Warhammer Fantasy Tournament at GS

Tau4eva's 2500 point Dark Elves "The Crimson Hydra Clan"

I played in my first ever Warhammer Fantasy tournament this past weekend at Gamer's Sanctuary. There was a good turnout with 10 players. I still am very new to WHFB, and just started really building my up my army this year. I thought there would be a surge of new players wanting to play the latest edition of the game, but it has been hard to find other newbies like me. There's a small group of players at GS, but everyone there has played previous editions.

I was not sure what to expect at a Fantasy tournament. I went in with the expectations of learning a lot by losing to experienced players. Much to my surprise, I had some success and actually ended up with two wins and one loss. More importantly, I had a lot of fun! A group of veteran players came up, including the famous (infamous?) Rhellion. I have followed Rhellion's blog and know how good a Fantasy tournament player he is.

Game 1 : Dark Elves versus Tomb Kings

Dawn Battle (Random setup Pitched Battle)

Victory Points

My first game was against a Tomb Kings player who car pooled up with Rhellion. He told me he was a prior Dark Elves player, so he knew my army better than me. This was my second game ever against Tomb Kings, so I was at least somewhat familiar with them. He won the roll to go first.

I was fortunate in the setup that I rolled the option to place many of my units, where he was forced into some poor match ups. I tried to hang back and shoot/cast spells and get ready for a counter charge. However, my opponent had good charge rolls and next thing I knew a big unit of chariots hit my lines hitting two units which included my sorceress and dread lord general. I had some bad rolling and my sorceress and her unit of spear men fled off the board, failing to rally!

I was having some success on the right flank where my witch elves poisoned to death his giant sphinx monster. I got really lucky this game with some good late turn dice rolling. My dread lord held up his chariot unit the whole game, while I was able to maneuver and pick my battles with the rest of my army. My opponent was a great player and a good sport. I figured I had beginner's luck and was ready for a beat down in the next round.

Game 2 : Dark Elves versus Ogre Kingdoms

Pitched Battle

Victory Points

I was paired up with a local player Dennis and his new Ogre Kingdom army. I have played against Dennis in 40k and WM, but this was the first time we have faced each other in WHFB. So I noticed his ogre army was low in model count compared to my dark elves, so figured they would be tough to kill. What I wasn't expecting was how fast Ogres were. The big guys take long strides and Dennis was able to get several charges off against me.

I took the first few hits and setup counter charges the best I could. This was a bloody battle! My heroes this game was definitely my dread lord and the hydras. We ended the game on turn six, I had my sorceress left with a small group of spear men, and two crossbowmen units. Dennis had one wounded cannon left on the board and I barely won victory points thanks to keeping my high point sorceress alive. It was a fun game and could have gone either way down to the last turn.

Game 3 : Dark Elves versus Skaven

Pitched Battle

Victory Points

So with my two wins, I went to the top table to face Rhellion and his Skaven. Based on how he handily won his first two games, I wondered if I was going to get rolled. I had played against Skaven once before, and it went poorly for my Dark Elves. Anyway, I won the roll to go first and positioned my army for turn two charges. On his turn, he got two spells off that really hammered my army.

The first spell caused a plague on the unit hit where each model had to take a toughness test to survive. After that was resolved, the spell had a chance to jump to another unit and it did. Two more units where hit and next thing I knew, one spell crippled three units to below 50 percent. His next spell turned my dread lord general into a rat (LOL). So I was pretty demoralized, but on my next turn my hydras charged forward. We had a big melee battle in the center.

Fortunately, I had some hex and buffing spells that turned the battles in my favour. Next thing I knew, I had a small comeback going and his units started dropping like flies, er rats. I think I had a chance towards the end, even after the first turn beating I took. I definitely took some pride in doing the most damage to his army that day. In the end, the loss dropped me to fourth place out of the ten players. Not bad for my first tournament considering how little I have played. Now for the hard part, getting my stuff painted for the next one!