Deep in the Forests of Galahir

It was a warm summer day, but the wind brought the warnings of evil in the woods.  The flash of light seen in the summer sky was an ill omen, and all around heard the crash as something fell from the sky into the Forests of Galahir.  Armies gathered to find and retrieve t his mysterious artifact, and the battle would soon be joined.

The first annual Kings of War (INTER)National Campaign Day was held on July 9th, at at our FLGS we had 10 players show up to test their mettle with 130 other people across the nation and across the Atlantic, playing five games simultaneously, with each affecting the next until either the Forces of Good would win the day, or the Forces of Evil would take home the spoils of victory.

As the players arrived, we tracked the good, evil and neutral armies.  We had 4 neutral armies, 4, evil and 2 good - so three of the neutral armies fought for the side of good, and one for evil.  We set it up so armies on the same side did not play each other, and tried as best we could so that people did not have to play the same person twice.

The generals for the Forces of Good - Dave, Jason, Amy, Donny and Keith

The armies fighting for good were

• Ogres - Dave
• The Herd - Jason
• Dwarves - Amy
• Ogres - Donny
• Elves - Keith

The leaders of the Forces of Evil - Matt, Kara, Beth, Mike and Jon

On the side of evil were

• Kingdoms of Men -Matt
• Abyssal Dwarfs - Kara
• Twilight Kin - Beth
• Abyssal Dwarfs - Mike
• Undead - Jon

This was a great turnout.  We had hoped that our friends from West Virginia would be joining us, but they had to cancel at the last minute.

Since Dayton is in the Midwest region (the regions are those set up for the Masters championships), we were fighting in the Forests of Galahir.  As such I made sure that each 4x4 table had two woods, and each 6x4 had three, to help with the theme.

The first round was 1000 pts, with a "Scout" mission.  Each player secretly selected three units to be "map holders" - the player with the most "map holders" alive at the end of the game won.

Round one is on.  Jason and my game is in the foreground, with Donny and Keith and Matt.  Donny and Kara are behind them, Dave and Jon are on the back table and Beth and Amy are on the side table.

Good won three of the five games, with Amy beating Beth, Dave defeating Jon and Keith winning over Matt.  Evil won the other two as Donny won against Kara, and Mike got a victory over Jason.

Since this was a global event, the scores for each region and globally were used to affect each game. Good won for the midwest this round as well as overall - so for the next game the good players got to decide both who deploys first and who goes first.  This was going to be the pattern repeated for the entire day (unfortunately for the evil players).

The second round was another 1000 pt game, this time based around taking terrain.  Unfortunately, Keith and Beth had to leave, so we were down to 8 players.  Again good won - this time for all four games.  Amy beat her wife Kara, Dave pounded on Matt, Donny smashed me with his Ogres, and Jason walloped on Jon (who ended up going 0-4-1 for the day, his worst showing in many years).
When we checked the results after this, evil was ahead overall, so evil got to give one unit +1 SP for the next game.  However we later realized that more results had come in and Good actually took the second round overall.  Isn't is just like evil to steal a bonus they didn't deserve though?  Good did get the regional bonus of giving one of their units Vanguard for the third game.

We broke for lunch, with most of the players getting Frickers chicken wings takeout as we ate, talked and relaxed before the start of the bigger battles.

Round three was 1500 points, and used a modified "Loot" scenario.  This time evil managed one win, and good took three victories.  Amy's Dwarfs beating Matt's Men, Dave's Ogres pounding on my Abyssal Dwarfs, Donny's Ogres defeating Jon's Undead, and Kara's Abyssal Dwarfs claiming victory over Jason's Herd.

Jason checks distance, while Matt and Amy both lean in to watch the dice fall.

Once again, good took both our region and overall, so the good players got to assign the regional artifact (a token which gave a unit +1 DE) and a free artifact (up to 35 points).

Scenario 4 was a modified "Invade" scenario (instead of being on the opponents half of the table, you had to be within 18" of their table edge to score).  This was a 2000 point battle, and would determine the final bonus for the last game to determine the winning side.

Jason carefully measures for his victory against me

Jon checks his list while Amy contemplates the situation.

Dave is not amused as Kara moves here unit up

Matt looks concerned as Donny moves his blaster up

This game saw the first ties, and both Amy and Jon tied, and Dave and Kara also tied.  Matt got his only victory for evil against Donny, and Jason took sweet revenge against me in a hard fought battle. So not only did we see two ties, but we tied with one win each of good and evil.  But again the regional and national bonuses went to good.  This time though, the bonuses were (in the opinion of our players) way too overwhelming.  Regional bonus was an extra 200 pts, and overall bonus an extra 300 pts.  Plus if you held the artifact token at the end of the game, that unit started the final game with it.  However since the token was unique, if both players had it, then the winning side last round (yes good) would keep it and the other player lost it.

I decided that since people had dedicated all day to be here, I would donate a few old blisters I had as door prizes, so four people (and I did not write down who got what) walked away with a prize.

At this time, Dave had to head out as he had to work in the morning (at 5 am) and had over a two hour drive to get home.  This meant that as the organizer, I stepped out for the final round.  In addition, the store closes at eight on Saturdays, but were allowing us to finish our game (as it started at 7:15 and wasn't scheduled to end until 9:00).

The final scenario was the "Last Stand".  It ended up being 1500 pts evil against 2000 pts good.  Evil was the defender had to deploy all their forces in a 24" x 24" square, with the back edge centered on the back side of their table, and had to deploy their entire army first.  Good then deployed as normal and as the attacker got a +1 bonus for the first turn. Then victory used standard Kill conditions.

Unfortunately, this scenario did not go over well with our remaining players.  So much so that only one game was actually finished, the other two stopping around turn four as the evil side had no chance at winning from the start.  Amy claimed victory over Kara, Donny defeated Jon, and Jason beat Matt claiming three more wins for the side of good.

Kara again faces off against her wife Amy

Jason and Matt square off

Jon and Donny battle once more.

Jason, who is new to the area (and is actually from near Indianapolis, so drove over an hour for our event) was the only person who was able to play five different people all day (and he more than doubled the number of games he has EVER played, going from three to eight!).

We managed to get everything packed up and out of there by 8:30, so the staff didn't have to stay too much longer than normal.  Everyone said that they enjoyed it and had fun for most of the games (ok, the last one was just way too one-sided for both the winners and the losers).  Overall we had 20 games played by 10 people (5 for the first round, 4, 4, 4 and 3 for the others).  Good won the campaign overall (our record was 14 good, 4 evil and 2 ties).

I think that all our players would do this again, with some modifications.  Personally I feel more exhausted today than after running any one day tournament.  It is great however that we had 140 people across the US and Europe playing.  And next time will only get better!

Because it is all fun and games . . .