Blood in the Sun Recap

Last weekend I attended the inaugural Blood in the Sun event outside of Chicago.  BitS was a 2400 point GT, with no special characters and everything else straight from the book.  I found it really challenging to create a list as every option meant I had to leave some toys at home.  Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to play test the list I ended up fielding, and I suffered the worse for it as you will see in a couple of my games.  Something else that was different at BitS was that we only and 2 1/2 hours per round.  This meant that you had to play quickly and unfortunately I only completed 3 out of my 5 games.  Not a big deal in the grand scheme of things but it did end up costing me a few points. 

 

On Friday I drove up to Dojo Domus and picked up Jeff Tupper and James Hyde from Middle of Nowhere, Illinois.  We then completed the 3 hour trip to the Chicago burbs and got to the Double Tree hotel that was hosting the Bits in the wee morning of Saturday.  After registration on Saturday I rocked up and began the fun!  Here is what was in my list.

 

2400 Point Tomb Kings List

 

Tomb Prince: GW, Armor of Fortune, Dragonbane Gem, Ironcurse Icon

Tomb Herald: GW, Armor of Destiny

Necrotect

Liche Priest (Level 1 Nehekhara): Dispell Scroll

Tomb Guard x22: Light Armor, Shield, Full command

 

Heirophant (Level 3 Nehekhara): Earthing Rod, Tal of Presver

Archers x 29: Full command 

 

Chariots x 4: Full command, Banner of the eternal flame

 

Necropolis Knights x 4: Full command

 

War Spynx: Fiery roar

 

Horse archers x 5

 

Casket of Souls

 

Screaming Skull Catapult x 2

 

 

Game 1 Joe "Luck of the Rodge" Rogers (Wood Elves)

 

In the opening round match I finally got the opportunity to play Joe "Luck of the Rodge" Rodgers.  It wasn't really luck as I had called him out and challenged him.  Impressively he accepted knowing that I've been running Tomb King and Dwarfs of late, neither of which were a great match up for Wood Elves.  His army was based around 3 treeman, eagle riding hero and a few smaller units of dryads and archers.  He also included a small unit of wardancers which I can only assume were their for the painting score!  I should also mention that Joe's army was beautifully painted.  It is both amazing and humbling to think what Joe was able to do in such a short amount of time.  During deployment it became quite clear that the Rog had out deployed me (that shouldn't surprise anyone) as I found his Treemen in positions where they would be protected from the SSC.  The first couple of turns we traded some bow fire and his eagle rider took a ridiculous amount of shots turning all but 1 wound away (this will become more important later).  Turn 3 saw the game break open as Joe moved his 3 treeman out of cover and headed for my line.  I was able to tie up the uber treeman with my Tomb Guard and I scored a direct hit on both of the other treemen with the SSC, killing them outright.  Then if that wasn't enough the dice Gods really took a shine to me.  The eagle rider charged from behind my ranks into the SSC.  The rider whiffed his attacks and in return the skeleton scored enough wounds to finish off the hero.  This gave me just enough points to score a minor victory.  However, when you are playing a gamer of Joe's stature any victory, no matter how small the margin, is thrilling.

 

Win 11-9

 

Game 2 Joe "Sally Joe" Cook (Lizardmen)

 

I met "Sallie Joe" the previous night as he is part of the Garagehammer bunch that was putting on BitS.  Not much to say about this game except I simply found my level 3 Heirophant and level 1 liche priest lacking.  I really had no answer for the Shadow magic the tooled up Slann was sending my way.  The four salamanders and the skink units didn't help me out either.  In the end I was simply outclassed by a better army.  In retrospect I should have put all of my eggs into trying to kill the Slann.  While it was a long shot that was my only hope. 

 

Loss 16-4

 

Game 3 Robert Elmer (Chaos Dwarves)

 

Going into game three I was really excited about the prospect of playing the Flaming Dwarves again.  I had not played them for going on 10 years and I was eager to see what the army could do with the Indy GT book.  Robert Elmer turned out to be a very competent general and we made sure that we had an interesting, albeit, blood affair.  The game saw a lot of combat and many casualties on both sides.  In the end it was my bone head decision to overrun my Warsphinx which ended up getting him flanked charged by the Obsidian Guard. That turned a decent win into only a minor win.  

 

Win 11-9

 

Game 4 Ryan Nicol (High Elves)

 

Just as in game 2 I again found my magic lacking and feeling like I had brought a knife to a gun fight.  Ryan's army was essentially a HE gun line and consisted of 3 bolt throwers, 2 units of archers and 1 unit of sea guard.  He also had a small 5 man unit of Dragon Princes, lion chariot, eagle and a unit of Sword Masters.  He also had a couple of powerful magic users (including a destroy spell scroll and + dice staff) which meant I had no chance of winning on magic.  Add to this my stupid deployment which basically fed my army to him piece meal and it made for a long game.  Ironically, it was the first game I finished turn 6, too bad I left a single Sword Master alive!

 

Loss 18-2

 

 

Game 5 Ryan "The Bear" Golke (Ogres)

 

I was really excited to learn that I had the infamous Bear in round 5.  I bookended my tournament with one of the HPBs.  Now I just have to get a hold of Hastings, though I need for him to cool down as he was red hot this weekend going 4-0-1 and coming in 2nd overall.  This game was a lot of fun and I was able to outmaneuver his bigger blocks and take them apart one by one.  At the end of the game I had destroyed everything in his army except 3 characters that were part of his 18 Iron Gut death star unit.  Unfortunately, there were a lot of point tied up in those 3 guys.  That coupled with the fact I had to feed his death star units and characters to setup my charges meant the score was a lot closer.  

 

 Win 14-6

 

Tournament Takeaways

 

 

Take a level 4 or don't bother.  In addition to the +1 in casting and dispelling attempts the extra spell is a must.  In several games I would have been better served rushing my more mobile troops up the middle to put pressure on the opponent rather than putting them on the flanks.  That would have allowed me to hit their fire base and knock out some of the missle troops.

 

Well, that is it for now.  Hopefully I will catch up on some sleep this week!