Re: Curu Olannon's Vindicators - 2500pts Army Blog
Posted: Thu Mar 01, 2012 10:04 pm
You never fail to deliver! Lots of really good comments here, which I appreciate a lot
@Overg - characters can change placement in the unit in-game. I wanted to have him on the extreme flank to launch a magic missile if I got T1. I swapped him later on.
@dabber - Loremaster was a mistake. I wasn't aware of the specific wording.
I didn't know about the Skirmishers forming up. I will definitely remember this though. The best move would probably be to charge Saerith into the Fiend, letting the Archers fire upon either the 'Letters (in soft cover) or the Herald. I forgot about the Furies' insanely poor LD.
The Bloodthirster did not attempt to redirect: he was in the front of the Lions and flank of the Spears: going into Lions would see him face a rather sub-optimal matchup while the Spears would see him block the Letters.
I agree with the rear charge on the Bloodthirster. With my insane combat resolution of +5 before wounds were dealt, he needed to be insanely lucky to survive (which he was). Much of this is due to the context though: the Bloodletters were surely not going to be a problem for 2 turns given their position, facing and the fact that I had one Eagle remaining.
@rusty - worst case against Bloodletters is indeed horrible. Losing Eagles was just terrible, no doubt. If Daemons deploy castle-like I block what I want and kill the outer elements. It's not like he can charge through units due to facing. Generally, if you play Daemons like this against High Elves (not a particularly bad matchup) then you're not aiming to win a tournament. There's no way you'll get anywhere close to a 20-0 win (perfectly possible for a strong Daemon player to achieve in such a matchup) with such a strategy. Oh and by the way, although 351 VP is pretty close, it's still a clear win
@Brewmaster_D - The Spears probably could've been angled a lot better. Honestly I have no idea why I didn't - a mistake which I didn't consider until now. The Lions were 8" away so by no means a safe bet. With that being said, I do remember that getting the Swords into the flank would've been devastating though. Somewhat risky overall, considering I didn't neutralize the Fiend by means of charging in Saerith (which is probably the optimal move here; given the low LD on the Furies as pointed out by dabber). I agree that I failed to plan for the worst here: seeing those 30 Archers fail to kill the Fiend was not something I had even considered, even though it is fairly likely to do so (well, it's by no means extreme!). Hopefully, lesson learned. I agree with your conclusion with regard to accounting for variance.
@Baeronvonbleat - on paper it's not a bad idea. The problem is that it's extremely high risk. Assuming the Thirster gets lucky with Dark Insanity against Lions and both characters die, he could very well survive the entire game (as I have no real threats left against him). I do believe that charging the 'Thirster with the +5 resolution before we start caring about wounds is just so much better. The only way for him to reliably win this combat is by instantly killing the Dragon, which he BARELY managed with 13 (!!) attacks. The variance that showed here was much more out of the ordinary than the Letters killing both characters would've been. The deciding factor here is that I cannot reliably break his steadfast (at least I don't think so, I didn't do the math at the time and haven't now as it's somewhat complicated), which could be disastrous. This is definitely worth contemplating further though, I might end up simulating it and comparing mathematical results and variance just 'cause I can you know Often times, the 'feeling' of what's optimal is simply wrong. Like my high school science teacher used to say - common sense isn't sense at all.
@Dark Reaper - the point about killing blow being lost is a good one, which I didn't even consider. I think this for me at least means that there's no doubt about which build is overall best: even if you accept the variance this is hard to look past as you'll actually struggle against 1+ re-rollable 4+ ward characters (of which there are plenty in the game which the Thirster would prefer to have KB against).
It was indeed a very nice game! Next time, make sure the trays are correct: getting the Swords into your Letters' flank due to closing the door problems due to your overrun would've likely ended the game there and then with 17-3 or better. Also looking forward to facing a revised list. Your play is definitely improving and it's only a matter of time before I'll lose
Again, thanks a lot for the input folks! Though I am pretty impressed with this list's track record so far (1 loss, 1 tie, 13 wins (!)), there are still plenty of mistakes to pick up which shows that there's a lot of room for me to improve and continue to work with if I want to play optimally
@Overg - characters can change placement in the unit in-game. I wanted to have him on the extreme flank to launch a magic missile if I got T1. I swapped him later on.
@dabber - Loremaster was a mistake. I wasn't aware of the specific wording.
I didn't know about the Skirmishers forming up. I will definitely remember this though. The best move would probably be to charge Saerith into the Fiend, letting the Archers fire upon either the 'Letters (in soft cover) or the Herald. I forgot about the Furies' insanely poor LD.
The Bloodthirster did not attempt to redirect: he was in the front of the Lions and flank of the Spears: going into Lions would see him face a rather sub-optimal matchup while the Spears would see him block the Letters.
I agree with the rear charge on the Bloodthirster. With my insane combat resolution of +5 before wounds were dealt, he needed to be insanely lucky to survive (which he was). Much of this is due to the context though: the Bloodletters were surely not going to be a problem for 2 turns given their position, facing and the fact that I had one Eagle remaining.
@rusty - worst case against Bloodletters is indeed horrible. Losing Eagles was just terrible, no doubt. If Daemons deploy castle-like I block what I want and kill the outer elements. It's not like he can charge through units due to facing. Generally, if you play Daemons like this against High Elves (not a particularly bad matchup) then you're not aiming to win a tournament. There's no way you'll get anywhere close to a 20-0 win (perfectly possible for a strong Daemon player to achieve in such a matchup) with such a strategy. Oh and by the way, although 351 VP is pretty close, it's still a clear win
@Brewmaster_D - The Spears probably could've been angled a lot better. Honestly I have no idea why I didn't - a mistake which I didn't consider until now. The Lions were 8" away so by no means a safe bet. With that being said, I do remember that getting the Swords into the flank would've been devastating though. Somewhat risky overall, considering I didn't neutralize the Fiend by means of charging in Saerith (which is probably the optimal move here; given the low LD on the Furies as pointed out by dabber). I agree that I failed to plan for the worst here: seeing those 30 Archers fail to kill the Fiend was not something I had even considered, even though it is fairly likely to do so (well, it's by no means extreme!). Hopefully, lesson learned. I agree with your conclusion with regard to accounting for variance.
@Baeronvonbleat - on paper it's not a bad idea. The problem is that it's extremely high risk. Assuming the Thirster gets lucky with Dark Insanity against Lions and both characters die, he could very well survive the entire game (as I have no real threats left against him). I do believe that charging the 'Thirster with the +5 resolution before we start caring about wounds is just so much better. The only way for him to reliably win this combat is by instantly killing the Dragon, which he BARELY managed with 13 (!!) attacks. The variance that showed here was much more out of the ordinary than the Letters killing both characters would've been. The deciding factor here is that I cannot reliably break his steadfast (at least I don't think so, I didn't do the math at the time and haven't now as it's somewhat complicated), which could be disastrous. This is definitely worth contemplating further though, I might end up simulating it and comparing mathematical results and variance just 'cause I can you know Often times, the 'feeling' of what's optimal is simply wrong. Like my high school science teacher used to say - common sense isn't sense at all.
@Dark Reaper - the point about killing blow being lost is a good one, which I didn't even consider. I think this for me at least means that there's no doubt about which build is overall best: even if you accept the variance this is hard to look past as you'll actually struggle against 1+ re-rollable 4+ ward characters (of which there are plenty in the game which the Thirster would prefer to have KB against).
It was indeed a very nice game! Next time, make sure the trays are correct: getting the Swords into your Letters' flank due to closing the door problems due to your overrun would've likely ended the game there and then with 17-3 or better. Also looking forward to facing a revised list. Your play is definitely improving and it's only a matter of time before I'll lose
Again, thanks a lot for the input folks! Though I am pretty impressed with this list's track record so far (1 loss, 1 tie, 13 wins (!)), there are still plenty of mistakes to pick up which shows that there's a lot of room for me to improve and continue to work with if I want to play optimally