So, could the dream continue? With only two games remaining it was still unlikely! Game 5 I had moved to the heady heights of table 13, which at any other event would be somewhat irrelevant, but at the South Coast with 200 players this was pretty shocking! I was up against John Lammin, a new face to me, but clearly someone not to be underestimated if he was doing this well. And then I saw why...Dark Elves!
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| A picture of John's Army! Dark Elves |
Actually, the list was pretty balanced compared to the stuff I have played in recent events and warm up games, and once again I managed to sneak the roll off for deployment which meant only one thing... Battle for the Pass of course! Having played this scenario against Andy Potter (former UK master) recently I knew the worse thing I could do was let the Dark Riders and Warlocks get round the side, so I set up as best I could to prevent this.
In the end this game came down to one thing - Speed of Light Demigryphs (10 of them), fighting a horde of Witch Elves. When the dust settled John had lost the cauldron, and when he removed it and ranked up his guys he was not steadfast by a single model, putting him on double ones which he failed, and the demis ran him down, taking out his general, BSB and all his combat threat.
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| Me set up in the usual deployment for the weekend! |
There was still a level 4 Death sorceress zooming about on ponies with warlocks, so I had to eat some purple suns and double flee the Spearmen at one point on turn five, but they rallied and I managed to claim my table quarters too allowing me to sneak yet another mission (five from five!) and gain another 16-4 win! At this point people were literally in shock!
So, game 6. Here the dream ended in spectacular fashion! Its fair to say that I am not overly impressed with myself here for a number of reasons which I will get into. I ended up playing Neil Peckett, someone I know well and would consider a good friend on the tournament scene. Instead of this being the fun game it should have been I pretty much ruined it by making all the mistakes I hadn't made previously and getting utterly frustrated with myself to the point where Neil asked if I needed to take a few minutes away.
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| Do do do! Come on and do the Conga! |
Rather than recapping the game (I got smashed 20-0) I'll try and talk about the mistakes I made. Really there are three:
- Mistake 1 - Know your Enemy. I have an inbuilt negative opinion of the Skaven army, the book, and the rules for the majority of the units. I always feel like its an unfair game and this is based solely on my experience of playing Rob Hallam and his Abomb. Units being able to charge when they appear out of the ground, for example, is something that I thought had been eradicated (you only have to read the 'Entombed beneath the Sands' rule), yet Skaven can do it, and with St7 combat monster Stormfiends no less! However more importantly they can do it with Night Runners. So the first reason I got frustrated was my lack of knowledge
- Mistake 2 - Not paying Attention. I was already frustrated that the Night Runners had been able to charge my Cannon (in a 20 man conga line) so rather than pay attention to what was actually happening I tried to counter charge with everything tha could fight them. The Night runners that had spectacularly failed to kill a cannon crew then promptly killed both my level 4 wizards and the BSB when I flanked them with the spearmen. This got me in the 'yeah whatever' mode that Dan Heelan spoke about on the latest HeelanHammer podcast.
- Mistake 3 - Don't be a Dick! All of this lead me to be a really off with Neil through no fault of his own. I let my mistakes ruin what should have been a good game. Its important to realise that I had killed a Verminlord and the Stormfiends, so before charging the Night Runners I was in no way out of the game. Facing an uphill battle? Definitely, but I wasn't out of it. But my own poor attitude and resulting moodiness was uncalled for and the game was basically over at this point (turn 3).
In the end I gave Neil my Best Sports vote as he didn't make a big thing out of it and offered some good advice at the end. Hopefully we'll play again and I will actually give him a fun and entertaining game.
So Gamingwise I finished in 42nd place, not my best showing at this event in terms of finish, but I think I proved to myself that I can play well when I put my mind to it, and after Game 5 there were very few players on 5 wins from 5 I think.
I'll do an event recap and talk about the painting later... :)