To wrap up uncomped play for now, let`s take a look at NM, its lists, the games, predictions and add in some musings and further thoughts on the topic.
.::. Norwegian Master`s - Post-Tournament Analysis .::.
NM was a very interesting tournament with nearly 60 players (quite big for Norwegian events). I met hard competition from the first game onwards, as my opponents` final placings show as well. Lots of ups and downs, crazy dice rolls and a good atmosphere really helped making the tournament come alive beyond what some of these utterly boring matchups would suggest.
First of all, uncomped play and High Elves at 2000 points. I tried making infantry lists, I tried making cavstars, I tried making monster mash lists ranging from 2 to 4 phoenixes, I tried everything I could think of. In a meta where I knew Empire and Elves would be dominant (quite evident from my games as well with 2x EMP and 2x DE matches) with a little bit of DoC, WoC, LZ and SK thrown in the mix, I could never find a list without glaring weaknesses, much to my dismay. Thus it was that I started designing a list around Teclis, the sheer flexibility this guy has makes up for our one-dimensional options @2k. I contemplated going double Phoenix for a long while, but in the end decided against this seeing as they are a liability in a lot of matchups. Furthermore, I don`t think Phoenixes are that good uncomped: If combat units are hard they are HARD, to the point where a Phoenix really struggles. Furthermore there`s no follow-up. Long story short I decided to drop them, beef up the Lions and get more RBTs instead. In hindsight, this was a move I was very happy to have made. I still don`t know how I`d build my list without Teclis though. Perhaps we have more options, but at 2000 I could not find any strong configurations without Teclis. Partly sad because our book lack options and synergy at this point level, partly sad because it implicitly shows how game breaking single elements (Dwellers, Bells and Whistles WoC characters, Trollstars etc) can be. At 2400 with SLoS I think we have at least some more options, such as the Star Dragon, cavstar, Allarielle, Light Council etc. True, I assume Teclis is a very strong pick here as well, but I don`t think he`s necessarily our only hope for a competitive build. I could be wrong as uncomped play is not my area of expertise.
Anyway, since we are talking about how these games play, let`s recap my 5 games from a macro point of view:
- In the first 2 games it was an outright Dwellers war. Nothing even impacted the game to a significant degree apart from setting up/defending against this madness.
- In game 3 I probably had my only game that "felt" like a normal, comped game. With Morathi being on a peg, she would not have gotten Look Out, Sir! anyways and our armies both had multiple phases to contend. A highly interesting game which I sadly played bad, but luckily won due to the dice.
- The last 2 games I view as variations of the first 2: Though neither were as obvious as the first two, they were all about the right spells at the right moment. In game 4 I miscast early on, losing my momentum but in game 5 final transmutation came through in style, outright winning me the game.
The way I see it, magic and Teclis in particular was the key factor in all 5 games. My opponent`s magic was my main concern in all games barring game 3. Though this is partly what you`re asking for when playing Teclis, this is not what my Star Dragon games typically boil down to when I play 2400 points. This one-dimensionality is not something I enjoy and I`m glad I`m done with uncomped play for a while. Also keep in mind here that I feel a competitive build at 2k is pushed towards Teclis, so the lack of alternatives here is just as big of an issue as anything else.
I ended up grabbing 7th place, which means that quite a few people performed better than me. Let`s take a look at their lists. From 1 to 6, their lists were as follows:
Jeremy Payen
Ogre Kingdoms
Slaughtermaster, general, level 4, lore of heavens, great weapon, talisman of preservation, glittering scales, The other trickster`s shard 380
Bruiser, BSB, great weapon, Rune maw 201
Butcher, level 1, lore of the great maw, additional hand weapon, dispel scroll 127
Firebelly, level 1, lore of fire, additional hand weapon, hellheart 172
10 ironguts, FCG, look out gnoblar, standard of dicipline, 480
10 gnoblars 25
Gorger 90
Gorger 90
Gorger 90
Ironblaster 170
Ironblaster 170
Total: 1995
Sylvain Jaber
Empire
Arch Lector, general, Fozzrik`s folding fortress 200
Wizard Lord, level 4, lore of life, obsidian lodestone, sceptre of stability 260
Captain, BSB, standard of dicipline 100
Wizard, level 1, lore of light, 65
Wizard, level 1, lore of light, dispel scroll 90
Wizard, level 1, lore of light, scroll of shielding 80
Wizard, level 2, lore of light, power stone 120
10 archers 70
10 archers 70
10 archers 70
10 archers 70
10 archers 70
25 handgunners, musician 235
Steam Tank 250
Steam Tank 250
Total: 2000
Lasse Kalberg
The Empire
Battle Wizard Lord, warhorse, general, lvl 4, lore of life, dispel scroll, crown of command, dragonbane gem, 283 pts
Captain of the Empire, warhorse, battle standard bearer, full plate, barding, charmed shield, dawnstone, biting blade, 147 pts
13 Knightly Order, inner circle, fcg, standard of discipline, 370 pts
6 Knightly Order, 132 pts
5 Demigryph Knights, musician, banner, gleaming pennant, 315 pts
4 Demigryph Knights, musician, banner, 252 pts
Steam Tank, 250 pts
Steam Tank, 250 pts
Totalt: 1999 pts
Augustin Leth
Warriors of Chaos
Daemon Prince, general, daemon of khorne, chaos armour, daemonic flight, collar of khorne, soul feeder, scaled skin, sword of striking, charmed shield 400
Exalted hero on daemonic mount, BSB, Mark of Tzeentch, barding, great weapon, shield, talisman of preservation, potion of foolhardiness, third eye of tzeentch 264
Throgg 195
11 chaos trolls, additional hand weapons 418
5 chaos warhounds, vanguard 40
5 chaos warhounds 30
5 chaos warhounds 30
Chimera, flaming breath, regenerating flesh 275
4 Skullcrushers of Khorne, musician, standard bearer, ensorcelled weapons, banner of swiftness 347
Total: 1999
Thibault Rigolet
Dark Elves
Dreadlord on dark steed, general, heavy armour, shield, sea dragon cloak, repeater crossbow, giant blade, dawnstone 267
Supreme Sorceress on dark steed, level 3, lore of death, dispel scroll 230
Master on dark pegasus, BSB, heavy armour, sea dragon cloak, lance, charmed shield, talisman of preservation 211
Master on dark pegasus, heavy armour, shield, sea dragon cloak, repeater crossbow, lance, cloak of twilight 193
10 Dark riders, musician, shields, repeater crossbows 210
10 Dark riders, shields, repeater crossbows 200
5 dark riders, shields, repeater crossbows 100
5 harpies 75
Reaper Bolt Thrower 70
Reaper Bolt Thrower 70
Reaper Bolt Thrower 70
7 Doomfire warlocks 175
5 Doomfire warlocks 125
Total: 1996
Amund Teigum
Skaven
Grey seer, power scroll, 275
Warlord, wizarding hat, 190
Chieftain, bsb, storm banner, 120
Warlock Enginer, lvl 1, scroll, 90
Warlock Enginer, lvl 1, 65
Warlock Enginer, doomrocket, 45
Warlock Enginer, brass orb, 65
72 Slaves, mu, champion, shield, 186
40 Slaves, mu, champion, 86
40 Slaves, mu, champion, 86
21 Slaves, mu, champion, 46
21 Slaves, mu, champion, 46
9 gutter runners, poison, slings, additional hand weapons, 162
9 gutter runners, poison, slings, additional hand weapons, 162
8 gutter runners, poison, slings, additional hand weapons, 144
Warp lightning cannon, 90
Warp lightning cannon, 90
The recurring theme here is that these armies do not have glaring weaknesses to the common magic lores that dominate Elves. Yes, many of these struggle vs Purple Sun, but how many people will load up on Death when you anticipate Elves and Empire with lots of Life magic around? To answer my own, rhetorical question, the above lists sport a single wizard wielding death.
As you can probably tell from the names above most of the top placing guys at NM were French. Their preparations and meta predictions were spot on and their individual skills were good, making for an unbeatable combination. Next year, we have to claim our own tournament, nothing to do but practice
To do consistently well in an uncomped environment, I think you have to include elements that don`t have these super-polarized matchups and hugh 50-50 situations because inevitably during a 5-game tournament, magic will let you down, you will draw bad matchups and you will have bad dice. The lists above are, almost without exception, flexible enough to play the game that they want to. For this reason I was actually looking to take WoC to NM (which I have a concept list with that I`d really like to try), but I simply didn`t have nearly enough time to paint an army. I think this army excels at avoiding the usual suspects and still have enough punch to win big when needed. If you know of a High Elf configuration at this points level that isn`t particularly vulnerable to Dwellers, STanks, Dark Elves avoidance and Teclis, I`d very much like to know
As predicted prior to the tournament, my list doesn`t have enough power to grab big points. Winning all 5 games and still finishing below 70 points says something about how hard it is to grab points from (I didn`t even lose all support elements in any of my games), but also how much it struggles to capitalize on a good matchup. The 12-8 win vs DoC is a good example here. This reflects my thoughts on the subject of why tournament lists almost always should be aggressive by design (see the powerplay article submission thread in the tactics section, link will come in this blog later on). Part of why I took this list then was because I didn`t know how to configure a Teclis list to be capable of pushing, but it should also be said that I specifically went with this army because I wanted to expand my horizons in terms of High Elf playstyles: Throughout this year I`ve taken anything from combined arms to star dragon to teclis to tournaments and this versatility, I hope, is making me a better player.
In hindsight of my experiences though, I think that the obvious choice to improve this list`s viability in terms of winning big is to swap out those Archers for Silver Helms. I think the RBTs are still worth keeping over a Frostheart as they were golden in many of my games, but this would of course require playtesting. Basically the Silver Helms go well in tandem with Lions when pushing, Lions towards the center and Silver Helms flanking wide, wrapping around the Lions on the extreme flank and sweeping towards the middle mid-game. 20 with full command is a fearsome sight in its own right against many enemies, but the reason I believe in it in this context is of course Teclis` versatility. Many of the armies I met would`ve struggled big vs such a unit, bearing in mind that I can cast Mindrazor at them and basically put S10 ASF attacks en masse on anything from STanks to Beasts of Nurgle.
Furthermore I believe I was lacking a bit of ranged flexibility in terms of pure damage spells. Dwellers is nice vs Elves but close to useless in many other cases. I was also lacking a 2nd dispel scroll - true I got by nicely throughout the tournament - but Teclis did take a Dwellers test which I passed and it was iffy in a couple of my other games as well. The Lions are so big and strong that they hardly saw combat at all, I think a third wizard with a scroll and Light for both backup wizards allows Teclis to go "budget banishment": At S6 it`s still a very, very dangerous spell for many opponents.
To conclude then, if I were to take this further I would be experimenting with another wizard, a big unit of Helms in core (Reavers did next to nothing all tournament, true they killed an Empire Wizard but this was down to sheer luck, really), a few less Lions and maybe an RBT less to pay for the wizard. Even with Teclis' formidable array of spells, you need to bring the fight to the enemy to ensure big points.
The plans for the rest of the year contains 2 tournaments: First there is BSK, a 4-man team tournament ETC event in 2 weeks' time, followed by 2d6 Challenge, a local tournament in the middle of November with Giant Fanatic comp. I'm particularly looking forward to BSK as we've been practicing for months, but Challenge will also be a refreshing experience seeing as Giant Fanatic is something nobody around here knows particularly well and it's a significantly heavier comp system than we're used to.