My First Tournament

I haven't posted for ages and the reason for that is I have been getting ready for my first Warhammer Fantasy Tournament. It all started when one quiet launch time at work, I was checking out the 'Warhammer Forum' (warhammer.org.uk) and I stumbled on a post called 'April 25th - WFB Tourney - Leicester - 1999pts',  I had been thinking about going to tournaments for a while now and a local one seemed to good to miss.

When I got home I started writing out an army list to take. I decided that the army I took would have to be all painted as I am rubbish at the game, I might stand a fair chance at the 'best painted army' competition.

My problem was I had only painted around a 1200 points worth.

My army list was a follows:

Warriors of Chaos    1998 points

HEROES

Exalted Hero    160pts

Shield (5pt)

Magic Items: Armour of Damnation (45pt)

Exalted Hero    166pts  (needed painting)

Battle Standard (25pt) + Chaos Steed (16pts)

Chaos Gift: Acid Ichor (15pts) 

Chaos Sorcerer   120pts

Level 2 (35pts)

CORE

Warriors x18     318pts

Shields (1pt) + Musician (6pt) + Champion (12pt) + Standard Bearer (12pts)

Warriors x10     200pts

Great Weapons (2pt) + Musician (6pt) + Champion (12pt) + Standard Bearer (12pts)

Marauders x20     120pts   (5 to paint)

Shields (1pt) + Musician (4pt) + Champion (8pt) + Standard Bearer (8pts)

Marauder Horsemen x5     94pts

Shields (1pt) + Champion (12pt) + Standard Bearer (12pts)

Warhounds x5     30pts

Warhounds x5     30pts (needed painting)

SPECIAL

Chosen x10     250pts (needed painting)

Great Weapons (2pt) + Musician (10pt) + Champion (20pt) + Standard Bearer (20pts)

Chaos Ogres x3     150pts

Great Weapons (10pt) + Chaos Armour (5pt)

Chaos Knights x5     250pts (needed painting)

Musician (10pt) + Champion (20pt) + Standard Bearer (20pts)

RARE

Spawn     55pts

Spawn     55pts

Luckily I had made up nearly all the models I was going to take.

That is a lot more than I usually paint in a month!

I plugged away at the paint and managed to finish them in time

And even had time to play a practice game against John's empire army at my local club.

Both of us, was really rusty at fantasy and it showed as we only got to turn 3 before we ran out of time.

Sorry about the quality of the picture its the only one I took!

The Aftermath

The tournament was last Saturday and was really good. It wasn't to competitive, just 3 friendly games of Warhammer linked together with points. Everyone was very friendly and nobody minded my knowledge of fantasy rules being rubbish.

As expected for my first time I didn't do very well.

Game 1 one was against Wood Elves and was a massacre. I just couldn't get to grips with them and they just ran rings around me.

Game 2 against a magic heavy High Elf army was another massacre. The dice gods had forsaken me!

Game 3 was a lot better, well I got a draw but it a lot better than a massacre. It was against a Empire gun line and I think the practice against John's army payed off.

In the end I finished better than I thought I would at the beginning of the day, coming 18 out of 20.

I did a lot better at the painting, Joint winning the best painted army, me and someone else got 8 votes each (it was a good ogre army, I voted for it).

Anyway, after all that. The moral of the story is, if you've never been to a tournament before you should give it a try. If nothing else you get to play warhammer all day against new opponents.