The Great Tournament for Small Armies

And so the first of July is upon us, and the Great Tournament for Small Armies at the Tin Soldiers of Antwerp has taken place.


Organised by Patrick of Nelson`s Revenge, the set up was to have a relaxed afternoon and battling it out with small forces of 500 points.  As told in the posts of earlier this week, I entered with a Chaos Dwarf force from the Ravening Hordes list, and you know what they say about old foxes...

Victory conditions where simple, with 3 / 1 / 0 points for win / draw / loss, and VPs for tie-breakers.  No additional points where awarded for massacres and all, as in those small scale fast paced battles one break test decides as good as the whole game with no retaliation possible.

In the end, 12 participants turned up, as with the start of the holidays and the first decent weather in months in Belgium, half a dozen had family matters to attend.

Round 1: Hannes - Orcs and Goblins

Facing me in the first round are the goblin horde of Hannes, numbering over 100 models consisting of a unit of goblin archers, two large hordes of night goblins, a level 1 shaman, a goblin hero and a battle standard bearer.  No problem, if I tackle this tactically, me tremble will keep the army from charging before turn 4 and hopefully the blunderbusses will decimate the units below fighting ability.

The plan worked perfectly, losing only the cannon after a redirected charge.  The warriors broke one of the large blocks, and the busses decimated the one with the characters in, but not breaking them unfortunatly in the end or it would be an even bigger win.

Result: 120 - 110 victory


Round 2: Kenneth - Chaos Dwarfs

Intresting here, as it would mean a battle between the Legion list vs the Ravening list.  We played to a gentlemen`s agreement, as Chaos Dwarfs are about the only race in the Warhammer world out to dominate the rest of the Old World instead of scheming and backstabbing each other, and in this spirit the battle was fought.
The special scenario meant this was the round where lots of VPs could be gained as a slain general meant another additional 100 VPs and units yielded an extra +50%, and result near the 1000 VPs rolled in.
He fielded a small block of 10 warriors, a block of 10 Fireglaives, a Demonsmith and the Helshrieker Missile Launcher.

Not so in the bid for Dawi Zharr domination.  We both lost exactly 5 models, each losing 2 missile troops due to firing at each other (his Fireglaives being neutralised most of the battle by the tremble).  He lost a further 3 due to moving into the Venemous Ticket, I due to the magic that caused his smith to lose a level and forget his only spell, Fireball.

Nothing died, no points where scored, and the two Chaos Dwarf forces where ex aquo at 4 points and +10 VPs total both.  Only two forces at that point still had the full score, and as those had to face each other to decide the winner, if we both won the podium would be filled by... the rarest army in the history of Warhammer tournaments!

Result: 0 - 0 draw

Round 3: Kristof - High Elves

The clubs top player as my final opponent, this would be hard... he fielded a small unit of 5 Swordmasters, a unit of Phoenix guard with hero and a unit of Sea Guard.  But no wizard, so this battle would be a feast of Fireballs I hoped

The initial stage saw the Swordmasters all wiped out bar one and the fire of Earthshaker and Blunderbusses reduce to Phoenix Guard to a single rank.  Then I was charged by both these units, and managed to lose the combat by one, even with my ranks... and broke!  Luckily the Phoenix Guard didn`t catch me or it would all have been over, even though I had killed the last Swordsmaster so he only had a single pursuer unit!

I rallied and a 3d6 Irresistible Fireball and a Blunderbuss volley reduced my sorcerer to a level 0 powerless mage, but his more importantly his Phoenix Guard to just the hero and the standard bearer.  I decided NOT to try and kill the last Guard, as that way they could only rally on double one and as such the hero was dragged of the field. 

The last unit hasn`t been a thread as they only managed to losen one volley while not trembling by the `shaker, and had been reduced to only 5 models.  Unfortunatly the scenario special rule of capturing a frog (the red base) eluded me by 1 inch for a further 150 VPs.

Result: 456 - 0 victory

Unit of the Tournament: no doubt my Earthshaker.  The mighty gun might have only killed 5 models over the whole tournament, the good old earthquake effect made sure I wasn`t charged early on, was virtually free of opposing missile fire and the one war machine I did face only fired 3 out of 6 turns when not caught in the aftershake.

I learned the plan worked, the other Chaos Dwarf player had also won his game, and even though he beat me on amount of VP`s, this meant Hashut claimed spots 2 AND 3 of the tournament.

Allow me now to present the full results of the day

Prices where there for the first three finishers, the painting competitition best painted army (not included in the grand total) and a red lantern for the player managing to end last.

First off, the artistic side of things, the Painting competition, inwhich a maximum of 110 points could have been earned

1. Jo - Dwarves: 100 points

2. Tomsche - Chaos Dwarfs: 93 points

3. Kristof - High Elves: 86 points

4. Kenneth - Dark Elves: 85 points

5. David - Halflings: 84 points

5. Yannis - Orcs and Goblins: 84 points

7. Mike - Skaven: 80 points

8. Hannes - Orcs and Goblins: 79 points

9. Lily - Night Goblins: 75 points

10. Sven - Norse: 68 points

11. Patrick - Demons of Chaos: 68 points

12. Kenneth - Chaos Dwarfs: 30 points

And then, the final results of the tournament itself:

1. Sven - Norse: 3w, 0d, 0l: 9 pts, 2250 VPs

2. Kenneth - Chaos Dwarfs: 2w, 1d, 0l: 7pts, 730 VPs

3. Tomsche - Chaos Dwarfs: 2w, 1d, 0l: 7pts, 576 VPs

4. Mike - Skaven: 2w, 0d, 1l: 6pts, 1388 VPs
5. David - Halflings: 2w, 0d, 1l: 6pts, 630 VPs
6. Hannes - Orcs and Goblins: 1w, 0d, 2l: 3pts, 1228 VPs
7. Patrick - Demons of Chaos: 1w, 0d, 2l: 3pts, 661 VPs
8. Kenneth - Dark Elves: 1w, 0d, 2l: 3pts, 626 VPs
9. Kristof - High Elves: 1w, 0d, 2l: 3pts, 521 VPs
10. Yannis - Orcs and Goblins: 1w, 0d, 2l: 3pts, 410 VPs
11. Jo - Dwarves: 1w, 0d, 2l: 3pts, 396 VPs

12. Lily - Night Goblins: 0w, 0d, 3l: 0pts, 221 VPs

And so a nice and succesful tournament drew to a close, and it really was a joy to play in.  Great work Pat, and a nice plume for your hat with this one!