Merry Mayhem: Aftermath

So I finished the tourney with 0 wins and a grand total of 6 battle points won from only my first game. Yay! Still, I think I put up a respectable showing for someone with a grand total of about 5 games of Fantasy under his belt, only 1 of which was at the 2k points level.

As a "reward" for my performance I was awarded the Wooden Spoon and a set of dice:

I was not allowed to pick out the dice, probably a good thing seeing how they treated me at the tourney...

The tourney was fun and I definitely learned a lot about the nuances of how this game is played. Going to a tourney is probably not the best way to do it, but it is definitely one of the quickest. Key points that I took away from the day include:

• Gorgers- they just weren't useful at all the entire day. Granted I didn't go against any armies that fielded war machines in any of my matches, but each game they just kind of floundered on to the board late and eventually died.
• Charging- it's vital that you only charge the right targets! Be aware of units breaking away or baiting you, and watch out for other units that might be looking for a flank or rear charge.
• The above goes doubly for pursuing. While you might not get points until you completely smash an enemy, you don't want to expose yourself too much to enemy charges.
• Magic- the lack of a lvl 4 really hurt me, especially in the last game. Ogres just can't spam the casters like other races can, so getting that lvl 4 for casting and dispel means I don't get a second caster most of the time.
• Heroes- these really make or break Fantasy armies. I think I'll try building around them rather than doing my usual 40k thing of building the army first and shoehorning a HQ choice into the mix. In Fantasy the army delivers the heroes, not the other way around.

Thanks for hanging with me this week, and next week we're going to take a look at some non-Fantasy projects that I have lined up. Thanks for reading!

Merry Mayhem: Circus vs Circus!

My last game of the day was by request, as while I was walking around I noticed this army:

 CIRCUS GOBLINS!

The army was run by a very charming fellow from Chicago named Alex. When he saw my army walking up towards the table his face lit up and he let out a loud "YEEESSSS!" Seems he wanted this battle as much as me...

Our battle was called the Isle of Misfit Toys. Toy tokens spawned from the center of the board and scattered around. Only champions, the General and the BSB can pick up the tokens.

The rules for our battlefield:

His General is wearing the top hat, his BSB is the pogo stick of DOOM.

And here's our battle lines after deployment:

He won the roll to go first, and the comedy of errors progressed from there. We both moved up a bit, my movements were rather... cautious, based on the beatings that I had received earlier in the day. Perhaps too cautious, as my opponent quickly gobbled up two tokens.

My Ironguts on the left flank quickly chopped apart the two Trolls. My Trappers and my Leadbelchers were quickly blown away by a combination of crazed pump wagons and Goblin magic. The first casting of the dreaded "6's become 1's" spell was made around here.

Eventually my large blocks got into combat, grabbing a token on the way. Unfortunately I appear to be easily bated, as two pump wagons crashed into the side of my BSB's block. After fighting them off I chased down one, only to open my lines to the three way charge that you see below. Ouchies.

Meanwhile the Ironguts carved through the enemy General but steadily gained losses. My other block of Bulls beat off a squad of Goblins, then smashed through the Squig herders after they mauled my BSB's block of Bulls. I had a chance to catch up on the game if I could have broken the Squig herders in one round of combat, potentially grabbing two more tokens to give me the win. Alas it was not to be, and in a stunning upset the dreaded "6's become 1's" spell caused me to deal 0 wounds to an assaulting goblin block and causing it to be run down. Ouchies.

Still, the game was enjoyable and it was amazing to find a fellow circus general. We chatted for a while about conversions afterwards and I learned a few cool tips for sprucing up my display table. Turns out that he is one of the people in charge of the Fantasy section of Adepticon, so he promised to get me some good match ups at the 1k non-tournament. Hopefully I will have improved my game by then...

Oh, and the background to our little circus match was amazing:

Amazing what you can find in the back of a game store! Next time, some overall thoughts on the tournament and some wrap up. Thanks for reading!

Merry Mayhem: Battles 1 and 2

So, some battles! One of the cool features of the tournament was that each table had special terrain rules. Most of the rules were choices from the BRB but a few were more unique. Here's the rules for my first table:

Our mission, "You're a Mean One Mr. Grinch," can be found here. Basically it centered around sending units into the various buildings on the map to grab "toys," symbolized by little pieces of candy taken from a cup. The mission ended at wipeout, turn 6 or if all of the candies were taken from the cup. Our map is below:

My opponent was a Daemon player called Jeff. His list was something like this:
Herald of Nurgle with a breath weapon
Herald of Tzeentch
BSB
Unit of Hounds
Unit of Beasts of Nurgle
Unit of Furies
Unit of Bloodletters
Unit of Pink Horrors
Two units of Flamers

I deployed the majority of my forces on the right flank, with my two units of Leadbelchers on the left. Trappers scouted near a building on the right flank, hoping to run in and run out before they could get eaten.

Turn 1 I moved a squad of leadbelchers into the left building, the Trappers into the right and a squad of Bulls into the middle. My opponent countered by sending the Furies against the Belchers and the Letters against the Trappers. The two Leadbelchers managed to fight off the Furies without taking any casualties but the Trappers were cut down to a man.

My BSB's Bull squad managed to beat off the Bloodletters and steal their candy over the next few turns while my other Leadbelcher squad got another piece. My two Gorgers also came in and stole candy. Unfortunately one was gunned down by Horrors and, in a fatal turn six twist, one unit of Leadbelchers and a Gorger were defeated in close combat by the two Flamers squads. MAN those things can put out a beating!

So, I was winning 4-2 until the very last turn, ended up losing 2-4. Still, it was a very close game that was only decided by some luck and betters stats on my opponent's part.

Game two was on a very normal map and involved fighting over the Perfect Tree in the center of the board. Whoever had the most models within 8" (Monstrous Infantry counting as 3) won. This was pretty short as I deployed first, then my VC opponent (Robert, or SwissDictator on the forums) countered with some ethereal units far away from my magic weapons. That, plus his unstoppable block of Grave Guard made it his game very quickly. Still, he was a very pleasant opponent... I just need to learn how to play this game at some point.

Next time, battle three. See you then!

Merry Mayhem: The Armies, Part 2

More cool looking armies for you all from the Merry Mayhem tournament- enjoy!

There is one more army that I haven't shown yet, and I think you'll understand why when I do a write up on it. Tomorrow, looks at a few of my games there. Thanks for reading!

Merry Mayhem: The Armies, Part 1

This past weekend I attended the Merry Mayhem tournament here in Madison. I stayed up half the night beforehand finishing up the remaining models in my army. You can see my late night ramblings in parts 1, 2, 3 and 4 as I tempted to blog live and complete my army. And to those of you following along, particularly Loquacious (thanks for the encouraging replies!), apologies for not being able to blog anything on Saturday. My phone just didn't want to do the whole blogging thing at the store.

I didn't quite get everything finished, but I did get the most important parts of my army finished up before the tournament. Behold:

Everyone except for the Butcher that I assembled, greenstuffed and primed on Friday night was painted and based.

The tournament was a charity raising money for Toys for Tots. In addition to the entry fee we could drop off toys for raffle tickets and buy food. Among them, awesome ginger bread men like this one:

 Overall the tournament raised over $700 for Toys for Tots, including the toys below:

There were a number of pretty armies at the tournament, so I thought I'd take a bit to show you some of them. Enjoy!

More armies tomorrow!

Live Blogging 1.4: Morer progresser

Finally got the Gnoblars done except for their signs. Also started work on the Kottun Kandy stand.

 Beer count: 2

Live Blogging 1.3: Continuing Progress

 Still need to do some work on this board, but the sand is dry.

 Assembled and primed the butcher... painting him might have to wait.

 Base coated the Gnoblars... man I hate painting these buggers...

Beers consumed: 1. And it was DELICIOUS.

And for those of you reading, the pizza from before was from a little place called Ian's. Delicious.

Live Blogging 1.2: More progress

 Got the leadbelchers almost finished...

 Have the butcher almost made...

 And started getting my display board ready.

Plus, steak and fries pizza and taco pizza!

Live Blogging 1.1: It begins!

So begins the live blogging extravaganza! Things to do tonight:
make another Butcher
paint Gnoblars
finish painting Leadbelchers
make display board

Wish me luck, and keep on watching!

Announcment: Live Blogging Weekend!

 

Defending Humanity would like to announce its first Live Blogging Event! To document my heroic battle to finish my army and display board in time for the Merry Mayhem Tournament I will be doing live updates throughout the night on Friday (but hopefully not early morning Saturday...) showing off my progress, works in progress and maybe even a How-To or two.

This will all culminate with the Merry Mayhem Tournament on Saturday, where I will hopefully be able harness the power of the Internet and my Android phone to post pictures of the event STRAIGHT TO THIS VERY BLOG.

So, if you've ever wondered what a crazed hobbyist will be willing to do in one night to ready himself for a tournament for a game that he has BARELY PLAYED, this blog is the place, Friday night is the time, and we're coming to a browser, blog roll or Reader near you.

Tourney Prep- the Final Steps

Alright! Made the Top X again! Thanks Lauby! And for those of you who might have been worried- she loved the minis. Not surprising giving she also loved The Absolute Death and calls me in to the other room whenever Daleks, Cylons or Star Trek are mentioned... I do love geeky girls... :)

Minis for My Girl

Two weekends ago was an anniversary with my girlfriend and, her being awesome and all, I had to make her something. My gift, continuing a theme from last year, was making her some Dr Who miniatures, this time the 11th doctor (Matt Smith) and his companion Amy Pond.

And the complete group for full measure. You can find close ups of Mr. Tennant and the Master by clicking here. All of the miniatures (except for the TARDIS) come from Heresy Miniatures, a real quality independent miniatures maker.

So, when special days for your loved ones come calling, have you brought your hobby skills to bear? I'm interested to hear how!

Ogre Circus: T-Giving Weekend Work

Even though I traveled up to the wilds of Superior, WI I was still able to get quite a bit of hobby work done over the weekend. Mostly it was painting these fools:

BATTLE REPORT: 1850 Tourney Prep vs Space Wolves

Another video battle report for you all. This was another battle down at the Last Square in Madison against a fellow looking for some tourney prep with his Space Wolves. Be sure to watch the after battle report for my critique on the mission.



And apologies to you text battle report lovers- no time for it this week. Have a good holiday weekend!

Happy Tanksgiving!

Since right now I'm hopefully arriving in Duluth, MN (weather permitting!) all I have time for is a Happy Tanksgiving to all of you in this US of A.

To my international subscribers (and domestic, but really, eat some turkey instead of reading a blog why dontcha!), what about our hobby are you tankful for this day?

Tournament: Merry Mayhem Prep

First, thanks are needed to both Loquacious and Brent for getting me on the HoP Top X once again! My Internet fame continues to grow... and this also probably means that I should, like, alphabetize/reorder the IG Terminology link THAT IS RIGHT ABOVE THIS POST! How cool is that?

Anyway, I digress.

As I must have mentioned previously the reason for all of the Ogre Circus craziness is to prep for a tournament going down here in Madison called Merry Mayhem. As far as I understand this tourney goes a bit more on the "silly" side, partially because its a charity tournament and partially because it's all Christmas themed.

Some examples of the holiday silliness:

• the missions. The ones that I have heard have such interesting titles as The Grinch (break into  different buildings and grab "presents"), the Isle of Misfit Toys (run around chasing the toys) and The Perfect Tree (whoever has more models within 12" of the Perfect Tree wins [Ogres and monsters count as 3])
• get a free reroll for donating a toy
• get prizes for having your wizard sucked into the warp the first, be the first to roll insane courage, etc.

So I finally got some actual practice this past Sunday... and was stomped. Not because I played poorly, but because I neglected to have any unit champions in my list which was apparently the only way to grab misfit toys. I smashed a lot of stuff but just couldn't get any points.

Fortunately  the missions are now posted so I can determine victory conditions (which often involve champs collecting tokens) so I can retool my army list, but MAN was that disturbing.

Changing my list to accomodate this development has also had the pleasant side effect of making my hobby related tasks easier to do. I'm probably going to cut the Scrappies because a) to look upon the Scraplauncher set is to look into the face of FEAR ITSELF and b) they just don't help very much with my objectives. It's not so much about smashing (except for the Perfect Tree) and more about grabbing.

So, with that in mind, here's a sketchy version of my revised list that I was helped with thanks to a kind poster on the Ogre Stronghold:

Tyrant
Slaughtermaster

BSB

6 Bulls, Champ, Bellower
3 Bulls, Champ, Bellower
3 Bulls, Champ, Bellower
6 Irongunts, Standard, Bellower
11+ Gnoblar Trappers, Champ

4 Leadbelchers, Champ, Bellower

2 Gorgers

Game plan is have the Ironguts and possibly the large Bull squad play defense, smashing into the enemy so they can't grab tokens. Meanwhile the other Bulls, the Trappers and the Leadbelchers will run around grabbing tokens wherever they can. The Gorgers come on late to either take out warmachines or delay squads from grabbing tokens.

It's probably the characters that I'm having the most trouble with. Definitely need to include Tyrant and BSB but I'm debating replacing the Slaughtermaster with two Butchers. I'm not sure if I'd even have the points to do it, but it would add a bit of flexibility to my magic phase, enabling me to deal with two far flung groups at once.

Finally, we have the To Do list for hobby, which includes:
Finish painting Gorger 1 and BSB
Paint Gorger 2
Clean and paint the Trappers
Convert, clean and paint the Leadbelchers
Create movement trays
Create a display board

I think this is doable with some work over the weekend.. either way, wish me luck!

Ogre Circus: Gorgers and Bruiser

Over the weekend I managed to convert up my BSB and a pair of Gorgers.

As you can see I have followed your demands and included the Ogre Champion as my BSB. I'm still undecided about adding some more circusy elements to him (HINT: POLL ON RIGHT). The banner is from the Minotaur kit, and I decided to fill it out a bit more with green stuff.

There were a ton of thick sprue lines on this fellow, as well as a few gaps that I had to fill with green stuff. Still, with the pin the banner seems to be staying in place fairly well.

As you can tell I rethought how I was going to do the Gorgers. Instead of Strongmen I went with the suggestion of feral beasts, locked up in cages and on display. Their bases will have broken cage elements strewn about. They are created from a mix of Minotaur body and arms and Giant head and hands.

I tried to evoke more of the feel of the traditional Gorger by sticking various horn and bone pieces on them and evoke skin stretched around them with greenstuff.

Hope you enjoyed these- there's lots more hobby work to do over the next couple of weeks, so I gotta git er done!