Warhammer Underworlds tournament report: The Mines of Alost

 So, off we go in edition 2 of Warhammer Underworlds, and we immediatly rushed out of the gates with a tournament and not a single practice game under the belt.

Organised by Nico, it took place in Hermelijn, a gamestore in the city of Aalst (Alost in dialect) on the 18th of january.

And I decided to go hardcore in, with Legacy bands allowed, to have my gaming group pick my warband for me!  I offered them the options of Cyreni's Razors, The Skinnerkin and Garrek's Reavers, as the format would be Rivals, and they picked the following for me:

 

So, I'm coupling those to the Reckless Fury deck then, and we will see how it all goes as I'm setting out for 5 games of best of 1 containing of charging all over the place!  That, and it would mean a pretty straight forward gameplan, as due to the job change I can't attend casual game evening anymore on wednesdays, so I went in with barely any experience in the second edition (aka ZERO)... so it'll rather be a job of defending my top-3 position on T3 then to assault the first place again...  but that also means getting past all of the 8 attendants of the event.  I would be happy if I went 2/3/0 and aimed ambitiously for a 3/2/0.

My first game put me against Wouter, and he brought Cyreni's Razors with the Wrack and Ruin deck.  I just couldn't do that exact amount of damage, and forgot (as I never actually decently read it before the event) to add my extra attack dice after killing someone.  Still, I managed to keep up, but lost in the end on the tiebreaker.  

 

 

Having both scored 12 glory points, he occupied objective 2 and I only controlled objective 1, so a minor loss was my fate.

The second game put me against Tim, who brought the Thricefold Discord with the Reckless Fury deck.  Now, I know this is a top-line warband, but somehow all went smoothly my way, and after the first round he had only his sorceress left versus five inspired, frothing berserkers.

Needless to say it went down quickly and I tabled him by half of round 2, and a 17-7 victory was my part.

It was lunch time then, and we could vote for the best painted models, which was rightfully won by Nico and his Thundrik Profiteers.  Pity though as the TO / reserve player these blokes couldn't actually take to the table today.  I learned there was "glass" to play for, so I joked I would go 3-0 in the afternoon then...

In the first post break game, I faced Peter with Yltari's Guardians, using the Emberguard Sentinels deck.  I imemdiatly one shotted his leader with Saek, and he was on the backfoot from then on, though managed to keep up.  

But as he charged with his last model, the archer, in the final round, I could score all my hand and obtain an 18-15 hardfought victory.

But then came a real beast, in the form of Johan and his Grandfathers Gardeners.  This band has been the talk of the day, with their healing clock and all, coupled to the Wrack and Ruin deck, and having barely even lost a model as such during the whole day.  In an act of sheer brutality, and now knowing from my first game I needed to stay close to them and on the edges with my two "chaff warriors" like Thargor, I actually tabled the followers of Nurgle and scored an 18-11 victory...

This all meant that with the final round now in front, I was the sole leader (thanks to the minor loss of the first game, all others at the top having a regular loss)... and went on to the final table again.

Here I faced Peter (the other one of our Antwerp team) with the Skinnerkin and Pillage and Plunder.  A strange combination in my opinion, as I view the Skinnerkin as a pure aggro warband though, in the same style of Garrek's but a tat less brutal, but with more special tricks on their warscroll.  

 

But even with me flunking some attack rolls here and there, he never could follow the bloodshed of the Khorne crazies, and 18-13 was the result in the end.

So yeah, errrm, okay... I did actually win all three post break games... and as a result also the tournament with my hyper-aggro approach and charge in playstyle.  What makes it a bit special for me is that I was a total noob in this edition (okay, I can draw on years of Underworlds, and decades of wargame experience and insights), AND I did it with the so-called weaker Legacy lists and their generic warscrolls.

So that is a second glass trophy for the cabinet.  Apart from the fun goodies we all received, I also got a 25 euro voucher for the store, and spend this on the Chaos Dwarf card pack for Blood Bowl, something I was going to pick up anyways after the tournament for collection completeness sake.

A fun day, and a great event ran by Nico, and in the end I agreed to Johan's pleas and will be in Halle defending my title from last year.  With the Thorns of the Briar Queen, a band I never played before and have no clue what sort of Nemesis deck to build, but we'll figure something out...

Until then!