Warhammer Underworlds battle report: a double dose of Dromm

 Yesterday evening, I sat down at the club to try out a new concoction for Elathain, featuring Pillage and Plunder with Blazing Assault.

 

Now, this will be far to soon for Alost next week, but I aim to tune it for the Benelux Clash at the end of march tournament.

 

One thing, being the aggessive trigger-happy player that I am, this will be a test of nerves for myself, to resist the all out infiltration into enemy territory, yet also be just a tat aggro to score the other cards...

 

Facing me where the Gorechosen of Dromm with Blazing Assault and Reckless Fury, a warband that when I play aggressive aelven builds doesn't scare me that much, as I can usually run circles around them.  But now I have to let them come and count on defensive cards and such while delving around, and the amount of staggers that will load unto my fighters... 

 

Which soon started happening, as I began the delving works on my half, while the Gorechosen approached. 

 

I managed to keep a relatively safe position in this first round of the game, but the Gorehulk and Dromm himself lingered just on that edge of putting in a charge.

 

Which the Gorehulk duly did, but nobody messes with Duinclaw as the crab blocked the attacks.  Tammael snuck around the hulk and wounded Dromm, who was about to be finished off by Elathain, but of course rolled that crit on his one dice, surviving the strike of the Idoneth.

 

 The round ended as such at 5-4 for the Soulraid as I was on his Ghyranis token, but that leader should have been dead.

 

Instead, he got priority and it was my leader that fell to the smashing attacks of the Shatterer of Worlds instead. 

 

Tammael tried again to take him down.  And you can guess what happened... another 1 dice block as the Thrall managed only a lonely single success on FOUR dice, pushing him but not out of the game. 

 

When Spinefin was then killed, I knew it was game.  His leader surviving twice on Stand Fast was just to much to overcome, and now his three damage dealers could begin their shennanigans as they had inspired.

 

Fuirann managed to push Herax off the token (I made a mistake here by forgetting to give her an upgrade that could have killed him, typical first time playing the deck with the band errors).

 

Herax bravely legged it instead though... but failed to kill Tammael.

 

... and the Gorechosen where now 10-12 in the lead instead.  That's four points that slipped through my fingers by dicerolls and a mistake, doh.

 

 While the Gorehulk took out Duinclaw, Tammael put him down with his spear.  But of course, the beast returned on 1 wound and smashed the thrall to a pulp.  At least he would give up his glory at the end...

 

He charged Fuirann, who survived and struck back with three dice on swords.  FUCK YOU Gorehulk... now THAT I had to roll earlier on the attacks to take out Dromm goddamit.

 But it was not to be, and Fuirann failed to defend against Dromm's slaughter even with her Stand Fast reduction.  The result was 17-17 (had she survived, the Aqua would have tipped the balance in my favor as I couldn't be pushed), but the Gorechosen pulled a minor victory due to being the only ones with a model still on the table.

 

 

As we still had time, we set up for a second game, this time on a Spitewood board as my opponent got to choose. 

 

Now, from halfway round 2 onwards I forgot to take pictures, so I'm just putting all that I have above.  It was a very one-sided affair, the first round ended at 5-5, and then, believe it or not, Dromm AGAIN escaped with a Stand Fast of being killed,  after a barrage by Tammael (who then fell), Fuirann and Elathain.

Elethain was then put down (on 3 defence dice...), and Fuirann eventually followed as I couldn't take his leader down anymore.  He went to hunt for Spinefin to score Unrelenting Massacre as well with his Gorehulk, and after that round 2 had a still do-able 10-12 deficit, I ultimately and heavily lost 13 to 19.

  

Did I make mistakes?  Surely, not in the least that in an effort to keep my normal infiltrating aggression at bay, I played perhaps TO defensively, opting to delve and get staggers to quickly for glory.  In hindsight, I should have gone in more firey, and let the minions do the needed delving instead, going for the medium run instead of the quick gain, like I did before at the Halle event, and that worked out way better.  Well, still got some time to either finetune, or go back to my Synergies / Pillage combo instead, OR even go Pillage / Nexus perhaps before Benelux Clash end of march.

 

With the update, my Shadeborn are royally screwed over, but as this deck needs still to much tuning, I'm kind off going to take them to Alost next weekend.  Hopes are low, and I count myself out of contention for the top spots, let alone the Golden Ticket at that event, where I expect a LOT of elite aggro genre Dromm, Jaws, Ironsoul and Emberwatch... and I lost those re-rolls needed for the surgical strike deck I had build, which can't affort to botch even a single attack against those sorts of warbands.

 

Maybe I'll just take Cyreni along instead... 

 

But for Benelux Clash, we will be prepared, charged up and ready to do a throw to the crown! 

The Haul Report 431

 Time for another overview of obtained stuff in the past period, and some fun things have been rolling in once more.

 

Starting out with some reading goodies!

 

My latest "MyBox" from Archonia came in, bringing the most recent two volumes of the excellent Blue Period manga.

 

I also grabbed some Battle Beasts for the cheap, one even with his weapon still, which is quite rare to find these days, especially this side of the ocean.  Love the crab fella though! 

 

Temu brought in some good stuff for my shelves, with these two acryll display stands.  Dead cheap, and way better quality then I actually expected it to be. 

 

The Efteling pin collection also was expanded, as the new 2026 Logo pin was added to the collection. 

 

And that was another nice set of goodies for the various collections, now it's time to focus back on miniatures, and more specifically a heap of price support for Warhammer events I will be picking up the coming week.  

 

So check back for certain next episode for a LOT of goodies that will be up for joining events in the coming, well, years, because it IS a serious stack... 

Wednesday season 2

 The hit series is back on Netflix, and I must say I enjoyed the first one.

 

And this time, it doesn't only focus around the titular character, but the whole family gets involved.

 

As Wednesday returns to Nevermore, she has Puglsey along this time, and he decides to keep a pet zombie he found.  Which of course is always a good idea... But Wednesday herself also has problems, as in her investigations she suddenly loses her psychic gift.  This influences her behaviour at school, as one of her last visions was her roommate Enid being killed, and she gets an actual stalker / fangirl in the form of Agnes.

 

As she looks further into the matter, the new principal, Dort (an awesome Steve Buscemi as always) enlists her mother Morticia to help in a fund raiser, and wants to bring Wednesday's grandmother in to make huge donations.  Which he of course does by not to legal means, like enlisting a student with siren powers.  And then the zombie escapes and turns out to be Isaac Knight, a former friend and co-student of Morticia and Gomez, and as it turns out the reason Gomez has no abilities.  His goal is to heal his former lover from her Hyde curse, which her son Tyler inherited.  They are sprung out of the assylum even with Wednesday and Fester trying to stop it, and go on a rampage.

 

It also turns out that Thing is actually Isaac's old right hand (literally) as the family opposes him after unraveling the whole fundraiser charade, resulting in Enid fleeing in the outback towards Canada, while Tyler loses his mother but is recruited by dr Capri, a werewolf herself.  And played fantastically by Billie Piper (hello Rose).

 

This was a really fun season, and actually more of an intense affair then the rather dark who-dunnit style of the first.  This also means a totally changing viewing experience, which some approve and others (like myself to be honest) find that it makes the season while fun, not as top tier as the first one.  

 

On the other hand, it is quite fun that it has become a "full" Addams Family show instead of a Wednesday solo adventure, as the other members have great things going about them as well.  Yeah, looking at you Fester, you loveable lunatic!

 

So surely check it out, it makes for some great laid back entertainment and one of the better series on Netflix at the moment for sure. 

Percy Jackson and the Olympians

 So, another go at making television presence of Percy Jackson's books...

 

The films where okay but not memorable, but what would this series bring, this first season based on the first book, The Lightning Thief.

 

Of course, this means we already know the story, as most of us have both read the books as well as seen the movies.  Percy discovers he is a demigod, a son of Poseidon, and blamed for stealing Zeus's lightning bolt, which of course he didn't.  So he sets out on a quest together with top student from Camp Halfgod, Annabeth, and his satyr protector Grover. 

 

This leads them on a roadtrip towards New York, where a portal is said to be to get to Olympus.  Of course, they are chased by furies, run into (a very sexy) Medusa, met Ares (who turned out to be behind it and not Hades) and save his mother while at it, who was saved from death by Hades and serves as a barganing chip.  

 

Ares inadvertently awakens Percy's powers, resulting in the halfgod defeating the God of War, before he realised the truth that his friend Luke, son of Hermes, is actually the Lightning Thief who despises the gods so much he wants to bring down Olympus through a war.

 

Now, the series itself is visually well done, though at some times the CGI just looks a little bit to rough still, mostly visible in Grover's legs.  But the acting is okay, Percy is well cast, and it is just that sort of light hearted fantasy series ideal for those lazy evenings of just "watching something".

 

And now to see season 2 after this... 

Spears and Shields II: A Spearhead tournament report

 Today saw the second edition of Spears and Swords, the annual Spearhead tournament I've been running at the Tin Soldiers of Antwerp.

 

But I must say, I was a bit disspirited the morning of the event, as I had no less then 11 cancellations and 2 no-shows on the day, the last one cancelling barely half an hour before the event started.  This really hurt my budget I had made for buying the price support.

 

To that end, going forward for all the events I run, prepayment will be required, and from the amount in the pot one month before the event the support will be bought.  And no refunds for cancellations in the final two weeks before the event.

 

But never the less, I could present a nice pile of prices, with a Nighthaunt Spearhead on the line for the winner, a Commerative model for Best Painted, and a Celestar Ballista for the Lucky Participant, a raffle I run amongst all joining to give everyone a chance to take away a price from my events.

 

The free breakfast was also picked up, and the attendance gift in the form of a red dice this year for the joinees, and we where ready to go with 12 players for 4 rounds of Spearhead!

 

Round one was marked by one particular game: Andy and Philip fought it out in a "sauna match".  Their table consisted of sweaty, semi-naked and overweight men duking it out to have the greatest...  A lot of bellowing laughters came from that side I must say...

 

In the second round, we of course got that draw that always makes pairings harder in future rounds, thanks to the father and son derby between Patrick and Ignace.  A small lead was being formed by some players though, and it looked like it would all be fought over for.

 

As we entered the lunchbrake, it was time for the painting votes.  I used a "Eurovision" style voting process, with every participant able to cast a single vote of 5,3 and 1 point.  In addition, two non-playing judges, being myself and Mike who helped ran the bar, had a vote that counted for 3 times it's value, meaning 66% would come of the players and 33% of the judges, and the max score to be obtained would be 90 points.   But I'll come back to these results at the end of the post, with a picture of every army and any score they might have gotten.

 

In round 3, the field kept fairly level, and no-one really could break away even after three rounds.  As we prepared for the fourth and final game, we had 1 player on 9 points (you got 3 for a win, 1 for a draw and 0 for a loss), and no less then 4 players scoring 6 points, meaning there where still 5 candidates for the victory.  Though it must be said, of those some would need to win very big, while the player with 9 would have to loose heavily then, as glory differential was the agreed on first tie-breaker.

 

But it wouldn't be, as the top player drew his game with 8 to 8 in a battle between 2 Skaven armies, and the victory was his.  Though that result did shuffle up the places right below quite a lot, as the player in second was piggybacked by two other players due to that.

 

So, this gave the following end result for the tournament, in case where you see players with the same amount of points, it was the tie-breaker that decided the placings.

 

The winner of this edition, scoring 10 points, was Wesley Deckx and his Skaven army, congratulations!

 

 

In second place came Wesley De Vos with Seraphon, scoring 9 points

 

 

Third place belonged to Peter Haagdorens and his Sylvaneth, also scoring 9 points

 

 

The fourth place was for Eduardo Villamor, fielding Skaven, with 7 points... and he will come more to the club to play in the Escalation League I've started for Age of Sigmar. 

 

Fifth place was for Jelle Rombouts and his Gloomspite Gitz, managing 6 points

 

In sixth place, and also scoring 6 points, was Philip with his Sons of Behemat.  He also won the raffle for the Lucky Participant.

 

 

More 6 points results in seventh place, as the second Sons of Behemat force by Andy de Bodt came in.

 

In eight place, and also with 6 points, Tom Steylaerts with his Helsmiths of Hashut

 

Ignace Lefevre with his Orruk Warclans took the ninth place with 4 points.

 

The Nighthaunt of Sven Roelants ended in tenth place, managing 3 points.

 

Beaten by his son, Patrick Lefevre and his Soulblight Gravelords came in eleventh and got 2 points.

  

And in final place, and winning the price of the left over "worstenbroden", was Dennis Wilms, whose Skaven only managed a single draw for 1 point.

 

 

And those where the results of the tournament, so what about the painting competition then?  Well, as I said, 90 points was the maximum to be obtained, and out of 12 armies present no less then 6 of them where candidates to win it.  What followed was a heap of votes where almost every time those armies where noted on the slips.  Considering in the end that the winner had 40 points, you can see how many points they all picked away from each other.

 

The painting competition was eventually won by Jelle, who scored 40 points.  This included 2 high scores from the players and one high score from the jury.

 

Second place, with 31 points, was taken by Peter, who had 5 high scores from the players.

 

Third place was for Philip with 29 points, who managed 2 high scores from the players and one high score from the jury. 

 

Fourth was Sven with 21 points, including one player high score.

 

In fifth place came Patrick, who had 20 points and 2 high scores by the players.

 

Sixth place was for Tom, totalling 19 points.

 

In joined seventh place, Wesley De Vos and Ignace each had a single point to their name.

 

Unfortunatly, the other armies didn't get any points, in part due to the very high standard of the six that vied for the victory in this category.

 

And that's it, the tournament has gone by and now it's time to turn the attention to the league first, as well as to the full 2000 points Age of Sigmar Tom Steylaerts will be organising near the end of the year, and one where I will actually be playing in for once... 

 

And next year around the end of february / beginning of march, we will be back for the third edition!