Last year I travelled to nearby Geelong, Australia for a great weekend of warhammers and hanging out with good mates. Despite it falling during report writing time (I am a teacher) I made the trip down with a relatively untested army and a mob of good mates hoping for the best. My weekend began with a pre-dawn wake up and a 6:30AM pick up on Saturday morning. Though tired and bleary eyed it turns out I had more sleep than most of my friends in the car. (Big thanks to Drew for arranging the accommodation and Nick for the lift!) After some McDonald’s drive through and a tall cup of coffee we hit the road and headed down to G-town.
Rego and setup was fairly straight forward since I had grudged last year’s TO (Tournament Organizer) Jason Murdoch (AKA Mouse). Ran into a slew of familiar faces including a few I normally only ever see playing 40K. The camaraderie and familiar smack talking that goes on between games is one of my favourite parts of being a tournament regular. The banter started early but the action didn’t start til Mouse and I rolled for deployment.
Mouse won the roll and chose terrain that best suited his newly painted (in two weeks no less) ogre kingdom list. He ran a very similar list to my friend Drew’s pirate ogres with a couple units of iron guts, leadbelchers, a couple of butchers and other assorted big gribbly things. His butchers shut down my magic pahse and his deployment kept my shooting from ruining his day. It was a close fought battle that had a few great moments including my dragon princes breaking and running down his general and a big unit of bulls on turn two. Of course turn two was also when his iron guts charged my white lions and due to my ability to miss with everything lead to a very messy end to my stubborn little lions. OUCH! I would like to say at this point that I did forget to use my Lion Standard that partially lead to this messy end. My fault. But I was learning. The game ended in a draw and I am keen for a rematch MOUSE!
Game 2: In game 2 I faced Wayne Pollard’s speedy Dwarves. I have faced dwarves on a variety of occasions in the past and they generally all have the same things: lots of war machines, shooty units and hammerers. Wayne’s Dwarves had none of these. He had Ironbreakers, warriors, warriors, warriors and a gyro copter. Our table had a great big pyramid in the middle. I put my fast units on one side and my foot units of the other across from all of his ground troops. My plan was to wheel around one side of the pyramid and hit the rear of his units the same time my foot troops did. My magic was completely shut down by Wayne’s 6 dispel dice and my shooting was woooooefull. It came down to combat again. My cunning plan would have worked too but Wayne used the Rune of Challenge to pull my dragon princes out of formation. His uber unit of iron breakers broke AND ran the cav down. Dual charges from lion chariots did no better. Sigh… Minor loss to me.
Game 3: I faced my old opponent Nick Hoen who is an excellent player (Always in the top 5 kind of player). He had an army that was entirely composed khorne daemons. 100 bloodletters, 3 blood crushers and a bunch of heralds on juggers. I gambled a bit and my dice utterly failed. (most notably scoring 1 impact wound between TWO lion chariots). I was not impressed and lets just say that by the end of the game Khorne had a pile of high elf skulls added to his throne pile. Nick was great to play as always and is a real gentleman. Next time GADGET!
Soooo… a draw and two losses. Pretty sure this is the worst set of results in any game I have ever gotten. Had fun though. I think that high elves are not the army for me.
Got together with my mates. Had an awesome dinner and a few tasty beverages before heading back to the hotel to watch You Only Live Twice before bed. I would like to point out that I was really cold that night while we were sleeping. So much so that I put on my woolly hat and jumper under the covers AND took the sheets off the bed next to mine (which was free). I slept very poorly as a result. In the morning we discovered that the window was open in our room! I didn’t check because I assumed that windows would be closed IN THE WINTER!!!
Anyway. Cup of coffee number two and Game 4:
Andrew Thompson’s Orcs and gobbos. Andrew had annamosity problems allowing me to take his army as I pleased. My dragon princes were stellar as was my eagle (who should be renamed bolt thrower eater in “eagle”). I don’t remember much from the game other than Andrew was an ace dude who had a cool looking army. I did drop his giant down to one wound with some lucky bow fire only to kill him when he charged my sea guard. Spears on bowmen are GREAT! (here are a few of Andrew's units)
Game 5:
I lined up again Hieu and his naughty Dark Elves. Hmmm… No dagger, no hydra, no ASF banner, no black guard, no reverse ward… WOW! He had some spears, a big unit of knights, a chariot, two bolt throwers, some crossbows, and a big block of executioners. We deploy and I get first turn. In my turn 1 between my magic and shooting I destroy 1 bolt thrower and his crossbows (and 1 of two assassins). From this point on it all goes my way. I shoot and magic to my hearts content as I advance. My dragon princes take his cauldron down and run into everything else. His knights line up for the charge on my white lions only to fail stupidity and walk into charge range. I add the insult of two lion chariots to that charge and his knights were reduced to a fine red mist. I win a max 20 points and give up none. Sorry Hieu! Voted Hieu the best sport in the Tournament. I have never seen such bad dice taken with a smile.
Game 6:
Two big wins! I’ll take it I was rocketing up the ranks and ended up again Hannes’s Wood Elves. Before the game I discovered that he read this blog and I had never met him before (first time I met someone who followed my work online that I didn’t know). Cool. I played another autumn themed wood elf list on that same table in that same round at Rumble last year and was smashed off the board. Unfortunately history was about to repeat itself. My dice were fairly good the first two turns and I was feeling really good until the TO walked by and commented on how well I was going. My dice didn’t like my answer apparently as I failed EVERYTHING from that point on. Miscast magic. Missed shooting. Chariots wiped out to single units of bows. It all went wrong. It was a great game though and Hannes was a top bloke. I would grudge you for Convic Hannes but I am scared of your army! ☺
Overall I almost broke even at 60 battle points (shakes fist at Hannes’s Wood Elves). And ended up 1 place ahead of Drew and 1 place behind Pete who I drove up with. Got 21st place (my lucky number). Again I know I am not the best at fantasy and I will endeavour to improve before Convic (and to play test A LOT more!!!). Don’t think that High elves are my speed but they fun for a once off. I may pull them out again later depending on what 8th ed brings.
The group I went up with took 2nd, 3rd, 4th, best painted (Congrats Drew!), 2nd best painted, and best sport. Big ups to Noakes for taking Best Sport and 2nd Best Painted... While we didn’t take everything ala last year, we did give it the ol team try and had a blast doing so… Looking forward to next year already!
Here is a parting shot of Drew's Ogre Tyrant and Goblin Trappers... (sorry all the shots get blurry if you zoom in.. I'll fix that for next time).
