General impression and self (loathing) assessment.

The whole event was very good, very friendly and very relaxed. This was made even more so as there were only twelve players. I thought it was nice with all the banter and just hanging around other game tables while you were waiting for your opponent to come back from the loo or grabbing a cuppa. The venue itself is a great space and I can only imagine it when there are lots more games going on (especially from what I heard about the European Team Championships a couple of months back).

The journey up to Mansfield wasn’t that bad and got to my hotel ok. The hotel itself was tidy, if a little noisy and was within walking distance to The Eye of the Storm (it took just about twelve minutes and not the five minutes that Maelstrom stated in their tournament pack). The main thing was that they made good on their promise of “as much tea and coffee as you can drink”.
All in all it was a good time and I will go to another weekender.

Now for the self assessment.

My record stood at P6 W0 D2 L4. This placed me at the foot of the table and secured me the Wooden Spoon, although I missed out on 11th place by a mere 800 or so points. I cannot whinge about anything that happened to me over the weekend (apart from record numbers of Tough rolls being made) as I was my own worst enemy most of the time. Each overall performance might not have been anything to write home about, but there were few individual efforts that were praiseworthy. I’ll just review each model/unit briefly:

Errant Seneschal – Granted Hunter which came in useful occasionally but I didn’t really make the best of his abilities.
Vassal Mechanik – Was called into action three times (I think) to heal my ‘jacks before he was taken down nearly every game. Out of those three times, he past his skill check just once healing a solitary point. This happened to give the FoS back it’s movement.
Vassal – Did his job frequently mostly with Ancillary Attack, although the extra effort was frequently wasted.
Choir – Did what they do best and give their buffs, although in the later (especially the last game) I inexplicably started to activate them after the ‘jacks.
Errants with UA – Mostly performed well but fell victim to my deployment. I kept putting them straight in to the frontline, and therefore, into danger. I probably could have eased them into the fray on the extreme flank and kept them safer. I know I didn’t always have to put them Advance Deploy them so far forward.
Bastions – Took a lot of damage and kept standing a lot of the time, which is what they were designed to do. I failed to utilise them in capturing Control Points/Objectives and also forgot that their weapons are Blessed (this fact would have helped clear one side of the table in my game against Tom and his Khador). I mostly had them trailing behind the intrepid Zealots.
Zealots – had a lot of fun with these guys as always, whether they were dealing death to the enemy or themselves. Their highlight was dealing a lot of damage to eMadrak. Used these as a frontline unit to hopefully soften up the enemy for the Bastions.
Monolith Bearer – Was good for giving +4 ARM with Holy Monolith, but usually used Greater Destiny a turn too late.
Devout – Stayed very close to Kreoss and was never destroyed. Didn’t really stop Kreoss from being smooshed (there is only so much damage a Devout is allowed to take) as my positioning was not all that.
Vanquisher – Rained down fiery death which is good. I didn’t take advantage of the Thresher attack from it’s Blazing Star in combat. I mostly preferred to shoot rather that fight which is sad as the Vanq can be really durable.
Fire of Salvation – Kreoss’ eager puppy fully loaded with Focus can be a scary thing, ask Beast 09. Using a point of Focus to activate the Imprint giving boosted attack rolls and use to rest to boost damage rolls is utterly devastating. Alas, I was not aggressive enough with him. With Defenders Ward (making him DEF 12 ARM 21) and a choir singing the hymn of Shielding, he should have been the first (and last) thing that the enemy saw. I also forgot that the FoS’ weapons have Dispel, which could have been useful a few times.
Kreoss - was handy for Defenders Ward and Lamentation. Used Purification only once, but probably could have used it more. His positioning could and should have been a lot better, (the first couple of games he was too far away to allocate focus on the FoS).
Painting – I’m not really a painter which showed, but did enough to heave everything looking cohesive if not fully based and painted.

I really started to get fatigued and it showed in the last game. I forgot my synergies a lot of the time and could have helped myself a lot more. I still need to sit down and read everything properly and work things out.

Scrap Metal game results.

The first game of the weekend was against Rob and his Seaforge Commission. I enjoyed seeing an all Dwarf army, even though it broke all my preconceptions concerning their slowness. The scenario for this game was Revelation, which involved capturing control banners on the halfway line on the field. I lost the dice off (the first of five failed rolls in all six games), I think Rob went for the Defenders role (his Seaforge could in fact extend their Deployment Zone, which put them closer to the Control banners). Rob took a fairly ‘jack heavy army with three Blasters (total nuisances) with a good choice in troops. All this led by Gorten Grundback. The game itself saw my Zealots rushing straight to the Dwarven front line only to wonderfully implode by having a few bombs scatter into their own ranks (they wouldn’t be fun to use if they didn’t do stupid things like this). The Errants ended up being shot to pieces right at the start, while the Bastions fared far better with their durability. Everything else got caught up in a wall of ‘jacks being very ably assisted by Lord Rockbottom and Thor Steinhammer trying to get at an extremely evasive Gorten. Rob looked to win by scenario (he cleared me away from both control banners), but went for caster kill to rack up a very high score.
Next up was Andy and his Circle. Here, again was a nicely painted set of warbeasts led by pKreuger. This time the scenario was Close Quarters which involved taking to Control Zones. My Errants had a good time taking on the Bloodtrackers before taking a Warp Wolf and a Pureblood close to their deaths. Kreuger stayed too far away to even think about damaging and his feat really hurt my hopes of moving forward to capture either of the control zones. The Bastions did their best to try and control one of the zones but Andy had scored the more control points than I did by that time.
In the last game on Saturday, I faced Dill and his Trollbloods led by eMadrak. A lot of the killing was being done by three Impalers and a unit of Troll champions which tore through my line with alarming speed. This scenario, Kill Box, turned out to be just a standard (but bloody – Menoth blood sadly) ‘caster kill. Zealots almost took the glory and went for ‘caster kill and dealt some damage, but Madrak was left standing with 8 points left. Kreoss was killed by Impalers.

Sunday’s first game I was pitted in a game of Capture the Flag. My opponent Tom took Khador led by eSorscha and a wonderfully posed Beast. Things were going well to start with, the Fire of Salvation (loaded up with four Focus) made straight for Beast in the third turn and turned it to junk. As the game wore on I found my situation getting a little more desperate. Fortunately for me, we ran out of time to play another turn and ended with a draw. If we had I surely would have lost the game by scenario.

Game 5 was against Craig and yet more Trollbloods led this time by pMadrak. Craig could have won in the first turn as I didn’t follow the scenario (Process of Elimination) properly. I hadn’t placed my Zealots in one of the Control Zones properly and were subsequently cleared from the Zone. As that would have meant that the game was over right there and then, Craig let the game go on. I wish he hadn’t as everything went wrong (including Craig making 7 consecutive tough rolls). My ‘jacks were taken down by a couple of Impalers and some Troll champions. The Errants ran away from Pygmies and during Madrak’s feat turn the Earthborn went to town on my entire force. Kreoss fell yet again to Impalers. I had scored my lowest total of battle points so far.

The final game of the weekend was against Dan and some more Mercenaries, this time from the Highborn Covenant. Without me paying attention to Dan pointing out what everything in hiss force was and what they do, I soon lost the plot. My Errants got tied up by chaff consisting of a unit of Press Gangers (who also happened to be very successful with their Tough rolls) and Zombies. The rest of the force were engaged by more Press Gangers and Pistol Mages. I started to get things totally wrong, and Dan very helpfully (and extremely kindly) stepped in and made some suggestions. Without these hints, I would have lost any ability to destroy Dan’s Objective Markers instead of drawing.

Self assessment will follow as soon as I have got over how lame I was.

Maelstrom oppoonents.

I checked the Maelstrom forum earlier today and found the details for my first game. I will be playing against a Mercenary force from the Seaforge Comission. Also had a brief look at the other 10 (yes only 10 others) players and what they are taking. There will be two other two other Menoth players (taking pSeverius and e Severius) amongst others. I hope I don’t have to come up against them.