Sparkle Party Deathmatch 3 - Fee-Fie-Fo-Fun!

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godswearhats
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Sparkle Party Deathmatch 3 - Fee-Fie-Fo-Fun!

Post by godswearhats »

Our quarterly one-day tournament was this Sunday. It was 2,500 points, but you could also bring bound monsters from Storm of Magic (among other things), and every army had to bring a Giant (which was not counted against the 2,500 points). The giant was immune to multiple wounds, heroic killing blow and a 3++ ward save. What follows is a fairly short set of battle reports, as I totally forgot to take any photos.

My list:

Level 4 Wizard; Lore of Life, Wand of Wych Elm, Moonstone of the Hidden Ways
Noble, BSB, HoDA with Asyendi's Bane
Noble, Great Eagle; great weapon; light armour; shield, Dragonhelm, Stone of Rebirth
Spellsinger, L2, Dispel Scroll

4x 10 Glade Guard, 2 with full command, 2 with std/mus
2x 8 Dryads
5 Wardancers
5 Wild Riders
2x Treemen
3x Great Eagle (two using scrolls of binding)

I was hoping to roll Call of the Hunt for Scenarios 1 and 2, which is why I took the Spellsinger. (I didn't)

Scenario 1: Battleline. Each deployment zone had 2 "sparkle rocks" in it, 12" in from each corner. You had to get your giant over to the opposing deployment zone, pick up a rock and back into your own deployment zone. 3 points for getting the rock back, 2 points if you still had both your rocks by end of game.

My opponent was playing Empire, although a fairly soft empire list, but lots of shooting. From memory:

L4 Wizard, Death, Pegasus (or some other flier - the model was a flying cat!)
L2 Wizard, Shadow
Witch Hunter
2 Master Engineers
1 Lord, 1 Hero - both knights

Great Cannon
2x Hellblaster Volleygun
10 Crossbowmen
2x 10 Handgunners
1x 10 Huntsmen
2x 5 Pistoliers
15 or so Inner Circle Knights
1x Steam Tank

A river ran from his side to my side in the middle of the board, with a bridge dead center. My opponent had a watchtower to my left in his deployment zone, in which he deployed his cannon. One Hellblaster went either side of the river, each with some handgunners to protect them, and engineer with them. The flying Wizard went behind the tower, and the Shadow Wizard went in the handgunners near the tower, with the Witch Hunter in the other unit of handgunners.

Stuff of note that happened:

Bottom of Turn 1, after taking two wounds from Pistolier shooting, my Eagle Noble charged the enemy scout unit and broke them, causing them to flee far enough to pop out the other side of the tower and through the Wizard, who also fled (right off the board). The Noble was then exposed to a charge from the Steam Tank but had earned his points by then. The steam tank chewed up the units I had on the left flank - Dryads and War Dancers. Thankfully it didn't do much else.

Two treemen protected my sparkle rock and beat the crap out of his giant. Meanwhile, my giant was able to trundle down the same flank and nab the sparkle rock to bring it home.

I used the Moonstone to bring a unit of Glade Guard up close to one remaining Hellblaster, having shot the other off. It had one wound left on it and I moved out of the forest to get short range. In the magic phase, I miscast Throne of Vines and rolled a 1 to avoid the miscast, wiping out half the unit of Glade Guard. Failed to roll any 6s to wound the Hellblaster, leaving my general entirely exposed to the full volley.

His knights did next to nothing due to being redirected, right up until the last turn when he rolled 11 dice for magic, and cast both Miasma and Mindrazor in a combat against one Treeman (the other failed to charge), wiping him out.

Overall, it was a close game, 9-11 loss to me, but technically a 14-11 win for the scenario points.


Scenario 2: Battle for the Pass, but your giant (carrying the sparkle stone) has to get from one end of the table to the other, with 1 VP awarded for every 12" completed.

I was up against Bretonnians. His army was, from memory:

Fey Enchantress
2 L1 Damosels on Lore of Life, one with the Chalice of Power Dice
10ish Knights of the Realm
12ish Knights Errant
5 Knights Errant
5 Knights Errant
10 Grail Knights
1 Trebuchet

This game sucked for me. Dealing with so much armor and Knights Errant being immune to psych on the charge were both hard. Throw in the Fey Enchantress shutting down the magic phase (she gets an extra dice in every magic phase, and the chalice gives an extra dice on a 2+ so I was never ahead in dice) and it was a crappy match-up. Added to this, my opponent had some poor gaming habits which bordered on cheating - he would roll his saves without indicating what was needed on the rolls and then say "it's good" or "made it" and scoop up the dice.

Anyway ... some highlights and lowlights.

Bottom of Turn 1 saw his Pegasus Knights flee from a Terror-causing Treeman through his big Errant bus and both units flee to the back edge of the board. A Treeman was able to grind it out vs the Grail Knights for about 4 turns, before eventually fleeing due to static combat res. I think there were only 3 Grail Knights left in that unit at the end of the game.

I wiped out the small units of Errant Knights with Dryads, although again a very grindy combat. Our giants got into a pillow fight with each other, which meant I only got 3 scenario points and he got 2. Dwellers Below took off my BSB and then in a subsequent phase took off my general. I failed to roll Call of the Hunt which might have helped my Giant get down the field (I got Tree Singing and Fury of the Forest, which were both effectively useless).

We got told dice down just as I was about to wipe out his last unit of Errant Knights with a Damsel in it (7 Dryads vs 1 champ and 1 Damsel), which was disappointing. The end result was 14-6, or 16-9 after scenario points, leaving me on 23 points going into the final round (which was about middle of the pack).

I picked up 34 points in the painting, plus 2 players choice voices (for a total of 36) which was enough to net me 2nd best painted overall. You'll see some of the units I painted once popisdead's tournament is over. The paint voting took place between scenario 2 and 3, which is why I mention it.

Scenario 3: Blood and Glory, with a twist. 3 VPs for breaking fortitude, with an extra 2 VPs for being the first to break your opponent's. Also, we had the opportunity to get a ridiculously overpowered banner (it had three randomly generated special abilities) or give our giant Flying and Impact Hits (D6+1), although you automatically fell over if you charged. I took the flying :-)

My opponent was playing High Elves, and was a relative beginner. Her list was:

Alarielle
Handmaiden
L2 Wizard of Fire on a Sun Dragon
Flamespyre Phoenix
24 Lothern Seaguard
2x 8 Silver Helms
5 Ellyrian Reavers
Lothern Skycutter
21 Sisters of Avelorn

She pushed her army cautiously forward, but charged her Dragon into my vanguarded Wild Riders in the first turn. I think she was hoping to use her breath weapon against another unit, but the Wild Riders killed the character on top and only lost 1 guy to the Dragon. Next turn I charged her Phoenix with my Giant (did enough impact hits to win combat, break it and then stand up), and got Throne of Vines + Shield of Thorns on my Wild Riders, doing a couple of wounds to the Dragon before it ate two more Wild Riders.

I held up her chariot with my Eagles, the Treemen fended off a flank attack from Silver Helms and her Giant. The Shield of Thorns didn't get dispelled and she flank charged the Wild Riders with Ellyrian Reavers - so they lost three guys and the Dragon took another wound to the Shield. Combat saw the Dragon die to Wild Riders, and one Wild Rider died to the Reavers, leaving one alive who broke and ran from the flank charge - he was overrun, but the Reavers were now in the "death arc" of my Glade Guard and promptly evaporated next turn.

Dwellers wrecked half of Alarielle's Sisters, and eventually I got my Eagle Noble and Dryads into the unit to finish them up. Meanwhile, one Treeman died to the Giant, but the other wiped out the Silver Helms with help from the second Dryad unit. My giant, after the Phoenix fled off the board, charged her Seaguard (causing them to flee in Terror) and redirected into her second unit of Silver Helms. After he wiped them out, he overran, just missing the Seaguard (who had fled again due to my Great Eagle charging them), but wiping them out in the subsequent turn.

When we finished up it was 20-0 victory for me, with 5 points for both breaking her fortitude and doing it first. This put me on 48 battle points, which was enough to be joint 4th for Best General. #1, #2 and the other #4 didn't have painted armies, so with my painting points and sports scores I ended up taking home Best Overall.

Thanks for reading!
~gwh
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FriedTaterExplosion
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Re: Sparkle Party Deathmatch 3 - Fee-Fie-Fo-Fun!

Post by FriedTaterExplosion »

Congrats. Good read and good showing.
Drstrangelove
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Re: Sparkle Party Deathmatch 3 - Fee-Fie-Fo-Fun!

Post by Drstrangelove »

Errant and Grail heavy Brets are a tough match up: all that ItP, all those magical attacks.
Sounds like a really fun tournament. I've been using a giant in my OnG lists of late (because I like losing, apparently) and it has been very fun (except when he gets one-shotted at top of turn 1). Always manages to do something hilarious.
So to see a tournament mandate a giant per army is awesome!
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Mollesvinet
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Re: Sparkle Party Deathmatch 3 - Fee-Fie-Fo-Fun!

Post by Mollesvinet »

Good job. Sounds like a very fun tournament, I really like the scenarios (especially the first 2).
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