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!
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