With the blog in need of a bit of upsurge in content, I thought it was a perfect idea to link current gaming with blog content. It’s a shame Mordheim doesn’t fit tangential commentary or that Guild Ball players had the time to write up batreps about the system, but time is money (as I find myself, as a semi-professional freelancer; especially for Barry when he’s missing out on gaming!), and as the anointed administrator of the blog it’s kind of mandatory!
I won’t be doing more detailed reports like Chad (or as well I expect; my excuse being I have my own
writing and paid work on top of these duties and others to really!), but will
try and give the reader the gist (mainly I put my miniatures down, then remove
them!) and my thoughts on the game. Playing a formation of Wulfen wasn’t the
wisest move for this format, so don’t expect any tactical genius!
The first game of the knockout round was decided by the order
system and that meant I was drawn against Rich and what turned out to be a
dreaded Imperial Knight list. I haven’t actually played Rich at 40k (having not
joined the club when he was rocking his Emperor’s Children in the 1k league the
Spartans had going at the new premises at the time) and I think our last games
were during the Fantasy escalation league against his Sylvanian Empire army (I
think!), with his love of the undead, featuring his wolf riding demigrpyph
knight alternatives and other great conversion work as is expected from him. With
9th Age becoming popular, I’m sure he’ll be dusting them off soon!
My reason for entering the cup was to get to start a
catalyst to enjoying 40k again (having fallen out of love of it for a little while,
but I think gaming interest peaks and wanes in phases), or at least, a spark to
the flame! And also mainly to get the opportunity to play people I hadn’t
before (variety is life spice as Matt says), and for me gaming is a social
activity and the chance to get to know people better than I wouldn’t otherwise,
is worth propping up the table as the wooden spoon (something I seem to get a
lot of)!
I won the roll off to start and rashly let Rich deploy first
in the slimmest (im)possible hope of being able to deploy my units in a more
tactical fashion. In retrospect, it would appear utterly pointless, but having
not played in ever it seemed like tactical enough at the time. Oh well! Setting
the terrain without any line of sight blocking scenery also didn’t go in my
favour! The scenario hampers movement, and if the set-up was 24 inches on,
rather than 12, the Wulfen could really give people headaches first turn.
Deploying second was a bad, very bad idea - Wulfen awaiting impending death!
The board setup did little to change Rich's deployment!!
It was nice to play against such well painted miniatures and
I felt rather guilty about playing my unpainted grey horde of Darwinian-transitory-sapiens-style-inspired-wolf
men whose hackneyed (sure there’s a pun there...) karate posing has turned a
lot of people off an interesting close combat beast into the 40k meta. Rich’s
freehand is outstanding and his knights, matching his 30k Word Bearers, have
been daubed in appropriate symbols and liturgies to give an inclusive overall
look when he plays his knights allied in with his traitor force for 30k.
I was hoping that grey plastic would mean that the army
performed better (having seen tournaments won by – the idea being that gamers
too busy to paint are better gamers because they’re too busy gaming; and like a
recurring pattern I’m not as it turns out!), but misreading my rules (with my
habit of “I dun goofed”), didn’t exactly help the result!
In spite of the terrible photo, you can still see the detail at work in Rich's freehand.
As expected, I was shot off the board before I could even
amount to doing anything, by turn 2 as I recall. The fixed scenario of having to gain objectives
meant I had to be less aggressive as I tried to hold onto objectives to
generate cards and then try and complete them. Doing the exact opposite of what
my army needs to do isn’t really what I want to be doing, even if they do have
a 3+ invulnerable!
In short, I moved my Wulfen eagerly up the bed in my first
turn, before receiving a load of firepower in return. My warlord was vapourised quickly to give Rich those bonus points and I then continued to move
around to try and hold objectives/generate cards and was basically shot off the
board (again, down to my inane ability
to shoot myself in the foot at all times, hey who said difficult wasn’t fun?!!)
.
The highlight for me was the stubborn remaining Wulfen
valiantly trying to hold on to the objective to the last man and still going to
blown away anyway. Going into the competition, setting my targets as
realistically low as possible means I can at least walk away less shamefully
with more knowledge about my army works! The target is to increase the
longevity of games each time I play to try and survive being shot off the board
each time; I can but try!
As long as I make progress every time I compete I’m happy (akin
to what my driving instructor said about me advancing along – I passed second
time haha!).
Valiant Wulfen trying to outlast the untired guns, soon to be dead, very dead!!
The Knights didn't stay in the same place all game, moving forward turn 2 to get nearer objectives, just in case!
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