I attended Nashcon for the second year, but this time as a player. Rob Phaneuf (of the
Counter Charge Podcast) stepped in and ran a much bigger, much better tournament. With this being only the third tournament I have ever got to play in (without being the ringer), and the one one of those that was more than a simple 3 round event, I thought I'd try to document my games as much as possible, including pictures.
Well I got SOME pictures - but kept finding myself concentrating more on the games (I wonder why that might be?) than taking pictures, so that coverage is a little uneven.
For my list, I actually believe in taking dwarfs in my abyssal dwarf list (*shock*).
- regiment of immortal guard
- two troop of decimators
- two troops of slave orcs
- two hordes of lesser obsidian golems
- regiment of abyssal grotesques (I really need to build and paint up the other three of these I have)
- potion of the caterpillar)
- two dragon fire-teams
- two katsuchan rocket launchers
- an abyssal halfbreed champion
- a supreme ironcaster on great winged halfbreed
- with surge(10)
- lightning bolt(3)
- boots of levitation (so he could move 20" and still cast)
- greater obsidian golem.
The first game was against Todd Perkins and his Ogres. I don't have his list, but if I remember correctly he had
- horde of shooters
- obligatory brew of keen-eyeness (this has to be one of the worst named artifacts - should just be brew of shooting)
- 2 hordes of boomers
- horde of braves
- horde of warriors
- horde of red goblins
- regiment of red goblin scouts,
- a couple of standard bearers
- warlock.
It was a Kill & Pillage scenario - and during the third game which was straight pillage I realized we scored it wrong, as we scored it as a straight pillage scenario. Oops.
The first few turns were all maneuvering and shooting. Eventually I charged in my grotesques, but they didn't do too much. I had a fatal nerve roll of snake eyes that just turned the game around by allowing his scouts to charge the rear of the now exposed golems and taking out the toughest (well one of them) units I had in one shot, and my right flank collapsed. Loosing them like that pretty much made the game go from a win for me to a tie, and he did get more points for a 10-12 score.
I've played Todd before in WFB, and as always he was a great opponent and a fun game.
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| after my first turn |
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| after my second turn, start maneuvering |
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| after my third turn, still getting in place |
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| the end of the game. |
When the pairings for round 2 came up - I was very happy to get a chance to play Robert Brandon and his beautiful Abyssal army. This was one of two simply fantastic armies that I had seen at Manticon - so I really looked forward to playing it.
The game was invade - and after a bit of a slugfest I basically was able to hold out on the war of attrition and took the win 20-4.
Robert's list was
- troop of gargoyles
- regiment of imps
- horde of molochs
- two hordes of tortured souls
- two efreets
- Well of Souls
- Chroneas.
He also took some goblin allies
- two regiments of rabble
- two mawbeasts troops
- two war trombones.
The war trombones were nasty but kind of easy to take out. We had a bit of mexican standoff on my right flank between the grotesques and the mawbeasts - they kept backing just out of my range, and I would advance just out of their - the thing was with invade that was to my advantage.
It was a fun game, and I just had to get more pictures of this fantastic army (which I voted for best army - and he took 2nd).
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| about the third turn when I remembered to actually get a picture. |
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| The whole army on display board |
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| The crabs on the left here were the mawbeasts, and just gave me the creeps. The flying Cthulu'esque creatures were the tortured souls, and the tzentch horrors were the goblin rabble |
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| did I say the sand crabs give me the creeps? |
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| tzentch flamers were the war trombones |
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| this huge arachnarok / soul grinder conversion was the Chroneas |
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| Ok, the crabs game me the creeps, but so did these guys he converted from tyranids and used as his Molochs |
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| army list and background |
My third game was against Keith Randall and his Elves.
- regiment of archers
- horde of archers
- troop of glade stalkers
- regiment of hunters of the wild
- troop of silverbreeze cav
- regiment of stormwind cav
- two dragon breath
- two dragon kindred lords.
Faster, longer range shooting (except for my artillery) and two dragons. Very, very tough list.
This was a standard pillage scenario, and we spent most of the game maneuvering. It was near the end when he had a flank charge from one of his dragons (not the one standing in front of my rocket launcher blocking it's line of sight to almost everything for three turns!) into the flank of my supreme ironcaster on great winged halfbreed by about two millimeters - it was just so barely in, and just destroyed it. Between that and the constant barrage of long range shooting - he almost tabled me for a 3-18 loss.
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| moving his scouts up before the game started, and they were promptly destroyed. I didn't manage to kill much else. |
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| dragon behind the building, holding off the golems and grotesques in the middle of the game. |
Game four on Sunday morning was against Seth Cook and his Orcs.
- Two hordes of ax
- regiment of morax
- troop of skulks
- two regiments of orclings
- regiment of tore riders
- krudger on slasher
- godspeaker
- giant
- war drum
he also too allied Ogres
- horde of ogre shooters (can you guess what artifact they had?)
This was a dominate scenario. This was a tough game - even Seth said afterward that I had exceptionally bad rolls and he was having good ones. Getting boxcars to route my LOG's with only five wounds was a great example. It ended with a big scrum in the middle that he pulled out a decent 4 - 18 win against me.
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| both of us taking pictures at the start |
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| my entire line moving up |
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| checking the range on his winged slasher |
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| near the end of the game - my right flank is almost gone, and he is in the process of destroying the last unit of golems |
Once again I felt lucky in my final game, as it was against Billy Smith, and his fantastically painted dwarfs. Billy had won best painted at Manticon with this army (and would go on to win it again at Nashcon as well) - it was so technically brilliant, I can't really describe it. I took the opportunity to take some pictures of it on his display board before the game.
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| Army on the display - the lights reflect in an infinite tunnel in the entrance |
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| Berserker Brock riders (with hand painted tattoos) and a the new GW 'thing' as his steel behemoth (he makes it look good). |
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| Rangers and Ironclad |
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| Army Standard Bearers on either side of the Ranger Captain |
Billy's list was
- horde of ironclad
- three troops of rangers
- two regiments of shield breakers
- two regiments of berserker brock riders
- two army standard bearers
- berserker lord on brock
- ranger captain
- steel behemoth.
The scenario was loot - he ignored the counter on my left, so slave orcs just went and sat on it with golems behind them until I started to move the golems around. On the right his rangers grabbed a token while the brock riders duked it out with my lesser and greater golems - I was never able to catch them.
In the middle was just a big scrum - I kept trying to shoot his tank (steel behemoth) but couldn't break through the armor. Eventually it claimed the middle token and took off to my left (it would probably have been better if it had just stayed in the middle - as I didn't have the strength to damage it there). I got real lucky then flying my ironcaster over and getting an amazing surge roll on the golems (I think I got 7 out of 10 when I needed 6) to the left that allowed them to flank the tank - and 36 CS(2) attacks later the tank was gone and the golems had the token for a 18-5 win. It was a real slugfest of good vs. evil dwarfs, and an overall great game to top off a great weekend.
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| Middle of the game, before the steel behemoth tries to escape. |
So at the end of the day I ended up with a 2 - 2 - 1 record (warscore shows it as 2-3-0, but that was due to the point adjustment on the tie). I came in 18th place (out of 38), just missing the 'mister mediocre' award for being in the exact middle of the pack by 1. I was happy to look at my painting score and see that I tied for 5th place (31 out of 40 - Billy had 38).
They gave out a lot of certificates (and why not - they don't cost anything but a little time and printer ink) and I actually got 2. They gave a certificate to the best player in each club that was represented there - so I took Best Ohio War Kings player - because none of the others ended up coming. They also gave best in race - and I won Best Abyssal Dwarf player (at least there was one other AD player, so there was a tiny amount of competition).
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| This is why I don't post selfies :-) (bald, fat and awkward) |
Overall it was a great weekend. The hall was a little hot, and it would be nice if every time I travel lately my gut would cooperate a little bit, but it was a great and very well run tournament. Rob did a fantastic job and the amount of swag and door prizes was amazing (even if I didn't manage to get a single door prize out of it :-)). I think Nashville is probably the limit as to how far I can go (with Chicago being the limit of the other direction), but I would definitely come back again.
I do know that I need to find a way to be less competitive. Realistically I know I'm not that good of a player to ever have a chance to come out on top of one of these things. But the more I care about winning, the less fun I have playing (and I hate to admit it, but it shows). I need to find a way to just roll the dice, roll with the punches (especially when my dice totally hate me) and just enjoy the weekends more. At least it is something I know about (and knowing is half the battle!).
Of course this is also why I do enjoy running events so much - even when I have to be the ringer I remove myself from the competition - so none of my games matter and I can relax and have more fun with them.
Which is good in the end -
because it is all fun and games . . .
Very enjoyable read! :)
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