Having 'randomly' drawn a fellow Aucklander and long-time gaming buddy in round two I figured I was due for some fresh meat. Before we picked up our draw I joked about drawing Paul next. Ha...
For those who don't know him, Paul is a champion wargamer. Not in the sense that he wins every tournament he plays in, but that every game against him is a sparkling example of Warhammer at it's best. He is without doubt one of my most favourite opponents. Paul smashes Sportsmanship regularly and is usually up there with the Best Sports votes (he was voted third for Sports in this very event). We've also developed over time quite a healthy competitive edge to our games as we are semi-regular opponents. Most recently I took the big guy to task with my Gobbos in a practice game which you can read about below. Having thrown the game and gone down fighting (or at least beating a hasty retreat!) in our previous battle I was highly motivated to get the most out of this game. Revenge would be mine!!!
One of the epiphanies I had this weekend, was that I found that I draw a lot of the basis for my response as a player from how my opponent behaves. This was really driven home over the course of this game and the following game in round four. What I mean is that if my opponent is energetic, talkative, enthusiastic etc I tend to be more extraverted in my approach to the game. As a result our table drew no small amount of attention this round as Paul and I whooped and hollered, wept and wailed at the hilarious and sometimes downright weird events that took place. I'm sure I got a few sideways looks with the amount of noise I was making and I know not everyone enjoys people being this loud - f*** 'em. I had a blast in this game and I'll be damned if I'll let anyone else temper the expression of my enjoyment playing the game I love.
Enough gushing...
Paul was running a flithy (is there any other kind?!) Skaven list along the lines of:
Seer
Chieftain with Fellblade (this is thoroughly representative of how damn cool Paul is)
BSB
Warlock with Doomrocket (I know right? I was totally surprised too!)
Assassin
Abomb
Doomwheel
Monks and Furnace
Lots of Slaves including a BIG unit of 50ish
One BIG unit of Clanrats
Stormvermin with Flaming banner
As we discussed on the drive home it's far from optimised. As we deployed we talked out the changes he had made from our previous encounter - no PCBs, no Cannon, no second unit of Gutter Runners. Very interesting!
Here are the highlights:
The Abomb, well afraid of the Firey Ring of Abomb Death (Ruby Ring), wandered backwards and forwards like a wuss. For his troubles he took 3 wounds from said Ring (IF casting ftw) and Mangler to the face, dying before achieving anything. Good.
One massive casting of Skitterleap (argh!) sent the el-cheapo Warlock into a forest behind my lines. Fanatics fly everywhere (I hate when they do that!). Doomrocket carved up some Gobbos (meh). Warlock took a Pump Wagon to the face and was splattered but he'd done his job brilliantly.
One shot, one kill from the Rock Lobber on the Doomwheel. Ace. By the end of turn two the Rats had lost their two killy Rare choices.
L4 and 39-block were forced to engage 50 Slaves with Death Frenzy. Slaves Netted and combat pretty much drawn (or I passed a shaky break test). Next turn I flank Slaves with Spiders. I'm thinking - flank, charge, ranks, banner, nets, carnage. Nets fail, Spiders smashed, Gobbos break, flank shattered, Slaves awesome.
Furnace mob not overjoyed at the prospect of moving through a mysterious swamp to get at the juicy bits of my army. Swerve to apply pressure to L4s block (they haven't died to Slaves at this point), flanked by Hoppers. Hoppers fail to hold them up and break. Furnace forced to charge Gobbo bows and smashes them.
Trolls awaiting Furnace see it swerve to avoid swamp and advance. Charged by Slave block and beat them up but end up outside of general's leadership. Pass Stupid on Ld4! Yussss! Reform ready to get stuck into the winning combat. Another Slave block JUST in arc to charge their flank. Trolls charged. Trolls whiff. Trolls break. $%&^!
Stormvermin barreling down the left flank and chase of 50 Gobbos (but fail to catch them). Lined up on Gobbo generals/BSBs unit. Gobbo counter-charge all ready to go. Something forces a Pani check on the generals unit. Rerolled 9s. Fail once. Fail twice. %$^&(! Flee through Furnace (which has engaged Gobbo bows). Stormvermin go nuts on unit ready for counter attack and smash them.
Hard to read from the so called 'highlights' but I (once again) had Paul on the ropes for four turns and I (once again) failed miserably to see this through to the end of the 6th turn. Paul ended up with a decent win, scraping through on the back of dodgy failed Panic checks from me but what an awesome and hilarious game it was!
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Friday, June 10, 2011
NiCon Round Two - Reid's Dark Elves
Round Two saw me drawn against my good mate and traveling buddy Mr Reid Pittams. A previous tournament winner (from a number of different events), games against Reid are always tense (in a good way) and extremely enjoyable. In fact, I don't think I've ever won a game against Reid and often find I walk away with a raft of valuable lessons for 'the next time'.
We were actually not thrilled to be playing each other in the second round at NiCon. Despite approaching the TO and asking to be swapped in the draw, and despite the fact that it was confirmed that the draw was (at this point...?) random, we were still required to play each other. Apparently it was just too difficult for us to "randomly" swap with a couple of players on the neighbouring table.
This immediately put our game on the back foot and the decision was made to rush this one through and look for the early lunch. Reid was pretty miffed about the inflexibility of the (random) draw, and I'd already decided this tournament was (from a competitive point-of-view) a complete whitewash so with the pressure of having to check into the hotel at some point, needing to get some lunch, and needing to eat that lunch away from the convention venue we literally threw models at the table and piled things forward for a nice easy (and hopefully decisive) scrum.
Not much else to write about here. Dawn Attack forced me inadvertently into a refused centre with the Trolls failing Stupidity for the whole game on Ld4. On the left the combined might of all my blocks and magic did for the Black Guard, Harpies and a small unit of Crossbowmen. On the right an ambitious Mangler and Pump Wagon ate up a big unit of Crossbows and a lucky randomly moving Fanatic slapped some Cold One Knights good and proper. In the middle my cowering Spider Riders faced down a Hydra, Witch Elves, big Spear block with L4 (Shadows),Master on Pegasus, and some Shades.
Highlight of the game was 5 Spider Riders flank-charging the Spear bus, killing off the L4 and breaking the entire unit (won combat by one) even though they were Steadfast.
I came out of this with a solid win and a bitter taste in my mouth. Having played a regular opponent and having traveled a decent journey to attend the event, I hoped for the privelege of playing more Tron locals in the coming rounds.
We were actually not thrilled to be playing each other in the second round at NiCon. Despite approaching the TO and asking to be swapped in the draw, and despite the fact that it was confirmed that the draw was (at this point...?) random, we were still required to play each other. Apparently it was just too difficult for us to "randomly" swap with a couple of players on the neighbouring table.
This immediately put our game on the back foot and the decision was made to rush this one through and look for the early lunch. Reid was pretty miffed about the inflexibility of the (random) draw, and I'd already decided this tournament was (from a competitive point-of-view) a complete whitewash so with the pressure of having to check into the hotel at some point, needing to get some lunch, and needing to eat that lunch away from the convention venue we literally threw models at the table and piled things forward for a nice easy (and hopefully decisive) scrum.
Not much else to write about here. Dawn Attack forced me inadvertently into a refused centre with the Trolls failing Stupidity for the whole game on Ld4. On the left the combined might of all my blocks and magic did for the Black Guard, Harpies and a small unit of Crossbowmen. On the right an ambitious Mangler and Pump Wagon ate up a big unit of Crossbows and a lucky randomly moving Fanatic slapped some Cold One Knights good and proper. In the middle my cowering Spider Riders faced down a Hydra, Witch Elves, big Spear block with L4 (Shadows),Master on Pegasus, and some Shades.
Highlight of the game was 5 Spider Riders flank-charging the Spear bus, killing off the L4 and breaking the entire unit (won combat by one) even though they were Steadfast.
I came out of this with a solid win and a bitter taste in my mouth. Having played a regular opponent and having traveled a decent journey to attend the event, I hoped for the privelege of playing more Tron locals in the coming rounds.
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
NiCon Round One - Everett's Warriors of Chaos
Stoked to have drawn a local first up and I met the exceedingly enthusiastic (and frequently apologetic) young Everett wielding your A-type Warriors of Chaos netlist.
Tzeentch Lord and Tzeentch BSB - check
Tzeentch Chosen - check
Warshrine - check
Hellcannon - check
Khorne choppy death - check
The only real exception to the standard list of Chaos-awesome was a (big) unit of unmarked Warriors with the Banner of Rage. Nice.
Everett plonked the blocks down centrally with the Shrine up the backside of the Chosen and the Hellcannon nearby. The one weirdness in Ev's deployment was that each flank was occupied by a unit of Warhounds each accompanied by one of the two characters (both riding Discs).
I placed the bow units and Spiders on the flank with the warmachines on the right in a corner opposite the Tzeentch BSB and then units variously in the middle. A big (very big... and very dangerous) forest somewhat hampered my deployment options so I lurked and waited for the Chaos lads to come get some.
Highlights:
Ev won the first turn and up they jogged with the Sorcerer Lord being particularly agressive in the face of some stern Squig Hopper opposition. The magic phase was centred around a big casting of Pandaemonium and I reluctantly scrolled it straight away - fear of a massive Panic-induced turn one flight from the Hellcannon's opening salvo (at Ld4!) driving my reaction. As it was the Hellcannon scattered off the board.
With a useful reroll the Hoppers charged straight into the Lord on the first turn and initiated a 10 round combat of epic handbagging and airswinging. At least the little fecker could Flicker my skimishers and Manglers now - ha!
The two Manglers almost annihilated the Khorne block by themselves - 6 rather miffed disciples of the Blood God survived the battle being chased mercilessly by a Pump Wagon which was frustratingly blocked at every turn by the Warshrine. The Manglers, having had their fill of Warriors and their crunchy armour, randomly moved through the advancing Hellcannon which was looking to end the embarassing stalemate combat between the Hoppers and Sorcerer Lord. 11 str6 hits later settled that little meet-and-greet leaving the Hellcannon a shattered wreck. Not content with this however a single Mangler then moved through the Hopper combat, deftly missing the Lord himself, but carving apart 4 Hoppers. As it's final devastating act this same damn Mangler died a happy and gory death after the Sorcerer Lord finally broke the Hoppers, failed to restrain, and pursued into it. The Mangler exploded the Lord in it's death throes. Very entertaining end to that little drama :)
Having survived Panic checks, a misfiring Fanatic, a Pump Wagon that rolled 1" short, and a consistently misfiring Rock Lobber, the Tzeentch BSB was finally splattered by an enthusiastic Doom Diver. Good.
Ready and waiting to delay the Chosen, 5 Spider Riders decided at the exact wrong moment to pick a fight with a neighbouring block of Night Goblins. They definitely came off worse after suffering a mighty 4 casualties! The single remaining (and quite shocked) Spider Rider was then run over by the Warshrine.
In the middle a long charge by the Chosen initiated the mother of all Fanatic traps. 24 Chosen waded through a grand total of SIX Fanatics - only 4 Chosen survived to make combat with the block of 50 Goblins. That's not the worst of it though. After a "tactical" 6-dice casting of Pandaemonium the 4 Chosen beat the Goblins in combat, the Gobbos failed their rerolled Ld5 break check and buggered off! This Panicked the nearby L4s bunker of 39 Night Goblins off the board. Argh! Useless gits!!!
The Trolls, having received the charge of the Unmarked Banner of Rage Warriors, and now bereft of the General's leadership (curse you Pandaemonium!!!), lost by 1 and predictably broke on Ld3. Sigh.
So a rocking good game where I was up by stacks and only just ended up with a winning draw by 30VPs. I managed to collar the 4 Chosen in the end (thank goodness) but that one damn spell certainly took it's toll. It was the beginning of a magically uneven weekend for me and I'm sorry to say worse was yet to come.
The end of the first round also brought with it the unwelcome surprise that the tournament organiser was... less than organised. Having forgotten to place a VP table in the players pack (!!) we were asked to write down the final VP totals for each army the difference between them (I think... still not sure we even did this right...) so a draw could be calculated.
The sports scoring instructions were also over-written (again, I think they were... this was all extremely unclear) with the 0-3-5 system being spontaneously replaced by a 0 through to 5 score. This caused no end of ill feeling almost immediately I am sorry to say and I felt the pangs of dismay eat away at my soul at what this might mean for the rest of the event.
Ev was a lovely guy to play though and even after the massive swing I was looking forward to the next round.
Feeling a bit peckish but silly me - no food at this convention. Best harden up like the rest of the Hamiltron hard men.
Tzeentch Lord and Tzeentch BSB - check
Tzeentch Chosen - check
Warshrine - check
Hellcannon - check
Khorne choppy death - check
The only real exception to the standard list of Chaos-awesome was a (big) unit of unmarked Warriors with the Banner of Rage. Nice.
Everett plonked the blocks down centrally with the Shrine up the backside of the Chosen and the Hellcannon nearby. The one weirdness in Ev's deployment was that each flank was occupied by a unit of Warhounds each accompanied by one of the two characters (both riding Discs).
I placed the bow units and Spiders on the flank with the warmachines on the right in a corner opposite the Tzeentch BSB and then units variously in the middle. A big (very big... and very dangerous) forest somewhat hampered my deployment options so I lurked and waited for the Chaos lads to come get some.
Highlights:
Ev won the first turn and up they jogged with the Sorcerer Lord being particularly agressive in the face of some stern Squig Hopper opposition. The magic phase was centred around a big casting of Pandaemonium and I reluctantly scrolled it straight away - fear of a massive Panic-induced turn one flight from the Hellcannon's opening salvo (at Ld4!) driving my reaction. As it was the Hellcannon scattered off the board.
With a useful reroll the Hoppers charged straight into the Lord on the first turn and initiated a 10 round combat of epic handbagging and airswinging. At least the little fecker could Flicker my skimishers and Manglers now - ha!
The two Manglers almost annihilated the Khorne block by themselves - 6 rather miffed disciples of the Blood God survived the battle being chased mercilessly by a Pump Wagon which was frustratingly blocked at every turn by the Warshrine. The Manglers, having had their fill of Warriors and their crunchy armour, randomly moved through the advancing Hellcannon which was looking to end the embarassing stalemate combat between the Hoppers and Sorcerer Lord. 11 str6 hits later settled that little meet-and-greet leaving the Hellcannon a shattered wreck. Not content with this however a single Mangler then moved through the Hopper combat, deftly missing the Lord himself, but carving apart 4 Hoppers. As it's final devastating act this same damn Mangler died a happy and gory death after the Sorcerer Lord finally broke the Hoppers, failed to restrain, and pursued into it. The Mangler exploded the Lord in it's death throes. Very entertaining end to that little drama :)
Having survived Panic checks, a misfiring Fanatic, a Pump Wagon that rolled 1" short, and a consistently misfiring Rock Lobber, the Tzeentch BSB was finally splattered by an enthusiastic Doom Diver. Good.
Ready and waiting to delay the Chosen, 5 Spider Riders decided at the exact wrong moment to pick a fight with a neighbouring block of Night Goblins. They definitely came off worse after suffering a mighty 4 casualties! The single remaining (and quite shocked) Spider Rider was then run over by the Warshrine.
In the middle a long charge by the Chosen initiated the mother of all Fanatic traps. 24 Chosen waded through a grand total of SIX Fanatics - only 4 Chosen survived to make combat with the block of 50 Goblins. That's not the worst of it though. After a "tactical" 6-dice casting of Pandaemonium the 4 Chosen beat the Goblins in combat, the Gobbos failed their rerolled Ld5 break check and buggered off! This Panicked the nearby L4s bunker of 39 Night Goblins off the board. Argh! Useless gits!!!
The Trolls, having received the charge of the Unmarked Banner of Rage Warriors, and now bereft of the General's leadership (curse you Pandaemonium!!!), lost by 1 and predictably broke on Ld3. Sigh.
So a rocking good game where I was up by stacks and only just ended up with a winning draw by 30VPs. I managed to collar the 4 Chosen in the end (thank goodness) but that one damn spell certainly took it's toll. It was the beginning of a magically uneven weekend for me and I'm sorry to say worse was yet to come.
The end of the first round also brought with it the unwelcome surprise that the tournament organiser was... less than organised. Having forgotten to place a VP table in the players pack (!!) we were asked to write down the final VP totals for each army the difference between them (I think... still not sure we even did this right...) so a draw could be calculated.
The sports scoring instructions were also over-written (again, I think they were... this was all extremely unclear) with the 0-3-5 system being spontaneously replaced by a 0 through to 5 score. This caused no end of ill feeling almost immediately I am sorry to say and I felt the pangs of dismay eat away at my soul at what this might mean for the rest of the event.
Ev was a lovely guy to play though and even after the massive swing I was looking forward to the next round.
Feeling a bit peckish but silly me - no food at this convention. Best harden up like the rest of the Hamiltron hard men.
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Thoughts pre-NiCon
Tomorrow is going to be a helluva day. Looking at a 5.30am start. Picking up Reid, Vod, Paul, and Big Show (Chris) at 6.30am. Hitting the motorway scanning for breakfast options (BP stop on the Southern or somewhere in Huntly).
Briefing is at 8am (we won't be there for this I suspect); first round starts at 8.30am.
I've got a weird feeling going into this event. I've run a few tournaments before (only a few mind) and there has been (and continues to be) some odd stuff happening regarding the Warhammer tournament at NiCon. Here are a few examples:
COMP - there is none. Fine, happy with that. The TO is running a series of "strict" guidelines. Ok. Except one of my mates received an email claiming he would receive a comp score of "0" and the list was "on-target". Wha? I've broken one of the guidelines (no double Rares), but the TO is ok with this in the context of the rest of the list. Ok... But no email went out to the registered players advising them of any of this or any update in the thinking around the guidelines shifting. Or a reversioning of the players pack. I initially thought they were hard caps until I asked (and realised the TO considers caps different from strict guidelines). Preparing myself for some dummy spits and tantrums tomorrow as players find they have misread the intentions of the TO :(
SPORTS - worth 20% of your score. Ok, sounds good. But it's scored 0-3-5 per game for a max of 30pts (when the players pack says it will be scored out of 40pts). Wha?
TIMETABLE - Round one starts at 8.30am. Ok, fine with that. Each round is 2.5hrs long. Good good. But there are four rounds on Day One with 1/2 breaks except between the third and fourth rounds when you only have a 15 minute break. Not good. Combine this with...
FOOD - there is none. Seriously - there is no on-site catering. And beyond that - there is no eating in the venue. Ouch.
So here's the plan. Drive down. Play Round One. Shoot out and book into the motel. Fly back to the venue. Round Two. Race like mad to find some food off-site, eat, race back. Round Three. Barely catch our collective breath. Round Four. Find more food, back to motel, bourbon, collapse.
I think the TO is going to have to be a little flexible on the round times - especially as the convention has no catering whatsoever (madness).
Something else has caught my attention - numbers. 40k has hit it's max players (50). Warmachine has 27, Flames 25. Fantasy has become the poor cousin of tournaments that it was outnumbering in years previous. Worse - as far as I can tell from the list of registered players (although communication in this regard has been poor and inconsistent - no updates from the TO or any sense of promotion of the event and a drive to get the numbers up) Reid, Daryl Painter from the City Guard and myself are the only players traveling from outside of Hamilton for the Fantasy event. I hope I'm proved wrong in this but given how close Hamilton is (1.5hrs by mostly motorway) this is quite a big disappointment.
I guess the silver lining is that I am that much more likely to play someone I've never (or rarely) played before - always a bonus at a tournament these days.
Briefing is at 8am (we won't be there for this I suspect); first round starts at 8.30am.
I've got a weird feeling going into this event. I've run a few tournaments before (only a few mind) and there has been (and continues to be) some odd stuff happening regarding the Warhammer tournament at NiCon. Here are a few examples:
COMP - there is none. Fine, happy with that. The TO is running a series of "strict" guidelines. Ok. Except one of my mates received an email claiming he would receive a comp score of "0" and the list was "on-target". Wha? I've broken one of the guidelines (no double Rares), but the TO is ok with this in the context of the rest of the list. Ok... But no email went out to the registered players advising them of any of this or any update in the thinking around the guidelines shifting. Or a reversioning of the players pack. I initially thought they were hard caps until I asked (and realised the TO considers caps different from strict guidelines). Preparing myself for some dummy spits and tantrums tomorrow as players find they have misread the intentions of the TO :(
SPORTS - worth 20% of your score. Ok, sounds good. But it's scored 0-3-5 per game for a max of 30pts (when the players pack says it will be scored out of 40pts). Wha?
TIMETABLE - Round one starts at 8.30am. Ok, fine with that. Each round is 2.5hrs long. Good good. But there are four rounds on Day One with 1/2 breaks except between the third and fourth rounds when you only have a 15 minute break. Not good. Combine this with...
FOOD - there is none. Seriously - there is no on-site catering. And beyond that - there is no eating in the venue. Ouch.
So here's the plan. Drive down. Play Round One. Shoot out and book into the motel. Fly back to the venue. Round Two. Race like mad to find some food off-site, eat, race back. Round Three. Barely catch our collective breath. Round Four. Find more food, back to motel, bourbon, collapse.
I think the TO is going to have to be a little flexible on the round times - especially as the convention has no catering whatsoever (madness).
Something else has caught my attention - numbers. 40k has hit it's max players (50). Warmachine has 27, Flames 25. Fantasy has become the poor cousin of tournaments that it was outnumbering in years previous. Worse - as far as I can tell from the list of registered players (although communication in this regard has been poor and inconsistent - no updates from the TO or any sense of promotion of the event and a drive to get the numbers up) Reid, Daryl Painter from the City Guard and myself are the only players traveling from outside of Hamilton for the Fantasy event. I hope I'm proved wrong in this but given how close Hamilton is (1.5hrs by mostly motorway) this is quite a big disappointment.
I guess the silver lining is that I am that much more likely to play someone I've never (or rarely) played before - always a bonus at a tournament these days.
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