Runefang Warhammer Tournament Wrap (lots of pics)

***A LOT OF PICS IN THIS POST - They should all expand out and are most are quite big ***

Well got back from my 1st WFHB tournament of the year and 1st under 8th last night and it was an absolute blast. Gone was the old 1v1 adversarial system and in went a Mighty Empires campaign in which everyone was split into teams (6 of 3 players and 1 of 2), with victories in each game contributing points to help build your respective empires. The weekend saw teams build alliances, plot with and then turn against eachother, and endless strategising as each team decided who they wanted to challenge to advance their empires. The teams were

• Skaven (2 players)
• Orcs n Goblins
• Orcs n Goblins
• High Elves (my team)
• Dwarfs
• Realms of Men (Wood Elves, Empire, Bretts)
• Chaos (Woc, Woc, Daemons)

If you really want to see the army lists every player took then click here

It was perhaps the most relaxed tournament I've been too and certainly a hell of a lot of fun so congrats to Pete Dunn the TO for taking a punt on organising such a solid event. On a personal note it also went pretty well for me with 2 wins and a draw in my 5 games which isnt that bad really.

G1 - vs. Orcs & Goblins
Battleline / DRAW

Ok he has a Giant spider and big horde of Squigs, that new 65pt uber-Squig and a horde of damn Goblins. First mistake deploying the Archmage in a building that extended out into the middle of the board. The Spider promptly charged this on the first turn, but luckily 3 Archers survived (somehow), passed the break test and I was able to extract her before she got killed. Meanwhile I got stuck wondering how to deal with the damn fanatics, 8 in all, so held back a bit too much - except for the Phoenix Guard. These I rushed forward counting on their WS to protect them against the little spinning buggers. This worked to a point but then they got flanked charged by Trolls after failing to break a Goblin unit - steadfast for ranks is a HUGE change.

Unluckily for the Goblins they kept failing animosity checks and the huge Squig herd had to charge my Spears and BSB who promptly wiped them out. The White Lions then got stuck into the other Goblin unit after watching the Phoenix Guard get chomped. This worked well for me, despite more than half of them dying to the uber Squig and fanatics. But when they got into combat they broke the Goblins in combat causing every other Goblin unit to flee in panic.

Meanwhile the Giant Spider charged the Spears who held reformed and had some fun trying to wound him. Result, I scored big on CR the Spider broke and was run down. Shooting took care of a few other Goblin units but after my White Lions go Squig'd the game ended in a draw with both of us losing 1100 VP.

G2 - vs. Wood Elves
Blood and Glory / WIN

Lots and lots of Wood Elf shooting and forests everywhere so not good. But the scenario really helped as it meant a 15" deployment zone rather than 12". Plan was pretty simple rush forward and get into combat as quickly as possible using Lore of Life to buff my units to protect them on the way in. The Dragon Princes started things off by getting a charge in on the Glade Riders routing them, and the Archers meanwhile shot down the Eagle/Bird rider things?!?

Plan was working well till I moved the White Lions through a forest which promptly turned into a Blood Forest. Luckily I was able to stop the Wood Elf magic which would have been freaking horrible had it gotten off.

A turn or so later my 3 key infantry units (Spears, W/Lions & P/Guard) and the Dragon Princes all charged the Wood Elf army - minus some Dryads who were killing off a unit of 10 Archers. With every unit in combat we had Life magic going off all over the place with Regen, +2 and +4 Toughness, Shield of Thorns etc on both sides confusing things. Oh and the Blood Forest moved back and forth along the fighting before finally scattering away from everyone.


End result I absolutely pulversied his infantry and destroyed the entire Wood Elf army with the exception of the single unit of Dryads. Nice bit of revenge as the army's General had wiped out my Dwarfs with his VC in my last tournament of 2010.

G3- vs. Warriors of Chaos
Blood and Glory / LOSS

Team strategising resulted in me picking to play this opponent as my list was slightly better tailored to go against it. At least thats what we/I thought at the time. The Chaos army consisted of two huge hordes of Frenzied, GW weilding Marauders one of 60 models and the other of 40, and 2 blocks of 15 WoC and a few units of small dogs and that was it. Fair bit of Chaos magic as well but nothing I couldn't dispel.

Basically I desperately needed to get Dwellers as one of my Archmages 4 spells, I didn't, couldn't shoot down enough of the enemy and got out deployed due to his larger number of units. This meant I couldnt get my Spears deployed opposite one of the horde units and instead they ended up facing the Warriors of Chaos. Still my White Lions chopped the 60 strong block down to 30 before they got creamed. The Phoenix Guard helped a little against the WoC before getting slaughtered - unfortunately the Spears got trapped movement wise by Warhounds and couldnt help them out until it was too late.

This left the Dragon Princes to take on the 40 strong block alone and they did quite well getting them down to under 1/2 strength - but this worth bupkiss in 8th. Result I was completely wiped out with only my Budgie alive at the end of Turn 4 when we agreed to call the match over and done. Tried my best but couldn't do it.

G4- vs. Skaven
Dawn attack /WIN

This was the shooting Skaven army with the Doomwheel, the other one had the Screaming Bell, Plague Furnace and Hell Pit Abomination in it. We rolled for Dawn attack and luckily I got some good rolls. Result all of my Archers were on one flank with good shots at the Skaven army, while all of my infantry was in the middle or middle right. Unfortunately there was a huge building in the middle of the table, like a watchtower but not a watchtower if you get what I mean.

First few turns went to my opponent. His big catapult started Turn 1 by landing a 5" template on my Spears killing half the unit and more shooting then took down half of the Dragon Princes.

I couldn't dispel his magic and consequently the Spears ended up charging a Frenzied 4 attack each unit of Gutter Runners in the building. They won but it took them 2 turns and there were only 10 Spears + the BSB left at the end of it. Meanwhile the Phoenix Guard were getting shot up and the Doomwheel was rampaging toward my Archers. The Dragon Princes also went bye bye and this was only Turn 2.

Turn 3 though things completely flipped. Poor James my extremely nice opponent (always great fun playing against him) had a horror run of luck. First his Greyseer miscast, and then the Mortar, Catapult, Jezzails, Doomwheel and 2 Ratling Guns all YES ALL misfired. This meant my units who were now in charge range were unaffected and able to pick their charges with a bit more risk in mind. In one bad example of misfortune a misfiring Ratling Gun blew away half of a clan rat unit that was then charged by the Phoenix Guard.


The White Lions went at a unit of 50 Slaves (5x10 deep) and wiped them out in 2 rounds. The Phoenix Guard meanwhile charged a unit of Clan Rats who sneakly popped up an Assassin (he had to be revealed in response to the first charge). I responded to this by flank charging the BSB into the unit, right at the Assassin who James had placed in just the right place. He was 15" away and I rolled 11 on the dice meaning he just got in - end result the Clan Rats and Assassin got pulverised. Big moment though was the Archmage finally getting Dwellers off onto the Skaven BSB's unit wiping out 2/3 of it. It fled and the resulting panic saw a couple of other units flee off the board.

It didnt end there as in Turn 4 Jame lost his Greyseer to my BSB who solo charged him before killing off the Catapult. The remaining Clan Rat unit and BSB rallied only to be charged by the White Lions and Spears and getting wiped out. This left only his Doomwheel, some of those Skirmishy things that can tunnel and a Ratling Gun left to him.

But once again the game turned on its head as in the building I had 10 surviving Spear men who were worth 332pts if James could kill them off. Result, two charges by the Rats who had multiple attacks and they were toast. Luckily for me though the rats couldnt kill the Archmage, who had been hiding in the building, they got her down to one wound and she was able to run away.

Then the remaining Rattling Gun killed or was it the Doomwheel, I forget, sniped and killed my BSB. Swung the result slightly away from my favour but still a big win to me and one of the most enjoyable games of the weekend.

G5- vs. Skaven
Dawn attack /LOSS

Ok I dont't know if I talked myself into this or was talked into but basically I ended up playing Pete Dunn. I got called out so went "Sure why not ill give it a go" - mind you I've also wanted to play against him so was looking forward it, but not to his 4 units of Clan Rats, 2 of Slaves, HBA, Plague Furnace with Censor Bearers, and Screaming Bell.

Game did not start well when the Dawn attack deployment rules saw Petes entire army go down pretty much in the middle of the board while mine got split onto either flank. The Archers and White Lions in the left corner, the Dragon Princes Spears and Phoenix Guard in the right.

Was a fun game but bugger me if the Skaven army doesn't have a lot of bells and whistles. Nearly every unit had 2-3 special rules that did something nasty or at least it seemed that way, maybe its just my poor embittered Dwarven side coming out in me.

Things were going OK though particularly when I got the White Lions, Budgie and Archers into the Plague Furnace. The combat lasted a long time and was confused by a unit of Slaves/Clan Rats charging the flank of the Archers and the HBA charging the rear. I managed to kill the character on the Furnace, and all of the Censor bearers but the White Lions had to make a few Stubborn leadership rolls. When they finally broke (only 12/21 left) the Budgie was left alone to take on the Furnace.

Somehow my little Eagle survived until Turn 5 and even got two wounds on the thing before he got BBQ'd. The White Lions meanwhile got swamped by 50 Slaves kept making Stubborn rolls before getting killed off - just before the HBA could rear charge them (it ended up 1" short on the

On the right things didnt go much better. I made a big mistake in not advancing hell for leather straight at Petes units here which included 3 Clan Rat units, 1 with the Bell, 1 with the BSB and some Slaves. Things would have been Ok but he got the 13th Spell off on the Phoenix Guard and turned all - YES ALL - 18 of them into rats so they went bye bye in Turn 2. This left my Archmage alone and she just couldnt get anything off including Dwellers and was eventually killed off.

Only the Spears and Dragon Princes got into combat, the Princes chopping through one unit of Rats and the Spears routing the Slaves. Combat then got messy with a 2nd Rat unit flank charging the Dragon Princes and the Bell setting up to rear charge the Spears who had turned to flank charge the Skaven BSB after routing the Slaves. But before this the Dragon Princes earned their props in Turn 3 by rolling double 1's on the re-roll to make their break test (I needed double 1's) and stop the flank charging Rats from overrunning into my Spears before they could finish the Slaves off.

End result wasn't much in doubt though particularly when Pete kept rolling 10-12 PD most turns and Channelling successfully in 4/6 turns. Damn Skaven dice. By end game I had 6, count them, 6 Spearmen models and the BSB left on the board.

Still it was a fun game - both of the matchs I enjoyed the most coming against Skaven - luckily for the High Elf team my teammates both won their last round matches and we were able to secure 3rd place.

Next stop is Call to Arms the Karak Eight Peaks (see March, White Dwarf) themed campaign tournament in August with my Dwarfs, although I do have a Flames of War tournament in July first.