Last weekend i attended the Gauntlet tourney in Perth, west australia. it is great fun, especially as it is held in the italian club and they have awesome food and have a licence to serve alcohol. theres something to be said for a beer in one hand, a proscuito roll in the other and playing nerd games! outstanding!

but any way i digress. the breakdown is generalmanship is 50% comp is 20% painting 10 sportsmanship is 20. its a reaonable spread and ensures friendly non power lists.

i took

vampire lord, level 3
dread lance, crown of stupidity
infinite hatred, red fury, avatar of death

zombie dragon

vampire
bsb
infinite hatred, dread knight

vampire
sword +1 str, book arkhan
inf hatred, dread knight

2x corpse carts, -1 casters

2x 20 ghouls, ghast

21 zombies

5 dire wolves

6 black knights, barding
full command, banner of barrows

6 black knights, barding
full command, banner of hatred

i found out that i got 31 out of 36 for comp which was the 3rd best! thats amazing as normally i get smashed for comp! yay!

Game 1
no scenario vs khorne daemons

blood thirster
a couple of heralds i think? 1 was a bsb with standard of sundering
3 x 20 ish blood letters
4 blood crushers
2 x 5 khorne dogs

first off he let me know that my casting was at -2. i let him know that i generally just add to units with the rare raise to re direct units. he he he.

He was very timid with the thirster as he knew that a tooled up combat lord on a dragon is not something to be taken lightly. thus he only engaged a unit of ghouls the whole game with it. the ghouls held him for 3 turns due to challenges and re raises.

he also got a taste of zombie love as i raised 5 zombies on his blood crushers flank. he didnt dispell it. i was able to danse them into the flank with the book. he thought he would get a free 50 points for them. 4 raises (2 not dispelled) later, the zombies were up to 18. he he he. they would not move anywhere the rest of the game. the zombies also managed to kill 1 as well. nice!

red fury was also a surprise to him and combined with the dreadlance was evil. i killed on average 7 daemons every turn. not bad since they have a 5+ ward save.

In the end, i won 16 to 4 as i had 3 standards, bsb, 2 table quarters and his force bar the crushers and the thirster.

Game 2
messengers vs vampire counts

3 messengers each worth 150 points if they get off the board edge to you or 100 points to the enemy if they are killed.

vampire lord, not sure what he had
vampire not sure
wight lord bsb, warbanner
necro, danse, not sure

4 units of 20 skellies
2 units of 20 zombies
20 wights banner of hatred
vargulf i think

i rated this list as soft and gave it the best comp score.

the game ended with a rear charge on his wights from my dragon lord. killed 13 before other CR crumble etc.

i won 20-0. as i had every corner, messenger off, got his messengers, standards, bsb general. everything.

game 3.
loot vs high elves

he had
lord on a dragon
2 casters
2x gw units
2x spear units
2 heavy cav i think
some archers?

a single loot counter was placed in the centre of the board and was worth 250 points.

i didnt roll any offensive spells so was worried about ASF str 5 elves vs my poor ghouls. The dragon cleaned up my cav when i thought they were hidden but some were exposed. ah damn... his dragon and mine were too worried to engage each other and spent most of the time evading each other with the occasional unit munch. i did a really good combo by using the corpse cart ASF on the dragon lord. then he saw what red fury can do. 12 dead elves later. and i capped the loot on the last turn. not enough to help though.

his banner of +d3 pow dice was really unlucky as he rolled a 1 every time!

maybe i should have tried harder to engage his lord for the big win, but got a loss of 14 to 6.

Day 2 - ranked now vs similar points oppos.
Game 4
Kill the general vs dogs of war
general was worth 250 extra points
this battle was a bit of a mixup as there were 14 points difference in our generalship scores.

lord, mounted, sword +1 str, not sure what else
paymaster
2 casters with 4 SCROLLS!

30 or 40? pikemen there were lots!
2 heavy cav
2 fast cav
20 halfling archers
10 pistoliers
2 x10 frenzied gw dudes
cannon

This list was an odd one. i was worried about the cannon as there was very little cover on the table. he went first and shot my dragon lord with the cannon. hit the lord. wounded. failed 4+ ward save. i saw the dice roll a 5 for wounds!! then it edged over onto a 1...thank god!! the game was almost over before it began!!

i raised zombies in front of the cannon to charge next turn. The dragon hopped close to the archers that were on the flank of the cannon and van helsed into combat. unfortunately they fled and i had to follow them up and now exposed to cannon fire!! damn! luckily the cannon misfired.

i didnt want to charge the pikemen in the front so hopped the dragon into the rear to flame 5 of them to death. i knew that next turn they would spin around, but his heavy cav were in a bad position next turn and i would evaporate them or they would flee into a solid wall and die. if only i dont fail my stupidity and charge the pike men. from the front. but hey whats the chance of that happening?!

well after failing stupidity and charging the pikemen, the dragon lost 3 wounds plus 1 wound from CR. i did manage to kill a few off tho. i hoped next turn would be better. it was and i was able to run them down.

how ever whist i was doing that, his lord in the light cav was running rampant thru my lines. he killed a BK unit, and a ghoul unit! i was very impressed at the effect of fast cav and a fighty general.

but you can only hide for so long vs a dragon and i managed to kill most of his guys off. i got a 16 to 4 win due to corners, kills etc. didnt get the general tho. at first i thought that 4 scrolls was stupid, but by god it stopped my serious casting dead.

game 5
messengers vs daemons
tzeentch lord on a dragon not sure what
2 heralds?
khorne chariot with hero in it
2 x khorne h cav
3 x 12 marauders
4 man eaters with great weapons
2 x light cav

i have never faced a balanced list like this before and wasnt sure how to zap it. i tried to terror the marauders away and see how that went. as it was, the maruders were panicked by bthe dragon. they fled thru the man eaters who then fled through the light cav next to them who then fled in turn. awesome! the man eaters left the battle 2 turns later, so did the light cav.

a funny and totally unforseen event was when his dragon lord charged my black knights with the non bsb vampire in it. the vampire was killed, but i scored 2 killing blows on the lord. the dragon failed its leadership test and then rolled on the unridden mount table. it became un breakable...oh damn. next turn it killed the 6 black knights. leaving my right flank open for the khorne knights to flood through.

my messenger killed his messenger but was killed in turn by his light cav.

it was a fun game and i got a 14 to 6 loss.

Game 6
no scenario vs vampires

lord, flying, not sure what else but was magic heavy
wight bsb in wights with regen banner
vamp not sure what
necro on a corpse cart

2x12 ghouls
corpse cart, -1 cast
2x 15 skellies with spears
6 black knights with barding
vargulf
5 wraith

the last time i played this guy, i was beaten 3500 points to 0. yep thats right 0. i thought oh great what a way to end the tourney. slapped silly. he prefers to play closed book and thats fine by me.

my plan was to use my magic defence to limit his invokes and bog him down with zombies.

the game didnt start well when his BKs charged my bks and 2 thralls first turn. no barding eh? damn. but i survived with only 1 loss. i was lucky. next turn i rushed my zombies forwards to assist the BKs. if only they could shuffle there in time!

he rushed a vargulf and the wraiths into the BKs flank. oh oh. but luckily the only thing they could hit was the +1 str thrall and that meant 3 wounds on the wraiths. i was able to charge the wraith in the rear. this swung the combat in my favour as i now had +3 ranks, rear, outnumber. the addidtion of the zombies popped all his units.

Losing all his flank heavy hitters to zombies wrong footed him and allowed my forces to run amok. i put off engaging the wights with my lord as i could be unlucky and be KB. remember they have regen. however i noticed that his flying lord was exposed to a charge from the dragon. he popped (or exploded) with massive CR against him.

i won with 20-0. not a 3500 win but i was happy. it was a good way to end the tourney.

out of 34 i came second for generalmanship, 3rd for comp, 4th for sports, 24th for painting and 3rd overall. it got me a gig at the next west australian masters invite tourney that i was hoping for.

overall points i came away with:

raising zombies for redirection and tar pitting can be a game winner.
dragons require patience to use
even khone CC monsters can be stuck with enough zombies
a 40 point dog unit is good for claiming a 100 point corner.
a fast cav unit can do great things with a fighty hero in there
cannon can be deadly to VC
Corpse carts are fantastic

cheers

chris

Thanks for the report, and congrats to you fine placing! Food and beer is indeed the best thing that can happen to a WFB tournament.

Sounds a bit odd that your comp comes as a surprise, don't you have comp charts so you can check how your list scores in the tournament, before you decide whether to participate or not?

You said he like to play closed lists, but barding is mundane equipment and has to be revealed at deployment.

Game 5, how can you have a lord on a dragon in a Daemon list? Looks more like he played a chaos warrior list.

When you took a dragon to a tournament, weren't you afraid that you'd be spammed with Siren Songs?

Thanks NIB. no we dont have comp charts and it is something that i have pushed for. i have always felt that hidden comp rules are unfair. i will play to any guidelines and have found peoples idea of fair is quite different.

i had just assumed that he had barding. more fool me. if i had asked, he would have told me.

oops yes they were mortals. i see now that i wrote daemons.

i was absolutley terrified about siren song. but there wasnt a single KOS to be seen. i believe that due to the large comp part, most slaani lists were left at home. fine by me... my usual way to avoid the siren is to:

1. have my dragon face away from the keeper or at least have forest etc so it cant be seen.
2. raise zombies to then assault it in the arc that i will be in so that i cant charge it.
3. add more zombies to try and bog it down.
4. keep the lord away from the KOS.

this has worked for the one time that i have tried it.

Ok. Any Slaanesh Herald can have Siren Song. I usually face it in a min-sized unit of Daemonettes, that have Stubborn on the first break test. Or they are within 12" of the Khorne BSB with the stubborn banner. And a Bloodthirster in the same army.

But enough of my woes.