2015 Gaming Calendar

With January rapidly coming to a close I thought it was worth taking a closer look at the Wargaming Calendar for 2015 and coming up with a bit of a plan. Also I need to clear the plan with the Master Scheduler (in other words, my wife) so that I don’t get into hot water.

Battlecry

Battlecry - Tigers in the mud

Traditionally one of my favourite events of the year as in the past it was hosted in a big gymnasium and it was filled with people playing a wide variety of wargames, as well as board games and card games. It also had the biggest turn out of retailers of any of the events I would normally go to. This resulted in some good games along with a few ways to be parted from my money. This year they are moving to a new (smaller) venue and dividing the event up over a couple of weekends. Hopefully it will still retain the flavour of previous years and luckily I only have a few weeks to wait to find out!

As for the gaming I am taking a slightly unconventional approach (at least by my standards) and dividing the weekend up in to two events – one day of X-Wing and one day or Hordes (first chance to roll out some Trolls).

Ides of March

Yeah, this is the big one! 40-50 Warmahordes players and a chance to get in a bunch of tough games (that I will of course loose). Ideally I will be taking the Trolls along for their second outing but IOM does have a fully painted requirement (which I am really pleased about) so I might have to put down a backup list with eBaldur and/or Bradigus Thorle and lots of constructs. Super excited about this event

Ides Of March - Sweet trophies!

To go to the NZ Nationals or to not go… that is the question?

This year the New Zealand Nationals will be in Auckland (yay!) but I am really struggling to find the time and enthusiasm put a 3 day weekend into gaming these days. Ten years ago I would have gone in a heartbeat but with more responsibilities comes more hard decisions… not going will definitely put a dent in my efforts to take out the Romanian spot in the NZ Flames Of War Rankings though! I might end up just having to put in a days friendly gaming somewhere instead?

NiCon

The North Island Convention is on another long weekend (just like the Nationals) but in this case it is in Thames (which is a short-ish drive away from the in-laws house) which might make it a bit easier to get away for a couple of days. Whilst it is too far away for concrete plans, Flames Of War is definitely on the cards.

Panzerschreck

Panzerschreck - Road Trippin'

Panzerschreck is the ancestral home of Flames Of War tournament gaming and traditionally takes the form of a doubles Late War event. 

Definitely keen on this as we normally hire a big mini-van for a nice team building 9 hour drive! I’ve been chatting to Phil about pairing up for a bit of low stress gaming. 

Assuming I get my act together I’ll either be taking an Atlantik Wall Puma company or Romanian StuGs so that could be quite a lot of fun.

Lords of Ruin - More sweet trophies!

Lords of Ruin

I am working on the assumption that this event is happening again this year as it was an absolute blast last year. Sean Lincoln organised a fantastic event in a local pub (down in Wellington). This is my drop dead target for having the fully painted Trolls in action!

Choptober

Looking forward to this one day W/H event here in Auckland. All the usual suspects will be there, and it will be a low stress event!


FlamesCon

We still need to get out ducks in a row with FlamesCon but my assumption is that it is happening… so much for insider knowledge eh! Either way, Romanians all the way baby! Currently thinking that it would be fun to play Early and Mid War, just not confident that I can get an EW Romanian army painted for it…

Well, there we have it, but 2015 event plan… throw in a few 1 day X-Wing events that pop up over the course of the year and it is feeling pretty solid to me.

Its Hammer Time!

Mt Maunganui Club - great venue!

Back in June I headed down to Tauranga with some old friends to play some Warhammer. I haven't played for something like five years and I have a bunch of armies gathering dust and I keep finding excuses to not play. Luckily for me NiCon (North Island Convention) did not have a Flames Of War or Warmachine event, so with no excuses left I had to dig out a 'Hammer army.

A quick read of the 8th Edition rules revealed that GW had done a nice job of tidying up a few things, streamlined a few more, and added a bit more randomness with the changes to charges and movement (and removed the guess from guess weapons... now I wish I had stone throwers for my Dwarves). Taking a step back from any internet based preconceptions I'd picked up over the preceeding years I really liked the look of the rules and I can honestly say I was excited to give them a go.

My two gaming buddies for the weekend (Reid and Mike) are long time friends and 'Hammer players. We have spent a lot of time road tripping round New Zealand and flying over to Australia for conventions "back in the day" so it was great to get the band back together. Of course a lot of the meta discussion over the weekend was above my head but it was fun to get back in to the groove.

I wanted to keep the weekend fairly low stress and thought that the easiest option was to take my Savage Orcs. They are so random I could not be grumpy when I made stupid mistakes and instead I could just focus on the fun of just playing. After a few internal debates I settled on:
Savage Orc Shaman (lvl4)
Big Orc BSB
Savage Orc Shaman (lvl2)
Night Goblin Shaman (lvl2)
24x Savage Orcs
25x Savage Orcs
23x Big 'Uns
5x Spider Riders
20x Night Goblins with Fanatics
20x Night Goblins with Fanatics
20x Night Goblins with Fanatics
2x Goblin Wolf Chariots
2x Goblin Spear Chukka
2x Snotling Pump Wagons
2x Mangler Squigs
Giant

I wont go into any depth about the games (frankly because I cannot recall them in much detail anymore) but I had a great time, played some people I have not played in a long time, used some figures that have not seen daylight in even longer and had a "lads weekend". 

Tall gaming tables! These are amazing to play on because by the end of the weekend you don't feel like your back has been beaten up by Mike Tyson!

The only thing I had a bit of a niggle with (in hindsight) was the ETC scoring system. If I was a serious competitor going for a tournament win there were a couple of games where I would have been better off bunkering up behind a hill and just not engaging my opponent to force a 10-10 draw. It just seemed odd to me because in the past (when I took it all pretty seriously!) if I had been trying to win a 'Hammer event I would be going hard to crush my opponents, knowing that I would need 17-3 or 20-0 results in most, if not all games to take out the top spot... 

So, without much further ado here are some deployment photos from each round and a very short synopsis...

Round 1: Blair was running what looked like a fairly cav heavy Empire army with a STank. He did a great job of drawing out my fanatics then throwing in Cavalry charges, whilst showing me that the Version 8 Tank is pretty awesome. If my Empire are coming out of the carry case I'll need a tank and Demigryph Knights for sure!.... and some Light Wizards since I hear they are pretty legit. 10-10 draw.

Round 2: Will had (what I am assuming anyway) a fairly standard VC build. Lots of casters to rebuild units, Terrorgeist and a wall of various flavours of flesh. He was feeling under all sorts of pressure early on but I knew that he already had the upper hand. Once he beat the frenzy out of me he rolled up the line cleaning out units hand over fist. 19-1 to Will.

Round 3: Playing against my road trip buddy Mike I knew I was in some trouble as he is still a pretty serious Warhammer player and gets in a lot of games against quality opponents. I foolishly thought I had the upper hand until his Doombull started to power up and started cleaving through my entire army. 17-3 to Mike

Round 4: Ken is a Kiwi, working in Australia, who comes back for Warhammer and FOW events every now and then. I'd never played him before but I'd seen him round. Round 4 was in the evening and I was shattered (too much thinking during the day) and his list was a Dwarven gun line with all the toys. My Dwarves come across the pitch to "get some!" and I knew that walking into a wall of enemy gunfire was not going to be too fun. Bit embarrassed to admit it but I bunkered up, we killed a few things and that was the end of that. I was happy with a 10-10 draw and back to the motel for pizza, drinks and watching some rugby!

Round 5: Dave and his son and a mirror match with two OG armies, although he had a massive Black Orc unit and big mob of Trolls whereas I had 75 Savage Orcs. Turns out Trolls are not as terrible as they once were! We piece traded for a little while, had a good fight over on the near flank as his Trolls gave a good accounting for themselves but it was all over without too many dead on the field. 11-9 to Dave

Round 6: Bobby is an old school gamer and since I have not been playing any Warhammer I have not seen a lot of him, so it was good to have a final round battle to end the weekend on a high. He was running a massive (and beautifully painted) Empire foot army. We had a good old fashioned stand up fight where the resiliance of the Orcs eventually won the day (narrowly) with a couple of his key units (Knights and Greatswords) getting mauled by Manglers and  sliced by Choppers. 12-8 to me.

I don't actually remember (nor do I care) where I came in the standings at the end. The only thing that mattered was that I had a great time and actually contemplated dusting off my Warhammer armies for some more outings. Of course I'll need to work out how I am going to fit that in... The OGs performed well and any faults were certainly the cause of their general and whilst they will never be a Tier 1 army they are great fun and the "new" army book for them is a nice improvement over the previous edition(s). Part of me is keen to get my Chaos Warriors or Daemons out but there was something fun about the low stress option. Time will tell what comes out of the cupboard for my next WHFB adventure.

2014 Tournament Season

With growing family responsibilities at home as my son gets bigger and starts to throw around the word "daddy" a lot more, 2014 is already panning out to be a big year so I sat down and had a look through the tournament calender to try and plan out the year so there would be no (okay, fewer) surprises on the home front. It also gave me an opportunity to work out what was on the painting schedule.

February: Battlecry and Flames Of War. This will be the first road test for my Desperate Measures Reluctant Trained Tigers.

March: Ides of March and Warmachine. Dusting off my Circle forces and using this to incentivise me to paint up the Woldwrath!

April: Hamilton EW Tournament and FOW. This one is a little up in the air for me right now, but my French are looking for a reason to hit the table and this might be it!

May: NiCon and TBC. Love heading to sunny Tauranga, just need to work out what is on the menu I guess.

July: Panzerschreck and the FOW Doubles Event. It is just easier to give into Evan's nagging and head down. Plus Mike and I have something to make up for after our terrible performance last year.

August: Call to Arms and WarmaHordes. Not sure what I would take, but the WarmaHordes guys in Wellington are great to play so hopefully the timing of this works out.

October: BFGT and FOW. This could be coinciding with my 40th so might be a little challenging, tempted to play in the split 1 day Mid War, 1 day Early War events... wonder how I could convert my '56 Israelis to Mid War?

November: Rallypoint and the WarmaHordes Teams Event. Three man teams and this year it is Ghordson Earthbreakers all round.

So, painting needing to be done for five events this year at minimum, plus some more post war Israeli's for work no doubt.... maybe it is time to start reducing my expectations!

The Kara Sloan Tactical Fun Line Goes To NiCon

Another year has rolled by and Sean, Victor and myself headed off for another weekend of playing WarmaHordes at the now annual teams tournament, this time in sunny (and rather beautiful in an art deco kind of way) Napier.

Plan was simple - don't do as badly as last year.... Looks rather like my usual Kara Sloan force, but swapping out the Rangers for ATGMs and a Hunter for a Sentinel (sick of Kara dying to a lucky shot!).

The list was...
Captain Kara Sloan
- Squire
- Defender
- Hunter
- Hunter
- Sentinel
Reinholdt, Gobber Speculator
Journeyman Warcaster
Captain Arlan Strangewayes
Arcane Tempest Gun Mages
- Arcane Tempest Gun Mage Officer

Round 1 - Richard from Frozen Nightmare. I said I was not playing either of the two Cryx players and instead faced off against Richard and his Conquest. As usual, round 1 forgetfulness kicked in and my feat turn was a disaster! The Conquest with four mechanics proved too hard to shift and despite shooting up a lot of his army my failure to put the big man down resulted in eSorsha having a good day at the office.


Round 2 - Mark from Grumpy Old Men. Mark is an old school gamer and was running his Menoth eSeverius list. He pushed up the table and decided to not use his Choir to protect his 'jacks. I asked if he was sure.... he said yes... I removed one and badly damaged the other two. His caster spent the rest of the game hiding whilst I tried to push up field to him. In the end I timed out (50 minute death clock) however Mark conceded the game as he only had a couple of models left and was about to time out himself.


Round 3 - Dave from Good Players. Dave is another old school gamer, yet I think I have only played him once before (my Savage Orcs vs his Lizardmen about 6-8 years ago). He picked up WarmaHordes a couple of years ago and has been undergoing intensive tutorials and is one of the better players in NZ (although he does stick to Cryx...). I basically shot a third of his army off the table on my feat turn and left his Kraken on 1 box (which he failed to repair). He valiantly tried to take the game out by control points and did my best to help him, but managed to pull off the win. Lets be honest Dave is a way better player than me, but now that I am up 1-0 I am happy to let the record show that I am "statistically" the better player.... hehe.


Round 4 - Vincent from Mentally Impaired. Vincent was running a Nemo list with lots of units and I cannot remember much of this game other than it went the distance (i.e. he would have run out of time after forgetting to hit the timer at the end of his turn, except we "turned back the clock"). If I remember correctly Nemo was down to a couple of boxes and Kara found herself on the receiving end of a couple of lightning spells resulting in her looking a little crispy!


Round 5 - Graeme from Lobster Magnet. Graeme and I played at the last tournament and I pulled off a lucky win against his eCaine list. Short version... same deal! I shot a lot, he shot a bit less, kept eCaine out of the line of fire whilst we chipped away at each others forces but in the end he ran out of troops and Caine had to put himself out in the open, if he survived he won... thanks to a lucky shot from Kara he did not survive.


Round 6 - Mike from Maximum Compensation. More old school gamers... Mike was handy with his High Elves but has now turned to the Galleon/Bart list. He used the Galleon well, getting some lucky shots knocking out the guns on both Hunters before I could feat. I played poorly in places forgetting small things that would have made a big difference - that is instead of leaving the Galleon on 5 boxes he probably would have been dead (and Kara would have been alive). Came close to buying two Galleons and Bart after the game... but since my wife reads this I thought better of it!


Round 7 - Peter from Angry Birds. Last round, very tired... and playing Peter who I also played at my previous tournament. Peter was teamed up with two of my gaming buddies that have been playing a lot of WarmaHordes over the past few months. He was running a  Morvahna/Tharn Bloodtrackers/Warpborn Skinwalkers list and I remembered my lesson from the last time we played... kill ALL the Bloodtrackers in one turn or don't even bother trying. We spent the entire game trading figures and although he won, he did it with his caster and three Shifting Stones left and I just had Kara.... the Stones pulling off the win on Control Points.


Three wins out of seven games... that is about as good as I can expect at any WarmaHordes event, at least this time around I could honestly say that I had a couple of games where it would not have taken much for them to go my way, and a couple of the the dicey games turned out in my favour. Summary, great games, great opponents, great weekend... already planning for next years teams tournament in Tauranga. The only bad bit was that I failed to take many photos....

Waking up to this beautiful sunrise... but damn it was cold!

The hall

Dave, after loosing the figures on his left flank, failing his repair check and needing a wee break

At the venue there was also a Model Expo with some cool toys, including this awesome model

The Galleon and Bart - turns out that despite most of my force being alive the Galleon was enough to finish the job

Sean's Nemo3 list finally finished and based!

P.S. thanks Chris B for the new name for my list....

NiCon Teams Tournament & Baldur

A couple of weeks ago, Victor, Sean and myself played in the Warmachine Teams Tournament at NiCon. After last years poor showing we thought we would try and come up with some more competitive lists and perhaps even get some practice games in. Needless to say we only ended up getting a couple of games in but I think we all learnt a lot from it. Victor had his Zaal list packed full of annoying infantry and Ancestral Guardians, Sean had Blindwater list with Maelok and friends.

I took Baldur the Stonesoul and his Tier list

Baldur the Stonesoul

Baldur the Stonesoul (again)

The Wolds

Blackclad Wayfarer

Shifting Stones and Stonekeeper

Druids of Orboros

The entire army was painted (as a few of the other posts on the blog will tell you) over the weeks prior to the event and I am really happy with how the entire force turned out. I would like to have a go at re-doing Baldur's face as I know I can do better, but as a large cohesive army I think it looks great.

One of the things (at least in my mind) that really set it off is the foliage I added to the Wolds. This is the same stuff that I am planning on using on some of my Late War Germans (when I get around to doing them) and is made by a company called Silflor (same people that do the tufts). It was a little annoying to glue on and it is not really something that will last forever if you are doing a lot of gaming with it, but it really made these big wood and stone constructs "pop" on the tabletop.

Silflor Leaf Foliage on Megalith

As for the weekends gaming... it was great fun and our performance on the tabletop was definitely better than last year with a total of 5 individual wins and 2 team wins. For me the most amusing win was a balls to the wall, do or die effort where I knew I had moved badly in my first turn and Xerxis was up in my face too quickly - so the Shifting Stones and Baldur combined for a sweet assassination run. The Blackclad charged in first, hit and managed to knock a few boxes off, then Baldur appeared next to him and said - I have a full load of Fury, you have a few transfers, lets get it on! Xerxis transferred 2 or 3 hits, which killed an Archidon and badly wounded a Titan, however the last attack cleaned him out letting me claw out a victory. It was glorious!

Now to work out what my next WarmaHordes project will be....

Wold WIP Week Challenge!

Its been a little quite round here over the past few weeks, coming off some serious painting time for the NZ Nationals. Unfortunately that just results in more pressure for the next two tournaments (my final two before taking a 5 month break). I have a Mid War Soviet Tankovy list that I am working on for the Mid War GT that I'll have pictures of in the coming weeks, but I am also working on my eBaldur list for the Teams Tournament in about 4 or 5 weeks. I've come up with a style that I am happy with for the wood and stone, that is quick and fairly effective, the next challenge is to try and complete 4 Wolds over the course of the next 5 nights... Technically I think I can do it, but to help make sure of it lets call this a Wold WIP Week Challenge!

Tonights job - finish the Woldwatcher that I used as a painting test (now that I look at it, some of the painting looks a bit dodgy at 200-300% of its real size...)

Tournaments Galore...

The first half of 2012 is a very busy one on the tournament front, three tournaments down and 3 or 4 more to go.. Why 3 OR 4 you ask? I have permission to go to Panzerschreck 2012 this year but I feel that my leave pass might get revoked since my first child is due two weeks afterwards!

In a little over two weeks time we have the NZ Nationals, with two separate tournaments - a one day 25 point Highlander event, and a two day 35 point SR2012 event (with 7 points of reinforcements). 

25pt Highlander - my plan was to go with a very simple plan, using painted figures (so I don't have to get anything new painted)...

Karchev the Terrible

Destroyer

Juggernaut (x2)

Man-O-War Demo Corps (x3)

Reinholdt

This gives me a force that I am well used to using, with the added benefit of having Reinholdt for a bit of pre-measuring fun, as well as letting him get off a pair of shots with the SP10 "gun". Just need to get confirmation that I am allowed duplicate 'jacks.

As for the 35 point SR2012 event

Karchev the Terrible

Wardog

Destroyer

Juggernaut (x2)

Iron Fang Uhlans (x3)

Man-O-War Demo Corps (x5)

Reinforcements:

Manhunters (x2)

Yuri the Axe

Once again I am working on the theory that I know how the core of the army works having taken the same force (without the IFU) at an event last year. I've never used cavalry before, nor have I gotten them painted yet so I need to get a shake on!

As for the rest of the year we the Flames of War Mid War GT, which I am meant to be painting up an entirely new army... And finally the North Island Convention (NiCon) where Sean, Victor and I are teaming up to defend out title of Swamp Gobblers (from last years teams event). For this event I have a 35 point eBaldur list on the painting table.

Finally, I realised that I had not put any photos of Kaya and her Wolves on the the blog yet. I borrowed the camera this morning and managed to take a few photos. With a bit of luck I'll have some WIP images of the Uhlans next week!

Kaya and the 'real' Wolfpack!

Karchev on Tour!

Finally got around to cleaning up the photos of Karchev and his army that I took to Nicon last weekend...

The man himself!

Every Khador Warcasters favourite companion!

Man-O-War Demolition Corps

Destroyer

Juggernauts

Manhunters

Yuri the Axe

Swamp Gobbers!

This weekend I was fortunate enough to play in one of the most enjoyable wargaming tournaments I can remember in a long time. Sean, Victor and I teamed up for the Warmachine Teams event at Nicon in Hamilton. We went into the event with the right spirit - turning up and having fun was more important that any other consideration. This was of course lucky as we only managed to get 2 wins out of a total of 18 games... :) Off the field it was also a great event with Skeeter lining us up with a great motel that came with a large lounge, a large TV and comfy couches for post match relaxation...

For our troubles we actually managed to bring home some silverware (which was entirely unexpected) pulling off the coveted Swap Gobbler Award (Wooden Spoon) and the Exemplars Award (awarded to best all round Team who display Page 5 qualities).
As for Karchev... he is going to take a little retirement break (along with Sean and Victors casters) whilst we try and wrangle a few of the guys at work into playing some games. I'm currently debating eVlad or perhaps Kara or Kraye with my "Hunter-rama" list.

Dystopian Wars

Dun dun dun-dun dun dun-dun dun-dun

Plus its NiCon this weekend in Hamilton.... Karchev is looking for some action!

Chris