All we are is dust in the wind... Dust... Wind...

First "real" tournament style practice last night against High Elves with my Vamps.

In short, brutal. When I arrived, my opponent had already laid out his army, I knew I was in for a tough night as soon as I looked across at a Lord on Star Dragon, 2 Frostheart Pheonixes, an L4 Mage in a Silverhelm bunker and pain in the backside Eagles & Reavers making up the numbers.

Oh, and a small archer bunker with his 2nd mage.

Hmm, Lady Genevieve is going to hurt...

I was rocking a similar list to the Skaven encounter - with a few tweaks, dropped the dogs and a spirit host to get my L1s up to L2 wizards, other than that I was ethereal plus ghouls, skellies, and a small zombie pile.

It went wrong from the vanguard phase... Foolishly left my Hexwraiths exposed to the first Pheonix, with my single spirit host behind - he had first turn, lost my ethereal flank by the end of my first turn (ouch). I got lucky as my opponent fluffed not 1 but 2 Purple Suns, almost destroying his Silverhelms in 2 turns - my Terrorgheist took out the rest.

Turn 2 I lost Genevieve to a combi-charge from the dragon and the first Pheonix, followed in close order by my 'gheist, from there I survived 3 turns of crumble as he slowly waded through my army.

In the end it was a thumping 20-1 on tourney scoring (I would have broken him back if only I could have taken the last wound off his Lord, that would have got me about 600 more points for a bit more respectability).

Highlights: 

• Watching the 2nd Purple Sun miscast drop his L4 to L1, forgetting all his offensive spells.
• 3 zombies tying combat with an eagle
• A single corpse cart holding up the 2nd pheonix for 2 combat phases
• Surviving 3 turns of crumble for the loss of 7 models

Lowlights: 

• Magic, I got a single Invocation off in the whole game, and 1 hellish vigour... that was it
• Sacrificing Genevieve to save the 'gheist for one turn
• Vanguarding the Hexwraiths straight into trouble
• Having to remove the Hexwraiths in turn 1 again

Lessons learned:

• Don't throw Genevieve against characters, she's a unit killer
• Don't vangaurd the hexwraiths, use the move to redeploy them
• Need to try a few dirty tournament tricks - move the general to Kriersdorf rather Genevieve by running her on Death or Shadow
• Get those morghasts built and field the wraiths as heroes

Next up, not sure, a week or 2 of painting before Fall of the Old World 2, if it's happening...