When our merry band of shiny and new wargamers began our new armies, the eventual goal was that we’d each have a force ready to take to the V-Con tournament here in sunny Villingen. As it happened the various members of the group were hit by work deadlines, moving into new apartments, long visits by relatives and other sundry distractions. So, when the tournament rolled around this morning only myself and Mario actually turned up with our armies – and a good portion of Mario’s figures were assembled in some haste over the preceding week. Most of the others don’t yet have a viable list but I have a feeling that this will change soon as they’ve now tasted blood and are keen to dive in.
I took the Chaos Warriors that have been slowly taking shape over the summer and Mario took his new Tomb Kings. Originally the plan was that he’d come over to my place yesterday and we’d have a few tutorial games to get him up to speed with the rules as he’d never played WFB before, what actually happened was that he had to do some work-stuff at very short notice so he sat at my table working on his spreadsheet while we discussed the more theoretical side of the game and I bashed out a few speed painted Chaos Warriors to bring my list up to size. This meant that the games at the tournament today were his first ever. “Don’t be a wuss” I said over his concerns that he might not be ready, “You’ll figure it out, it’s not rocket surgery.”
There was a Warmachines event happening simultaneously with the WFB tournament in the same hall so there were only ten players which is about half as many as usually show up. Mario met his first opponent, a Bretonnian player while I was matched with an Empire opponent. My general was a level 2 sorceror on a disk who didn’t manage to do much of anything during the game due to having only one useful spell (Gateway) which was always shut down by the pile of dispel dice that my opponent was able to muster. As soon as he died I realised I’d bought him a Spell Familiar so he should have had a bit more utility. I also realised about this time that I had paid for a Chaos Spawn but I’d forgotten to pack one in my case so I was down a bunch of points. These things collectively displeased me. Despite my forgetfulness and the loss of my general to a wildly optimistic round of shooting from some Pistoliers I easily won the game mostly thanks to the Chaos Knights and their superhuman ability to kill things. Wandering across to check on Mario, I was heartened to find that he’d won his game too so Team Acony was off to a great start.
Next up for me was a High Elf army and Mario faced off against a Skaven horde. This one started badly for me and went downhill fast. My Chaos Knights smashed into a mid-sized unit of White Lions and got butchered due to some terrible dice rolling for armour saves. Only the army standard bearer survived and I just managed to keep him alive long enough to finish off the last survivor from a unit of Dragon Princes who had previously been on the wrong end of an Infernal Gateway. My hero popped the last Prince then fled and died. Without my Knights, I was very much on the back foot but the Warriors managed to pull things back a little. It wasn’t enough though and the game ended with a convincing Elven victory. Across the hall, Mario had been tabled in short order but had learned from the experience.
For the final game, I drew a Skaven list (a different opponent to the one who’d demolished Mario) and Mario was matched up with a Dwarf army. My game was very back and forth with many points that could have swung a decisive victory for either side. Highlights for me were Gatewaying the Plague Furnace off the table in my first turn and having my Marauder Cavalry survive the battle after actually managing to kill things. Low points were having a Skaven unit break my Marauders and clip the General as they pursued, the next turn the Marauders rallied, the general lost combat but didn’t die and the pursuing rats hit the Marauders again who they broke again and pursued into the general who was already fleeing and thus had to flee again – right off the table. Sigh.
In the end though I’d killed almost everything on the Skaven side and had managed to preserve most of my expensive units (characters aside) so pulled out a win. Mario hadn’t been so fortunate however, he’d found out the hard way that the only army that can beat Skeletons in a long-drawn out meatgrinder are Dwarfs and at the end of his game there were still a large number of stunties standing up while none of the Khemrian forces remained on the table.
Out of the ten players who took part, I came third and Mario placed eighth. Both of us tied for most sporting player and I won the best painted army (by dint of being the only player at the event with a fully painted force no doubt). A good time was had and those of the group who didn’t take part still turned up to watch and cheer Mario and I on so even though they didn’t play, they still got a little stoked for action over the winter.
