Well met dear travellers!
Don't get your hopes up, this one's a bit of a cop-out!
So, after my first league win of the season at Shadow and Sorcery I headed to the 2 day event in Stockport hosted by GBHL James and Jamie. I was really looking forward to this event and it was sure to be great fun as there were around 50 people attending making it comfortably the biggest indie-SBG event ever.
Now, the GBHL guys normally record tournament reviews for each event they go to but, given that they were the organisers, Tom Harrison (Flotsam and Jetsam) and myself recorded our own tournament review for them.
In the videos we went through our games and the event itself and described the highs and lows of the event in exacting detail. As such (and given that I'm SO far behind on my tournament write-ups) I'm not going to be typing one up for this event, instead I'll just post the links to our two-part review here. Some of you may well have seen this before and some of you may not be interested but it's the best I can do for now! I've still got another two tournaments to write up after this one and I'm going to another one on Sunday so anything I can do to get back on track is helpful!
Who knows, in the fullness of time I might end up writing it up so I've got a full set of tournament reports but it'll essentially just involve transcribing my parts of these videos so I can't quite see the point!
Anyway, maybe you can get some painting done while we witter on about our exploits! After the links I'm going to post a very brief summary of what happened in case anyone doesn't want to watch the videos that will be full of spoilers - you have been warned!
I hope you enjoy the videos!
Part 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTDCurJQplQ
Part 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkD-w3a0l88
Summary
So, in brief:
I took along the first iteration of my long in gestation Battle of Five Armies project consisting of:
Thorin with the Oakenshield on a pony
10 Warriors of Erebor with shield (4 with spear)
Legolas with Armour and Elf Cloak
9 Mirkwood Rangers
Bilbo Baggins with Sting and the Ring
I started poorly with a loss followed by a draw but then, somewhat surprisingly, was able to work my way back up the tables winning 5 games in a row and finished third overall! I was really pleased with this result considering I'd taken the army purely based on the BOFA fluff and the fact they were the latest models I'd painted. By dropping right down the rankings and working my way up I was also able to dodge the main contenders for the title and as a result, despite being third I didn't play anyone else who finished in the top-ten so I definitely benefited from the Swiss-ranked system at this event.
Overall I was really chuffed with my army and my performance, it was a lot of fun to use and I think people enjoyed playing against it, it also played very differently to my usual Isengard force so it was a refreshing change. The army had great synergy with the D7 dwarves sheltering the weaker elves who then couldn't be targeted thanks to their elven cloaks. Bilbo with the Ring on was an absolute game changer and won me a couple of games whilst putting Thorin on a pony turns him into a combat monster. Legolas was as reliable and useful as ever.
So yeah, 3rd place at a 50 person event was a great result gaining me 95.7 league points. This was great as the way the league works, it means that at a future event with 20 people or less, only first place would beat me (2nd place gaining a maximum of 95 points with 20 or less players). I have to admit this result surprised me no end, I really hadn't expected to perform competitively at this event and, combined with my first place from Shadow and Sorcery, meant I was, entirely unexpectedly, creeping up the league rankings - good stuff!
James and Jamie put on a great tournament and the weekend was brilliant. The next event would be The Desolation of Cumberbatch in Mansfield, the biggest event of the year so far at 1000 points and I was planning on bringing along a competitive army. After a shaky start my league campaign was starting to gather steam, I would have to wait until the Mansfield event to see if I could consolidate!
Until next time dear friends, where I promise we'll be back to the word counts of old!
I hope to have it online by the end of the week but we'll see!
