last updated:
21.08.08 | 19:44 gmt
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written by:
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Dirty Doings
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Games Workshop events have a bit of a reputation these days so when I entered the
GW UKGT Heat 3 I thought I'd better get myself a dirty army to compete. With nine zillion levels of magic around and ten gazillion poison shots coming my way I reckoned the Tzeentch Daemons could certainly dish some nastiness out themselves, whilst being manoeuvrable enough to avoid most of the nastiness aimed at them...
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organiser:
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venue:
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city:
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country:
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Games Workshop HQ
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Nottingham
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United Kingdom
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system:
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event rules:
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Warhammer 6th
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Dirtiness Abounds
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My heat three experience started with me using my army for the first time on Friday night against Scott Goldstein's beautifully painted Cult of Ulric army. However, knowing how dirty the Tzeentch Daemon list is, I still felt pretty confident of my chances in the heat. The game against Scott was unfortunately ended early due to us being kicked out of Warhammer World at six o'clock, but I was in a pretty commanding position at the end of four turns and something would have had to go seriously wrong for me to have lost if we had played on. It's a very manoeuvrable and powerful army, but quite a fragile one that wouldn't be too forgiving if I made any mistakes...
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characters:
1 x Lord of Change
core units:
12 x Tzeentch Horrors, champion
12 x Tzeentch Horrors, champion
5 x Screamers of Tzeentch
4 x Screamers of Tzeentch
special units:
4 x Changebringers
rare units:
2 x Chariots of Tzeentch
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opponent:
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army:
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Mark White
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Middenland
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Before the tournament started everyone had to take the knowledge test. It was pretty easy and I only had to take a couple of guesses. I got 16 out of 20 which was about the same as most people.
This game was a very one sided event. Mark's Middenland army was a classic example of bringing a knife to a gun fight and consisted of a unit of Inner Circle Knights of the White Wolf with a Grandmaster, a unit of Inner Circle Teutogen Guard with detachments, a unit of Swordsmen with detachments, a cannon, a mortar and a couple of units of Huntsmen. My Lord of Change and chariots hid behind a couple of woods while my Screamers took out Mark's war machines. With these taken out my greater daemon and chariots could move out to encircle Mark's infantry units. Mark made a big mistake in letting his army get split up in the centre of the board so I could attack it from all directions. This was compounded by my outrageously lucky dice rolls which reduced his big knight unit to just the Grand Master with just one blue fire of Tzeentch! After that, the game was just a mopping up exercise with Mark's units being unable to get to grips with my fast moving army giving me a massacre.
Mark was an excellent opponent and took his bad and my good fortune with good humour and, even though the game was a bit of a formality, I thoroughly enjoyed playing him.
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Tzeentch Daemonic Legion:
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Middenland:
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20 points
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0 points
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opponent:
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army:
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Matt Sulley
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Empire
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My second game and a second Empire army! Matt's army however, was more standard, common or garden Empire fare though. Matt had two big units of knights (one Inner Circle), a unit of Greatswords with a Handgunner unit and a Halberdier unit as detachments, a Helblaster, a cannon, some Huntsmen and another unit of Handgunners. He had a couple of wizards and an Elector Count leading the army.
Yet again my initial moves with the Lord of Change and the chariots were cautious, to make sure they were out of line of sight of the cannon a move than was fortunately unnecessary as it blew itself up turn one! My Screamers and Changebringers, however, moved far more aggressively, the Screamers withstanding a long range Helbaster shot in order to charge it the turn later, while the Changebringers managed to hold up both units of knights for a good long time while the rest of my army took out the less manoeuvrable elements of Matt's army. The only real scare I had was a poor overrun from the Lord of Change allowing Matt's Inner Circle unit (the only part of his army left alive) to charge him in the flank. I lost the combat by four and rolled two fives for my instability test, meaning Matt would get half points for the big bird. As I knew I had won the game, I decided not to use the Daemon's re-roll – a decision that paid off as I rolled to see what would have happened and rolled a six! Because of that I won a solid victory rather than the minor win I would have got if the Lord of Change had died.
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Tzeentch Daemonic Legion:
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Empire:
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17 points
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3 points
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opponent:
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army:
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Andre Bernreiter
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Beasts of Chaos
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As you can tell from Andre's final position, this game did not go well for me. Andre's army was a very fast moving Beasts of Chaos force, with lots of chariots, Minotaurs and Herds backed up by Furies, Centigor and Dragon Ogres. Like many of my opponents, Andre had opted for a very defensive magic phase with only two level one Bray-Shaman backing up his Beastlord and Wargor.
There was a very large hill dominating the centre of the battlefield giving Andre the initiative as my units could not flee from his. I was over-aggressive, looking to quickly damage the fast moving elements of Andre's army and this compounded Andre's advantage. Also after a rather embarrassing mistake with my chariots trying to shoot up his Centigor (who had got a bit lucky and broke through my Horrors) thinking they could move up to the Centigor, shoot them, and then stand and shoot when charged (I thought Centigor moved 7" and so perfectly positioned my chariots 7½" away, whoops!). After this I was left with just the Lord of Change, a unit of Screamers and a chariot from about turn four and was playing to try and claw as many points back as possible, which they did quite effectively. At the end of the game Andre had won by 610 victory points, just giving him a solid victory meaning I only got 3 tournament points rather than the 7 I thought I might just have scraped back.
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Tzeentch Daemonic Legion:
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Beasts of Chaos:
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3 points
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17 points
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That Night
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So after day one I was on 40 points, knowing that I needed at least 75 points from gaming to make sure I qualified. I wasn't too disappointed, even though I played poorly in my last game, as I had had three good games against three good opponents and I was over half way to my target. We had quite a few beers in Bugman's and Scott Goldstein,
Andrew Chesney, James Meikle and myself demonstrated our complete lack of GW knowledge in the pub quiz (although whoever thought it was ok to ask questions about the LoTR game should be shot!)
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opponent:
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army:
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Spike Allen
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Tomb Kings
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Despite being up far too early for a Sunday morning, I was looking forward to this game. Spike had a Tomb Kings army that consisted of a lot of chariots and scorpions, backed up by a catapult and a big block of archers. Spike had a King in his biggest unit of chariots with a Prince accompanying the catapult so he could use his "My Will be Done" and two Liche Priests, the Hierophant had the obligatory Cloak of the Dunes.
Both our armies were very manoeuvrable, with an emphasis on picking and choosing where to engage the enemy and an inability to fight in long protracted close combats. So for some reason, from about turn three onwards, we just had a massive ruck in the centre of the battlefield. Spike was horrendously unlucky with the scatter dice on his catapult, although my Lord of Change showed that I could roll poor dice too. The big bird took five rounds of combat to kill off Spike's King (who didn't have a ward save) and took five wounds in the process despite having a re-roll every turn and outnumbering the King! I then demonstrated the power of Lord Tzeentch by hiding the Daemon behind a wood for the rest of the game!
After totting up the points we ended up with a draw which was a fair result from probably the best game I had all weekend. However, this did leave me needing to win both my next games to be confident of qualifying.
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Tzeentch Daemonic Legion:
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Tomb Kings:
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10 points
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10 points
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opponent:
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army:
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Matthew Whitcombe
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Vampire Counts
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Matt had quite a horde like Vampire Counts army. He had scrimped on his characters and equipment so he could fit in lots more troops. He had a couple of big units of Skeletons, a big unit of Grave Guard, Black Knights, Fell Bats and two units of both Ghouls and Direwolves. However this left him with just a von Carstein Lord and a Necromancer for magic, and only a Wight Lord as his third character.
Matthew – although a really nice guy – played very poorly this game. I don't think he had played against such a manoeuvrable army before, and he didn't help himself by swapping Van Hel's for Invocation on his Necromancer, meaning the Book of Arkhan was his only real chance of getting into combat with me. This was also stopped when he left the Necromancer at the edge of a wood so he could cast Gaze of Nagash at my Screamers, I just moved my Changebringers over and flamed the wizard, even with -2 to hit I easily did two wounds to him!
At the end of the game all Matthew had left was his Grave Guard with his Vampire in, as I just didn't have quite enough time to take it out after I killed the rest of his army, giving me a solid victory.
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Tzeentch Daemonic Legion:
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Vampire Counts:
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17 points
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3 points
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opponent:
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army:
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Jonathan Field-Jones
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High Elves
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Jon, my final opponent, had a High Elf army. He had four chariots, some Dragon Princes, two units of Archers, some Silver Helms, an Eagle's Claw bolt-thrower, some Shadow Warriors, two level one Commanders thanks to various magic items and honours, a level one Mage scroll caddy and a Lord on a Griffon.
This was another thoroughly enjoyable game, during which both of us had some of the most stupid luck around. Highlights were – both units of Screamers ganging up on ten archers and not breaking them for two turns of combat, his Lord on Griffon getting stuck into the Horrors and the Griffon taking two wounds from the Horror's spells, one of my chariots not quite being able to charge his Dragon Princes without just clipping a bit of difficult terrain and taking six hits and self destructing, and Jon's complete inability to reliably pass a fear test, even on Ld 9. Still, at the end of the game, my Lord of Change had taken out the Dragon Princes after hitting them in the flank, my Changebringers and remaining chariot took out all but one of Jon's chariots, and the Screamers eventually took out the Archers and bolt-thrower. Jon had one chariot, his wizard, half his Shadow Warriors and his Lord (now on foot) left, and I had the Lord of Change, one chariot and both units of Screamers (although after the debacle against the Archers they were both down to half strength) giving me a minor victory and taking my total gaming points to 80.
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Tzeentch Daemonic Legion:
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High Elves:
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13 points
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7 points
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Taking Stock
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When the results came through, my 80 gaming points plus decent sports, test and painting scores got me 17th place and a ticket to the finals which, considering what I mess I made of my third game, was a result I was pretty pleased with. I have to say that the GW events (despite having quite a poor reputation) seem to get better each time I go to them. All six of my opponents were good sports, and I didn't play any completely over the top armies (although you shouldn't talk to
Chris Legg about Seaguard, and
Adrian McWalter did have to slap up some gimp with fourteen Doomseekers in a Dwarf Slayers army).
All in all the Dragon Slayers did quite well with only two of the thirteen of us that turned up failing to qualify (bad luck guys!) add in the fellas who qualified from the previous two heats and there will be quite a Dragon Slayer presence at the final!
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Monday, 06 September 2010
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