My list: Allegiance: Seraphon Realm:Ulgu LEADERS Slann Starmaster (260) - General - Command Trait : Great Rememberer - Artefact : Miasmatic Blade Skink Starpriest (80) - Artefact : Spellmirror Saurus Astrolith Bearer (160) UNITS 6 x Ripperdactyl Riders (280) 30 x Skinks (180) - Boltspitters & Star Bucklers 10 x Skinks (60) - Boltspitters & Star Bucklers BATTALIONS Shadowstrike Starhost (180) ENDLESS SPELLS Balewind Vortex (40) Game 1 Battleplan: Blood and Glory Opponent: Free Peoples He was running a HUGE block of shooting troops and some kind of rocket launcher thing, plus some melee infantry, 5 riders(pistoleers?), a general riding a gryphon, and a small unit of shooters. Not much to say here. Whiffed my Balewind, fucked up my shooting phase on my big block of skinks(I shot his melee fighters and totally forgot about the horde bonus), ripperdactyles killed, iirc, the small unit of shooters, and a couple pistoleers, then got splatted by the general and the rest of the pistoleers. He got a double turn and shot most of my army off the table, I rolled a 1 for celestial configuration and conceded. Major victory and 1240 kill points for him. I'm not really sure what I should have done here. Picked a better Ripperdactyle target and rolled better I guess. In my defense, this guy I believe was coming off 1st place in the league that this tournament was the capstone event of. He fucking smoked me, even if I hadn't fucked up, I'm not sure what my win condition was. Game 2 Battleplan: Escalation Opponent: Stormcast I took first turn here again. Dropped 30 skinks and all the leaders in the middle, and 10 skinks on the left side objective. Killed his general right off with Rippers, marched my skinks forward on to two objectives and cast my Balewind. Ripperdactyles bogged down a big chunk of his army for 2 whole rounds, he deep striked with 4 units (2 ballistas, some kind of melee unit, and an infantry leader of some kind) and failed to kill my slann with the ballistas which LoTaSed out with 1 wound left. Summoned a Carnosaur(scar vet) on the bottom of round 2 and got it into combat with his deep strike force, killed some stuff, and bogged them down for the duration of round 3. He tried to march his remaining force, now free from Ripperdactyles on to the middle objective, tried and failed to kill the Carnosaur. Did shoot the Astrolith Bearer off the field. Game ended due to time at the bottom of round 3. I won a major victory due to points. We only had 90 minutes per game. I feel like he had a very good chance of clawing his way back into the game if not for the time limit, as he still had quite a bit of firepower on the field. I definitely could have played the combat phases better (I have a tendency to badly estimate how much damage units will tend to do and be either excessively greedy or cautious.) Game 3 Batteplan: Three Places of Power Opponent: Ironjaws I was extremely happy with how this game went. Much more so than either of the previous ones. It was the map I was concerned I was going to struggle with the most (thanks to having very squishy heroes) but it ended up being my most convincing win. I feel like I went into it went a solid battleplan and executed it with very few unforced errors. My deployment could have been better, but I executed with LoTaS very effectively and without failed rolls, so it ended up not mattering. He had 2 or 3 units of heavy infantry, a unit of wolf rider things, a megaboss, a cavalry leader of some kind, and some other small infantry leader. I deployed in the middle, in a line. Astrolith on the left, then 30 skinks, then the Starpriest, then the 10 skinks, then the slann. I decided to let him move first, as he had no shooting, and the only thing that I was giving up for the chance at a double turn was board position, which wasn't really going to help me much here anyways. I took my first turn and LoTaSed my 30 skinks and Astrolith Bearer on to the left objective. Whiffed balewind. Shot up his riders and nuked his cavalry leader with Rippers. His Megaboss is effectively out of the fight sitting on the right side objective, tying us up in points. Second turn is just watering his units with boltspitter bolts, and putting out some more damage with my surviving ripperdactyles. I think this is when his riders died. His turn, he charges a unit of infantry across the board and nukes my starpriest(one of my few unforced errors... I should have moved him, or deployed him in a safer position). He kills the rest of my ripperdactyles, and tries to run his suriving non-megaboss leader on to the center objective, but missed by like 2 inches. We roll for initiative, and I get the next turn. I LoTaS my Slann and 10 skink unit away from the heavy infantry threatening them. Slann goes next to the left side objective to hold that down so the Astrolith bearer can move, Skinks go in front of the 30 skink block to screen for them and protect my hord bonus. I summon an Engine of the Gods so I can having something fat that can sit on the center objective for a turn and survive and start shooting and casting Arcane bolt at the leader near the center objective. He takes a turn, fails a bunch of charges, and moves. Not much happens. I take a turn, Move EoTG on to the objective, summon more ripperdactyles, do a bunch of shooting, HIS 2nd LEADER DIES(I pretty much win here). I get 2 objectives worth of points, he takes a turn, tries to kill EoTG, fails pretty miserably, he concedes because he has no way of killing the Slann on the other objective before time. My gameplan going into this battle was "Kill leaders, take side objective, summon EotG onto middle objective to tank." and I think I executed that really well. Unlike the previous I do not think my opponents position was likely to improve with more time. I was steadily killing his units while losing relatively little in return and getting lots of summoning done. In retrospect, I think I would avoid running a summoning list in a tournament with only a 90 minute time limit. That really only leaves 3, MAYBE 4 rounds to accrue summon points, and very little time for summoned beasties to earn their points back. A more aggressive list with lots of Razordons instead of a summoning core would have faired much better in the first 2 matches for sure, and possibly the third one as well(though being able to summon in the EotG was pretty clutch there). Other than that, I don't think there is much I would have done differently. Probably let Free Peoples take the first turn. Him getting a double turn really put the nail in the coffin there. Thoughts?
OPK, first of all you're right about the summoning. With a time limit, that kind of tavctic is severely hampered and in any case you are not going to repay the Slann investment. Regarding the first match… honestly i'm not sure. Empire outshoots you, and you can hardly go in melee, since its shooting units can stand and shoot when charged. However, I would have tried to go first, using the 30 boltsplitter skinks upon the small units of shooters or against the riders, and the rippers against the big unit of shooters… in the first turn, they wouldn't have been buffed by the general, so IIRC their shooting would have been less strong. Even if they could kill a couple of rippers, the other ones should have wiped the shooters (remember also that without a battalion, in its first turn your opponent got no command points, so they would be forced to battleshock). bonus point if, during the charge by the rippers, you can lock in combat also the helstorm battery, so it can't shoot (minimum range is 10")