Warhammer Underworlds tournament report: Benelux Clash II

 Well, guess this has to be the first international tournament I'm playing for Underworlds, as the 3rd of november I journeyed with "Team Antwerp" to the vicinity of Rotterdam.

Here the second edition of Benelux Clash took place, the first one falling in the water for most Belgians due to being organised on election day this year, and in Belgium voting is mandatory.

But arriving at the venue, the Het Wapen van Alblasserdam in Alblasserdam near Rotterdam, there where 18 candidates for the glory, with 9 hauling from The Netherlands (technically 10, but the TO's played as a tagteam) and 9 Belgians.  No Luxemburgian to be spotted though...

Initially I wanted to take The Crimson Court combined with Path of Prophecy, but no matter what I tried I couldn't get it to work.  I then decided to take Hrothgorn's Mantrappers along, using Breakneck Slaughter for some sheer, pure brutality, and that played rather fun.  But when the dust of the casual night testing set, I just didn,t get the right vibes of them, and ended up taking my Elathain's Soulraid with Force of Frost after all.  Old habbits, great loves, you know the mantra's...  

My goals? End in the top half of the table, and above the other Elathain's Soulraid warband I read that would be attending.  But of course, one can not leave for a tournament without providing sustenance for the whole team!

 

 

Running paralel with the event, there was also a Heresy 30k tournament taking place, organised by the local club Rotterdam White Scars.

 

But with the lanyards for the participants divided and the briefing made, we where ready to go for 6 rounds of Underworlds best of 1 Nemesis format.

My first round put me against Simon, who brought his nicely converted Gnarlspirit Pack with Breakneck Slaughter.  Unfortunatly I lost 10-11 as I had to make a gamble in my last activation: move on an objective to draw thanks to my Chasm key, or guess on my objective cards.  I had three remaining, and two would win me the game.  Needless to say, I pulled the only one that wasn't suitable, Cold of the Void.

The second game was against Peter, from Team Antwerp and our driver, with Zondara's Gravebreakers and Beastbound Assault.  I lost heavily in this one with 6 to 13, tabled in round 2 bar Spinefin.  But the critical moment was when a wounded and trapped Ferlain made a crit save or he would be out.  After that save, he could start the reaction of attacking with every Zondara attack and munched (pun intended) through my warband instead.

 

The price support had been brought to the table in the meantime, with certificates and accompanying medals for the top 3, best painted and best sportmanship.   The winner will also receive an Embergard box donated by their sponsor TTK upon release in two weeks.  Furthermore the top 4 in painting would receive the special Giant Card for multiplayer games in first edition, while the person ending last would take home a set of Inspiration tokens for his models.  All participants also received a D6.  

Right before lunch, the Best Painted voting was done amongst (most) warbands, the majority participating in the display moment.  Yes, those are the Zondara's Gravebreakers featured last week on the GW Hobby Hangout on their channel, painted by Peter that had trashed me mere moments ago.

 

 

Lunch consisted of chicken sate with fries and veggies, and a Hertog Jan to wash away the disappointing result-wise start of the day...

 

 

 And then we where off to a hopefully more succesfull second part of the day, with still 4 games remaining and the realisation that if I wanted to reach my goal, I needed to win them all.  I started out as such at the total rock bottom table, facing Jaco and his Skabbik's Plaguepack, coupled with Breakneck Slaughter.  This was okay in my book, a warband I didn't fear at all from past experiences and a swift 13-7 win was scored.  Honour at  least was saved for today.

 

 Next I faced Peter, again from our Antwerp Team, with the Hungering Parasyte Skittershank Clawpack, a band I had real problems with in preparations.  But he also wasn't having a good day, hovering in the bottom regions.  The game ended in 15-15, but as I snuck Fuirann with her Chasm Key onto an objective in the last activation, I drew in glory but won on tie-breaker as a result, circumventing this hard cliff on my hopefully way up.

 

 

Another familiar face in the next round, as I went against Wouter from Team Antwerp with his Thricefold Discord, boosted with Force of Frost. I scored a 12-10 win, and there was this hilarious moment at the end of round 1 we realised he had 4 objectives in hand (neither of us had noticed), yet still couldn't score it.  A fun battle, and at the end of the tournament I gave my Sportsmanship vote to Wouter as this was the most hilarious game of the day for me, not only for the above reason.

My final game, now standing at 3-2 so I would at least win 50% today, was against Nico and his The Exiled Dead with Beastbound Assault.  I saw Nico play last week in our weekly gathering, and that warband is a glory scoring machine.  But a small mistake from his side, after I took out his Apprentice Markov, allowed me to reach and take out his Deintalos in activation 2 of round 2, leaving it a shambling horde and no threat anymore, netting a 16-7 victory.  The setup picture however was to shabby to use, but I'll come back to this warband in a moment.

So, that was 6 rounds of Warhammer Underworlds, and I was still amazingly fresh in the head.  I had feared metal tiredness kicking in around round 4, but it all kept clear and working, and I netted a 4/2/0 with 72 Glory points.  In the end this gained me an 8th place (games against each other being the first tiebreaker, so hence why 2 people with less glory ended above me), reaching my objective of the top half of the table, AND I jumped over the other Soulraid player in the final round.  So both tournament goals achieved.

And then it was time for the two excellent organisers (and world championship qualifiers!) Valentin and Jan-Willem, who ran the tournament together with Thijs and Peter, to start the awards ceremony under the listening ears and intense gazes of the people present!

Tim from Team Halle came out as Best Sportmanship award winner.

 

(picture by Valentin Hornik)

Now, then it was a bit of a personal shock, as during the top 4 of the painting, I was actually called forward in third place.  My pink fish seemingly drew some votes and I was genuinly amazed considering I even left Peter's Zondara behind me... especially as pre the ceremony, we had a talk about painting outside at the smokestack, and I told people I never make any illusions as my style of drawing lines like Kevin Dallimore did 25+ years ago is out of date and not suitable for Fantasy miniatures...

(picture by Valentin Hornik)

But remember how I would come back to The Exiled Dead?  Well, Nico won the Best Painted award, he had my vote as well, with his lovely warband.  So here is a better picture of them then what a set-up picture could have done them justice.

(picture by Valentin Hornik)

The "inspirational prize" for finishing last went to Steven, with perhaps the most hardcore warband present: the still unpainted after 7 years, Original Bad-asses of Garrek's Reavers!  I was a fan for sure!

And then we went to the top spots of the tournament!  In third place, normally the tag team of Valentin and Willy ended, so their spot shifted one down.  This meant Kevin with his Gorechosen of Dromm took home the bronze medal.

Second place went to Joep, who had brought Domitan's Stormcoven to the event.

But finally, the winner of the Benelux Clash II: Vincent from Team Halle with his Hedkrakka's Madmob, and scoring a massive 110 glory (also, the only player to go into the triple digets on glory scoring today).

Thanks again to the Dutch community for organising this great day in a lovely setting, and next edition I will certainly be back!

And so ended the saga of Elathain's Soulraid with Force of Frost, and for many the first edition of Warhammer Underworlds after 7 years of fun and games.  I am running a last huzzaah for the system the 23rd of november, a week after the release of the second edition, at the Tin Soldiers of Antwerp clubhouse, but I'll wave out the first edition there with my Dread Pageant.  So for those still looking for a few final casual tournament games in the Nemesis format, there are still spots available over on T3 to register.  

 

Won't be as luxurious though, our clubhouse being a rumoured survivor of the Slag Van Ekeren in 1703...