'Ard Boyz Semi Finals Results

I went down to GMI games in Riverside for the 'Ard Boyz Semifinals.  Here's my list and how the games went.

Grey Seer on Bell
Grey Seer on foot

BSB
Plague Priest with Furnace
Engineer with Doomrocket

45 Clanrats with PWM
30 Stormvermin with WFT
10 Stormvermin with WFT
50 Slaves

5 Gutter Runners with poisoned slings
5 Gutter Runners with poisoned slings

HPA
HPA

My first game was against Daemons.  He had Fateweaver, a big block of horrors and a big block of bloodletters, plus two units of flamers.  I have never played against Daemons before and my opponent was really cool and helped explain what everything was and even offered me useful advice on what to do.  With the wonky Kill Points in the scenario I was massacred, but if it had been victory points the game would have been a tie.

All win/losses in that round were Massacre/Massacred.  The kill points saw to that as giving up 8 for a rare choice is ridiculous.

I was against Warriors of Chaos for the second round.  My opponent only had two level 2 wizards, plus Archaeon.  We advanced and I had him tabled by turn three thanks to my magic and shooting running amok.  I grabbed the Fanatic on the first turn with my Slaves and passed my strength test.  They spent the rest of the game getting away from the action.  He was a pretty cool guy as well and I learned that Warshrines are nice if you roll well.  I got a Massacre with full battle points.

For round three I was on table three.  Have a look at what my opponent brought:

I've got me a tower, it seats about infinity so hurry up and bring your Slann Shack money! *

 Yes, that is a cardboard tube representing the Folding Fortress.  It doesn't even have a roof.  My opponent told me that it has 10 stories.  He said he was going to make it 12 stories but he didn't want to be cheesy.  I wish I was making that up.  This is sketchy rules wise, as the Fortress says it has to be the same size as a Watchtower building, or a similar scratch-built structure.  This is scratch built but it's twice as high as a Watchtower.

His army had 148 Skinks plus a dozen heroes in the tower with two Slann, both with Becalming Cogitation.  They had poisoned Javelins and the flaming banner.  He also had the dagger that causes Fear in Skaven.  Then he had four Stegadons outside the tower.  His whole plan was, "Come at me bro."

I considered holding back and simply playing for the draw.  However, I had to get a massacre if I wanted to place so I decided to try and destroy the building either via Crack's Call or the Bell.  If I could destroy the building I would probably win by a landslide.  If I couldn't destroy the building I was in for a world of hurt.

I advanced everything and after turn 1 I seriously considered turning back and simply playing to a draw. I decided to persevere, weathering the dwellers and the fiery darts of the adversary.  Turn two I rolled a 14 on the Bell and my hopes went up but I failed to destroy the building as I rolled a 3.  On turn three I rolled a 14 again and this time rolled a 6!  The fortress went crumbling down and killed both Slann and 1/3 of the skinks.  That still left a sizable amount, even after getting doomrocketed.

At this point it took us about an hour to determine how to place the unit.  The Skaven FAQ clears it up but he insisted on being within 1" of my models.  The confusing thing was that I had charged them with my Furnace but we decided that they were not in combat because they have to abandon the building which would remove them from combat.  It was a really sticky rules situation.

At that point the game took a major turn for the sour.  After disagreeing strongly on issues for about an hour everything was tense after that.  Because we had taken so long to decide what happened we only got to turn 4.  I didn't break his big unit so I wasn't able to get a massacre.  I got a major victory and got 6th place.

If I had charged the HPA into the Skinks I may have broken his unit, come to think about it now as I look at the picture below.  That's how they came out of the building.  Hindsight is always 20/20.  Furthermore if he had a proper watchtower I would have had A LOT more models alive.

I got me a Slann Shack, it's full of fail and it just set sail!*

*To be sung (spoken) in the voice of Fred Schneider from the B-52s if that wasn't clear.