First though, my list:
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Turniej! [1998 pts]
Warhammer: The Old World, High Elf Realms
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++ Characters [997 pts] ++
Noble [312 pts]
- Hand weapon
- Lance
- Full plate armour
- Shield
- Battle Standard Bearer [War Banner]
- Griffon
- Dragon Helm
- Opal Amulet
- Seed of Rebirth
- Pure of Heart
Archmage [570 pts]
- Hand weapon
- Level 4 Wizard
- Star Dragon
- Biting Blade
- Lore Familiar
- Seed of Rebirth
- Talisman of Protection
- Illusion
Handmaiden of the Everqueen [115 pts]
- Hand weapon
- Handmaiden's spear
- Bow of Avelorn
- Light armour
- Horn of Isha
- General
- The Loremaster's Cloak
++ Core Units [529 pts] ++
15 Sisters of Avelorn [277 pts]
- Bows of Avelorn
- Light armour
- Stubborn (0-1 unit)
- High Sister [Ruby Ring of Ruin]
5 Silver Helms [126 pts]
- Hand weapons
- Lances
- Hand weapons (Hooves)
- Heavy armour
- Barding
- Shields
- High Helm (champion)
5 Silver Helms [126 pts]
- Hand weapons
- Lances
- Hand weapons (Hooves)
- Heavy armour
- Barding
- Shields
- High Helm (champion)
++ Special Units [392 pts] ++
8 Dragon Princes [392 pts]
- Hand weapons
- Lances
- Full plate armour
- Shields
- Barding
- Drakemaster [Opal Amulet + The Cloak of Beards]
- Standard bearer [Lion Standard]
- Musician
++ Rare Units [80 pts] ++
Eagle-Claw Bolt Thrower [80 pts]
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Created with "Old World Builder"
Now, for the report, but first, a couple caveats - I am not a tournament player, I've actually never taken part in one, I generally don't like the kind of attitude to gaming that many tournament players have (minmaxed lists, power plays, optimizing every possible move etc.). I was fortunate to mostly have rather relaxed and elegant opponents, but many of the lists I saw during the tournament were pretty rough, especially in my 3rd game (vs Chaos).
I will only give a summary of my own games, even though the tournament was a team event, my teammates came late, which meant they were given 3:17 losses for their games, they both were also pretty badly hungover, so there's not much point mentioning them.
The games were rather tense and I didn't manage to take a lot of pictures, the few I did are available below (thumbnails should take you to a bigger picture).
1st game: Skaven
I faced a pretty traditional Skaven list, albeit with no artillery; a plague furnace priest, a bell Seer, a big block of clanrats, a smaller one of Stormvermin with a BSB chieftain, and two Abominations. I had terrible luck with dice - my Griffon BSB and my Silver Helms whiffed all their attacks and lost a double charge against the Stormvermin on the left flank (SH went FBIGO and proceeded to be murdered next turn, griffon gave ground and circled back to the centre), my shooting caused a single wound to the bell, so the opening was a disaster. He was able to teleport his bell to my backline and I had to fight it with my Sisters of Avelorn. Dragon Princes killed the first abomination, but it resurrected; the other one was also killed, but spawned a rat swarm. In the end, I was able to preserve just my dragon archmage and the griffon BSB, but that was enough to snatch a very narrow win (I also managed to kill the screaming bell, which netted me a lot of points), at 11:9.
2nd game: Dwarf Slayer army
My opponent went, as he said, with a bit of a meme list, with two big units of Slayers, 3 Doomseekers, Ungrim, a Daemon Slayer, a cart for the +1M, two small units of Irondrakes, and a grudge thrower, everything deployed on his right flank. I fielded a large flanking force on my right, including the Dragon Princes, one unit of Silver Helms, and the griffon; left flank included the bolt thrower, the dragon, another Silver Helms, with the Sisters sitting in the forest in the middle, out of range of the Irondrakes, and plinking off a few Slayers every turn. The flanking force took 3 turns to get to his lines (the silver helms fled from a Doomseeker charge), but when they met them, I proceeded to annihilate everything (admittedly, I was pretty lucky - I was able to save all of the dragon princes from harm, despite all of the irondrakes shooting at them, I managed to roll only 5s and 6s for armour saves). The archmage was able to block the dwarfs from doing anything, casting Miasmic Mirage and Column of Crystal. One hilarious situation (and what saved my opponent from a 20:0) was when his Daemon Slayer rolled a 6 in a duel against my griffon BSB and I rolled a 1 on my 2+ ward save from the Opal Amulet. One lesson for everyone: Doomseekers are really strong.
3rd game: Warriors of Chaos
This one was really tough: my opponent's army consisted of a lord on a Chaos Dragon (starred by Galrauch), a Sorcerer Lord on a Chaos Dragon, a Warpfire Dragon, a linehammer unit of chaos warriors, and a small unit of forsaken. The deployment was Meeting Engagement, but I held back 24" away from him - I wanted to get as many chances at shooting him as possible. His chaos lord surged forward 20" on my left flank to make me charge him the sorcerer lord was not very far behind the chaos lord, the rest moved forward, hiding behind the hill in the centre. In my first turn, I charged the chaos lord with everything I could - i.e. Silver Helms (a flank charge), the Dragon Princes, and the Griffon BSB. A rather (fittingly) chaotic fight ensued, but I was able to put a number (4 or 5) of wounds on the dragon and it fled, rolling 11. Unfortunately, my opponent positioned his other units in such a way that I was unable to run him down, but all these units managed to get a very clunky charge against the sorcerer lord, which I've also won (not so many wounds caused, but I had enough static CR to win the fight convincingly; this time, I think he had to FBIGO. My right flank didn't fare too well though: the archmage was mostly outmanoeuvred and couldn't get into a decent fight. The end result was that most of my army was gone, except for the dragon, the Handmaiden, and the griffon, while most of his army survived (although the chaos lord was on his last wound - I whiffed the shots from the Sisters, Handmaiden and the Bolt Thrower that could kill him, and then he murdered the RBT and overran off the table, thus hiding from anything that could harm him). This was my only decisive loss, at 7:13.
2nd day, 4th game: Beastmen
My opponent had, like, 20 units, I had 6 drops, and the scenario included 150 additional VPs for controlling of table quarters, so I didn't really have a chance of getting that. The beastmen army included a great bray shaman on a flying carpet with viletide and hagtree fetish (which he was only able to use twice, and without much success, lucky me), a unit of Minotaurs, 3 units of warhounds, 3 units of gor herds, 3 units of harpies, a unit of ungor bowmen, 3 single-model razorgor herds, 3 units of dragon ogres, a dragon ogre shaggoth and a gigantic chaos spawn. I boxed myself in the right corner, hiding the Sisters behind dangerous terrain so that he wouldn't have it so easy getting to them; he was able to outmanoeuvre my dragon and griffon, thus getting the harpies close to my backline, but I was able to kill off some of them with a fireball+panic. At first, I held back, but when he approached, I charged with everything I could (dragon into dragon ogres, griffon into another dragon ogre unit, dragon princes into the Spawn and the single dragon ogre) and proceeded to kill most of the dragon ogres. Unfortunately, the dragon princes didn't kill the Spawn in the first turn, so it proceeded to eat them during the next rounds of combat. One of my silver helms units was charged in the flank by warhounds, but managed to kill a single one and win combat (lucky dice rolls on my part), thereafter running them down and overrunning into the razorgor, also killing it; the SH unit managed to survive, along with the dragon, the griffon, and most of the Sisters+Handmaiden. Hilariously, when my opponent lined up a charge for the 5th turn with his remaining hounds, razorgor, furies, minotaurs, and the Spawn, and then tried to Viletide the Sisters, I used Evasive, allowing the Sisters to run away 5, and then another 5 inches (managed to fail the Ld test for marching), which made him reconsider his choices in 5th turn, as the Spawn was on its last wound and I would have likely been able to kill it (Strike First on the Sisters and Handmaiden), while also getting some nice CR from Stand and Shoot against the hounds. The battle ended with a very narrow loss for me (9:11), only due to my opponent controlling 2 quarters (with the 2 others contested), so I consider it a draw.
5th battle: Chaos Daemons
My opponent took a mostly Slaanesh-themed army, with a lot of Seekers, a Keeper of Secrets, 2 units of Fiends of Slaanesh, as well as 3 units of Furies, some Flamers, a Soulgrinder, and a Herald of Khorne. He had a big advantage in terms of mobility. in my first or second turn, I made an Impetuous charge against the Soulgrinder with the Dragon Princes (managed to score a wound or 2, but that wasn't enough, and they were slaughtered soon afterwards; I did kill the Soulgrinder off with the Sisters, but that's not a favourable exchange. The Dragon and the Keeper exchanged Miasmic Mirage for most of the game, so neither of us was able to charge anything and the dragon only used his breath attack for the rest of the game; most of the rest of my army was slaughtered, while my opponent ran and hid with everything that I managed to wound. In the final turns, the Griffon charged the Keeper and the two traded blows for several rounds, but neither was able to win (I was lucky in that my noble saved all the wounds put on him by the Etherblade with either his regen or the Opal Amulet - he survived on his last wound). Again, a very narrow win for my opponendt (9:11), the difference in points was just above the threshold for a draw.
Comments and criticism welcome - I am not a good player, but I think the overall result was pretty favourable for me - I earned 52 points overall, with the highest individual result being 74.