Stormy Teacups

I was at my first WFB tournament for a while last weekend and managed to cover my self in a moderate amount of glory in the process. V-Con is a regular event run by the local games store and comprises Wh40k, WFB and Warmachines/Hordes events along with boardgames, CCGs and a console game room. Turnout is what you’d expect for rural Germany but there are more than enough gamers in the local area to make it worthwhile.

I was competing in the WFB event with my (mostly complete) Warriors of Chaos. Armies are small at 1500 points and the event features some strict composition rules that prohibit most of the nastier elements. No more than two total magic levels are allowed for example along with a blanket ban on named characters and restrictions on flyers and large targets. My army at its core is largely unchanged from previous events. The rundown is as follows:

Sorceror of Tzeentch; Ironcurse Icon, Spell Familiar (General)

Exalted Champion of Tzeentch; Chaos Steed, Blasted Standard (Army Standard Bearer)

5x Knights of Tzeentch; Full command, Banner of Rage

19x Warriors of Tzeentch; Full command, shields, War Banner

10x Chosen of Tzeentch; Full command, halberds, Lichebone Pennant, Favour of the Gods

30x Marauders; Full command, flails

The tactics are fairly straightforwards with this force, the Sorceror goes in the Warriors unit for some protection and to bolster the line with his close ranged magic, any of the infantry units acts as an anvil while the Knights are a hammer.  The Knights are a very strong unit even at higher points values and I expected them to be devastating in a game of this size.

First up was a Dwarf army. Mostly it was based around large combat blocks led by a king borne on a shield and bodyguarded by Hammerers. Two smallish Quarreller units, a couple of bolt-throwers and a Grudge Thrower were his only shooting units. He moved forwards, I moved forwards and managed to avoid his big block of hammerers for long enough to smash through his lines. By the time he’d brought the Dwarf King and his bodyguard around to bear, I’d demolished all of his support and was able to charge him from all sides with everything in my army at once. Not even Stubborn, elite Dwarves led by their king can handle that kind of punishment and the game was a massacre. I’d lost my Battle Standard Bearer to a challenge but my army was otherwise fully intact.

Next in line was a tide of Chaos Daemons. This featured a horde sized unit of Bloodletters, supported by Flamers, a Herald of Tzeentch on a disc, a single Bloodcrusher and all led by a Daemon Prince. he set up with these last two holding a flank by themselves while the Bloodletters held the centre and everything else skipped forwards to take targets of opportunity. I wasn’t sure how to take the two big guys on, especially after they demolished my Marauder block but then they carried on through into the Chaos Warriors and were summarily dispatched on the first round of combat much to my relief. Meanwhile my Sorceror had almost single handedly destroyed the Flamers with repeated applications of his Flickering Fire of Tzeentch spell and theChaos Knights had charged down the Herald of Tzeentch who’d been caught out in the open. This didn’t go exactly as planned due to my Exalted Champion’s sudden inability to roll dice but after a coupel of rounds the inevitable occurred and the Daemon was sent howling back to the Warp. All this time I had been (pleasantly) surprised by my opponent’s reluctance to commit his Bloodletter block. He’d danced around some difficult terrain in the centre of the board and was perfectly content to let me come to him. On my last turn I’d destroyed everything else in his army and was in position for a combined charge but decided that I’d already won and that charging in would only give him the opportunity to score some late victory points while it would be impossible for me to improve my situation. Thus I ended my turn as soon as it started and took a convincing win.

Finally I played against a very nice High Elf army. The lady who it belonged to ended up taking home the best painted army prize after a judging call between her army and mine. Her force consisted of a noble on a Griffon, a large block of Swordmasters, a block of White lions, two units of archers and a repeater bolt-thrower. I wasn’t really sure how to deal with the Swordmasters and, frustratingly, I hadn’t rolled any useful spells for dealing with them. I love to cast Treason of Tzeentch on great-weapon wielding Elves but I didn’t have anything that was likely to help me in this game. Luckily for me, she hadn’t rolled any good spells for her mage either so things evened out for me. The odds got better when she wiped out her own unit of Swordmasters in a calamitous series of miscasts over three turns. The first one wiped out half the unit and they panicked only to rally right on the table edge, The next turn saw another miscast and the mage took a wound and then finally a third miscast on turn three killed the mage and triggered another panicked flight, this time off the table. Having neutralised her own most dangerous unit for me, she had precious little with which to stand against the heavily armoured horde crashing down upon her and a resounding victory resulted from the mopping up operation.

By the time the victory points for all three games had been tallied I’d managed to pull out a clear lead and won the Best General award which handily will be most of the price of the Codex: Grey Knights that I have on order.

An entirely rewarding day out with good opponents and fun games, see the full gallery of pictures from the event on this page.

When our merry band of shiny and new wargamers began our new armies, the eventual goal was that we’d each have a force ready to take to the V-Con tournament here in sunny Villingen. As it happened the various members of the group were hit by work deadlines, moving into new apartments, long visits by relatives and other sundry distractions. So, when the tournament rolled around this morning only myself and Mario actually turned up with our armies – and a good portion of Mario’s figures were assembled in some haste over the preceding week. Most of the others don’t yet have a viable list but I have a feeling that this will change soon as they’ve now tasted blood and are keen to dive in.

I took the Chaos Warriors that have been slowly taking shape over the summer and Mario took his new Tomb Kings. Originally the plan was that he’d come over to my place yesterday and we’d have a few tutorial games to get him up to speed with the rules as he’d never played WFB before, what actually happened was that he had to do some work-stuff at very short notice so he sat at my table working on his spreadsheet while we discussed the more theoretical side of the game and I bashed out a few speed painted Chaos Warriors to bring my list up to size. This meant that the games at the tournament today were his first ever. “Don’t be a wuss” I said over his concerns that he might not be ready, “You’ll figure it out, it’s not rocket surgery.”

There was a Warmachines event happening simultaneously with the WFB tournament in the same hall so there were only ten players which is about half as many as usually show up. Mario met his first opponent, a Bretonnian player while I was matched with an Empire opponent. My general was a level 2 sorceror on a disk who didn’t manage to do much of anything during the game due to having only one useful spell (Gateway) which was always shut down by the pile of dispel dice that my opponent was able to muster. As soon as he died I realised I’d bought him a Spell Familiar so he should have had a bit more utility. I also realised about this time that I had paid for a Chaos Spawn but I’d forgotten to pack one in my case so I was down a bunch of points. These things collectively displeased me. Despite my forgetfulness and the loss of my general to a wildly optimistic round of shooting from some Pistoliers I easily won the game mostly thanks to the Chaos Knights and their superhuman ability to kill things. Wandering across to check on Mario, I was heartened to find that he’d won his game too so Team Acony was off to a great start.

Next up for me was a High Elf army and Mario faced off against a Skaven horde. This one started badly for me and went downhill fast. My Chaos Knights smashed into a mid-sized unit of White Lions and got butchered due to some terrible dice rolling for armour saves. Only the army standard bearer survived and I just managed to keep him alive long enough to finish off the last survivor from a unit of Dragon Princes who had previously been on the wrong end of an Infernal Gateway. My hero popped the last Prince then fled and died. Without my Knights, I was very much on the back foot but the Warriors managed to pull things back a little. It wasn’t enough though and the game ended with a convincing Elven victory. Across the hall, Mario had been tabled in short order but had learned from the experience.

For the final game, I drew a Skaven list (a different opponent to the one who’d demolished Mario) and Mario was matched up with a Dwarf army. My game was very back and forth with many points that could have swung a decisive victory for either side. Highlights for me were Gatewaying the Plague Furnace off the table in my first turn and having my Marauder Cavalry survive the battle after actually managing to kill things. Low points were having a Skaven unit break my Marauders and clip the General as they pursued, the next turn the Marauders rallied, the general lost combat but didn’t die and the pursuing rats hit the Marauders again who they broke again and pursued into the general who was already fleeing and thus had to flee again – right off the table. Sigh.

In the end though I’d killed almost everything on the Skaven side and had managed to preserve most of my expensive units (characters aside) so pulled out a win. Mario hadn’t been so fortunate however, he’d found out the hard way that the only army that can beat Skeletons in a long-drawn out meatgrinder are Dwarfs and at the end of his game there were still a large number of stunties standing up while none of the Khemrian forces remained on the table.

Out of the ten players who took part, I came third and Mario placed eighth. Both of us tied for most sporting player and I won the best painted army (by dint of being the only player at the event with a fully painted force no doubt). A good time was had and those of the group who didn’t take part still turned up to watch and cheer Mario and I on so even though they didn’t play, they still got a little stoked for action over the winter.

At some point over the past few days, the following thoughts popped into my head in po particular order:

• My wife is somewhat interested in Warhammer
• I have two painted Warhammer Fantasy armies
• I have one of the spiffy Citadel gaming tables that has been used precisely once since obtaining it the day they were released
• I only normally get to play at tournaments
• My wife has never actually played WFB

Clearly then the answer was to challenge the missus to a round of toy soldiers!

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Yesterday I was in sunny Konstanz for the Grosser-Spieletag II. I’ve been to a couple of the Seetroll organsed events so far and they’ve been fun if sometimes a little chaotic. This one was easily the best organised of the recent tournaments and a lot of fun.

Brief battle reports after the jump.

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….Another blog that I’ll only be updating sporadically! Yay!

This is my space to talk about my hobby of wargaming and painting miniatures generally. I’ve just started painting up a new army (WFB Chaos Daemons) and I have a good number of tournaments coming up in the near future so this seems like a good place to start.

For the record, although I do enjoy tournaments I wouldn’t describe myself as a massively competitive player, mostly I play for fun and tournaments are simply an opportunity to get a bunch of games against new opponents rather than any driving need to validate my tactical skills.

I’ve been doing this for a while now. I started wargaming with 2nd ed. WFB and at one point was in the enviable position of being paid for my hobby. I spent a spell working for Games Workshop as a games developer and then as a White Dwarfer amongt other things. When I moved to Paris about 6 years ago, I gave away my wargames collection to various clubs and friends, since then I’ve got back into the hobby (mostly driven by my involvement in Warhammer Online) and am now thoroughly hooked on 28mm crack once again.

I have a WFB Dwarfs army fully painted as well as a sizable Warmachine Cryx force, I have a bunch of painted WH40k Eldar which will one day be the nucleus of a fully painted army as well as mostly unpainted Chaos Mortals and Chaos Daemons for WFB.

Please feel free to comment and give feedback on my work, the blog in general and any part of the hobby that interests you.