Tournament Results-Orignally, I posted this on Druchii.net

[MexicanNinja]

Ok, this is the first time I've done this. Hopefully it makes sense. I will be making a separate post for each game. This was a one-day three-game tournament and it was all about VP each game. There were no secondary or scenario objectives for these games.

This was the army I took:

Malekith w/cold one
Sorceress w/lore of shadow, level 2 wizard, dark steed, dispel scroll, terrifying mask of eee!
Death hag w/bsb, witchbrew, obsidian blade, cauldron of blood
10 Dark Riders w/musician, standard, shields, RXbows
10 Dark Riders w/musician, standard, shields, RXbows
10 Dark Riders w/musician, standard, shields, RXbows
9 Cold One Knights w/FC, banner of swiftness
Cold One Chariot
Cold One Chariot
Repeater Bolt Thrower
5 Doomfire Warlocks w/master of warlocks


Before any of you ask why I have 3 units of Marauder Horsemen in my army. It's because this is themed around the northern wastes. Since Morathi bribes the tribesmen into service, err sacrifice, to the Witch King, I use them to represent the dark elves using them as fodder.

Initial thoughts:
I had mixed thoughts about my army list going into this tournament. I mainly took Malekith for the fluff and because people on here said it was a bad decision. Oh how people are completely wrong about him. He did so many great things in all of my games. His casting and combat effectiveness is just amazing. He is well worth the points I spent on him.

My main concern with my army was size. I didn't have a single unit with more than two ranks. Normally this isn't a concern at all for me. However, the difference was that I had a CoB in my CoK unit and I didn't know how that was going to work. As you'll see in my batreps, this unit was just ridiculous!.

There were thirteen participants at this tournament, including myself, with the following armies represented:

2 High Elves
2 Vampire Counts
2 Lizardmen
1 Dark Elves
1 Daemons of Chaos
1 Warriors of Chaos
1 Orcs and Goblins
1 Tomb Kings
1 Dwarf
1 Beastmen

[MexicanNinja]

Game 1 was played against Beastmen

Beastlord w/ogreblade, armour of destiny, potion of speed, shield
Great Bray Shaman w/level 4, lore of shadow, talisman of preservation, ruby ring of ruin, shadowhide, dispel scroll
Wargor w/bsb, gnarled hide, heavy armour, shield, beast banner
Bray Shaman w/level 2, lore of shadow, power scroll, opal amulet
Bray Shaman w/lore of beasts, shard of the herdstone
28 Gor w/FC and AHW
25 Ungor w/FC and spears
4 units of 5 Ungor Raiders w/half horn
39 Bestigor w/FC, banner of swiftness
Ghorgon

Before deploying, I was mainly concerned with the herdstone/shaman spam, the huge block of bestigors, and the ghorgon.

This game was a pitched battle.  Dark Elves won the roll off.  I picked sides and set up first.  Dark Elves win the roll for first turn.  Here are deployment pics, after my vanguard moves.  On the far right was a single unit of Dark Riders.




Turn 1
 My dark riders on my right flank march forward to the flank of his gor unit.  The warlocks and dark riders on my left flank move up to harrass raiders, shamans, and ghorgon.  I shoot 4 raiders on my right flank, they flee, and run towards his bestigor unit.  I kill 3 raiders on the left flank, they flee through all the shamans, and his level 1 flees off the table.  I put 1 wound on his ghorgon.

The level 4 shaman moves into the unit of ungor.  His level 2 is 2" short and sits 1" away from the unit.  He moves his ghorgon to try and mess with my fast cav.  I'm not sure what he was thinking or planning.  He reforms his gor unit into horde formation to look at my 10 dark riders.



Turn 2
I declare a charge with 6 dark riders into his level 2 shaman.  He holds, I contact the shaman.  I move my warlocks to the rear of his ungor and level 4.  I position my 10 dark riders on right flank into his deployment corner.  I want the gor to charge them and stay out of the game for at least a turn.  I do some more shooting and kill some raiders.  I move up my main line and prepare for combat!  Level 2 Shaman is killed, ungors and level 4 pass panic test.

The ghorgon moves back to help his rear lines.  His lone raider fails to rally again and continues to run right in front of his bestigor unit. The gor win combat against the dark riders, the dark riders flee off the table, the gor reform to look towards the center of the table.




Turn 3
I start by declaring a charge with my warlocks to the rear of his ungor unit.  He declares a flee reaction and run through his bestigor unit and his lone raider.  He's about 2" away from my left most CoC.  I delcare a charge with my CoC into his ungor unit.  He flees back through his bestigor unit and now has his flank about 4" away from my warlocks.  The CoC redirects into the bestigor.  My CoK unit and other CoC declare a charge into the bestigor unit as well.  I then declare a charge with my 6 dark riders into the flank of his bestigor.  He still holds, this could get messy.  My last charge is with a unit of dark riders into his raiders just on the edge of the forest in front of the herdstone.  I roll for my charge distances and they all connect.  We get to combat and this is just a mess.  I start with the easy one first, dark riders smash the raiders and reform to look at the herdstone.  Now comes the good part.  I roll for impact hits on his bestigor and roll two 6's and one 5.  I end up killing 17 bestigor just from impact hits.  I then start rolling my to-hit and to-wound rolls and I kill every single bestigor, beastlord, and wargor bsb before he gets to roll any dice.

We get to his turn and the look on his face is priceless.  I will say, I am feeling for him right now.  He just had his entire army pretty much smashed around because of a raider that ruined his movement.  He declares a long charge on my warlocks exposed flank with his ghorgon.  He needed either a 9 or 10 to make the charge.  He also declares a charge with his gor unit into my CoC on the right.  He makes the ghorgon charge but fails the gor herd charge.  We get to combat and I get a wound through with poison from the 2 attacks my warlock had.  The ghorgon swings away, gets 4 hits, 4 wounds, and I make 3 saves.  I pass my break test, and reform to face the ghorgon.

Turn 4
I declare a charge on his ghorgon with my dark riders.  I also declare a charge on his gor herd with my CoK unit.  I contact the ghorgon.  The gor fail their terror test and run off the table.  In the combat phase my warlocks kill the ghorgon with poison.



Beastmen are tabled top of turn 4.  I only lose a unit of dark riders.

Dark Elves win 2850-245

The one thing I didn't talk about was magic.  It really didn't do much.  He didn't get a single spell off and I either cast very light or just skipped the phase entirely.  It wasn't needed, on my end.

[MexicanNinja]

Game 2 was played against Warrior of Chaos

Nurgle lord w/potion and "stuff"
Daemon Prince w/dispel scroll, "stuff"
Festus
Nurgle hero w/bsb, "stuff"
Khorne hero w/jug, potion, "stuff"
50 Chaos Warriors w/MoN, AHW, FC, banner of some sort
3 jugs/w standard, champion
Giant w/MoS

This game was pretty amped up.  We were the only players to table our first opponents and no one was close to our VP tally.  We were also expecting to play in the last tournament we were in (I won best general in that one as well with a different list).  However, we didn't and his festus army beat all 3 of his opponents in our last tournament, and then tabled his first opponent for this tournament.  At any rate, we got to play second round of this tournament.

I had no idea how I was going to tackle a unit of 50 WoC.

Our game was meeting engagement.  I won the roll choosing deployment sides.  I had two units of dark riders in reserve, he had festus held up in reserves.  I chose my side of the table because I didn't want him to have the option to stick that WoC unit in a building.  I wanted to fight it!  I got first turn. Here are pictures after vanguard moves.



Turn 1
I move my main line towards the center of the table.  I have no idea what I'm going to be doing yet.  I'm trying to anticipate his moves.  My dark riders come on the table from reserves on my right flank and move towards his DP and jugs to try and get some quick wounds through.  That doesn't work though, and it's a complete failure.  My dark riders on my left flank and the warlocks move up to start hexing things.  I do 1 wound to the DP with 40 shots.  It was either shoot at the DP behind the jugs or waste DR shooting at the jugs.  In the magic phase, I get off miasma off with my sorcerss on the WoC unit.  Malekith then unloads and casts WoP, followed by black horror towards the WoC.  I wanted this thing to hit that unit, in a bad flippin way.  This unit was at -4 Initiative.  I cast with IF, put a wound on Malekith, then roll a 4 on the artillery die.  It stops bout 3" in front of the WoC unit.  Oh well, I tried.

The DP moves up towards my dark riders but faces towards my main line.  He moves his jugs up behind his DP.  He move the giant from around the impassible terrain and his WoC unit stays put.  Festus casts some spell, gets IF, loses all wizard level, and kills 3 warlocks.  The warlocks passes their panic check.

Turn 2
I move my 2 dark riders on my right flank up a bit but staying out of charge arc of DP.  I'm about 9" away from his DP with my first unit, the second unit is about 2" behind my first unit of dark riders.  I start to move my chariots around to start getting some charges in to either slow stuff down or soften things up for my unit of knights.

The WoC now take prime advantage of the one move I wasn't prepared for.  He declares a charge towards my CoC with his DP.  I didn't see this coming because I had my knight unit right behind them.  He then declares a charge with his jugs against my dark riders.  If they flee, he redirects into the second unit.  I elect to stand and shoot and put a wound on the jugs.  He fails the charge with his DP and contact the dark riders with his jugs.  In the magic phase, the vortex moves towards the giant.  He kills just over half the dark riders with his jugs.  I fail my panic test, they stop 2" from the table edge.  The second unit fails panic test, runs through the first unit and is off the table.  He then overruns and catches the first unit who fled from combat.


Turn 3
It's at this point when I say to myself, time to go big or go home!  I'm down 440 points and he doesn't have to engage me at this point.  Malekith is not going to be denied this victory!

I begin my turn with declaring a charge with a CoC into his DP and move my knights and other CoC into position to get in the fight soon.  I make the charge into his DP with my CoC.  I move my warlocks around his army and get read to go hex crazy on things.  I hex up his DP (I can't remember which ones I got through though).  I kill the DP and the chariot has his flank exposed to the giant and the front exposed to the jugs.

He declares a charge with his giant and jugs on my CoC.  Bait taken!  He starts to move his horde of warriors into possible counter charge position.  He makes both charges and demolishes the CoC.


Turn 4
Here we go.  I declare a charge with my CoC on his jugs and declare a charge with my knights on his giant (these two units are my only hope at killing anything in his army at this point).  I contact both units.  I then move onto the magic phase and his jugs are hexed to hell!  When the phase is over they are sitting at -4WS, -3BS/I, -4S, -1T.  We get to combat and I start with the knights.  I slap the giant silly and overrun into the jugs.  The giant falls and does zero wounds.  I only contact the jugs with 2 knights though.  I kill his champion in a challenge, fail to wound the hero, and he does a single wound to my CoC.  He needs to roll a 4 or less to stick.....and he does just that!  I then reform to give the jugs my flank.  He had never seen that and didn't know that was a legal move.  I showed him the FAQ, called the rules judge over, and then all was good.  It was just a new tactic he wasn't ready for.  At any rate.  I had my unit of knights in a single line with one model in the second rank to keep 2 models in contact with the jugs.

Horde of warriors declare a charge on my CoK unit.  He needs a 7 and makes it!  Time for the biz to happen. He issues a challenge with his unit champ in the WoC unit.  Malekith takes it and slaps him to the dirt.  The death hag and knights go to town on the WoC unit (oh yeah, I had PoD up on my unit as well).  The witches on the cauldron kill festus.  This unit just lost everything they need.  No more poison attacks and no more regen.  GAME ON BRO!  We both look at each other and go...."DAMN!"  My chariot puts no wounds on the herald on jug.  He swings back and kills 5 knights puts 3 wounds on my chariot.  I win combat and he sticks with both units.




Turn 5
At this point, we both realize this is going to be the turn that decides the victor.  And, well, yeah, I hex the crap out of his units again.  This time the jugs with soulblight and WoP. I hit the Warriors with Miasma for the WS hex.  I toss up PoD on the knight unit.  Time to start rolling dice.  At this point, I can't remember which one of his characters issued a challenge and which one on mine took the challenge.  What i do know is that his lord was dead, one jug went down, a ton of warriors dropped, and I failed two 2+ ward saves with malekith and he dies.  YES, MALEKITH IS HIT A TON, WOUNDED TWICE, I FAIL TWO 3+2++.  I just can't believe it happened but said, "meh, it happens", and move on to more die rolling.  We count up the combat res and I win.  He needs a 4 on his jugs again.  This time he fails, runs through my warlocks, and off the table.

At this point the rules judge says finish phase and dice down.  We drop the dice and look at the table.  It was a mess on the right flank.


We add up the points and WOW! Such a close game

Dark Elves win 1752-1355 (the standard from my CoK's kept him from the CoK points).

He wasn't ready for my magic phases and we were both shocked at what I was able to do against his horde of warriors with only a unit of 11 models.

This last pic is just showing some useless things on the table that just sat back and denied him points.

[MexicanNinja]

Game 3 was against High Elves

Elthyrion
High Mage w/level 2, dispel scroll
BSB w/stuff (I can't remember if it was a noble or the sea guard dude)
Hand Maiden
30ish Sea Guard w/FC
30ish Archers w/banner (possibly musician as well)
28 Swordmasters w/FC, BotWD
2 RBT's
Flame Phoenix
8 Sisters of Avalorn

After the hard fought game against WoC I get paired against High Elves.  There are only two possible outcomes here.  I massacre and get the number 1 spot or I don't and the WoC player could snag it.  I didn't find out until afterthe WoC player finished his game that he had won by around 1.5k.  His game finished early and he came to watch our remaining 2 turns.

Our game was dawn attack and I won the roll to pick sides.  I chose the side closest to the building so that he couldn't stick his sea guard or archers in there for 360 LoS and easier options to hold a charge.  The only unit I was concerned with was the unit of swordmasters. I didn't want to deal with S5 hits on my knights.

After deployment, I'm extremely happy with how our matches ended up:

My left flank: warlocks w/sorceress and a unit of dark riders
My right flank: 2 units of dark riders and CoC
My center: CoC, CoK's w/CoB and Malekith, RBT

HE right flank: Elthryion
HE left flank: 1 RBT, phoenix, archers
HE center: everything else

Dark Elves get turn 1.  The pictures I had to show how deployment looked like after vanguard moves was extremely blurry.  The first set of pictures will show what the table looks like after turn 1.

Turn 1
I move my dark riders on the right towards his phoenix, move the chariot to counter charge his phoenix if he takes the bait and wins or flies over and burns the dark riders.  I move the second unit around to the left of the CoC to start charging things on turn 2.  I move a unit of dark riders into a single rank in front of my CoK.  I am trying to bait either a charge from the sea guard or swordmasters or both.  I also didn't want to fail a frenzy test and get out of position on turn 2.  I move the chariot to get ready to counter charge as well.  The warlocks move around to play with his general and start hexing things.  In the magic phase I start with PoD to get some more dice.  I roll 3 dice and IF.  I roll a 4, kill 5 knights, avoid getting sucked into the void, and lose the rest of my dice.  Awesome start for the DE.  I did get off miasma on the swordmasters for movement hex.  I hit them with -3 movement.  I put a wound on the phoenix from shooting and a wound on elthyrion's griffon.

High Elves start with declaring a charge with his phoenix on my dark riders.  I stand and shoot and put another wound on the phoenix.  He doesn't take the bait with my other unit of dark riders though.  He marches his swordmasters up 4".  He reforms his SoA and gets ready to shoot at the warlocks. The SoA kill 2 warlocks, they pass their panic check.  All of his other shooting kills 4 dark riders in my unit on the right of the rock.  They panic and flee 11"!  Awesome, another great outcome for turn 1.  In combat, I put a wound on his phoenix, he kills a dark rider, I win combat by 1, he flees, I pursue, I catch, and now I'm set up for a flank charge on his archers.  Something went my way this turn!




Turn 2
I declare a charge with my dark riders into the flank of his archers.  He holds, if he flees then he runs off the table.  It's an auto charge, I'm less than 6" from his flank.  I fail stupidity with my CoC on my right flank and he goes 5" toward the rock.  The dark riders rally and turn around.  I move my single file line of dark riders right between his swordmasters and sea guard.  I expose my rear to his SM and my front to his SG.  I need one of these units to take the bait.  The way the move ended up made it so that the swordmasters would only get like 2, maybe 3, models into contact with my CoK unit and then their flank would be exposed to my CoC.  I moved the CoC and CoK's after I moved the dark riders.  I swing my warlocks out of LoS of his griffon and in range for doombolt on the SoA.  I get a ton of hexes off on his swordmasters.  They are -3 movement/WS/BS/I/S.  I get PoD on my CoK's, and I fail soulblight so no doombolt.  I shoot off a rank and a half of sea guard.  In combat I kill a bunch of archers, he makes his steadfast test and reforms to face my dark riders.

The High Elves start with declaring a charge on my dark riders with his sea guard.  I hold.  He doesn't declare a charge with anything else.  He moves elthyrion in a position to get ready for some counter charges.  He kills no dark riders with shooting this turn.  Both of his RBT's open up on my RBT and miss with the big bolts.  He kilsl 2 more warlocks with his SoA.  They make their panic check.  In combat....yeah, he kills a single dark rider with his sea guard and I kill roughly 8.  He's got 2 and a half ranks left.  We both stick around.  I kill a bunch more archers, he kills 1 or 2 dark riders, we both stick.


Turn 3
Time for Malekith to bring his fury down upon the traitor scum! I declare a charge with my CoK unit on his sea guard.  I make the charge.  I move my warlocks 18" away from his SoA to try and get doombolt again.  The non-engaged dark rider unit moves up to harass the RBT in front of them.  There are only 3 dark riders left in the unit.  The CoC moves up towards the other RBT.  My other CoC moves into a counter charge position on the swordmasters.  During the magic phase I wreck it with hex's again.  This time I start with miasma on his SoA, I'm done getting shot at.  They get hit with -3.  I then hit them with WoP for BS hex again and roll another 3.  The SoA unit is now -6 to BS.  I get WoP on my CoK unit, my warlocks fail to cast soulblight on the sword masters and the magic phase is over. In shooting, I don't do a single wound.  I kill some more archers, he kills 1 or 2 dark riders (I think he kills at least 1), and we both stick around.  I slaughter the sea guard and prepare for the worst.  If I overrun with the CoK's, I won't get out of charge arc and the dark riders are just there to flee.

High Elves start by declaring a charge with the swordmasters on the dark riders, that's the only declared charge.  The dark riders flee, and the swordmasters hit the CoK's.  This is going to flippin hurt!  He moves up elthyrion to prepare for combat.  He shoots down my RBT with his first big bolt shot.  He shoots 6 shots with the other RBT and only kills 2 dark riders!  The standard passes his panic test.  HE WILL CHARGE!  We get to the fun part now.  First we start with his fear test.  And....BING BANG BOOM, he rolls a 10 followed by a 11!  LD test failed and swordmasters are WS1!  CoK's saved.  I roll a ton of dice, when the swordmasters get to attack back there are only 4 rank and file models and his bsb.  He kills a few CoK's.  He breaks, I pursue, and they're caught.  The dark riders finally finish of the archers and turn to face the RBT in the corner.




Turn 4
I declare with my dark rider standard into his RBT.  I declare a charge with my CoC and dark rider unit into his other RBT.  I rally my other unit of dark riders and they move towards his SoA, they are getting ready for a charge of their own.  The CoK's reform, swift reform and move towards elthyrion.  My warlocks move behind the mine, out of LoS from everything and save me some points.  I move the CoC on the right side of the mine up to get ready to counter charge elthryion, if he goes in.  I shoot at his SoA with my dark riders and kill all but the hand maiden, they make their panic check.  After combat, both RBT's down.

He charges elthryion into the flank of my CoK's.  I misjudged the angle...oops.  The hand maiden moves back, shoots at the dark riders, and kills 1.    We get to close combat.  Well, I f'd up and it's time to make up for the mistake.  I wanted to get my death hag into combat with his general, but since the CoB has to stay in the middle of the unit I only had one option.  "F IT, I'M THE DAMNED WITCH KING...LET'S ROLL BRO!"  I figured I would survive against all the griffon attacks with the 2+/2++ and since elthryion only has 4 attacks and we both hit on 4's and I'm T4 he would hit with 2 and probablly wound twice.  Well he hits with 3 attacks.  At this point I say, "wait, I need to roll my hits because I could destroy your weapon and then you don't ignore armour saves and I would get a 2+/2++ against his attacks."  I hit 4 times, destroy the helm, and die.  However, I take elthryion with me because he has no ward save any longer.  We draw combat.  I reform to face his griffon.


Turn 5
I declare a charge with my CoC against his griffon and my dark riders declare a charge against his hand maiden.  The hand maiden stands and shoots, may have killed 1 dark rider.  Both charges connect.  We got straight to combat.  Both units dead.



Dark Elves win 2850-705

[MexicanNinja]

Here are my overall thoughts about the tournament.

I have mixed opinions on my armies' performance. On one side, I won best general and best overal, but on the other hand 2 of the armies I faced weren't really a threat to me. The beastmen had no mino's, chariots, or razorgors. While the only threat to me in the high elves army was the sword masters, but when they failed their fear test it just went pop. Although, I'm not too sure if that even mattered in the long run. I had so many re-rolls.

I am very pleased with the overall performance of the CoK/CoB/Malekith combo. That thing was a monstrosity and it did wondrous things for me, during the entire tournament. The main thing was throwing people off that I actually had Malekith in a unit of CoKs. I will say, after witnessing what Malekith is capable of, he is pretty ridiculous for his points cost. Point-for-point, yes, he is well worth it. He just needs the right support with him.

Would I run this list again? Maybe.

ALL SHALL WITNESS THE FURY OF THE WITCH KING!

[MexicanNinja]

Just so all of you know.  This was orignally posted on Druchii.net.  I posted the army on the forums there and I had a bunch of responses about wanting to see results.  So, I said, "the heck with it".  I decided to have a crack at it.  Also, some of the wording is intended for Dark Elf players.

[Murphy'sLawyer]

Congrats on the win!

 

My first thought is your list is very mobile and it would be hard for them to out position you. So you had the advantage there right away. From reading the WoC would have been my concern too, the other two lists didn't look like list for a Hard Core tournament.

 

I love our chariots too and was realizing this weekend when I brought one out that I don't use them more.

 

So not that we use named charaters in Portland yet but how do you think Malekith would do not in an unit? He is a lot of points to have him cannon balled off the table.

[MexicanNinja]

He dies to high S magic attacks, or magic spells.  He has no ward save for magic attacks.  I think he's best used in unit.  If there were a watch tower scenario, I would have taken him with 24 BG.

 

It's not a hard core tournament murphy.  There were some tough lists.  I just got an extremely lucky first round pairing.  Once that raider ran in front of his bestigor unit and I controlled the left flank, I pretty much knew what the result was going to be.  I just didn't know I was going to hit that unit in the way I did.  I was highly concerned with the following lists:

 

Orcs and Goblins- Doom Divers put a ton of fear in my CoK and CoC's.  They also produce a ton of numbers which makes for a long grind in combat.

Vampire Counts- They have a tone of cool tricks at their disposal.

Dwarfs- There was a decent number of war machines in his army.

 

Let me set the record straight here.  The High Elf player is an excellent general.  The problem is, and we've both discussed this, the army he has is the army he bought from someone, and it was built before the current book.  In 7th ed, that army would have been amazing!  The second problem is that we play each other on a regular basis and we know the ins and outs of each others armies and everyone knows that once DE armies contact HE armies they usually win because of Hatred and Murderous Prowess.

[Gunnerson]

Not sure if the OnG list I took would have done as much as you might expect. I didn't have any doom divers. I went with a 99% goblin list with 2 Giants and a Spider. My rock lobber may have done a bit of damage but as a wise general you probably would have picked out my bosses in the 1st round of hth and then it would have been all over except for the mop up. My game plan would have been very similar to the one Thaddieus used. Bunker up in a corner and refuse flanks. Shove out the fanatics (6 in total between 3 blocks of 50) and let them do some work and hope for the best out of my nets. Use my big blocks for SCR and maybe, just maybe get the monsters to produce some wounds on the off chance they survive the magic/shooting phases.

[MexicanNinja]

You just hit it home with the fanatics Gunnerson.  Kill the knights and the chariots and I have no combat power.  OnG and Skaven just produce mass amounts of bodies and most of the units aren't worth many points.  The fanatics alone would have made me not mov my combat units within range.  I respect the OnG armies out there, they can bring the "unexpected" pain.

[Murphy'sLawyer]

Well having an O&G army I will say it is very unpredictable. You can do some list building to limit this but there is nothing worse than having your hammer unit with your lvl 4 failing its animosity roll. But yes Doom Divers are the best, when it doesn't misfire turn one. :p

 

After OFCC I will be bringing them out for some more fun.

 

As for your games it sounds like your speed played a big key to winning.

[MexicanNinja]

I know it is unpredictable; however, there are certain things which aren't.  My army fears doom divers and fanatcis beyong belief.  3 fanatics could be enough to secure a win against my army.

[McNathanson]

This is a great tourney report, thanks for taking the time to write it up!  Sounds to me like you really dominated your magic phase… I'm amazed how many spells you were getting off, even with Malekith!

Regarding Malekith, even before reading your report, I would have disagreed with the notion that he's weak.  I always say that "over-costed" units that are still super powerful are well worth their points in the hands of a good general.  After all, most of WFB is about focusing a lot of your points on a smaller subset of your opponent's points, while holding the rest at bay somehow.  Super units like Special Chars or Dragons with mean riders, etc, are usually very good at bringing the focus.  And how great is it to have a dominant magic phase AND a crazy CC unit or two?

The only thing I didn't like was how corny the Cauldron of Blood looks in the unit of Cold One Knights, nothing against it otherwise, but it just messes up the aesthetic of your  army.  Eh, whatever :)

Definitely looking forward to playing and learning a few new tricks for my DE :)

[MexicanNinja]

Thank you, NtK.  Like I stated above, this was the first time I actually tried to do a batrep.  I ended up doing 3!  It was a lot of fun.  I need a little more notes and better quality pics for the next one.  I think I have found my new found love with warhammer.

 

Yes, I was casting, on average, 5 spells during my magic phase.  It was off the charts.  Just like every other level 4 with dark magic, he gets +5 to cast.  Dark magic has low casting values.  The kicker though was his special ability.  In every magic phase, yours and your opponents, he gets to add a free D6 to his first failed casting attempt and dispel attempt.  I also had him drop 1 spell for power of darkness every game.  I was rolling a 3, on average, for the additional power dice.  I was only using miasma for a single characteristic stat with my level 2 and that only needs a 5 as well.  I was 2 dice spamming most spells.

 

Yes, the Cauldron is 100% off.  I was just testing it out.  I originally made it as a unit filler for my spearmen.  I am working on ideas on how to change it.  I may just have to say, "f it" and purchase the new one.  I just don't want to assemble it.