Summer Conclave

With Eoin giving out to me about how he has been writing all of the blog posts of late, I thought it only fair to contribute by posting about the most recent event that I attended.

Conclave is an annual event run by Gary and the lads from The Gathering in Limerick. The event took place in Thomond Park of Munster Rugby fame and it was probably one of the best venues for an event I have been lucky enough to attend.

A large spacious room was provided with generous amounts of room and terrain on each of the tables, upon which games of Warhammer 40K were to be played on the Saturday, with Warhammer Fantasy being provided on the Sunday.

Awesome Prizes including art by Ken Coleman

I went up early Sat morning with Richard Flood driving the pimp-wagon and Daire O Mahony and Hugh Murphy in the back. The trip went nice and quickly as we were all in the mood to discuss our armies for the day, some ETC stuff for Richard and of course 6^th Ed in all of its imminent glory!

This place is grand, but it's not Cork, like

The event was scheduled to begin registration from 9 to 10, with the event due to kick off at half 10. We arrived at 5 past 9 to learn that we were the first there and had to wait until nearly half 11 before the games got underway. While deploying we were then told to rush it since we had little time.

I am a real ball buster about punctuality so this really stuck in my craw, as did the very long breaks in between rounds and being informed that I was not allowed sit at the event, since it was a safety hazard. These issues were all sorted out mainly thanks to Kevin’s Rynn and Stronach, and to be fair to Ryan the event organiser, it was his first time.

Nevertheless an event that I was supposed to be home from for half 8 or 9 ended up with my getting home closer to half 10. This was a long old day and this could have been helped.

The rules pack for the day called for a 2250 list using Imperial Armour rules. No super-heavies but everything else goes: Awesome. I was looking forward to this as I am a poor man and have no Forge World stuff, so the chance to see some in the flesh was great. There were a few bits and pieces around the place but nothing major. Luke did have pretty much a whole IAA force of Eldar but unfortunately I did not get to play him.

How Floody's might look if he had painted it.

My list was:

Mephiston

The Sanguinor

JP Priest

5 Terminators, 3 TH/SS, Claws, Srg (who gets the Sanguinors Blessing) Claws

Furioso dread, Blood Fists, Extra Armour

10 Death Company, BP/CCW, 2 Bolter Fist, Lemartes

2 x Snippy DC Dreads

3 x Storm Ravens, all Extra Armour, all MM, 2 have TLC, other has AssCannon

It is hilarious and a version of a list I had brought to Itzacon, though this time I had no scoring units at a tourney with 2/3 missions involving objectives!

Game one I was drawn against young Eoin and his Ork Horde, and I mean horde.

A Whole lot of Orks

He had:

Ghazghkull and some Nobs in a Truck

Snikrot and some Kommandos

Mega-Nobs in a Truck

Deff Dred

3 Killa Kans

Gretchin

Mob of Boyz (100 boyz)

I later discovered that this is an Apoc formation so was technically illegal, but I had a laugh and was suitably scared looking at this wall of boys across the table. Eoin was a lovely young man and has a good head on his shoulders. He played well and made me work for the first few turns but I eventually got the charge on Gaz and his Nob squad with Sanguinor and Meph, the latter taking Gaz apart and the former inflicting some wounds on the Nobs. They took a few slaps of Power Fists back but still won combat, get surrounded in the process meaning they could not be charged by the approaching Green Tide.

Most of the Armour had been taken down by my Ravens taking turns to move 6” and unload their Blood Strikes, normally bagging a few Orks in the explosion thanks to AP1 and the sheer amount of boys on the table!

I was now able to make the assault on my terms and as Mephi and Sang finished off the Nob squad in his turn, Mephi, his job done jumped back into a Raven to lick his remaining 2 Wounds while the unscathed Sang stood in the middle of the table to ensure everyone got +1A.

The Death Company, Sang, a DC Dread and the Furioso charged the Boys and killed the Warboss and caused 50 Wounds, to none back, with him inflicting 8 Wounds back, I failed 3 and FnP’d them (Including one on Lemartes)

This left him to take 50 fearless Saves, wiping the unit. I next got to run in and kill his Mega Nobs and then had a Raven parked on each objective as we waited for Snickrot and the Gretchen to turn up, at which point I killed them.

20-0 to me as the only damage taken was a Wounded Mephi.

So after a pretty good round I went up against Hugh. I had played him the Thursday prior to the event and was fairly confident that I could take him, but I hadn’t counted on my inability to roll above a 3+ until turn 4!

Pictured: What Hugh Sees in the Mirror

He was running his usual Templars list with a few extra toys.

Marshal, TDA, Claws

Terminator Command Squad, Tank Hunters, 2 x Cyclone

Emperors Champ, AAC

2 x 5 Terminators, Tanks Hunter, 2 Cyclone

5 TH/SS Terminators

3 x 5 Marines, Bolters

3 x 2 Typhoon

3 x Auto Las Preds

He got first turn, forcing me to reserve. My toys turned up one at a time and he easily dispatched them killing the occupants with ease. The Sanguinor managed to get into combat with the TH/SS Termies, where he stayed continuing to roll all 1’s to hit for 3 turns. I eventually managed to do some damage with my Termies joining the Sanguinor to take out the TH/SS Termies and a Squad of Cyclones.

Mephi took out two Preds, the Champ and all of the Troops, the Speeders and Cyclones managed to slag all of my DC with the exception of Lemartes who in turn 6, due to being the only model left was able to use his JP to get into combat with the closest Unit of Speeders, who had closed in on my DC. He managed to kill them both, claiming what I thought was a draw on KP’s.

A hard fought game that I thought I had pulled back, only for Hugh to realise that we had miscounted the KP’s forgetting the Sanguinary Priest.

17-3 to Hugh.

Game 3 was against Kevin Stronach and his Eldar. He had some scary stuff for me to contend with.

Kevin realises that Phil Mitchel has really let himself go

Wraithseer

Farseer, Doom, Guide, Spear, RoW, RoWit

Banshees in a Serpent

Dragons in a Serpent

Pathfinders

10 Wraithguard with Warlock

5 Avengers

5 Warp Spiders

Falcon

2 x Wraithlord

Mission is Dawn of War and I go first, setting up the Sanguinor out of sight in the middle of the board with the rest rolling on in the first turn.

I was cagey with my forces as I was scared he might roll a 6 with any one of his Wraithcannon on my transports removing the Model, and thus the occupants from play!

I turbo on and take some long shots at his Wraithseer who shrugs off all of the Wounds. The Sanguinor moves forward still hiding.

His turn one and his forces arrive but fail to see anything, with my raven all having moved about 20” instead on their full move just in case.

Turn 2 and I used the Gunships to Kill the Wraithseer and the Falcon  pinning the Avengers and the Farseer on that side of the board. Sanguinor moved forward and charged the Wraitguard, dispatching a few with the third Raven containing the Termies Parked on his lines after Turbo Boosting to get into position to rear shot his Dragons, only for him to pass his Boost save.

This left his Dragons free to move over and wreck my DC Raven in the centre of the board, which he did thanks to Crack Shot ignoring my boost, his other shooting bounced off with his Banshees getting into a position to counter charge any further offensive.

Mephi debussed and moved to help out the Sanguinor dispatch the Wraithguard while the Termies moved back to charge the Pathfinders and the Banshee Tank, the Furioso moved to cover them, hoping to kill the Banshee transport and hold up the occupants. The DC and their Dread made light work of the Dragons and their Serpent with the Dread blowing it up with a rear armour shot, killing a few Dragons in the process. This wreck provided a huge piece of dangerous terrain however that my DC would be forced to charge into and having dispatched the Dragons, they were forced to go through and remain in due to them raging at the closest enemy, who was the hapless Farseer and his Avengers bodyguard, who were now the only part of his army left. The Termies and Dread made combat Blowing up the Serpent and a few of the Banshees in it and easily dispatching the Pathfinders.

So began the slow march at the Avengers and Seer.

Kevin unloaded the Avengers with Blade-storm into the DC only for FnP to ruin his day, his Farseer moved bravely forward throwing his Spear and then Charging a DC Dread only to roll 1’s and 2’s on the Chart, both of which are ignored thanks to one of my favourite Special Rule titles “None Shall Stay My Wrath”.

Seriously, none can stay it.

The clean-up was straightforward here and gave me my second 20-0 for the day. It wasn’t until I got home and began preparing this blog entry that I realised we had forgotten the Warp Spiders, which totally gives Kev the moral victory. Great game.

A successful day at the office gave me a respectable 43 points giving me third spot and most importantly finishing above Hugh who finished fourth. Suck it Hugh.

Though I did have some issues with aspect of the organisation as I have already stated, I must say that I had a great day out with some fun and challenging games. My thanks to the organisers and I look forward to returning to the event, especially if it is likely to be in the same venue.

I totally played in Thomond Park!!

I have played here, honest.

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"

K-Con: A Traitor and his Con

Time for another tournament report everyone. Yay, happy times! However, for the first time ever this report comes from a tournament in which I did not partake in any drinking. I know. A scary thought. I'm scared too. The reason I wasn't drinking was because I was the one driving to said event. The event in question was K-Con. K-Con was a one-day, 5 round, 1000pt, 40k tournament held on Saturday, February 11th in Gamers World, Dublin and run by John "Traitor" Stowe.

All of the links, all of the time.

The tournament would be utilising a form of composition restriction that means that you have to take units from each section of your codex in roughly equal amounts. Meaning, after the obligatory HQ and two troops to take two heavy options you must have taken one fast, and one elite etc. The rulespack also denies the ability to take duplicates. This is the reason this format is called Highlander. More detailed info is available in the rulespack available here. Many people believe the Highlander format got it's name from the famous line "There can be only one" which comes from the 1986 film. I like to think the name is Highlander because Christopher Lambert will decapitate you with his sword if you try and spam units because Raiden don't roll like that.

 

Well I referenced Mortal Kombat so this was a logical step

The list I took is specifically designed for decisive tactical play. It was:
Codex Blood Angels
FUNBUS
Mephiston
Chaplain
9 Death Company with 2 power weapons and 2 powerfists
Rhino
Death Company Dreadnought with Blood Talons
Stormraven with Multi Melta, Assault Cannon and Extra Armour. 

See I was wasn't joking about the decisive play. That tactical play just happens to used by my opponent to make my RAGE units to run around in circles. Also my list contains no scoring units so to win objective games all I have to do is wipe my opponent off the table. Awesome.

Anyway, as I said earlier I wasn't drinking so I could drive up a car full of people from the Capital all the way to Dublin. In my car were:

Barry "On a 6 can I do it" Hickey who was bringing broken Space Wolves with a broken Thunderwolf Lord of broken-ness

Merv "I don't need Space Wolves to win" Murphy bringing the Vanilla Marines of mediocrity. Spoiler Alert: He totally needs Space Wolves.

Donal "Lives under a bridge with Lenny" Carroll using Wolf Scouts and friends. Donal was here to see if playing Space Wolves means you auto do well. Another Spoiler Alert: It totally does.

and last and most certainly least  
David "Already wrote a tournament report on this" Coleman using a different version of the Funbus.
 

We were all dressed so Fabulously.

So after downloading some quality 80's tunes and threw them on CD, albeit with some Rammstein (because I know how much Merv complains about music he hasn't heard before) it was time to hit the road. After collecting all the lads it was hitting the road time, for future reference "hitting the road time" is like 6 in the morning, and we struck off to Dublin.

During the journey Merv was nice enough to give me advice for the upcoming Fantasy tournament I was going to (that review is up next) and was my first foray into WHFB. I was going to be playing High Elves, Merv's old army. It turns out that his advice was the same advice I had heard everywhere else. Teclis and White Lions, all the time, everytime. Apparently, Teclis is "face meltingly broken"

Silly Nazi. Using Teclis without proper protection.

Anyway enough about Fantasy. We arrived in Dublin, parked up and high tailed it over to Gamers World to get out 40king up and running. Upon arrival we were chastised for our tardiness. It's all well and good for Stowe to give out about people being late, I mean, Meath is already in Dublin. Due to being late it was straight into game one with no time for chatting with the lads. That'll have to wait until after game 1.

Game 1 had me up against Alan Garvey and his Chaos Marines. At K-Con there was a prize awarded for people who created a list that used the third "tier" of the comp restrictions. This mean bringing at least 2 HQs, 3 Troops, 2 Elite, 2 Fast, 2 Heavy and 1 more unit at 1000pts with no duplication. A mean feat by any standards. My first opponent completed these specifications so his list was something like:

All squads are minimum size with no upgrades(including the havocs)
Chaos Lord w/ no upgrades
Summoned Daemon
Noise marines
Chaos Marines
Khorne Beserkers
Havocs
Raptors
Preadator
Dreadnought
Chaos bikes
Chosen
And some other things I've forgotten.

Like this but Chaos Marines

Now having a list with only a single gun being able to kill my Stormraven might seem ideal but we were playing an objective mission, meaning I had to kill his entire army to win the game.  12 or so units. Class. Well the game was very straight forward. Alan knew exactly how to win the game even with a complete inability to kill my units. He reserved his bikes to have them boosting around for the end of the game. He got my death company out in the open and have them running around in circles for the game. Fortunately for me I was able to just barely kill all of his units. Game ended 20-0 to me. I must say that Alan is one of the nicest people to play. He had come with a list that was designed to do nothing but win the novelty prize but he had passed 1 more save in turn 5 it would have been a draw. Great game against a lovely player.

I don't have a picture of Alan but here's a different nice guy.

After Game one it was time to say my hellos to people. It was great seeing all of the Dublin and Northern Ireland based gamers. After many chats I was pitted against an Northern gamer and an old nemesis of mine, Rowan Sheridan. We had played at Warpcon and he had beaten me and now we were playing at K-Con, it was time for revenge. Hopefully. He was once again playing Necrons which included:
Lord on a barge,
Destroyer Lord,
Wraiths,
Annihilation Barge,
Warriors,
Immortals,
Solar Pulse,
Veil of Darkness

I'm not saying anything. It's just a band in a wagon.

We were playing Dawn of War, Killpoints. Also know as yay, I don't have to wipe him completely. Class. I won the dice roll and elected to go first. Meph deployed front and centre next to "his" Rhino. The raven was boosting on turn 1. All of Rowan's unit were rolling on turn 1. Long story short Rowan killed half of my army, which unfortunately for him is 3 kill points. I managed to kill an Annihilation Barge, Command Barge, his warriors, the wraiths and the Destroyer lord. Game ended as a win to me on Killpoints and roughly equal on VPs, so a straight 15 - 5 to me.

That day it was Death Company flavoured.

After this game it was time for a burrito break. I headed over to Bujom(sp?) with Ryan "Has never gotten sick from drinking" McMullan as he was signing this places praises for what seemed like one thousand years. After a very edible lunch it was time to head back to the shop for game 3. This had me up against Grey Knights. I was playing Ray O'Kane in Pitched Battle, Capture and Control. Ray's army consisted of:

Draigo
5 Terminators
5 Paladins
Psy-rifle Dread

In this game I suffered from a serious case of didn't read the rulespack-itis. I was unaware that games could not go on past turn 5. I won first turn and deployed my army. Ray reserved everything. Paladins and Dread walking on and the Termies were deepstriking. I was boosting around in circles until turn 3 when the Paladins and Termies turned up. The 1 psycannon destroyed my Stormraven leaving all of my stuff fall out. Meph and the Death Company killed his Terminators while my Dread charged the Paladins. The Death Company Dread couldn't kill the paladins and the rest of my stuff was too far away to contest his objective by turn 5. Ending in a win to Ray. Entire game over and done with in less than 10 minutes.

And makes you look like less of a fool at tournaments.

All of that spare time was a very bad thing as I a) couldn't fill it with drinking and b) was in a place full of things I wanted to throw money away on. I am an absolute fiend for impulse buying. Luckily Dave finished his game early too and we could sit down, play liar's dice and hurl abuse at people. This kept us entertained until it was time for Game 4. My game four was against Kevin Salendini and his Eldars Noirs (That means Dark Eldar, he's french) in Dawn of War, Wipe him out (or as he called it, objectives). Kevins army consited of
Ravager,
Venom,
Razorwing,
Raider,
Incubi,
Wyches,
Trueborn,
Warriors,
Scorges.

I won first turn and deployed Meph about 7 inches behind the Rhino which was on the 24 inch line. My Raven was hanging just off the board ready to launch forward. Kevin, being French, seized the inititative, came on and blew up the rhino. Turns out Meph was just within 6 inches of the tank which rolled a 6 inch explosion, rolled a 6 to wound him and he failed his 2+ save. Pretty much sums the whole game up. In my turn my Raven drives forward 24 inches. My assault cannon doing nothing to a Raider. Meph double one perils casting his jump pack, double six perils casting preferred enemy before charging some scourges(?), I think that's what they were. He kills 2 and takes a wound from them in combat. It was all coming up Mephy.

Kevin destroyed me here. My death company did nothing before dying to a incredibly low amount of splinter rifles. My DC dread took 3 turns of combat to kill 5 trueborn before get shot and dying. I'm pretty sure the game ended 18 - 2 to him. Moving swiftly on.

Your wyches fight like girls. ICE BURN! I feel better now.

After some more hanging around it was time to play game 5. I was up against someone who had in the game just before played Dave's fun bus and had not come out the better for it. Luckily for me it meant he had some practice against this list. Wait...... actually, that's not good for me. Ah well, it's not like it changes my tactic of RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR CHARGE THINGS. 
My opponent was Jamie Byrne and he was playing Chaos Space Marines with:

Demon Prince, Wings, Warptime
10 Chaos Marines, Meltagun, Chaos Glory, Power Fist
8 Berzerkers, Power Weapon, Rhino
8 Summoned Daemons
3 Obliterators


Basically I won first turn and had a serious advantage going first. In turn 1 I boosted the raven which had Meph and the Dread in it towards his 'zerkers and Prince while my fast rhino went after his marines. His reply is to shoot the Oblits to no effect and position everything to make it harder for me. Thankfully with a solid fleet roll from meph he manages to get into the prince and draw combat at 2 wounds each. The DC Dread manages to melta the Rhino and charge the contents. The Death Company make the marines and wipe them out. The Raven also kills an Oblit. With the marines with the Icon dead the daemons also die. In his turn 2 the oblits immobilise the Raven while Meph kills the Prince and the Dread finishes the 'zerkers. My turn 3 I kill all the Obliterators. Game ends with a win to me. I felt bad for Jamie having to play 2 fun buses back to back. The same thing happened to Rowan as he played Dave right after me but he beat me at Warpcon, so screw that guy.

Jamie, sorry you had to play Dave.

So all told I ended up in 7 place. My congratulations go to Ralph risk for winning the whole tournament. Colin Murray for picking up second and Dave for going for the sad, hiding draw in game 5 and getting 3rd. It was a shame but after the event the validity of ralph's win was called into question. He has been accused of trading certain "favours" in return for his round 5 opponent throwing the game. I don't know the validity of the statement but I can tell you I think neither party would ever be involved in anything like that.

Ever.

So after we said our goodbyes, got ourselves a nice bit of food we all got in the car to head home. After getting lost, thanks to Dan "Nerd, True Story" Ahern and having to head through Naas, we got on our way home. On the way home we worked out a hilarious Space Wolf list for Itzacon for Donal after Wolf Scouts and friends doing so well at 1000pts. A great day had by all. Thanks John for a great event and I'll see you this weekend in the same place for the masters(report due in 4 years).

You can't cover Gaelcon

So I realised if I post my Gaelcon tournament report now I'm only like 6 months behind. That's a result! So here it is. Well first things first: I played in Gaelcon, a 1750pt, 5 round, 2 day tournament in Dublin on the bank holiday weekend of the 29th to 31th of October. It was originally meant to be held in the D4 Hotel, I say originally because the convention had to be moved to the RDS once the D4 hotel was renamed "Dublin's Underwater Halloween Wonderland". That's right, an Act of God tried to ruin my weekends drinking. But hey, I'm from Cork. Floods have never stopped me drinking.

Pictured: SkibbWargamer Tadhg in his apartment.

 Gaelcon saw me mix things up altering my auto-win Space Wolves list:

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)
8 grey hunters w/ melta + power weapon + wolf standard + rhino w/dozer blades
8 grey hunters w/ melta + power weapon + wolf standard
9 grey hunters w/ melta + power weapon + wolf standard
5 grey hunters w/flamer
6 long fangs w/ 2 lascannon + 3 missile launcher
6 long fangs w/ 2 lascannon + 3 missile launcher + rhino w/dozer blades
6 long fangs w/ 5 missile launcher + rhino w/dozer blades

See how I made it look like I was going to change things up but in fact still have 3 squads of long fangs, 2 runes priests and loads of Grey Hunters? That's what Space Wolf players are like.

I got on the aircoach with a bunch of the lads on the Friday and off we struck to the Big(ger) Smoke. I spent most of the journey fawning all over the White Dwarf that had pre release pictures of the new Necron models. I know it's all old news now but let's pretend like it didn't take me a 7 months to get around to writing this, alright?  Upon arrival in Dublin we made a direct beeline for Gamers World on Jervis St. I'd heard many great things about this place and I now know it's the venue for K-Con 2012(review due sometime in 2015). After we had a look around and bought various shiny things, we then decided it was probably time to head to the hotel. The floods has us staying in the Bewleys Hotel in Leopardstown so we had to take the Luas. Finally, having Cáólán "I used to be so metropolitan" Gibbons around became useful as he knew his way around Dublin and got us to the Luas in no time. All that didn't really mean a whole lot as it took us, at a conservative estimate, 11 hours to work out which Luas we needed to get on. There were only 2 options, that one or the other one. Sake!

I'm pretty sure both options are wrong.

After finding out how people in Dublin dislike being asked for advice we finally got on the tram and off we took to Leopardstown. Upon arrival we were met by Paul "Can't just stick to one codex" Quigley who took us to our hotel. Hurray, a bar, it's finally time to start drinki- wait a second - 6 euro for a pint, each? Class. At this point myself and Cáólán dropped our stuff in the room, left everyone watching a rugby and took off into Oil Can Harry's the pub for the event where we were assured that there would be cheap(er) booze. Quigley had left but now he was back and we(I) got progressively louder. After many hilarious stories, sambuka, pints and an ill advised amount of vodka we hopped in a taxi and took off for Leopardstown. As people who have read this blog before know, vodka is a bad, bad drink. It does evil things to me. In this instance, however, I wasn't feeling the effects. I'm sure that when I hung out of the side of the taxi shouting "YOU CAN'T COVER ME, CONSTRUCTION WORKERS" at the people fixing the road it's because I'm hilarious and nothing to do with the drink. Anyway, the rest of the night is pretty much a blur. A fun blur, but a blur none the same. I remember shouting, drinking, hitting fellow bunny Tadhghghgghghgg "f" Murphy in the face with a magazine, being put in a headlock, more shouting, drinking, kicking people and going to bed. Yay for Gaelcon.

Yay, I say!

The next morning wasn't exactly fun times but the hotel breakfast helped, a lot. As it was Halloween myself and Tadhg dressed up in costumes, country style. This basically involved wearing bin bags in inventive ways and I went the extra step wearing underwear outside my pants, You know, just like Superman. Eventually we had to take them off because 1.) Bin bags collect heat like no other thing I've ever worn and 2.) The other nerds were jealous. We were showing up their lack lustre attempts at dressing up. Like Dan "recognized cheater" Ahern. Pictured here:

He didn't even try and get the beard right.

I am not one to award mediocrity but he had gone the extra mile to secure an elusive SkibbCon 2 T-Shirt to compete the outfit. Anyhow, game one had me up against Mike "s1r_mike" McConkey from the Arkham Gaming Centre, the proud owners of a large amount of my money that weekend, in Spearhead Quarter grab. Mike was playing Elderad Mech based Eldar. With Falcons, Wave Serpents, Fire Dragons, Dire Avengers, Jet Bikes etc etc. So lots of last minute objective grabbing. Just had to make sure that he had no tanks left come turn 5.There are a couple of important things that should be noted about this game:
1.) There was a big THING in the middle of the board blocking LOS from all of my things to all his things.
2.) I was still really drunk
3.) Elderad would mean I can't really use any of my powers(Tempest Wrath would be really good)
4.) Most importantly, Space Wolves are retarded.

Why is this a thing? Anyone?

So Mike wins the roll off and gives me first turn. I don't know why but I have the sneaking suspicion that Mike is going to go full reserve here. So I deployed 2 squads of Long Fangs where they could see all the objectives in the two unoccupied quarters. I would have deployed so they could see the other objectives but Mt. Dick Eoin Over in the centre of the board had other ideas. The third squad deployed where the could climb the aforementioned mountain should Mike reserve. This squad were joined by 2 rune priest squads in rhinos. My third squad was lined up to drive towards an empty quarter. This is where my genius move comes in. I infiltrated both squads of wolf scouts. Not because it was tactically sound, not even because an unexpected move might throw Mike giving me an edge, it was because, as I mentioned before, I was still drunk.

Like, proper hammered.

Couple of things of note happened in this game. Mike went full reserve so I used an Elderad-less turn to cast tempest, got a double one perils but it still went off. As Mike comes in from reserve one falcon (the one unit not killing my retardedly placed scouts) decides to risk it and boost to a pretty decent position hiding behind everyone's favourite stupid mountain and rolled a one. Class. Space Wolves take one wound, kill 2 units. Sounds about right. Mike made some very good moves throughout. Blocking LOS and negating charge against infantry with stupid, stupid Falcons but at the start of my turn 5 my guys remembered they were Space Wolves. 1 turn and 11 missiles, 4 lascannons, 4 melta guns and 2 wolf standard charges later I killed all of the things and I had 4 objectives and Mike had 1. Stupid Wolves.

Insert Pun Picture here.

After sobering up I was against David McCurdy who I had met previously when I heckled from the Home Nations last April. David is a fantastic guy with a really nice Grey Knight army which contained the bane of my life, Grey Knight Terminators. As well as a land raider full of inquisitorial, henchman-y death and psybacks with strike squads. David was also my sole Grey Knight opponent at the weekend despite reports that at least 47 thousand people were playing them at the event. I had a great time with this game and we destroyed each other. It was Dawn of War killpoints and I managed to sneak a win in the last turn as my entire armies shooting managed to bring down 3 terminators that had started as 5 before running though a full strength, wolf bannered Grey hunter squad. To win my 1 kill point. This move made me the first of 2 SkibbWargamers to snatch a victory out from under David in the dying seconds of the game that day. What a dick that Cáólán guy is.

Gaelcon 2010

This second win had me playing Pearce "The Bunny" Condren or as I like to think of him, that horrible person who had me unjustly evicted from the student bar in Limerick. Time for some payback. Pearce was running a mech Blood Angels list consisting of Predators, rifle-dreads, Lasbacks and a Whirlwind!  My Long Fangs decided that they were a bit exhausted from being so ludicrously under-costed so decided to not hit anything or make any saves this game. Fair enough as they do a whole lot of work most of the other times.  Pearce is a good player who made a break for my objective at the right time (we were playing the one objective game) just as I made a break for his. Turns out I was unable to kill his whirlwind parked near his objective and the game ended. It was a win to Pearce and I couldn't hold anything against him, well accept that Limerick thing. God I hate that guy.

Deceiving looks etc

So 2 wins and a loss after day one and it was time for food and more drinking. Ah drinking. Now I'm going to be honest here. The Saturday and Sunday night have kind of blurred together as I had never gone to a convention over a bank holiday before so have no way of differentiating the two days so here are the highlights from both nights. Nigel "W-ired" Kavanagh threatening to "glass any bitches who wouldn't go to an event run by John Stowe". Nigel kicking Donal "Wolf Scouts and Friends" Carroll while he was defensless on the ground. Ah Dublin. I remember heckling an auction. Heckling cheaters at a Table Quiz. Donnacha "One of the Family" O'Mahony doing a very good impression of yours truly. Everyone being asked to go inside to the pub because there were some very loud, very rude, non-gamers ruining it for everyone and we had to intimidate them.

How I pictured us

Then we have the forming of the Red or Black Association and the appointment of Ivan "Crutch Army" Sheehan as President and Tadhg "Tesla" Murphy as Junior Vice-President, Senior Referee, Head of the Red or Black FAQ Team and Designated Sober. Following this we had an epic battle between myself and Alec "Best BT General" Corneilius and myself for title of "Intergalactic World Red or Black Champion, of the World" with myself being crowned victorious. WWWWWWWHHHHHHHEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWWW.

The games pulls a big crowd.

So after about half of those events, I'm not really sure which ones, I went to bed Saturday night. Then it was up the next morning for more lovely free breakfast and once again not being able to get the bus to the RDS. More taxis. Yay. My happiness was shortlived as it turns out I was playing Merv "Thanks for paying taxes" Murphy. Myself and Merv have a weird 40k history. We play dice games against each other. In equal amounts. Every time we play one of us get retarded luck and wins. We played a game on the thursday before Gaelcon and e called it after turn three because he had 2 units left. This time, however, Merv failed his first save in turn 4. Well, I ended up losing this one surprisingly. I would feel bitter about this had I not just done the same thing to him at Itzacon. Must remember to ask him for a friendly game before the next tournament.

... I hate you

 With my 2 wins and 2 losses I was up against Matt MvVaigh another Mechdar which was Falcons with Harlequins, the Avatar, Elderad and Guardian Jetbikes. We were playing Kill Points and I ended up winning by multi charging one squad of harlequins with 2 guys from 2 different squads and putting the rest of my guys into the falcons. With my wolf banners popped I brought them both down and ended up getting pulled into combat and killing the harlequins in his turn(the last one) to win by a kill point. In fairness to Matt however he could have easily won because my wolf scouts fluffed and both squads died. He tank rammed a rhino to death and survived the long fanging so he could have just bounced around for the remaining 5 turns. Instead he wanted to make a game of it and went after the VPs sink that are my rhinos full of guys. Great game and a lovely player.

These things need to go die in a hole.

Well after 3 wins and 2 losses I ended up on 17th out of 54 people. A solid result and I was delighted with the 5 great games I had. The craic was unreal and I will definitely be heading back next year, granted I'll be bring some alcohol with me.

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!