Sunday, February 2, 2014

Post Paca Wrap


Well, I have returned to the much friendlier climate of California and begun to thaw out (not to mention sober up).  It is time to put thoughts to computer screen, or whatever.  I thought I would start with general impressions/rundown of the tournament, following with a brief description of each game and then close with the assessment of the army itself. 

The Tournament

My traveling companions for the weekend were Ld2’s Tony, Ed and Justin along with Fred of West Coast Hammertime fame and Josh of G&W.  Que and his wife would join us at the venue and fly under the Ld2 colors for the event.  We landed in Milwaukee Thursday night and immediately started bar hopping in subzero weather (see hinge’s Ramblings #1).  Breakfast Friday morning at CafĂ© Benelux, I highly recommend btw (see Hinge’s Ramblings #2), pile into the suburban and head north to Wau Paca and the venue.

All I can say about this tournament is holy crap is it fun.  It has to be up there as the best time at a tournament I have ever attended.  Que owed me Friday nights bar ta due to losing a bet on the Niner-Green Bay game and I was determined to rack it up.  The hard part is at $7 a 32 ounce microbrew that can be tough to do.  The shenanigans both Friday and Saturday night were off the hook.  Some of my favorite moments were pool basketball with the Skull Bros Boys and Tomlin of Black Sun Podcast called me the “Will Ferrell of the Warhammer World” 

We are streaking in the Quad!
smoking outside+shirtless+two fisting 32 ounce beers+Polar Vortex=Frost Bitten Nipples




The Games

Round 1-Nabrolean (WoC)-  Dawn Attack

L4 of Tzzeetch on Disc w/ 3++, unkillable BSB on Demonic mount, L1 of fire on Demonic mount, 2 units of hounds, 2 units of fast cav, 2 chariots, gorebeast, warshrine, and 4 skull crushers.  Fast and mean. 
The Skull Bros showed up to the Parade of Banners all wearing Luchdore masks with Mike wearing a complete Red, White, and Blue outfit.  It was awesome and I even got a pic of Mike.

Mike aka Nabrolean with an unidentified Skull Bros



The scenario was Dawn Attack.  Random deployment was a bit of a pain for me but not that bad.  I reach across the table to shake Mike’s hand when RuinsBruins smashes me in the back of the head with a chair, turning Mike picks up his chair and does the same.  Sheesh, these Skull Bros are taking the wrestling thing way too far.  Well, if I am one thing if not a veteran tournament player and I learned a lesson from a wily southern gentlemen from Arkansas many years ago, always bringing a sack full of doorknobs to a GT!  Head butting RuinsBruins to create some space, I reach under the table for the sack and deliver a vicious blow to Mike, sending him flying.  To my surprise, he not only gets up but has a sack of door knobs as well!  We stand there exchanging blows for two hours until Roeder and Broeska tackle me.  Just as I am about to extricate myself, Bruins regains consciousness and pile's on, allowing Mike to “count” up the score and he declares himself the winner, but feels generous and allows it to be a narrow victory.  They then turn in the results and declare it cannot be changed before letting me up. 

All kidding aside, it was an awesome game characterized by some wild dice rolling on both our parts and super clean play.  Mike made zero mistakes while I made a couple of small ones that Mike capitalized.  He would have been my favorite opponent except tourney rules do not allow it for grudge matches.  I look forward to a rematch someday.  Mike would go on to smash all before him to take a second consecutive Paca Best Overall. 


Round 2- Dennis (WoC) – Meeting engagement. 

Nurgle DP of Death, BSB, 2 units of hounds, 2 big blocks of Nurgle Warriors, big block of Nurgle knights, amazing paint!

I deployed deep.  Scenario rules allowed me to deploy one of his units and I choose one of the warrior blocks and put as far away as possible.  This had the effect that each unit was coming at me one at a time.  I had a scary moment with P sun but was able to scroll it before taking the DP off.  After that, smash each unit in detail for a nice win to salve my bruised ego. 

Round 3- Grant (woC) – Blood and Glory  (hinge Ramblings #3)

Khorne DP of flying destruction, Khorne BSB on demonic mount, throgg, 3 units of forsaken, chariot, fast cav unit, 2 big blocks of khorne ogres.

I apologize to Grant for my awful singing.  By scenario rules, you could get a boost to spells by singing.  My 4 brothers all have musical talent with 2 being professional’s, I cannot carry a tune!  What the hell.

Grant pushes forward.  I use chaff to break up his lines.  Artillery remains el fuego and takes the DP off on the first turn.  The squigs hold up the BSB and Throgg long enough for my artillery to take out the fast cav and the Boyz to hunt down one of the Ogre blocks and break Grant’s fortitude.  Super fun game with plenty of drinking and bad song selection.  Grant got my favorite opponent. 

Round 4-Chris-Dark Elves, Battle Line

Helbron on Cauldron, Death Hag BSB on Cauldron, L2 of death, 2 big blocks of Witch Elves, Big Block of Sisters 5 shades and 5 warlocks. 


While memorized by boobies, these bitches will cut your balls off with power tools!

Fortunately there is a river between us that would significantly slow down Chris.  I use my artillery to quickly take out the Warlock and Shades so I can grab dominance in the movement phase.  I stop Purple sun then ‘eadbutt the L2 into the next state, grabbing magic dominance.  Then it is hammering the Sisters until they are gone while frenzy baiting the witch elves.  I have a nice little victory wrapped up with the bonus objective in hand when my night goblins fail animosity and charge the rear of Helebron’s unit, who had been turned completely away from my battle line.  This allows her to turn around and come back at my lines.  While the witches were severely depleted at this point and I could have taken the unit, I did not want to risk disaster since I knew I had the victory in hand.   I pull the fast cav unit that was holding the objective back and double flee Helebron's charge figuring they could rally and with 18” march grab the objective back.  I of course fail to rally the unit.  Ugh.  With that said, always take the win. 


Round 5 Robert-OK-Battleline

Slaughter Master, BSB, Massively huge Irongut block, 4 mournfang, 3 scouting maneaters, 2 sabres, and an Ironblaster. 

Tough list but one I knew I could grab the movement phase from.  I take the sabres down quick, pull the mournfang over fanatics/mangler and clean them up with a troll and chariot, the squig herd eats the Maneaters.  My opponent ends up sucking his Slaughter Master down a rabbit hole and I immediately get Foot off to smash up the Ironguts.  I then send in the Boyz who demolish the unit (with the help of ‘ere we go), break it and run it down for the victory.  Of the 5 games, this is the only one magic dominated for me. 



So 4-1 and enough soft scores to get me a 4th place finish, a nice improvement from last year’s 9th.  Paca was a blast and is now in my never miss category. 


The army performed well.  With 8 units worth less than 70 points and highly mobile, I really out chaffed my opponents and was able to pick every combat except a couple against Mike.  I played a much more castling game then is my usual style this tournament.  I think this was forced on me by my opponents usually being much faster than me.  So it was castle the main units, spray the chaff out, smash with artillery then come out swinging. 

Magic was a disappointment and I really missed the L2 Gobbo.  I felt there was really only one spell to cast each turn, either Foot or ‘ere we go, leading to more of a six dice monkey magic phase.  It was useful in taking out the L2 on Round 4 and did excellent work against the Ogres, but was non-existent the other three games. 

Black Orc General.  I was worried about this guy but he was a beast in combat.  Mostly he went double choppas rather than great weapon.  He smashed a Gorebeast Chariot in a single round (with a little help) and was generally awe inspiring.  The Crown of Command was a total waste since I could really determine what combats I was getting him in.  I would have also been better served take the standard of discipline since several failed leadership 9 rolls cost me throughout the tournament.  On the other hand, the Razor Standard gave me confidence to go hunt down WoC heavy armor. 

Artillery.  Just awesome.  Doom divers really just kick ass.  It was the star of the tourney.



Well, up next is the US Masters and I will get my list up soon.  

Late,

Hinge

Hinge's Ramblings #1

The cold slamming into us as we stepped out of the airport would be the start an endless stream of Hoth/Empire Strikes Back jokes.  941 by my count.  

Hinge's Ramblings #2

Turns out every dish in Wisconsin is served with bacon on/in/around/or as a side.  So delicious.  

Hinge's Ramblings #3

Yeah, yeah.  Three WoC in a row.  I was starting to wonder if they play anything else in the mid west.