King of the Gnoblars 2012

As I wrote about in a previous post, I recently started playing Warhammer Fantasy Battle. My main reason for starting was the fact I signed up to play in a Fantasy tournament run my WAC member and all around handsome man, Rob "Lovely Jumpers" Gleasure. The event was King of the Gnoblars and it was a 2400pt, 5 round Fantasy tournament held on the 3rd and 4th of March in UCC. Here's where you'll find the rulespack. The event was using SCALE a very interesting version of comp, if you'd like to find out what SCALE is then you can read the rulespack, read my previous post, click this link.

I'm not kidding about his jumpers. They're at least 3 times as lovely as this one.

Well the list that I was bringing, thanks to input from the aforementioned Prod Rob and everyone's favourite red name, Nigel "Got tabled by the Child" Kavanagh was:
TEAM FULL COMMAND
High Elves [SCALE SCORE - 0]:
Level 4 ArchMage, life, 4+ ward, scroll
Level 2 Mage, shadow, jewel of the dusk, seerstaff [pit of shades, mindrazor]
Noble with BSB, GW, armour of caledor
28 Lotheran Sea Guard, shields, flaming banner, FULL COMMAND
30 Spearmen, shields, FULL COMMAND
20 Swordmasters, FULL COMMAND
28 White Lions, FULL COMMAND
5 Reavers
5 Reavers
Repeater Bolt Thrower
Eagle
Eagle

For those of you who don't know about/play fantasy here are the main parts of the list: Magic and White Lions. I'm not going to lie, the magic usually bites me in the ass but those White Lions, they win all the things.

Do you want to throw down?

Anyway, after finishing work on the Friday it was time to get some food and head to the pub to meet the lads who were coming down from Dublin and the North. After several pints there, a couple of us headed across town to meet Dan "Bye Buster" Ahern who had been out with some work people. I would give you some kind of a humourous account of what happened here but I was in no state to be remembering what went on. Something, something, shots, true story, something, something. What I do remember was that I had loads of fun and the hangover the next day was totally worth it.

A toast in memory of my liver.

So the next morning I made my way over to UCC to get ready for my first game. This involved recieving serveral different models from various different people. After I had my army it was time for my first game. Game 1 was a challenge against WAC player and fellow 40k-head Hugh "I'm sorry" Murphy and his Chaos Warriors. Thankfully the open lists system means I have easy access to his list which is here:

HUGH*
Warriors [-1(0]):
Kholek (605),
Throgg (175),
Level 2, tzeentch, disc, golden eye, scroll, third eye (235)
BSB, tzeentch, shield, biting blade, 4+ ward (200)
18 Warriors, tzeentch, standard, musician, shields, blasted standard (366)
7 Trolls (315)
5 Dogs (30)
5 Dogs (30)
Shaggoth, ahw (275)
Giant, slaanesh (265)

It could use more cat-lasers. Just saying.

My first tournament game of fantasy. How exciting. Well, Hugh had brought an army of Troll-things including a guy called Kholek Suneater who has 18 wounds is strength 50 and auto kills everything within a 2 mile radius, or something like that. Who could destroy my whole army if he got across the board. So.... I had to stop that. His main weakness is his lowly initiative 1. This makes him a perfect target for a spell called "Pit of Shades" which is a blast template that makes you pass an initiative test or die. Just like Jaws of the World Wolf, yay. So this entire game was basically me trying to pit of shades him while he tries to stop me.

Get it? I love puns.

In my first attempt at the spell I manage to random the random and it both scatters off him and blows my wizard up. In my second attempt I once again randomed the random so it scattered off of Kholek and blew up my wizard again. This time the wizard dies. No more "Pit of Shades". Stupid fantasy.

How do you scatter off him? He's the size of a house.

So without Pit of Shades I was kind of boned. However I still had one tactic left in my arsenal. The tactic that has now become known as fantasy-ing someone. I basically threw some dice at the problem until it went away, randomly. More specifically I cast "The Dwellers Below" at Kholek. The Dwellers Below is like Pit of Shades except it's a Strength test and, thankfully, can't scatter. You might remember from earlier that Kholek has Strength like 1000000 or something. This is where the, in retrospect, best and most balanced part of the fantasy rulebook comes in. You auto-fail all characteristic tests on a roll of a six. Guess what Hugh rolled? A four. Ah no, I'm kidding, this is fantasy, he totally rolled a six and Kholek died a fiery magic death.

It's a bit good.

So with Kholek dead it was just a case of killing things with White Lions until the game was over. With everything counted up it was an 18-2 win to me. Thanks for rolling that 6, Hugh.
Game 2 had me up against an actual fantasy player, John John. I think I heard somewhere that he usually plays Salamanders, I think, anyway this tournament he was playing Orcs and Goblins with this list:
JOHN JOHN
Orcs and Goblins [0]:
Warboss, armour of destiny, warrior bane (170)
BO Big boss BSB, shield (117)
NG level 2, scroll (110)
SO level 2, obsidian amulet (135)
SO level 2, shrunken head (155)
20 Night goblins, standard, bows, 3 fanatics (145)
36 Savage orc big 'uns, musician, standard, ahw (431)
20 Night Goblins, standard, bows (70)
Wolf chariot (50)
11 Trolls (385)
Spear chukka (35)
Spear chukka (35)
1 Troll (35)
1 Troll (35)
24 Squigs, 15 handlers (237)
Rock lobber (85)
Doom diver (80)
Mangler (65)
Mangler (65)
Pump wagon, spiky roller (60)


To be perfectly honest, I have no clue which of those things were which when I played them. However, I have grouped them into 4 different, easily distinguishable categories:
1. Things that killed me with magic
2. Things that killed me from far away
3. Things that killed me close up
4. Things that could have killed me but I was already dead when they got there.

Foolish plan 1: Playing Fantasy

I did have fun though. I got to run my Reavers around. I also got hit with a weapon that involves putting a foot template on my units. Nice. John John went on to get second which I like to think i contributed to with conceded, through various different scenario conditions, about 130% of the victory points I started out with.

Isn't Maths fun?

So that was 0 points for me. Leaving me on 18 total. Class. That amount of points meant I was playing against Chris Mince, who was playing Vampire Counts. He was taking advantage of an apparent loophole in the comp that meant that Manfred Mac Vampirestein was a really good choice as general of your army. There were about 4 or 5 people using this guy at the tournament. His entire list was:

CHRIS
Vampires [0]:
Mannfred (530)
Vampire, vampires, dragonhelm, scroll, seed of rebirth, beguile (177)
Necro, level 2, vampires, cursed book (135)
33 Zombies, standard (104)
34 Zombies, standard (107)
20 Zombies, standard (65)
5 Wolves (40)
30 Ghouls, ghast (310)
Spirit host (45)
2 Bat swarms (70)
Corpsecart, lodestone, spear (121)
29 Grave guard, GWs, champion, standard, barrows (418)
3 Vargheists (138)
Mortis engine, blasphemous tome (240)

It was around this time that I had renamed the Magic Phase, the Random Phase. I also had Ivan "Nudie" Sheehan sit down next to me and help me explain to Chris why his game system was ridiculous, random and stupid. We also explain he should totally come play an actual game, like 40k. All of this happened why Chris was soundly beating me into the ground. I remember one of his things being big and making all the things around it much better. I then tried to kill that thing and failed. Ah well. At least I got a whole zero points out of the game. Chris's toys were really, really beautiful and it was nice to be thrashed by them.

Unfortunately not available in the High Elf Codex.

Well that's enough stupid, random fantasy, on to the drinking. A bunch of us headed over to the Bierhalle, a very nice restuarnat with a large selection of craft beers. For the first time since we first met I was out drinking with Rob so I decided to make him drink a couple of  "craft" beers. "Craft" in this instance is code for 15% alcohol. After 3 or 4 of these and a very nice burger we took off into town. The night was a mixture of shouting, drinking, comparing fantasy to 40k, drinking and towards the end tequila. Oh so much tequila. Rob is a fiend for tequila.

I have no idea where Rob found that hat.

After we finished up all of the tequila in the world we headed for home. Rob was staying at my house and myself, himself and Nick "Nuns with Guns" Meade stopped off to get some food on the way home. Rob, telling us he was okay for food, elected to sit down on the raised footpath for a "breather". Then, while myself and Nick were inside the classy food establishment Rob began to vomit so spectacularly and with such fervor that by the time we came back outside an crowd of more than 10 people had gathered to cheer him on. I felt so proud of him but also understood exactly why his wife had not let him drink with me. Oh well, home to bed.

You can do it, Rob.

I have the feeling that I felt somewhat better than Rob in the morning as we both traveled to UCC for the final 2 games. As we arrived we found that we had all been locked out. Oh no. Apparently no one agreed with me that we should abandon all hope of ever getting in and just go to the pub. Some people *shakes head*. Eventually we managed to make it in. After informing everyone of what had happened to Rob the night before it was time for game 4. I was playing Mike from Limerick, one of the genuinley nicest guys I've ever played against in any game. He was using this list:
MIKE M
Warriors [0]:
Lord, tzeentch, steed, aethersword, 4+ ward, favour of the gods (344)
BSB, nurgle, shield, flaming banner (170)
Level 2, nurgle, spell familiar (155)
Level 2, death, scroll (145)
Level 2, fire, charmed shield (125)
17 Warriors, nurgle, shield, FC, rapturous (352)
35 Marauders, nurgle, FC, flails (225)
29 Marauders, khorne, FC, GWs (195)
19 Marauders, tzeentch, FC, shield, l/armour (154)
5 Dogs (30)
5 Dogs (30)
9 Knights, nurgle, standard, banner of rage (445)
Warshrine (130)

He had some terrible luck in this game but that didn't stop us from having loads of fun. Surprisingly the Swordmasters were the bosses in this game. Winning one combat, overrunning into another combat and then ALSO GETTING TO FIGHT IN THAT COMBAT DURING THAT PHASE. What a silly, silly game. Thanks to Mike's terrible luck the game ended with me having 20 points.

Good job, dice.

So going into the final game I was up against Mal who was playing Vampire Counts. Again with Manfred Von Bite-ur-neck:
MAL
Vampires [0]:
Mannfred, hellsteed (560)
Vampire, vampires, hellsteed, h/armour, lance, shield, dragonhelm, other trickser's, scroll, quickblood (229)
Necro, vampires, cursed book (100)
Wraith (60)
Wraith (60)
40 zombies, FC (130)
40 zombies, FC (130)
40 zombies, FC (130)
22 zombies, FC (76)
5 Wolves (40)
5 Wolves (40)
5 Wolves (40)
5 Wolves (40)
10 Black knights, FC, flaming (300)
27 Grave guard, FC, greatweapons, barrows (404)
2 batswarms (70)
Corpse cart (90)


This game only got to about turn 3 which is mostly likely due to me being a massive newb. It was a little different to Chris's list which was nice. This Manfred was on a horse with some friends(also on horses). Unfortunately for me, Mal cast a spell on the awesome white lions of awesome which reduced their leadership and they ran away. Without enough turns to rally I lost them all. I was sad. But hey, random game is random. Game ended as a 15 - 5 win to Mal.

Okay, that's me deployed. Your turn 1.

So after 5 games I was on a very respectable 43 points. This meant I came 15th out of 22 but much more importantly I came third out of all the 40k players there. Result. Also, surprisingly, I won most sporting opponent. All I can say about that is everyone must agree with my, rather loud, opinion that fantasy is a stupid, silly and random game. It sure is fun though. I'll be looking to play more in the future. Thanks Rob for a great tournament and thanks to all of my opponents for putting up with me.

Next tournament report is about my travels to Galway in "Itzacon: The Revenge of Warpcon"