Beers of War tournament writeup

Yesterday I attended a tournament held in Wakefield, the Beers of War tournament.

This was the first tournament organised by brothers Luke and Lee Fellows and was set in a rather lovely venue of the Henry Boons pub – a pub whose presence I graced on many occasion when I lived near Shakey Wakey. This was a doubles tournament with beer encouraged (natch), and plenty of soft scores to go around. I’m not a huge fan of reports that go into every little detail “I hit him, then he hit me, then I charged back in – and you’ll never guess what! I charged him back!!!”, so this will just be a quick summary of my games.

I entered with Spud Tate. Originally I was going to be using Orcs, but I didn’t get the army painted in time so I dug out my old Undead while Spud used his Abyssal Dwarfs. Here’s our combined list:

Obviously a very fast and hard hitting army!

Sadly I didn’t take any photos on the day and I don’t have copies of my opponents’ lists, so this is all from memory!

Game 1 – Pillage vs Goblin/Ratkin combo.

Their lists ran something like:

Goblins:

• Spitters Horde w/Brew of Keen eyeness
• Spitters Regiment w/Fire Oil
• Chariot Regiment
• Wizard w/Bane-Chant
• Biggit on Fleabag
• War-trombone
• Sharpstick Thrower
• Fleabag Regiment

Ratkin:

• 2 x Vermintide regiments
• Shocktroop Horde (with an artefact I think)
• Warlock w/Bane-Chant
• Weapons Team
• Death Engine

This was the rough layout:

Blue dots are the objectives.

We set up our units on the left flank, with my Werewolves on the very left and Spuds units spread out from the forest to the middle of the table. The Shocktroops horde deployed between the left hand blocking terrain and the board edge, with the Warlock, Death Engine and Weapons Team behind and a screening unit of Vermintide in front. The Spitters set up behind the obstacle to the right, then the chariot regiment to the right of them and a vermintide unit opposite the far right objective.

The first two turns were pretty devastating. We advanced as quick as we could, but a strong first round of shooting saw several key units wavered and road blocking the rest of the army. Even my Vampire took a whopping 6 points of damage from ranged attacks. I honestly thought that they had it in the bag and we were on for a tabling.

Turn 3 however, and we managed to get a few key charges. The Spitters Horde died to a combined attack from a unit of Werewolves and the Halfbreeds, while the chariot regiment died to a corkscrewing Grotesque Horde. I also managed to disorder the Death Engine with my Vampire. 

From then it became a game of mopping up and keeping the guys from advancing onto objectives. The Shocktroop horde remained penned up near the left hand board edge, since advancing forwards too far would open them up to flank charges, and other than the Death Engine was the only unit at the end of the game still alive that could claim an objective. In the end we held four of the five objectives to their one, and killed 855 points to their 505 for a solid victory. We got 8 out of the 10 tournament points available.

Game 2 – Invade vs Ogres/League of Rhordia

Their lists from rough memory:

Ogres

• Shooter horde w/Brew of Keen eyeness
• Shooter horde w/Fire-oil
• Red Goblin spitter horde w/Heart Seeking Chant
• Army Standard Bearer

League of Rhordia

• Halfling Bow horde w/Brew of Keen eyeness
• 2 x Halfling knight regiment
• Organ gun
• Mounted halfling master sergeant
• Mounted Sorcerer

The board:

Spud set up on the right flank, I set up to the left of the centre behind the obstacle. Our opponents had the shooter hordes and organ gun behind their obstacle with the infantry hordes to either side. The knights and sergeant were on the very left of the board.

This was a very tough game. Both me and Spud advanced up the board as best we could, but the lack of cover made their shooting particularly devastating. I lost a Werewolf regiment and Spud lost his Halfbreed troop and took significant damage on the rest of his army. We eventually made contact with the remaining units and wiped out a good portion of their shooting forces, however in the end Spud only had his Grotesque Champion left on the board. On the left I decided to roadblock the Halfling Knights with my vampire to stop them flanking my Werewolves, and over the course of several turns she took out one of the regiments and put several wounds on the other. She did survive the game.

In the end they had the Halfling Knights on our half, plus the two halfling characters. We had Spuds Grotesque champ and my vampire on their half of the board, forcing it to a draw. 

Interestingly, the Halfling sorcerer’s Wind Blast came in great use at the end, pushing the Grotesque Horde out of the champs Inspiring range and they then died without that Inspiring re-roll. If they had survived due to Inspiring then it probably would have been a win for us instead.

Game 3 – Dominate vs Undead/Salamanders

Their lists (ish, as always):

Undead:

• Vampire on dragon w/Talisman of Regeneration
• Zombie Horde
• Werewolf Horde

Salamanders:

• Clan lord on fire drake
• Ancients Regiment
• Ancients on Rhinosaurs Horde

This was played on the same board as game 2 with a similar setup for me and Spud as before. Our opponents set up the zombies and vampire opposite my Undead guys, while the werewolves and the Salamanders set up opposite Spud. We were able to dictate the game with our higher speed. I was able to double charge the zombies with my werewolves, after trying to bait the vampire to charge one of the werewolf hordes (and if it had bounced off then the other would have a tasty flank charge. Meanwhile Spud was able to get a very nice flank charge on the fire drake with his halfbreeds. They were subsequently wiped out by the enemy Werewolves and Clan Lords. In the centre, the Rhinosaurs were taken out by the Grotesques and Champion, before the Vampire charged and bounced off the Grotesques. The Vampire was then taken out with a combined Werewolf flank attack and counter-charge by the grotesques. We then mopped up the remaining units.

This gave us a solid victory having tabled our opponents and losing very little in return.

Awards

We walked away with a very respectable 2 wins and a draw for the day. Great showing! On gaming points, this put us to 3rd place however some of the soft scores bumped us down to 4th place overall. The good news is that 3rd place went to the ringer team, who we had played in the 2nd game. This meant that their award got handed down, so me and Spud walked away with the third place trophy. Spud also managed to pick up an “arbitrary army award”, which is fantastic!

Thoughts on the day

This was an extremely enjoyable event. The venue was great, the atmosphere was fantastic, we had some really fun games and the awards, prizes and goody bags were all Brilliant (with a capital B). Lee & Luke did themselves proud with such a fantastic event. I had a great time and I’m definitely looking forward to their next event on 1st July. 

If I were to suggest some improvements for next time, they would be:

• Timing. The day was in danger of overrunning. The atmosphere was very relaxed and unfortunately this meant people were very lax with their timekeeping, and the event quickly ran behind. We still finished at a respectable time, but the last game felt much more rushed because we were running out of time.
• Lighting – not down to Lee/Lukes control, but the lights in the main room didn’t work. Luke did bring a lamp to get some extra light in the room, but this ended up melting after being on too long! Certainly towards the end of the day it was getting very dark in that room.
• Sportsmanship awards. I love soft scores and think they really help to round out the whole hobby experience at these events. I wouldn’t mind seeing some sportsmanship scoring introduced. As always I’m a fan of positive sportsmanship scores (2 points for favourite opponents, 1 point for 2nd favourite opponent) rather than negative scores.
• Repeat opponents/tables. Lee/Luke unfortunately didn’t have anything set up to try and avoid people playing the same opponents or on the same tables twice. We played on the same table twice and I believe that some people played the same opponents twice. In a 3 game event, every step should be taken to avoid people playing the same opponent twice.

These things in no way sullied the event, they are nitpicking things to improve on for the next event. It was a fantastic day and all the little details, from the incredible scenery to the disco lights that were switched on whenever someone double 1’d a unit. I cannot wait for the next one!