Leadership 2

Round 0  McLovin vs Friday
Having gotten a call from my friend Wednesday informing me that I had to go up to Davis on Thursday for drinking and other such shenanigans, I head up and promptly get pleasantly drunk, sacking out at 3:30 in the morning.  I then got up at 7 in order to beat southbound morning traffic and eventually make my way down to Dave’s.  We pick up Johnny after exploring the surrounding area of Johnny’s lab (unintentionally, stupid Magellan) and finally head down.  Trip down was fine.  We get to the hotel to discover Derek sitting with some of the SoCal guys with a very impressive graveyard in front of them.  Derek then decides to inform me that I need to go hit on the girls sitting with their boyfriends and father and he and Burritos get into a debate about “mid-bosses” and “final-bosses.”  Eventually we decide to take Derek out to the pool which turns out to be rather bad.  Needless to say, Hengl had it right when he said he is dragged back to the room.  I leave Derek and Johnny, who are about to watch a porno, to go get some Outback.  While dining I receive the following texts from Johnny:

• “Dude awesome bj flick goin down…SO GOOD”
• “Ohhhh…in the ass!!  OHHHH the horror!  She’s taking it in the ass!!!  Holy shit There’s a pony!!  Oh my fucking god It’s a pony!”
• “I just saw a baseball bat into an asshole!!!YESSSSS!!”
• I get back to the hotel and sack out on the fold out bed.

Day 1

Round 1 Mike Kelley’s Demons

Army List:

• 2 Khorne Heralds
• 1 Tzeentch Herald
• 1 Nurgle Herald BSB
• Large core unit for each
• 8 Khorne Dogs
• Flamers

His Tzeentch herald takes metal and for the first two turns tries to cast Spirit of the Forge only to miscast both times, though the results were benign.  He makes a general advance while I send my Peggies up the flank to try and threaten his flanks and rears.  I get a double charge with my Grail Knights in the front and Pegs in the flank of his Khorne Dogs and procede to tear through them in a single round.  I overrun with both units which I quickly realize is a mistake.  My pegs run into the flank of a big Bloodletter unit and sure enough next round bounce, flee, and bring the Bloodletters into the flank of my Grail Knights.  They get away and rally and I eventually kill almost everything in his army except for the huge Nurgle unit.  That thing was never going to die and I wasn’t about to try.

Major Victory 14 pts

Highlights for the round:

• Having to kill one of his Bloodletter units to a man after he rolls insane courage with only 3 models left.
• Mike miscasting Spirit of the Forge twice in 2 turns and only casting it once the entire game, though I scrolled that.

Round 2 Derek Wiswell’s Vamps

Army List:

• We all have seen it before.  Might as well have been open list.

Before the round I am called up and informed in front of everyone that I had 10 more points in my list than I should and therefore am that round’s recipient of the coveted Lobster Mullet of Doom.  This article of silly rave paraphernalia is crucial in my game.

Derek and I set up with the Echelon deployment style, with me not entirely sure how I’m going to handle this game.  Derek starts of with a generally cautious advance forward, raising up unit strength but otherwise keeping it friendly.  My turn is also fairly cautious, since I don’t want to get into that mess just yet.  Turn two Derek throws his wolves in front of my General and BSB lance and tries to set up for a anvil and hammer flank charge with his ghouls catching my Grails and putting the Vargulf into their flank.  Derek then pours all his power into Danseing into my Grails so I don’t get the charge off.  His book burns out this turn (only turn 2!  Sweet!) and I stop him completely with a lot of good dice rolls and scroll usage.  My turn sees my general and BSB charge the dogs in front of them and the Grail Lance go for the ghouls and vampire in front of them.  Realizing that Derek’s General’s unit is about to come crashing into my Knights of the realm and destroy the center of my line, I decide to pull one of the most unBrettonian moves ever, (and in my opinion one of personally best moves to date).  Seeing as how my Damsel is now out of scrolls and only giving one dispel dice, I decide that the bitch needs to do more to earn her keep.  She is unceremoniously pushed out of the Realm unit directly in front of the Graveguard and turned to redirect them straight into the woods.  My knights start tearing into the rest of Derek’s army with much gusto and eventually Derek only has his General’s unit left on the table.  He still gets a few of my lances and the game ends with a lot of casualties on both sides.

Draw 12pts

Highlights:

• Damsel stepping in front of Derek’s General’s unit twice during the game, and still surviving the entire battle.
• Grail Knights taking on fully ranked up ghouls in the front, a vargulf on the flank, and eventually zombies in the rear and still killing every last one of them
• Book of Arkhan burning out after it’s first use.  (Is that even possible?)
• General ass kick dice rolls on my knight’s part

Round 3 Pajama Pants’ Lizardmen

Army List:

• Lord with BoR
• BSB
• Another Scar-Vet who was the general
• Lvl 1 with Scroll and Diadem of Power
• 3 small blocks of saurus
• 2 blocks of 16 skinks +2 Kroxigors
• 2 Salamander units
• 2  10 man skink cohorts

This battle was over very quickly.  Gerber used his skinks to get me to overcharge into the middle of his battle line where he proceeded to flank almost all of my units and cut them down with ruthless efficiency.  I concede at the end of turn 3 or 4 and go watch Hengl and Touradj duke it out.

Loss 2pts

Highlights:

• Me playing a very bad game.
• My knights sucking and dying.

End of Day 1

Overall an okay first day, sitting with a record of 1-1-1.  We go to Buca and eat lots of pasta and garlic bread.  There was apparently a wedding being held there with the people dressed up as World of Warcraft players. (Blizzcon was apparently being held at the Anaheim center that same weekend.)

Chilled at the pool and eventually went out and got some Del Taco with Johnny and Hengl.

Day 2

Round 4 Ian Dmitri’s Empire

I had really been looking forward to this scenario, because it was Mirror World where you can switch armies with your opponent and play against your own list.  Lo and behold, my opponent is playing the White Whale to my Captain Ahab.  A Steam Tank.  My goal for the entire weekend has been to go up against one of these suckers and gut it with my general who has killing blow against large targets.  Much as it pains me, I have to hold onto my list to achieve the primary objective.  After his Organ Gun puts 24 shots into my General’s unit (blowing itself up in the process) I put him into another unit and tempt his Stank.  Putting 5 steam points into the charge, my Errant unit stops the stank cold, taking only a single casualty.  The moment of truth is upon me.  4 dice, just need a single six.  I roll them, see a 2, 5, and a 3 and figure I haven’t gotten it.  I suddenly spot the last dice and see it’s a 6!  Bam!  I’m pretty sure the majority of the room heard my cry of jubilation.  The game follows with me throwing caution to the wind, much to the goading of my opponent, and getting my ass kicked because of it.  All the while we both had a good time anyways.

Loss 5pts

Highlights:

• KB on the stank.  It feels pretty damn good.

Round 5 Matt Medina’s Lizardmen

Army List:

• General w/ Horn of Kygor
• Blocks of Saurus + Accompanying Impossible to kill Scar Vets
• EotG
• Some skinks
• Unit of Saurus Cavalry

Having played Matt at QCR this year, there was a great deal of smack talk before, during, and after the game.  Normally being forward 18 inches (which was part of the scenario) would have been awesome, except against this army.  The problem with it is that unlike Undead or Demons who evaporate after I charge them, or at least get smaller, these guys do not.  They stay there, for fricking ever.  I got an early charge onto his EotG with my Grail and actually manage to break and run down the big guy, but then take a flank from his Saurus Cav because of it.  I try and dance around him but he eventually gets into my lances with his blocks and the grind begins.  He fails 2 leadership tests the entire game.  I literally am forced to try to kill every unit I deal with to a man, and there aren’t that many that I manage to pull off such a trick with.  It ends with his unflinching forces griding me into dust.  Very fun game though, Matt got my Best Opponent and he informed me that I got his.  Great guy, would play him any time,  albeit with different lists.

Loss 4pts

Highlights:

• On 2 separate occasions his a lone skink/terradon making Insane Courage, thereby screwing me out of potentially claiming some decent points or getting into a flank.
• His general going stupid 3 turns of the game.
• Grinding down a 16 Skink 2 Kroxigor unit with a mounted character down to the character and a Kroxigor with a single wound with 2 lances, and still eventually losing combat and breaking.
• Taking till the end of turn 6 to kill a single skink with 17 bowshots a turn.

I ended up getting 2nd Best Sports (apparently my reach arounds and getting a little sloppy.)  And had a blast.  The guys running the tournament are cool, and I enjoyed almost every game thoroughly.  Will definitely be coming back next year, although it will probably be on a plane.  101 at night with construction sucks huuuuuuge testicles.