Not a Complete Disaster

Here follows  my account of the Haven from the storm tournament at St. Mary's church, Leigh. I would make more fuss about this, but as games were on the clock I was too busy generalling and strategering to take photos. Not that it helped. The three pics shown here were taken during our lunch break.

The chaps (and chappettes) on parade during the lunch break. I had to take every single model out of the carrying cases and individually place them in ranks. 

 My first game was something of a forgone conclusion, being that my opponent had a hand in writing the rules. His army was beautifully painted though, and entirely justified the overly elaborate display board, complete with LED screen and speakers.  The battle itself was good fun, with my cannon displaying a frankly ahistorical pinpoint accuracy, but despite getting the hits in the large infantry unit on Nick's left refused to rout. On the other wing, we both concentrated our cavalry. In a way that would become a theme throughout the tournament, my regiment of knights were placed behind a troop of screening cavalry, who got in the way, not of the enemy, but of my own knights. That, and other errors lead to a complete tabling. Only a superb round of shooting from the crossbow unit wiping out the gargoyles prevented a whitewashing and the indignity of running around the church in my underpants.

The next game went better. My farmyard animal objective markers proved a hit, and I was in control of an objective at them end of the game. Hats off to the unit of shieldwall responsible who had a lovely picnic on an empty right flank, just out of sight of the unit of ogres with cannons. Things went less well on the left, with my knights again getting in each other's way, and ending up routed after a single round of combat with the enemy's elite cavalry. It was at least amusing to finish the battle with my general, surrounded by the enemy, making a passable impression of an angry scouser at closing time: waving a club and shouting "I'll take you all on!" 

Some people made very impolite comments about the ostentatiousness of this display board, but all in good fun.

After a slap-up feed in the vestry (the variety and volume of cake had to be seen to be believed) we moved on to game three. An interesting scenario, one had to kill the three most expensive units in the opponent's army to score points. My opponent (foolishly, in my opinion) put his two hardest groups of lads all the way on the left, and as had left the cannon at home for the second half, decided I would ignore them and go on a bug hunt for the spiders instead* This strategy actually bore fruit, as although my knights were wiped out (again), we ended turn six with one scoring kill each and both contesting the tie-breaker objective, which would have been a draw if the game had ended then. Unfortunately, Kings of War has you roll a dice to see if there will be extra time, and after a lifetime of rolling ones, I only went and gave the abyssal stunties a turn to wipe out all my high-scoring units and claim the centre of the table. We wuz robbed.

The spiders aren't part of Mantic's Abyssal Dwarf range, but they really fit the theme. I was most impressed.

In the light of these crushing defeats, my final game was the last place playoff. The dice gods favoured me with the roll for table edges, so I got to chose the nice open edge will a hill to place missile troops on, and severely cut down the sight-lines for the massive amount of artillery my dwarven opponent had mustered. I was also aided by my opponent spreading himself too thin, for instance placing a hero and two regiments against my lone archer regiment on my left, so I could bunch up my heavy hitters in the centre and support/screen them with the large amount of basic infantry I brought to the game. My plan all along had been to bunch up into a wedge and drive for the objective in my opponent's deployment zone, and thanks to the speed of my troops (especially the allied contingent from the Herd, who provide much needed hitting power) it succeeded. My knights once again got killed off, but this time they were holding a pair of giant earth elementals who should have been concentrating on objectives. Their loss was not in vain. At close of play I had the far objective and two of the three centre line objectives, while my opponent had one centre line objective and was no where near his main goal in my deployment zone.

So all-in-all, dashed good fun, the battles I lost had learning points in them and £200 was raised to repair St. Mary's roof after thieves nicked the lead from it. Suffice to say I am gathering a band of ruffians, as well as ladders, crowbars etc. to ensure another tournament will be taking place sooner rather than later.

*They're coming out of the walls! Game over man, game over!