First WHFB Tournament report

[ZergLord]

So, this weekend I've been in my very first big WHFB tournament. There were 38 players, army size was 2500 pts, and I've played a Tzeentch Daemonic Legion:

Lord of Change: Level 3, Dark Magister, Daemonic Robes, Power Vortex;
Herald of Tzeentch: BSB, Master of Sorcery, Spell Breaker;
Herald of Tzeentch: Power Vortex;
Herald of Tzeentch: Power Vortex;
30 Horrors: Full Command, Banner of +1 for casting spells;
10 Horrors;
10 Horrors;
6 Screamers;
6 Screamers;
6 Flamers;
6 Flamers.

So, the plan was to dominate the Magic phase and scorch opponents with spells. I get 2D6 +3 Magic dice, and 7 Channeling dice. LoC knew all spells from the Lore of Tzeentch, Heralds were all Level 2 and the one with MoS knew all spells from the Lore of Life which in hindsight wasn't a very good idea, but I will get to that later. I also wanted to get the Best Painted Army award. I'll get to that later too.

Bear in mind that I'm a Fantasy noob, before the tournament I've only played 3 games in my life. Also, my list was very friendly and I just wanted to go and have fun.

DAY ONE:
Game nr. 1: Skaven. Basically a Plaguemonk army, featuring a nasty cannon, 2 Abominations, some Gutter Runners and Clanrats. All was well until Turn 2 when my opponent activated his special banner, which stops my flyers from flying and giving me -2 penalty for shooting. Ouch. Let's just say he destroyed my army in CC afterwards, everything except my LoC was dead.
Game nr. 2: High Elves. He had some archers, some Eagles, and a unit of CC dudes with 2 heroes and a mage, which were immune to magic. My worst nightmare? I managed to kill half of his archers (which were 300 pts, WTF?!?) and Eagles, while he killed my whole army with his super unit. LoC was the only one left in the last turn, but my opponent killed him with magic that turns models into gold on a roll of 6. My most depressing moment in the tournament.
Game nr. 3: High Elves again. This time a CC oriented, with an Elf Lord on Dragon, and Dragon Princes who had 2+ Ward against Flaming attacks. In case you didn't know, everything in my army is Flaming. And yes, I got beaten in CC again.

Day 1 was really really bad. I've lost the first game fair and square, but in the other 2 games my opponents had something nasty that works really well against my army. This bummed me out quite a bit when I came home. Luckily for me, Day 2 was much better.

DAY TWO:
Game nr. 4: Warriors of Chaos. A very friendly list, Lvl 2 Tzeentch Sorcerer (a challenger approaches!) some Nurgle Warriors, some Khorne Warriors, Sigvald, Hellcannon, Nurgle Shrine, Ulrik and 30ish Marauders. I lost this one too, but this was the best game yet, it was intense from start to finish, and we didn't know how the game is going to end. We killed a lot of each others units and I've lost by small margin.
Game nr. 5: Empire. This was one of my worst case scenarios, I'm playing the mission with Flags against the Empire. Everything an Empire player needs to do in this mission to beat me is to kill my LoC with cannons. Get the picture? Luckily for me, there was a big Pyramid where I've managed to hide him. And I WON. ZOMG VICTORY. Apparently the only thing I had to do to beat him was to kill off his unit of Knights and a hero with Battle Standard who was riding with them, which I did by spamming Bolt of Change (lots of high Str magic missiles which pretty much negate his armor) and Flamers. This was my most unexpected game result ever. Another highlight from the game was the Steam Tank which killed things by ramming. Lol.
Game nr. 6: Nurgle Daemonic Legion, awsome! He had a Great Unclean One, two blocks of 30 or so Plague Bearers, Nurglings and Beasts of Nurgle. Due to me killing his GUO in the 3rd turn and game ending in the 4th turn (the time was up), I've actually managed to win. He killed a lot of my guys, but that wasn't enough.

My final placement: 27th. Not too shabby.

What I've learned from this tourney:
- LoC should've had Master of Sorcery, and my Herald should've had some other lore. I almost never used Lore of Life, and while Lore of Tzeentch is nice on LoC since you get every spell, I need other lores to be flexible.
- LoC NEEDS to be Level 4. Being Lvl4 instead of 3 can make a big difference, believe me.
- Screamers suuuck. Never in my 6 years of playing wargames have I played with such an overpriced unit. Maybe they aren't as bad as I think since I'm a noob and I made mistakes with them, but in any case they aren't very good. The only reason to take Screamers is if you're playing a Tzeentch army and want to be fluffy AND in 2x3, 2x4 or 3x3 setups.
- Flamers are very mobile, and they need use their mobility to get out of line of sight of enemy units and go in the short range and/or Stand and Shoot range. Always move with them, always.
- Flying means your mobility is huge. Use that to your advantage and you'll run sircles around enemies.
- Is it just me, or is terrain almost irrelevant in WHFB? Most of terrain was pre-set, and had special rules, but with the exception of a pyramid in game 5 behind which I've hidden the LoC, the terrain meant almost nothing to me or my opponents. Then again, maybe there was a different case with other tables.

Oh and I won Best Painted Army!!! F#$% yeah!! Pics coming soon in the Painting Section. Or maybe in the Converting Section, since I've sculpted/scratchbuilt my whole army. Yes, you've read it right.

Overall I've had fun on this tourney, and I can't wait to play Fantasy with my future new and improved list.

[lostminds]

Glad you had fun, I'm still looking towards my first tourney for fantasy... maybe dec if I am not snowed in.

As for terrain, there can be some uses for it. For instance Look into what forests do to skirmishers vs ranked troops. Defending obstacles can be handy too at times. Charging down a hill into CC gains another +1 to res...etc. I guess on average it doesn't help too many times but sometimes it does.

[Psychichobo]

Terrain's odd, depending on how funky it is it can often do nothing or completely throw the match. Try to make sure you know exactly what each one does and utilise it to your advantage. Forests are good for breaking steadfast stuff, or for sitting enough of your unit in to make your opponent think you're not steadfast when in fact you still are.

Also, you could've definitely done with more bodies - Fantasy's won by the block units now. With a few more chunks o' horrors you could've swayed the battle a bit (I don't care what anyone says about their CC prowess, 4+ invuls are NASTY).


Nice work on the GUO though - proper fluff victory that. And killing Empire. I hate their artillery a lot.