5-0 at Da Boyz GT

[LJ26]

So I just finished a 58 man tournament over the weekend in New york with out a loss. I had 5 great opponents and games! I BARELY won each of them but eh... I'll take it. I placed 9th overall, they had a unique scoring  system that valued battle points over wins and losses. I'll post a couple thoughts real quick. Hope it can help someone. 

I faced khorne bloodletter bomb mix. death with Arkhan, Nef, 60 ghrimgast. mixed tzeentch with 9 enlightened. khorne with  2 bloodthirsters, sword of judgment daemon prince, 30 bloodletter. legion of azgor (chaos dwarves) 

With the prevalence of khorne in the meta it was tough to get my spells off with out casting bonuses, it made taking 2 necromancer kind of pointless, especially because they were so slow. I originally took 2 because I wanted to cast VDM and overwhelming dread/fading figour every turn.

Sword skeletons were clutch, especially with all the minus to hits out there. Theyre just so slow I feel like I really have to start practicing putting them in gravesites more often so I don't make them useless right at deployment with bad positioning. I'm considering swapping out 40 with 10 to 15 black knights because they can keep up with the VLoZD, won't have to worry about battleshock so much, will be able to take out monsters more reliably in this monster meta (I could ve completely wrong about them, I've never played black knights). 

Doppelganger cloak was awsome

Lord of Nagashizzar pushed skeletons into good damage dealers, especially with the rerolling hits command ability 

Never enough command points, I want ALL my units with extra attacks and rerolling hits! And resurrecting units! 

I timed every one of my turns to be under 25 minutes so we could get all 5 battle rounds in. I felt it was necessary with the amount of bodies I had. 

Allegiance: Grand Host of Nagash
Mortal Realm: Ulgu
Vampire Lord On Zombie Dragon(440)
- General
- Deathlance & Shield & Chalice
- Trait: Lord of Nagashizzar 
- Artefact: Doppelganger Cloak 
- Lore of the Vampires: Vile Transference
Necromancer (110)
- Lore of the Deathmages: Overwhelming Dread
Necromancer (110)
- Lore of the Deathmages: Fading Vigour
Vampire Lord (140)
- Mount: Flying Horror
- Lore of the Vampires: Amethystine Pinions
40 x Skeleton Warriors (280)
- Ancient Spears
40 x Skeleton Warriors (280)
- Ancient Blades
10 x Chainrasp Horde (80)
10 x Chainrasp Horde (80)
5 x Dire Wolves (60)
30 x Grimghast Reapers (360)

Total: 1940 / 2000
Extra Command Points: 1
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 169
 

[Saikological]

Congratz on the great result. I like that your army has so many core units. Do you happen to have a pic?

[Glaurung]

May I ask, why do you take 2 chainrasp? Do you use them to keep objectives? Wouldn’t a 20-strong unit be better?

[LJ26]

1 hour ago, Saikological said:

Do you happen to have a pic?

Yup, Attached a pic below

2 hours ago, Glaurung said:

May I ask, why do you take 2 chainrasp? Do you use them to keep objectives? Wouldn’t a 20-strong unit be better?

With idóneth, daughters, khorne, nurgle, and stormcast alpha striking I use them as screens, 3 screens for my 3 big units, if that's not necessary they babysit or go capture an objective that's lightly guarded. They're tough little guys that can go toe to toe with any other 10 wound battleline. They're also great at pulling up on contested objective where all the fighting is going on, since they're not the main focus they'll usually always grow back and hold someone in battle so the reapers or dragon can retreat or just add bodies so I can capture or continue holding objectives 

[Graywater]

I was there as well. Won my first 3, lost on table 2 in the 4th round to the winning council of blood list. Lost round 5 to evocators and 4 deep striking ballistas. How did you manage against the bloodthirster list you faced? The games I lost were because my opponent could get to my heroes, and I dont even know what to do about that council of blood list.

[LJ26]

4 hours ago, Graywater said:

How did you manage against the bloodthirster list you faced

Honestly it was tough, I remember back in the good old days when you didn't have to worry about 14 wounds on a 4 up armor save..... My opponent went for the double turn (which he didn't get) and moved both bloodthirsters and the daemon prince into charge range. I had a huge piece of terrain blocking the middle of my deployment so all I could charge them with was the 2 blocks of 40 skellies (both units rerolling hits bc of command ability). There was also another wierd piece of terrain that the thirsters were on so I could hardly fit any skellies in combat. I killed the daemon prince and got Skarbrand down to 3 wounds and chipped another 4 off the other thirster. I think if my van hels had gone off with at least one group of skellies possibly 2 of the 3 targets would have gone down. On his turn he blew up nearly all the skellies, his 30 letters killed my screens, he doubled and killed my 30 ghrimgast with 30 letters and burned one of my objectives (it was Better part of Valor) in my Turn I burned one of his and we were equal on victory points. Came down to kill points and my full strength rerolling hits VLoZD  had to kill his 10 wound bloodthirster w/ gryph feather charm  to win on kill points. I barely killed it with the final claw attacks.... I hate relying on the VLoZD to kill anything..... 

[Graywater]

I played the council of blood list on better part of valor too. I was given first turn, got double turned, and went from 2 vlozd to 0 by the time I got to go again. Our dragons are quite swingy and have the potential to kill thirsters outright, or do literally nothing. The skellies can put in the work, but they are so slow it is hard to dictate when the fight will happen, and they can get pretty neutered quickly. 

[LJ26]

6 minutes ago, Graywater said:

I was given first turn, got double turned, and went from 2 vlozd to 0 by the time I got to go again

How did he kill them both? Were you bubble wrapped and did the exploding ghyrstrike on the thirster do a ton of mortals? I feel like the most they can do is 20 wounds a turn and with inspiring presence the skellies should have held out. You actually played my clubmate at game 5, really good player. Those 4 ballistas feel like such a threat when they're in your face 

[Graywater]

Yeah, the exploding mortal wounds hurt, and he was piling in 9 inches, so he charged to where he wanted, jumped my lines in the pile in step, and murdered everything with the insensate rage thirster and exalted greater daemon. 

I find 3 places of power typically favors us, but not when all those ballistas can come from wherever and threaten from range. Cant score the objective and kill the ranged stuff at the same time. Not before they snipe out the important players at least. I actually survived the first fusillade, but I got double turned and had to eat a second volley which did me in.

[Fulkes]

Congrats on the win! I don't really have much else to add since I know next to diddly about most of the armies played competitively (heck even casually right now) and I'm still trying to learn the ones I can take as allies.

[LJ26]

He still had to pile in to the closest enemy model didn't he? I'm not saying you did anything wrong either, he beat everyone he played against. What did your list look like? 

6 minutes ago, Graywater said:

he was piling in 9 inches, so he charged to where he wanted, jumped my lines in the pile in step

 

[Graywater]

He did. But he jumped my line, and with 2 inch range and his long base, he got into range with the dragon. Then with his 6 or 9 inch pile in, he could pile into the dragons after the other thirsters killed off my screening skellies. They couldn't hold up to everything. 

I had  

vlozd, gryph feather charm, pinions

Vlozd, mastery of death, vile trans

Necro with overwhelming dread

Necro with fading vigour

2 blocks of 40 skellies

20 grimghast

5 dogs

 

[Black_Fortress_Immortal]

Well played, sir.  Our last game was actually 30mins over.  We only technically made it through round 3.  Not sure why they made it 3 hours instead of 2.5, haha.

[Saikological]

14 hours ago, LJ26 said:

Yup, Attached a pic below

totally awesome! looks great 😉

[Local_Goat]

Doh! I wish I could have gone this year, but work hooked me that weekend. Seriously cool stuff dude, hopefully next year my Moonclan will be ready to throw down. I did 40k Doubles, and had a blast there, Da Boyz is always a good time. 

[Warboss Micha]

Is there a Chance to see top 20 lists or something like that?

[Graywater]

All of the lists are here, but aren't sorted in any way. I included an image with the top 10, so you can scroll through and find them.

 https://aosshorts.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Da-Boyz-AoS-lists.pdf

[ianob]

Congrats on the result!

I played a similar list whilst I was developing my Deathmarch list, but I put it away eventually because it was just too many bodies and too often went to time in games where I'd won if not for timing out.

Your deployment issue and skeletons' speed can be solved by running Deathmarch but you'd end up losing the Grimghasts to fit the battalion in, or only running one big block of skellies, which ends up invalidating the list design a bit. Unfortunately I dont think there's a real reason to run skellies, deathmarch, etc, when you can just run more Grimghasts. Power creep is a ****** if you want to play the best list.

[LJ26]

7 hours ago, ianob said:

Power creep is a ****** if you want to play the best list.

Your absolutely right, I didn't feel like paying for and painting another 30  🤬 SPINDLY ghrimgast. Especially when I got a great deal on some really decently painted 40 skellies. 

[Graywater]

2 minutes ago, LJ26 said:

Your absolutely right, I didn't feel like paying for and painting another 30  🤬 SPINDLY ghrimgast. Especially when I got a great deal on some really decently painted 40 skellies. 

I'm right there with you. I bit the bullet and bought and painted 80 skeletons when the legions book came out. I hate to think of shelving them to do another 40 grimghast instead. Especially since their models dont really do anything for me.