Round 5 – Flame On

This round the advice from my team mates once more was that Daemons was probably my best match, along with Ogres, so when I had to choose I plumped for James Knight’s Daemons with the advice of treating the Lord of Change like a dragon ringing in my ears.

Lord of Change (General) (Lore of Light)
- Level 3
- Will of Tzeentch
- Master of sorcery

Herald of Nurgle
– Battle Standard Bearer
- Stream of Bile

Herald of Khorne
– Firestorm Blade
- Amour of Khorne

Herald of Tzeentch (Lore of Tzeentch)
– Spell Breaker
- Winged Horror

27 Bloodletters of Khorne
– Full Command
- Icon of Endless War

28 Plague Bearers
– Full Command
- Icon of Eternal Virulence

10 Pink Horrors

5 Chaos Furies

5 Chaos Furies

5 Fiends of Slaanesh

1 Fiend of Slaanesh

(Full team lists on The Warhammer Forum)


Magic

High Elves

Arch Mage – Lore of Shadow

1. Mystifying Miasma
2. Enfeebling Foe
3. The Withering
4. Pit of Shades
5. Okkam’s Mindrazor

Mage – Lore of Metal

1. Enchanted Blades
2. Transmutation of Lead


Daemons of Chaos

Lord of Change – Lore of Light

Loremaster

Herald of Tzeentch – Daemon Lore of Tzeentch

1. Flickering Fire of Tzeenth
2. Glean Magic


Deployment

For this game I was back on the ETC table two layout, again down the bottom end of the hall where the SQUIG Hoppers had marked our row ten as our own.



From left to right I deployed the White Lions pretty much on the board edge with the smaller unit of Archers plus the Reaver Bow Noble and the Mage to their right, ready to move up to the wall. Just behind them was the first of the Great Eagles. To the right of the first unit of Archers were the Sword Masters and Noble, who I ended up having to deploy eight wide in order to fit them between the first and second Archer units (having deployed the larger unit before the Sword Masters, not thinking at the time that I was going to put the Sword Masters where I did. The Spearmen and Arch Mage deployed partly within the field while the Dragon Princes were between the field and the section of River. Finally the second Great Eagle was behind the river.

Back to the left hand side of the board in James’ deployment zone we find the unit of five Fiends up on the deployment line with the Bloodletters in horde to their right, partially within the wood. To their right were the Plaguebearers then a gap of about five or six inches to the Pink Horrors who deployed to the left of the hill with the Tzeentch Herald. One unit of Furies and the Lord of Change dropped down close to the long board edge behind the Bloodletters. The second unit of Furies deployed behind the hill in James’ deployment zone while the lone Fiend was all on his, er, lonesome about eight inches to the right of the hill and up to the deployment line.

James won first turn and the forces of Chaos marched up the board. The Furies on the left hand side fluttered delicately in behind the Fiends who had been outpaced slightly by the Bloodletters. The second unit of Furies popped over the hill, the Horrors trotted towards the building in the centre while the lone Fiend edged nearer to my line. The Lord of Change meanwhile dropped down inside the edge of the woods.

The Daemon’s first magic phase of the game was pretty ineffectual with Burning Gaze being dispelled and then Banishment failing to cast at all.

My first turn and there was a little movement with the White Lions moving up as well as the Great Eagles. Magic saw the Arch Mage cast an irresistible Pit of Shades on the Plague Bearers that lead to a total of one dead Daemon, a wound on the Arch Mage and an ended magic phase, squandering my two remaining dice. All my shooting also concentrated on the Plaguebearers, managing to kill four more.

Daemon turn two and the unit of Fiends and Lord of Change charged the White Lions who didn’t have any choice but to hold given the charge angles. The Plaguebearers also charged the Great Eagle in front of the Bloodletters while the Furies on the left deposited themselves in front of the Sword Masters. On the right the lone Fiend edged away from the Eagle while the other Furies interposed themselves.

Once more the Daemon magic phase didn’t achieve anything with the Lord of Change failing to cast Speed of Light and then Glean Magic from the Tzeentch Herald was easily dispelled. In combat the Great Eagle was easily cut down by the Plaguebearers while the White Lions did five wounds to the Fiends, taking seven back from the Fiends and Lore of Change.

High Elf turn two and the Sword Masters charged the Furies, the Spearmen charged the flank of the Plague Bearers and the remaining Great Eagle charged the Furies near it. Magic was an unsuccessful phase with Enchanted Blades cast at the White Lions failing and then Misama on the Fiends drawing out James’ dispel scroll.

In shooting all the bow fire concentrated on one target again, this time the Bloodletters, shooting down 11 of the Daemons. Once more the White Lions took a pasting but again did five wounds to the Fiends. The Sword Masters minced the Furies and overran six inches. The Spearmen, who I’d been hoping would hold the Plaguebearers in place for a couple of turns until support could arrive, did only three wounds while taking eleven in reply and broker from combat, evading the Plaguebearers by a single inch. Finally, the remaining Eagle did enough combat resolution to the Furies to make the survivors die from instability.

James’ turn three and the solo Fiend declared a charge on the Spearmen who had no choice but to flee and went nine inches. It then redirected at the Dragon Princes who held. The Plaguebearers also charged the Dragon Princes who I decided to flee with after seeing what they did to the Spearmen. This turned out to be a mistake as the Fiend rolled like a, er, Daemon, for his charge range and ran them down. Finally, the Bloodletters charged the Sword Masters.

Magic was once more a bust for James as I scrolled Speed of Light cast at the Bloodletters while Birona’s Timewarp cast at the same unit was dispelled. In combat the White Lions inflicted tow more wounds but were finally wiped out. The Sword Masters and Bloodletters did eight wounds apiece but the Sword Masters won by one and another Bloodletter died to instability.

High Elf turn three and the Noble in the Archers charged the remaining Fiend from the unit while both units of Archers wheeled to look at the Lord of Change. Transmutation of Lead on the Bloodletters was dispelled but Enchanted Blades on the Noble went through. Shooting I don’t think did anything (at least I didn’t write anything down) while the Sword Masters wiped out the Bloodletters and popped the Herald of Khorne. The Noble killed the Fiend and overran out of the Lord of Change’s charge arc.

The fourth Daemon turn saw the Lord of Change hightail it away from the Noble while the Plaguebearers and the remaining Fiend headed towards the right-most of my Archer units. Burning Gaze was cast at the Sword Masters killing four while two Flickering Fires at the same unit were stopped.

Being unable to get out of the way of the Plaguebearers the Archers on the right reformed to get a round of shooting in while those on the left reformed for some pot shots at the Lord of Change. . In the Magic phase the only spell attempted, a Transmutation of Lead on the Plaguebearers was dispelled. The Archers on the left actually managed to put a wound on the Lord of Change while those on the right achieved the less notable achievement of killing a single Plaguebearer.

Turn five and the Plaguebearers charged the Archers while the Lord of Change continued his tactical withdrawal. Burning Gaze and Flickering Fire at the Sword Masters were dispelled but a Banishment was cast and killed three. The Plaguebearers killed the Archers for the loss of just one of their own and overran.

In my turn five the Mage cast Transmutation of Lead at the Plaguebearers which was dispelled while Enchanted Blades on the Archers went off irresistibly, causing the Mage to forget the spell. The Archers and the Noble shot at the sole surviving Fiend and killed it.

Final turn and the Plaguebearers charged and killed the Archers and Mage while Magic did for the remaining Sword Masters and my BSB, leaving me just the one Eagle and Noble at the end of the game.

At the time this got entered in as a 16-4 loss thanks to a 994 points difference in score. However, I’ve just realised writing this that I may have messed up when adding up the points and didn’t add in the last Archer unit. I say may because on my army list for game five for some reason I’ve crossed out the circle I put around the points for the second unit of Archers (at tournaments I normally have a list per game and put a circle around each unit that is wiped out) and so haven’t counted them. If they should have been counted that would have made it an 18-2. Fortunately that wouldn’t have affected the final placings as Flame On would still have been a point behind Team Norn Iron.

As for the rest of the SQUIG Hoppers, Graham took a 15-5 loss against Mike Newman’s Lizardmen, Adam joined club 0-20 with a loss against Michael Walker’s Ogres and Dan proved to be most un-SQUIG like again with an 11-9 win against Hugh Allen’s Warriors of Chaos.

In conclusion

Team Performance

So, when all the dice had finished rolling, the SQUIG Hoppers had come in… dead last. By quite a distance, being some 37 points behind the Heroes of Legend in 19th place. Annoyingly, we (well, mainly Graham, Adam and Dan if you total up who scored what victory points) actually scored more victory points than the next five teams above us (as well as the ultimate winners of the event, the Heelan Hammer All Stars).

I think the main cause of our downfall (other than not being the best Warhammer players in the world…) was that we really did just approach the event as a laugh. As I mentioned in the report for the first game, we hadn’t really looked at the match-up process before the first game and so we messed up badly there and in the second game.

We also didn’t really critique each other’s lists much prior to the event. Other than my suggesting to Dan that as he had five points spare on the list he sent me that he might want to think about taking the Ironcurse Icon on one of his characters, and suggestions to ensure lists were legal, there wasn’t a whole lot of planning around the lists. Myself, Adam and Graham were travelling together that weekend and on the way back we discussed how we might have been better approaching our list design each of us taking on a couple of roles with our armies, for example Combat, Anti-Magic etc, and then trying to get match-ups based on our assessment of what role would be the best match for the enemy lists..

On a personal level this was my worst performance since I’ve been going to tournaments (in fact this was exactly the kind of set of results I was fearing when I went to my first tournament). Aside from getting two match-ups I really didn’t want in the first two games, my usual playing incompetence and bad dice rolls, it didn’t help that I came up against two armies using either a Dragon or Greater Daemon, neither of which I’ve played against before as no-one at the club has been running them since I’ve been going there. Of course, my first game at the club following Polish Sausage was against Daemons running a Lord of Change…

The other SQUIG team

There were two teams from Leicester SQUIGs at Polish Sausage, the other team, the Mangler SQUIGs consisting of Joel Henry, Paul Thompson, Alan “Not the legend” Thompson and Ben “Panzer” Harris.

Overall they came a quite respectable 6th place and Joel picked up the “Bloodthirster” award for


ETC Comp thoughts

This was also the first event I’ve played in using ETC comp restrictions. As I mentioned at the start of this report, there was a lot of flak going about for previous drafts of the ETC comp and to be honest I don’t think the comp for 2012 improves things all that much.

Personally I think there’s far too much tinkering with the main rules, such as in reducing the maximum dice you can use to cast with to five (and from what I’ve read, in Draft 2 of the restrictions you’re restricted to using only four dice with some lores) and reducing the amount of dice you can add through channelling. Trying to keep track of all the items that count as adding power or dispel dice is enough to drive you to distraction.

I just can’t imagine what horrors, real or imagined, people in Europe think they are going to come across in games (I’m pretty sure I read a thread where Dan Heelan said just about all the changes have been voted through by the European members of the committee). Really they should just stick to army specific restrictions to limit some of the silliness that’s possible.

The only change the ETC makes that I wholeheartedly agree with is giving half points for units reduced to 25% or less of their starting size.

Overall I’m just glad I don’t live in one of the parts of Europe where ETC comp is becoming the norm for tournaments. Frankly that would probably discourage me from going to tournaments. I’ve nothing against the idea of team events as Polish Sausage was a fun event but we could do with a few more on the UK scene, using a more normal comp like the South Coast GT comp, although I note that in revision 2.0 of that comp some ETC type ideas on restricting the number of dice that can be channelled have crept in.

Anyway, for those who are interested, the draft 2 restriction recently came out and can be found here.

Incidentally, having mentioned the Jaded Gamercast right at the start of this report, during the writing of it the hosts of that show released another episode looking at the first draft of the 2012 ETC comp, which you can hear here.