Holy smokes Batman! Hinge is back!

Wow, it has been two and half months since I lasted posted.  Damn that thing called Real Life and a job.  It has seriously cut into my hobby time, with next to no painting, no non tournament games, no posting on forums, and no blog posting.  It is out right depressing and has surely contributed to the massive amount of drinking I have been doing.  Though come to think of it, I drink a lot when I play a lot.  I guess it’s just the Irish in me.

  

However, I have not let life stop my tournament schedule.  In March I attended Lonewolf in Texas and in April, the West Coast GT in SoCal.  This upcoming weekend I will be attending SAWS where I am sure it will be a thousand and twelve degrees.

Preview of the SAWS Venue.
Prepare for Gamer funk and ass crack sweat galore!

So sitting here in the pre-SAWS heat wave, I have loaded up the blender with Pina Colada’s and decided to start catching up on the life and times of a demented warhammer tournament player.

We left this sad tale with our hero (that would be me) preparing to lock horns with the best of the best of those willing to show up at the first ever US Masters.  I gave my over view of the event and my army in the last blog post. How the hell did the our hero do.  

Round 1 Mark-Skaven

I hate Skaven with the burning passion of 10,000 white hot suns.  The good news is Mark is one the Texans I have gotten to know well and have even travelled to Texas to visit for non-warhammer reasons.  I had also played him before and thoroughly enjoyed the game, which is shocking since he plays nothing but Skaven.  His list was reasonably soft and most importantly, Mark seemed to forget that every Skaven list needs a Grey Seer!

I felt I controlled the game and got the combats I wanted.  However, Mark has a singularly superior skill, the ability to roll low leadership tests.  Through the use of Treason of Tzeetch, getting into flanks to disrupt, and widening the battle to keep the BSB out of range I quickly forced Mark to make a slew of Leadership 5 and 7 rolls without the benefit of a re-roll.  Mark hit his first five leadership 5 checks in a row and never failed a Ld 7 roll.  Despite killing 2,453of his models, I decided that since Mark is the TO at the next event I was attending, that it would be best to declare a draw.  Because That is the kind of guy I am.  

10-10 Draw

Round 2 Ryan – Empire

Ryan was packing a Light Council Empire list backed by two units of Demis, Steam Tank and two huge blocks of halberds.  Feeling pressure due to a draw in the first round, I drive straight at him, playing into his army perfectly.  By round 4 I was headed towards a 20-nil loss when the Chaos lord decided enough was enough.  He quickly finished the Stank, demolished the Arch lector and his war alter, and hunted down the opposing BSB which had foolishly left a unit.  There was a bit of hankiness with Ryan at the end with his L4, which magically was not part of a small skirmish unit he was sitting a half inch away and in perfect formation with when it was found out I could charge around his peg captain and make contact with the unit.  Of course being part of the unit is handy when I was slinging magic missiles around!  In the end, I let it go as I was a little pissed at my play.

6-14 Loss

At this point I decided to hold a inspirational “half time” pep talk for the West Coasters, who were getting crushed.

 

The chair still has not returned from orbit
Though I believe the West went 8-2 that round!

Round 3 Brandon – HE

Brandon was rocking an anointed on a Frosty, 2 Flame Phoenixes, Death and Metal Magic, nothing but Cav and Skycutters.  Fast and hard hitting in the right situations.  Additionally, there where objective markers to grab.  However, I was able to bait Brandon it bad charges, grab the objectives and clean up his force.  Half way through, one of my unit champs turned into a demon prince and really hemed in the rest of his force.  With the Chaos Lord and DP running amuck and forcing his cav into my infantry where I could pin them, I earned a win that started to salve my bruised ego.

20-0 win

Round 4 – Ben-HE

Ben is a good guy and regularly travels cross country to attend QCR.  This would be my firstchance to play him.  A heavy shooty army backed up by shadow.  This can be very scary for my force and I decided to play conservative.  I got Treason off on his big character bunker and killed a nearby Eagle.  Ben rolled his panic test, one die rolled a six while the other skidded off the table.  The tension built as he picked up the die to re-roll.  it was now a 50-50 shot that I win the game right there since he would have gone off the table!  Alas he did not panic and Ben quickly made sure I could not pull that off again, Mostly by sending a eagle hero in to assassinate the Tzeetch mage!  I would clean up his chaff, chariots, and RBTs while losing my chaff.  My Chosen would get shot down to a single model but I always kept the shrine between the survivor and his shooting to provide a mobile hard cover platform.  Embarrassingly, Ben charged a unit of Reavers into the flank of my Knights and was able to get a boosted Mindrazor off!  Oh well.  I eaked out the smallest of wins.

12-8 to the good..err.bad guys.

Round 5 – Brian –WoC

Brian clearly made only a few concessions for comp and had a kitted out Slanesh DP and a horde of tolls waiting for me.  To add insult to injury, one of his unit champs ascended to deamonhood and I was faced with two DP.  I sent the Chaos Lord at the free DP with the idea that I would Gateway the general off the board.  Alas this would be a mistake as Winds were piss poor the entire game for me.  It became a race to see who would kill more, his DP or my Lord.  I finally got gateway off the final turn but Brian made just enough Saves to have a single wound left!

12-8 win

With the two minor wins at the end, I was safely ensconced in the middle of the pack for the finish.  With the exception of game 2, I felt I generally played well, set up the conditions for wins without exposing myself to defeat.  However, those conditions required either a bit of bad luck or a mistake on my opponents part and neither happened all weekend.  My list was fundamentally flawed in that I could not push a little harder to pick up more points.

My younger self is not happy!

Up next, a friendless Lupus and Black Friday Rules!

Stay tuned, same Bat time, same Bat channel.