second two games. I had to face him again to decide who got to play the tournament organizer in a bonus battle for extra prizes, and I felt confident from the way our first battle had gone that I would emerge the victor. Then I learned what the final scenario was... Battle Four: Vs Tomb Kings again Scenario: All units are held in reserve at the start of the battle, except the two generals... Who are engaged in a duel in the middle of the board right from the start! Both count as charging. Points are earned for winning challenges, more for the general duel. *Sigh* It was decided that because the Slann is required to be in the Temple Guard, they got to deploy with him, though he was still in a challenge with Settra. At least they absorbed the impact hits and provided some combat res. It basically went exactly how you'd expect. The brave Slann held on for three turns of combat, regaining some wounds thanks to frantically cast life spells. I deployed the rest of my forces immediately, hoping to hold out long enough to surround Settra once he broke the Slann's unit. The opponent was smart and held everything back until he saw where my units were going. The Ancient steg destroyed the regular unit of chariots before being swarmed by the two bone giants, and the King and Prince got the regular stegadon even as the carnosaur hit their unit in the flank and destroyed all the regular chariots. By this time Settra made his way over and attacked the Oldblood before he could finish off the King and Prince. The Carnosaur fell, but Settra was down to one wound and was on the losing end of combat; he took the instability wounds on the dying prince, however, and when the Oldbloood failed his LD check, the curse killed him. Thus ended the final, heroic stand of the Lizardmen. All totaled, I came in third place after that, missing second by one single point. I did stick around long enough to see the Tomb King player lose the bonus battle against High Elves, as Settra was slain by Korhil's lucky killing blow. If I had it over again, I would have paid more attention to the particulars of scoring instead of playing as I would for normal victory points. I don't feel too bad about the last battle; there was nothing I could do about losing the Slann & Co., but I should have brought my reserves in where they could support each other better. Stars of the battle were, in ascending order: 3)Ancient Stegadon & Spear Chief. The blowpipe cannons were terrific, and 2D6+1 impact hits are tough to beat; in the absence of war machines, it was a great choice. 2) Chameleon Skinks. It wasn't the wounds they did so much as the frantic lengths all the opponents went to to try and kill them that made them fantastic. I hear a lot about units "earning their points back", but I always find that to be completely irrelevant. It's about what the unit does, not what it kills, and in most of the battles on this particular day my opponents diverged irrationally from their battle plans when they saw the chameleons sneaking up from behind. I'll not leave home without them from here out. 1) The Oldblood on Carnosaur. If you missed the previous post, his gear was: Great Weapon, Armor of Destiny, Dawnstone, Other Trickster's Shard. This build outdid my expectations. In terms of killing power, even Settra and a Prince had a hard time bringing him down in tandem, and all others fell easily. If cannons weren't such a problem in normal games, he'd come with me every time. Thanks for reading such a long and tedious post, and good luck in your own battles!
some nice results there! you are probably right, that more focus on scoring rather than gaming would help to win, but not being a powergamer myself, I think having fun is the most important thing. BTW the special rule for the last combat (2 generals in the middle of the board) was really strange...
Sounds like it was a really good day of gaming, wish more battles didnt have warmachines so the Oldblood could just parade around the battle field killing as he pleased. That sucks about the last scenario, the one scenario that would be the downfall of the Lizardmen, as our general should be blowing crap up, or buffing/debuffing everything with his magic. Oh well congrats again, sounds like a fun and interesting set of rules, think I might suggest it at my local club