I've been to five GTs now, four fantasy and one 40K. I'm not as concerned about the lower rankings I'm getting due to battle points because my TKs and Necrons are weak lists. I have ideas on how to make them stronger. My orcs are a decently strong list already, I just need to get better at using them. Find a decent build and learn to play it. Sportsmanship will only be a concern if I start getting bad game votes, so no worries there that I know of.
Paint and appearance, though, I clearly need improvement on. My paint scoring has been pretty consistent, 16 and 16 at Bayou battles, with two different armies, and 56 and 56 at the two Alamo fantasy GTs with, again, different armies and with different judges. The lone flyer is the 59 I got at the 40K Alamo with my necrons. To me, the necrons are the weakest of the three as far as paint, but they are eye catching because they are a bright, shiny metallic blue. (Which I realize, painting them metallic damages my paint score too.) They are also unusual in that they combine old and new models yet somehow maintain the look of a single force.
So THAT is where I need to really focus on. Improving my painting and not rushing to get the army done. I was going to try to have a new army done for BB in August, but what I may do instead is try to pretty up my two existing armies, even though starting anew army is MUCH more fun than prettying up an old one.
To any who read this, if you are familiar with my armies and can tell me anything other than "get better at painting" or "slow down and take your time" which I'm already working on, I'll listen.
Sunday, November 10, 2013
Thursday, November 7, 2013
Alamo GT Day Two
Not all of my good fortune was used up on Saturday, just most of it.
Game 4
Warriors of Chaos
I tried castling up and slugging it out, but it was not to be.
He brought many smaller units a demon prince, a herald and some individual chariots. After the casket bounced and damaged 3/4 of the units in his army in one shot, he spread them out to cut that out. I was doing well, even killing his demon prince by wilting it down to T2 after it attacked the tomb guard, but bad deployment allowed he herald into my backfield where he killed my casket and a unit of something (it wasn't fully assembled, so I don't know what it was) killed my catapult. On top of that, my death caster misfired after miscasting a purple sun and killed him AND his entire unit. That hurt.
Credit to my opponent. After turn five, the outcome was obvious, but he insisted we play turn six ONLY because if I offed another of his chariots then his win dropped from 500 points and change to around 400, which would allow me to steal two of his points. I fell wound short of getting the chariot, but what the hell, it was a good game. I lost all of my cav, my death caster, the hierotitan, my herald, and my war machines. He lost some chariots, some cavalry and his demon prince. He got as small a big win as he could, winning by just over 500 points.
Game 5
High Elves
First time I played high elves and this is an army my battle plan would not work at. Their shooting AND magic was better than mine and had longer range. Still, I had a plan that after deployment looked good. I even got to go first.
On my first magic phase I miscast with my hierophant and dropped him by two levels, removing the ability to make the TKs move faster.
On her first turn, she used her repeating bolt throwers to mow down the unit my death caster was with as well as him.
My second magic phase resulted in the loss the hierophant's other two levels.
She spent the rest of the game maintaining her range advantage and picking off enough cheap units to take the win by about 550 points, along with three of the four objective points.
By the end of day two I was ready to box up the TKs until 9th Ed comes out. Their tournament record is 1-8-1. Screw that though. I spent too much damn time painting them not to play them. I need to get my butt back to work and paint up some more options to make them less of a punching bag.
My castle plan doesn't work if there is no punch. The TG is a nice deterrent now and then, but nothing else I have can really take out other units.
Gonna run Orcs for a bit in tournaments while I figure it out.
Game 4
Warriors of Chaos
I tried castling up and slugging it out, but it was not to be.
He brought many smaller units a demon prince, a herald and some individual chariots. After the casket bounced and damaged 3/4 of the units in his army in one shot, he spread them out to cut that out. I was doing well, even killing his demon prince by wilting it down to T2 after it attacked the tomb guard, but bad deployment allowed he herald into my backfield where he killed my casket and a unit of something (it wasn't fully assembled, so I don't know what it was) killed my catapult. On top of that, my death caster misfired after miscasting a purple sun and killed him AND his entire unit. That hurt.
Credit to my opponent. After turn five, the outcome was obvious, but he insisted we play turn six ONLY because if I offed another of his chariots then his win dropped from 500 points and change to around 400, which would allow me to steal two of his points. I fell wound short of getting the chariot, but what the hell, it was a good game. I lost all of my cav, my death caster, the hierotitan, my herald, and my war machines. He lost some chariots, some cavalry and his demon prince. He got as small a big win as he could, winning by just over 500 points.
Game 5
High Elves
First time I played high elves and this is an army my battle plan would not work at. Their shooting AND magic was better than mine and had longer range. Still, I had a plan that after deployment looked good. I even got to go first.
On my first magic phase I miscast with my hierophant and dropped him by two levels, removing the ability to make the TKs move faster.
On her first turn, she used her repeating bolt throwers to mow down the unit my death caster was with as well as him.
My second magic phase resulted in the loss the hierophant's other two levels.
She spent the rest of the game maintaining her range advantage and picking off enough cheap units to take the win by about 550 points, along with three of the four objective points.
By the end of day two I was ready to box up the TKs until 9th Ed comes out. Their tournament record is 1-8-1. Screw that though. I spent too much damn time painting them not to play them. I need to get my butt back to work and paint up some more options to make them less of a punching bag.
My castle plan doesn't work if there is no punch. The TG is a nice deterrent now and then, but nothing else I have can really take out other units.
Gonna run Orcs for a bit in tournaments while I figure it out.
Wednesday, November 6, 2013
Alamo GT IX Day One.
Going into the GT, I knew I would be an auspicious day, for I was playing an army of skeletons on the Day of the Dead. How could I lose. Oh right, I was playing Tomb Kings.
For fun the organizer, the admirable Mr. Baily and his capable staff showed us our Swedish Comp scores. Mine came in at a 6.9, which shocked me. I must have a poor understanding of the system because I can only come up with 10.1 when I calculate it. No worries though.
I had learned from Bayou Battles that the best thing I can do with this army is to make my enemy come to me and devastate them with magic. (It's a great plan really.) I tried to put the plan into action. My one photo of the army did not come out well, but it is essentially the same list I played in Houston except switching the death caster from lvl2 to 4 and the Tomb King to a Tomb Prince.
Game 1
My opponent played Empire with a Hurricanium, a war alter, a block of halberds with a detachment, a couple of units of handgonnes, one had a caster embedded and the other had a Hochland long rifle. He also had a cannon, a volley gun and some knights.
He went first and did a little moving and then miscast a Shem's burning gaze, sucking his caster into the warp killing most of a unit of hand gonnes (with the rifle) and wounding his cannon.
From there I hung back and used my cavalry to redirect his until they were face up with my tomb guard and had no desire to charge any longer. His volley gun had never been in range so he began to move it forward along with his troops, (who couldn't make up the distance in time.)
After my turn three he figured out I wasn't coming to him and by then it was too late to come to me in force. By then I'd killed his cannon, the other unit of handgonnes and lost two of my five man horse archer units.
The end result was a rather unsatisfying minor win against a great guy who ended up winning the sportsmanship award for the weekend.
Game 2
I remembered to get a photo, and it did indeed turn out to be an auspicious day for the Tomb Kings, just not MY Tomb Kings.
For fun the organizer, the admirable Mr. Baily and his capable staff showed us our Swedish Comp scores. Mine came in at a 6.9, which shocked me. I must have a poor understanding of the system because I can only come up with 10.1 when I calculate it. No worries though.
I had learned from Bayou Battles that the best thing I can do with this army is to make my enemy come to me and devastate them with magic. (It's a great plan really.) I tried to put the plan into action. My one photo of the army did not come out well, but it is essentially the same list I played in Houston except switching the death caster from lvl2 to 4 and the Tomb King to a Tomb Prince.
Game 1
My opponent played Empire with a Hurricanium, a war alter, a block of halberds with a detachment, a couple of units of handgonnes, one had a caster embedded and the other had a Hochland long rifle. He also had a cannon, a volley gun and some knights.
He went first and did a little moving and then miscast a Shem's burning gaze, sucking his caster into the warp killing most of a unit of hand gonnes (with the rifle) and wounding his cannon.
From there I hung back and used my cavalry to redirect his until they were face up with my tomb guard and had no desire to charge any longer. His volley gun had never been in range so he began to move it forward along with his troops, (who couldn't make up the distance in time.)
After my turn three he figured out I wasn't coming to him and by then it was too late to come to me in force. By then I'd killed his cannon, the other unit of handgonnes and lost two of my five man horse archer units.
The end result was a rather unsatisfying minor win against a great guy who ended up winning the sportsmanship award for the weekend.
Game 2
I remembered to get a photo, and it did indeed turn out to be an auspicious day for the Tomb Kings, just not MY Tomb Kings.
Bone on bone action. On turn one he killed my casket with his and managed to do a good job of denying my magic. Our main units never engaged and his other stuff mauled my other stuff. After turn four we called it because he was never going to kill my big blocks and I was never going to catch up on points. He won by about 700 or so and got the strategic objective for a big win.
Game 3
Warriors of Chaos - Mark of Nurgle on just about every unit
I deployed poorly and he killed everything but the tomb guard and the tomb prince. This was the only game that my big unit of skeletons died. With my build and his build, he would have had to make some major mistakes for me to even have a chance at winning this game. As it was, I still did some damage, just not enough to make tallying up the score an issue. Big win for him getting the objective to boot.
So on day one I'd already almost tied my battle points from Houston, so I was feeling good. I had three games that despite any outcomes had been fun and against great people. A winning hockey game that night at the AT&T center made the day even better.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)