Fall Brawl Battle Report

Here's a review of last weekend's action at the Fall Brawl, and event held in the NOVA area (Burke, VA):

I played my standard Tomb Kings-- King w/ flail, collar, & cloak
Icon Bearer w/ Hidden Dead
Priest w/ scroll & jar
Priest w/ scroll

10 skeletons w/ standard
25 skeletons w/ command & undying legion
25 skeletons w/ command
3 chariots

2 tomb scorpion
23 tomb guard w/ command & rakaph

bone giant
screaming skull w/ skulls of the foe

Game 1 - Played a fairly sedate Lizardmen list-- Slaan in Temple Guard, 2 big blocks of Saurus, 1 small block of Saurus, 3 skirmished skink units, 2 units of terradons, 2 saurus heroes (one with track shoes, one with cold one), and a stegadon. Game was in the back in the turn 2 shooting phase after his slaan died to a screaming skull hit-- he had only 4 guard + a champ left, so no look out sir. Only four dice of magic defense allowed me to cast at will-- leaving my king in the screaming skull crew not only kept my early smiting on the catapult strong, but also kept the crew safe from his suicide hero. The crew did die to terradon rocks, but the damage was already done. Bone giant ripped up the 5 temple guard left and a unit of saurus, which was pretty well the game. 16-4 win

Game 2 - Got to play the same back alley abortion that Jer played game 4-- Dreadlord with Potion of Strength, Hydra sword, & pendant; BSB w/ 1+ save & GW; Mage w/ 2 scrolls; 3 units of dark riders; 2 units of harpies; 2 big units of black guard (1 w/ armour piercing, one with ASF); hydra; shades w/ GW; 2 RBTs. From the time I saw the list, I knew this game was a loss. The list is horrendous, but I decided to keep the game close. At the end, he had his BSB & 1.5 guard units left, to my 3 characters. Yeah, no units, over-running into my bsb at the bottom of 6. An 8-12 loss, but it was the best I could do under the circumstances.

Game 3- Played bunker shooting dwarves w/ 3 crossbow blocks, ironbreakers, longbeards, bsb, thane general, lord on anvil, stone thrower, 2 bolt throwers, organ gun. Like all static setups, I utterly wrecked him. King was beating on the lord at the end of the game and had him down to one wound. That was all he had left short of the stone thrower and a crossbow unit. The first time in forever that I tunneled my scorpions-- btw, they rock a gunlines shit.

Game 4- Played Lizardmen with almost maxed lord (1 mystery away from using all his points) 2 skink combo units, ancient, normal steg, salamander, 2 terradon units, temple guard, 3 skirmisher units. Held on as long as I could, and even got a decent miscast out of him that killed 6 temple guard. Game ended with my king crumbling to combat res and leaving 2 temple guard alive with multiple banners on turn 6. Lost 2-18 and should have gotten skunked instead. An attempt at a much softer list, which is appreciated.

Overall, I liked where this tournament was trying to go, but they actually have to pull the trigger vs. the overly hard lists. The minimal comp they are putting together does not cut it at all. I did like the objective sheets that they used and the variable levels of victory. This kept everyone playing the whole game and gave a small benefit to forces that aren't ItP. My master plan would be a 10-15% point increase to all ItP units, and some meaningful restrictions on dark elves-- they were over 50% of the top 5 tables for crying out loud. The best option would be to tell people with hard lists to pound sand, but considering the tough list that Jer and I played was part of the inner circle, there's zero chance of that happening. To be competitive, I'd need to bring an A list army instead of a B- one. Otherwise elves will ninja you and make for an unwinnable game. Khemri in that environment are unplayable because of the tough characters you now fight. I will start rolling my king with the flail of skulls now, mainly because it gives him some monster and character killing cred and scares some opponents.

As an overall, I'd say it's an event to skip if you want to play nice lists. My friend Jer who went had a worse go of it bringing DoW and playing the Dark Elf list that was worse. The organizers mentioned that they weren't going to do anything about this for future events, so I think that I'm probably not going to be returning. I honestly don't see the point of playing "big 1" warhammer (the other two big three lists were nerfed by tourney rules) and the area (NOVA suburban hipster wasteland) has nothing in it that really endears it to me. It probably would be a decent tournament to go to if you wanted to play a mid-top end list and not worry about the standard evil lists beating your face in. IF someone was looking for a place to experiement with the Suicide Elf list (dark elves with ring of hotek and no mages-- lots of troops) this would be the place to go.