Bayou Battle...Not as Bad as Last Year

First, Bayou Battles in Houston has been fantastic each of the three times I have been. When I say it was not as bad as last year, I refer to my performance. I think my paint score will be worse than last year, because I was in a rush and a little sloppy. Tomb Kings are far more forgiving of quick painting than High Elves. However, I achieved a grand total of 31battle points in five battles last year, which came from four losses and a draw.

The Dragon Army (with no actual dragons and dragon models representing things that are not dragons) won two and lost three and, adding in bonus points, the total for battle points cam out to 57 this year. The best I have ever done in BP before at a two day tournament was 42 at the 2012 Bayou Battles.

The Dragon Army:
Prince: armor of destiny, Sword of Might
LVL 4 Archmage with high magic, dispel scroll talisman of preservation
Noble: BSB, Shield of Merwyrm, Crown of Command
LVL 2 Mage with light, channeling staff
Noble: reaver bow, potion of strength

28 Spearmen, full command, Banner of Eternal Flame
22 Archers, standard bearer and musician
5 Reavers

23 Swordmasters of Hoeth, full command, Banner of Swiftness

4 Repeating Bolt Throwers
Great Eagle
Great Eagle
Frostheart Phoenix

Game 1: Erin's Dwarfs
Erin's army was nicely painted and unique in that many of her models, one unit and two of the three characters were female minis. She brought a block of 29 hammerers, 28 Longbeards and 20 quarrellers, two gyrocopters, 1 each of cannon, grudgethrower, and organ gun, a BSB, a runesmith and a thane.

She forted up around her artillery, I forted up around mine and we both tried to flank with out flyers and fast cav (well, my fast cav and our flyers).

She focused most of her shooting on my phoenix and archers. I focused mine on her war machines and then quarrelers. Between the bolt throwers and reaver bow, I killed the by turn two. Then I killed the organ gun with more bolt throwers in turn three. Also in turn three, I started moving across the board, finished off the quarrelers with mass shooting, and dropped fiery convocation on the longbeards, killing about a third of them. On turn four I charged the longbeards with the swordmasters from the front, an eagle in the rear and the phoenix in the flank.

On five, she counter charged the phoenix with her hammerers, giving it a couple of wounds. I then counter-charged the hammerers with my spearmen and charged the thrower with the other eagle. On turn six, the pile of nasty finished off the longbeards and the eagle finished off the thrower. However the pile of nasty could not get the BSB or Runesmith, and the hammerers finished off the phoenix. That's how it ended. She had her hammerers and characters. I lost the reavers and the phoenix. I'd gotten 1500 and change and she got 335.

I realize that walking across the board was unneeded as the shooting exchange had left me up 600+ to 95. All of her shooting was gone by the end of turn three except the thrower, so the likelihood of me killing it with shooting in the next round or so was pretty high. She'd also misfired it on turn three, so it was taking turn four off., giving me a free round of shooting at it.

However, there were still three turns and over an hour left, so I went ahead and committed to combat because it seemed like more fun. Thinking back now, I could have expended better effort for the final VP, but I just now thought of that three days later. I was pretty sure I'd come out on top in combat, and win anyway, but perfectly willing to accept defeat if I'd gotten smacked for it.  It turned out to be a good thing, because Erin kept telling me all day and the next about how much fun she'd had and what a great game it had been. I missed out on one the bonus point, so it ended up 19-5.

Game two: Alan's Wood Elves
This was another pretty army, in fairly standard WE color scheme just very nicely executed.
He brought:
Lvl 4 Spellweaver w/ Metal, and the Sceptre os Stability
Lvl 2 spellsinger w/ Heavens on an elven steed, with a dispel scroll
Glade Captain BSB with the dragonhelm, and the Hail of Doom Arrow on an elven steed
10 glade guard
6 glade riders
6 glade riders
6 glade riders
6 glade riders
10 deepwood scouts
10 deepwood scouts
10 wardancers
8 Sisters of the thorn
5 wild riders
5 wild riders
6 waywatchers
6 waywatchers

He killed two bolt-throwers on turn one before I had even gone, I killed a number of small units, but he killed more of mine and stayed away from my big units. Because there was so much more movement in this game, I do not remember it as well as the first, other than he used his movement and shooting to pick me apart, killing all the bolt-throwers, the phoenix, and archers. He got most of the scenario objectives and I got none. Final score was 5-17.
Despite the fairly solid beating I took, this was a great game. Like Erin in the previous game, I had a great time losing.

Game three: Brian's Warriors of Chaos
This was a nasty list run by a good player who placed in the top three in both the 2013 and 2014 Bayou Battles for Best General. In addition, it was an awfully nice looking army with some very intricately kit-bashed models, specifically the daemon, which he said was made of bits from (I think) 12 different models. I recognized the head and arms of a Minotaur lord.

I don't know the WoC book well enough to know all that he brought, other than a block of 24 or so warriors with a caster in it, two chariots, a daemon prince, a nasty mounted character, three small units of hounds, a hell cannon-thing, and five of the big cavalry dudes. I managed to kill a chariot and some hounds with bolt-throwers in turn one and then they quit hitting. For the rest of the game, all bolt-thrower shots missed. I did manage to kill the chariots, the hounds, and two of the big cav dudes.

He had me tabled by turn four, except for the phoenix, which was fighting the cannon. both were down to a couple of wounds when the DP and cav hero showed up and finished off the phoenix in turn five.
I do not think the game turned on my bad shooting, but it did not help. I think he would have won anyway, I just may have had some models left by the end of the game if I could have weakened/killed some of his nasty units. I did get one objective by using more of the bonus scrolls than my opponent. Final score, 6-19

I finished day one with 30 points, one point shy of my 2013 total and 12 short of my 2012 total.

Game 4: Ryan's Dark Elves.
This was the only unpainted army I faced all weekend, but I could see where he was going with it, and I hope to see it when he's done. It should look really nice.

He brought a block of witches and the cauldron, a block of executioners, some cold one riders, two scout units, three fast cav units, and a general on a flying thing.
VPs didn't matter, only capturing the objectives.
Pit of Shades. That sums up the game. All of my tough units got pitted twice, and I managed to avoid his witches for most of the game. He used his fast cav and scouts to take out my war machine. I used fiery convocation to kill his executioners who were holding an objective. I lost my objective rying to make a last turn stab at getting his, which worked, but left me barely in the charge arc of the witches. At that point I conceded the game. He wanted to play it out, but I pointed out that he already held two of the three objectives, I had nothing left to take the objectives he held already, and my six swordmasters wouldn't hold out to the two cav units and flying general that were about to charge it.

I might have actually managed a bad game vote from him because he seemed pissy the entire game, and despite winning, argued the stupidity of the HE rulebook when he did not like how some magic items stacked.

I managed two objective points for holding my primary objective for at some point, so the final tally was 20-7. The funny bit, and part of why I cannot really complain is that of our three arguments during the game, two were based on each of us trying to give the other some kind of benefit.

Game 5: Chad's Brettonians
This was not the prettiest Brettonian army I've seen, but it was at least above average for the armies I saw at BB. He had two knight buses, one with a character, a lord on a hippogriff, three pegasus knights, two trebuchets, two units of peasant fast cavalry, a block of fifty spears, 25 halberdeers and a big block of archers with a naked level 4 heavens caster, and a grail knight with ten extra peasants.

My first two shots with the bolt throwers hit a knight bus, but failed to wound on a 2+ roll. my third missed, so I changed targets and used the repeating shots on a peasant cav unit, killing them. That panicked the peg knight, who ran off the board the next turn after failing two Ld9 tests.

Over the course of the game, he kept hitting my spearmen with the comet spell, I plinked at his cav and knights. He killed on BT with his trebs and took a wound off another. He got a two man cav charge against one of the BTs, but there were only two peasant riders left, and the crew killed them before they could attack. That left the archers and that BT facing down the remaining 6 knights and the lord on the hippogriff.

Between those two units, the lord and the hipp, died and the archers reformed narrow to receive the charge from the knights. The archers lost the first round of combat, but were stubborn due to ranks and held, won the next round. The knights fled, and the archers caught them.

On the other end of the board, the swordmasters charged and killed the grailknights over two rounds of combat. Comets killed a BT and half the spearmen. The remaining spearmen failed to charge the halberd, but the phoenix made the charge. The halbers failr the terror test and got run down by the pheonix, leaving him one inch in front of the archer block, who were in the back corner. They shot the phoenix the next round, failing to wound due to ward saves and few hits.  His big block of spearmen got dropped to 20 from 50 by fiery convocation while my spearmen failed to charge them. The sword-masters turned to receive the knight charge coming, and went narrow.

His archers failed their terror check against the phoenix, who chased them off the board. He got back just in time to join in on the finally successful charge against the peasant spearmen, who ran after losing combat and were run down.

As that went on, the seven man knight bus, hit the swordmasters, and lost three riders right off the bat and killing two sword masters in return. They ran from combat, but out-paced the swordmasters by an inch. On the ensuing charge, they died to a man, leaving only the character, who had a wound remaining.

A huge difference in the game was my MVP, his artillery die. Between two trebuchets, in six turns, he rolled six misfires, losing a turn on two of them and had one blow itself up on turn five. So out of eleven tries in shooting, over half were misfires and he lost two shots. Of the three shots that went off normally, he killed a BT and took a wound off another. He had a character with a wound left, and a trebuchet with two. Due to the scenario rules, I got half points for each of those. He killed the reavers and two and a half BTs, and half the spearmen and both eagles. My lvl 2 caster also lost a wound due to a miscast, so he got half for that. VPs ended at about 2250 to about 650

The final tally ended up 20-5 as I got all the bonus points. This was my most lopsided win, but that wasn't what made it my favorite game. Chad's attitude was infectious, and we had a great time agonizing over or celebrating every misfire, miscast, missed shot, crazy save, improbable hit, or crazy dice roll that screwed one of us and helped the other. It was also the only game that by the end of turn four I wasn't sure how it would turn out. Had one of his comets blown up at a better time and weakened my spearmen even more, or had his halberds, pegasus knights, and archers not failed leadership checks and been run down/off the board,  had he not misfired 6 times and blown up one of his own artillery pieces, or had I not rolled so well when shooting at his general, this game would have taken a very different turn.

Things to work on:
1) Paying better attention to how I lose. I seem to be good about knowing how I won, but not how I lost.
2) I need to add some more HTH punch to the list.
3) I need a plan for when shooting fails.
4) I need to start painting earlier.
5) I need to upgrade my painting skills.