Fantasia Fanatic - October 06

[N.I.B.]

So it was time for Fantasia Fanatic autumn -06. Me and 4 club mates took the 1,5 hour trip by car and checked in early Saturday.

Apparently only 46 players would attend this time, a drop of 28 in 12 months. There were some thirtyfive 40K’rs there too for a total of 80 participants. We would be using 7th ed rules, apart from that no double rare choices at 100 points or more, and no Steam Tank.

As usual it was swiss system, and we would get 5 games, whereof 2 pitched, 2 pitched with special features (BRB pg 100) and 1 take and hold with 2 objectives. Points would go to winning games, (sharing 20 points every game), quiz, army looks (WYSIWYG, converting, painting, basing, display trays etc), and, well, that’s pretty much it. Sportmanship would not count for tournament points, instead it was a separate price.

For this tournament I took the Death Lord. Some of you may have seen it on the army list section, but here is the latest version:

The Death Lord

Necrarch Vampire Lord lvl 3 (4) Using Lore of Death in every game
Nehekara's Noble Blood
Master of the Black Arts
Unholy Cynosure
Forbidden Lore

Necromancer lvl 2
Rod of Flaming Death

Necromancer lvl 2
Book of Arkhan
Dispel Scroll

5 Dire Wolves
5 Dire Wolves
5 Ghouls
5 Ghouls

24 Skeleton Warriors light armour, full command (Death Lord here)
25 Zombies with standard and musician
25 Zombies with standard
15 Zombies (necro bunker)

10 Black Knights with barding and full command
Banner of the Barrows

2 Spirit Hosts
5 Fell Bats

1 Banshee

Casting Pool: 10
Dispel Pool: 6
Models in Army: 130

Total Army Cost: 2250

Basically the only change from the old version is that I took another unit of Wolves instead of Ghouls. In 7th ed, Ghouls aren’t all that as they can be march blocked and it’s hard to divert stuff with them, although their ability to flee is useful. I didn’t take notes or anything, so I won’t be making any turn by turn report, only the main flow and highlights of the battles.


Game 1

Pitched battle

In my first game I was drawn against Edvin Steen, a likeable young fellow with High Elves. As this was my first game ever against High Elves I was really glad, always nice with something new.

For some reason I can’t remember much about this game, maybe due to it’s one sided nature, and it’s blending in with my next game. I managed to roll Drain Life in all 5 games by the way. Pretty likely when having 5 spells =).

Anyway I deployed as I always do with open center boards – Skellies with lord in my middle flanked by Zombie blocks and necro bunker behind Skellies. The necros are placed as 2nd and 4rth model in the unit to avoid hurting each other in the case of violent miscasts. And they can’t be attacked from the flanks either. There are usually only Miners to fear, as long as the Skellies are intact. In fact I’ve found that with this list I play so defensively that the Skellies are almost never charged into combat. With a combat character it’s harder to keep the bunker safe, as you usually end up Vanhelsing protecting blocks around the battlefield to get into combat.

Outside the Zombie blocks I have Hosts, on the other side Black Knights. Usually I have Ghoul screens in front of them, and Wolves are kept safe behind my lines. Fell Bats go to a flank that I want to delay or sets up against war machines.

Edvin had from memory – 1 lvl 1 (general, got to love IaC) 1 lvl 2 and a Highborn on a dragon. Some decent sized block of spear elves, and some elite infantry, 2 Repeater bolt throwers. Perhaps some eagles and a small cavalry unit.

My Fell Bats were depleted but took out both bolt throwers. Black Knights ran over some infantry block with lvl 1 general in. Rod of Flaming Death together with Banshee and Drain Life really took it’s toll on Edvin’s army, Dire Wolves flanked and ran down Silverhelms and after panic and fear had done it’s work the only thing left was his Highborn dragon point sink, stuck in with 30+ Zombies in the front and 30+ Skellies in the rear.
I killed the Highborn with Steal Soul, and can you guess what happens? Yep, the dragon rolls ‘Unbreakable’ on the monster reaction chart. Not that it mattered, I hade over 2300 point difference and bagged a 20-0.

It was a good game against a very easy going kid, but not exciting enough to be very memorable.

[N.I.B.]

Game 2.

Take and hold, 2 objectives generating VP’s from turn 3.

The swiss system kicks in and here we are up at table 2, time to roll up the sleeves and go to work! But what is this! The Sea Patrol, whohoo! For you that aren’t familiar with it, it’s the Storm of Chaos version of High Elves, as a sea faring force shooting off devastating volleys before disembarking their ships. They can shoot everything in the opponents army before turn 1, so no hiding in forests or whatever. They can be made totally insane, but this guy Lars Eldborn had a somewhat toned down force with only 2 lvl2’s, a Sea Lord, 2 Repeater bolt throwers, 3 infantry blocks (in which all models could shoot turn 0), some skirmishers and 3 Giant Eagles. And a Merwyn, a sort of sea dragon.

He shot me up pretty good and before I could get the first turn, most of my auxiliary stuff was gone. I still expected a massacre in my favour though, looked like he had nothing that could shake me. He moved forward at full speed to get to my lines and combat was soon joined. I had good hopes at smashing my knights through his Merwyn guarding his right flank and continue to steam roll his entire line, but it was not to be. The 3+ armour/4+ regenerating beast was nigh unkillable and in the end it had eaten my last night.
But his real life-saviour was the Sea Lord with his Ld 10 and the immune to fear banner on his bodyguard. Together with a close by BSB that made it very hard to break him even with a late flank charge. I think he made 5-6 successful break tests. In the last turn his bodyguard were down to only the standard bearer… Really annoying. And for once I rolled really low when I got Drain Life off, 1’s and 2’s all around on the important units.

A hill in the middle messed up my plans and hampered my use of the Rod character, as he was blocked LOS in the beginning, and later would cover to avoid getting assassinated.
In the end I hade mopped up most of his army but I had lost some of my own. I had more objective points but had to settle for 12-8. I'm not really pleased with my performance in this game, deployed wrong. I blame parts of it on my inexperience againt High Elves, didn't know about that standard and on the whole underestimated them.

Down to table 4!

The quiz was short and deceptive, I got 8 points out of 10 after the usual brain farts.

This post has been edited by N.I.B. on Oct 22 2006, 06:36 PM

[Razon]

Good stuff, keep it comming!

[adsVampire]

Great job so far NIB. I would think a unit of spear elves fighting in 3 ranks could really put the hurt on zombies and even armored skellies. Those merwyrms are no joke either ... 3+ armor AND regeneration ... and with the new rules it can't even go stupid if in HtH.

[Lord Crosis]

Good work N.I.B.!

HE can be tricky sometimes.

I look forward to your games. Hope you won!


regards,
Lord Crosis

[N.I.B.]

The Merwyrm did take monster reaction tests just about every turn, as I killed it's connected wizard early on. But it passed each and every one with the general close by.

[N.I.B.]

Game 3.

Niclas Ledin and his beautiful Lizardmen. The feature in this game was that the dominating unit always had outnumbering. Niclas and I met back in May, where I came out on top with A Sylvanian Nightmare after 4 turns when we ran out of time. He’s a good player, actually won the whole thing a year ago with his Archaons Legion, due to overall good scores.
This time he had a 4th gen Slann, a mounted hero, the usual mix of Skinks, 2x3 Kroxigors, Stegadon, 2x3 Terradons, 2 Salamanders, bodyguard unit of Temple Guard and some 12 Saurus.

This game turned out to a Mexican standoff, our hard hitters stared at each other on the right center, while our support vied for control over the left center. I had my infantry blocks standing on hills in the center and the magic duel began.

Usually the frog would take 2 unused dice to reach 8 dispel die, but I still got important spells through. He didn’t have a scroll and gambled on letting the Rod of Flaming Death through every time. This would prove fatal.

My Hosts and Banshee didn’t survive the whole game, but yet proved to be good distractions. I cast terror on a unit of Ghouls for fun, but with coldblooded Ld 9 I shouldn’t have bothered. With hindsight the Banshee would’be been better placed on my right flank to flush out Skinks and low Ld Kroxigors. Fell Bats moved around my right flank, took out Skinks and a unit of Terradons, a single Bat survived. Ghouls flushed out Skinks in the forest on the right, and made a brave flank charge on Kroxigors to no avail.

I lost a Zombie block to the 12 Saurus, and my Spirit Hosts too, the objective worked in Niclas’ favour here. I had trouble getting everything within range of Drain Life as I didn’t want a suicide charge from his hero, Stegadon or Kroxes.
He forced my hand on the right, where shooting and magic missiles started to take it’s toll on my knights. I slammed them into the Kroxigors but failed to run them down. They later rallied and I sent my knights into a major combat in the middle where I had a Zombie block against other Kroxigors and Stegadon. By this time my knights where down to half points so I risked it. Nothing happened though, only some crumbling.

I had the very last turn and was down in points. But a good Vanhels, Drain Life or Winds of Death could turn things around, and he knew it. I sent my Death Lord in his Skellies against the toad who had turned his bodyguard flank to me, and commenced my magic phase.
-Ok, Rod of Flaming Death against the Templeguard. You know this time you’ll fail the panic. (He’d had awesome coldblooded rolls the whole game). Do you dispel?
He shook his head.
-No, I can’t.
Which was true in a way, as he had to save dice for the coming Danse Macabre, Book of Arkhan and perhaps Drain Life.In comes the flaming, screaming head, killing a Templeguard. He rolled the dice. 6 – 4 and a… 6! Ka-tchiiing! Oooh yes, sweet Mary mother of God! Off goes the toad with retinue, and a sweet load of points down into my pocket. He briefly lost his temper at this point, scoped up some dice and threw them down the gaming hall. I heard of some people that got hit in the head who where less pleased with the prank, but I know he didn’t mean to throw that high! I almost felt sorry for him, and God knows how I would’ve reacted if the tables were turned.
More magic killed enough in the Saurus unit to have them take a panic test, and sure enough, off they went. More dice flew down the hall

And that was it. 14-6 to me. In the end The Death Lord muscled his way through the magic defense of the Slann, with a little help from his pet necromancers. We had a nice exciting game played in a good spirit, and I’d have nothing against playing Niclas again.



Ba-ar!
It was the end of day one, time to check in at the hotel were two of us immediately locked themselves out and had to go down to the reception for extra keys. A couple of beers and drinks and we were off to Lottas Krog for a delicious entrecôte. We met a couple of older ladies, and in spite of the pub lacking a dance floor, Eddie showed off what he had learned in his dance course, while we others sang a drunken psalm. Do you know ‘Han är min sång och min glädje? No? : ) Eventually we went back to the hotel for more beer. Back up at the hotel rooms in the wee hours when we’re ready to go to bed, Joakim darts out of his room, runs down the corridor in his underwear, banging on our doors and locks himself out again. Magnus is kind enough to open and lend him pants so he can go down again and get another key.

Good morning Umeå! And hello hotel breakfast.

Day two began with a pitched battle. Up to table 1!


This post has been edited by N.I.B. on Oct 22 2006, 06:35 PM

[N.I.B.]

Game 4.

Stefan Sagebro and his Sylvanians. I’ve never had the pleasure to play him before, even if he and his brother had visited our club during the summer. I suspected necromancy would be a better choice than lore of death, and I wished I’d had the time to get a practice game in against VC before the tournament, but I decided to stick with Death and see how it held up. This time I didn’t roll Walking Death (how lazy are GW really, couldn’t come up with a new name?) and was glad I didn’t.

He had a Carstein Lord with great weapon, 2 scrolls, Gem of Blood and Book of Arkhan. A thrall with great weapon and Cursed Book. Mounted Wight Lord, equipment unknown. Spells were Invocation, Hellish Vigour and Curse of Years.

He had three 25 strong Levy, vampires populated two of them. 2 x 5 Wolves, 3 Spirit Hosts, a Black Coach, 9 Templars and a DoW Giant. Very solid army with a good deal of punch, I was in for a war.

The terrain of this board had most notably a huge forest in the center. So we deployed heavily to my right, where we had a hill in the middle. His grave markers went on both sides of the forest and behind my lines, the left one I never dispelled, the one behind me I always dispelled. As seemed to be my custom, I lost the first turn. When using Death I usually like to go first to burn through scrolls, march block and get into good positions.

Down the far right came the Coach and the Templars, a Levy unit marched for the hill, past them sped Dire Wolves and the Giant. Between the hill and the forest came the other two Levy with vampires, Hosts through the forest and the last Wolf unit stayed behind. I denied some raising into main blocks and let him raise a new unit to the left of the forest. These boys never made it into combat.

I flew up my Bats center left to march block and sent Wolves up the hill for the same purpose. I Stealed some Soul out of his lord, and put a wound on the Giant, but little else happened. IIRC I even managed a miscast with two dice on a necro, but I didn’t get any wounds.

My Bats were charged and eventually killed by Wolves, helped by a timely Hellish Vigour. I thought about charging in my Templars to chance a killing blow on his lord, but I suspected he had the Gem, so I decided not to. Spirit Hosts went through the forest and left of my Templars. He sent them in with Book of Arkhan which I had to let through as I dispelled his attempts to heal his lord, it burned out though.
On the hill the Giant and enemy Wolves made short work out of mine, and the Giant overran a huge 11”, in front of my Skellies. My lord had left them earlier. On the right I diverted his Templars with Wolves, to buy me 1-2 turns.

I charge the Giant with Skellies in the front and Ghouls in the flank. The Giant responds with jump up and down, wasting the Ghouls. But still he lost and breaks, rolling 11 for the test. My Skellies run him down on a huge 12”!.

My Templars had the Hosts down to 2 bases when he decided to charge in his vampires. I took the lord down to a single wound with Steal Soul, and cast a nice high Drain Life. Out comes the second scroll. Aaargh! That could easily have been a massacre to me, had it gone through. I tried to Vanhels in a Zombie block into the flank of the lone characters, but were dispelled (didn’t roll any Vanhels on the necromancers so I was down to my Book).

The Gem of Blood had to be activated in the second round, but he managed the test and my Templars were soon gone. Unfortunately in my own turn, so Stefan could slip the vampires back in the safety of his Levy.
The Coach got stuck in the flank against a Zombie unit that had overran his second Wolf unit, and they stood there for the rest of the game. Likewise on the hill, my Skellies and a unit of Levy hugged each other until the end. He tried to summon a conga line to flank them, which I stopped, as one wide summonings hasn’t been allowed since the release of the Tomb Kings.

We were running out of time and wouldn’t be able to take our 6th turns, so I threw caution to the wind as I charged in the Death Lord to finish off that last irritating wound on his general. I had only the necro bunker as bodyguard, so only 2 ranks of static CR to back me up. Even a miscast could’ve been cool here, as I would’ve hoped for a S8 hit on everything in btb…

Magic was failed or dispelled though. I suffered another necro miscast too, letting him cast a free 11+ Invocation that I had to dispel with power dice. In the ensuing combat, I was hoping that Stefan would forget to challenge with his thrall who were in the same unit, but he kept his cool and challenged me with the thrall which killed my last chance of taking out his general. I killed the thrall in spite of his Cursed Book, and some Zombies crumbled after blows, and that was it.

I had lost most of my auxiliary stuff (minus the Hosts who played hide and seek with his Templars on the right) and my Templars, and had some block down to half. I had taken out the Giant, other stuff and half points for the lord. In the end Stefan was up by 117 points, a draw under normal circumstances but 9-11 in the tournament.

I think I had 7 wounds on the Death Lord in the 5th turn. In fact he ended most games with 5-6 wounds. Who needs armour?

[N.I.B.]

Game 5.
Pitched battle, special feature.

Down to earth again for the last battle, at table 5 in the second row. And whom do I get to play, if not Stefan’s brother Peter Sagebro! He’s a top bloke, a good player and an awesome painter. He bagged Best Painted Army a year ago, and I was pretty sure he would do it this time again, at least he got my vote for his beautiful Wood Elf army.

In May he won the tournament overall, and I guess he was hoping to copy the feat. We were kind of stuffed to had to play each other, as we’ve become friends since the last tournament. But it wasn’t much else to do but put on the game face and go for it!
We had faced off with pretty much the same armies during the summer when he visited our club. Then I completely destroyed him. This time he was forewarned, and knew what the Death Lord could do to frail elves, so I wasn’t expecting an easy ride.
For this game I didn’t get Wind of Death. Necros rolled Vanhels and Hand of Dust, apart from the mandatory IoN.

He had (from memory),
general with Wild Riders, packing Annoyance, 3+ ward until failed, killing blow spear
Alter Noble with Hail of Doow Arrow
1 lvl 2 caddie
1 Branchwraith with extra dispel die

2 units of Glade Guards
1 unit of Glade Riders
2 units of Dryads (Branchwraith here)
2 units of Wild Riders (general here)
1 unit of War Dancers
3 Warhawk Riders
1 Great Eagle
1 Treeman

So a balanced Woodie list, deceptively strong. 5 dispel and 2 scrolls. Our special feature was worth 100 VP’s to the closest unit after the game. Peter sets up his forest to on his side to my right, and there are some ruins to my left and right. Against WE with this army my plan is to hold my knights back and use them as a counter charging/deterrent force, while my magic goes to work. It has worked ok so far. In this game I put the knights on my left to avoid that forest sailing towards them. In retrospect this wasn’t the smartest thing to do, as he had so little magic that I could dispel the singing with good success. So the Spirit Hosts went to the right. Hello Forest Spirits!

As expected all Dryads and Treeman deployed behind the forest. Bowmen in the center with fast stuff on the flanks.

Of course I lost the first turn.

Peter threw fast stuff down my left flank, both Wild Riders, Warhawks, Alter Noble. Guards stayed put to shoot. Treefolk and War Dancers went into the forest to my right. His magic did nothing the whole game. Shooting took out a Ghoul, HoDA put 5 wounds on the Fell Bats.

I charged in the Fell Bats into the Hawk Riders, better to risk it than to be picked off by shooting for nothing. But the result was the same, as I fluffed most of my attacks and they crumbled.
I sent Wolves into the ruins to my left, they had an open space were they could charge out. I sent Ghouls to my right ruin, march blocking Dryads and Dancers in the forest, while sheltered by the ruin walls.
My whole line tipped a little to my right, to prepare for the Forest Spirits. Black Knights moved forward a bit, cautious to not be flanked by his general’s unit. Here I made a blunder, as I kept a 4 Ghouls screen in front of my left center. The thought was to shelter the Knights somewhat from shooting, but they blocked LOS for my wizards too. Another miss was that instead of sending my useless Spirit Hosts to the far right to claim a quarter, I kept it were it was. My second unit of Wolves went left to divert Wild Riders sweeping around, if they would survive.
Steal Soul snatched a wound from the Branch Wraith. I think I could cast Drain Life too, maybe through Irresistible Force. It killed 4 Wild Riders in the general’s unit! Banshee killed a Warhawk, screaming from the ruins.

This put some pressure on Peter, and he started second turn by attempting to charge the survivers from the unit into my Knights, together with the Alter Noble. The Alter failed his fear test though.
He moved around my left, came out of the forest with the Spirits and moved up the Glade Riders and Eagle just in front of my main blocks to hamper my movement. I didn’t mind though, I’m glad as long I’m not in combat and he couldn’t flank me if I failed a charge.
Shooting took out some Skellies and killed the remaining Ghouls in the center.
In combat we had a challenge and the general air swinged. My rolled for it and my champion could hit the general on 3’s, but he made his ward save. No wounds, but he stood on good Ld, helped by the fact that I deploy my knights 6x4 so I didn’t have any rank.

I charged my ‘ruin’ wolves into his Alter, who killed two with stand and shoot. In combat we both did a wound so he autobroke due to outnumbering and ran off the table with wolves in hot pursuit. (20 7th ed games so far and no one has yet succeeded with Insane Courage against me) My wolves were later killed by the Warhawks for their trouble.
Zombies and Skellies chased off their diverters who fled, and I stuck 25 Zombies in the front of the Treeman and Dryads. I was hoping to at least delay them until I could deplete the Dryads.
Rod of Flaming Death sent a unit of Guards running, they would rally the turn after. Steal Soul on the Branchwraith pulled out a scroll, but not before I miscasted with the general and had to use Unholy Cynosure to force the spell through. I miscasted a two dice spell and got the S2 hit on a necro, no wounds. Drain Life dispelled. 5 Zombies raised behind my lines to mess things up for the Wild Riders if they killed my Wolves and fail to overrun far enough.
His general killed my champion, and they held again as I failed to kill the standard bearer.

Here comes the forest! Treeman and Dryads charge my rightmost Zombies, while other Dryads charge my middle Zombies. Wild Riders charge diverting Wolves, overruns and escapes my flanking Zombies by some margin. Both Glade Riders and Eagle rallies and the Riders return to prevent me charging in to help out the Zombies.
The War Dancers moved in behind the combat towards my center. The lvl 2 left the Glade Guards and moved away towards a corner.
Shooting killed a few Skellies, in combat the Treeman with friends went through my Zombies like a chainsaw after some good rolling, both units stayed put. The other Dryads killed there share of deadlings, winning combat. Finally my knights killed the standard bearer, his general whiffed and broke and was run down. I could charge some Guards in my next turn.

Which I did, sent one unit running. Unfortunately the knights failed their restrain test and pursued some distance.
It gets a little blurry here, for some reason I had to put my necros in the Skellies, and I think my vampire left his unit to avoid War Dancers if they were in range. Steal Soul finally killed the Branchwraith, but Drain Life was scrolled. Banshee couldn’t perform, wailing at the rallied Glade Guards.
Dryads killed some Zombies.

In his next turn the Zombies were flanked by the victorious Dryads to the right, and went through them like nothing, but they rolled too low to pursue into my bunker. Treeman charged my march blocked Spirit Hosts and killed it after some turns, doing nothing else in the game. Warhawks charged and killed the Banshee over two rounds, since she couldn’t score a wound either through combat or screeming. War Dancers moved away from the fray to get my Ghouls, and Wild Riders returned behind my necro bunker.

I turned my knights and moved back to get the second unit of Guards. Magic raised a Zombie line to block the Wild Riders, and Drain Life thinned out all enemy units within 18”.

Warhawks comes in on the Skellies to attempt to assassinate my necros. He manages a wound on each, before they FIE my knights and are removed. Unfortunately I pursue long enough to pursue into his Eagle, who just had landed to prevent my knights from charging into the last Guards. Dryads goes to work on my bunker. War Dancers charge my Ghouls who flee never to rally.

In my turn I charge in the knights to help out my necromancers, but fail to kill it so it takes my Rod necro down before it breaks and is chased down. The knights need another turn to manouver before they finally charge and kill the last Guards in turn 6.

My vampire charge in and kills the Wild Riders, and almost wipes out the Dryads with Drain Life. The Skellies claims the special feature for 100 victory points, and it’s a hard fought 12-8 to me.

Wow, what an incoherent battle report! Sorry about that, I lost track of the moves but now I can’t be bothered to rework it. I had 3-4 miscasts during the game, but came out on top in the end. This is one of the builds that can consistently win against Wood Elves. It can be made harder, but I like the sight of shambling zombie hordes on the battlefield. As for the army as a whole, I’m not really sure about the future of the Spirit Hosts in this list. Often they struggled to make an impact in the battles, or are a downright liability.

I ended the tournament with 67 battle points, at 6th place. After quiz and painting I was 9th overall. Best general went to Henrik and his Woodies at 77 points, and a Skaven player took home the overall, 76 points battle points.

I had a great time during the weekend and can’t wait for the next Fanatic in the spring!

Thanks for reading, if you have managed this far!

[adsVampire]

Great job NIB!!! Nice to see someone do something other than the norm with their undead list. To bad the Sylvanian guy had an illegal list ... Sylvanians can't take any DoW units.

[N.I.B.]

Sh*t you're right about that! I'm sure it was an oversight on his part, as he don't play that often outside tournaments. I'll send him an email and let him know.

[Ara]

Well done Mate, nice to see the Death Lord doing his thing.

[adsVampire]

No DoW is the ONLY thing that turns me off from the Sylvanian army. Other than that I think it is great.

[thx10050]

Great job, NIB. Awesome tournament report.

[Assur]

I must admit I like the idea of a Necrarch Lord using death magic. But aren't you afraid that he has nothing to protec him in close combat? Despite those 4 wounds he could be killed quite easily... Is steal soul that effective? and what if you don't get the spell?