Battlecry 2013 FOG tournament results.

Well that was a great weekend! (Apart from losing my Internet connection for two days which made Blogging during the event impossible.

The thing I've always liked about tournaments is the fact that you get to play against new armies and hopefully a different group of guys than you regularly play against. In the FOG tournament we had 3 players from outside of Auckland and another player from Auckland that we hadn't met before. (He’s now been invited to join the South Auckland club and my regular gaming group as well so hopefully he will want to hang out with me, Rob and the other lads.)

I was still feeling a bit crook over the weekend from my stomach bug earlier in the week but i didn't let that ruin the weekend for me in any way. 

Arthur and Kevin had the initial games all set up so none of us local lads had to play each other in the first round which was great. My first opponent was Scott – who i believe was from Hamilton.  He had the Western Han Chinese army.  Id never played against a Chinese army so it was an interesting education in run away crossbow cavalry and surprisingly tough heavy weapon – it was a slightly frustrating game for me as all i could do for the most part was chase his horse back towards the edge of the table. Scott was a great opponent though and deserved the win. I was happy that i managed to get 6 points out of the game cause for a while there it was looking like a down-trousers moment!

- My line up after turn one with Scott just beginning to advance his on formidable line.

- Another shot from my side of the board. Here you can see some of my new Enclosed fields and a pair of open fields.

- My javelin men getting ready to take the high ground.

- A few turns later those same javelin men giving up the hill to superior opposition.

- Almost all my army has forced it’s way into Scott's Deployment zone.

The second game of day one was against Arthur and his Anglo Normans.  I have played Arthur many times as he is a member of the South Auckland club.  Two weeks ago our armies had played against each other and he had totally mauled me and ill be honest i was looking for revenge. Arthur is a very skilled FOG player and I've very rarely beaten him in our past games so to be honest i wasn't rating my chances.    However it seamed that the dice gods were with me and in one turn i managed to break 5 of his Battle groups which gave me the game. Needless to say i was pleased but felt bad for Arthur as its always stink when the dice are really against you. Still a win is a win

- some of my Battle groups after a series of charges.

- 2 of my Chariot units about to go up against 3 Battle groups of Knights!

- This pic shows just how empty the table was of terrain (Not good for Arthurs Defensive Spear.

- Several turns later my wall of pointy sticks gets close to its prey (Chariots and Knights fight it out.

- A turn later my line hits all those defensive spear. the dice are my # of hits. (Note Arthur didn't get a single hit back on me) All 4 of his engaged battle groups drop a grade. The melee phase was no kinder too him.

- Beginning of the final turn of the game, 3 Battle groups running here and two on the far side that you can see in the pic and i was ready to charge him in the flank.  It really was the crowning moment of the whole weekend for me.

Day two started out with me playing against Stephen who i believe is down in Christchurch.  He was running a Khmer army (Ancient Cambodians) with some Thai allies.  All i can say about Stephens force (apart from how nice it looked on the table) was soooooooooooooo many Elephants! 14 in total!!!!!  Elephants are mincing machines against chariots but for some reason (ill blame it on still feeling sick) i stupidly and purposely set up my chariots against his Elephants.  Needless to say about 2 minutes into the game i realised what id done and knew short of miracle dice  i was going to lose the game very badly.  My dice weren't wonderful and just under two hours into the game my turn was about to start and i looked up at Stephen and asked him if he wanted to continue playing for the next two hours while i tried to get at least 2 points or would he be happy to take the out and out win as i was happy to score no points for this round and watch the other lads games.  As Stephen was from out of town i would have kept playing for the rest of the game if he has wanted to but Stephen being the gentleman he was took the win and let me off the hook from playing what would have been a very painful and long 2 hours where i was very likely not to score any points.

- My wall of Offensive spear and chariots.

- A couple of pics of some of Stephens beautifully painted Khmer (Top) and Thai’s (bottom).

I'm note sure why but i don't seam to have any other pics from this game – they would have shown pieces of chariots being jumped on by hoards of wild Elephants!!!!!!

In this 2 hour break i got to walk around the hall and watch some games of x-wing, played a couple of demo games of Relics (more of this later), see Garth and Richards Infinity demos that they were running and peruse the Bring and buy areas and the Stalls that were filled with board games, infinity miniatures , cards and all sorts of collectables.  Its during this time that my camera ran out of charge so unfortunately i have no photos of all the cool goings on’s. (Hopefully rob was able to take a pile of pics). 

My 4th and final game of the weekend was against Christopher with an army I'm extremely fond of (and used to using)– Later Carthaginians.  It is a true shame my camera had died as Christopher's army was absolutely wonderful! All his figures were from Corvus Belli which have a very small range of 15mm figs but they are truly special and worth every penny.  Next time i see Christopher ill get some photos of his army for you all to look at.

Christopher had only just started playing FOG and had only one game under his belt before the tournament which meant i was the 5th person he had ever played against. He was a great player and put up a hell of a fight and the game came close to timing out. The game was extremely bloody – i lost 9 points (4 Battle groups broken and one fragmented) out of my 13 but managed to do 16 points to Christopher's force which had a break point of 15! I’m looking forward to playing more games against Christopher. I definitely see a rematch in the works.

When Kevin e-mails out the final results ill post them up for anyone who wants to see how the breakdown went.

All in all the tournament was excellent and the event as a whole was very good. I'm looking forward to next year as its been decided (through a vote of the players at the end of the tournament) to go to a smaller sized format and more games. 600 points on 5x3 tables. I will always build my armies to 800 points but I’m happy the comp is changing. 4 large games is fun but 6 games will be more interesting i think.