Natcon 09, Thanks Phil

[Josh]

Massive thanks to the Hamilton Immortals for putting on one of the best tournaments I've been to. Also a HUGE thanks to Phil who organised/ran the WHFB side of things. A great tournament with people coming from all over the country, big turn out too.

Well done to the winners whoever you are... I'm desperately awaiting an email with the results!

[wouster7]

How'd everyone go?

Did the City Guard do it in style 

[dave grant]

Probably not, most of them where at the cliub today. 


That said, glad you enjoyed it, let us know who won, (and who came 27th), ie what were the results.

[Josh]

Keenly waiting. What I know at the moment is that Fuj got something like 95ish battle points, Luke got mid ninties (?), I got 84pts, and Derick lost all 8 games to seriously contend the wooden spoon.

My total apparently put me into the top half which is a great result. I got exactly half of the max available battle points and had 4 big wins, 4 big losses. That's all I know for now.... 

[Vaul]

#1 Harry Dixon - Tomb Kings
#2 Reid Pittams - Dark Elves
#3 Darren Urquhart - Dark Elves
#4 Joe Dixon - High Elves

Did I get 3/4 around the wrong way?  Someone correct if so.

Best painted = Mike Thorn (Dwarves).  This was the dark brown/grey with red, stickers on shields, awesome washes/shading.
Best Sport = Can't remember his name!  I think he played ogres though.

Check this forum tomorrow night for my thread with FULL battle reports and ALL photos.  It will NOT be something you want to miss.  Same bat time, same bat channel.

[Josh]

Great! Are the full results up anywhere yet? How'd you and I go?

[Vaul]

Did the City Guard do it in style

I think the main representative s of the club were;

Myself - tomb kings
Dave Stent - Empire
Nick Buckby - Dark Elves
Josh Warne - Orcs & goblins
Derrick Williams - Warriors of Chaos

Maybe Rob Sadler as well?  But he doesn't show up much these days. 

I don't think we aced it exactly.  The dixon family stole the show - the dad and two sons from nelson, taking out first and fourth.  Their dad had a beautiful army, voted him best painted.  Wonderful guys, true gentlemen.

Me and nick faced each other, I felt like I had the upper hand until a heartbreaking dice roll cheated me!!  Nick might like to comment, but check out the battle report when it goes up, judge for yourself.

[Philfy]

Thanks all.

I just did the paperwork...  the biggest kudos go to Rob Shirley for putting it all together, and for that legend JM for his marvellous terrain (literally blood, sweat, and tears!).  The WFB community will benefit greatly from his hard work and it is totally appreciated.  Thanks too to Bobby for supplying most of the base-cloths.

And of course thanks to all those of you who attended...  see - its not THAT scary south of the Bombays is it! 

Full results have now been emailed to players, judges, and the IF team for rankings inclusion.

Congratulation s to our winners goes to:

1st Overall - Harry Dixon (Tomb Kings & Defending Champion)
2nd Overall - Reid Pittams (Dark Elves)
3rd Overall - John Matthews (Ogre Kingdoms)
4th Overall - Joe Dixon (High Elves)
5th Overall - Darren Urquhart (Dark Elves)

Best Sport - John Matthews (Ogre Kingdoms)
Best Painted - Mike Thorn (Dwarves)

Thanks all - see you at Tin Soldier!
 
Philfy

[Josh]

WAHOO! TOP 10 FOR ME! The result also pushes me into the top 20 in NZ. Greenskins FTW.

[Antony]

It looked like a good time was being had by all when I popped in on Saturday. From the looks of the results Josh had found his level (vs Reid), and Fuj was continuing his good form. Derrick probably needs some more practice games though 

Good stuff, it looked like a very good event with a great field. Hopefully I get to cross swords with some of the Dixons soon, as they are a formiddible clan, with great looking armies too.

[Vaul]

Wow, it turned out I got ruined on comp & sports.  It was probably a combined thing - people must have had such a bad time fighting my army that they decided to hit me on sportsmanship too.  That sucks, but fair I guess.  Great result Josh & Dave!

[Josh]

It sucks Luke. I was shocked when I saw that result. Hold your head high, you played extremely well and did the TKs proud!

@ Antony -  I finally got things to work for me. I did have a reasonably lucky draw, playing against 4 weak armies in the first 4 games though which set me up. Games 5 and 6 were against Dark Elves (Reid and Darren Urquhart) who duly smashed me. I was very happy with how I played and had my share of both good and awful luck as tends to happen with Greenskins. I'm also stoked to have picked up points for painting, which to me is a massive part of the hobby. Apparently there were a few more people who would have voted for my army if it had been completed.

Well done Dave, you dodged a bullet by not playing me though. 

[Vaul]

Next sunday at cityguard: Josh vs Dave!!  I'll take the pics and provide the popcorn.

Anyways, i'm going to have to think hard about whether I want to win more games in the next tournament, or rank higher.  Either I tune my list even more, and put my lessons learned to better use, or... I drop stuff like the casket and big magic, and go for a slightly more balanced list, and get a higher placement.  Will make the decision at some point.  Alternatively, I could go to the next tournament with a non dragon or archmage high elf list and try to score high in that regard.  Plenty of time to think about it.

I'm happy with getting into the top 10 on the battle points category.

[Antony]

@ Josh and Vaul, Yeah, that sounds like a challange that could only be declined by a spinless whimpering coward - not the least bit like Fuj who'll be up for it no doubt 

@ Vaul, I did see some appalling luck on your part. The snake eyes for those Maurader Horsemen 
As far as comp is concerned, take a look at what Harry Dixon took, he got pretty much the same comp as you, and the armies were both TK.

[Vaul]

Antony, after you walked away from that marauder horsemen game, I turned the whole thing around and crushed him 18-2.  The truly heartbreaking stuff was this:

- Besting Nick Buckby on position for the first 2 turns, then charging his black guard with my crucial prince unit, rolling 5 impact hits when the average is 10, (so that's a couple of ones and twos), and then having my whole unit wiped out.  I was genuinely heartbroken - I really wanted to win that game.

- Landing my skullapult shot on the mega broken treeman ancient first turn, dead on, whole game ready to go my way, rolling a one to wound.  Again, feeling totally cheated.

But I had some good luck too, against mike thorn's dwarfs, he failed every important dice roll while I took averages the whole game.

[Antony]

I think TK vs Black Guard is Black Guard all the way unless you destroy the unit with your impact hits. You'll never break them, and with or without ASF any that are left will chew through the Chariots in subsequent turns and/or be counter charged.

[Vaul]

We're talking a situation where he started with 15 of them in two ranks, and i've brought them down to about 10 from shooting before my charge.  I killed about 3 with impact hits when I was expecting closer to 7 kills.  My chariot unit has the icon of the sacred eye, so I would have been looking at 3 attacks from the prince 3+ to hit str 6, plus 8 horses hitting & wounding on 4's, plus 6 crew hitting on 4's, half on 3's.  It definately would have been a wipeout, with my hammer unit free to kill his corsairs on the following turn. 

[wouster7]

Wow, it turned out I got ruined on comp & sports

Looks like the guy who won got about the same as you on C & S Luke. I don't have any problems with you sports wise and wouldn't expect you to take a knock there. So do ppl at Nat's really get snotty when they play low comp army's? Thats not cool if thats what happens.

Great to see top 10 results for Dave & Josh.

Do you guys know what were in the top ten armies?

[Vaul]

I think they feel bad enough to give me a 'no' on the 'would you play this guy again' question, so if I got eight 'no's, that takes me down a lot.  I gave everyone 5/5 for sports except for one person who I gave a 4, for non comp related reasons.

I already have two video clips up on youtube where I talk about a slideshow of pictures I took of everyone's armies, so you can see who had what if you check them out.  I'll have links later in the day after I have the batreps up as well, but feel free to go have a look at what is already there now.

[Glenn Patel]

Mmm. Vaul? That sucks.

Ah well. Jerks of the world unite.  We should form a support group.


Magic Heavy Tomb Kings certainly earns a fair bit of hate, and I'm not convinced they're as strong as the hate would indicate... then again, sometimes I play like a brain-damaged goldfish...

I'm pondering (on your behalf) how a Liche High Priest-led army (no Casket, no other Priests) would comp... (possibly with an Icon Bearer or just 3 characters)... I'd definately say that Skeleton Archers are not doing you favours.

It makes the army look really shooty = bad comp, but doesn't actually shoot that well = doesn't earn BP's in proportion to the bad comp appearance.

I mean, Glade Guard (for example) are essentially twice as good, if not better (hitting on 3's at close range move-and-shoot, and S4 is much better, and they can stand and shoot, and close range is 15" compared to TOTAL range 24"...)... and if your magic phase gets extra shots it's basically like resolving a magic missile. DE RXBmen are obviously even more of an improvment, but they get hit harder. (Dwarf and Empire S4 shooting obviously has an edge right there...)

I don't know if you have the models, but I'd VERY strongly consider going with ranked infantry in place of at least one archer unit. Should comp nicer, and better at breaking their units (which, honestly, is what WH is all about).

...then again, you can embrace the cheese and win games, works for some people.

[Vaul]

I agree with what you're getting at.  People don't understand the strengths and weaknesses of tomb kings very well.  They see me rolling an endless amount of dice in the magic phase and it depresses them.  But there's only one situation that really matters, and that's when I have all my characters in range of the prince's or king's unit to magic move them into something important.

So perhaps there is a lot of false demoralization going on... people feel like they are helpless to stop things like the casket, but in reality all they need to do is make sure their pricey heavy cav unit and lone characters can't see it, and it isn't so harmful.  I would try a double skullapult list, but although players would understand it more, the judges would probably see it for what it really is: an even harder list.

[Fujin]

For my part I'm very happy with my performance.

For an army with a reasonable shooting phase (albeit one that relies on luck going your way... wait till you read the report about the Star Dragon left on one wound and the 5 consecutive cannon misfires that helped me fail to finish the damn thing off), modest magic (4PD, 3 bound 4s - easily contained by the majority of my opponents - including 3 Brettonian players and a 3DD High Elf army), a worrying susceptibility to psychological trauma (much Panic and Terror suffered) and whose hardest strike unit is 6 (non-Inner Circle) Knights with a Warbanner (rargh!) I thought I did bloody well:


One tight win over Darren who went on to place 5th.

A solid win over Strollaz Dwarfs who got the first turn which gave me 12" of movement to deal with the whole army.

An absolute "Smash 'e' Bro"(TM) on some Brettonians (21-0 to me). Chilling and clinical game as my awesome detachments tore his lances apart... or at least ran interference. Whole army dead, 4 quarters, 5 standards, general killing bonus. Ouch.

Found my level (not) getting pasted 18-2 by the eventual winner of the tournament which all things considered I was happy with given he beat down on Reid 16-4 and Nick 19-1.

Neil's Bretts - a good win 16-4. He had just finished putting down peasant units when I'd deployed my entire army; detachment traffic jam hell for the win; slow game and slow player - only got 4 turns out of it and was a bit miffed as my fifth turn would have seen peasants and knights and the treb creamed in combat - and would have boosted me to the podium!

Joked with Mark before round 6 that I might as well face the 3rd Brett army at the event (his). Of course we drew each other for round 6. Mark won the game by 3VPs (an 11-9 win - and a BIZARRE VP table) due to one dice roll - keeping a Paladin in combat with the Flagellents (rerolled 4 for the break test) or the Flagellents would have been in combat with the Hippo boss (two wounds left on the Hippo - Flaggies would have eaten it for breakfast). Bugger... more points that would have boosted me to a podium finish...

Round 7 against another fecking Strollaz Dwarf army (what a draw - cheers Philfy) but this time Ken Hays who is the man (got my Best Sports vote). VERY close game - Shades of Death on the Swordsmen into the flank of Hammerers with BSB (but no Dwarf Lord). Failed to autobreak as we had the same unit strength - Swords hit in flank by Warriors, broken. Won 12-8 - very tight, great fun.

Crossed my fingers but my lack ran out. Drew the Star Dragon High Elf list. Feckin Dragon left on 1 feckin wound (feck!). Uber-Dragon Princes (9 with Standard of Balance - ItP - and BSB with Warbanner) nearly all went down to my general solo charging but I was a dick and forgot to move my BSB (game 8 of an 8-game event... I've never been so mentally exhausted) so he broke and it was all over - had Joe sweating for a while there.


Ok comp (was hoping for 44-45), great Sports (just pipped by John for Best Sports - well-deserved - the guy's a legend). Almost broke 100 battle points. A little surprised I didn't get slightly better paint scores (given my army was finished... nudge nudge Warne). My thought on this is that you really need some centrepiece models - luckily I will have a whole bunch in my VC army. Achieved my goal of a top 10 finish and boosted my national rank to 7th (I'll get you yet Comins!). Looking for forward to Runefang next month.


@ Josh - I really thought we'd play round 8 (and REALLY wish we had!). Get that lot finished and you'll be nabbing Best Presentation all over the show. I would like to catch up for a game sometime. Just let me get my hands on a Steam Tank first

@ Vaul - I vote soften your list and get better as a player. I friggin HATE TKs - can't beat 'em. Ever. As opposed to going the "jerks of the world unite" attitude take a good hard look at yourself as a player, your game manner and your army list design. I have no opinion on you as a player as I've not yet had the pleasure of a game but clearlu some people think you're a lovely guy and others don't. Only you know for sure Your army looked hard (TK strengths aside) - Harry's is a good benchmark and he's an awesome general (definitely the best TK player in the country). Stick it out and keep going with them.

@ Glenn - they're as strong as the hate indicates. In the hands of a truly competent player TKs are just pure madness. Lachlan McWhirter has stopped using them at tournaments because it just guarantees him first place and there's no challenge anymore. Tricky to get the hang of, absolutely bloody deadly if you know what you're doing (cf. Harry Dixon and his 8 consecutive thrashings of... everyone).

@ Anthony - expect a call or PM requesting the use of your Steam Tank for Runefang. The Flagellents rarely died well enough to make the impact they needed to but they did always die giving the other guy 210VPs almost as a guarantee. It's tough out there for the Stank nowadays but I'm feeling the need for some grinding, Unbreakable, Terror-causing action. Will drop the Flagellents and Knights with Great Weapons (there's a surprise), snap up a Stank (with your permission), and have some more points to throw around (probably for another Archer detachment for the Crossbowmen). I've found that Empire excel against "normal" armies - i.e. not Undead, Daemons or Dark Elves. They DO have an answer for everything, but are reliant at times on the dice not being fickle. At least that's my take on it. I'll be sticking with them (Empire) for the rest of the year.

@ Philfy - great tournament mate. If I end up running Fantasy at GuardCon you might coincidentally get a shite draw too (jokes... hrm...) 

@ Cityguard Exec (I suspect mostly Karen) - sort your business out and book a date for GuardCon and decide on who you want to run it. People are asking questions and need to make plans now and it's a bad look to say "I don't know if I'm running it" and "I don't know when it's on". GuardCon Fantasy should crank past 50 players this year and you'll need to be well-organised if you want to attract the Oz players over (which will happen if you get over 50 people in the field).

[Fujin]

Forgot to mention I picked up almost 1/2 my VC army this weekend for the grand sum of $20. LOTS of Skeletons and some other great stuff including some SWEET unit fillers (a giant cyclops skeleton for example - thank-you Derick!). Sweeeeet.

Gotta love the bring and buy.

[Glenn Patel]

GuardCon... I think I'm designated as being in charge (fantasy rep by virtue of having had no life for the past six months... sigh ), but to be honest I'm not sure really where to start on the organising front. I'll try and corner Karen for advice, but I'm taking suggestions as of right now...

As for TK's being Just That Good... okay, I'll believe you. I still think making a more 'user-friendly' variant than his current list would help.

[warpmaster]

I´d like to thank the immortals too for a great job.I also like to thank all the fellas i played and Phil for putting up with all the stupid questions.
All the boys from Chch had a great time and will be looking at coming up for more events.

[Fujin]

Good stuff there Darren. You guys had better be careful - carry on like you are and us Aucklanders are going to start thinking all South Islanders are top blokes and great players. 

[warpmaster]

Good stuff there Darren. You guys had better be careful - carry on like you are and us Aucklanders are going to start thinking all South Islanders are top blokes and great players.  Grin

*Keeping a look out for flocks of pigs overhead*

[Fujin]

GuardCon... I think I'm designated as being in charge (fantasy rep by virtue of having had no life for the past six months... sigh ), but to be honest I'm not sure really where to start on the organising front. I'll try and corner Karen for advice, but I'm taking suggestions as of right now...

Whatever happens, make a decision before Runefang. Then President Nick can give it a push while he is down there and sell it to the Welly lads and South Islanders etc.

[Josh]

Fuj. I'm massively pleased with my results, and stoked with my 3rd for players choice. Goes to show what can happen when you paint your own army... (nudge back). Well done on taking out Cityguard top spot, I'm keen for a game on Sunday if you are. There may be one change to my list with the swapping of the Lobba for a boar chariot, we'll see.

[Antony]

Nice write up Dave. Very well done. You played some class players and punched your weight 

Your more than welcome to borrow my STank. Just make sure you return it unbroken (Gyro, horses tails ...). It is solid pewter do it is prabably OK