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| The Hall ready for action |
After a somewhat disjointed journey I eventually rolled into the college a bit after six. The venue was already fairly well populated with wargamers playing pick up games and board games, and I bumped into a host of familiar faces. Chief among these was my good friend Andy who moved down south from Sheffield last September and was rooming with me for the weekend. He was rocking out a Warriors army and we had decided a practise game was in order. We played some Battle for the Pass (chosen by me!) and the game was pretty interesting. Andy pretty much battered me, but at the end I had got my mission, broken his fortitude and retained mine, which meant I actually ended up winning 12-8 under the system. This got me thinking a bit about how the games could go and the importance of selecting the right mission. One of the issues I realised here was that not knowing my opponents mission could be a problem. This turned out to be quite prophetic over the weekend.
After a relatively early night I arrived early Saturday morning knowing that I was playing fellow Gooner Rich Cierezko (sp.?) with his Double Chimera, Slaaneshi Demon Prince list. Having some experience playing warriors myself I knew that the Chimeras can be problematic if not dealt with quickly, and the Acquiescence/Cac combo is not good on high armour, low model count units (all of mine!). However I also knew that I had cannons!
Rich won the deployment roll off and selected Battleline. However, despite my higher comp score (two to his three) I sneaked the chance to go first. A combination of first turn magic and cannons saw off both chimeras, much to Rich's fury! Things got worse when he pushed the prince to within 12" of the Demi's and then double 1'd his first spell. The prince promptly got rolled by the Demis turn 2, giving me a healthy points boost and completing my Slay the General (Mission #1) objective. After that the game turned into me pressing and Rich trying to conserve points whilst hurling abuse at me and my impressive cannon skills!
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| Chimeras vs Cannons - Cannons win! |
For lunch I had a salad before checking the Warscore update on my iPhone to see who I was playing game two. Turned out I had a chap called George Hollingdale with Lizard men. The army was a Loremaster Slann, Tetto, 2 big blocks (Temple Guard and Saurus) and a combination of skink cohorts and skirmishers. I deployed in less of a corner than in game 1 and prepared to go Lizard herding. One of the problems I faced in this game was a large, cunningly placed marsh in the middle of the board that I was going to have to negotiate if i wanted to get into the meat of the army. It always seems to take time to get into lizards, but I tried a sneaky turn 1 Net of Amyntok on some skinks that were in easy charge range for the demis which would have put a five pack in the middle of his army turn 2, but the little buggers passed their strength test so were able to leg it! Damn!
The game progressed well. I cleaned up Tetto, a Scar Vet (who failed a short charge leaving him in cannon range) and most of the Skinks without losing a great deal before getting into the Templeguard and the Saurus with the Demi Gryphs. With the Hurricanum backing up both units I thought I was going to get a big win until the Demis fighting the Saurus decided not to restrain, and instead ran into a wood near the board edge, lost a wound or two to terrain tests and promptly paniced themselves off the board. This allowed George to pick up a healthy 600 points as the temple guard eventually beat up the Demi's they were fighting making the overall score a lot closer than I thought it might be.
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| Probably Turn 4 and top right are the Demis that didn't fancy tangling with Temple Guard. Also check out the blighted Marsh! |