Well, I was planning on heading up to Dicehead Games for a tournament on Sat the 8th but life seemed to spring up and stop everyone who was interested in heading up there.

We were testing out a tournament mission. The complete list can be found here Missions

Christmas:
Santa has presents to deliver and the Grinch wants to stop him!

Scenario Special Rules:
Players roll off. The highest gets to nominate whether they are Santa or the Grinch.  Your general is now designated as such.

Santa – Gives the unit he is joined the Stubborn Special Rule.
Grinch – Any unit fighting the Grinch can not claim steadfast.

Deployment:
Dawn Attack (pg. 145)

Objectives:
Santa vs. the Grinch:
If Santa is alive at the end of the game, the Santa player gets 15 points.  If not, the Grinch player gets 15 points.

Elven Helpers
If you have more core units than your opponent on the table at the end of the game, 5 points.  If you have more core units in your opponent’s deployment zone than they have in yours, 5 points.

Game Length:
The game lasts for 6 turns or until time is called.


The tournament was for 2,250 points so we both had to make some mods since we normally run 2,500pts around here.  My opponent is new to fantasy and wanted to be able to rely on a solid core to hold him.

His list went something like

1 Blood Thirster w/ re-roll hits and the Str 10 upgrade.

1 squad of 41 pink horrors full command
1 squad of Bloodletters at 30 full command
1 squad of Bloodletters at 18 full command
1 herald of Khorne with BSB, 3+ armor, 125pt Stubborn banner
1 herald of Khorne with 3+ armor
1 herald of Tzeentch with master of sorcery

My list was
Lord w/ ASF sword, WS10 armor, Gauntlet of the Duel, & Heroic Killing Blow
Prophetess w/ Lvl 4, Heavens, & Prayer Icon
BSB w/ Wyrmlace (flaming attacks) & reroll failed armor saves
11 Knights of the Realm w/Full command & Standard of Discipline
9 Knights of the Realm w/Full command & Banner of Swiftness
11 Knight Errants w/ Full command & Errantry Banner
47 Men At Arms w/ Full command
2 X 10 Bowmen w/ braziers
10 Skirmishing bowmen w/ braziers
3 Pegasus Knights w/ Musician
2 X Trebuchets 

Deployment

After the rolls for table sides and what not he had to deploy his army first.  The rolls pretty much forced him into the far corner there.  My rolls were a bit better and my forces were a bit more evenly spread.

Spells wise he had the entire lore of Shadow and his Horrors.  I ended up with Thunderbolt, Chain lighting, Iceshard Blizzard, & Harmonic Convergence.

Demons 1

Thanks to some dice rolls the bulk of his forces were in a bad way and he had to start digging them out.  The sphinx being impassible made it to where he had to stack his Bloodletters in order to get them out.

Because of the mission he wanted to focus on taking out the Trebuchets since they were the only thing in my army that could realistically take him out in one shot.  He did take a risk running in front of my general because of the Heroic Killing Blow.

The magic phase brought us 8PD -> 4DD.  He 6 diced Steed of Shadows on the Bloothirster to move him into the position below. 

 Brets 1

A quick overshot of all the moves.

Planning on the Bloodthirster killing the trebuchet and overrunning away. I thought it was best to move my general and unit up to attack his forces before they could close on us.  The archers reformed to start taking shot at the Bloodthirster.

The Errant Knights attempted a charge to the smaller Bloodletter unit but failed thanks to rolling a 3. Pegasus Knights and the smaller block on Knights of the Realm move up to flank the Bloodletter blocks.  The Prophetess leaves the Men at Arms blocks to start throwing some magic at the Bloodthirster.  Men at Arms moves up to engage and delay the blocks as needed.

Demons 2

Bloodthirster charges the Trebuchet and smashes it.  The rest of his forces marches forward to engage my general and my other forces.

Magic has The Withering go off against the Generals unit Irresistibly bringing their toughness down to 1. 

Brets 2

Archers and Prophetess move up to harrass the Blood Thirster.

Men at Arms and Knights Errant w/BSB go into the flank of the smaller bloodletter unit.  The Knights of the Realm w/General charge into the horror unit.  My hopes are to force challenges with the Gauntlet and take out the herald to shut down his magic.

The Pegasus knights and smaller Knights of the Realm unit move into supporting positions.

Magic has the Prophetess getting Chain Lighting off then Thunderbolt off Irresistibly.  A couple wounds get through his 3+ ward.

 Turn 3

Blood Thirster moves up to take out his second biggest threat.

Larger Bloodletter unit reforms to either flank the Men at Arms or take out the knights.

Magic has another wound taken from the Blood Thirster.

Turn 4

Peg knights charge in to help grind out the Horrors unit.

Archers and Prophetess continue their chase of the Greater Demon.

The peasants managed to ding a wound off the herald in the smaller Bloodletter unit.

Demons 5

The Knights of the Realm  hold against the charge to prevent the bloodletters from flanking the men at arms and swinging the combat back into the demons favor.

The smaller Knights of the Realm unit breaks and runs off the table.  The Bloodletters reform.

The Bloodthirster charges the closer archer unit which flees away to safety but it panics the unit of archers it runs through.

Brets 5

Both archer units rally **GASP**
The Skirmishing archers move up into the woods to get into short range of the Bloodthirster.

Not pictured is the Dance of Joy when the lowly peasants  kill the Khorne herald in the smaller Bloodletter unit.

Demon 6

The Bloodthirster charges and catches the skirmishing archer unit.  Through magic alone he has been brought down to 1 wound.  Even with only a 5+ ward he managed to deflect every arrow shot at him.

The larger unit of Bloodletters charges the flank of the Men at Arms. Many peasants were slaughtered, they were not missed.

Last turn and with the game on the line the Prophetess runs up to the Blood Thirster (knowing he couldn't hurt her) and unleashes the full might of the Lore of Heavens.  Bolt after Bolt strikes the Greater Demon to no effect since Khorne protects his followers from foul magics.  Then like the little lightning that could the Heavens Lore attribute decides to step up and wounds the Blood Thirster.  The roll is made and......comes up a 1. 

The mighty Blood Thirster is finally brought down by the Lore of Heavens attribute.  The game ended as a 20-0 win for Bretonnia.

The scenario really helped me out on this one.  I think in a regular game he would have just got his Blood Thirster stuck into combat and not worried about it.  Since the whole game hinged on him living he needed to take out the Trebuchets and avoid the HKB lord.

If you are wondering why combat wasn't really mentioned it is because of the Demon Stubborn banner.  I was winning the combats, but with him be LD8 with a reroll most of the kills only came through actually combat and not crumbling.

The Trebuchets either misfired, scattered wildly, or were dead.

 ________________________________________________________
As a final note the reason for the lack of pictures is because the original plan was to use Battle Chronicler so the photos were only for my reference.  I wasn't a fan how the Chronicler worked so I just decided to unload the photos and go from there.  Next report there will be more photos and hopefully more painted minis.