The ETC - Day 2

In my previous post I covered the first day of the ETC, as well as the lead-up event. Now it's time to talk about day 2...


So my performance on day 1 had been a little bit lackluster. I was hoping that day 2 would prove more fruitful, and maybe I could even post a win at some point. Overall the team seemed reasonably happy with the first day's efforts, so that was very positive. It was encouraging to know that even if I was messing about and wasting valuable battle points, the team as a whole could still be satisfied. 

A special mention must go to my German friends Jens and Johannes, who managed to spend the entire night travelling from Frankfurt up to Gorzow to pay us a visit for the next day and a half. Of course, they weren't intending to take all night, but by the time their first car broke down, and they had to swap rentals when they reached the border, all had not gone as planned. How they managed to sit through a full day of Warhammer after getting no sleep the night before, I don't know. Admirable stamina/stubbornness...

Anyway, on with the tournament. You will notice there are far fewer photos in this post, thanks largely to my wife having headed for England ahead of me (she took almost all of the shots on days 0 and 1), and my usual failure to think of these things until it's a bit too late. Apologies.

Round 3: Team Hungary

Kristof Eck, Warriors of Chaos 

Sorcerer Lord of Tzeentch on Disc of Tzeentch: lvl 4, Tzeentch, Mark of Tzeentch,Chaos Armour, Talisman of Preservation, Infernal Puppet, Biting Blade, Dragonhelm, Stream of Corruption 
Chaos Sorcerer of Tzeentch on Disc of Tzeentch: lvl 1, Tzeentch, Mark of Tzeentch, Chaos Armour, Golden Eye of Tzeentch, Charmed Shield, Sword of Might, Bloodcurdling Roar
Exalted Hero of Tzeentch: General, Mark of Mark of Tzeentch, Chaos Armour, Shield, Glaive of Putrefaction, Potion of Strength, Luckstone
Exalted Hero of Tzeentch: BSB, Mark of Tzeentch, Chaos Armour, Enchanted Shield, Collar of Khorne, Favour of the Gods 
22 Chaos Marauders of Khorne: FCG, Mark of Khorne, Flail 
6 Marauder Horsemen of Khorne: Musican, Mark of Khorne, Flails, Throwing Axes, Light Armour 
6 Marauder Horsemen of Khorne: Musican, Mark of Khorne, Flails, Throwing Axes, Light Armour 
20 Chaos Warriors of Nurgle: FCB, Halberd, Shield 
1 Hellcannon 
1 Chaos Warshrine of Tzeentch: Mark of Tzeentch 
1 Chaos Warshrine of Tzeentch: Mark of Tzeentch 
5 Chaos Warhounds 
5 Chaos Warhounds

My score for this army: Favourable

When I marked this army, I did it on the basis that no units fought at greater than Strength 5. This put my armoured units in a good position to work their way through the combats without getting destroyed in return, so I figured it was a positive match-up. Unfortunately, the game did not go as planned.

The table for round 3. Once again I was on the bottom, and I've turned the world upside-down to make it so.

The ETC - Day 1

Hello again! It's been a while. I'm afraid that a month of travel has seen me neglect my blogging responsibilities, but as  I write this I am on the plane back home, so hopefully I will do better in the immediate future.

Despite my being far from home, my gaming has not been completely on hold. The main reason (excuse?) for this holiday was  to go to Poland in order to represent Australia at the European Team Championships (ETC). My carry-on luggage is almost  entirely devoted to carting a 2400pt Empire army across the world, and my other bag includes a number of souvenirs from the  event such as customised dice from various countries and the odd shirt.

Team Australia. That's me trying to hide behind Simon. Maybe Akhter would have made a better screen...

As I write up a report of all my tournaments for the blog, obviously I will be offering one of my experiences of the ETC as  well. After all, with 34 teams each consisting of 8 players (and often a non-playing coach as well), the event involved  close to 300 people. This makes it far and away the largest tournament I have attended, and probably the biggest I have  ever heard of. It would seem a pity not to give something so huge the attention it deserves...

Lores of Magic: The Lore of Dark Magic

NOTE: This review is of an older version of the Lore of Dark Magic, which has since been replaced. If you're looking for the current rules, please try here.

The Lore of Dark Magic is exclusively available to Dark Elves, however it is not that often seen nowadays. It is competing with the Lores of Death, Fire, Metal and Shadow when it comes time to choose spells for your Sorceress or Supreme Sorceress, and a lot of the time it loses out in the decision.

It’s worth noting that all Dark Elf Sorceresses have the Druchii Sorcery rule, which means they may ignore the usual limit of 6 power dice for a single spell attempt. This rule made more sense when the army book was released, when a wizard could only use dice equal to his level +1 for a spell attempt. Now its sole purpose is to encourage throwing a preposterous number of dice at a potentially game-winning spell. Anyway, let’s have a look and see what the Lore of Dark Magic has to offer.

Lores of Magic: The Lore of the Wild

Beastman Bray Shamans and Great Bray Shamans have a number of Lores to choose from. One of these Lores is specific to the Beastmen army - the Lore of the Wild. Today we'll have a look at what it has to offer, and how it stacks up with the other options at their disposal.
 
What does it do?
Being from a 7th edition army book (albeit a very late one), the Lore of the Wild doesn’t have a Lore Attribute. So it’s straight onto the spells, then…
 
Bestial Surge is the Signature Spell for the Lore. Cast on a 7+, it causes all friendly units within 6” to lunge D6+1” toward the nearest enemy they can see, or straight forward if there is nothing visible. Units stop when they come within an inch of another unit, so of course you can’t charge with the spell. It was probably the first hint that GW were killing off charging spells in the lead-up to 8th edition.

Convic 2012 Aftermath: Day 2

Comet? What comet?

This report follows on from a previous post, which covered day 1 of the 2 day event that was Convic 2012...

Despite not having much voice and probably not being entirely well, the Saturday night involved the usual Halo and pizza with the guys. I think we pulled the plug around 1am, but at least I had the common sense not to head off to karaoke with many of the others. Not that anyone could have heard me trying to sing anyway...

It occurs to me that I neglected to say in the previous post what comp score I received. I got a 2 out of 5, which makes it tough but not unreasonable. I figure that's probably appropriate, so was OK with the score. It's probably the first time that I've had a harder than average comp score with Empire, but then this was not my normal sort of list.

Anyway, I woke up on the Sunday feeling adequate and with about as much voice as I had at the start of Saturday - which is far more than I had had by the time I went to bed. All set, then.

Convic 2012 Aftermath: Day 1

Well Convic is over, and I survived the experience once again. Unfortunately I woke up on the morning of the first day with only half a voice, and that deteriorated over the course of the weekend. I was probably lucky that my final opponent could hear me at all, or I would have been forced to resort to holding up numbers of fingers and various obscene gestures.

As I've already discussed, the tournament was a final opportunity for me to try out my ETC list and confirm that it actually performs adequately before lists are locked in on the 17th. It was also the first time I had used an army from the new Empire book in a competitive environment, so it was all going to be a bit interesting. As usual, I'll give a bit of a run-down of how each game went. I'll try to remember what each opponent had in their lists. One day I will be organised enough to remember to take photos and all the rest, but sadly that was not to be this time.

As with my Cancon report, this is really too long to go into a single post so I am splitting it up into the 2 days. So games 4-6 will be covered in the next post.
 

Anyway, on with the show...

My Empire army

I have posted my army list before, but here is a picture with the characters all in the Inner Circle Knight unit as they were in all the games. So this is what my opponents were seeing. For the record, I hate the "all eggs in one basket" approach to making lists. If this wasn't an ETC list, I would never have considered it.

My Empire army for Convic 2012

Lores of Magic: The Daemon Lore of Nurgle

The final Lore of Magic in the Daemons of Chaos book is the Lore of Nurgle. Time to have a look at it, then.

What does it do?

As with the Lores of Slaanesh and Tzeentch, the Lore of Nurgle gets no Lore Attribute due to its 7th edition origins. This means we can get straight onto the spells.

The Signature Spell of the Lore is Miasma of Pestilence. It affects all enemy models in base contact with the caster, and drops their Weapon Skill, Strength, Toughness, Initiative and Attacks to 1 for a full turn. In case you've not heard of this spell before, yes - you read that correctly. The casting value if a preposterous 3+, and it basically makes your caster immune to attacks from models in base contact. It also makes the enemies extremely vulnerable - WS and Toughness 1? That is worse than a drunken Snotling...

Miasma of Pestilence is an amazing Signature Spell in a Lore that is available to tough characters who are looking to be in combat. Great Unclean Ones and Nurgle Heralds are some of the tougher options in the Daemon army, and casting this spell makes them much more so. Realistically, the only threat then becomes models not in base contact - those offering support attacks from back ranks. Generally speaking, the number of these will be limited.

Offensively, Miasma is brutal. Affected models are almost entirely reliant upon any saves they have, as they will be hit on 3s and wounded on 2s - by everything. Even the Nurglings lugging a Palanquin about will demolish opponents when this spell is in play. That's 6 attacks that normally don't do a lot, suddenly elevated to lethal against anything without a good save. Friendly models adjacent to the caster also stand to benefit, as they can have a go at the weakened enemies as well.

This is one of those spells that tends to show up gaps in the rules, unfortunately. How do Breath Weapons and Thunderstomp work? The FAQ states that when a unit has multiple toughness values or armour saves, you use the value of the majority or in the case of a tie, the best. This means that when the enemy unit drops to only a small number of models, you may find yourself breathing and stomping on those weakened by Miasma. Stream of Bile is a useful ability to begin with, but against Toughness 1 enemies, it's horrific.