Wednesday, May 15, 2013

SAWS 2013: Tournament Prep and Army List

So this weekend is the SAWS 203 Challenge in Sacrament, California. It is a 2,500 point, two-day, Warhammer Fantasy tournament that will be held at Great Escape Games. The tournament follows the normal 8th edition rules, including the new FAQs with the following changes:
  • Special Characters are allowed excluding Lord-level Special Characters and the Masque.
  • Dogs of War armies are allowed.
  • Ogre Kingdom armies may use Rhinox Riders (Forgeworld rules).
  • Chaos Dwarf armies are allowed and must use the Tamurkhan, Throne of Chaos book.
  • Only thirty (30) models may enter a building.
  • Fozzrick's Folding Fortress and the Book of Hoeth are banned. 
  • The new High Elf book will not be used (as army lists were due a month ago).
  • Open list, and lists exchanged before the game begins.

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Current and Finished Projects: April 2013

Wow. I don't think I have ever been this busy before. For a few weeks there I felt absolutely crushed. My girlfriend and I just closed on a new house in the beginning of April. Then, we had to get the place ready for us to start moving things in. This included painting, changing locks, fixing random things, refinishing the hardwood floors (we hired someone for this, I wasn't about to screw this home project up), and taking care of various other small issues. After a month of prep, we finally moved in a week ago. And since then, we have only been able to get the bedroom and the kitchen (the two most important places) in some semblance of order. On top of this, work has been exceptionally busy.

"But what does this have to do with Warhammer?" I hear you ask. Well, quite simply, it means that I haven't really been able to do that much hobbying. I managed to barely put together a couple of battle reports and submit an army list for the 2013 SAWS challenge (coming up next weekend). So sad!

That being said, I did manage to finish my model for the painting contest at my FLGS. And here it is in all its glory:

Friday, April 19, 2013

BAO 2013: Round #1 - Skaven

For Round 1 of the 2013 Bay Area Open, I played Chad Pond.

Chad is a member of the Barbarians gaming group out of California and also plays and travels with the Leadership 2 gaming group at several out-of-area tournaments.










Chad has been playing a very nicely conceived and painted Skaven army that is based around a Skaven clan having found and destroyed a Lizardmen stronghold. His army for this tournament included:

Thursday, April 11, 2013

WaaaghPaca 2013: Round #5 - Empire

For the final round of WaaaghPaca 2013, I played Alex Davys and his beautiful (and powerful) Empire army. Somehow I managed to not get a picture of Alex and his epic mustache (I think it might have accidentally been deleted in the picture transfer).

Alex was playing a fairly standard Empire mounted build which included a solid foot-troop unit as a mage bunker and several hard-hitting mounted units. His list for the tournament was:

Monday, April 1, 2013

WaaaghPaca 2013: Round #4 - Ogre Kingdoms

For Round 4 of WaaaghPaca! 2013, I played Paul Wagner and his alternative Ogre Kingdoms army.

Paul, this guy over to the left with the happy grin on his face, is a fantastic player and gave me one of the more fun games of the weekend.










He was playing Ogres, normally something difficult for the Wood Elf army to deal with, but with an alternative list to the normal 'Gutstar, double Ironbreaker, Mournfang list. He was playing Mournfang, but the rest of his army was something I haven't seen in competitive play before. From what I can remember, this was his list:

Tyrant
Bruiser (Battle Standard Bearer)
Firebelly (Level 1, Arabyan Carpet)
Firebelly (Level 1)
Ogres (7 models with full command)
Ogres (8 models with full command)
Mournfang Cavalry (5 models with full command, Dragonhide Banner - I believe)
Sabretusk
Sabretusk

This list made for a small center deployment for Paul, but provided some serious combat potential between the unit of Mournfang and the two Ogre units (in which he put his combat characters). I liked the list, and it must have been doing fairly well for Paul at 2000 points, but I definitely feel that it is one of the less competitive Ogre builds that I have seen at tournaments (minus the 5 Mournfang of course - these things are just brutal!).

Pre-Game:
For this round, Paul and I were playing Blood and Glory with the following exception: the player with the most facial hair chooses table sides.

The "Man of Intrigue's" special rules were as follows:
  • The "Man of Intrigue" is "the warrior." Any enemy unit charging the "Man of Intrigue's" unit suffers d6 dangerous terrain tests.
  • The "Man of Intrigue's" unit may deploy the objective marker this game. The marker counts as two fortitude points if within 12" of the center of the board at the end of the game. The marker also causes an additional d6 dangerous terrain tests (on top of its normal d6 dangerous terrain tests) for any unit attempting to cross over the marker.
Battle points were awarded as follows:
  • 3 battle points awarded for winning the game by more than 100 victory points.
  • 2 battle points awarded for winning or losing the game by less than 100 victory points.
  • 1 battle point is awarded for losing the game by less than 300 victory points.
  • 0 battle points are awarded for losing the game by more than 300 victory points.
  • An additional 1 battle point is earned for having more fortitude points than your opponent within 12" of the center of the board at the end of the game.
I had the most facial hair between and chose table sides. I chose the side where I had put down all of my stuff as the terrain on the board would be having very little effect on how I played out this scenario.

Going into this scenario, and after seeing Paul's list, I was a little concerned because we were both pretty close to the same fortitude. I knew I needed to wipe at least two of his units (or more, if possible) to win the game. But, I also knew that if I could kill two units, I would have the most fortitude in the center of the board at the end of the game and secure myself the bonus objective.

Before deployment, we rolled for spells. Paul chose to take Fireball with both of his Firebellies (pretty good choice against my small units of Dryads). My Spellweaver managed to roll-up Wyssan's Wildform, Flock of Doom, Amber Spear, and Savage Beast of Horrors (a good range of spells, especially for dealing with the Mournfang).

Deployment:
Paul deployed his army in a strong central position in hopes of taking control of the center of the board and bringing the battle to me. He deployed both Sabretusks on his flanks and placed the Firebelly on the carpet behind the building so that he could move into it on his turn. But his real battleline was the two units of Ogres flanking the five Mournfang.

That's one strong battleline! The second Firebelly was deployed in the unit on the left while the rest of the characters deployed in the unit on the right.










I deployed my army to counter Pauls. I deployed a strong archer base in the center protected on the flanks by Dryads. On the left flank I also deployed the large unit of archers with the Spellweaver to hopefully get a flank shot with Amber Spear.

At the start of the game, this is what my battleline looked like. A little ragged, but deployed so that I could easily move units around and into short range without losing more than a single unit to a charge.









The Game:
This was one of those games where Paul's dice were not with him. As such, a turn-by-turn breakdown does little to add to the outcome of this game. Rather, a general overview of what happened suffices to tell the tale of Paul's horrible luck.

I won the dice roll to go first and slowly, but surely, broke the Ogre army apart.

I moved my army forward in a rough semi-circle and let loose with everything I had. In the first turn, between magic and shooting, I managed to wound a Mournfang, kill one of the Sabretusks, and kill 3 Ogres from the Firebelly's unit.








In response, Paul declared a long charge with the Mournfang against a unit of Dryads but failed. His Ogres marched forward to get closer to my archers (bringing them within short range). Finally, his Firebelly flew into the building on the right side.

In his magic phase, a Fireball managed to kill a single Dryad from the unit looking to block the Ogres on the right.




Sensing an opportunity, I moved my archer units forward so that they were in close range of the Ogres on the right. I charged the left unit of Ogres with a unit of Dryads in the flank to hopefully kill the Firebelly. Finally, I reformed the large archer unit with the Spellweaver so that the Level 4 was in the Mournfang's flank.

Magic saw both Wyssan's Wildform cast on the Dryads in combat and an irresistible boosted Amber Spear kill three Mournfang, dropping the unit to only two models (but including the standard bearer so the unit was still dangerous). I killed the last Sabretusk, as well as three more Ogres in the right unit with shooting. Finally, in combat the Wildformed Dryads wounded the Firebelly and killed an Ogre, for only a single loss in return. I won the combat and the Ogres failed their break test. The Dryads then ran the Ogres down! The left side of the battlefield was now in my direct control.

Paul countered by charging the Dryads who caught the Ogres with the Mournfang and demolished them in a single round of combat. The other Ogre unit also charged a unit of Dryads, beat them, and chased them towards my right flank.

I responded by reforming my archer units so that Paul could not charge me on his turn and then proceeded to cast magic and shoot at his remaining units. With the combined might of the Altered Highborn, magic, and short range shooting I killed the last two Mournfangs.

Over the remaining turns, Paul kept moving to try and charge me, but good reforms and flee reactions prevented him from getting into combat. I continued to shoot at him until the only units left of the board at the end of Turn 6 were his Firebelly in the building and his Tryant.

I walked away from this game with another 4 point win raising my battle points total to 14. Paul took a zero point loss but accepted his defeat with dignity and a jolly attitude. He was a great opponent and ended up getting my favorite opponent vote for the tournament. I look forward to playing him again in a game where the dice rolls are a little more even.

Friday, March 22, 2013

West Coast GT 2013: Post-Tournament Wrap-up

As the work week drags on I have found a little time for the West Coast GT 2013 tournament breakdown. For its inaugural year this tournament was amazing! It ran on time, had great prizes, was located in a nice venue, and had a decent number of high-level Warhammer Fantasy players. If the West Coast Hammertime guys were worried about their tournament, they shouldn't have been. It was a resounding success. And I have heard from many other players that they thought the same thing and are looking forward to next year's tournament. As am I!!!

Travel and Accommodations:
As usual, I decided to fly to this tournament. Although the tournament was only in southern California, I didn't really feel up to a 10 hour drive (especially all by my lonesome). Luckily, I was on a split flight that landed in Oakland before continuing on to John Wayne airport. At Oakland, a group of the Leadership 2 players - Mike Hengl, Mike Scaletti, and Derek Wiswell - joined me in my travels and the weekend shenanigans began.

Upon reaching Orange County, our little group was met at the airport by John Bailey (who runs the Alamo GT). We were picked up by Fred Whitney, the tournament host, and proceeded to lunch at a nice little Italian place that served draft beer in pitchers. Shenanigans now began to reach heightened proportions.

We were all staying at the tournament recommended hotel, The Hills Hotel, which was a fantastic little hotel close to the tournament venue (although a 20+ minute drive from the airport).

This is a classy place with what I was told were reasonable rates for the area. The rooms were spacious, clean, and had great beds. So good in fact that I rarely wanted to leave each morning for the tournament (though booze may have played a part in that decision).







The front lobby of the hotel.












This was a very nice place to stay all weekend and assuming the venue stays the same for the tournament next year, I will be staying here again. I had no complaints about the hotel.

Tournament Venue:
The tournament venue was in one of the Elks' lodges in the area, Elks Lodge #2444. This was a great venue for a tournament. They had a bar that served alcohol all weekend (even though we were not allowed in they had a waitress on staff to take our drink orders) and a kitchen that cooked on Saturday and had a breakfast on Sunday. The venue is also really close to several shopping areas that had small food joints.

There was also a giant elk outside!












And an elk inside!












The room were were playing in easily accommodated the roughly 40 players that were there without feeling confining. The tables were well spaced so that everyone could move around and there was a place to put display boards and gaming tools next to the play boards.

This venue might be too small if the tournament gets larger than 50 or 60 participants, but there was definitely room to grow from the 40 person tournament. All in all, it was a good space that allowed for a laid back tournament atmosphere.

This was the room towards the end of Sunday after most of the tables had been packed up. Lots of space for everyone who was there.










Gaming Tables and Terrain (and Prizes):
The gaming tables and terrain were borrowed from another group that runs tournaments in Southern California and their terrain is always amazing. There were at least five, and in most cases, six pieces of terrain on each board The tables were 4' by 8' with a 2' section marked off to place dice, bags, books etc.

The best part of the terrain was that is was completely movable before each round which meant that my opponent and I had the opportunity to place the terrain in ways that it actually mattered in our games. This meant that there were times where buildings blocked units from charging earlier in the game, skirmished units actually became Steadfast, and hills and obstacles blocked cannons from killing certain large creatures on the first turn of the game. This tournament was a perfect example of playing 8th Edition with proper 8th Edition terrain rules. Now lets just see some more tournaments follow this system.

Boxes and boxes of nice terrain getting ready to be placed on the tables.











Buildings galore!!!












Scoring:
Scoring for the tournament was pretty straightforward. There were a set number of points that could be garnered in each category, and all of those categories added together provided your overall score which determined the overall winner. The total maximum number of points that could have been earned was 180 points broken down as follows: 100 Battle Points (20 from each round); 25 Sportmanship Points (5 from each round); 5 Favorite Opponent Points (1 from each opponent); 25 Composition Points (5 from each round); 30 Paint Points.

I ended up getting 10th overall at the tournament with a total score of 141 points broken down as follows: 78 battle points (going 3-1-1 at the tournament and not getting all of the bonus objective points); 23 sportsmanship points; 1 favorite opponent vote; 21 composition points; and 18 paint points.

The overall tournament winner, Quentin Bohn, finished with an overall score of 155.5 points. The full results can be found here.

There was also some great prize support that included trophies and miniature prizes.

Prizes, prizes, and more prizes!!!












Team trophy! This year's winner was Team Leadership 2 from northern California.











Overall Thoughts:
This was a fantastic tournament (especially for its inaugural year) and is an event I am already looking forward to next year. The were a lot of new players I hadn't seen around the normal West Coast tournament scene and I look forward to seeing the level of competition next year.

Random Pictures:
And as usual, here are a bunch of random pictures I took throughout the tournament:

West Coast Hammertime, and tournament organizer, Bill Curry preparing for Round 1.











Bill's "all these numbers are making my head explode" look.











West Coast Hammertime, and tournament organizer, Fred Whitney.











Tournament winner Quentin Bohn (left) and Jeremy Campbell (right). Both are members of Club Capri.











Bill Curry entering the final scores from Round 5.












Leadership 2's Tony Pacheco, Johnny Haliburton, and Mike Scaletti.











Awaiting awards.












And finally, the West Coast Hammertime tournament T-shirt for 2013!

Thursday, March 14, 2013

This Past Weekend: March 10, 2013

This past weekend I attended the West Coast GT and had an absolute blast. I got to meet some really nice players, hang out with a bunch of tournament friends that I travel with, and drunkenly shout into the West Coast Hammertime podcast. I also got to play 5 games of relaxed Warhammer. What a great way to spend a weekend!

I will be doing my standard full tournament wrap-up next week (need to finish a few things at work and around the house first) so keep checking in. I will also be getting back to finishing my battle reports from WaaaghPaca and then starting the battle reports for both the BAO 2013 and the West Coast GT. So there will be lots of upcoming content.

On a side note, West Coast Warhammer just pushed past 11,000 hits since October. That is amazing. Thank you to everyone who takes the time to read my battle reports or comments on the posts. Community feedback is awesome and you guys all rock!

Warhammer wise, I will be very busy for the next several months. Besides updating this blog with all the normal posts, I will be doing a couple of nice army profiles in the coming months. I will also be traveling to the Broadside Bash the first weekend of April, SAWS the third weekend of May, and then the Quake City Rumble the second weekend of July. *For those keeping count that will be six travelling tournaments in the first half of the year - not too shabby.

I am also working on my new army, an all Night Goblin and Squig force; painting a Savage Orc Big Boss for a painting competition; putting together a 2500 pt Dwarf list for an upcoming tournament; and just generally trying to paint the rest of my Wood Elves (or at the very least most of them).

Finally, I have been catching up on some missed podcasts. If you haven't heard either of the new episodes of Point Hammered or West Coast Hammertime, check them out. Especially check out the West Coast Hammertime episode if you are going to the Broadside Bash.

Until next time, have a great St. Patrick's Day!

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