SkibbCon 2.0

Anyone surprised by the fact I'm writing a tournament report so soon after my Gaelcon (well in Eoin terms it's soon) will be relieved to hear that I haven't gone mad, this one is about a tournament held nearly a whole year ago. SkibbCon 2 followed on from the fine tradition of SkibbCon in many ways. It was still situated in Russagh Mill, it still had an emphasis on having fun and most importantly drinking. However, some changes were made, mainly to facilitate more people being able to come. As such SkibbCon 2.0, held from the 10th to 12th of June 2011, was a Warhammer 40,000 doubles tournament with no more than 1000pts being spent by each team member using a standard Force Org chart(remember that part as it comes up later on). The only other restriction was that both the armies on a team must be similarly aligned to the Forces of Order or Disorder.

Armies of Order: All Imperial Space Marines. Imperial Guard. Eldar. Tau and Kroot Mercenaries. Witchhunters.

Armies of Disorder: Chaos Space Marines. Daemons. Orks. Dark Eldar. Tyranids. Necron.

I found that Orks being a Force of Disorder to be a bit harsh.

18 teams were signed up as of Friday night from all over the place. We had a large contingent down from The Town as well as some people I didn't know from Limerick. After much "socializing"(please note that in this article this means heavy drinking) it was time for the table quiz. After having through the shame of last year's mix up with the team names, things were a lot more organised. Now there is no age filter on this site so I can't go into detail about a lot of the team names but apparently Caolán likes to suck balls of many different types and in great volume. The majority of the team names were a testament to this. The quiz was tense where cheating and blackmail were rife and a threat of physical bodily harm was doled out to Andrew Kirwan, who was not in attendance, by SWG president Cian. In the end it was the aforementioned ball-sucker's team who won and netted themselves a nice bottle of alcohol. I suppose we could have given something more sensible as a prize but shut up.

It's okay, Merv wasn't there so it was safe.

After the quiz it was time for another SkibbCon tradition, drunk poker. It was impressive to see that even though Jason "REALLY likes Stephen Fry" Lane was playing poker he could also play another game that I think is called "Hey! You look like you're winning poker, have some absinthe". It should be noted that even though he was playing that game he still managed to drink an unholy amount of the stuff himself. Much merriment was had including ringing Dave "Crap at 40k" Coleman at 3 in the morning to shout at him. My night ended when at half 5 I was told I should go to bed as I was too drunk and had to organise things in the morning.

I'm sorry. I'm sure it won't happen again................

So in the morning I awoke, begrudgingly, to find some nice breakfast and some new attendees who had driven down from Dublin and Limerick. After hating them for not having hangovers it was time to begin a marathon of 40k.It continued for many, many hours but hey, we were eating and sleeping in the same place so there was no need to hurry. Not that anyone tried. Because I wasn't playing this next part are just going to be a selection of photographs and abusive comments.

Gribble gribble

1 Grey Knight model versus most of a Tyranid Army

Here we see Ivan's Vindicare Assassin about to be charged by a large part of Derek Barry's Tyranid army. Unsurprisingly, the Grey Knight won out, proving even more that Ivan only plays crutch armies. Also, that lack of a paint job by Ivan cost his team a podium finish.

I can't look at this any other way than John whispering to his models.

After spending so long talking on the internet and on podcasts about how much he wanted to attend SkibbCon we see John "Doesn't drink his whiskey" Stowe playing the fluffy and fun Deathclut in Landraider spam with Long Fang spam combo.

All Infanty Guard

If you look closely at this picture you can see a finger pointing at the infantry in David Chamber's famous infantry guard list. HINT: They're in the tanks.

Mt. Long Fang

Here we have 36 long fangs on a single terrain piece. This army belongs to the Double Space Wolf combo of Chris and Ulick. That is a seriously undercosted ruined building.

Mt Fire Warrior

Yes, that is the same building. This time full of Pa's Firewarriors. I'm going to go right ahead and say that's not as point efficient as the Long Fang one.

Taking Neck Beard to a new level

Ah my nemesis. Alec "The Gypsy" Cornelius picture here with former SkibbCon winner Tristram "Just back from a wedding" Hills.

I'm glad this thing has a flash

In the absence of solar pulses we had to have a way of introducing Night fighting in a non Dawn of War mission. Solution: Still be playing games at half 11 at night. All thanks to Bruce "Not playing Tau this time" Sutton's apparently invincible Land Speeder.

WTF are these things?

Pictured are, I think, Kevin's Eldar. They were partnered to the invic-land speeder having marines. I just don't have any idea what those models are meant to represent. Proixied Fire Dragons? That's probably it.

So after the day's games wrapped up, around half eleven it was time for the serious drinking to take place. However, before this could begin there was a slight problem. It turns out there was a problem with one teams list. Now this team will remain nameless but it seems like Dan Ahern and Pat Corr thought they were playing in a 2004pt doubles tournament. Now as I was trying to come up with an amicable solution to this predicament I had Dan constantly repeating this one sentence to me: "Shut up, give us 0 points and drink this." So I did.

Many hilarious things happened. One of my favourites was when I dumped a bucket of ice water on Chris and Tadhg. It was totally worth having to go outside in the rain, to get a mop and clean it up. We rang Dave again, ha suck it, Dave. Red or Black was also played. I still maintain it's the most taxing of drinking games. Damn you, Alec. And to a lesser extent damn you too, Stowe. My girlfriend had to carry a hammered drunk, sorry, food poisoned Tristram up a flight of stairs as he tried to requisition my room. I would have helped her but, ....... yeah.

Yeah.

So I think I got to bed. I'm not sure. I don't remember waking up. I spent the entire next day hammered. Walking around, being unhelpful and shouting for no reason. Again I wasn't playing so here are more pictures.

Alec: "What do you think we should do here, Tris?"

Tris: "I'll catch them off guard by pretending to be asleep then you roll dice at them until they die"

Here are some pictures of Alec and Tristram playing "Best Army" Winners Darran and Bob. Team Town were thrown in at the deep-end here after finding themselves in 3rd position after being gifted 20 points by the generous Team Cheating. Turns out Wraithlords don't like massive amounts of venoms. Who knew?

SWG's president Cian hoping using an actual battery will help keep his Battlewagon going

Can it see us? Oh balls.

So because we felt bad for Team Cheater we decided to give Dan and Pat a very special gift. SWG member Sylvan had made some absolutely amazing seals for us to give as prizes and we could think of no better recipients of these impurity seals than these guys.

Dan is the smuggest man in the world.

So that was it really, or as much as I can coherently remember. I'm really looking forward to the event this year and finally getting to play in a doubles game. I want to thank everyone who came down to our convention. I want to congratulate all of those who won prizes:

1st place - Dyslexia Untied - Richard Flood + Pádraic Ó Confhaola
2nd place - The Kabal of the Bunny Run - Tristram Hills + Alec Corneilius

3rd place - Earth on Hell - John Stowe + Ralph Risk

Best Army - Awesome Raptor - Robert Brennan + Darren Kerwick

Wooden Spoon - Off at Stephen Fry - Jason Lane + Pat Bourke

I also want to thank Craig for his invaluable help with admin. The SWGers: Caolán, Chris, Cian, Emma, Pa, Sylvan and Tadhg for their invaluable help with everything else. You guys are a great bunch of people to cater for and here's to many more SkibbCons. I'll just leave you with one thought....

Top Gun.

Musings on Imperial Guard

I was recently in attendance of Wargames Association Corks (WAC) annual event "Astronomicon" held in University College Cork.

Due to the event being primarily a fun weekends gaming, yet featuring some of the best local gamers, I was quick to sign up, but with a twist. I took the opportunity to take an Imperial Guard army that Dave Chambers was nice enough to lend me.

Not only are the models beautifully painted but Dave is one of the unsung heroes of the local scene, for when he isn't ensuring that friends can borrow either his Guard or his equally beautifully painted Space Marines, he will be playing the "by" list in either 40K or Fantasy (in which he also has several gorgeous armies) or helping to organise the event.

List was as follows:

Company Command Squad: 4 Plasma, Astropath, Bodyguard, Chimera, H. Flamer

Company Command Squad: 4 Plasma

10 Vets, 3 Melta, Chimera, H. Flamer

10 Vets, 3 Melta, Chimera, H. Flamer

10 Vets, 3 Melta

10 Vets, 3 Melta

3 Valkyries

2 Hydra

2 Hydra

Leman Russ Executioner

Game 1 was against Colin and his standard Codex Marines list using Daves other beautifully painted toys. This list has 3 Drop pods. I got first turn, he reserved, I moved around my Vendettas so as to boost back in turn 2 and get saves for my Vendetta's, block most line of sight to my army and prevent him from dropping too close to my list. Seems sensible right?

His turn one two pods came in and I realised I was obviously still drunk for having made such a school boy error. Cue to the loss of a squad of hydras and 2 Vendetta's. His Ironclad bagging the former and his combat squaded Sternguard the latter. This led to an uphill battle from here on in but I managed to get the draw with VP's making it an 11-9 in his favour.

Game 2 was against Hugh and his Templars. I got first turn and deployed aggressively. He decided to reserve all but a 5 man squad who camped on his objective. I killed them and then everything that came on as it came on till I ran out of rounds. Had I played a turn six I would have tabled him. He did 0 to me but was left with a wounded Marshal and a Land Raider so I got a 19-1.

Game 3 was against Merv and the first of his Space Wolves lists ( he played a second list on the Sunday, the one that he submitted to the ETC). He got first turn and I deployed in cover, using my Valks to soak up as much of the firepower as I could by scouting them into his face.

Cue me failing every cover save and armour save from exploding tanks I was called on to take and I was pretty much doomed from turn one. I clawed back some points by baging a few Razorbacks and Long Fang squads but not enough to matter. I had a draw in turn 5 but it wasn't to be and by the end of turn six he had me beat.

Had the game ended in turn 5 I could have got another 11-9 but the extra round and my having exposed myself to get the draw resulted in an 18-2 to him.

Game 4 was against Little Dave and his double storm raven and Descent of Angels Blood Angels list.

I got first turn and deployed surrounded by terrain, spaced out so as to make his DoA hard even on one D6" scatter. As described earlier, I Scout moved and set up my Vendetta's so as to move them back and provide more cover for his arrival from turn 2.

This worked quite well. He got two troops and a squad of HG in on turn two. One of the squads Deep Struck onto my models and went back into reserve with a lucky 6. The remaining troops and HG landed in plain sight of my Executioner and decided to run out of template formation rather than shoot down something. My plasma squads disembarked and combined fire left him 2 marines from the HG. His Ravens turned up in turn 3 and I bagged them both using orders to make him re-roll the cover saves. I finished off the remaining HG who had killed one of my CCSquads.

Meph and one Dread shot into a Chimera hoping to bring out the contents but did so only in the assault phase, leaving me ready to pummel them with all of my fire power, while the other Dread charged the vets that had killed his Raven. He killed 1 Vet; they held. His other squad also arrived taking out a Chimera on the other side of the board that had been heading for his objective lest Meph survive and contest mine.I proceded to shoot everything and Meph made a stupid amount of cover saves only to move onto my objective. Daves remaining squad moved back to snag his objective as the time was running out. Game ended before anything else could happen.

One more turn and I could have wiped Meph but prob not all of his marines so it would have been a draw, as it was I got a 13-7, killing Meph would have made it higher but I was happy enough.

Game 5 I played Merv again with his ETC list.

He got first turn in Dawn of War. I rolled on most stuff in turn 1 with a Valk and a Vet squad and a CCSquad staying in reserve to deal with his scouts. I deployed two empty Chimeras so as to use their Searchlights to pop a few tanks as I rolled on.

This didn't work out though with his rolling boxcars twice to see my chimera's and stunning both. My stuff came on and got killed. I just could not stand up to the firepower of 3 LF squads and 9 TLLC Razbacks. 19-1 to Merv. Less said the better.

So what did I learn? Chimera's get in the way of shooting. Using this to your advantage is a key to blocking the already slow mobility of the Guard. Side armour shots against Armour 10 mean that even a plasma will get through and if you blow up a transport the chances are he is loosing 5/10 Vets minimum and they can easily be pinned.

Vendetta's are cool and all but can be taken down fairly easily by combined firepower. Remember that they are not Storm Ravens and are susceptible to Melta and have weak rear armour. If you can take away the save they go down easy.

Hydra's are simply awesome. Tricks of the trade are hiding one so that both get cover saves, be careful of that. Also as a squadron they get to fire smoke once, as each one does it separately and the unit counts as obscured. Once you have silenced them, move on.

If they are not shooting they are useless and chances are there are other things to take care of. While the executioner is seriously threatening, it tends to miss, a lot. I mean I averaged about 2 in 5 on target each time I shot it.

This list was not optimised. I went with stuff I thought was good and left out stuff like Manticores, Platoons and other staples that I thought were superfluous. I was wrong. Simple things like lining up 25 marines in an "L" shape in your back field prevent Wolf Scouts "Operating Behind Enemy Lines" and other suck infiltrators, The Manticore will Instant Kill big characters and take down tanks that your lads will not be in a position to deal with.

I have to doff my hat to lads who get this army to work how I have seen it play against me over the years. I honestly didn't think that it was as complicated as it is. It is not Point and Shoot. I am sure it can become that way after playing it for a few years, but it is not as forgiving as I had thought.

Interestingly it is not as boring to play with as I had thought either. This does not mean however that I think it is the best Army in the game or that those who use it well are the best Generals. They are not. Because put simply, if you loose, you loose badly regardless of who you are. Marines can claw back a win out of a loss better than anyone provided they have the right man at the tiller and someone who knows his toys.

Playing guard also increases your awareness of Target priority too. You must identify and deal with a threat much quicker than with other armies, simply because if they get too close they are all of a sudden hitting side armour and able to get flamers into range and charge your tanks/infantry. Good experience, not likely to do it again for a long time.

If you get the opportunity, do it.

Skibbcon

Having just completed Skibbcon 2.0, I thought it might be a good idea to give a run down of our first foray into holding a tournament.


It all began at Warpcon 2010 with Caolán "Slim" Gibbons. Caolán had been thinking about holding an event in Skibbereen for a while and used Warpcon as somewhere he could guage interest. Somewhere between the drinking on the Friday and the drinking on the Saturday, or as some would call it, the "tournament" he had spread the word about our con.

This picture makes my liver hurt

The tournament had the following format:
All-inclusive weekend.
Bed and Breakfast for 2 nights in the venue.
Quiz organised for the saturday.
5 games to be played over the weekend. 3 on the Saturday, 2 on the Sunday.
1750 pt armies. All standard rulebook missions with standard deployments.
We were also implementing the, new at the time, +/- 5 bonus/malus table which was a big success.


So in the end we had 18 people playing and Caolán doing the judging/admin. There was a pretty ranged breakdown of armies.


Space Marines: 6
Eldar: 3
Chaos Space Marines: 3
Orks: 2
Tyranids: 1
Tau: 1
Necrons: 1
Imperial Guard: 1


So..... turns out lots of people have Space Marines. Genuine shock and awe.


Things kicked off on the Friday night with everyone arriving and meeting each other and having a couple of beers. The evening continued with lots of chat and some more beer. Poker was played (big well done to Eoin McManus) and more beer consumed. Everyone was in bed reasonably early, like 2 or 3am.

Beer: It was consumed

Cut to the next morning and 19 people shambling towards the breakfast rolls, ready outside. There was many a sore head and the direct sunlight was not helping matters. Due to the relaxed nature of the event and the fact we had all the time in the world, the first game started at around 10 or 11ish. I ended up playing Ivan "Nudie MacTubbs" Sheehan. I didn't really know Ivan before SkibbCon but I can say now that we're very good friends. He was playing an all bike list with double command squads. I was playing my Deciever, destroyers, lord with a veil of darkness list. The game ended with a win to me and Ivan to forever label Necrons as "broken". What can I say, they glance on 6's.


The event seemed to be going better for some as Chris found out when his Nurgle Chaos Marines met Tristram's leafblower Guard. Game 1 was over and onto game 2. I was against Burkhardt's fantastically painted Eldar army. I mean those harlequins were painted so well that I didn't even mind when I misinterpreted the "Rending" rule and the Deciever died a horrible death. Highlight for me was when all of my Destroyers joined into one huge Super Blob of 8 and murdered the Avatar. This game, I think(it was over a year ago), ended in a draw.


For me, the end of game 2 meant a run into town to buy supplies. As the sun was shining, we had decided to have a barbecue. I must thank Eoin McManus for being so understanding and for waiting. His Vulkan Marines wiped my entire army in turn 7 but it was a fantastic game.


Now came my shining moment of the weekend. I was trying to open a bag of sausages to get ready for barbecue and had myself an accident. 3 stitches worth of an accident. I wasn't worried though because we had a medical student in the hostel and he could probably help. You know, if we could find him. Cue a phonecall to my mother, my sister driving me to SouthDoc and a nice big bandage on my finger. Thanks Tristram, thanks very much.

Enter Alan: Hero among men

All was not lost! Thanks to the effort of Alan "who needs a pancreas?" Kenneally. Alan stepped up to the plate and bashed out enough food to feed 20 hungry nerds. Thanks Alan. That's not sarcastic thanks like Tristram got, actual thanks.


After all the food was consumed and it started to get dark out we decided to get cracking on the Quiz. There were 6 teams in total and you can tell the amount of organisation these teams had, as we had Team Caolán Sucks Balls 2, 3, and 4 but no Caolán Sucks Balls 1. Good job guys. Good job. After the quiz it was more drinking and to bed.


Sunday dawned in pretty much the same way as Saturday. Full of bleary eyes and headaches. Breakfast rolls consumed in silence and then the search for you partner for game 4. Turns out I was up against resident hero Alan. What followed was as close as I have come to a perfect draw. Two tired, hungover individuals squinting across a 6 x 4 at each other. Both making mistakes. Both failing entirely to capitalise on those mistakes. Game ended in a 10 - 10 draw with a difference of 11 points, I think, in vps. Drawing, like a boss.


Game 5 had me playing my club-mate Andrew Kirwan. Kirwan wasn't drinking at the weekend, wasn't staying in the hostel and missed game 3 because he had to work. What can I say? He obviously just hates fun. This game went very badly for me and I got a loss. With my win, my 2 draws and 2 losses I ended up around half way at 11th. Here are the end results for those interested.


1 Tristram Hills -  Imperial Guard (The Warheads)
2 Burkhardt Flemer - Eldar (WAC)
3 Richard Flood - Tyranids (WAC)
4 Sylvan Lynn - Chaos Space Marines (SWG)
5 Cian O'Mahony Space Marines (SWG)
6 Colin Cullinane Orks (WAC)
7 Eoin McManus - Space Marines (WAC)
8 Andrew Kirwan - Space Marines (SWG)
9 Dave Chambers - Space Marines (WAC)
10 Donal Carroll - Eldar (WAC)
11 Eoin O'Mahony - Necrons (SWG)
12 Ivan Sheehan - Space Marines (WAC)
13 Derek Barry - Space Marines (WAC)
14 Alan Kineally - Eldar (WAC)
15 Fergus O'Shea - Chaos Space Marines (WAC)
16 Tadhg Murphy - Orks (SWG)
17 Chris Icke - Chaos Space Marines (SWG)
18 Pa O'Donovan - Tau (SWG)


 SWG = SkibbWargamers, WAC = Wargaming Association Cork

Skibbcon 1, a success

So I must say that the weekend was a success. Tristram's Guard won out and he accuired himself a Horus Heresy board game. I have to say all of the Skibb Wargamers worked hard to get the inaugural Con off the ground and with the feedback we received we held an equally as successful Con in 2011 but there'll be a separate report on that.

Welcome to the SWG Blog

SkibbWargamers was started in 2008 as a way for four nerds, (myself, Caolán, Pa and Martin) to hang out whilst playing board games and anything else involving dice and toy figures. At Pa's urging, we had returned to playing 40k, something we had abandoned before. Out in my garage one day, I showed 40k to Eoin(who most of ye know as the guy who's Marines get back up and glance on sixes; except when they pen), and he took to the game like a fish to water. Having taught Eoin the mechanics of the game, (except assualts) we decided his first game should be playing Tau at WarpconXIX. Warpcon was great craic, as usual, nerding it up, so 40k became a staple part of our nerd diet again.




Dice. Part of our diet.


After Warpcon I decided to start a 40k campaign to introduce both Eoin and Martin to 40k and to teach Caolán how Blast weapons worked in 5th ed.. Martin grew his hair, became asexual, and changed his name to Tadhg, (No, seriously, he went home to Poland and Tadhg joined about a week later). Caolán met Sylvan at an Other Realms gaming thing, and as he was the only person there who didn't know what Blizzard was, Sylvan felt talking to Caolán was reasonably safe. Thus our group became larger (and taller).

World of What? Never heard of it.

SWG's first full outing was the now infamous GT in Athlone. We had an absolute ball and many traditions were born, and some great stories, including: Eoin and Caolán getting horrendously drunk, Tadhg crashing Caolán's car, friendly rivalry with the Warheads, and hurling levels of abuse which shocked anyone who didn't know we're all friends, right okay?

Caolán's car.

In accordance with local by-laws, our ranks now include Chris, our token ginger, and Emma, Sylvan's wife and token woman. As most of our members live in Cork due to college, and I can only produce so many childern to swell our ranks, I have taken to recuiting Youngbloods as the next generation of SkibbWargamers and playing regularly in our local hangout, Russagh Mill.

Even kids like Space Marines.

Russagh Mill will be familiar to many of you as the location of our now yearly event, SkibbCon. For those of you who don't know, SkibbCon is a non-ranking, doubles event, held in June, in Russagh Mill Hostel, Skibbereen. It's a two-day event, and the money you pay covers accomodation, food, con-entry and prize support. It's popularity has grown to an extent that we now offer spectator tickets for those who come for the craic rather than the games, a source of great pride for us. For more information see up coming articles.

SkibbCon!

Now that we find our club name is known across the island, we run our own con and we have our own forum, we decided we needed a blog to further make our opinion, (which everyone is entitled to) known. As well as inflating our own egos, (mainly Eoin's), this blog will hopefully serve to promote and expand Ireland's gaming scene, which is growing from strength to strength, thanks to nerds all over Ireland and SkibbWargamers will do its part. So here it is, the SkibbWargamers blog, read and enjoy.


-Cian O'Mahony (Club President, SWG)