By The Chosen of Sigmar and
Stefano
Prequel:
(By Stefano)
I
had promised my wife to prepare the front garden of our newly build house, in
order to saw grass the next weekend. So Saturday morning 9 am, I started
digging, milling, raking, cleaning, scraping, … Despite my efforts, things
were not going as fast as I hoped. I did not want to spent whole Sunday on
the same activity when having the opportunity to play a tournament. So
stubborn as I am, I worked until 8.30 pm to finish what I started.
However, the cocktail of really hot weather, physical labour and some wine at
the BBQ (which my wife prepared while I was killing plants, dirt and myself with
spade, rake and barrow) made me feel quite sorrow in head and muscle the morning
after. But hey, sweet was the prospect of having fun all day long “with other
nitwits, spending their time shoving tiny soldiers on a piece of table covered
with miniature vegetation.”
The tables:
The tables were looking great. One of them looked pretty hard to play (eventually both Stefano and I played this table) but for the rest there was enough scenery to take advantage of and enough space to deploy our troops...
The draw of battles:
Always a 'scary' moment as the first battle can set the tune for the day. But I got me a nice opponent as dis Stefano...
Round 1:
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The Chosen of Sigmar's Opponent: Claudio Gielen Army: Tomb Kings About the opponent: Claudio is one of those young lad's born for the game. Tactical overview, lucky and but most of all: trying to have playing it. Fine adversary... About the battle: All looked to go great. I had the opportunity to destroy his Casket of Souls early in the game... Some bad luck in round 5 for me when I failed to dispel his 'Urgency' incatation allowing his chariots to escape from a flank attack of my Greatswords led by Elector Count... The outcome was that my Greatswords didn't see any combat and that he scored a solid victory... Most valuable unit(s):
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Stefano's
Opponent:
Laurens Degryse Army: Beastmen (Tzeench) About the opponent: Nice guy, straight forward, great fun, no long arguments about the rules !. I’m really hoping to meet him again some other tournament ! About the battle: : The table we played was not really a nice battle field. The centre was completely filled with woods, large obstacles and part of a river, leaving only a tiny gap for troop movement. Both sensing that the one who first sends his troops through the gap would be attacked by a multitude of enemy units and loose the battle, we stuck at our baseline for three turns. I tried to get out of this impasse by charging my ghouls and flying general into his minotaurs. My general outdid himself, kicking the last minotaur on the run. Unfortunately, this left him out in the open, and despite dispelling three magic missiles, the fourth one came through and completely fried my general. The rest of the battle saw my army slowly crumble to dust. Result : solid loss. Most valuable unit(s): 
Most unfortunate unit(s) :
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Round 2:
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The Chosen of Sigmar's Opponent: Kevin Opstaele Army: Chaos Undivided About the opponent: A 'West Flaemish' dude. Although some strange choices in his army and magic he was a fine opponent... Bad dice though ;-) About the battle: As I got first turn I was able to block one of his units knights of advancing with my White Wolfs and have an extra shot at his warriors and the other unit of knights with my firepower and magic. Blocking the march with my Captain on Pegasus allowed me to thin out the ranks of his close combat experts. I only made one mistake during all the game and it costed me an entire unit plus my general... Oh well, I had a victory but it could have been solid in stead of minor... Most valuable unit(s):
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Stefano's
Opponent:
Tim
Tuerlinckx Army: Dwarfs About the opponent: Also nice guy, great fun, lots of fun stuff when things went great or wrong. Again, hoping to encounter him on further games ! About the battle: The first turns consisted of his army hurling all kinds of metal, and mine moving forward as quick as possible with some magic tricks on the way. One of my necromancers casted an irresistible “curse of years” on his general with accompanying unit of 20 dwarfs, which my opponent failed to dispel for three turns. Together with two times “steal sole” on his general and my fast units destroying almost all his shooting units really did bring in the points. Both last turns saw some heavy combat, seeing the end of my zombies, one unit of skeletons, the strigoï thrall and a runesmith. One remark : This Malakai shooting unit is nasty and painful ! It took down lots of black knights and skeletons (I think the only time having ranks is a minus !)
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Round 3:
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The Chosen of Sigmar's Opponent: Stijn Luyten Army: Empire About the opponent: Normally I would have played Stefano but due to a battle already played earlier I got to Stijn in a civil war. Stijn is a fair and nice player and I really enjoyed the battle although the terrain wasn't that easy... About the battle: One passage that fitted 2 units and two small passages through woods and that was the terrain. I tried to get advantage of the terrain by deploying as much fire power to the 'gate' a  s I could. Him destroying his own war machines and having
flagellants made him surge forward and my trap sprung. The flags that made
it into close combat only had one advantage and that was their unbreakability... The ranks were shot away...Most valuable unit(s):
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Stefano's
Opponent:
Guy
Vandenbrande Army: Beastmen (Tzeench) About the opponent: Again nice guy, who really felt sorry when all his plans came through, and all my dice ended with the bad number of eyes on top. I again want to apologize to him for my temper evolving in the wrong way when loosing big time. But hey, always in for a revenge ! ;o) About the battle: I saw myself in an outnumbering position with more fast-moving troops. So everything looked well until my opponent dished out 14 spell and 7 dispel dice, plus a dispel scroll. I was magically zapped away (not a single miscast and three irresistible spells in the whole game) and the only combat I saw went completely wrong (general slain in first round of combat even before he could strike). In short, his army was well occupied with casting magical trick, while mine kept busy with crumbling to dust. In the end, my army was entirely “removed from the scene” even before turn six. It left me with less then 10% of my opponent’s victory points Most valuable unit(s):
Most unfortunate unit(s) :
Remark :THIS kind of overwhelming magic is no fun to play against. I agree my own magic helped me win against the dwarfs, but to me 14 spell dice in a 2000 pts army is way to cheesy. Again, no bad word about Guy, only about “overmagiced” armies. |
Aftermath by Stefano :
In the first place, the sportsmanship and attitude of all my opponents is by far the best I ever encountered on tournaments, thank you all ! Although being not one of the big tournaments, everything was well organized from umpires, catering and administration. Keep organizing lads !
At the end of the tournament, my temper wasn’t really bright and shining, having seen all those bad dice rolls in the last game. I was already making up painful ways to end the lives of the dice causing this, when the judges awarded me the price for “best painted army”. It immediately uplifted my moods, and so the dice lives were spared. But let them be warned, next time there might be no judge to prevent me from executing some evil plan on you, my betraying dice !!!
In the end, I think I made the right move to work hard on Saturday, leaving the Sunday for battling and having fun. Let’s take a look at my agenda to fit in the next tournament …
Aftermath by The Chosen of Sigmar:
Fine tournament and hadn't it been for 27 points in round 2 I would have been in the top 10. But hey, I scored best of all the Money Wolfs and all the Knights of Bayard so I was rather pleased with my result...
