As many of you know this past weekend was Fantasy 'Ard Boys...a day for no holds barred battles. Of course for people like me it's an excuse to take some serious punishment. I don't have a functioning 3000 point army. I borrowed my friends WoC army because my VC's blow right now and I don't feel like buying a new vampire army and my Empire is about 16 models strong at the moment. I got 0 points. That's right ZERO! There were only a few people that showed up so I hoped I'd at least place but it was not to be.
My list consisted of 2 squads of 20 warriors of Khorne with shields, full command and 2 hand weapons, 20 chosen with the same and the frenzy banner. 5 knights with full command, a Khorne lord on juggernaught, a BSB, a Khorne hero, a Sorceror Lord with lore of Death and a Sorceror of Nurgle with a scroll and lore of Nurgle. 70 models total...way too few as I would learn...
First game was against the same friend's Lizardmen (the army that I would have had if I hadn't borrowed it a few weeks ago and destroyed his chaos with it causing him to change his mind.) I was outnumbered significantly and rolled one unit of Warriors and my Chosen into reserve...half my army. I had my BSB, 2 sorcerors, and a Hero in a squad of warriors and my Lord on juggernought with a squad of knights. I faced two stegadons with characters, a big squad of Temple guard with a slann, some warriors and smaller lizards that ended up doing nothing since I was in bad shape when they
First game was against the same friend's Lizardmen (the army that I would have had if I hadn't borrowed it a few weeks ago and destroyed his chaos with it causing him to change his mind.) I was outnumbered significantly and rolled one unit of Warriors and my Chosen into reserve...half my army. I had my BSB, 2 sorcerors, and a Hero in a squad of warriors and my Lord on juggernought with a squad of knights. I faced two stegadons with characters, a big squad of Temple guard with a slann, some warriors and smaller lizards that ended up doing nothing since I was in bad shape when they
came in and some chameleons with blowpipes. I got a first turn charge, hoping to do some real damage with my unit full of characters, but ended up doing very little damage thanks to poor dice rolls. The knights and Lord hit both Stegadons to deny him impact hits and took the next two turns killing both characters in challenges before the beasts offed them. Turn two my Warriors lost combat...rolled garbage for leadership...twice...though I was stubborn and ended up getting overrun by 1". By then the Chosen and other Warriros had nothing to do but die horribly. Tabled turn 4.
Second game was against the guy that shows up to 40k tournaments with an ultra-cheesey IG list. NO ONE likes this kid. Not just because he plays the "easy button" armies...he had demons...but he's just unpleasant to play with. He has no real grasp on the rules, has a tendency to pick up dice rolls pretty fast and is frankly annoying. His solution whenever we hit a rules snag was to just shout out the question to no one in particular despite having his rulebook right in front of him. He had 2 big blocks of flamers, fateweaver, skulltaker in a big block of plaguebearers and some other stuff that didn't really end up doing much. I decided to be a bit more defensive since the Flamers are deadly to my Warriors...forgetting if I'm not in combat I'm not doing anything. I managed to get off purple sun twice, but rolled a misfire the second time. The first ended up killing 22 plaguebearers...about the only damage I did all game. Tabled turn 5.
Third game I faced a friend i had not played in 2 years so that made it cool. He had a frightening Ogres list. He had his general, bsb, at least 2 other characters and a caster, 2 scraplaunchers, 3 blocks of knoblars, 3 ogres of some sort I don't know...they died before doing anything so they were just bodybags, and a HUGE block of bulls...5 full ranks in horde formation. We both had everything at the start of the fight. nothing really happened turn one...turn two I got a charge off with one unit of warriors and my Lord/knights devoured the smallest knoblars unit. I had to challenge and killed one character. the combat was a push. Next turn I readied to charge my cavalry into the 3 Ogres when...lightning struck. I lost a few warriors...one chosen and ALL MY KNIGHTS...plus a wound on the Lord. One scraplauncher was struck to death and I assaulted the second. The Chosen got in it with the big block...another challenge and another dead character of his plus several dead ogres. He lost the combat but held thanks to his BSB. We rolled the boosts to the general. Yay WS10 Lord with 8 attacks. Next round the lord ate the Ogres and geared up for the Knoblars. The combat in the middle continued...he whittled me down but I returned the favor. I was about to get the Lord into the knoblars when lightning struck AGAIN! That was the death of the lord...which probably cost me the game. If he got into the big squad, he'd have been aboe to turn the tide and by this point he'd lost his BSB in a challenge. Tabled turn 5.
Second game was against the guy that shows up to 40k tournaments with an ultra-cheesey IG list. NO ONE likes this kid. Not just because he plays the "easy button" armies...he had demons...but he's just unpleasant to play with. He has no real grasp on the rules, has a tendency to pick up dice rolls pretty fast and is frankly annoying. His solution whenever we hit a rules snag was to just shout out the question to no one in particular despite having his rulebook right in front of him. He had 2 big blocks of flamers, fateweaver, skulltaker in a big block of plaguebearers and some other stuff that didn't really end up doing much. I decided to be a bit more defensive since the Flamers are deadly to my Warriors...forgetting if I'm not in combat I'm not doing anything. I managed to get off purple sun twice, but rolled a misfire the second time. The first ended up killing 22 plaguebearers...about the only damage I did all game. Tabled turn 5.
Third game I faced a friend i had not played in 2 years so that made it cool. He had a frightening Ogres list. He had his general, bsb, at least 2 other characters and a caster, 2 scraplaunchers, 3 blocks of knoblars, 3 ogres of some sort I don't know...they died before doing anything so they were just bodybags, and a HUGE block of bulls...5 full ranks in horde formation. We both had everything at the start of the fight. nothing really happened turn one...turn two I got a charge off with one unit of warriors and my Lord/knights devoured the smallest knoblars unit. I had to challenge and killed one character. the combat was a push. Next turn I readied to charge my cavalry into the 3 Ogres when...lightning struck. I lost a few warriors...one chosen and ALL MY KNIGHTS...plus a wound on the Lord. One scraplauncher was struck to death and I assaulted the second. The Chosen got in it with the big block...another challenge and another dead character of his plus several dead ogres. He lost the combat but held thanks to his BSB. We rolled the boosts to the general. Yay WS10 Lord with 8 attacks. Next round the lord ate the Ogres and geared up for the Knoblars. The combat in the middle continued...he whittled me down but I returned the favor. I was about to get the Lord into the knoblars when lightning struck AGAIN! That was the death of the lord...which probably cost me the game. If he got into the big squad, he'd have been aboe to turn the tide and by this point he'd lost his BSB in a challenge. Tabled turn 5.
So what did we learn from this exercise in futility? 1. I'm not likely to waste a day on 'Ard Boys again after this and last year's 40k tournament. 2. I need to run an army I'm familar with. 3. I need to play more fantasy. Having only 4 units in the army really hurt me stratigically. It was too easy to out-maneuver me. I still like Warriors but they're not as good in practice as they are on paper. I'm using these lessons for the WoC army that I do have planned for sometime in the future. I'd already decided on Tzeentch, but after this I'm sold...Warriors are way too expensive to not have shields and do as much as possible to keep them alive. I also plan a horde of Marauders and 2 War Alters. WA's with MoT are VERY durable, give my units a boost and are decent monsters in CC. Oh well...back to my Empire army.
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