Newsletter May 2003

Saturday May 10^th 2003, at St. Johns Church Hall, Norrie St., Drury, starting at 9a.m.

Copy for the Newsletter

Booking Games

Each month we organise the next month's games during the day. This usually happens between the Morning and Afternoon sessions when I, your Club Secretary (I prefer P.A. but the rest of the club executives dont appreciate my secretarial uniform of a tight black skirt - I do so have nice legs) will be going round trying to fill in slots for the next month. Now the rules are that fully paid members will be given first preference - we have limited space and those members who have paid for the year will have priority. At the meeting you can organise games amongst yourselves and the tell me or simply tell me what you want to play and I'll try and find an opponent for you. If you are not at the club meeting and you want to organise a game for the next meeting you can contact me by email at arthur.young@whitcoulls.co.nz, and I will see what I can do. Now if you have a game booked then you will get a table, if you have not organised a game with me then you will have to make do with whatever is spare (if there is anything spare).

The Forum

Gentlemen, I have an announcement!

I am in love!

Why?

Because the new Lizardmen have just been released, and ohhhhhhhhhh they are goooooooooooooooood

The miniatures are so incredibly well-sculpted, they're beautiful!

The entire army with its many and varied components fits together stylistically, in an almost seamless fashion

The spiky-bitz are brilliant, but make assembling a sometimes painful affair

The book itself, I would have to say fairly well balanced, and the Lizardmen style is now a fair bit more interesting and distinctive. The only long-ranged ballistic threat is a pissed-off Slann Mage, hehehe

My opinion of the army, it gets a massive thumbs up

Expect to see a couple of these armies around. You'll be able to tell when one's near because I'll be drooling

Now, onto the regularly scheduled program

The Mordheim Campaign

I regret to inform you all that as of this months meeting, the Mordheim Campaign will revert to a standard, by-the-book campaign

I was going to develop it much further, but have decided to call off all detailed development of the narrative campaign.

There are, of course, a number of reasons for this.

Firstly, the amount of work was insane, with a massive up-keep, the campaign just wasn't self-sufficient enough to enjoy for me, as evidenced by the fact that technically it never started.

Secondly, I have quite a few projects on the go anyway, so I had further time-restraints in light of that

Thirdly, with the upcoming Eye of Terror 40K worldwide-campaign, Summer of Chaos Fantasy worldwide-campaign, and Arthur’s work on a 40K universe campaign, there simply was too much on that it would get in the way of, with the need for a continuous upkeep and commitment from the participants

Next point, it prevented me from working on the necromunda conversion I'm half working on

And, lastly, my attention has turned to a nice, easy, interesting Fantasy Campaign I'm going to launch soonish

The Points Ladder System

Okay, guys, we NEED opinions on what is deserving of reward!

I'll start the ball rolling.

Good tacticians/gamers, and those who contribute to the entertainment of our club through Battle Reports

These two can tie in easily, simply by applying a bonus of points to someone that writes a battle report for the newsletter, as the Battle Report is the ultimate responsibility of the winner, and thus, the winner writing his report, gets a nice big Bonus of Points to his total. If the winner doesn't write a battle report, and the guy that came off second best in the game writes it instead, big bonus points to THAT guy instead, and it serves the winner right for being so lazy.

Also, attendance should be rewarded. Turning up for your games is a very good indication of a good gamer. Similarly, simply NOT turning up for your games without informing a member of the club Administration (Club Accountant Bryan, Club Editor Kevin... probably the best bet as he does the Newsletter and can easily inform or make minor game changes this way, Club Secretary Arthur... the other best choice as he's in charge of the game organisation, or myself, el Presidente Peter, who due to overwhelming Spam problems must check his e-mail daily in order to avoid 200+ advertisements for remote controlled cars and online viagra from clogging his inbox and so is bound to notice when he's got mail) would result in a deduction of points for being on extremely bad form.

Painting... Painting is important, and should receive some score or other

Though how this would be judged is a bit of a mystery for me. Will it be on quality? And if so, HOW will we judge it?

Will it be on quantity? And if so, how do we judge that?

Will it be on whether or not you bring something new each month? But how would that fit in when you've got something painted up you don't really have much call to use, like a Steam Tank?

Would it be a simple awarding of points every time you field a painted army at the club? What happens if you don't have enough arranged games? And doesn't this favour the armies consisting of about 30 infantry and a character or two, and discourage horde armies?

Also, Tournaments. How major should they be? Tournaments is fairly easy though, as they can be adjustable.

The whole idea of the Points Ladder System is it gauges you throughout a year, and you constantly accumulate points, and, at the end of the year, the person or persons with the most 'points' get a prize from the surplus money we have left over from the Registration Fees, after all the club expenses are covered.

This is all the big prises from our big tournaments, and everything else, the mega events and so on.

We need some ideas, to form a basic skeleton of the system, make sure it's functional, we can finish it off after it's up and running

Newsletter Contributions

Hey hey, guess what?

We MIGHT be getting a new News and Rumours section!

Kindly provided by Barry, this should be a good spot to read

Any other additions to the Newsletter, you should definitely consider proposing.

I've banged on about this for a while know, come on, it's time to DO something

Least one can do is write a Battle Report for your games

Hive World Campaign

Any suggestions for this would be cool, getting more than simply my opinion in for the development

Come and talk to me about this, or e-mail me, I'd really like some form of feedback or ideas.

I have my own, but you'll find out about those later

So far, I have ideas for Cadian Guard squads, Catachan squads, Adeptus Arbites, street gangs, possibly mutants, and, of course, the bad guys: The Genestealer Cult!

The Cadians would favour ranged combat and urban fighting.

The Catachans, rough-terrain fighting, combat and endurance.

The Arbites would have steely determination

Street gangs would be a less disciplined force

Mutants, very definate playing style, based around being very repressed poor souls with a few innate advantages

The Genestealer Cult would DEFINATELY be combat-oriented.

Any general ideas, or ideas for hireable characters, are greatly welcomed

It's a Necromunda modification, and Necromunda is a lot like Mordheim for those who've never played Necromunda

Warhammer Fantasy Battle Campaign of Conquest!

Now, I had a jolly good idea for a Fantasy Campaign that is nearly no-maintenance, allows you to play NORMAL games of Warhammer, and tie them into something meaningful, to chart the fortunes of your fearsome army

Basically, it would be a map-based campaign, with a map drawn-up in the hex-grid format (interlocking hexagons, so each hexagon is surrounded by six hexagons adjacent to its six sides)

Now, the map will be drawn up as your normal map, showing deserts, mountainour regions, forests, grasslands, and so on. Each hex grid, therefore, covers a piece of terrain that is assigned a certain description... i.e. three hex grids over a mountain range, this is Mountainous Terrain. The grasslands next to it are covered by two grid sections, so they are Grassland Terrain, etc.

Now, each time you gain a territory, each hex grid you control, you must roll on a table that you will be provided with, to find what you put up in that territory, be it elves erecting a Waystone to drain sorcerous energy in a mountain range, or an Orc army hatching Wyvrns on an Eerie in a Mountain region, or Wood Elves enchanting a forest to entice more Dryads to fight for them, and so on

Each player would have a capital, and have to gain terrain from there on, by winning games and spreading their influence.

How well you win games determines which territory you get to spread into, losing may see you lose a territory, but it's not that likely

Each territory piece has a certain effect, altering your force somehow or granting some bonus. However, you can only ever use ONE territory bonus per game, and if you lose by a wide enough margin, you lose the territory whose bonus you are using

There's a lot more, but that's the basics of it

I will word it more clearly later.

I'm hoping to find some interest in this, it makes almost no alteration of the existing game, but ties it together

Interesting opportunities for Seige games and city fights and ambushes and raids abound

Any interest? I'm hoping to bring it in for 2004, or 2005

Get back to me, tell me what you think

The Summer of Chaos

I'm willing to have another go at a large Warhammer game, this time specifically for the worldwide Summer of Chaos campaign, where we have the forces of good facing off against Archaon's incursion

Now, ideally the side of the good guys would include:

A large number of Empire (can be done by myself quite easily) with some special characters, possibly Karl Franz, Balthasar Gelt/Thyrus Gormann, Kurt Helborg the Reiksmarshal, Valmir von Ruakov the Elector Count of Ostland, Ludwig Schwarzholm, the Emperor's Champion, etc.

A small force of High Elves, with Teclis

A force of Dwarves, larger than the Elf force

Possibly some Brettonians and Dogs of War, and any Kislevites that can be gathered up

Perhaps a force of Lizardmen led by Ancient Scar-Leader Kroq-Gar, launching an attack from their base in Albion

The side of Archaon's incursion would include:

Chaos (warriors, daemons, and beastmen) led by Archaon himself

Orcs and Goblins led by Grimgor Ironhide... I can lend Orcs and Goblins for this, easily 3000 points, maybe even more

The problem is, I'm not sure there's enough Evil at Games Club to cope.

Especially considering, there's not much chaos, and not much willing Orc and Gobbos

So anyone who is charitable enough to possibly lend armies, would be greatly appreciated. I will personally ensure they are not damaged, and as soon as they are no longer strictly necessary they would be packed away VERY CAREFULLY and returned to their rightful owner.

But of course, this is only a request and I in no way expect a positive response, knowing the tragedy of lost and broken miniatures that have been lent out personally (and a missing army book, grumble grumble)

The other option is to allow Archaon's army a Sustained Attack rule, where units completely destroyed may return onto the table from their own side.

Anyone interested? Let me know

colson@xtra.co.nz

The Summer of Chaos

I'm willing to have another go at a large Warhammer game, this time specifically for the worldwide Summer of Chaos campaign, where we have the forces of good facing off against Archaon's incursion

Now, ideally the side of the good guys would include:

A small force of High Elves, with Teclis

A force of Dwarves, larger than the Elf force

Possibly some Brettonians and Dogs of War, and any Kislevites that can be gathered up

Perhaps a force of Lizardmen led by Ancient Scar-Leader Kroq-Gar, launching an attack from their base in Albion

The side of Archaon's incursion would include:

Chaos (warriors, daemons, and beastmen) led by Archaon himself

Orcs and Goblins led by Grimgor Ironhide... I can lend Orcs and Goblins for this, easily 3000 points, maybe even more

The problem is, I'm not sure there's enough Evil at Games Club to cope.

Especially considering, there's not much chaos, and not much willing Orc and Gobbos

The other option is to allow Archaon's army a Sustained Attack rule, where units completely destroyed may return onto the table from their own side.

Anyone interested? Let me know

-Pete

Death or Glory on the fields of battle!

There was plenty of both.

Well, I've been harping on about it since February, the National Wargaming Convention of New Zealand, also known as NATcon, was to be held over the easter weekend.

Excitement builds when you realise an event is being held that you can attend without concerns for travel or needing to get time off work (sweet!) and to say I was looking forward to this was somewhat understating things.

Not only was I (Peter) attending this Tournament, my partner in Crime, Damien, and our newest Club Member Garth, were to attend also

Now, considering little more than a year earlier I had attended NIcon (the North Island Wargames Convention) I had a teensie bit of previous experience to go on.

What had I learned from last year?

1. Don't take push-over armies with all the offensive capabilities of a feather duster, the sportsmanship points will rarely reflect the sacrifice, and the army composition score wasn't such a big deal this year

2. Don't wait until the last week before the tournament to paint your army

3. Get some sleep before the tournament

Now, with this in mind, I set about making an army list that DIDN'T suck

I did fairly well, all things considered.

Lord Marcel Andreas, Grand Master of the Knights Avermanni, kicked an adequate amount of posteriors

With the Laurels of Victory, all the bottom-booting action he would partake in would count twice for combat resolution, and the Bronze Shield could save him from a nasty cannon shot or crushing blow in combat, so I decided to take it.

He was accompanied by the brave and loyal inner circle of the order of the Avermanni Knights, who enjoyed a +1 rank bonus, a +1 standard bonus, and a +1 War Banner bonus, on top of the killing they would do, and good Mr Andreas' Laurels of Victory-enhanced killing score, to make a unit not only capable of kicking asses, but making that MEAN something too!

Next on the list was Reverand Maynard, the Warrior Priest with the Icon of Magnus and Talisman of I don't really care because it didn't help much.

He was good for giving my Greatswords Hatred of half the armies there, and with the Icon of Magnus, made their Stubborn rule work even against Undead and other fear causing troops

The Greatswords were a decent sized unit, and, with the Griffon Banner, and their immunity to fear, and of course their most excellent Stubbornness, they never, ever ran away

Then there was the Captain, Seigreid Andreas, with his Lots Of Armour and the Rod of Command to allow him and his unit to automatically pass its first break test even would the result normally be an automatic failure (fear causing units outnumbering, for example)

He led a unit of 20 or so Swordsmen, that had two detachments, 8 Halberdiers, and 8 Free Company

I brought along a Level 1 Wizard Scroll Caddy, to dispel some of the more irritating enemy spells

There were 20 Pikemen, with a Champion and Standard Bearer

8 Duellists with Pistols

2 Mortars

And 10 Handgunners including a Marksman with Repeater Handgun

I felt confident that this army could handle itself a little better than the last one I made, which featured a whole lot of pussy weak units.

So of course, it came time for the practice games!

First Practice game was against Marcel and his Tomb Kings

Well, this went really badly for him. Once his Tomb King and accompanying Chariot unit disappeared in one round of fighting with my Grand Master and Knights, things weren't looking too great for him

Although, unfortunately, my 8 skirmishing, pistol-packing Duellists got shot by a couple of arrows and ran like hell the first chance they had, which was rather unfortunate, and to form a worrying trend.

Marcel conceeded.

Next practice game was against Damien.

Unfortunately, Nick interrupted us about three times a minute with a pointless, unrelated question about absolutely nothing, so we could get past the second turn before the day was up.

Third practice game, my opponent was the dastardly Kevin Carberry and his Goblins of DOOOOOOOOOOOM!

After what more resembled a dance recital between my Knights and Grandmaster unit, and kevins tiny Gobbo Wolf Rider unit, I decided I should probably be more bold with my force, rather than use the crippling caution I had been used to.

Also, I felt my infantry was up to scratch, seeing off a few frontal charges in the game from Savage Orc Boar Boyz amongst other things

4th Practice game was against fellow Tournament attendee, Garth.

Here, I learnt of the crushing power of my Knights, and how good it is to sacrifice my duellists for the betterment of the rest of my army.

So, with that, I merely had to sit down to painting my army.

Unfortunately, my painting process is so goddamned time consuming, my army STILL looked unpainted after a month of intermittent painting.

And now, Damien's prep work:

Well...it's that time again..NATCON 03 is nearly here! It wasn't so long ago

(if you call a year (not so long ago) that I was gearing up to do battle at

NICON 2002, where my Necromancer led Vampire Counts army stumbled along to a

paltry lower middle place ranking and a score of 165. Yes, this would be the

perfect time for redemption. Then of course the question sprang to mind,

'what army (and what would be in it) would I use'? Well...for the answers to

that I had to look at a couple things. The first, I have a lot more

experience with the Vampires, and probably less than fifteen to twentyish

games with my Elves, second being that out of my two armies that I have

(Blood Dragon Vampires and High Elves), only one of those is painted, and I

don't think I would get the pointy eared nancy tomboys done on time, so not

wanting to take an army resembling the Peter's hordes of undercoated horror (bite me - Pete),

the Elves were out.

So..Vampire Counts it was. So, knowing that, and taking into consideration

my run at NICON (Loss to Blood Dragon VC's, Loss to Strigoi VC's, Win

against Skinks, Win against Skaven, Win against Dark Elves and a Loss to

Daemons), the Necromancer horde approach had to go. Sure, it was fun, and a

change from the norm, but I just got my fleshless ass handed to me on a

dirty old platter anytime I went up against something that both a) Didn't

fear my troops and b) had a LOT stronger combat prowess than I did. So

Necromancers were out, and my beloved Blood Dragons of the Vonn Alandria

family were in. And, in a bizarre (or maybe just a stroke of unholy

intervention) coincidence I had used my Blood Dragons just that day, a new

army list I had written up, and I had just scored two very convincing

massacres with it (convincing being they were mostly dead, and I wasn't,

Muahaha). And what was better, I only really had to purchase one thing for

the army (which is more for painting and theme scores than anything else).

Yes..a plan was developing...

I will need to play test the army list more extensively however. Two games

isn't quite enough to know exactly what to take. Especially when scenarios

are involved (which they will be come the tourney). Although early

indications do look good. One can never be too sure...

The minions of the Vonn Alandria's! (at this current time).

Characters

Lord Malkav Vonn Alandria: Plate mail, barded steed, great weapon, ring of

night, extra magic level, heart piercing - 414

Necromancer Gian Noctuurnus: Extra magic level, power familiar - 150

The living remains of Armand Vonn Alandria (Wight Lord): Heavy armor, great

weapon, barded steed, cursed book - 130

Core

15 Skeletons Warriors - Command, light armor, hand weapons, shields - 175

5 Dire Wolves - 50

Special

8 Black Knights - Standard/Hell knight, banner of the barrows, barding,

lances, heavy armor - 277

8 Black Knights - Standard/Hell knight, barding, lances, heavy armor - 232

3 Spirit Hosts - 195

Rare

Black Coach - 200

Total: 1998

Notes: The cursed book rocks it. You do not KNOW annoyance until your tooled

up frenzied (or ultra strong) Khornate Chaos Warriors and Spawn need 4's or

5's to hit me.

I've been told magic is a weak spot in this army but my first two games were

against a Slaan led Lizardman army and Khornate Chaos, massive amounts of

power and dispel dice respectively, and I did quite well for myself.

Reminder to self: Need to paint and attach shields for existing black

knights...

So how did Damien, Garth and I do?

Well, blow-by-blow account, starting with Damien, then Garth, and then Myself.

Friday 18 April 2003: NATCON, day 1

Round 1, Pitched Battle

Damien

Opponent: Blood Dragon Vampire Counts

...This came as an utter surprise to me, the last army I had expected to

face was an army much akin to my own. And that it was, everything down to

what I had equipped Malkav with (although his Vampire had red fury). It was

only a matter of time before these two met each other in combat, I made sure

of that in fact. Which turned out to be my undoing due to some atrociously

BAD rolling. Magic, crucial hand to hand combat rounds, you name it, I

probably came short just a little somewhere. Which resulted in Malkavs

untimely demise, and the falling apart of my army from massed ranks of

Zombies and Black Knights. Not good. First game of the tourney and I got a

massacre result against me. Evil..utter Evil.

Garth

Opponent: Beastmen

Chosen Chaos Knights of Tzeentch held out against a double chariot charge that got 12 hits and they received only one casualty. They then took out both chariots, a unit of Minotaurs and a spawn of Slaanesh.

Peter

Opponent: Vampire Counts

Arghhhh! I hate those foul, wretched blood-sucking, scum sucking leeches!

Why can't they just run away and die like normal people?

My opponent was a generally good bloke named Dan, and he had plans for converting some Skeletal Cheerleaders for his army, so he was oooooookay in MY books =)

Unfortunately, he was more than an OKAY player and surgically disected my army, through my own acts of rampant stupidity.

Highlight had to be... ummm.

Well, my Lord

He held on FOREVER!

Marcel Andreas, with his severely CurseOfYears-mauled knights charged into whatever skeletal force they could find, and managed to NOT DIE for the entire game! If I remember correctly, unless that's just wishful thinking, but even if he did die, he held on until the very last turn against about three units (one Black Knights with a Vamp in them, Blood Dragon no less). The valiant last stand was a sight for sore eyes, considering my Empire guys normally just run away.

Oh, and the valiant sacrifice of my Swordsmen and captain Andreas holding up the knights, giving Marcel Andreas, the grand master, more time. If he had just rolled a little better, the skeleton unit he was fighting would've been destroyed outright by this one man!

My lord Rocks! =)

Oh well, first lost Massacre of the day, NEXT!

Round 2: Capture

Damien

Opponent: Lizardmen

This game went more to my favor, Malkav and Armand did a fair amount of

killing. Although Malkavs Black Knight regiment was reduced to himself and

two black knights after getting spar up on repeatedly by some salamanders.

But despite the setbacks the legions of the living dead managed to beat back

the Lizardmen nearly tooth and nail and I ended up gaining possession of the

capture objective, although it took me a Skeleton unit, my black coach

(which got destroyed by the second S7 hit in as many games), my spirit host

and finally Armand Vonn Alandria's unit to 'repel' the Slaan and the Temple

Guard (although I only needed to kill the last Temple Guard to get full

points for that darn regiment, plus one more wound on the Slaan and I would

have gotten him below half strength). So, I managed to pull of a minor

victory here, despite the fact I had annihilated practically 6/8ths of the

Lizardman army. Still, I scored myself some Saurus heads to add onto my

Headless horseman regiment, much props to my opponent for that.

Garth

Opponent: Skaven

Highlights:

· Chosen Chaos warriors kicking plague monks off the objective and holding on to the end.

Peter

Opponent: Skaven

This guys 4th game of Warhammer ever

Sorry to say, I brutalised him.

What really got me, was the guy was under the belief that Frenzied troops MUST advance their maximum move towards enemy troops... and as this was the second round of the tournament, this had to mean his previous opponent let him keep believing that... poor guy

Oh well, there were a couple of hills on either side of the table, and to my right, a peasant farmstead, and some other irrelevant crap to the left.

In the center, the objective we were fighting over, a shard of Warpstone... a big chunk of it!

On my hill I deployed my Handgunners and Mortars, with the Greatswords in front of them. To the left went the Pikemen, and further down went the Swordsmen. Slightly to the right went the Avermanni Knights, and then the DoW Duellists

The game went fairly well for me really. The Skaven player set up his HUGE Jezzail unit on the hill opposite mine, with rat swarms in front of it, a unit of Plague monks with Censar Bearers to his left (my right, opposite my knights! EEK!) and a unit of Clanrats further along. To his right, (my left) were Clanrats, Slaves, Stormvermin, and more Slaves.

A BIG army!

Globadiers positioned themselves anywhere they could prove annoying.

He hurriedly advanced his ratty swarms onto the objective, holding it down, only to receive a charge from a very angry unit of Greatswords, who hacked them down good and proper.

The greatswords then got a charge in on the Globadiers, and, wiping them out, over-ran into the Jezzail unit on the hill, crushing THEM utterly.

The Duellists sacrificed themselves to the Censar Bearers to protect my Knights... gawd I hate censar bearers.

My knights, of course, decimated the Plague Monks, running down what pitiful survivors could be found.

The skaven clanrat, slave, and stormvermin units were taking a pounding from my mortars, which caused one slave unit and one globadier unit to panic... they both fled off the table, good, all Globadiers taken care of.

The Stormvermin were looking in a bad way, with a severely reduced unit size (thank you, mortars!) and when charging into my Swordsmen, discovered why it's a bad idea to ignore detachments. The stormies didn't last long, and were unceremoniously crushed.

The clanrats on that flank became Frenzied from Skaven magic, and charged into my Pikemen... not a good move. They died, slaves panic and run, pikemen hold to stay close to the objective, game ends, only Censars left, a wounded Warlock getting gunned down by Marksman with Repeater Handgun (it can move and fire!) a panic-stricken Grey Seer, and a panic stricken clanrat unit.

Massacre in my favor, good!

Round 3: Elimination

Damien

Opponent: High Elves

One word can sum this game up..disappointing. Just when it started getting

good, the game ended (the six turns just flew by, and not a lot happened in

the first three- four turns other than my force getting blasted by the

massed High Magic). My deployment wasn't too great here, had I had done it

the way I was against I might have had a little more success. I guess I was

still reeling from taking too much confidence in Malkav after that first

game. Had I have had one more turn I would have been able to deal with the

White Lions in the army (but I had to settle for Archers, and two regiments

of Spearelves). The game ended with a drawn out...errr...raw. Still, the

game led up to an anti climax in my opinion. But still, entertaining none

the less.

So...three games down, five left to go. After looking at the next round,

I've found my next opponent will be using High Elves. Yes, I may have fell

short with the Elves from Ulthuan today, but tomorrow will be a much

different story, and so help me, it will be more in my favor! Yes, I'll need

to be quite efficent tomorrow if I want to get anywhere. But still, I'm

having a lot of fun, and thats the main thing!

Garth

Opponent: Khornate Chaos

· Chosen Undiv Warriors took a charge from Chosen Knights of Khorne containing General and a Chariot and held on.

· Chosen Knights of Tzeentch charging into the flank of the Chosen Knights of Khorne and breaking them. Then running into the Chosen Warriors of Khorne and breaking them.

Peter

Okay, this scenario, you get points ONLY for the models you kill or that are running at the end of the game (maybe)

So, this HAD to be the round I came up against the Steam Tank didn't it?

How the HELL do I get points for destroying models if I can't kill a bloody Steam Tank???

To make matters worse, two cannons and a mortar face off against my two measly mortars. Eep

Well, with forests near the middle, and a ruined building on the left, a hill on my right and a peasant farmstead on his side (deploying his artillery there, damn!) it proved to be an interesting game.

My Mortar died rather quickly to Pistoliers... however, the unit was accounted for by my Handgunners, who deserve a promotion, and the marksman promptly received a nice shiny paint job that night for his efforts, good man, good man.

On my left flank, my Knights tore a hole through his forces, and my duellists WOULD have crushed a detachment of halberdiers had I remembered that Duellists have a bloody WS of 4! Arghhh!!!

My mortar took a couple of pot shots, then spent the rest of the game running around the ruined building, keeping away from the detachment of halberdiers. Thank Sigmar for wheeled chasis mortars! Best thing being, the Mortar didn't need to wheel, the non-marching halberdiers couldn't do jack to catch me.

The steamtank managed to Terrorise my Swordsmen, but their detachment of halberdiers spent the rest of the game knocking on the hull of the Steam Tank to see if anyone was home. Goddamn helblaster-packing Steam Tank, grrrr

My Free Company advanced on the artillery encampment, but didn't achieve much

My Pikemen decided to run like hell, which was incredibly disappointing.

However, my Greatswords and Knights made an outstanding performance, and obliterated the rest of my opponents army... except for his second Lore of Heavens wizard... That wizard miscast his potentially devestating Storm of Cronos, got knocked unconscious for it, and then got crushed by a canonball that fell short of my Pikemen and Greatswords. Gawd, it would've been hilarious if things weren't going so badly for my opponent!

In the end, I wound up with a Minor Victory in my favour, which I felt to be a moral massacre considering I had nothing that could do much against the Steam Tank, yet still managed to remove about 7 Hull Points off it

End of day one, I'm doing better than average. Lizardmen tomorrow... what fun.

Saturday 19 April 2003: NATCON, day 2

Round 4: Pitched Battle

Damien

Opponent: High Elves

An all cavalry Elf army is annoyingly hard. Especially for Undead. And

especially when my deployment wasn't too great, it's hard to flank Elves

when they're coming in from all sides and when your luck doesn't seem to be

going too well. Case in point: Malkav miscasting Gaze of Nagash in turn 4

and ending up not being able to do a thing until turn 6, by which time

everything that was left had moved out to a safe area. My black coach did

somewhat all right, it struggled against some shadow warriors that charged

it (so much for the countercharge against the Elf Princes Silver Helm unit,

which got pretty much decimated from Curse of Years, but not completely

wiped out), and then managed to take out a great eagle later on.

In the end, we both had beaten each other pretty well, both my Skeleton

Units were gone (getting absolutely hammered with magic), plus my inability

to wipe out enough Elf units resulted in another draw. I'm really starting

to wonder weather I should have tried bring my elves along...

Although the Sprit Hosts had to have pulled through for me in this battle,

they charged a unit of six Silver Helms and managed to kill three of them,

sending the unit packing to the table edge (where they rallied, drat).

Garth

Opponent: Empire

Highlights

· Chosen Chaos Knights of Tzeentch almost cleaning out a unit of great swords

Peter

Opponent: Lizardmen

Ohhhhhhhhh, interesting game.

Fairly good game, unfortunately my knights were doomed from square one, but that's the price I pay for having a small kick-ass unit.

I was tremendously suprised how many Saurus Warriors my Mortars managed to kill, and then how many fell to my Pistol-packing Duellists. That was good.

I can't really say much, the valiant attack of my Lord on a Saurus unit, with support from Pikemen and Duellists, absolutely crushed the unit utterly... however, the Greatswords that were charging happened to fail a comet-induced panic test which cost me the game.

Round 5: Assassinate

Damien

Assassinate a Slaan mage priest? Eh..didn't look too likely. But in saying

that, it would take a fair amount to kill of Malkav..unless you happened to

be another Blood Dragon vampire lord. The battle started off, not much to my

favor, the Lizardmen knew full well the 'block Kroxigor with spirit host'

trick, so moved them away from the Spirit Host, who went off to scare some

Skinks instead. I managed to kill off a Lizard Swarm on the charge with

Armands unit which caused the salamander crews to flee, then rally, then get

charged right off the table by Armand.

However, that didn't keep the combined shooting/Magic from the Skinks/Slaan

from just being aggravating effective. They had pounded on Malkavs unit

until there was only him, his standard bearer and the units Hell Knight

left. And they were shot at by Skinks, this is where I proceeded to roll

THREE ONES for my armor saves against the poisoned attacks and have a very

annoyed Malkav standing alone on the battlefield. Annoyed until he realized

that there was the Skink Shaman within his charge range...

The battle turned out to be an anti-climax as we had no time to play turn

six, and by the end of turn five the battle was hanging on the combat

between the Slaans saurus unit and my two Skeleton regiments, a LARGE

summoned Zombie regiment that had charged the flank and with Armand Vonn

Alandrias Black Knight Regiment (with Malkav right alongside them) read to

charge in on the other flank.

After tallying up the victory points it turned out the game was a shock

DRAW. Another one. I personally blame it on the Kroxigor munching my Black

Coach, I shouldn't have been so impetuous with it.

Garth

Opponent: Vampire Counts

Highlights

· Killing lots of wolves and bats and a Wraith character

Peter

Opponent: Beastmen

NEVER underestimate my ability to roll INCREDIBLY crap!

I set up a shooting encampment in a peasant farmstead on the left flank, the extreme left no less, with a mortar, and a line of Handgunners defending a linear wall.

Beastmen advanced on this, and lined up their unit with only a +1 rank bonus, and needed 6s to hit me

I hit on 4s and wound on 5s so of course I think I'm in with a chance. Curiously, so does my opponent.

However, through my inability to roll decently any time I pick up dice, I lost, ran like hell, had the unengaged mortar in there panic, run off the table, and the only spot of luck was the beastmen were off the table for another turn

Elsewhere, things also looked bad for my Pikemen, who got absolutely wasted by Chosen Chaos Warriors with a Chaos Champion dude with Army Standard and banner of Does It Really Matter?

OUCH

Of course, my Swordsmen unit and detachments dide fairly well, accounting for one Beastman shaman (assassinate mission, if all characters are killed, you get 400 bonus victory points... if not, you get 100 for each character) and his unit of beastmen, a chariot, and another unit of beastmen with a Shaman were about to die just as the game ended due to time constraints... I WAS ROBBED!

Best part of the game, though, had to be killing a Giant in one round of combat, thanks to my Ass-Kicking Knights and the Duellists, who went on to slaughter Chaos Hounds... goood duellists.

My Greatswords made a valiant last stand against the Minotaur Lord thingy, and Chariot... causing the Minotaur to break, but not the chariot... bugger.

The Greatswords then found themselves at the mercy of a charging greatweapon-wielding Minotaur unit, and still held on despite all this, fighting to the last man, until my Knights crushed all before them.

If the game had proceeded one more turn (in other words, if we didn't run out of time) I would've crushed that damned Shaman and picked up a Minor Victory as opposed to a Draw... I was robbed!

Round 6: Pitched Battle

Damien

Opponent: Empire

I had learned that this empire army was packing a Wizard Lord with Van

Horstmans Speculum, so I was going to keep Malkav well away from that little

trap. Things were looking rather even, I had blasted on of his units of

Ogres, killing one, wounding another with the Gaze of Nagash and there was a

cannon misfire and a scroll caddy miscast in the first turn, but he was

successfully closing off my flank attack with Greatswords, knights and ogres

(with most of his characters along side them).

But then my second magic phase came.

In this phase I completely swung the game in my favor, with irresistible

forcing Invocation of Nahek AND Vanhels Danse Macabre, moving my reinforced

unit of skeletons into his Knights flank. The knights promptly broke and

fled leaving me to charge my skeletons into the Greatswords flank where they

helped my Spirit host beat, break and destroy those plate mail wearing,

griffon standard using pansies, and the wizard that was hiding with them.

Elsewhere my black coach had been charged by the Wizard Lord, and Empire

Captain and a Warrior Priest, all mounted. And they proceeded to give the

black coach an absolute hiding over the matter of a few turns. I managed to

score a few wounds here and there which kept me in the fight until I had

managed to Summon an Zombie unit and rear charge the trio of mortals, who

then promptly broke, fled and all got caught by the Coach.

This was vindicated by my mistake of forgetting about his cannon and having

my Black Knights race along in front of it to get to the unit of archers

that were hiding behind the Ogres that had pulverized my other unit of

Skeletons. The cannon fire was very painful, six black knights getting taken

out altogether, my spirit host quickly shut the cannon up.

By the end of the battle the Empire was well and truly beaten, I had smashed

every unit he had minus one of his two units of Ogres. Malkav had managed to

plow through some Halberdiers and some archers. But in the end have not have

a lot to do, except cast a couple of spells (which won me the game,

heehee!). I could rejoice in the fact that I had my first massacre.

Hopefully I could continue the winning streak in the next round...against a

Khornate Chaos army...eep...

Garth

Opponent: Empire

Highlight

· Hellblaster cannon blowing up

Peter

What is it about me that makes me do stupid things when I face Undead in a bloody tournament setting?

This was a highly entertaining game, and if just a couple of things had swung in my favour, and a couple of mistakes been averted, I could've crushed my opponent, or at least squashed him a little.

The Knights did their Valiant Last Stand thing again... except this time they lived, almost completely unscathed, despite a HUGE proportion of the undead facing up against them. Then, of course, at the last turn, a bloody Black Coach charges into their FLANK, and the unit STILL holds! WHAT BALLS! They need to have their armour specially suited to account for such balls... have to carry them around in a wheelbarrow or something, damn!

This game resulted in another Draw, although I was happy with this, things could've gone a LOT worse for me... and they could've gone a LOT better, but, we live with these things

Homeward bound, looking forward to the next days gaming, and, more importantly, a good nights sleep.

Sunday 20 April 2003: NATCON, day 3

Round 7: Flank Attack

Damien

Opponent: Khornate Chaos

This was pretty much a pitched battle as my opponent, who was flanking,

decided not to. Seeing as all of his units (apart from two chaos hound

units) were frenzied I tried capitalize on this early. And it paid off...big

time. I have sacrificed my Dire Wolves into making the Khorne Lords chosen

chaos knight regiment make an attack that would leave them vulnerable to

Armands black knights who I had positioned for a flank charge (wasn't too

hard thanks to the Dire wolves fast cavalry rule). The Chaos Lord and most

of his knights, give or take three, ran of the table..not to be seen

again....

My black coach and spirit host was the next to fall, spirit host taking on

the chosen Chaos Warrior Regiment, which I had not counted on having such a

combat resolution (I was expecting to outnumber it, therefore actually hang

around more than two and a half combat phases), and the black

coach...well...I thought it could handle a charge from a chaos chariot...I

was wrong. (It was either that, or have absolutely NOTHING happen with a

boring standoff).

Malkav made up for that by obliterating the other chariot (hurrah Strength 7

attacks!) and riding around the back of the army where he managed to rear

charge the chosen warrior regiment, breaking and destroying them. With only

some 'normal' berserkers left hiding behind some hedges some hounds and a

chariot, and me with just about everything intact (not one Black Knight fell

in this battle), I managed to pull in a solid victory (damn black coach

AGAIN)!

Garth

Opponent: Bretonnians

Highlights

· Chaos Knights destroying Grail Knights.

Peter

Opponent: Khornate Chaos

MUAAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!

Oh my GOD did this game totally rock for me!

Most games, you control your army.

This one, I controlled his, it was so sweet!

Flank attack, Chaos player attacking naturally.

So, I get a bit of defense, so I defend the randomly generated Large Building and Slamm Ruinous Building I had rolled on the terrain chart.

Now this game, I have to give you a blow-by-blow account of, it was incredible.

I deployed my Handgunners and one Mortar in the large building, it's the three-story coaching inn with the little hollow in the bottom of it, you may recognise it, it's the biggest building I bring along to the club. So, my guys have an EXCELLENT firebase to fire from.

The bottom of this building, the hollow, conveniently fit the size and dimensions of my Greatsword unit perfectly, so they simply sat inside the building with only their front rank exposed to the enemy... so you have to charge, in the front, a unit that starts with a combat resolution of +7 (+3 rank bonus, doubled to +6 by the griffon standard, +1 for having a Standard Bearer) and possibly getting an outnumbering bonus too.

in the smaller ruin, about 8 inches to the left of this building, sat my Mortar, commanding an excellent view of the battlefield.

Between these two buildings sat the Dogs of War Pikemen.

Slightly to the right of the large Coaching Inn were my Swordsmen and their detachments, and then my Knights, and, finally, my Duellists, fast becoming heroes in their own right.

On my extreme right flank, covering most of my half of the table, was a large wood to impede movement if my opponents flankers turned up there. There was distance to the left flank, so that was somewhat protected, and it had MUCH less of my army on it, so any troops arriving there would play very little part in the game.

Arrayed before me was one Khorne Lord on Juggernaut on my right, facing off against my knights.

To his right, my left, was a unit of Chosen Chaos Warriors of Khorne (ick!)

Further along, were Chaos Hound units, then another Khornate Chaos Warrior Unit, with an Army Standard Bearer or champion of some description.

Then, of course, a Chariot of Khorne.

My opponent seized the first turn, and advanced, as such armies are wont to do.

His Chaos Lord plods into charge range of my knights and their Lord, the Grand Master Marcel Andreas

The rest of the army advances slowly.

Now me, I decide, why not, lets charge that Chaos Lord chump, thump him good and proper.

Aaaaand, I did. Made the beggar run. But, because I foolishly attacked the Chaos Lord and not his Juggernaut, he managed to outrun me.

My Mortars and Handgunners, over the course of two or three turns, accounted for the Chariot, and all was good for me.

His Chosen warriors then spent much of the game chasing fairies it seemed, as they first failed to catch my Knights, and then spent the rest of the game running around in circles trying to tie down my duellists, who were running about shooting them with pistols, dropping one or two Warriors every now and then... oh that was fun, a 72 point unit tying up how much points of Chosen Chaos Warrior of Khorne?

The Chaos Hounds charged my Swordsmen and my Free Company Detachment.

The Dogs against the Swordsmen were destroyed outright, and their fellows against the Free Company, only managed to kill 2 Free Company, and as the Free Company broke, the dogs themselves failed their panic test for dogs being destroyed within 4", and ran, never to return.

The Chaos Warriors (non-chosen) of Khorne got into action around the third turn, wisely choosing to fight the Swordsmen, rather than the Greatswords, but failed to break me, and, in fact, lost combat. Then, tied in place as they were, the Greatswords charged into them and crushed them, the unit broke, and was run down.

The Chaos Knights of Khorne, 8 or 10 Flesh Hounds of Khorne, and another unit of Chaos Hounds, arrived on my left flank this turn.

The Frenzied Khornate Chosen Chaos Knights espied in the window of the ruined building my artillery crew, and decided to charge in there and kill me. Unfortunately, only two Chaos Knights were able to fight in the narrow confines, and, me being behind defended obstacles, needed 6s to hit me.

They managed to kill one crew man, and won the combat, but my brave men held, prepared to sell themselves dearly.

The Chosen Warriors continued to be led around by the nose by my Duellists... hehehehe

The Flesh Hounds decided to charge my Pikemen unit... well, actually, there was no decision, they had no choice in the matter, gotta love Frenzy =P

The pikemen got to make 21 attacks at S4 at the Flesh Hounds before they even had a chance of striking, and, thus, at least 6 demon dogs carked it, meaning none lived long enough to strike me, and with a scent of sulfer, the remaining two dogs went POOF! back into the immaterial realm

The remaining Chaos Hounds advanced on my infantry. I sent halberdiers after them. They died. AFter two rounds of combat, the dogs bit the bullet, kicked the bucket, AND took a dirt nap.

Now, the Chaos Knights of Khorne killed off the remaining Mortar crew, but then neglected to leave the building.

On their last turn, they foolishly broke cover, and my handgunners all took aim, and assassinated half the unit JFK style from the top of my own little Book Depository, allowing me half points for the unit.

So, lets see, one reduced Chosen Warriors unit and 3 Chaos Knights left...

I'd lost 150 points from a mortar getting killed by Chaos Knights, and a Mortar misfiring and exploding itself.

MASSACRE IN MY FAVOUR!

The big finger for the blood god!

Oh how sweet it was, muaaaaaahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

Teheheeee

Round 8: Pitched Battle

Damien

Opponent: High Elves

Again...more with the high Elves...ARG!

This was one of those battles where anything that could go wrong for me,

usually did. It was absolutely brutal. The rolling the Elves were making was

just ungodly (I was either one off what I needed to get something, or he was

one over, especially in magic). His great eagles just blacked everything,

stopping me getting some vital charges, and..well..theres not much I can

say, I was fighting a losing battle the whole game.

I ending up conceding this game, I really had no option, had we played turn

six I wouldn't have had anything elf on the table (as Vampire Lord and

handful of troops + No army left + Lots of Elves = impossible odds).

And so..with that NATCON 03 came to a close. Eight Games, three days, and

really drained players. After all the points had been tallied I had come

28th out of a field of about 41. Not too bad. I had some really good games

against different players from all over New Zealand, I can't complain one

bit...except for some of my dice rolling of course. No sooner had this

tournament ended, I was thinking towards the next one (whenever that may

be). By the next day I had already had another army list wirtten out to

collect and work on (just anything as long as it's not Vampire Counts!).

Garth

Opponent: High Elves

Highlights

· Chosen Chaos Warriors destroying two units of elves in the last two turns.

Peter

Opponent: Chaos Tzeentch

I know why I lost this one!

I was too busy drooling over G.W. Phil's beeeeeeeeeautifully painted and converted Tzeentch army... Ohhhhhh my GOD it is so beautiful!

I'm salivating just thinking about it.

Converted Chariots of Tzeentch from Disks, the trailing flames

Converted Chaos Lord and Spawn (for when the only ward save in the army fails and the character with it runs and turns into a Spawn for displeasing the Chaos Gods)

Coherant paint scheme, excellently executed

Converted Minotaurs of Tzeentch, with beaked look

Exquisitely painted Chaos Hounds

OH SO NICE!

Well, my game went faily badly. Most things got ganged up on and systematically destroyed.

I walked away with a Solid Defeat by 60 bloody points!

If I had just wounded that blasted chariot once more! If I had caused one more wound on those bloody Screamers of Tzeentch! If the bloody Screamers hadn't passed their instability against my Handgunners! If my bloody Duellists had rallied instead of running! If those damned Chaos Hound units hadn't rallied right on the table edge!

So many ifs, buts and maybes, I was just 60 points off suffering only a Minor Defeat.

But, well, I cost Phil the Top Spot of the tournament, Best Overall, so I guess he has a bit more to complain about than me about being robbed of something so tantalisingly within his grasp, hehehehe =P

So at the end of it, I'd done fairly well.

I'd won more than I lost, against some of the best opponents I'd ever encountered.

Phil just systematically tore my army limb from limb, there's no doubting he owned me right from the beginning.

Dan, a high ranker from NIcon (which is why I didn't play him then) managed to evaluate all the risks and make the moves where it counted.

Sometimes I had bad luck, but, to counter that, quite often, I really did come out lucky, so really I can't complain.

It was definately one of the more enjoyable experiences in my wargaming carreer, and not once did I have a bad or abusive opponent, which really shows the calibre of gamers in New Zealand. By and large, the majority of NZ gamers are really good sports who want to have a good and challenging game. No super-cheese armies, no squabbling or asshole behaviour, just good gamers out for a good time, displaying a good level of competence

By the end of it, I was the walking dead, completely listless and devoid of energy, much resembling Damien's army, but quite content with the way things played out. On the way home, strange thoughts of a gloriously painted Goblin army came to mind.

I've got some painting to do

At the end, Damien came 29th overall with a score of 172, I came 31st overall due to my painting score, my total being 167, Garth got 35th with 164.

In terms of battle Points, I got 83, Damien got 80, and Garth got 70. In total, only 15 people out of the 40 competitors walked away with better battle scores than I did, which I found to be quite an acheivement... go me!

Painting, Damien got 20, Garth got 19, I got 11 (oh the shame of it all)

Army Composition I got 33, Damien had 31, and Garth walked away with 30

And, for sportsmanship, Garth grabbed 35, I grabbed 32, and Damien 31 (Garth therefore received a perfect sportsmanship score in all but one of his games, I got a 4 for all my games, and Damien grabbed 4 for all but one game)

It's my lack of painting that let ME down.

So what did I learn?

Be bold and force your opponent to play to YOUR rules.

Learn your rules comprehensively and be aware of just what you and your opponent are capable of.

Identify when it is okay to take risks.

Make sure you KNOW YOUR ARMY!

Bribing people with Creme Eggs for sportsmanship points really works!

And, most importantly for me, GET PAINTING!

If anyone is thinking about attending a tournament, my advice to you is DO IT!

It'll be one of the most rewarding gaming experiences you will ever have, you will meet a great number of great opponents you have never played before and are hardly likely to ever play again, and you'll have a very memorable experience to recall now and then.

You'll definately not regret it =)

Next tournament to my knowledge, NIcon 2003 featuring MAGEcon

Massey University, Palmerston North

May 31st - June 2nd

Queen's Birthday Weekend

1	Bryan v Arthur	LOTR	500pts
2	Barry v Daniel	WHFB	2000pts
3	Damien v Anthony	WHFB	1000pts
4	Peter v Jaymesh	Necromunda
5	Rob v John	WHFB	2000pts
6	Free
7	Free

South Auckland Miniatures
Wargames Club

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1	Mordheim Campaign	Mordheim Campaign
2	Mordheim Campaign	Mordheim Campaign
3	Mordheim Campaign	Mordheim Campaign
4	Arthur, Bryan, Glen	DBA
5	Free
6	Free
7	Free

South Auckland Miniatures Wargames Club

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Booking Games

Battle Reports

Club Information

South Auckland Miniatures
Wargames Club