Day 2 @ Panzerscrek!

So after a less than satisfactory Day 1 I was sitting on 32 points in the middle of the pack.

Rd 4 - Charlie, Dark Elve's - pure witch elve list with no magic.20-0

So Charlie had to be one of the nicest guys at the event and his army theme and its look was amazing, he got my vote for best painted and sports.We were playing battleline, I deployed between a forest and building with 1 unit of Demi's centre right in front of 1 unit of Halberdiers and the second extremely left looping rd the forest. T1 I pushed my Demi's and mages unit forwards. Magic and shooting I began to feel mean....  1 shoot’ed his Mantacore and rider, second cannon tried for the Cauldron but was warded and I killed about 20 Witch Elves rolling Dble 6's for magic, its safe to say Double Banishment, Shim's burning Gaze and bound Fireball did its job on the largest unit of elves reducing it well below 1/2 strength. T2 saw me charge with the demi's into Charlie’s harpies which then overran into a small unit of witch elves, the centre unit then charged a 20 man Witch elve unit which ultimately fled allowing me an overrun into Charlie’s depleted central unit of witch elves. The first charge was a total mistake as Charlie failed to move his Crones unit up 2 more inches suffling them only 3, then mean he left just enough space for me to get past his Crones unit and take me totally out of her units counter charge arch. T2 shooting and magic took a tool on Charlie’s army; I got the Cauldron of Blood and killed about 14 Executioners. In the end I tabled Charlie on T4 for the lose of an archer detachment, that magic, artillery and demigryph's did their job and I was lucky enough to keep my core out of combat as they would have been torn to pieces had a witch elve unit reached them.

Rd 5 - Caleb and his WoC monstrosity. 13-7 lose.

This was overall my favourite game of the weekend and one of the bloodiest battles on both sides, for the majority of the match I was ahead by about 400-500 points until t4 when a single chariot charged my Arch Lector and his Alter which had been protecting my Halberdiers flank. At that stage the Halberdiers where locked in a prolonged combat with a small unit of Nurgle Chaos Knights (4 left of 7) since T2. Its safe to say that we both failed to wound each other however I found myself down by 1 (given charge) against the chariot needing 9's re-rollable to stand, of course I rolled 12 then 10 and fled off the table. While this was extremely unlucky it turned the game from a certain win to a lose as the chariot reformed then hit my flank doing 7 impact hits wounding 6 of them. this mean I lost combat by 6 rather than being up by 2 against the Knights. I needed re-rollable 8's to stand and of course in true fashion I rolled high and was promptly cut down by the Chariot while the Knights reformed.... the lose of my Arch Lector also put me on tilt a little and I forgot to move my 2nd Halberdier unit out of the building it was occupying the following turn, this provided to be very relevant as they ended up breaking Caleb’s generals unit in the first round of combat but failed to catch it rolling 4" while the Warrior unit ran 10 and eventually reformed, had I engaged the unit a turn earlier I would have wiped it out rather than leaving it rallied on 5 models on t6, OOPS!
While my tactics had only lost to dice rolls my opponent Caleb was a great sport and did nothing wrong the entire match, he got a little lucky in a couple of spots and I a touch unlucky but overall a very very enjoyable game!

Rd 6 - Peter Dunn, DoC 12-8, Meeting Engagement
At the start of the round I'm fighting for 3rd place as Peter Dunn and Peter Williamson are locked for 1st and 2nd unless I can get a 20-0 win and Pete gets less than 5 points but of course I'm pair up against Pete and his filthy Tzeentch Deamons of Chaos list. For those of you who don't know how Pete's list works, it has 5 levels of Tzeentch magic trying to roll Gateway, this is broken on a Horror unit as they can throw 6 dice every turn at gateway with impunity as their ability allows wounds caused to be added to the unit before any miscast results on dble 6's is applied.. and to top it off they still get their wards! to add some additional punch Pete also has a Lord of Change with the Lore of Metal and Wand of Whimsy (great...) backed up with 6 screamers and 6 beats of nurgle and the usual skullcannon...

So I'm stuck with a hard decision the table we're on has multiple buildings (both down the middle of the table on the angle, 2 hills, a largest forest and the biggest march I've seen on a warhammer table and to top things off we're playing meeting engagement. I picked the left side of the table positioning my army between the 2 hills, not ideal but I felt it was the right choice. I was initially going to take the otherside but I felt that the forest and the march in conjunction with the buildings would majorily limited the movement of my army and I needed to be reasonably offensive as I could not sit back and try to cannon him of the table given LoS issues thanks to terrain... plus metal magic and gateway would just rip my demi's to pieces... I roll to deploy and of course my lvl4 mage of Light was off the table along with a large unit of Halberdiers...Pete starts with 1 single beast and small unit of horrors off. his deployment is highlighted by hiding the greater deamon and skull crusher behind a building very much out LoS, knowing this however I had positioned my metal mage with a unit of archers so they could move up to a building and cast Searing Doom (LoC rolled 2+ AS) while being unchargable that turn.

T1 sees me move my Demigyphs up the flanks marginally, bring on my reserves (lvl4 was out of range of anything relevant), magic I cast Searing doom on 5 dice against the LoC, I make a mistake and don’t specify the 2D6 version and end up with 1d6 rolling 2 wounds, 1 being saved by its ward... oops.. Shooting and the cannons take off 3 Screamers and the volley gun does 3 wounds on a horror unit. Pete prodictably moves up his units conservatively with the 2 single beasts moving to divert the demi's, Magic was uneventful, shooting sees the Skullcannon misfire and kill itself (YES! "fist pump") ;).
T2 I throw my Demigryph's into a longish charge against the keeper and move the 2nd unit to flank the screamers on my left. Magic i roll poorly and was unable to cast anything relevant. Shooting I take off another screamer and kill a couple more horrors. T2 is the tuning point of the game for Pete's magic he rolls dble 1's this result in his beast on the right dying allowing my Demi's to get round behind his line. over the next few turns we trade magic and combat, I get Pete's LoC in the end but again fail to destroy over 500 points of Daemons as the Demi's fluff their rolls on our last turn (t5)... Great game I just wish I was able to steal a couple more points from Pete but it was not to be!
In the end I was tied for 3rd with Mike on battle points, ultimately though I dropped to 7th after painting and sports scores were added... painting being the only issue...as i got full sports points.
Ah well a great weekend had by all and the first proper outing for my empire which I thoroughly enjoyed! I officially love having real cannons in a list backed up by good monstrous cavalary and magic… being on the receiving end of cannons was horrid! Last night I ordered 4 boxes of Demigryphs so the Skaven may take a well deserved rest soon! J