NZ Teams Championships - Wellington - 16 Teams of 4

Dropping into Team 'Ham', of Nick M (Cap, Daemons), Paul (Lizards), Rowan (Dwarves) and I. Rowan had stepped up as our resident Chaos Warrior player had discovered that he had booked 'Bruce Springsteen tickets' on the same weekend. We Road tripped it to Wellington and used the 5hr Drive to do all the match up process we hadn't had time to do in the last three months. Who does home work anyways. Here's my Army and take note, I don't have the Banner of the world Dragon on the Whitelions.

 Banner of the World Dragon on White lions?? but they are T3 infantry, I'd consider it if the unit was a 25+ unit.

Saturday morning and it's in Kandallah a small sleepy suburb just on the out skirts of Wellington. Little did the small township know that it was going to be decended on by 64 rabid Miniature playing Wargamers. Hence I guess the lack of open cafes and Doughnut Shops in the morning. The 2 cafes and the local Hell's Pizza were mightily friendly after, as soon as they discovered that Wargaming builds an appetite.

Straight onto my Games. As I was looking for a relaxed weekends gaming I left it to El'Capitaine to guide the team from our matchup matrix. It turns out that the it worked pretty well actually when you predetermine the favourable and try to hold on for a 10-10. Tactics might be a little fine tuned going forward.

1st Match- Wolf pack - Dan (Daemons), Locky (Skaven), Ross (Warriors) and Jeff (Empire).

My Game vs Jeff - Light Council Empire with 1 Steam Tank.

I gathered from all the teams over the weekend that Light councill should get a good win against my Elves. I disagree and was confident that I would offer very few targets and was likely to get a draw and if I managed to exploite any opportunities that presented itself it would turn out to be a solid to a big win to me. 

Hoping to get first turn with all of Jeff's artillery park within 30" of all my archers I managed to lose it and got to go second, oh well. The game had no surprises, with the Empire cannons knocking over all my bolt throwers and a refuse flank with the steam tank. I picked up all the points on the fringes and pushed for a big win last turn by withering the Steamtank to T3 and charging both my Dragon Princes with Lord & the unit of Whitelions. The Whitelions failed their 8" charge and the Tank sits there with 1 wound left tettering at the end. Jeff is a good bloke and even better player. We had a very tight but enjoyable joust of a game.

11-9 Win

The team had a mixed bag and with Rowan getting mauled 20-0 by Dan's Daemons we were hanging around mid tables.

2nd Match- Stones Fall Massive - Joel (Empire), Glen (Daemons), Ryan (Warriors) and Will (Ogres).

My Game vs Joel - Empire light council with 2 Steam Tanks.

Joel's obviously in tune with his army and he deployed double refuse flank and Demi-Chickens to the fore with a mountain of Halberds in the centre. My shooting was a bit sad and both his Steam Tanks were unhampered from my shooting all game. Which meant he could collapse one flank and push for a good win. So I had to push the button on Mind Razor to even the odds on the other flank. Mind Razor for the game and the Dragon Princes munch 3 units. Joel's a awesome chap and a credit to the hobby in Wellington. Good chat about the hobby and discovered that he was the other of the bearded fellows who didn't manage to make it to Canopener all those years ago. Defo keen and looking forward to a rematch soon.
Blam moment was Joel IF with his Archmage Banishment on my Dragon Princes and falling down a hole. They had the Banner of the World Dragon on them (2+ward).

13-7 Win

Our Dwarves had a bad day shooting and with the Skink cloud not working we were another slight loss in this matchup. So sitting at Low mid tables.

3rd Match - Nice Team - Bo (Lizards). James (Warriors), Tane (Dwarves), and David (Skaven)

My Game vs Bo - Monster stomp Lizards with 2 Stegs & 2 Bastilidons.

Not such a great table for me as there was two large hills down each 1/3 of the table that basically blocked line of sight to all his monsters or gave them cover. Bo deployed all his monsters on one side hidden from all my RBT's scattered all around the board and put his Skink cloud down the other side. I countered with a solid centre and most of my bows to take care of the Skinks. This turned out great for me as archery killed all his Camo-Skinks and skirmishers and let me push his Monster flank with the bulk of my troops.
Bo then pushed his 4 Monsters forward and I said thank you as my Dragon Prince bus with Lord should have easily killed his Bastilidon and then overrun to chomp up the rest of his other flank if I did one more wound to his steg with 13 attacks at Strength 5 with rerolls to hit. They all hit and dice fail means game changer. Bo is a great guy and he made a forgettable game for me into a awesome hobby one. Must get you up for a game in Auckland Bo and yes you got my best sport vote.

8-12 Loss

Tane shot off our Dwarf player 20-0 and with our Daemon player losing his Greater Daemon 1st turn with a 3 dice cast down a hole it was a big loss for the team this round. Lower Bottom Tables after day 1.

4th Match - Legend of Doom - Herman (DE), Luc (Ogres), David (Dwarves), and Rex (Wood Elves).

My Game vs Luc - Double Ogre Bulls with Double Mournfangs.

Always going to be a ask for Ogres if my shooting went off and it did. Luc was left with a Ogre bus of 4 Ogres and 3 of his Characters having to face a rear charge from my Dragon Princes who had devoured two units of Mournfangs. The ensuing combat had me up by 16 combat res and on the way to a big win. Luc is just getting use to his army and with a few games he should quickly turn the tables. Excellent sport and so was the rest of the team from kapiti.

20-0 Win

This was the turn around and the team all had wins or big wins. Recovered to lower mid table.

5th Match - Krak Team - Tim (DE), Hagen (Lizards), Neil (Dwarves), and Ben (VC).

My Game vs Tim - Bro-lock Supreme Sorceress Dreadlord bus, Dble Executioners and Witch elves.

On paper I had this down as a draw and a good win if the terrain was suitable. The terrain on our table turned out to be way too important to the game. There was a massive Elven tower that dominated almost right up to the middle of the board from one side of the table. If I had won table sides, it would have been Tim's army hiding from all my shooting and game decided as it turned out Tim won table sides and managed to snipe points he needed and retreated just out of range of return fire with Dreadlord, Supreme Sorceress all on 1 wound.
My very first game against Tim and it's about time too. Great guy and holding up the WHFB flame in WH40K country in the south of NZ. See you at GuardCon for a rematch mate.

10-10 (High Elves had a slight edge)

Very close results from the team and I think we fought ourselves to a standstill.

6th Match - Bucket Heads - John (Ogres), Adam (Dwarves), Regan (Empire) and Brendan (Beasts).

My Game vs Adam - Anvil, Bugman Rangers, Horde of Warriors with Great Weapons, Hammerer Horde,                                      Miners.

Haven't seen Adam for an age and it was great to get a game against him, our very first. So we went about it to re-enact the war of the beard to see off the last tournament with the old Dwarf book. Adam Deployed his Anvil and 30 Hammerer Horde and waited for my deployment before he scouted the rest of his army. I deployed aggressively with Dragon Princes swooping on the flank to collect the anvil. Since all the hills on our table were 1" hills this blocked none of my shooting and I deployed everything ready to shoot and run into combat.
Adam deployed his Warriors and Rangers 12" from my Archer line and was waiting to rune of challenge my unit with Archmage and armoured archers. I got 1st turn and this probably saved my bacon as sure enough the Archer unit with Archmage was challenged in. I Wyssans the Archer unit and withered the Dwarf horde to Str3. With my centre held the Dwarven army was destroyed to a man turn 2.

20-0 Win.

The Bucket heads were top blokes and unfortunately the dice went all our way this round and we had maximum points last round with John saving a 10-10 against our Daemons. Good stuff Ham's!

So a good weekend of gaming for the Team. We expected to middle table and we were very happy to achieve our goals. Our matrix predictions were very on the button and we may change our tactics with the matchups a little more next time to see how we go. All in all the team was great, good on you fella's! I'd go into battle with you guys any time.

Personally I had a great weekend playing 5 outta 6 new opponents I've never played before. 6 outta 6 players were superb guys. I totalled 82 points for the 6 games and felt that my rushed non-netlist held it's own. Good to know that High Elves are still competitive in this hard as nails tournament environment.

Venue: Sparkling new venue and just big enough to hold 64 gamers which meant it was very cosy some of the time. Overall it's airy and well lit and amongst the top venues I've been to for wargaming in the country.
8/10.

Tables & Terrain: Some excellent terrain and and very well painted large building pieces on most of the tables. There were some tables with extra large hills to represent true line of sight rules that we were playing, which was excellent. Unfortunately there were many tables with very small negligible height hills which meant there was no consistency. The one Table I played on with a massive Elven Tower on the table dominated the result of the game which felt a bit overlooked. These things are easily remedied with a bit of shuffling and with the resources I can see, Wellington looks ready to stay a great tournament town. 7/10

Tournament & T.O: Both Pete's running the tournament are experienced and slick. Very smooth tournament and only a few timing slips but I'm sure that's due to the nature of a teams event. All the match's and the T.O's calls we asked were solved quickly and efficiently. 8/10

Results:

Congrats to 'Team with The Guy'. For Taking out the 2nd NZTC.

Here's the Pic collection.

Venue

 Joel's Empire.

 Paul's Lizards.

 John's Ogre's.

 Pete's infamous Skaven.

 Von Trapps with Cousin Joe.

Road trip down fuelled by Macca's

Welly Waterfront.

Good Watering hole.

 Hobby Overload!!!

CanOpener 2014 - Auckland Charity Event (also some recent releases.)

Here's a teaser for this years Charity event held in Auckland and hosted by the Auckland City Guard Club.

Expressions of interest should go to the organisers here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/691785654176878/

More details will come as they are on hand.

Last year we had 100+ Gaming on the day, with the Auckland Mission benefiting from your generosity. I am sure that the community will come out in force this year to do even better. 

Planned events will be - Warhammer Fantasy, WH40k, FOW, DBA, Board gaming, X-Wing, Warmahordes and much much more.

Some of my incoming toys and new releases from forgeworld so I thought I'd share ; )

New Forgeworld - Myrmadon Destructors

Armoured Archers are the new broken

No OP Seaguard or High Elf Spear for NZTC. Eltharion and the Dragon mage stay home too. All of the above the Internet whingers have said are too broke (or was it they couldn't work it out). Perhaps they will be IT warrioring it about vanilla archers too. Until then it's Armoured Archers all the way.

WIP- Titled 'go figure!?'

Interesting video. What kind of Gamer are you?

FluffyCon BatReps & Results

FluffyCon this year was reincarnated with Swedish Comp. Richie one of my good mates took it upon himself to T.O and give the community some games over the weekend. So we rounded up City Guard members and associates and hit the tournament running. Here's how my games went.

Russ S - Vampires

Russ Took a Vamp bus of Black knights. He also took a unit of Blood Knights which had been sitting in ol'castle Simister for far too long due to meta. He positioned the Blood Knights on the flank of his main force and I forgot to take advantage of their frenzy. Luckily for me he failed his charge into my flank with the Bloodies which meant I could mop them up with the Silverhelm bus and BSB. With them out of the way unfortunately I had too much fast moving stuff and eventually Russ's Vamp bus had to face multiple rear, flank charges for the game. Top player and good friend, I'm sure Vamps will rise again to terrorise the old world.

19-1 after comp adjustment

Ryan S - Warriors

Great to see Ryan back in the country and always happy to get another game in against the blue Chaos. He ran a Shag-off (haha), Knight bus, Crushers, Warriors and a concession Lvl 2. With all my fast moving stuff the Warriors were always at a disadvantage as I dictated when and where I would charge. My Lion Chariot accounted for the Shag-off (never gets old), and with multiple chariots and magic taking care of the Warriors it was down to Eltharion and multiple chargers against the Warriors General. Eltharion on Stormwing triumphs and Mind Razor helped on the Silver helms too.

19-1 after comp adjustment

Nick L-I - Wood Elves

Meeting Engagement and I thought I had the advantage here. Nick proved to me yet again how good a general he was and started picking my army apart with precise bow fire. I was bleeding points and with a Flank lost to two panic checks and my units running off the table, I needed to regain a large chunk of points to stay in the game. The Wood Elf army had occupied buildings and were shooting behind fences which nullified my own shooting. So a last ditch effort to get some points back I charged his Treeman with Eltharion knowing full well that this offered Nick a Flank charge with his Eternal guard bunker. A flank charge into my Lord in the proceeding turn. That stubborn Treeman wasn't going to break with General and BsB nearby.
To top off the Enternal Guard bus charging in he gets Transformation of Kadon to bring his Carmine Dragon on the board (such a cool mini!). I was down lots of stactic res. Nick challenges with the unit Champ and Eltharion with Stormwing causes the maximum overkill and loses combat, but only by 1. This meant I could support the main fight in the middle and eventually win the grind.

15-5 after comp adjustment

John W - Brettonians

Watch Tower. I didn't think I would have the army to take on the bus drivers. With nothing really capable of opening tin cans apart from combat and risking 5+ wards to ruin the party it was going to be a hard game. I decided to attack the Bret flank and hold the tower for the win. So some aggressive play saw me charging into the Brettonian flank with my Lord turn2... He fluffed or the 5+ wards were too overpowering and the pillow fight that ensued meant the Tower was the only thing that was going to offer a big points haul this round. John cometted the watch tower and we both fluffed heaps of dice. So Bloody, So many Pillow fights, must rem to change dice out.

10-10 (Highe Elves ~150pts up)

Kelly G - Dark Elves

Dawn Attack. Only had 2 games against the New Dark Elves so wasn't really familiar with them. Kelly is a great player and is the only player to table me in a tournament. I was feeling the effects of fatigue being soft and out of practice in actually playing a full tournament. I decided to go full tilt straight ahead and with all my force moving maximum towards the DE line. I found out the hard way how good some of the units are especially the Sisters of slaughter. With their special rules and rerolls to wound even my dual chariot charge including Eltharion into the 12 of them was a losing one. This changed the whole perspective of the game as I saw it turn one. So from a good advantage I was left to pull out all stops and grab strategic points to save this one. Well played my opponent and I learnt heaps and thats why we play Hammer right guys?!! Thats right, so bloody good!

9-11 after comp adjustment (from 11-9 win)

Glen T - Brettonians

Glen Brought a superb army all themed on the movie 'Kingdom of Heaven'. If you haven't seen the movie then you should go out and see it now. He had 3 units of knights, big block of men at arms, Grail reliquary and the usual reroll stuff characters. Glen deployed one unit of knights in the middle and the other two units on one flank. This gave me a opportunity to just ramp his weak flank and divert his main stay. High Elves killed alot of peasants that day and without a BSB his general eventually fled from panic and was run down by an Eagle. Great game against a top bloke. Thanks for still giving me a lift home after bro, you can smash me at club!

18-2 after comp adjustment

FluffyCon 2014 Results

Placing	Player			Battle (120)	Sports (30)	Paint (30)	Bonus (20)	Total (200)
1	Phil W			90	30	30	20	170
2	Kelly G			79	30	30	20	159
3	John W			76	30	30	20	156
4	Nick M			73	30	30	20	153
5	Glen T			67	30	30	20	147
6	Nick L			66	30	30	20	146
7	Chris E			65	30	30	20	145
8	James C			64	30	30	20	144
9	Rich B			69	30	24	20	143
10	Glen P			56	30	30	20	136
11	Russ S			51	30	30	20	131
12	Ryan S			47	30	30	20	127
13	Michael			44	30	30	20	124
14	Aaron			39	30	30	20	119
15	Noel T			36	30	30	20	116
16	Bobby			32	30	30	20	112
17	Jed S			0	30	30	20	80

Best Sport - Nick L-I
Best Paint -  Bobby
Best Table - Glen T

https://www.facebook.com/groups/691785654176878/

Topping out on Swedish

Two days of 6 games over. Wargaming nirvana, now to put the feet up and have a beer even a bourbon.

Good haul for the weekend. Cheers to Richie the T.O and all 6 of my opponents for a enjoyable tournament.
City guard 1st and 2nd, big ups.

Eltharion Tournament list

Going to my first Swedish comp tournament tomorrow. I am a bit hum hah about the comp but totally keen for some games. So before the missus gets home here's the completed army. Some major rebuild and bare metal monstrous creatures speed painted in just under 1 and a half weeks of casual light painting (1-2 hrs per night). Can't moan about not having enough time as these babies were painted pretty quick smart and with new movement bases. Granted I had about a third of it already painted.

Old Skool Eltharion. Cool model had him brand new. Gotta take him to a tourney.

Oh these guys just need to be run for fun. Exactly what he's about in this event.

 Army all ready for action. The Griffon is my proxy for a Great Eagle.

Sneak peak at the army list below and the Swedish Comp is 16.7.

Eltharion on Stormwing
Dragon Mage
Mounted BsB
Silverhelms
Archers
Spears
Reavers
2 Tiranoc Chariots
2 Lion Chariots
2 RBTs
Sisters of Averlorn
Great Eagle.

I'll try and post up Photo's of the event and O'course batreps so keep an eye out.

Over Hobby hump

Real life and being exposed to net-listing filth mongers have given me hump months from the Hobby. Back with a vengeance though. Hobby with a no care for such filth means take what you like the look of. A bit of mystery and a care for the mythical makes your list zing.

Enough Talk piccies!

10 assorted bits from the bits box makes a unit of Silverhelms yus!

 New movement bases shamelessly copied from a mate.

Made some new movement bases. They are Bawse!!

I'm digging the new bases.

Hehe the new Dwarfs are about to be released aye!?!

Tournaments always makes for good Hobby motivation.

Equinox 2014 Registrations are up!!

Contact the email below to register your interest

equinox2014@outlook.com

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