Conflict Finals

As discussed earlier, Conflict in Victoria this year (Fantasy Battles that is) was ruled, as it is a new edition of the game, to be open for everyone (not just beginners). Conflict was run as a two heat event with three initial days of playing to get the top ten players from each heat… If that makes sense.

The top thirty players converged on Camberwell’s Battle Bunker this last Sunday to battle it out for the top spot. Players were required to bring the same armies that they qualified with meaning I was back with my daemons. As mentioned before special characters were allowed and comp was a joke so many of the armies in the top 30 had elements of real filth for 1250points.

Game 1: High Elves: Round 1 I got paired with the High Elf player that came 2nd to me in my qualifying heat. Hamish had some sword masters, white lions, and Reavers. He also had a bolt thrower and a large unit of spearmen. I moved into place in the first couple of turns and took some painful shots from magic and the bolt thrower until I was able to get my General’s unit of bloodletters and a fiend (side charged) into his white lions true I took some damaged from ASF great weapons but I wiped him out in return. I did something similar to the sword masters (and his mage) and the Blue scribes charged and wiped out his bolt thrower. In the end I charged the spears from three directions at once and wiped him out. I did make a few mistakes (like challenging his HE hero with a great weapon with my herald. I was killed before I had the chance to strike.) OUCH! Major victory to me.

Game 2: High Elves. Rion had a unit of 20 Seaguard, 10 swordmasters, 10 bowmen, 6 shades led by the uber shade special character, a mage and two bolt throwers. He deployed his army (as this was the diagonal deployment mission) in his quarter so to speak about 8 inches on from the center line across from a stream. In his first turn we discovered that this stream cast a random lore of life spell on you when you stood in it. Hmmm… Anyway by the end of turn two I had charged a bolt thrower with a fiend and was down to 7 bloodletters total. I could not dispel anything in this game and the curse of arrow attraction was kicking my ass. At least I still had 2 units. Kinda… I gathered my wits about me, prayed , and charged into the sea guard with 6 letters and a herald while 1 letter champion and the other herald hit the bowmen. We rolled for spells and one of my units gained always strikes first and the other became int 10 and WS 10. Both denying him ASF rerolls. He wiffed his attacked and my boys walked through both units with extreme prejudice. Meanwhile with my letters out of the way, my flamers turned about face and shot the very annoying shadow warriors off the board with some flickering fire support from the horrors. Fiends ate the other bolt thrower. The stream ate his mage and one of my fiends (terrain is brutal) leaving his swordmasters which were forced to start off the board and came on too far to get into the action. They were close enough to get pasted and eventually wiped out from Horror/flamer attacks. Tabled another opponent for another major victory.

I’ll admit at this point nerves were getting to me and with my morning caffeine long gone and still recovering from Collingwood’s victory the night before. I rocked up to my last game and found Nathan Parker (former captain of the game club that used to constantly challenge my club when it existed).

Game 3: Nathan was playing beasts and we were playing the Banner mission. He had a big unit of bestigor, a unit of minotaurs, a large unit of gors, two units of hounds, two chariots, and something else. We lined up across from each other and I discovered that I had an altar of Khaine on my side of the board. I duly deployed as many units next to it as possible. Turn 1 he comes towards me. I discover my letters have to try and charge. They make the 17 inch charge range and close with his generals unit. I smash a lot of bestigor. He kills a few letters but I win by 2 I think. Even with a reroll he fails his leadership test and runs… 2 inches… I catch and kill him to win the game… We keep playing but eventually I table him for a major victory (I guess I won anyway). Nathan as always was a great opponent as was my other opponents on Sunday.

As I had pulled another perfect score on sports, comp, battle, and painting… I came 1st. No one was more surprised than me. I had a great time and I think my feelings were shared my most of the players there. Here is hoping that GW Camberwell will run more “heat” events in the future.

Until next time…