TheLazySamurai:
I just finished up with the Bayou Battles tournament here in Houston, TX this week-end. Bayou Battles is a 2 day, 5 game tournament and we had about 90 people play this year. For many of us this was going to be the last actual Warhammer tournament before the tournament organizers picked a new system for the GTs in the US South division. An interesting turn of events in this tourney saw me play the only other CD player and fellow forum poster, Geist, in the final round :cheers I did better in this tournament than I ever had at a grand tourney before. I wrote about winning OwlCon a little while ago, but that was a 14 player tourney without national competition. I went 4-1-0 this week-end with 85/100 battle points. I managed to get 3rd Best General :). Best General was a combination of battle points and comp scoring (up to 20 points, TOs and players give you the score). Below the pic is a breakdown of each game.
My List:
2500 Chaos Dwarfs
Characters
Lords- 400
Sorcerer-Prophet
Level 4 Wizard (Death)
Talisman of Preservation
Enchanted Shield
Arabyan Carpet
Heroes- 356
Infernal Castellan
Battle Standard Bearer
Shield
Dragonhelm
Dawnstone
Iron Curse Icon
Daemonsmith Sorcerer
Level 1 Wizard (Fire)
Dispel Scroll
Charmed Shield
Hobgoblin Khan
Giant Wolf
Light Armor
Warrior Bane
Core- 653
32 Infernal Guard
Blunderbuss
Full Command
Razor Standard
Special- 555
Deathshrieker Rocket
Magma Cannon
Iron Daemon War Engine
Hellbound
Rare- 535
K’Daai Destroyer
Hell Cannon
Total- 2499
Deployment:
Unless otherwise stated, I would use the formation below pretty much regardless of my opponents deployment. I have too few drops to be sneaky 
Scoing:
The scoring system used the normal >99 victory points counts as a win. A win=15, a draw=10 and a loss=5 with a possible 5 scenario points each game.
Round 1
I drew a guy I play at our local monthly tournament. Great guy. He plays dwarfs and he actually made his gyrocopter’s blades spin and everything had LEDs :o I knew this was going to be a tough match because he had 2 cannons and 2 organ guns, as well as a dwarf lord kitted with double strength and D6 wounds. He also brought a horde of GW warriors, a block of hammerers, a unit of crossbows and a few gyrocopters. The first scenario was “Attack of the Fire Ants” (all the scenarios were Texas themed) which involved two ant vortexes that scattered around the board each turn causing difficult terrain checks.
We each deployed our warmachines on the hills in the middle of the table with the rest of our armies close around our respective hills. I didn’t want to move out with anything out of my deployment zone because that would put me in range of the organ guns as well as letting his lord get in combat with one of my monsters, so I hung back and we had an artillery battle. After several turns of barrage and counter barrage, he destroyed my deathshrieker and my hell cannon misfired resulting in no longer being able to shoot.
At this point I saw the writing on the wall and knew I needed to do something. There was a small pyramid in the middle of the table and my lord flew behind it to be out of LOS from his shooting. I tried to launch a purple sun at his artillery hill a couple of times, but even 6 dice wasn’t enough to make it happen. We danced a bit with his gyros and my lord, but ultimately I didn’t have an answer to his guns once I lost mine. This was my only loss of the tourney, but I picked up 4 scenario points, mainly due to it being only a minor loss when we looked at VPs. Score was 9-18.
Round 2
This round I played Vampire Counts. The guy’s army consisted of two big blocks of skeletons, each with a red fury vampire lord, a mortis engine, block of crypt horrors, a few vargheists and LOTS of chaff. The scenario was “Texas T” which meant we each got a barrel of oil that our largest core unit had to carry. The main scenario objective was to capture/ destroy your opponents barrel with a large chance of the barrel exploding along the way x.x I deployed in the center with my blunderbuss in front of the artillery and the K’daai and Iron Daemon close to the flanks.
The early rounds saw my magma cannon and deathshrieker do lots of damage to his skeleton blocks, including blowing up the barrel which was vulnerable to flaming attacks. He surged forward, but when placing my portions of terrain I tried to create some chocking lanes with impassable terrain. I felt bad because we got into a disagreement regarding the possibility of a charge. He was going to double charge my blunderbuss unit with a skeleton block and his crypt horrors, but to do so his crypt horrors would have to use two pivots to come into contact with my unit.
We decided that both units could come in. Infernal Guard are tough and my BSB didn’t get killed, so I was stubborn. The grind lasted two turns until I was able to flank the crypt horrors with my Iron Daemon and his skeletons with my K’daai. I almost killed his general with my k’daai, but he ended with a wound left. Even though most of my units were beat up pretty badly only the Hobgoblin was off the board. My barrel was still around at the end of the game, so the final score was 17-5.
Round 3
I played a Daemon list with lots of flyers this round. My opponent brought 2 bloodthirsters, 2 skull cannons, a soulgrinder, a huge block of bloodletters with herald BSB and a few small units of furies. The scenario for this round was “Here be Dragons” where each opponent has a baby dragon that follows your general. I once again went to the center of the board with IG in front of the artillery and the heavy hitters of either flank of the artillery. My opponent deployed his horde behind a hill with the soul grinder dead center and with furies on the left flank and both bloodthirsters on the far opposite flank.
First turn was rough for my opponent. My hell cannon scattered off his general and killed his dragon. Next my deathshrieker one shot killed his general. He moved around the flank with his remaining bloodthirster while the bloodletter horde stayed behind the hill. I knew he didn’t want to get hit by the magma cannon too much, but I was surprised he held them back all game. My khan held up the furies on the left flank while his bloodthirster tore through the Iron Daemon on my right flank. One of his skull cannons blew up and the other was having a hard time getting through the defenses of the Hellcannon.
My magic was mostly useless against his bloodthirster due to his 3+ WS vs magic damage. The hellcannon managed to kill the soulgrinder before it made its way into combat, but the bloodthirster got behind my lines and destroyed my warmachines. After tearing through my artillery hill, the bloodthirster was an open target. I reformed my blunderbuss and lit him up. 63 shots and 9 wounds later, he managed to fail enough saves to send the bloodthirster back to the realm of chaos :hat That was pretty much the end of the game. The score was 19-7.
Round 4
I drew a dark elf player that I have had several good games against at previous tournaments. He brought several units of dark riders, a unit of warlocks, block of executioners, block of knights with BSB, 2 hydras, couple crossbow units, couple bolt throwers and a Pegasus riding level 4 sorceress. The scenario was very different this time. “The Great Squig Roundup!” placed 3 prize winning squigs on the table: a gold (3 points), a silver (2 points) and a bronze (1 point). The squigs bounce around the table starting on turn 2, so they are hard to catch and they slow the movement and hurt the unit that carries them. The victory conditions were based only on who had the most points worth of squigs on round 6, no VP calculated. I again deployed center and he was fairly spread out on the board with crossbows in the center and knights with both hydras on the left flank.
I went first and I grabbed the gold medal squig with my k’daii destroyer and moved my blunderbuss and Iron Daemon to the middle of the table. I sniped off his sorceress with my hell cannon on turn 1 and I honestly felt bad about it :( He charged the k’daai with his executioners because he felt like he needed to take some risks after the loss of his level 4 wizard. This did not go well and the unit also took a charge from the Iron Daemon in the subsequent turn.
My artillery did quite a bit of damage to his hydras and his unit of knights. His only hope to deal with the k’daai was to throw 6 dice at the boosted doom bolt. He got it off once, but poor rolling ended with only one wound on the k’daai. He charged the Iron Daemon with his knights and they couldn’t damage the T8 monstrosity. There was more shooting with the blunderbuss and artillery and my Iron Daemon also picked up the silver medal squig.
Unfortunately, his army combined with the scenario was not a great match up versus mine. Normally he could have tied up the Iron Daemon with dark riders and chaffed the K’Daai as well, but the scenario allowed these units to quickly gather the winning objectives and just sit tight for the rest of the game. Losing his level 4 shadow caster was also pretty devastating. Game ended with a 20-5 win for the CD.
Round 5
This round I drew Geist from our message boards :cheers We both managed to have almost identical battle points, so we were paired up. We had talked a bit the first day and I got to check out a lot of the cool custom work he did with his army. He brought a horde of fireglaives with flaming banner, a horde of Ironsworn, 2 hellcannons, BSB, daemonsmith (fire) and sorcerer prophet (metal). The last scenario was “Retirement Party” where you picked 5 units/models and each of these would give half VP if below half wounds/models. I deployed my artillery in the center, but I placed my blunderbuss, Iron Daemon and k’daai on the left flank in response to his castle in that corner.
I went first and sent everyone forward on the left flank as fast as possible. My artillery managed to wound one of his hellcannons, but everything was still intact on his side of the board. His first turn saw some scatters with his hellcannons and he failed to cast with his level 4 leading to a disappointing magic phase. He also had to work his way around a house that blocked part of his Ironsworn unit. I charged his fireglaive horde with his general with my k’daai. My khan chaffed his Ironsworn and my Iron Daemon directed itself towards the Iron Sworn as well. Shooting didn’t see anything on my end. I kept hitting with my templates, but he was solid on his hellcannon’s ward saves. The k’daai was basically immune to the fireglaive horde’s attacks because all of their attacks were flaming. I used the burn and thunder stomps for combat res while I focused all my attacks on his general.
His second turn involved charging the khan with the Iron Sworn and his magic phase only gave him a few dice, so again an ineffective turn of casting. He managed to put a couple of wounds on the magma cannon with a hell cannon. Combat saw the K’daai continue to kill fireglaives and another wound on his general. My third turn I charged the Iron Sworn with my Iron Daemon and the K’Daai killed the general. I also managed to kill off a hell cannon during my shooting phase.
This was pretty much the end of the game. The K’daai went on to finish the unit of fire glaives, killed the other hell cannon and eventually assisted the Iron Daemon in wiping out the Iron Sworn. Magic played almost no role in the game with a couple of rough magic phases for my opponent and I chose not to cast a spell all game (too far away, too risky). The final score was 20-6.
Tournament Summary:
I had a great couple of days and I was ecstatic to place in the top 3 for best general. There was a somber note with all the players since this is likely the last time we would be playing Warhammer at a GT. I was happy with how the army played on the whole. I definitely will continue to run my big block of blunderbuss and my k’daai.
My decision to go with death magic seems to be the only aspect of my list that I wasn’t entirely pleased with. Most of my opponents didn’t care about leadership checks with BSBs all around, so my long distance spell, Doom and Darkness, didn’t help much. Spirit leech managed to do some wounds to a hydra, but I faced mostly high LD lists where a roll off doesn’t guarantee wounds. I think I will switch back to the lore of Hashut in the future.
Speaking of the future, the focus of the tournament organizers seemed to be with Kings of War. All the prizes were Kings of War models and that seems to be the direction everyone here in the US south is going. I guess my chaos dwarfs will now be Abyssal Dwarfs from here on out. If you are still reading, thanks and I hoped you enjoyed the write up. Sorry about not having pics of the battles. Cheers :cheers
The Lazy Samurai