Brawler Bash Battle Reports - Round Two

Angry and tired after defeating the Skaven, Golgor's Horde moved on.  Only a day later, they came upon a tribe of Ogres, who had apparently prospered in raiding the surrounding areas and trading slaves to the Skaven in exchange for foul weaponry and armor.  Golgor's legions, hungry and irritable, knew that the Ogres would have plenty to loot, eat, and drink.  Before Golgor could even call the battle cry, the Horde surged forward, eager to kill the Ogres. 

My second game at Brawler Bash was against Dan Rothrock's Ogres.  The game was a straight battleline.  I like getting drawn up against Ogres, as I see Beastmen as a natural foil to the army.  Our weapon skill is naturally higher, our toughness helps with their strength four, and we can push out a great deal of mid to high strength attacks.  Furthermore, we have the numbers to withstand them and punish them in a grind. 

This fight was a fairly straight up slobberknocker, but I had a major problem early on when my Bestigor pursued a fleeing Sabretusk seventeen inches, pulling them massively out of position from my army and into position for most of his army to charge into them.  This was followed by Dan unleashing the Hellheart, which went the full thirty inches and caused all four of my wizards to miscast.  The nasty thing about that spell, aside from the obvious damage it wreaks, is the fact that it effectively ends a magic phase, so my Bestigor were hanging out in the breeze with no hope of buffs.  They were broken and run down. 

My Gor, General, and BSB were still alive, as was the Shadow wizard, and they managed to carve out huge chunks of the Ogre army.  I had a Chariot also do wonderful things on a flank, killing two or three of the units that the Bestigors had mauled before dying.  It was rough lacking the Bestigors' punch, and I ended up losing one Gor horde and my General.  My BSB held on by sheer luck, and I had a Gor herd hanging back, but Dan lost everything except his General and an Ironblaster when the game ended.  I'm not sure if I would have been okay on the next turn, but since the game ended, I managed a decent win, getting just shy of maximum points, while Dan got a lot of points in his loss. 

Brawler Bash Short Battle Reports, Round One

Golgor Fangs-First stepped down off of the Doombull's corpse, its heartblood still hot on his lips.  Yuri, his standard bearer, knocked away any Gor that came too close as the herd rushed in to devour the dozens of minotaur corpses that lay scattered in the clearing.  Golgor had dreamed the slaughter of the Bulls, and knew it to be a sign from the Dark Gods.  His shamans had confirmed the signs in the augurs.  The Minotaurs had failed, and were to be sacrificed.  In return, the Gods would bring Golgor primacy and great victory.

Golgor had killed every Minotaur himself, finally throttling the Doombull with his bare hands.  

Only Gor and their lesser kin now remained in Golgor's Horde.  Bestigor strode forward in huge ranks, knocking aside their smaller brethren.  Massive Gor herds formed up loosely on the sides.  Golgor screamed his rage and fury, and horns of bone and brass rang lustily in anticipation of the slaughter to come.  

The Northern Forests shook and crashed as the Horde of Golgor Fangs-First strode forward.

Game One

My first game at Brawler Bash was a grudge match against Joel Busta's Skaven in a Meeting Engagement scenario.   Joel is a great opponent and went on to win Best Sportsman.  Unfortunately, he had terrible luck and I had very good luck.  I came at his line aggressively, and managed to take down his lone abomination in combat with my Gor horde very early in the game.  Meanwhile, his two Warp Lightning Cannons and smaller warmachines continually misfired, failing to do any wounds to my army, and his Doomwheel destroyed itself in a forest.  After a particularly bad overrun, I did have some trouble when my Bestigor ran too far forward and were flanked by his Plaguemonks with the reroll banner.  I needed a three on my break check to keep them in the game, and made it.  By turn six, I had removed all of Joel's army aside from two units of Gutter Runners, which allowed me a big win. 

Brawler Bash 2012 Awards and Pictures

I hope to have some small Battle Reports and comments up tomorrow.  Here are, as promised, the full awards.

Best Overall:  Ben Tuite (Beastmen)
Second Overall:  Dan Pace (Orcs and Goblins)
Third Overall:  Dan Rothrock (Ogres)

Best General:  Ben Tuite (Beastmen)
Second General:  Lane Webster (Lizardmen)
Third General:  Dan Rothrock (Ogres)

Best Paint: Robert Brandon (High Elves)
Second Paint:  Dan Pace (Orcs and Goblins) 
Third Paint:  Kelly Gragg (Ogres)

Best Sports:  Joel Busta (Skaven)
Second Sports:  Jarad Cashman (Skaven)
Third Sports: Dan Pace (Orcs and Goblins)

Misfire Award:  Nick Newswanger (Empire)

Player's Choice:  Dan Pace (Orcs and Goblins)

Also, pictures from the Bash can be found here

Brawler Bash 2012 Results!

Brawler Bash V, our local Warhammer Fantasy Grand Tournament, finished this weekend with thirty-four participants.  As always, it was an awesome time, with great opponents and a good time had by all.  We had people come in from all over the eastern seaboard.  Not bad for a GT on the same weekend as Adepticon! 

Prizes were given for Bash Grandmaster (Best Overall), Bash Battlemaster (Best General), Bash Crasher (Best Sportsman),  Bash Brush (Best Painted), Player's Choice and Top Club.  The Overall, General, Sportsman and Paint categories also gave out second and third place prizes. 

I ended up taking Best Overall and Best General home, which is my first #1 overall finish in a Grand Tournament.  I've been finishing in the top five with my Beastmen for a couple GT's in a row now, and was thrilled to take the top spot.  I literally couldn't have done it without my amazing club, The Fancy Lads, and we were lucky enough to take home The Top Club award, which I hope will hang in our local store when they move to their new location in September.  Until then, I hope to pass it around for various club members to keep it from week to week. 

 The Grandmaster's Sword for Best Overall

Top Club Prize

Best General

The Mug for Best Overall (Because you can't swing a wooden sword wildly and irresponsibly around the house without a mug of beer to go with it).

Big congratulations to Joel Busta for taking Best Sportsman, Robert Brandon for taking Best Painted, and Dan Pace for taking Player's choice. I'll get the rest of the award winners listed when the results are published, as I probably can't list them all correctly from memory.

In related news, Erik Lindley is retiring from running Brawler Bash due to time commitments, and I'll be taking over running the tournament next year with help from The Fancy Lads.  Brawler Bash is a great tradition for Warhammer Fantasy, and we plan to keep it that way.  We're already planning for and looking forward to Brawler Bash VI in 2013. 

I believe my Beastmen will retire as well, and be shelved for a while.  Best Overall is a good way to go out.  I'll work on finishing up the painting 2500 points of Wood Elves and go with them for a while.  After almost three years of Beastmen, it'll be a very different change of pace.

For those interested in my 3000 point Beastmen list, here's a rough outline:

Beastlord with Crown of Command
Level Three Lore of Death Great Bray Shaman
Level Four Lore of Shadow Great Bray Shaman
Wargor BSB with Beast Banner
Level One Lore of Shadow Bray Shaman
Level One Lore of Beasts Bray Shaman with Shard of the Herdstone
44 Gor in Horde Formation
44 Gor in Regular Formation
10 Gor
22 Ungor
Two Tuskgor Chariots
Two Razorgor
48 Bestigor with Flaming Banner in Horde Formation

The list puts a lot of tough models on the table, and can take a beating in close combat while dishing a lot of nasty attacks out. The general and BSB usually go with the 44 Gor in horde formation, with the Lore of Death Shaman riding with the Bestigor and the Lore of Shadow Shaman switching units depending on my opponent's deployment.  Everything castles around the Ungor bunker and the Herdstone to start the game and then moves forward quickly and aggressively in while the chariots and Razorgor move around the flanks.  I use the ten Gor to ambush the soft parts of my opponent's army if possible.

Anyway, I'll try and get my five battle recaps (with five great opponents) up this week, as well as the full results and award winners when they are published.  See you then!

First Painted Thunderwolf Cavalry with New GW Paints

As I mentioned earlier in the week, I picked up some of the new GW paints this past weekend.  I had a chance to try them out in painting my first Thunderwolf Cavalry model. 

I especially like the yellows and the glazes.  The paints also have an excellent consistency that is nice and thin. 

I'm off to the Brawler Bash WFB GT this weekend, and will be there starting this afternoon.  Wish me luck!

So I went by the new Raleigh Games Workshop store this Saturday on their grand opening.  It was a pretty crazy experience, but I look forward to going again.

The new store had some promotions on its first day.  There were posters and patches (which I was too late for). as well as a painting competition and some demo games.  What it mainly had going on, though, was a crowd.  I'm terrible at estimating square footage, so I'll go with the store being about the size of a good sized living room.  It wasn't as tiny as the only other GW store I've been in (Atlanta), and it held its stock comfortably, alongside three gaming tables.  On Saturday, about 150 people were crammed in there.

I managed to work through the crowd, pick up some of the new paints, and wait in line to pick them up.  I wish I had had a chance to check out some of the other items, but it was a bit of a madhouse.  I look forward to going back in sometime when it isn't so crazy and taking a look around, as everything seemed well stocked and they had a lot of interesting items I've never seen before in person (especially in finecast).  

Weekend Update: April 16th, 2012

To recap, here were my goals on Friday:

*  Re-magnetize the Beastmen.  They started with rare earth magnets on the bases, but a great many have come off.

*  Paint the two Thunderwolves as Razorgor.

*  Get my list and supplies all laid out for the tournament.

*  Remake Jim Chadwick's Grail Quest Best Painted award.  It got messed up at the actual event, and since he's coming up for Brawler Bash this is a good time to get it to him.

*  Fix my herdstone, which popped off its base

So here's what actually got done:

Magnetizing the Beastmen:  Done, except for the fact that I don't have enough rare earth magnets to magnetize the Bestigor.  I'll have to wait until Sci Fi Genre gets some in.

Painting the Thunderwolves:  I got started on this, and realized that my original vision wasn't great, and that I need to work on converting some Gor riders to make the wolves really work as Razorgor.  So this will be on the back burner for now.

List and Supplies:  Nah, but I can get that done later in the week.

Best Painted Award:  See List and Supplies.

Herdstone:  Fixed!

What I did do this weekend is continue my sudden Space Wolves obsession, using the new GW paints to do up a Wolf Lord on Thunderwolf.  I'll have pictures up later this week.  I also visited the new GW store in Raleigh, which was pretty cool.

All in all, looking forward to prepping for Brawler Bash this weekend!

Goals for the Weekend

This being the last weekend before Brawler Bash V, I find myself with a great many things that I need to do before the tournament in order to be prepared.  I have a theory that if I write these things down, especially publicly on this blog, that I will be more likely to to get everything done.  So here's my goals for the weekend:

*  Re-magnetize the Beastmen.  They started with rare earth magnets on the bases, but a great many have come off. 

*  Paint the two Thunderwolves as Razorgor.

*  Get my list and supplies all laid out for the tournament. 

*  Remake Jim Chadwick's Grail Quest Best Painted award.  It got messed up at the actual event, and since he's coming up for Brawler Bash this is a good time to get it to him.

*  Fix my herdstone, which popped off its base

*  Create the mystery item which will go out to my opponents at Brawler Bash...nope, it's not a gift of Nurgle, but it's still pretty good. 

Painted Wolf Scout with Meltagun

Last Wolf Scout for a while, I promise.

Even though getting a meltagun onto a scout model meant that some pinning had to be done (it's a metal meltagun), it was well worth it.  Five Wolf Scouts with meltabombs and a meltagun, who can appear, shoot, and assault from an opponent's deployment zone on a 3+?  Yes, please.   They don't cost a whole lot, either, for something that can take out a tank or two very easily. 

I think I did a good job particularly on this guy's face.  The head itself had to be chopped down just to fit, as it's a head built for a Marine torso...but I think it helps to get a little more variety in the scouts.

Fourth Painted Wolf Scout

I only realized after I was halfway through painting this guy that I had used the same head on him that I used on the Wolf Scout Sergeant.  Thank goodness for the magic of painting, and the ability to give him a very different face paint scheme. 

I played what is either my last or next to last game of Warhammer Fantasy before Brawler Bash, and am reasonably pleased with my Beastmen going into the tournament.  I need to do some magnetization and fix some basing this weekend in preparation for the tournament, and I'd like to paint up a couple Thunderwolves as Razorgor.  We'll see how that goes.

Third Painted Wolf Scout

Continuing on with Wolf Scout-palooza, I finished the third Scout last week.   The big improvement over previous work was getting a better snow flock.  Army Painter makes a lot of great products, but their snow is too big and granular, and really sticks out badly on basing.  I suggest either GW or Gale Force 9 snow for basing. 

I'm going to be playing a practice game of Warhammer Fantasy this evening for Brawler Bash, which is up to thirty-one registered people.  I'm looking forward to it!

Weekend Update: April 9th, 2012

Okay, we had a bit of a stutter there, but I'm back up and running.  The last week and a half, I had a brutal flu bug that knocked me out of doing anything and everything.  It was rough.  I was home from work for most of a week, but got little done.  Following that, we had a ton of company up for Easter.  Here's what has happened:

*  Space Wolf Scouts are painted and done.  I'll have pictures up this week.

*  My list for Brawler Bash is sent in.  I'm excited to be going. 

*  I assembled Fenrisian Wolves, one Thunderwolf Cavalry, and started on assembling another thirty-five Glade Guard.  I also converted two Thunderwolves to be my new Razorgor. 

*  I got some new GW paints, but only the Space Wolf Grey line.   I'm not ready to give a review until I've really used several kinds and colors of paints.