Conflict 5th Ed.

Prequel:

My first tournament of the year at my home club, so no excuses not to go ! Last year I ended up way below the 30^th place, so I was eager to improve substantially. So I took again my winning army from Knights of Bayard and tweaked it a little to comply with the 1750pts-rule for this tournament. For this tournament, one can get points for army presentation, so I outdid myself by creating a Grail out of a Westmalle beer glass, some bits from the skeleton regimental box and brass paint. I also prepared a nice booklet with a story for every regiment in the army (many thanks to my wife for the advice and helpful hands on the latter !)

This is the story that Stefano made for his army presentation.

Round 1:

Opponent: Gert Bergen
Army: Dwarfs
About the opponent: Nice young lad. Quite opposite to me, he possessed a nearly unpainted army, but loads of gaming experience. I am eager for a rematch, although I expect the outcome to be the same …
About the battle: Even before the battle began, I realised this was going to be tough. Geert deployed an anti-magic shooty army. A perfect combination to keep my undead minions at bay. In this scenario, the only thing I could do was rush forwards and try to get in my opponent’s flanks. However, even before we got to turn 3, all flyers, fast cavalry, skirmishers including banshee, and an entire unit of skeletons were blown to oblivion (no need to explain the devastation by an organ gun scoring 10 hits for two turns in a row, and two bolt throwers scoring several rank piercing hits). Without any worthy spells coming through, I finally arrived at his baseline with my knights, grave guard and an almost wiped out unit of skeletons. I did my best and cracked a unit or two, but in the end I couldn’t avoid being nearly wiped out. Only two grave guards survived round 6, but fortunately this was enough to avoid a massacre. Well, as expected, shooting and anti-magic blew me off my socks …
Most valuable unit(s):

Grave guards, for destroying a unit of thunderers and warriors, and still manage to survive round 6.

Round 2:

Opponent: Frederick Michielssen
Army: Bretonnia
About the opponent: Nice guy, who came along with my Skaven friend Niels. If he’s in for a rematch, then bring him on !
About the battle: I faced several units of knights, including the questing and grail ones, but only little magic. We had to play the “capture”-scenario, and in this respect I deployed my troops in such a way to occupy the objective quite early on, and divert or counter any possible attack on this unit. I got the first turn, so I was able to tackle one of his flanks with bats and knights, and positioned my infantry to tackle any possible charges in the next turn. I even managed to kill some grail knights with a “cruse of years”. In the following turns, all knights got their charge, including my black knights, and it all went down into to epic fights with multiple units involved. In the centre, my objective-protecting unit was charged by two knightly units, but I managed to keep the unit alive (so to speak) to get in his flank and rear. In the final combat round, I completely wiped out his units without many losses on my side, thanks to some poisoned attacks and killing blows. On the right, it was the other way around. His grail knights murdered a complete unit of skeletons and a unit of dire wolves. I tried to rescue them with a flank charge of my black knights, but they suffered a severe rubber lance syndrome, together with an almost unbelievable row of armour- and ward saves on the Bretonnian side. In the meantime, my banshee went for a lady-hunt, only to find herself being magically zapped away. Too bad …

Final score : with the loss of my black knights (who carried two captured banners by the time they were destroyed), and with the grail knights capturing two of my banners, it ended in a draw. However, I still got the objective, granting me a minor victory

Most valuable unit(s):

My two necromancers for “refuelling” my skeletal regiments just in time to survive another round or two. And also for the extra movement spells and a curse of years.

Round 3:

Opponent: Steven Plugers
Army: Dwarfs
About the opponent: Steven was still digesting a massacre loss in the previous game when we started the battle. Nevertheless, there were no arguments about the rules or anything, so no negative points here ! I’m still in for a rematch !
About the battle: I was facing a dwarf army with strong shooting and anti-magic again, and with the first battle still in mind, I had to come up with something else if I still wanted to have a chance on victory. Fortunately, the scenario was in my favour due to the inherent slowness of Dwarfs, and with quite some woods and a hill I should be able to keep my costly units a little longer … For the first two rounds, there wasn’t much more then quite unfruitful shooting on his side, and full speed movement from my side. In the centre, a quite funny little war was started between a dwarf character and a unit ghouls in the middle of a wood. On the right, big infantry blocks readied themselves for a massive clash, while on the left I tried to get rid of some artillery so I could manoeuvre my black knights into his flank. In the next rounds, a lot of things happened all together. I pursued a canon crew with my dire wolves after three rounds of close combat, a skeleton unit managed to get rid of some quarrellers, the dwarf character chased my ghouls back to my baseline, I irresistibly cast a curse of years on his most expensive unit (which lasted for three rounds, only leaving two warriors alive in the end), I was too chicken to charge my black knights into a unit of iron breakers and was charged by them in return, and still managed to keep all my necromancers by granting them a pick nick in a nearby forest, together with my banshee. In return, my grave guards were butchered to the man by the dwarf general and his retinue, and a skeleton unit was shot in half by the remaining shooty units. After a game with a lot of tactical movements from both sides (sometimes it looked like some ritual war dance before units finally struck), we ended in a draw. All units being in my opponent’s table quarters, I got the objective, meaning I won with a minor victory
Most valuable unit(s):

My necromancer general for the irresistible curse of years
My banshee for howling to death a dwarf character
Certainly not my black knights, for they didn’t dare to charge !

Aftermath:

Because it’s my home club, I volunteered in helping to set up the tournament room. In fact, it’s a tournament not only for Warhammer fantasy, but also Warhammer 40k, Lord of the Rings, Blood Bowl, Warmachine, and loads of card games. One can imagine it takes quite some preparation. So, many thanks to our organizers, you did a great job ! It’ll be hard to do even better next year …

About the opponents, I had loads of fun (even when I lost), and I’ll certainly enjoy another battle against each of them, in some future time !

Then about my gaming, I still need to learn to manoeuvre a little better with my troopers. The first game cost me dearly trying to charge head-on a dwarf shooting army. On the other hand, in the last game I took better advantage of the scenery, which paid off in the end (together with some less fortunate dice rolling with his artillery …). I also must say I liked the scenarios other then the pitched battles, but maybe that’s because I managed to gain both objectives …

However, I managed to get one (great) loss, two (small) wins and maximum points for army presentation and painting, granting me the 18^th place on a total of 46 participants. Not bad, for last year I ended 35^th of 46.

nd on top of all this, the judges declared my army second best for painting ! Hell, what could I have wanted more from such an interesting day !

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