MSU takes 2nd in local tournament (Now with summary)

[Delaqure]

So, I played in a local tournament this last weekend with my new MSU style of army on protecting the shores of Ulthuan. I have never played an MSU style of army and I must say I enjoyed it immensely. The plethora of units makes for some very fun play. I did better than I have done in years quite frankly and the games were very close creating intense and fun games for myself and my opponents. I ended up taking 2nd place! Here is what I took and how well they did.
Archmage- 4th level Book of Hoeth and the 4+ ward amulet (the name escapes me for the moment)
He was a star in this tournament. I took High magic for a couple of reasons. I wanted the shield of Saphery for my Swordmasters and I am NOTORIOUS for rolling low on the winds of magic. I knew if my usual fare held out I could at least cast a few spells with the low casting values of the High Magic. Well my usual luck did hold out and I rolled typically low only rolling a 9 once in the entire tournament. Most of the rolls were 6 or less including a double 1. So with that happening I did appreciated the low rolls needed for the High Magic spells. I used Soul Quench, Walk Between Worlds and Hand of Glory quite a bit with an odd smattering of Drain Magic and in the last game Flames of the Phoenix. He did his job and added a LOT to the army. I was very pleased with his performance.

BSB- Dragon Armor, Halberd, Reaver bow and Potion of Strength. He was very meh, and not very impressive. He did his job though allowing re-rolls of failed tests now and then. In all honesty I forgot to shoot him most of the time, so his lack of performance was more my fault than his.

18 Archers with full command
18 Archers with full command
These guys were AWSOME. They did a number on a lot of things. With 36 shots on a unit at times, they were able to do wounds on some pretty tough units including chaos warriors and black orcs.

5 reavers with musician and bows
They did their job pretty well, dying when they needed to and totally gobbled up 5 orc and goblin warmachines.

5 silver helms
I used these guys instead of reavers just because I didn’t have more reavers. They did ok. I can’t really think of anything they did good or bad, so they must have been ok?

19 Swordmasters- full command with Banner of World Dragon
These guys were my anchor and while not strictly MSU I had a plan with them and stuck to it. They performed admirably killing off the giant unit of chaos warriors and killing off a unit of the nasty dark elf killy guys (sorry I don’t remember what they are called)

10 white lions
10 white lions
Again excellent units that performed very well. They helped kill the chaos warriors and were instrumental in getting rid of a hoard of savage orcs. I did lose them to some dark elf shooting.

5 Dragon Princes standard and banner of eternal flame
These guys were ok and did some nice work. They killed off a hell cannon and sent some goblins packing all by themselves after withstanding two fanatics.

3 Bolt Throwers
These things were actually VERY good. Combined with the shooting of the archers and sisters they helped a lot. I always combined shots when possible and it really made a difference. In my meta hoards are VERY popular and I have got to whittle them down to manageable size before dealing with them in h2h. They worked like a charm. They even killed the lone orc BSB.

5 Sisters of Avelorn
5 Sisters of Avelorn
I was surprised but I only lost one unit of these the whole tournament. People were just not afraid of them and pretty much left them alone. Being only units of five I wasn’t expecting them to do anything much but add to the other bows and so some extra killing with their S4. They did not face any regenerating units or monsters this tournament, but their high BS and S4 helped whittle those hoards down.

1 Eagle
Did what he needed to do.

1 Flamespyre
Ok this guy didn’t fit the MSU, but I LOVE my paint job and just wanted to take him. I wasn’t expecting a lot out of him other than to look pretty on the table and maybe help kill some smaller units. I was not disappointed. He helped kill the hell cannon, flew over some dark elves killing some with flame and killed a dark elf bolt thrower. He died to shooting from the orcs and flamed out.

I won’t write detailed battle reports, but I will share some highlights from the games. So stay tuned.

[Nicene]

Love big archer units with an MSU special setup.

[Swordmaster of Hoeth]

Hi Delaqure!

First of all, Congratulations! Local or not, 2nd place is a great achievement! Well done!

I am also happy to see you have your own approach to MSU and what is the most important, that you enjoyed the new experience!

I am very curious about your High Mage. I have the feeling High Magic is still a subtle lore that aids the army indirectly. Even if Soul Quench is good and reliable magic missile! I would love to find out in more details how particular spells affected your games but I guess you are going to highlight that in the upcoming short reports.

It seems to me that overall you adapted counter charging strategy, not relying on shooting only but having 36 longbows, 3 eagle claws, 10 Sisters and reaver bow is going to dent the enemy for sure. On the other hand you have the tools to take the fight to the enemy but I wonder how did you keep the army in cohesive battle line and at the same time kept your line of sight clear so that moving units didn't affect your shooting?

Some support units in the form of reavers, silver helms, eagle and to an extend flamespyre phoenix added nicely to the options and helped controlling movement phase.

Added to that you had 4 combat units. Not that many but as I have said it suited your army approach (at least if my initial impression is correct). Swordmasters were of course bigger unit but I believe MSU approach is more about the way you use the army rather than strictly sticking to the principle that no unit can be expensive. They had a very specific role to play and that didn't affect the fact the army relied on the movement phase to win the battles. The same goes with the Phoenix (I demand pictures! ).

I think that the principle of the MSU army is that you have many units and you can arrange them differently to give you the best fighting chance against various opponents and under different circumstances (like terrain, possible scenarios etc.).

Looking forward to the details!

Cheers!

[Ferny]

How did you find the block of swordmasters, particularly compared to phoenix guard? I toyed with the idea of a fusion msu list v similar to yours bar that change. What i couldn't work out was whether two small lions in this fusion context 'beat' one large lion. Certainly theyre more vulnerable and less efficient with regards to command and banners, but they do bring more flexibility and the msu feel. Im currently toying with big lion and guard blocks but msu swords.

i haven't quite squared it in my head tho, full msu is cool and blocks def work well, but your approach feels new and different to me .

[Delaqure]

Ok, so here are the highlights of the battles. I would love to do full battle reports, but quite frankly do not have the time.

Game 1 vs Chaos Warriors Battle LIne

When I first saw the army on the table I was thinking, ok, I got this. He had only three units and I pictured myself surrounding him and finishing him off. He had a hoard of warriors, a hell cannon and a unit of chaos knights with a character wall of three characters on demonic mounts in the front.
He had a 4th level wizard a Lord character, BSB and a Hero character.

So the highlights are these
1. My dragon princes and Flamespyre took out his hell cannon pretty quickly so he didn’t go a lot with that
2. His wizard killed a unit of white lions and continually boosted his toughness on his units and did some other things including killing some of my stuff.
3. My shooting did a number on his hoard of warriors. They where whittled down to a manageable level so I had a chance to beat them in h2h.
4. Reavers, eagle and Silverhelms delayed his chaos knight unit for most of the game
5. I combo charged his chaos warriors hoping to bust through and get to a good position to get his knights. The problem was I failed the combo charge with snake eyes so only my Swordmasters got in. It took longer to kill them because of that and he ended up being able to kill some of my units with this knights.
6. I finally ended up in combat with his knights again failing a combo charge with snake eyes AGAIN!
7. Through a long combat I finally killed all the knights, BUT I could NOT kill his characters. Two of them had 3+ ward saves and one had a 4+ ward save. Thank goodness for Shield of Saphery and my own ward saves otherwise my unit would have been toast. He had no magic weapons so the Banner of the World Dragon didn’t help against the characters, but it did help against the deamonic mounts. When facing things like this, I don’t feel bad at all about the banner.
Any way I killed more of him than he did me, but it was close enough to call a draw.

Game 2 vs Dark Elves Battle for the Pass

Well, he brought a shooty list as well, with three units of crossbows and 4 bolt throwers. He also had a unit of cold ones, corsairs, a large unit of killy dark elves, a dragon and a 2nd level wizard.
Quite frankly I thought I could win this game. He was a new player and so hadn’t played much with his army.

Highlights are these
1. I killed his “killy” unit with a flyover by the phoenix, shooting, magic and finally with the Swordmasters.
2. I killed his Corsairs with shooting and the white lions
3. I killed a unit of crossbows
4. My phoenix killed a repeater bolt thrower
5. His shooting took out some white lions and a unit of archers and sisters and the reavers
6. I also killed his wizard with shooting
7. I once again lost a combo charge to double 1’s,
9. His dragon took out my Silver Helms

We ended up in a draw as we were only able to play 3 turns in 2 ½ hours. Being new he was VERY slow in making decisions and rolling dice. It took him a long time to deploy and decide what to do. I really think I was in position to get a massacre as his remaining units had been whittled down to just a few models each. I was in a position to be able to charge and take out his bolt throwers his crossbows and he had no magic defense. However, due to the time constraints we didn’t get that far. So ended with a draw even though I had killed more points than he did. I really honestly think I may have ended up with at least a solid victory had we been able to play the entire game.

Game 3 vs Orcs and Goblins Dawn attack
The random deployment really hurts the MSU army. I had to set up first and obviously couldn’t place my units to counter my opponent’s. Also it can force clumping. so not easy. I ended up having most of my units on my right flank and center. So had to do some squeezing. My opponent brought Grimgor Ironhide a 4th lvl wizard and a BSB. He had two hoards, one being a hoard of Black Orcs and a hoard of Savage Orcs. He also had night goblins, orc archers and 5 warmachines including two doom divers.
Highlights
1. My shooting again did the trick in this game. I whittled his savage orcs down to a manageable level and then began on his black orcs.
2. My wizard was aces here in that I got Flames and used it on his savage orcs and black orcs to good effect.
3. His wizard foot of Gork’d my Swordmasters only to find out about the banner. He moved on to my archers and stomped them to near oblivion. However, he lost control and lost 3 lvls and the foot. HUGE.
4. My Reavers got into his backfield and ended up killing all his warmachines by games end.
5. The Shield of Saphery prevented the annihilation of the Swordmasters by doom divers.
6. My white lions killed off his savage orcs, but my BSB had to charge out of the Swordmasters to help. Due to the clumping of the units, but Swordmasters were never in position to charge.
7. I again failed a combo charge on double 1’s which also clogged things up.
8. Grimgor and the BSB charged out of his unit to get to my BSB and White Lions, who fled getting out of the way.
9. My wizard promptly cast the large Soul Quench and killed Grimgor
10. My Bolt throwers shot the BSB to pieces.
11. I lost my Flamespyre to shooting and he flamed out without doing anything.
12. I was not able to destroy the black orcs, but he only had two left who were fleeing at the end of the game.

So, I ended up with a solid victory on this game. By the time all points were added up for the tournament I took 2nd place!

This is the first tournament I have attended in a VERY long time where I didn’t lose a game and didn’t get massacred at least once. I really liked the way this army played and all the options it gave me. I do think I have finally after a lot of years hit on something that I really like and suits my style of play. I don’t know why I didn’t try this type of army sooner.

Next up I'll address your questions and I have some questions of my own about possible changes to the army and why.

[Delaqure]

@Swordmaster- I did enjoy this experience and although I usually have fun at the tournaments (it’s Warhammer all day!) I usually leave a little discouraged on how I and my army played. NOT this time!

As far as the mage is concerned I LOVED how he played. With the option of being able to choose Quench and/or Drain I could tailor my spells more accurately. Against Chaos drain was great as I could use it to get rid of his augmentations which allowed me to kill more and really helped in one combat. Quench really added to the shooting phase. Hand of glory worked well when I wanted my archers to pump up their hits I got them due to that spell. I was going to use it more in the dark elf game to boost a bolt thrower against the dragon, but didn’t get a chance to. The movement spell was awesome as it allowed some better positioning when I wanted it. I used it to move backward out of charge range a couple of times thwarting my enemy and putting him in a tougher position. I even used it to move to his flank and out of his charge arc. I found it a deceptively powerful spell. My opponents were saving dice to try and dispel quench and that allowed me to get it and/or Hand of Glory through. Flames is awesome and scared the bejeebers out of my opponent in the last game. Being able to six dice it without fear of miscasts was HUGE. With the book and low casting values I often was able to get at least two spells off a turn. I LOVED HOW HE PLAYED. It seemed that every spell had a special purpose and it was fun being able to actually cast spells despite low winds of magic rolls.

One really cool thing that happened is I accepted a challenge from the Chaos BSB with my mage. The BSB couldn’t break through my 3+ ward and of course I couldn’t break through his either. But at least he got to experience what it felt like to face a 3+ ward. 

Part of my strategy with this list is to get the Shield of Saphery. And I am telling you giving the Swordies a 5+ ward was a great boon. And more than once they ended up with a 4+ ward. My goal was to keep these guys alive and it worked. They didn’t die the entire tournament despite my opponents throwing everything but the kitchen sink at them.

I found my battle line rarely got in the way of my shooting. I really had to think and consider where to put my units, especially in the Battle for the Pass and the Dawn games. The Pass was the most difficult in keeping the lanes clear, but I put most of the shooting in the center and my combat units on the flanks in trying to run up the flanks. My opponent in the Pass game did provide me the opportunity to do just that by placing his nasty killers on his flanks allowing me to counter.

Truthfully what hurt the most in this tournament was my failed charges. Two in one game and one in each of the others.

@ Ferny- Well Ferny I don’t have Phoenix Guard so, can’t use them and never have. However, I do have the option of using Swordmasters or Lions as the large anchor unit. I chose to try the swordmasters due to their higher attack rate and their higher WS. This was important in the fight with the chaos with both of us hitting on 3’s. It also aided in the fight with the knights and characters.

Where is really noticed the difference was when using the small lion units. In all three games I failed combo charges. In two of the games, the lions got stuck in with their backup failing the charge. They obviously took casualties, but never enough to wipe them out. So, despite losing combat they stuck around until back up arrived to bail them out. If that had been swords they most likely would have fled after the second round of combat if not the first. Leaving me vulnerable to being charged. Having the lions get there and hold up alone allowed me to charge later and win the combat.

My meta LOVES hoard units and the swordmasters are just better at taking down the hoards. Those extra WS6 attacks and forcing the enemy to almost roll 4+ to hit does help. When needing 3s to hit, you don’t wiff to often so more of those S5 hits get through. They did do quite a few wounds on those Chaos characters, but I just couldn’t get past the 3+ wards. Of course they had to get past my wards as well. But mine were never 3+. Still saving on a 5+ is better than no save at all.

I will say I do miss the re-rolls with the GW.

Next some thoughts on changing the list a bit.

[Jimmy]

Thanks for taking the time to write everything up with the summaries of battles and unit breakdowns. Any idea what the points were between you and first place out of interest?

[Delaqure]

Jimmy I don't know what the point difference was but it was a lot. He was an Empire player and massacred every opponent.