NWG 2014 - Post Mortem

Undead Legions at NWG

Once again I made the journey to Wicklow to attend this year's NWG. With one other member of my club, the League of Bastards, we headed down to the event. Friday night saw us take part in the traditional NWG pub quiz. This year Games Workshop had thrown in some prize support in the form of an Imperial Knight, so competition was sharp. A few wee drinkies, lots of talk about wee men and futile attempts to wrangle news out of the GW ambassador took up the remainder of the evening.

This year NWG had three tournaments running. As usual, Warhammer Fantasy Battle and Warhammer 40k were there, and this year for the first time Flames of War made an appearance. Fantasy was 2000 points, 20-0 system, no comp, with up to 60 points for painting, making the paint scores a significant part of the overall score. There were some rules modifications in the rulespack, mostly to do with magic. The Emerald Daemon was running again this year too, in which I had two models entered.

I don't really get to play as much as I'd like, and with a few pretty grizzled tournament veterans about, I was anticipating some tough games. Still, as long as folks were good sports and the games were fun I didn't really care all that much as long as I managed to avoid total poundings.

I won't go too deeply into my list, but here's the flavour of what was in the army. I brought along a daemon prince (meargh) with all the usual toys on lore of death, an exalted hero of Tzeentch (dirach) on a disc with the 1+ armour save and ultra-ward save, as well as burning body, and Festus, (Avagdu & Morfran) who accompanied the warriors. Festus turned the already hard as nails block of warriors into a total brick. The rest of the army consisted of  a block of 22 Nurgle warriors with full command (fimm), 3 skullcrushers with full command (Marlryrms), 5 warhounds and a Chimera (Crom Cruach). It was a pretty small army.

Game 1 - Dermot Maguire - Ogre Kingdoms
As last year, this year I faced ogres in game 1, which was Meeting Engagement. Dermot was a very pleasant and easygoing opponent, even when his gutstar and mournfang failed to appear on turn 1. His characters were initially vulnerable, if well hidden in cover. A lone sabretusk held up my crushers in the village however, preventing me from getting into the ogre's flank. Two ironblasters meant I didn't try anything too daring off the bat. Once the rest of the ogres turned up his firebelly gave the daemon prince a hosing which wounded it and ensured I had to keep her well out of the way of the blasters for the rest of the game. The firebally did miscast and go down a hole though, taking a couple of ogres with him. The mournfang, aided by the Flaming Sword of Rhun spell, charged the warriors. Even so they would have come to grief had they not passed all nine 4+ armour saves in one turn, winning the combat and running down the warriors. Despite a late charge on both blasters with the chimera and the bsb they refused to either die or bugger off. The game ended with a win to ogres. I can't recall exactly, but I think it was 18-2.

The ogres advance onto the battlefield.

Game 2 - Mark Moloney - High Elves
Mark had a large block of swordmasters with Teclis and the banner of the world dragon, two units of five dragon princes and two of units of five reavers. A large block of archers and two bolt throwers finished out the list. The scenario was Dawn Attack. I set up mostly facing the cavalry, leaving the swordmasters to slog across the woodland in the centre before they could bring their numbers to bear. I managed to tie up the cavalry and run down the dragon princes before they got close, by which time the chimera was able to get a decent charge in and as the game ended it was stuffing scores of screaming elves down it's gullet as it munched it's way toward Teclis. This one was s 10 - 10.

Dragon princes line up for the charge.

Game 3 - Fergus Finch - High Elves
The scenario for this round was Battle for the Pass. Fergus had a large unit of dragon princes with his level four wizard, noble and bsb. There was a unit of eighteen archers with a level one wizard, ten sisters of Avelorn, eight silver helms, five reavers, a great eagle and frostheart phoenix. The game got off to a disastrous start for Fergus as his level four wizard miscast and then cascaded, killing himself and some of the elven knights. From there on in I had magical dominance and managed to tie up the cavalry while my mobile units hunted down the rest of the army. In the end it was an 18 - 2 to the fimir. This one was the last game on Saturday, so I forgot to take any photos. Ah well.

Game 4 - Neil Butler - Warriors of Chaos
I'd love to say bad luck lost me this one, but a leaner list and more experienced player was more the cause of my battering here. Neil had the tooled up daemon prince, bsb on a daemonic mount, chimera, hellcannon, 3 Nurgle chariots, three units of five hounds and a unit of three crushers. We were playing Battleline.

Penned in and harassed from all sides, the fimm battle on.

I did in fairness have some bad luck, with my bsb and chimera both failing their initiative rolls with two rolls of six to survive Purple Sun in turn one, my daemon prince cascading and going down a hole in my own turn one after casting her own Purple Sun, while the initiative two chimera I'd cast at gaily made it's own initiative two test to survive. There were a couple of other examples of fun dice, but you get the drift. Neil commiserated and gave me some great tactical tips while efficiently and amiably rolling me up. With a single hellcannon the only thing I managed to destroy it was a resounding 20 - 0.

Game 5 - Nikki Hanna _ Empire
Nikki started the game with a squeaky voice from what sounded like an impending sore throat, and it became less audible as the game went on, but she battered on regardless. A very fun game, using the Blood & Glory scenario. Nikki had two cannons, a light council, a huge block of halberdiers, a unit of five knights, two units of three and four demigryphs, a steam tank, two cannon and some archer detachments.

Dodging cannon fire, the fimir raced across the board to attack the Empire left flank. The steamtank clanked forward before mounting a hill to deliver a devastating flank shot on my crushers, annihilating the entire unit in one shot. My daemon prince got within one turn of reaching the juicy backline of the empire before succumbing to an irresistible banishment, for which she failed every 3+ save and every 5+ ward. Things looked very bad for the swamp dwellers, so the warriors charged the tank to stop it causing any more mischief. With poison attacks, and Festus' own unique rules, they destroyed the tank in three turns, then managed to wipe out a unit of knights and demi gryphs. My fimm warriors had been performing only so-so all tournament, but they rallied mightily in this game. As the halberdiers took to a building to avoid my advancing fimir, they managed, with some magical help, to kill the chimera outright after taking some horrendous casualties. After a fair old scrap the Empire came out on top, winning 15 - 5 due to the fortitude bonus.

My favourite moment from the game was the steam tank engineer attempting to detonate the badly stricken tank in order to destroy both it and the fimm warriors in one monumental explosion. Alas, the dice decided this was not to be. It would have been an epic end to the combat though.

The fimm perpare to charge the steam tank.

So, after five games I was looking at three losses, one draw and one win, earning me 34 battle points. No comp can be challenging, but my painting scores gave me a boost, with 56 points out of 60 shooting my up to 6th place out of 19 players. At the end I was pretty tired, but I enjoyed my games and the relaxed vibe evident throughout the tournament.

NWG in full swing.

As to the painting, which is really my main bag, I came away with 2nd place army for Warhammer Fantasy, one point behind the winner, Ugo Greevy, whose Undead Legions army is a sight to behold.

Ugo's legions.

My curs'd ettin managed to bag best single large model in the Emerald Daemon competition, which made me happy as I do rather dig that model. The organisers did a fantastic job of keeping things ticking along, and I heard of not a single unhappy incident all weekend. Nice one lads.

Big ugly brings home the goodies.

So, after NWG I'm actually really keen to get more games in, rather than being all warhammered out. I have a couple of units to finish for the fimir, then there are a lot of undead looking for some painting love, methinks.

First though, back to those hybrids.