Dragon & Witches at MiF Options

[Brendan Black]

With the whole of today off and nothing much to do i thought I might write up about my own experiances last weekend at MiF.
Firstly I thought it was a great weekend and want to give a big thanks to everyone who organised it. It was well run and i had lots of fun. It was great being able to look at some 40k armies and prove to myself that Fantasy is hands down the better system

After finally buying, building and painting a Dragon I was very keen to take him to a tournament and try him out, however I didn't want everyone to cry out cheese at the same time, so I tried to make my list more comp friendly with various concessions, mainly witch elves, who i have noticed rarely appear at any tournaments
Anyway here is my list
DreadLord- Black Dragon, Armour of Darkness, Pendant of Khaeleth, Death Piercer, Pair of Repeater Handbows
Sorceress- Lv 2, Dark Pegasus, Focus Familiar
Sorceress- Lv 2, Dark Steed, Dark Star Cloak

5 Dark Riders- Repeater Crossbows, Musician
5 Dark Riders- Repeater Crossbows, Musician
10 Repeater Crossbow Elves
5 Harpies
21 Witch Elves, Standard bearer, Musician, Banner of Murder
5 Cold One Knights- Full Command, Standard of Slaughter
5 Shades- Great Weapons
2 Reaper Bolt Throwers

Altogether I felt my army could compete well in all phases, while still avoiding many of the cheesy choices, ie. Black Guard, War Hydra, Ring of Hotek.

Onto the Games
1st Round vs Brad Stephenson's Dwarves
Brad was a new player and hadn't quite finished painting his army. His army consisdted of a couple of Dwarf Thanes, Runesmith, Bolt Thrower, Cannon, Miners, Quarrelers, Thunderers, Gyrocopter Warriors and Longbeards. I can't remember the exact number of troops but all up there were a lot of angry dwarves as Brad had neglected to take a Lord in favour of more troops.

I set up my army in a fairly standard formation, hiding the Dragon and cold One Knights behind a hill, the witches and Crossbows in the middle of the board and the Dark riders on the flanks. The Shades managed to deploy right in the back corner where there was a forest. In the first couple of turns brad managed to hit my knights with the Cannon killing half of them and wiped out one units of Dark Riders, using the quarrelers. The Gyrocopter flew over my force and wiped out the Harpies and charged into my Repeater Crossbow Elves. This was perhaps a mistake as the Crossbows held fairly easily and they sat locked in combat for 4 turns before finally my Crossbows destroyed the Gyrocopter in turn 6.

Meanwhile my Witch Elves were forced to charge into a big block of Dwarf Warriors with Thane but to probably both our surpirse they actually wiped out 5 Dwarves using Poison, armour piercing and hatred, winning the combat although the dwarves held on for another turn.

The Dragon finally got into action and flew over and charged another unit of Dwarf Warriors together with the Shades breaking them and then Overrunning into the Quarrelers The next turn the Dragon rampaged through them as well and then charged the bolt Thrower. By this point the Witches had broken the Dwarf Warriors and run full pelt into the longbeards. who were then flank charged by the Dragon and Shades. and were routinely wiped off the board.

By this point all brad had left was 1 unit of thunderers, 1 unit of Quarrelers, Thane and the Cannon but they weren't going down without a fight. The Cannon shot my Dragon who finally succumbed to his wounds leaving my lord standing alone and feeling rather annoyed. He also wiped out most of my Witch Elf unit and some of my remaining Dark Rider unit. but it wasn't enough the Witches, Sjhades and Dark Riders charged forwards into the Thunderers and systematically wiped them out, while my now dismounted Lord took his anger out on the dwarf Thane, wounding him but the stubborn dwarf wouldn't run.

All up I won 17-3. For his first tournament game Brad played very well and it was always going to be hard when he had such low movement compared to my fast force. However I was a bit worried at winning the first round by so much as I didn't really feel confident enough in taking out some of the scary Vampire and Demon lists that were hanging around.

Best Unit: DreadLord- Took t\2 Cannon Balls and a Bolt to the Head but didn't lose a wound. Wiped out half the Dwarves by himself
Worst unit: Harpies- Did absolutely nothing but then I guess that's what they are there for.
Most Suprising Unit: Witches, the Girls really outshined themselves taking care of a Thane, a unit of Warriors, a unit of Longbeards and a unit of thunderers.

Game 2 vs Yan Zhi Lai's Tomb Kings
This was my first game against Tomb Kings and the lack of experiance really caught me off guard. Yan had a Tomb Prince in a unit of Chariots, Tomb King in Tomb Guard, Big Unit of Skellies and Skellie Archers, Skellie Horsemen, Screaming Skull Catapult, carrion and Scorpion.

First Turn my Dragon flew up next to the Tomb Guard, but couldn't quite reach with his breath template. My Witches and Knights moved up towards the centre of the board. Dark Riders and Harpies on the eft flank moved up to support the Dragon and Dark Riders on the right flank moved up to challenge the Skeleton Archers. All semed ok, didn't get off any magic and shooting was reasonable with a couple of Dead Skeletons.
His turn everything goes pear shaped. The Tomb Guard feely reform and then start casting spells to charge my dragon. With 4 Dispel dice i thought he would be ok and easily stopped the first one and then the second, and just managed the third but the 4th incantation got through! Never expected so many single dice spells that always go off! In combat my Dragon lord is challenged by his king. I inflict three wounds on him, he does nothing in return. I lose the combat by 2 but fail and run off.
Luckily though his Skull Catapult tries to shoot using the incantation and immediately blows up and his Scorpion also misfires and doesn't turn up

His carrion flies in front of my Knights and Witches who both charge forward and destroy them but this leaves the chariots who have come speeding up my flank, (didn't know they could march and free reform) to charge in and wipe them both out for no losses. The Skeleton archers shoot at my Dark Riders and kill half of them. They flee off the board in panic.

In my turn the Dragon manages to rally but can't do anything then turn around and face off against the Tomb Guard. Magic again has almost no effect. Making Skeletons WS 1 is somewhat pointless and he easily dispels everything else.

In his turn the Tomb guard charge the Dragon and challenge again. My Lord kills his Tomb King but I lose combat again and run off despite taking no wounds.

My turn the Harpies and dark Riders flank and Rear Charge the Tomb Guard but being T4 they only win the combat by 1. He then charges his Chariots into the Harpies wiping them out and causing the dark Riders and Sorceress to flee the board.

In my turn the Dragon lord fails his rally test again and exits the board as quick as he can. My two Bolt Throwers fire at the Chariots and finally do some damage killing them all! However the Tomb Prince by himself using lots of incantations charges forward and wipes out both Bolt Throwers as well as my Crossbows. and Peggy Sorceress.

The Shades who had spent the whole game hiding in a forest and shooting at the big block of skellies get targeted by 3 magic missile leaving just one guy on the board by the end of turn 6.
-Complete Massacre 18-2. All I got was the Tomb King, Chariots and the Catapult although that was more luck than any strategic maneuvering.

Best Unit- Either the Lone remaining Shades who ignored everything that was thrown at him and passed numerous panic checks or the Bolt Throwers who wiped out the Chariots.
Worst unit- A close tie between the Dragon Lord who couldn't pass a Ld 10 test to save himself and the Witches and Knights who just got themselves killed.

Game 3 vs Julian Jacksh's dwarves
On the plus side I was now down at the bottom of the leader board and was able to play a relatively easier army. I had played Julian's Dwarves at Convic and been completely trounced so I was keen to make up for it. Julian's army was somewhat similar to Brad's. Lots of Dwarf Warriors, Quarrelers, Thunderers, organ Gun, Cannon, Catapult, Slayers, Miners, Longbeards, Ogres.

My deployment was also similar. Witches and knights in the middle, Dark Riders on the Flanks, Dragon behind a forest.
I got first turn and flew my Harpies up to block line of Sight to the War Machines. The Bolt Throwers and crossbows wiped out the slayers first turn. The shades snuck up behind a forest and peppered the ogres, killing 1. The Dragon went and hid behind a different forest, the Dark Riders on the left hid behind a hill in fear of the quarrelers.

In his turn the Cannon blew up a Bolt Thrower, and the Ogres ran away from the shades.

My turn not much happened, The witches moved forwards, everything that could shoot shot, Dragon kept hiding

Then finally my Witches charged into a unit of Warriors and wiped them out, Knights charged a unit of Quarrlers and ripped them to shreds. Shades charged the Ogres and killed them all.

In his turn the miners turned up behind my remaining Bolt Thrower, I think the crossbows were taken out by shooting but can't remember.

My turn the Dragon decided to get into the action and flew in front of the huge Longbeard unit that was just standing around and flamed several of them. The Cold one Knights consolidated their move around a forest to help out the rest of my army. The shades then took on the organ Gun and took it out then overran into some Quarrerlers.

In his turn the Longbeards test for terror and he rolls Double 6's! The firghtened dwarves run screaming for their lives and stop just in front of my Witch Elves who were looking for someone else to fight! However this now leaves the Dragon open to Cannon and catapult. With a huge bang the Dragon falls down dead leaving the lord again rising from the dust and looking around for the source of the commotion.

Now on foot the Lord charges the Cannon Crew and my Witches charge the fleeing longbeards who turn and run off the board from the bloodthirsty elves. The Witches redirect into the catapult and wipe it out. My Lord easily handles the cannon crew and wipes them out. The one remaining dwarf unit that just rallied after fleeing from the Dragon decides to charge the Lord. I hold even though i could easily flee and then rally in my turn. I challenge his rune priest and managed to hit, wound and kill him! Causing the few remaining dwarves to high tail it back off the board in terror! Leaving no dwarves alive and almost my entire army intact this was a huge victory to me. Julian was a great guy and took the complete collapse of his army very well. Although sadly he was unable to play on Sunday

Best Unit: Dragon lord, Shades, Witches, Cold One Knights, Dark Riders, Bolt Throwers, almost everyone chipped in
Worst Unit: The one Bolt Thrower which got hit by the cannon and blew up even though both crew members survived the shot.

At the end of Day One I was on a whopping 39 Battle Points! By far the highest I have ever got. Almost the highest i have got in a whole tourney let alone three games so was very happy with my troops performance and somewhat worried about what I might face tommorow.

Game 3 vs Adrian Stakula's Night Goblin army
Staks army was mega cool and ended up winning players choice. It was based on Harry Potter and contained heaps of amazing conversions such as Fluffy and the Hippogryff. I felt priveliged just being allowed to play it!
His army had an orc Warboss on hippogryff (Wyvern), Fluffy (Giant), Whomping Willow (Doom Diver), 2 Botl Throwers, 2 units of broomstick Riders (Wolf Riders) 3 Units of Night Goblins with fanatics, 3 Units of Squigs and one of the School Coaches (Wolf Chariot) With a Giant Battle Standard on top!

Staks deployed pretty much his whole army on the flanks leaving my Witch Elves stranded in the middle of the board facing fast Cav and in the far distance bolt Throwers. On my left flank he had Fluffy, Hippogyrff, the Coach, Wolf Riders, Squigs and a full unit of Gobbos facing off against my Dragon, the Knights, Shades and Dark Riders. On his other flank he had more squigs and another unit of Night Gobs facing my Dark Riders.

Thje game started off fairly erratically, My Harpies flew up to release his Fanatics which whipped through the Harpies and killed several of them making them flee. And flee they did going 16" away from the spinning loonies. On the other flank I tried to charge my dark Riders into the Squig Hoppers but forgot about the Gobbo unit just behind. The fanatics spun out through his squig unit killing 1 and into my dark riders killing 3. The Dark Riders proceeded to get flounced in combat by the vicous squigs and were wiped out. Not so good.

On the other side of the board my Dragon flew up and flamed fluffy giving him a wound and just killing one Broomstick rider. Fluffy then moved around to charge my Dragon but he got bored and flew off to chase the Coach, Wyvern and Gobbo unit which was running away from him.

The fanatic which the Harpies had released decided to spin straight into the Knights killing three. ouch!
My shades feeling that they might be next riddled the Fanatic with arrows and killed him while the Dark Riders took out another one.

My Witches were forced to keep charging the Wolf Riders due to Frenzy. First time someone has actually used this tactic against them. it was very effective though as they got nowhere and then were flanked by the Hyppogryff who killed them all in one go.

My Dragon leisurely flew onto of a hill paniking a unit of Night Gobbos to run straight into my Dark Riders and die. He then flew into another Nighht Gobbo unit and proceeded to wipe them out

Meanwhile the BsB Coach charged full pelt into my Cold One Knights who were still shocked after their fanatic attack. The standard bearer died but my champ wounded the BSB. The next turn my shades charged in to help them out and the Champ killed the BSB breaking the chariot and running it down leaving my Champion alone standing in front of the doom diver as the shades couldn't keep up

The Squigs on the right flank made their way around and wiped out my Bolt Thrower as well as the crossbows before standing at the board edge to claim table quarters.

My shades charged into the Gobbo boss on Giant Squig and here I learned that gobbo heroes have T4. WTF?
My shades killed off the Gobbo hero anyway but his giant squig ate two shades leaving it a draw. His victorious Hippogryff then charged in and polished them off as well. meanwhile my Dragon flew into the last Night Goblin unit and killed them all before deciding to nap down behind a forest and avoid the Bolt Throwers.

In my last turn the Cold One Champ killed the Doom Diver and my Peg Sorceress killed off Fluffy using Doombolt.
It was a very close game, we both still had our Lord's on monstrous mounts alive. I had very few troops, only 6 but both my sorceresses still lived somehow and this gave me a stack load of points. I also had an extra banner but Staks had an extra Table Quarter. In the end he won by 74 points making it 11-9. Still I was very happy as I thought I had played really well against a player who was quite a lot better then I was.

Best Unit- Dreadlord and Dragon, wiped out 3 units of Night Goblins by himself!
Worst Unit- Dark Riders, they acheived almost nothing although the witches didn't kill anything this really wasn't their fault as I deployed them badly and should have given them some protection from fast cav. The Dark Riders should have done better.
Best Moment- Sorceress taking out fluffy on the last turn. Needed a couple of wounds with a D6 spell but she didn't let me down!

Game 5 vs Nick Hoen's Warriors of Chaos.
I didn't really enjoy this game very much, though this wasn't Nick's fault at all but more I felt I struggled with his army book and the dice in general. Perhaps unreasojnably I felt I should have won this game but it clearly wasn't to be.

Nick had Lord on Juggernaught in a big unit of Chaos Knights, 3 Units of Marauder Horseman, 3 Dragon ogres, Unit of Warriors and Unit of Chosen, Slannesh Sorcerer on Horse and One on a chariot.
I played a refused centre, setting up everything on the flanks except my ranged weapons and Harpies which went right on the table edge.
Nick cast Call to Glory on the Harpies which I failed to dispel and this forced them to charge the Marauder Horseman guarding the Knights. One Harpy died to the inflicted hits but they carried on into the the Horses. Nick then said he would end the spell. This seems a bit silly to me. What is the point of Frenzying them if they can't get their frenzied attacks? May as well just say they are forced to charge and take D6 hits. Anyway my Harpies showed him what they wer capable of and killed 4 marauders losing none in return! The Lone horseman ran off and the Harpies decided not to pursue. The Knights then charged the Harpies who fled leaving the knights stranded right in front of my crossbows. The crossbows took out 1 Knight and the Bolt Thrower counted for another Knight. Meanwhile my Dark Riders charged into his Chariot with Sorceror. I inflicted three wounds on the chariot and he killed 1 rider.

On the other side my Knights, Dark riders and Dragon moved up to attack his infantry. he cast call to glory on my Peggy Sorceress even though she was behind a wall and he would have no idea she was there. I forgot about the D6 hits and let it go which killed her. Big mistake.

The Knights then crushed the Crossbows and overran into the Bolt Thrower despite the fact it was almost in the opposite direction. Supposedly you can wheel a great deal on the charge?
The Dragon ogres did the same thing to my other bolt thrower and avoided running off the table.
My Dragon flew over and started flaming chosen warriors but being toughness 4 they refused to die and I wasn't sure whether I could kill them on the charge.

Back to the chariot with Sorcererer. he declared a challenge at my Sorceress, I wanted to refuse but couldn't go to a back rank and so my Dark Riders stood by and watched her get mangled. They still held though.

My shades tried to charge his remaining Knights but failed their fear test allowing the Knights to charge them, wipe them out and run into the flank of the Witches.

The Cold One Knights, pegasus and dark riders all charged into the small unit of Warriors and did almost nothing even with their banner they held for a turn but the Dark Riders and Pegasus all died. The Dragon charged the remaining chosen and killed them off but unlike Nick's guys couldn't overrun into the warriors but merely flew over past them.

The Sorcerer on Chariot proceeded in killing my dark riders and then charged into the Witches who got utterly mangled by the Knights and Chariot combined.

The game ended there with just the Dragon and the cold One Knights left alive against a unit of Warriors, Knights, Dragon ogres and the Chariot.
5-15 loss

Best unit- Dragon, the only guy capable of killing anything in combat, perhaps should have charged him in earlier
Worst unit- Virtually everything else which failed me dismally.

Game 6 vs Piers O shea's Wood Elves
Piers army was led by a treeman ancient and two lv 1 spell singers, lots of wardancers, dryads, wild riders and glade guard. The whole left side of the board was forest so i deployed almost entirely on the right flank facing off against 2 units of glade guard and 1 unit of Dryads.
The game started badly. I failed to cast chill wind on either glade guard unit and miscast losing a wound in the process. I completely forgot to shuffle my shades and crossbows forwards so they couldn't shoot.
Piers took advantage of this and wiped out my sorceress on horse and both units of Dark Riders. My guys finally got into gear and the Dragon took out a unit of glade guard. The dryads flank charged the Dragon but he killed 5 and they ran off and were wiped out by my oncoming Witches. The other glade guard unit I shot to pieces with the Bolt Throwers and Shades, killing the alter noble who was skulking around.

Meanwhile the rest of his army using mass amounts of treesinging ran though all the forest on the otherside of the board but didn't want to come out for fear of my Bolt Throwers. The harpies helped hold them up by march blocking unitl they were shot down by Glade Riders. The dragon then flamed a unit of Wardancers and wiped them out. My Knights were attempted to charge into the other Wardancers but failed stupidity, the only time in the whole tournament and instead got charged and were all killed.

The Wild Riders finally burst through the forest and wiped out 1 Bolt thrower and charged the Crossbows. The crossbows held the first turn and killed a couple back leading to a stalemate for several turns before finally their mass attack skilled them off. Getting double attacks when not charging apart from being bizarre really hurt. If it was the other way around would have easily won.

The shades tried to charge in and wipe out another unit of wild riders but failed their attacks and got killed instead. Bugger, The game ended here in a bit of a stalemate. My Dragon was still fine and there wasn't really anything in his army that could hurt it. the witches were also still at full strength and were only just finally getting close to the fighting but the rest of my troops were dead. I believe if we had played to the death the Dragon would have wiped out his army by itself but alas we couldn't trial that as everyone was quickly packing up around us.
5-15 loss
Best Unit- Dragon, He didn't kill much perhaps but at least I could rely on him not to get killed
Worst unit- Cold one Knights, Once again they did bugger all and got themself killed. In 6 games I believe they killed 1 unit of Dwarf Quarrelers, 1 Wolf Chariot, 1 Doom Diver and 1 Unit of Marauder Horses.

Before I knew it the tournament was sadly over. I ended up coming 30th out of 46th and was quite happy as this was a new personal best! Also considering I played the armies which ended up coming 2nd, 3rd, 13th, and 15th I had a fairly hard run. I was very happy with my painting and Sports scores. They seemed to reflect the general calibre of the tournament. i thought my comp of 8/20 was a bit harsh considering how much trouble I had using my force. Perhaps in the hands of a better player it might win more games but to me it felt only average compared to the armies I played against.

Thanks for taking the time to read my ramblings and i look forwards to playing again next year, will definitely keep the witches as these girls really proved they can kick ass when they feel like it and were fairly immune to shooting and magic.
I also think the dragon isn't nearly as Overpowered as people believe, yes he is tough and the guy on top almost unkillable but he is majorly expensive and very prone to artillery fire as well as large blocks of troops.

[Nick]

Nice report Brendan.

In our game you definitely needed to get that dragon into combat earlier, it was the only thing in your army that i was scared of in close combat and could have single handedly destroyed any of my units that it charged, thats why i was very glad you didn't charge it in until the 5th turn. Had you charged my warriors or chosen earlier you would have had time either to destroy the other infantry unit, or go after my knights or dragon ogres.

The spell I was using on you was Enrapturing Spasms (i think), its the level 3 slaanesh spell. Its a little strange that it can be ended at any time, but the downside of this is that if i cast it on my units you are able to dispel it as well.

[Mouseketeer]

Nice report!! glad I didn't get your run of opponents all told..
Good to hear you did well without an "optimal list" as well.

Mouse

[rathpex]

Thanks for the game mate, great write up.

That dragon is really scary to the woodies. I'm gald i did not come up against a 2 steg army i dont know how i could break through that T6

I agree with Nick above, you really need to get the dragon in early and do some damage. The lord is likely to not die and that makes the dragon the "soft target" lmao!

Oh, I also think it was only a 14-6 loss as well and not a 15-5.

Nice meeting you and maybe I'll see you at Convic.

Pieres

[nasher]

Yes Nick had a lot of practice vs DE, playing me and winning the day before the tourni. He plays well, sometimes , otherwise?? all arse I reckon. haha. Learnt that from me as well.
Nice write up Brendan, I think your army was pretty tough, dare I say tougher then mine??. None the less you had questions about it's effectiveness and weather dragons were worth thier points. I'll look forward to seeing what you bring next time.

[Ra-num]

Yes Nick had a lot of practice vs DE, playing me and winning the day before the tourni. He plays well, sometimes , otherwise?? all arse I reckon. haha. Learnt that from me as well.

Aw don't teach him that .

[Nick]

Too late, i've learnt it. Typical apprentice wailing on master thing happening between me and nasher, the old man just can't cope.

[Ra-num]

Too late, i've learnt it. Typical apprentice wailing on master thing happening between me and nasher, the old man just can't cope.

Oh man.. You just fell for his "reverse psychology" Nick...

[cephery]

Good read there Brendan. Thanks for the game.

Yeah with 4DD and no scrolls, you would really struggle against a TK magic phase, like the TG charge, it was 4 incantations with 6 dice total going off, so 4DD wasnt going to cut it really.

Also my chariots cant march (and im pretty sure I didnt march with them ), altho it is an 8" move with a free reform and I can do a 16" charge. Plus the prince himself only has 1 incantation

Hope you had a good game and learnt a little about the tomb kings. They are quite hard to get your head around if you never played them, and the magic phase can seem extremely overwhelming

[Staks]

Thanks for the report and the game Brendan. Keep at it with the dark elves and Dragon, you'll crack a top 10 finish in no time. Regarding your game with Nick, yes you can wheel as much as you like against skirmishing models to setup a tactical overrun. If it looks like your opponent can exploit this, just flee the charge with the crew and sacrifice the warmachine.

See you at Convic

Staks.