I would love to take more WD over the BW, but I only have enough for 1 unit. I've been going back and forth with the Cluster and the Annoyance. I am leaning more toward the Cluster beacuse I want some magic defense, since I will only be getting 1 dispel dice in my pool. The annoyance is very tempting, but I don't know if it will be more beneficial in this particular situation. The GW store has not been very forthcoming about the particulars of how magic and dispelling is going to work, so I think the cluster is safer until I can get some more definite info. Excellent suggestions, though.

Oh, and I have to have a BW or at least some other hero, because the Alter cannot be the general.

If you drop one WD and the champ from your Dryads you'll have enough for both the AoN and the cluster. If you take the AoN you won't need the champ for challenge deflection anyway.

Good point about the hero, that's gotta be the deal breaker right there.

I'm loving the idea about ahout dropping the champ and the WD. That's the route I'm gonna go. Thanks.

Okay, so I played the doubles tournament yesterday. I took:
Standard Altar
BW w/ Annoyance and Cluster
2x10 Glade Guard
2x10 Dryads
5 Glade Riders
7 Wardancers
Treeman

My buddy playing Brettonia took a bunch of Knights and some archers. He had one damsel and 2 paladins

There were four teams total, so we played each team once.

Game 1 against Empire Gunline with 3 mages and a Steam Tank and Demons of Chaos. Want to guess who won? This was not an enjoyable game at all. The armies we played weren't fun (they were "cheesed" out, which really is fine, as this was a tournament). The guys we played weren't fun (one was a jerk, and the other bent and stretched whatever rule he could to get an advantage). The game ended with a Solid Victory to them. They went on to win the tournament, getting massacres against the other two teams. So, it was kinda a moral victory for us in the end, haha.

They shut down my teammate completely. It was me against 2500 points essentially. The Steam Tank either made my buddy's knights run off the table in fear, or run off the table due to panic tests. Those that did not run were targets of Beast Cowers. In the hopes of drying the demon player closer, I held back, keeping out of range of the gunline and magic. If I had not, their solid victory would have turned into a massacre, I'm pretty sure.

The last two games were much more enjoyable. Game 2 was a "scenario game" against Wood Elves and Lizardmen. This was a corner deployment game, each person taking one corner of their team's side. Our plan was to focus on the Lizard player directly across from me. I would stand back and pepper him with bowfire until my buddy rushed across the board to engage.

Unfortunately, there was a lot of confusion surrounding the scenario, which made the game start late. This, combined with team games naturally taking longer, we only got in 3 full turns. I am convinced that we would have had at least a minor victory had we gone another turn, but it ended up only being a draw, as neither side really had enough time to kill anything. The wood elf army was rather static and magic heavy and would have taken a couple turns to support his teammate. We were all pretty frustrated when the game was called. Still a good game though, with with some fun guys.

Game 3 was against Lizardmen and and High Elves. This was another odd deployment game that weighed heavily in our favor. My buddy and I each deployed on a long table edge and our opponents each deployed on a short edge. Each person was given a 12x30 deployment zone in the center of their edge. The nature of the deployment meant that I was 2 feet away from my teammate, while our opponents were 4 feet away from each other. We focused on the high elf player and let the lizardmen trudge their way across the board. Turn one saw the High Elves' 2 bolt throwers disappear and turn two began combat.

High Elves are very resilient with their ASF and great specials. He held up against us a turn or two longer than we expected. It was not enough to really change the outcome of the game though. 95% of his army was destroyed before the Lizardmen made it to the fight. The game ended in a massacre for us, though it really felt much closer than that. Those are two powerful armies that can put out a world of hurt. It was a fun game for us, and though it was very one sided, we tried to make it enjoyable for them as well. I understand if they weren't as excited about it as we were.

We ended up coming

Lesson's learned:
I missed my Wild Riders. Glade Riders do not fit my style of play. Maybe if they were cheaper, I would take them, but for10 points more I can get a unit of Wild Riders. I know they fill totally different roles, but I would rather make up for the lack of redirection and march blocking with other means.

Branchwraiths are nice. She was my MVP, taking down a priest on a stegadon and various other things. With annoyance and cluster, she has a lot of utility. Next time, I will make her a level 1 wizard I think.

Altars. I've had so many bad experiences with this guy, and yesterday did little to change my opinion of him. I think he would have done much better had my Wild Riders been there for him to run with.

The Steam tank needs to take up a hero and a rare or 2 rare slots. It is too powerful in a 1250 list.

The High Elves' ASF is nasty. It's not unbeatable, but it can put the hurt on. I think Always strikes at Initiative would be better, giving them the advantage against most things except elite troops. I mean really, your archers attack before my War Dancers? Oh well. I also think it should not apply to rear charges. You get attacked in the back, you should not be able to strike first. Oh well. Just have to think smarter.

The Lizardmen are probably the most balanced list released in a while. They are strong, very strong, but they have limitations that can be exploited. The Engine is nasty, but you pay for it. I picked up the battalion box yesterday and I am very excited about starting them.

Overall a good experience. I won a box of eternal guard for coming in second, so now I have some more variety I can play with in my list. Later I'll start another thread with some questions that arose in my first game.

Second place is not too shabby, especially when first goes to a cheese-monger like that.

I mean, com'on!?! Really!?! Empire and Daemons on the same team!?!

Truth to tell, it sounds like a poorly run tourney. If round two was late to go off, they should have given you extra time to finish. Wasn't it really their fault?

Were all the deployment scenarios designed to separate the teams? That seems a little counter intuitive to me since teams are meant to compliment each other and you can't do that if you have a huge gap between you.

I have no experience whatsoever with the steam tank. But some good fast cav tactics should have been able to stall it for at least a turn and your friend could have avoided it and ransacked the rest of that empire army. I suggested talking him into taking his own yeomen cav, that should have freed you up for more shooting, which seems like it would've helped a lot more; but even still, you should have been able to lend your GRs to his cause, redircting or screening that tank so his knights could get into combat.

Like I said, I don't know exactly what a Stank can do, but avoiding it and maneuvering into combat on one side while standing back and shooting on the other should've shifted that battle in your favor. Daemons are strong (though much less so at under 2k), but Empire really isn't at all, and you guys had two very good armies.

Still, second place at bad at all. Congrats on the EG!

The steam tank is nasty, I've never killed one with WE. On the other hand it is pretty easy to distract. I've actually even had good luck with Dryads keeping it tied up for a couple turns. It does not get to attack in your turn, so if you can make it through a couple of his turns he will be stuck grinding on some roots while you kill the rest of the list.

If you can finds some way to put 2 or 3 wounds on it, you are in a lot better shape, so S6 heroes and missile fire can be worthm, also treekin can do this as well, but can not eventually do it it.

A treeman can put the hurt on the tank. But its generally best not to get it stuck there when it can wipe most everything else out with impunity.

It can't attack in your turn, really? That's good to know. There is one Empire player around my local store and I've seen him at tourneys with one STank and the WAlter, so that will be good to keep in mind.

Ever tried the HoDA on it? Just curious.

T6, 1+ save. There are better targets for your valuable only HoDA shot. Like, everything else in the Empire army.

Nope. Against a steam tank, you have two options:
Treekin and/or treemen. Preferably with Ariel's blessing, or Call of the hunt. They ought to wound the thing a couple of times. Once wounded, the tank is not as scary, although it denies you points.

or

ignore it, sing some woods on their path so it has to waste steam points going around terrain, and concentrate on the rest of the army. Divert with glade riders if needed.

Anyway, and even if I think that the Steam tank is quite badly designed, I don't think it should use 2 rare slots more than a treeman should.
0-1, if it still existed in 7th, and considering how extremely rare the thing is fluffwise (8 working in the whole empire, IIRC), is a completely different question.

We couldn't get to the rest of the empire army. It was on a hill behind a wall of demons. Literally. The only thing in the Empire army that could be reach was the Stank. This would be great, except Beast Cowers and fear checks completely locked down my teammate. It would have been possible for me to avoid the steam tank, but I would still be fighting the rest of the empire army plus the full demon army on my own. Daddy no likey.

And the Stank player did not know how to use it himself. He tried to shoot his cannon twice because he said he had enough steam points to do that. Ugh. Fool couldn't read his own book.

Yeah, 2 of the 3 games seperated teammates. The last game only allowed us 3 two-minute timeouts to discuss strategy the whole game. Kind of a neat little rule, but would have worked better in a more finely tuned tournament. Overall, the tournament was rather poorly run, and I think the staff had a less than stellar grasp of the rules. But, opponents like in the last two games can make up for that.

I see the Steam Tank being more the equivalent of our Treeman Ancient, not a normal Treeman. For that reason, I don't think two slots, whether it be two rare, or a rare and hero, is uncalled for.

And as far as 0-1 goes, is there anything anymore that has that restriction? It seemed like GW was getting away from that, but I am not very familiar with the newer books, so I could be very wrong.

The Black Coach is still 0-1, I think. Beyond that, nothing from the new books jumps out. Warshrine, Cauldron o' Blood, Engine o' da' Gods, I'm prety sure all of those things can be multiples in any army.

No, you can have as many black coaches as you want. I kind of liked the 0-1 rule. You don't need two black coaches at 2000p tourny game, but if you want to play with friends or bigger games you can drop the rule. I wouldn't miond if flagellants were 0-1 because I can't imagen a situation where they would split up for tactical purposes.

That surprises me. I'd think that you'd see it more often, or here people complain about it more.

But I guess that just speaks for how good all of the VC Rare choices are. You're right, you really don't need more than one.