SAWS Pre-Game

SAWS is the major 2 day, 5 round event in Sacramento.  This is my local town Grand Tournament.  In the past it has usually sported about 50 players.  This will be my fourth or fifth year attending.  Last year I took that illegal attempt at a joke of a Clan Eshin list.  The year before that I took two tower Skaven, earned my max 100 battle and took Best General and third overall.  I don’t recall what I took in past years (I think I got an 8^th or something in the past), but this year I will be taking Dark Elves for the first time.

My original plan was to just take my Adepticon list and add another unit of dark riders to make 700 points in core.  After reviewing the composition score I decided that I would make a few more modifications.  The Composition is out of 24 points, with 3 points for turning in your own comp score and 3 points subjective to the judges.  There are then some player points after that.

My plan of Adepticon list plus 6 dark riders would net me a -12 on the list.  For reference, here is the composition score system:

The Comp

Points in Core selection:

0: <=650

1: <=900

2: <=1250

3: >1250

Number of Core Units

0: 1

1: 2

2: 3

3: >3

Points in Characters:

0: >=1100

1: >=950

2: >=751

3: <=750

Single Model >450 points:

0: Yes

2: Yes, but only due to mount

3: No

Extra Power or Dispel Dice

0: For each spell

1: Yes, more than one unit or character

2: Yes, but just one unit or character

3: No

Double Rare (Don’t count <=75 point units)

0: Yes

3: No

Number of units that should >=20” counting warmachines and BSB shooting

0: >6

1: 6

2: 5

3: <5

For those of you who read my blog last year, and remember that much detail, you will see that its basically the exact same system as last year.  I think the only change was to allow an exception for rare units under 75 points.  I think the major flaw in the system is that once you have a 0 in a system it doesn’t penalize you for going beyond.  In theory the judges could give you a few more, but that isn’t 100%.  So once your dark elf gun line hits 6 units (4 repeaters base), you might as well just fill the rest of your army up with shooters at really no additional penalty.  It might even help you maintain other points as you funnel into core or not characters of whatever.

Anyways, so my dark elf Adepticon army got hit for almost every single category, but single model.  But there were easy ways to recoup some of the comp points.  Easy ones were to drop the power stone and the second unit of doom fire warlocks.  That right there netted me 4 points.  If I combine the dark riders (5 units) in to bigger units I can drop the number of my shooting units.  I started at 8, so I would need to drop 3 to make a point back.  The last place was in character points.  I was barely into the zero category.  With the loss the of the second doom fire warlocks and the power stone, I decided I wanted a level 4.  That meant dropping both level 2s and a dreadlord.  I replaced the dreadlord with a third master and poof, back into the lower character point category.  With only the 1 character bunker, and the interest in trying something new I took Beast magic.  The loss of the Searing Doom left a small hole, and the spells granting strength might help me fill it in combat.

The List

Dreadlord, dark steed, heavy armor, repeater crossbow, shield, sea dragon cloak, cloak of twilight, sword of strife, luckstone

Supreme Sorceress, dark steed, level 4, lore of beasts, obsidian loadstone, dispel scroll, ironcurse icon

Master, dark steed, heavy armor, repeater crossbow, sea dragon cloak, shield, BSB, sword of might, other trickster’s shard, dragonbane gem

Master, dark steed, heavy armor, repeater crossbow, sea dragon cloak, potion of strength, sword of striking, dragon helm

Master, dark steed, heavy armor, repeater crossbow, sea dragon cloak, shield, ogre blade, potion of foolhardiness

8 Dark Riders, musician, shields, repeater crossbows

8 Dark Riders, musician, shields, repeater crossbows

8 Dark Riders, musician, shields, repeater crossbows

14 Witch Elves, full command, banner of eternal flame

Reaper Bolt Thrower

Reaper Bolt Thrower

War Hydra, Fiery Breath

War Hydra, Fiery Breath

10 Doomfire Warlocks, champion

The witches and hydra went in because I determined I needed to spend additional points and I couldn’t have those points go into shooting.  I originally built 30 dark riders, and that’s all I have.  5 of those are banners and 5 are musicians.  Once I decided I only wanted 3 units (combined with 2 bolt throwers makes 5 units, which is a better comp score than 6) I knew I couldn’t use 2 of the musicians or banners.  After going through the missions (which I will cover later), I dropped the banners, which was 5 models.  So that’s 7 models I wasn’t able to use (5 banners + 2 musicians).  That leaves me 23 models available for my use.  Best I could do was bumping the units up to 8 models.  I’ll probably just sneak a second musician into a second rank and pull it as first casualty.

So I added in the witches to bring my comp above the lowest comp area.  I gave them a banner, unlike dark riders so that they could take the fire banner.  I figure this way they can clear a building should I see the need.  Mostly they will sit back and hopefully not die in a corner.  Maybe try to sneak around the side as a late deployment.

The hydras are there because I have the models and needed to spend nearly 400 points and didn’t want to run a bigger witch unit.  The witches after all, which will just be plague monks will be the only unit without any real conversions and I’m embarrassed that I have the need to run them after putting so much work over the last 2 years into building this army.  The hydras will hopefully not just die to cannons and will survive at least long enough to drop their templates onto a big unit or terror something off the table.

The mixing up of the list takes me from a -12 list to a -5 list.  I figure most armies wont’ take 50 percent core, and so will take -1 or -2 there making my -5 not that much of a handicap.  Just gotta score those player judged soft scores (yeah, right).

Win Conditions

Loss by <100 points – 5

Draw within 100 points – 10

Minor Victory 100<&<300 points – 14

Major Victory >300 points – 17

Bonus Objective – 3

1.     Kill all enemy spell casters

2.     Kill the most expensive enemy character

3.     Eliminate over half your opponent’s models

4.     Have more units in your enemy’s deployment zone than they have in yours

5.     Capture more standards than your opponent

The win structure is basically win/loss, with a slight bump for a slightly larger win.  I figure 300 points is doable with my list, even with the drags of hydra and witches.  The trick with the bonus points will be in selecting the right one for the right opponent.  I’ll try to use the spell caster one early as I don’t want to get stuck playing someone who doesn’t have a caster later on and miss the point.  Hopefully someone will have only 1 on day 1 and I can target him.

The most interesting of the objectives is the last one.  I need to capture more standards that my opponent.  Often these days I see requirements like having more banners, which allows you to count both yours and those you capture.  This one requires only that banners be taken and not lost.  In past years this is probably one I have missed the most often, as I lose banners.  So this year I decided to drop the majority of my banners.  After all, there is no reason to have them as there isn’t any requirements for claiming objectives (and hint, there isn’t a blood and glory mission).  The only reason to keep the banner is for combat, and except for trying to flank/rear 3++ warrior characters I don’t figure that will be a huge deal.  The extra 2 guys will hopefully allow me to cause that extra wound to make up for the loss.

The Missions

Mission 1 – Magic Flux

Deployment: Battleline

Special Rules – After generating power and dispel dice, both players roll that number of dice and exchange on any roll of 1.  In addition, wizards are worth an additional 50 points.

Mission 2 – King of the Hill

Deployment: Battleline

Special Rules – The player with more models in contact with the center terrain feature gets 200 bonus points.  Summoning may not be done on or with 4” of the terrain feature.

Mission 3 – Battle of Attrition

Deployment: Battleline

Special Rules – Half points are provided for units reduced below 50% of starting wounds.

Mission 4 – Wildwood

Deployment: Battleline

Special Rules – Forests are Mysterious.

Mission 5 – Battle for the Pass

Deployment: Battleline

Special Rules – None

So what do we have here?  4 Battlelines, and 2 just normal book missions (mission 4 after all just adds a normal mechanic that has been removed from the other missions).

I’m not sure anything really needs to be said about the other missions.  If I win by 500 points than not taking the hill on mission 2 doesn’t hurt me.  But I’ve played similar missions with my fast cavalry and there is usually something that can be done to distract from the box as in adepticon, or the terrain feature here.  And if they walk up the center with their biggest unit I have 2 hydras with breath weapons to provide a little thinning.  Mission 3 is just another battle line, but with half points.  This count hurt me, I suppose, as it will allow them to just chip a little off my bunker to gain points, but it could also help me.  It will just be.  Mission 1 I’ve found doesn’t actually swing the game that much.  Often both players roll 1s, cancelling the effect.  Only rarely does it actually provide any big swing, and as I find myself resistant to much of the magic (not dwellers!), I think I can weather the tide.

So there we go, 2014 SAWS, very similar to 2013 SAWS except that I’m taking a much better (and legal) list.