Basking in the Southern Sun - Lizardmen at SCGT 2014

Quick Note: Apologies for the delay in getting this up - this was due to me losing my phone. For a change I had taken a LOT of photos of games... Typical right? I took some time to try and find it - probably a bad thing I was more worried about losing the pictures than the annoying impact on work... So, instead I have cobbled together some random photos off Twitter and the like, and some random ones that have nothing to do with me, for the hell of it. So, once again, sorry about the delay.

So… Its been and gone. The Big Show. The Main Event of the Evening. The South Coast Grand Tournament 2014.

190ish players, 6 rounds, basically no comp – something spiritually clean about the whole thing (well, apart from that bit outside where someone was sick, that’s not too clean, but still, the overall point remains).

Several questions were posed and asked at this event. Is uncomped Warhammer utterly unsuitable to competitive play? Just how important will comp scores be? Will every person with cannons choose battle for the pass? Can someone drunk enough to lick vodka jelly from another man’s beard win the biggest event in the UK?

And all those were answered.

For those asking, my list was as follows:

Slann, BSB, Channeling Staff, Harmonic Convergence, Life Magic

Old Blood, cold one, great weapon, Dragonhelm

Tetto’ekko

Priest, dispel scroll, lore of beasts

Scar Vet, cold one, great weapon, Armour of Destiny

Scar Vet, cold one, great weapon, Armour of Fortune, Dragonbane Gem

20 Skinks, full command

20 Skinks, full command

22 Skinks, full command

10 Skink Skirmishers

10 Skink Skirmishers

10 Skink Skirmishers, javelins

25 Temple Guard, full command, Razor Banner

5 Chameleon Skinks

5 Chameleon Skinks

Razordon

Comp Score: 1

So… Yes, I went old skool. Life magic baby.

The reasons for this are twofold. Firstly, I see too many elves these days. The one thing elves do very very well is be immune (or as good as) to death magic. In this comp pack though, no one was immune to Dwellers. So there.

Furthermore, I have fallen in love with the power of the life buffs (in tandem with Tett’s Heavens) on the Temple Guard and Vets.

 

Oh, and miscast protection is just good stuff. OK, that’s three reasons – I lied. I’m sure you’ll get over it.

My new club, the black-clad South London Legion,  had been practicing hard for this event, so I went in expecting three things – Everqueen White Lions Stars, Dark Elves of the MSU variety, and MSU Daemons. But only time would tell (spoiler: I did not face any of these…)

Comp Scores and Secret Missions

For those that don’t know, comp points ranged from 0 to 10, and gave you bonuses to deciding what deployment type to use (either Battle Line, Meeting Engagement or Battle for the Pass), who deployed first and who went first. They were also the second tiebreaker – after Secret Missions.

The missions were:

• Control your deployment zone
• Control your opponent’s deployment zone
• Capture more buildings than your opponent
• Kill more special and rare than your opponent
• Keep your general alive
• Kill your opponent’s general.

Game 1

There is a singular experience that can only be truly understood by those that play competitive Warhammer. Some other experiences and hobbies may take you close, but nothing can *exactly* describe the feeling that settles upon you when you find out late on Friday night that you have to play Dwarfs tomorrow. In win/loss/draw. Probably in battle for the pass. It would take Shakespearian levels of wordsmithery to concoct new words to do the feeling justice.

I’ll have to settle for suggesting it is a feeling akin to dread or despair, not dissimilar, in many ways, to the prospect of queuing at the post office.

The faint glimmer of hope that the new Dwarf book may have breathed fresh life into the old book was blown away through the exercise of reading it (though, on an aside, I have to say that I think a big unit of Irondrakes, with funky banners and character support, could be very good). The new morning heralded a new dawn (shockingly), however, and when I looked at the army on the table, it was not what I had feared. It turns out my first round opponent, Paul, is what can only be described as a Good Man. A warmachine player who has started going to Warhammer events for fun (I know… I don’t understand why he takes Dwarfs either), he had a lovely looking army and wanted play – none of this sitting in a corner or round a belly (hampered here, perhaps, by his athletic frame). He wanted to fight toe to toe, until only the bloody victor was standing.

His army, roughly speaking, was: Dwarf Lord on Shield, Runesmith, Dragonslayer, Big Ironbreaker unit, Big Slayer unit, 20 thunderers, 2-3 small thunderer units, 10 Irondrakes, Gyrocopter, cannon, flame cannon and a bolt thrower.

As ever I started off by getting a solid mental picture of what the main threats/priority targets his list had. In this instance it was clear. Flame cannons are bad news for Temple Guard, and death incarnate for Skinks. Cannons are always bad. With just the one there was a decent chance his was flaming, but allowing him a 1/3 chance to pick on the character with only a 4+ ward was never going to be a good thing. The Gyrocopter was also a nuisance, yet another thing that simply likes killing skinks too much to make me comfortable. Finally, there was the Lord. Not having a clue as to what to expect from him in combat, I did not want to risk the Temple Guard (and definitely not the characters) into an early turn combat with him and his retinue.

Paul’s deployment played into my hands. People always appear to expect lizards to deploy defensively, which is something I tend to refuse to do – even if at times it would be the more sensible option.

He put most of his strength in the centre, his 20 thunderers garrisoning the building (we did not realise until turn 2 or 3 that buildings were all two story affairs at the event) flanked by his Ironbreakers and Trollslayers on the 6” line. Between them was the flame cannon ready to launch liquid death on anyone it could. His backfield was filled with his other unit, looking to block any Chameleon scouting goodness. I also deployed high, keeping my Temple Guard just out of maximum charge range, skink cohorts occupying the 6” line, with a Scar vet in one directly across from the Flame Cannon. As luck would have it, I got first turn despite his comp score, and the Scar Vet immediately charged the flame cannon (later surviving one round of shooting from the bolt thrower before killing that too and engaging in prolonged combat with thunderers and Irondrakes).

A number of skirmishing skinks and chameleons threw themselves into range of the cannon, and by the end of my first turn his two most potent warmachines were silenced.

The Trollslayers had deployed behind a wood, and when I found out it was a Venom Thicket the death-yearning Dwarven losers decided that dying to shrubbery was not all that heroic, and spent a whole bunch of time going round them… whilst getting shot by skinks. Not sure that was any more heroic in the end. Finally there was but the Dragon Slayer left, and in what one assumes was a suitably slow motion action montage he declared a charge on a skink cohort, who casually shot him dead.

The Gyrocopter fried some skink skirmishers, and was badly wounded by a mixture of poison and Tetto’ekko magic goodness. Deciding to pick some points up, he went on a bombing run on the remaining two skinks in the unit… but the pilot, clearly having a bad day, dropped the bomb at his feet, and died.

With the warmachines silenced and the Slayer points all but in the bag, the mighty Frog, oldest of the old skool Slann, unleashed some awesome DwellersFu upon the Dwarf Lord and his unit. The Lord and some 9 Ironbreakers were dragged (one assumes grumbling appropriately) to their doom. At this point there was nothing left to really threaten me, and the Temple Guard launched themselves on the Ironbreakers, smashing them apart in a round, running them down before assisting the Vet in his combat with the IronDrakes and thunderers.

Thus was the plan of Old Ones protected, and thus was the Slann’s deed recorded in the Book of Grudges (an actual book and all).

  

The weird things you see at SCGT....

  

 Game 2

Contrary to my closely held views on facing Dwarfs, I normally relish the idea of playing vs Ogres. Avoid them a bit, shoot them a lot, purple sun and death snipe away… just a glorious day in the office really.

Except some muppet had decided to bring Life magic over Death to this event.

It is a truth seemingly universally accepted (and no less wrong for its popularity) that having battle for the pass if you have a cannon or two is the obvious thing to do.

Donal, one of the lovely Angel wargammers from London, subscribed to this point of view. Rocking

A Beasts Slaughtermaster, a BSB (with MR3), a Butcher (with the Hellheart :( ), some Guts, two Ogre Darts, Maneaters, Leadbelchers, 2 kitties, a Gorger and 2 Ironblasters Donal pseudo board edged the bulk of his army whilst the chaffier elements took the flanks, waiting for his cannons to pick up some points whilst I made my way to him. The leadbelchers established a salient by moving into a building half way down the battlefield, looking to belch, well, lead, on me as I came at him. As ever, I deployed on the deployment line, and was helped out by Tetto’s vanguarding skillz in eating up the distance.

Things did not start off all that well. Going first, Donal proceeded to kill the Old Blood and one of the Scar Vets with cannons. Annoying as this was, I knew this was always likely to happen. I kept pushing up. Skinks unloaded into the leadbelcher building, eventually seeing them off. Some comet fun started wreaking havoc on the Maneaters and the gutstar. Ever onwards I pressed. The flanking units clashed, my left flank slowly crumbled as it tried to take out some Ogre darts, embarking on a series of very long range “tactical retreats” out of the fight, eventually taking them down.

Then came the fateful turn. A comet was hovering over the Guts and Maneaters. Their failed charges left them basically where they were. I was worried that my remaining Scar vet had a very short life expectancy – he had survived taking just one wound from the cannons the previous turn, and I did not expect him to survive another. I felt that he would be key in swinging the ensuing combats, and, thinking I would have a chance to heal him in the relative safety of combat, I thought to risk the comet’s collateral damage when it eventually came down. So I charged.

And moved Tetto closer to make sure would be in range for any buffs if I wanted to bubble them to help with my shooting as well.

Cue the magic phase.

And the Hellheart.

This abomination of a magic item hit the Slann, Tett and the Priest.

Slann… cascaded. And died.

Tett… cascaded. And died.

Priest… cascaded. And survived… yay.

The explosions and comet ravaged the Temple Guard, leaving but a handful to fight the might of the Gutstar.

I was about the quit the game. I was not in the greatest of moods, it must be said (not Donal’s fault, he is lovely). In a win-loss system a Loss is damning.  But then I remembered the importance of secret missions and decided to play it out.

And then a Hero was born.

A story to be repeated to every generation of spawnings, until the facts get distorted in their retelling to encompass nothing but the barest traces of reality.

The Temple Guard died mauling the remaining Guts in the unit. And then the one wound Scar Vet went to town. Hewing apart the Gut champion and then the Butcher, his epicness was less in what he killed, and more in his stubborn refusal to die (on an aside, after the first couple of rounds of this this was annoying – if he died I could bring a lot of weight of fire to bear on the unit… which now consisted of nothing but the Slaughtermaster and BSB – but such realities takes away from the scar vet’s awesomeness). The mighty Razordon battled a Sabertusk to death… An ironblaster decided to try and kill the mighty comp point and promptly blew up. Somehow, as we got to the final turn (and I remembered to put a unit of skinks in a building) the skink shooting and misfiring warmachines had left Donal with nothing but the Slaughtermaster, the BSB, one Ironblaster and a Gorger left. Despite the Hellheart killing around 1000pts worth of stuff, I had snuck a win… but 142 points.

I wouldn’t be lying if I said neither of us could be believe it when we added everything up.

It is hard to describe the emotional journey of this game.

Best Terrain Winner. Yes, there is actual water flowing there....

Game 3

Onto the third game of the day, and time to fell another Angel (as in, the club in London – as nice as Ming is (and it’s an impressive amount of niceness) I am not sure he qualifies as a celestial being… though come to think of it… maybe he is).

Ming (insert “The Merciless” joke here if you are less original than I am in the humour stakes) was rocking his simply stunning Bretonnian army. Not sure what exactly was in it, other than a lot of lances (some realm, some errant, some grail), a couple of knight darts, some pegs, some mounted yeomen, three fighty characters, a couple of wizardy ladies and, of course, a couple of Trebs.

Basically, despite all the piety and the potentially divinely-ordained general, there was an ungodly amount of stuff on his side of the table.

Oh, he chose Battle for the Pass, because everyone else did, so why not?

Now, there is something I have said for a very long time about Bretts vs Lizardmen. Something I repeat often and loudly, mainly because Jack Armstrong agrees with me, and as such it must be right. When facing your everyday Lizards, a Brettonian player is being foolish (or an idiot, depending on how charitable you are feeling) if they deploy in Lance formation. Long units that can be railroaded easily, who have a narrow frontage easily avoided, is asking for trouble against a mobile skirmishing army when you understand you don’t need the Lance to beat almost every unit in the Lizardmen book.

Now, as it happens, Lance formation is decent against me. As I will cover at a future date, I stopped playing Lizards like Lizards a little while ago, and tend to be hyper aggressive. With this list in particular, I try to bully the matchups I can with the Temple Guard, so if you can decimate them, you are in for good times.

Ming wasn’t to know this, however.

He deployed with a heavy weighting to his right flank, Megalance on the centre, the baby lances to the right of this. What he did not see, however, is that his beautiful statue of the lady of the lake (or perhaps a strange women lying in  a pond distributing swords as a basis for a system of government…) prevented any wheeling by the Megalance to the left. This, combined with the fact I knew he was going to give me first turn, allowed me to enact a plan.

The Bane of Ming

Tetto did his thang and allowed the Temple Guard (loaded up with characters) and two Cohorts, to vanguard full steam ahead. Both Chameleon units scouted aggressively – one to ever so bravely sacrifice themselves to block the Megalance, the other to crawl through a gap I had noticed and pick on Trebs. This scouting also prevented his Pegs from vanguarding forward and interfering with The Plan.

As expected, Ming dutifully prayed to the aforementioned watery tart, and I took the opportunity to aggressive push forward, the skinks in range attacking clearing up the Yeoman. Dwellers dutifully drew out a scroll. Come Ming’s first turn the Temple Guard were 20” forward from their starting position, safe from the Megalance, whose only option was to charge in a straight ahead into the chameleons and either sit there, with the Temple Guard eyeing up their flank, or overrun… which, due to the length of the unit, was going to end up in the same result. Furthermore, all this shenanigans meant that his other lances had no option but to move straight ahead as well, taking them out of the early/mid game.

Ming remains rather positive as things get tricky...

He understandably threw away his Pegs to save the main lance. Ming’s second scroll was burnt, and  Tett started juggling comets, mostly to look cool – comets are unlikely to do all that much vs Brett lances really. Annoyingly, Bretts are hard to catch… until, that is, his large Errant lance, chose an  inopportune time to fail a march test with the Temple Guard salivating next to them, and were promptly butchered.

Big fat frogs are inherently lazy, shockingly enough. The thought of trying to chase down the Megalance as it sped away seemed like a lot of trouble, so I Dwellered it. My epic skills meant I got the lvl4 and a Paladin. And a bunch of the unit. #Skillz

Filled with righteous rage, the Grail Knight unit charged… a building with 10 skinks in… And promptly failed to kill them all. Come to think of it… I have a suspicion that a holy warrior may have died in that combat. Toying with his food like the badly brought up skink he is, Tetto Windblasted the knights back on onto the building. Because why not?

The Old Blood,  and a Scar Vet (having survived a giant rock to the face), did not approve of such flippant toying with meals, and decided to deal with the grail knights by using old fashioned great weapons.

Meanwhile, on my right flank, 5 Knights epically failed to kill a Razordon, who escaped and the knights were dealt with by those masters of Knight-Slaying… a Skink Cohort.

The Megalance, seeing that the day was lost, turned around and prepared for a final, glorious charge. And were eaten by the Temple Guard.

All in all, a sobering day for knights of Spamalot.

A highly enjoyable game against a true gent of an opponent, who got my Best Sports vote – and given how I enjoyed playing all 6 of my opponents, this is high praise indeed.

Day one was over, cue a night involving a lot of cider, KFC and X-wing vs Mr Curry… All in all, a Good Day.

Game 4

Day two saw me drawn against none other than The Foot of Gork, the reigning, defending, South Coast Grand Tournament Champion, the lovable giant that is Mr Andi Avery himself.

O&G. With 15 Trolls.

Where the hell had I left my Death Magic?!

This was a cool list – led by Gorbad Ironclaw and a lvl4 Orc Shaman, the core was some Goblin units of some type or other. The Special was Trolls. The Rare was Double Arachnarok.

This was going to be a problem.

With Life and Heavens buffs the Temple Guard can smash Troll units, but you need magic to work for it to not get very messy.

Andi chose Meeting Engagement, and, true to form, I deployed far more aggressively than I should have – with skinks along the deployment line, and the Temple Guard (once again with characters) anchoring the right flank. Andi went for central symmetrical approach, Trolls in the centre, goblins behind, big spiders on the flanks, with Gorbad floating around in wolf riders making use of his 18” leadership and BSB bubble.

Prudence would dictate a much deeper deployment to weaken the troll units before they got to me, but that meant getting stuck in the corner, and no one puts Raffy in the corner. That, and I was scared of Foot – this game needed combat – though, upon looking at Gorbad’s rules, it was also apparent I needed to avoid him big time, that boy is scary.

An epic deployment error allowed the big giant spider on my right flank a turn one charge on a Razordon – I had been meaning to vanguard it out of sight, but forgot (not the last thing I would forget this game). Having made the error I should have fled off the board, but I hoped to get a round through, and held. End result was giant spider next to (and almost behind) the Temple Guard.

Spiders... Everywhere!

Elsewhere things started off well enough – skinks bringing down the odd troll, and I let Andi do some magic disco Hand of Gork-ing of his trolls as he shifted the weight of this attack to my right flank. I peeled off the Old Blood to block the creepy spider, and prepared for the ensuing carnage. A Skink Cohort advanced in front of the Temple Guard – hoping to bring down a troll or so before dying. I deliberately gave them a decent overrun opportunity into the Temple Guard to make it enticing – I also let on a longish charge on to them from the other Troll unit. Truth be told, I wanted both Troll units to hit me at the same time. I would not result in that many extra attacks, given their wide frontage, and I figured in the grind, with one decent magic phase I had a decent chance of breaking both units (risky play, but that’s how I like it).

As it happened, only the overrunning trolls made it in.

In my turn the winds of magic blew strong, and Andi failed to dispel my two dice Throne… Cue forcing through a magic phase that resulted in a toughness 8 Temple Guard unit, with 4+ Regen and some Heavens spells to top things off. The end result is that I lost two Temple Guard, and ravaged, and chased down, the Trolls.

Andi’s spider of doom then pounced on the now out of bsb bubble Old Blood, and following some epic fluffing of dice on my part the giant arachnid chased the mighty Old Blood down… and into the flank of Tetto’s unit and accompanying Skink Priest.

Operation “save the Priests” then commenced.

My original plan was to bring the Temple Guard back to tackle the spider. This was risky, as it would allow Gorbad to charge the unit, and maybe even a long range goblin charge into the rear to hold things up. I felt like taking that risk – it would only take a round of bad dice by Gorbad to make him lose combat on the static, and a round of decent Life Magic buffs would all but guarantee this… But it was risky, and I decided against it. A mistake I think.

Instead the Scar Vets peeled off, one to try to rescue the priests, the other to block the second advancing spider (who was brought down by mass poison before making it into combat. Mass pumping of Life and Heavens buffs onto Tetto’s unit slowed their death rate considerably (you have to love T6 skinks), and allowed the Vet to get in. I think the unit eventually died, at which point the vet went apocalyptic with rage and slew the many-legged fiend. Andi was working to bring the other Troll unit into combat, but their lack of musician slowed this down. I had to make the call on engaging. Lacking Vets in the Temple Guard unit I didn’t fancy it – I would REALLY need Life magic to work to come out on top of that, and it seemed like a big risk. Instead I tried to pick on the goblins. A barrage of fanatics reaped a heavy toll, but the Goblins were successfully broken… though I think only one unit was caught.

The biggest mistake of my game came in my final turn. When it looked like not much would happen, Andi’s lvl4 and accompanying goblins failed animosity, and due to Gorbad’s rules charged the Temple Guard. Beaten off like the stupid mushrooms they are, I failed to catch them by 1 inch. In my turn they were 1 inch in front of me, all I had to do was charge. I had +3 on the dice to catch them. A very long flee may even have taken them off the board….

At this point, tired, hung over and hungry, I got distracted by a conversation amongst the spectators of our game on Nasty Skulkers (who had almost, but not quite, killing blow’ed a Scar Vet). Returning to the game, with not much apparently on, I moved on to the magic phase for one last Dwellers attempt on the mage… forgetting to charge.

Idiot.

In the end, with secret missions etc, it was a Draw – I definitely didn’t deserve to win, given all the mistakes, but on the top tables is gutting – especially given the last turn charge fiasco. I thought it took me out of a podium finish, and this allowed me to relax going into the final two games.

Game 5

After lunch and feeling a lot more human, I had the pleasure of facing the mighty Elven hordes of Alex.

A massive (no other word for it) Silver Helm bus, supported by a Prince, a lvl4 (with Dwellers, of course) a BSB, a lvl2 on Metal and another Noble, supported by two Reaver units, two eagles, a Noble on Eagle and two Frostheart Phoenixes.

Fast (and, as it happens, beautiful).

And packing dwellers.

Gulp.

Making what I think was a big mistake, he chose Battle for the Pass. Can’t blame him – everyone was doing it. But this meant that, if I wanted, there was always going to be a turn when I was safe from dwellers.

We then proceeded to have what has to be described as the most Mathematical deployment phase of all time. Going front and centre with his bus, and spreading out his army to make sure no pesky chameleons came up behind him, I spent a LOT of time working out where it would be safe for my Slann to hang out. Not only this, but he had to be safe whilst being in position to enact The Plan. I spread all my characters out. With no ranged magical damage to bring to the fight, my characters did not even need to be in units. I had two important weapons to bring to bear here.

Firstly I had scouts, which allowed me to block off the Helms and ensure that, if he went first, he would only be able to advance the unit 12” before his magic phase. I also ensured that their angle meant that he would not be able to see me anyway, and require a reform in the following turn.

My uber secret weapon, however, was the Arcane Vassal rule. The plan was to vanguard the sacrificial priest up into within 23” of him and 6 dice monkey for the mighty win. Simple and effective, right?

Except I forgot to vanguard.

Sigh. I am truly epic sometimes.

Not all was lost however. I won first turn. The plan was still in play. One chameleon unit moved right up to the bus, limiting its movement and direction should the plan fail and probably get me another turn to try.

The other chameleon unit went into a ninja conga formation, the front of it just within 12” of the bus, the rear within 12” of the Priest. Up he hopped.

Some vague movement, and on to the magic phase. Throne was allowed through, Alex not seeing his impending doom arriving. Cue 6 dice DwellersFu, irresistible, dead Dwellers mage, Dead BSB (and by implication the Banner of the World Dragon) and a ravaged unit.

I know Dwellers

 He who Dwellers first, right?

Now, here I think Alex threw it away. He still had a unit that could cause serious hurt, as well as dual frosthearts and eagles and an eagle noble. I do think if he had gone all out for the win he stood a chance of pulling it back. Unfortunately for him I think he thought the game was up, at which point he turned the unit around and dashed back to his deployment zone with the bus and all the fliers – his secret mission was clearly to capture his deployment zone.

Unfortunately mine was to get his… so the game descended into me rushing at his backlines, throwing comets at him - which his uber fast army avoided. In the final turns Tetto went all Sith on his lines and caused carnage with Chain Lighting. At this point I knew the game was won, and allowed him a multi charge into the Temple Guard on the final turn – mainly because I knew there was no risk, and also because a game without ANY combat is frankly silly.

A game against a great opponent ruined by Dwellers – though as I said, it probably didn’t need to be… and 5 characters in one unit is asking for trouble.

Game 6

Final game, table 3 against the “High”-flying Tyrant himself, Marcus Lake.

Was great to finally play Marcus – one of the too long list of people I spend a lot of time with at events and had yet to play.

He had a Flyrant-led Ogre list, backed up with a Firebelly, a BSB and then Guts, a couple of Ogre Darts, Poison Sniper Maneaters, two units of Yhettees (I quite like these guys!), a Gorger and the requisite double IronBlaster and a couple of cats.

Marcus, of course, chose Battle for the Pass. Because why not. Unlike Donal, however, Marcus was coming for me. And I wasn’t about to run away. Following an ineffectual first turn by Marcus, Tetto, remembering his fate last time he had encountered Ogres, let fly with a mighty Thunderbolt on the Flyrant, severely wounding him. This allowed the scores of skinks I had sent forward to headhunt to bring down the overly bold Ogre and his carpet, despite his fancy Look Out Sirs, armour saves and ward. Thus was the army beheaded, and my secret mission accomplished.

Now I was feeling better about life.

I managed to clear out most of his supporting units with skink shooting, and sacrificed some of the mighty cohorts to buy time. There followed several grinding battles between the Temple Guard and the Gutstar and Maneaters. Failing to catch the fleeing Ogres, the Old Blood was tasked with hunting down, holding up and grinding the Guts.

The Temple Guard and accompanying vets (I think eventually lost one to the rather ineffectual Ironblasters) surged forward to close down points, whilst the skinks focused on tackling the Gorger arriving behind them, and some enveloping Ogre darts.

It was a long and bloody chase, but a comfortable one. With magical dominance (I worked out early on he did not have the Hellheart) and the Tyrant dead, there was little risk in any of the combats. Exposing his general so early on had been a costly mistake.

Marcus, needless to say, was a total gent to play, and it was a good way to end the weekend.

6 games, 5 wins, 1 draw, 6 secret missions – good result in the end. I didn’t think I was going to end up remotely close to the podium, but, once again I was wrong, and the shiny third place trophy was mine (as was Best Lizardmen following a bit of a horror show for Jack on table 1 last game).

Massive congratulations to Sedge for winning it – top man, top player (though I think he should pay for my tournament tickets, seems whenever we are in the same room he wins an event), and walking proof that licking vodka jelly from a man’s beard on the Saturday night does not mean you can’t win a 180+ player event on the Sunday…

I liked the comp pack – don’t think it was “fair” across armies, but that is not something the guys really go for, and it did create a lot of diversity in lists (for most races at least). Way too much Battle for the Pass was played, but that’s not the organisers fault, and when not playing vs a gunline, it doesn’t actually lead to boring games, just slightly awkward ones at times.

A Battleline - because I had forgotten what they looked like... And yes, those are Phoenixes :)

Overall a fantastic time at the event. Once again thanks to all my opponents, to Dan, Wayne and Russ for putting on a top event, and for the various helpers who helped with the running of things. The biggest highlight of such a big event continues to be meeting so many people – though it does mean you completely miss people who are there, such is the crowd.

Not sure when my next event is, but I know I am already looking forward to SCGT next year!

In the meantime…  I have been playing around with Ogres to see if can get them to work in the modern meta, and been pondering if I can get VC to work (anything to avoid writing about Dwarfs really…). Will let you know how that works out.

Until next time!

Raf