swoard of khaine: round 5

so while everyone else back home was off clobberin' each other with 1200 pts yesterday, i was playing the first of the final 2 rounds of this 6 month campaign, 2400 pts now. essentially the same lists with ronald reagan along for the waagh. and ill make sure i explain my acronyms.

first up was vs he. he had lr2 12 archers, 18 white lions -w/l - block of spears, more archers, a l4, l2, and 2xl1's all on light, seer staph, banner of sorcery, the 'pick two spells' item and destroy spell scroll in there too, then two units of 14 ish swoardmasters - s/m -, one with the cancel frenzy/hatred banner, 6 dragon princes - d/ps - and 3 eagles in the mix. so lots of tricks, solid list. we set up, he goes first.

now in my turn, and after reagan cops a few wounds from a s7 banishment,after stopping another attempt, i do my moving, spiders dickmove - d/m -the d/ps to block up that flank. shooting does little, he destroys foot of gork - fog - with a scroll.

now in his turn i get to thinking about how banishment was getting cast twice a turn. we talked about how his item allowed my opponent to picks spells pre game. i asked to show me where it says he can have duplicates, but he only had the army book on ipad and didnt show me. i presume it wasnt there cos then we moved onto general, and he specific faqs. nothing there, so we went through the rule book, and essentially argued about what it said there, for a while.
now all this was taking ages, as was - i felt - my opponent in his turns, so i suggested we approach the t/o for a ruling, on the table next to us. he listened to the situation, both sides of the arguement, looked at the rules, and immediately came to the same conclusion as i, they could have multiples of shems, but not banishment. he also had a duplicate pha's too.
we both - at least i thought we both did - accepted the ruling, but as soon as we continued, my opponent refuses to change his spell selection retroactively, citing it would have too much effect now that we were underway.
well you can look at the photos and decide for yourself whether that was the case, but i was not amused. at this point it appeared to me that this was a win at all costs situation for my opponent, and i also recalled we had had this very same argument in our first game, even before setting up, about having duplicate spells, which he was corrected on. so from this point i decided he could have the game, and proceeded to sink the black and play warhammer in reverse - ie deliberately making bad charges, decisions, and leaving flanks exposed, as you'll shortly see
ive played a lot of warhammer, a lot of tournaments, but never felt the need to do this. i think in future ill just move backwards. but from here:

 i hand of gork - hog - reagan up to get double banished to bits. you want some points? here you go

 d/ps flee from a chariot charge earlier and end up off the board. a fleeing eagle blocks the s/ms from charging savages for now, but i set a chariot up for the other unit to kill and reform. and yes, i see the obvious trap for the trolls, ill charge those archers in a bit for you, dont worry buddy.

single troll fails stupidity, so i charge savages into s/m,knowing they wont win and othe unit will flank em, set the trukk up for the spears to overrun into its flank after charge single troll, and overrun the trolls so the w/ls have a lovely flank. go reverse warhammer!

 and there we go, theres the game you werent afraid to argue well past awkward to win. enjoy
im not even sure my opponent realised i started taking the piss, he prolly thought it was his lucky day

oh, and as it also turns out, this tourny gives away pts for fleeing units, something i didnt realise till right at this point. somehow a 15-5

so needless to say, i wasnt that stoked. then i had to play daemons. sob.

this time im missing some key photos, so pay attention lol. hes got l2r: 5 furies, fiend, 30 letters with -2 casting banner, tz herald with scroll, flicker and firestorm, thirster with all the bits, more letters with flaming swoard herald, 5 khorne hounds, a soulgrinder with lobba upgrade and another fiend. my spiders vanguard up

 some key stuff missing here, i set up on the backline hoping for time to foot and shoot. i get 3 wounds off the thirster , but all the feet are stopped.
furies charge spiders who beat em, charge fiend, die, fiend charges reagan and holds him up. soulgrinder gets 6 wounds off reagan with its lobba. he gets in my grill, so chariots and sorcbuns charge one horde, single troll and trukk into the other. trukk fails, so i hog it over the back. trolls and other chariot eat the hounds eventually.

its a bloodbath, and i lose by a little but hold. other letters turn to face the trukk but done have room to reform. thirster fails a charge into dd and acts nonchalant.

 in goes the trukk. sorcbuns are wiped out, as is reagan, by the herald. what may appear to be a very poorly photoshopped photo of my opponents hand is actually the hand of gork coming to take my trolls to safety and ld bubble. but most key is the dd, who nabs the thirster. good lads.

i do poorly in the letter combat, but hold, and get ere we go off in my turn. trolls get firestormed

 which completely tips the letter combat. i smash em in two rounds and reform after the instability. then manage to nab the herald and reform thusly. trolls head home the long way, but thats fine. i finally get a foot off in the last turn, but despite killing most, cant kill all the letters, and its a 12 -8. yay

last round and gregs gone home for parent time, so im up against de. the pts for this one didnt go towards my overall finish, so i guess the other two guys will get a sub game like this next round to even it out. anyway, my opponent had a tonne of xbows, some executioners with the asf banner bsb, hydra, cauldron, rbt, l4 shadow, 10 corsairs, block of flamings schpears, 15 black guard - b/g - and 5 cold ones - cok and 5 shades and a manbane/rune assassin. think i went first here

 dd gets one cok a turn, spiders all die from a s&s from shades. foots stopped. trukk goes into the trukkstop

 he kills one mangler and miasmas reagan to m5. doesnt roll pit but has spazrazor

 i move about, cant quite lobba the cauldron or hydra. regan moves across to menace

 now the sun behind me is about to obliterate the table, but the chariot hits the shades and nabs em, reagan hits the coks and overruns, trolls charge the hydra - hey, the pts dont count on this one - while the trukk exits the building.
at this point its worth mentioning the exploits of the single troll, who first tried to unsuccessfully assassinate the pendant l4 in the tower, then failed stupidity. i then hogd him around the back of the tower to try get the rbt, but he failed stupidity again. then i think he gets hit by a mangler, survives, but is ultimately shot to death by xbows. stupid troll.
i also start the mangler tally when the right hand one goes through the spears and exes. final score at the end

 i then charge corsairs with trukk, and spears with sorcbuns the following turn. the mangler has other ideas, and goes through b/g, spears and corsairs, wiping all then corsairs out along with a few trukkboys, and appears next to the hydra. sorcbuns make short work of the spears, and reagan heads round to be inappropriate. i hog the trukk away from hydra, who made short work of the trolls. dd hits bg down to about 6-7.

 chariot is shot to bits, reagan is charged by b/g, i cant stop the spazrazor or assassin, and down he goes. sorcbuns then kill them all, surviving with a handful left, which i hog away from hydra. mangler then goes through his exes

 while the trukk kills the cauldron and time is called. clear victory for myself, but we didnt count it up.

so that was that. final mangler tally - who lived, was 13 spears, 6 b/g, 10 corsairs, 8 exes, and some orcs. great value for 65 pts
dont know how the others did, but i doubt im in contention atm after my first game. ah well. went straight back to the drawing board though, as you do, and im gonna try double trouble for the last round:

orc warboss, stubborn, 4++ armour, shield, +1 to hit swoard
orc l4, scroll, ii

blorc bsb, 4++, shield
sorc l1, head
blorc boss, fencers blades

5 spiders
32 boys, fc, shields
25 sorcbuns, fc, ahw

6 trolls
2x1 w chariot

2x lobba
2x dd
2x mangler
2x pumpers, s5, 4d6 m

yeah, give that a go. dropped the worlds most inept assassin, the single troll, and the underperforming reagan is on the benches. also thought fencers blades would be more useful on the spare blorc, that m/r 3 shield hasnt had an effect yet
gonna build another dd and rl from scratch too, will show you how.
and no, not polystyrene ones this time