TownCon 2011

So seeing as Gaelcon was over two months ago I thought it might be about time to add to my series of posts I'm thinking of titling "Eoin travels around Ireland, gets drunk, makes a fool of himself and also Warhammer 40,000" by writing up a review of TownCon 2011.

TownCon was a 1750pt, 2 Day, Warhammer 40k, Ranking tournament held from the 23rd to the 25th of September in Kilkenny. It was run by Mr. Paul "Look at me, I moderate W-ired" Quigley. TownCon was also the 2011, Warhammer 40,000 Grand Tournament. Exciting, huh? Also being all progressive n' stuff, Paul was using the ETC scoring rules. There are 2 missions per game, primary and secondary. 8 points for primary, 4 points for secondary and 8 points available for VPs. I find this type of scoring very interesting and was looking forward to using it.

Before I get into anything more specific I would be remiss if I did not explain the origins of TownCon. It all started at Itzacon in March 2011. Myself, Caolán and a group of the WAC lads (not to be confused with the WAAC John "I play Necron now" Stowe) including Donal, Dan, Ivan, Nick and some others were, not surprisingly, in the pub, drinking. We were approached by some poor, unfortunate fella trying to inform us about this new tournament being held in Kilkenny called..... to be honest, the name escapes me. "A convention, in the town?" we relied in unison. "A Town....Con?" until finally we were doing nothing more than shouting the word "TownCon" at this man until he caved and decided to officially and forevermore change the name of the convention to TownCon.

What can I say? It's all official.

With whatever they originally wanted to call the event long forgotten it was time to ship off to the middle....wait east........ hold on, where is Killkenny? Does anyone even know? Anyway, I decided since it took so little effort at Bro-Con it was time again to bring stupid, auto-win Space Wolves.

My list was:
Rune Priest w/ tempest wrath & jaws + chooser of the slain
Rune Priest w/ murderous hurricane& stormcaller + chooser of the slain + wolf tooth necklace + melta bombs
2 x 5 scouts w/meltagun
4 wolf guard - (2 x combi melta + wolf claw + melta bombs) & (2 x combi melta + powerfist)
2 x 8 grey hunters w/ melta + mark of the wulfen + wolf standard + rhino w/dozer blades
2 x 5 grey hunters w/flamer
6 long fangs w/ 2 lascannon + 3 missile launcher
6 long fangs w/ 2 lascannon + 3 missile launcher w/ las plas razorback w/dozerblades
6 long fangs w/ 5 missile launcher w/ las plas razorback w/dozerblades

Okay, maybe not all wolves are auto-win.

Once again the Skibb Wargamers had a healthy contingent present., 4 to be precise. Things started on the Friday with everyone setting up tables and terrain in the hotel. Unfortunately, my late finishing at work meant I had to miss all of this as I only made it to Kilkenny in time to make the pub. I was upset....... I'm just going to have to live with it, I suppose. At the pub everyone met up. The lads from Cork, the Kilkenny lads(or as they like to be known, The Townies), some new lads from Dublin and Floody. That night the Townies showed us around the town. Pints were drank. Whiskey was drank. And once again Little Dave surprised us all by not getting thrown out. The score between myself and himself in the game of "getting thrown out of pubs at cons" is still 2 - 0 to me.

Pictured: Kilkenny

Just so everyone is aware, I'm a big fan of the Townies, even more so since they officially called themselves "The Townies". Awesome guys. After a good night of drinking with them we all headed back to the hostel where all the people I was in the room with had to deal with my snoring, suckers. After some sleep it was morning time and I was in need of 3 things: coffee, lucozade and people to shout at. After a healthy dose of all three Cian was nice enough to drive myself and Tadhg to the hotel. It saved us the trouble of walking the entire length of Kilkenny. I mean, it's like a whole 30 yards.

Once we arrived we got our passes from the TownCon people, fought the Fun Police and then it was mingling time. The DGG boys only arrived on the Saturday so we had a catch up. It was only a week since I'd seen most of them because of NWG but I hadn't seen Ralph "I have to borrow my father-in-laws toys" Risk since Skibbcon 2.0. Myself and Ulick "I won't give him a nickname because he has it bad enough being from Kerry" O'Sullivan threw abuse at each other as per usual. This is why I love cons. Also the drinking.

I'll take 2 blues and a yellow please, Barman.

So round 1 kicked off and I was paired with someone I had never met before, Simon Fitzpatrick. He was playing a Space Marine army. Simon's a lovely guy with a cool list. Squads of devastators with large amounts of wounds. Tac marines with heavy weapons. Assault marines in drop pods and lots of razorbacks. Unfortunately for Simon the first mission's primary objective was killpoints and his army relied heavily on combat squads, as well as having easy killpoints in the drop pods and razorbacks. In fairness to him he did see that he was at a disadvantage and went for it. Combat squaded everything, playing aggressively and really just being mean to me and my poor hangover. In the end I managed to win primary, win secondary and come ahead on VPs for 17 points. A really good start but one that put me in a pretty terrible situation....

I'm friends with Paul Quigley and was happy that his event was going so well. It was this friendship that stopped me from causing a scene when drawn against know cheater and ruiner of cons Dan "True Story" Ahern. I knew somebody was going to have to bite the bullet and play him so might as well be me. Dan had decided to cheat with Tau at TownCon bringing lots of Broadsides, lots of Crisis Suits, lots of Kroot and the Firewarriors he was obliged to take. Ah no, I love Dan. Even if he was acting hyper all weekend. I think it's being in his home town, it's like a power source for him. Myself and Dan were already 2 pints each in by the time we found out we were playing each other. We thought it was an occasion worthy of some more drinking, more pints! The game was, as always, good fun. With me winning on primary and him on secondary. We drew on Vps leaving me with 12 points.

It is impossible to be smugger than this man. It's been proven. With Science.

This left me on enough points to be playing Donal "WHEEEEEEEEEEEW" Carroll. Donal was playing Tyranids with 2 Tervigons, lots of Hive Guard, 2 big Genestealer Squads and an awesome Hive Tyrant Blob. As much as I love 'nids, mathematically Spaces Wolves > Tyranids. With Jaws, wolf banners, wolf scouts and a large amount of high strength AP3 weaponry the advantage was most certainly mine. Things were not helped my Donal's poor run roll for his Genestealers managed to just leave him in terrain precharge so my full, conter-attacking, wolf bannering, grey hunter squad got all of their attacks in first. The wolf scouts were, once again, heroes taking out tervigons and about 3 seperate Guant squads. Class. I won on both Primary and Secondary objectives but Donal's Hive Tyrant managed to boss it up and gain about 800 Vps in the last 2-3 turns. 3 squads and a rune priest. Nice! Game ended either a 16-4 or a 17-3 to me, I can't remember.

This reminds me of a movie. I just can't think which one. Ah now I remember, High School Musical 3.

With all of the Warhammer out of the way it was time for the real fun to begin, the Saturday night. Things kicked off with a trip to ruin the TownCon table quiz. We had quite a large team including members from SWG, WAC, The Warheads and The Townies. It was like the UN, except with gaming clubs instead of countries and also shouting/drinking/ruining things instead of whatever the UN does. Things got a bit heated with the other teams(which, for the record, were full of NERDS) and one woman threatened David "Made us all like him, then turned out to be a Warhead" McHugh, the most unassuming of all of us. We assume it was threatening although I still think she might have been coming on to him. She said she would "@~#! his *^&% up and make sure his $£%" never &^£%"$^% again". Sexy.

After (morally) winning the table quiz and armed with the knowledge of how fruits and vegetables are different it was off into town, for a night on the town, in the town. The incredibly nice folks of TownCon managed to arrange vouchers for free shots for us. Much to my surprise, when I redeemed my voucher the number 6 displayed on the front did not show the voucher number but in fact, the amount of shots I would be getting. I think this fact absolves me of any and all responsibility for my actions. It was at this point the group got split up and it was a night of walking between all 4 of the places to get alcohol in the town to try and go drinking with everyone. After many hours, and many high numbered vouchers, someone who shall remain nameless: Peter "Look at me I can do maths" Scott said he was going to "the bathroom" which I'm assuming is some kind of Warhead code meaning "stopping drinking and going home, like a big girl". I continued to drink with the Townies until all of a sudden I woke up on the Sunday morning. Magic.

I'm the drinking version of Harry Potter.

After packing up all my stuff from the hostel and acquiring a breakfast roll it was back to the hotel for more Warhammer (Warhammer was really getting in the way of my drinking this weekend). Turned out that first game of the morning was against my old foe Alec "Burger King Hat" Cornelius. Alec's list had changed since our last encounter, it now contained fancy things like Harlequins. This time it was my turn to go first and hungover/drunk Eoin decided to hide his long fangs in a similar manner to sober Eoin's move at Bro-Con. This was not the best option here and Alec managed to hang out in the corner for the game and deny me plenty of kill points. Alec had some terrible luck with 2 of his units not arriving until turn 5. This did, however, work out in his favour as the game ended after turn 5 so his two recently arrived tanks could contest objectives unmolested. Once again I had a great time playing Alec and he is a lovely guy to have a game against. I look forward to any games we have in the future. He won the primary objective, I won the secondary and we drew on killpoints leaving me with 8 points. Space Wolves really are stupidly forgiving.

The face of a man with no fear of Space Wolves.

So after my first 4 games my points added up to a grand total of "the same as Cáólán" so it was myself and himself. SkibbWargamer vs SkibbWargamer. I am a big fan of Cáólán's list. By a big fan I mean I think it's really scary and really utilises the best thing about Blood Angels, fast tanks. He uses a 6 Predators(3 autocannon/lascannon and 3 Baal) and 5 razorbacks(4 twin las and 1 heavy flamer). It's cool, unless of course, you're playing against it. If that is the case then Cáólán is a WAAC jerk who tries to make 40k no fun for anyone. I won the roll to go first which is the start of a series(ALL) of rolls to go in my favour. No seriously, it was ridiculous. I stopped to check if I was cheating. Not just legal cheating like using Space Wolves but actual, Dan Ahern cheating. I am, however, legally obliged to say that Cáólán took it all very well and in no way got pissed off. In no way. That should keep his solicitors happy. Anyhow, what with an indestructible squad of wolf scouts destroying the back of his army and my long fangs blowing up anything they even thought about shooting the game was swinging quite heavily my way. Even in the later turns when his guns finally switched on I already had the primary objective and my scouts pipped the secondary in turn 7. He did manged to claw back a draw on VPs, leaving me with 16 from the game.

Here's a picture of Cáólán post-game.

So with 3 wins, 2 draw and the points deduction for my wolf scouts having camo cloaks but not ACTUALLY having camo cloaks, I ended up in sixth place. Proving once again, space wolves are silly and should not be allowed. I packed up all of my things, said my goodbyes and took off in Dick "Dick" Flood(y)'s Landrover for Cork with a nudist, a priest and a child. I'm sure there's a long winded joke that starts like that but I'm going to wrap this up. Congrats to German ETC ringer Jannik on his win and in closing: TOWNCON!