The Milton keynes Massacre 03-09-11

[noahtonkin]

free camping in the field should anyone be mad enough to want to come up the night before.

this could end badly...

[maelzch]

Or brilliantly!

[fatolaf]

Camping sounds a winner, will the bar be open on the Friday night, and the hall for some practise games (if set up by then?)

[khaosgoblin]

Hi Ol, the bars open yes, there was a kids party this year so we could not set up til 9

I was going to see how much the friday would cost anyway & see how may are up for it, about half a dozen of us gamed on the friday last year.

[Stomm]

A friend of mine's parents still live in Yardley...

[Viruk]

Friday night wargaming and camping sounds awsome!!! Throw in a BBQ on the Friday night and for Saturday lunch and we may have one of the best social events.

[Tom Hale]

MKM
Many thanks to Jimbo for lending me his models for this, much appreciated. Basic idea was no magic: just CHARGE! (and drop rocks on stuff.....that part didn't work so well)
List
•   Paladin General: lance, shield, dragonhelm, gauntlets of the duel, dawnstone
•   Paladin bsb: wyrm lance, shield, gromril great helm
•   11 realm full command standard of discipline
•   11 realm full command   
•   11 errant full command
•   5 errant muso
•   12 skirmish archers muso and brazier
•   4 peg knights muso
•   Treb

Game 1 vs Mohammed with his comedy list swap beasts

  Early doors mohammened definitely out deployed and out manoeuvred me. I Spannered up deploying my treb pesants and peg knights so I was unable to stop the scouting harpies and shaman from getting round me and beating up the treb on the right flank t2. The peg knights spent the whole game ineffectively chasing and failing to catch the shaman due to my poor positioning. Meanwhile he set up a large trap between two bits of impassable terrain with using the big block of gor to anvil and absorb the lance charges with chariots and some centigor set up to counter charge in my flanks if I stuck. On the other open flank the minators and some centagor were coming round to put pressure on me with only my 5 little errant to slow them up.

Instead of ramming into the blocks I declared 3 11" charges into the chariots, one failed, one he fled, but he held with his generals chariots vs a block of realm and the bsb. The little errant got a luck long charge into the flank of the minators as well. The plucky errant hit like champions and between them and their horses did 4 wounds which was pretty epic stuff. Minos fluffed their attacks back so they broke and got run down, allowing the errant to reform to face the centigor: open flank threat neatralised.
In the BSBs lance vs beast general combat he challenged and my BSB accepted, and managed to kill the chariot out from under the general (who did a wound back to the bsb). I won by miles on static res, broke his general, failed to run him down but overran into another chariot that had fled earlier killing it. This caused a wave of panic checks which all failed causing both blocks of gor and another chariot to flee off the board: effectively giving me the game. It was a bit silly. Rest was mop up. Onlything I failed to get was the harpies for the cost of treb and peasant bowmen: so 20-0. Mo took the panics like a champ and kept in the game so my thanks for that. Definite case of list and luck over skill and judgement if I'm honest.

Game 2 vs High elves. Lv2 fire, foot bsb, 14 archers, block of spearmen, 20 white lions, lion chariot, 2 tiranoc chariots, 5 shadow warriors, two eagles

I went into this slightly worried about the white lions as I've seen what they do to Bretts before but I wasn't that fussed about the rest of the list, so was confident being able to make something of this. He deployed very defensively, basically base lining everthing apart for the archers who inched into range, and putting his eagles and shadow warriors out to block and hunt the treb.

Chaff clearance which I though wouldn't take that long ended up being a nightmare, including baby errant getting smacked about in combat by the shadow warriors, so the bsb lance hand to turn around and come save them by wyrmlance flaming the shadow warriors and saving the treb from an eagle. The peg knights got into the archers but flaming sword in combat ment that eventually they got beaten with just the champion fleeing on one wound, despirately trying to rally and hid behind some terrain whilst getting shot for the rest of the game. Despite epic failing against t3 no armour elves at least the git didn't die and give away any vps. In the centre the use of other eagles and chariots meant I just couldn't commit as everytime I went for something it his ran out the way and he threatened my exposed flank with other chariots. In the end I got the shadow warriors and eagles and the treb did its one hit of the torny and got a chariot t6 and he massive fireballed off the skirmishing archers and that was it; 12-8 to me. Very frustrating that chaff clearance took far too long and far too many units tied up doing it so I couldn't have a go at actually fighting his army. But a wins a win in the end.

Game 3 vs empire, Warrior priest general with armour of m and a GW, foot bsb, mounted captain, lv1 fire mage, 9 knights, two units of handgunners, big block of spears, militia and halberdier detachments, cannon, mortar, STEAM TANK!!!!

Really nice guy with list and models that were clearly from a 5th/6th edition empire army. But lots of shooting which didn't look good! I insinuated that my general paladin had Heroic killing blow so the steam tank went and hid off to one flank rather than parking in front of my lances which I was very happy about! First turn his artillery epic failed including 4 1s to wound with the cannons. He also shoved his knights and mounted captain right up which was a massive error as the pegs got into one flank and my general's lance into the other flank. Unsurprisingly I beat them up and the pegs ran them down whilst the general block reformed to face his battle line. T3 I did epic set of charges with pegs into mortar with over run into cannon, general's block into halberdiers, errant into militia with overrun into hand gunners, and bsb into spear block with bsb and general. Milita got rolled and into gunners, halbadiers got chopped up and I reformed to face flank of spears, BSB killed warrior priest in a challenge, knights killed bsb and loads of spears so I won by miles but he held on a steadfast 7.
The tank meanwhile was messing around with the last surviving member of the baby errant, his wizardblew up taking here block of handgunners with her.
Eventually I killed everthing apart from the tank which got lance after lance rammed into it, I chipped off 4-5 wounds but couldn't kill it, but still one 20-0. I lost the baby errant and that was all. Real mismatch of luck as basically everything went to plan for me whilst he rolled simply so many 1s it was ridiculous. Great guy though and got my vote for best sports (which apparently he reciprocated despite basically getting run over!)

Game 4 on the heady high of t2 surrounded by a lot of abject filth and I got the ok match up of khorne warriors.  I was somewhat drunk at this stage so my memory of the game and his list is poor.

On the left my baby and big errant and peg knights smashed up and ran down a unit of khorne warriors with halberds (though too rather nasty casutalties to do it), then ended up in a lot of trouble with a horde of 40 GW khorne marauders, nearly broke them but eventually got ground down and they caught the peg knights t6 with a 10" charge (which irritated me).

on the right my two realm lances were in a difficult sitation of being blocked up by redirecting warhound chaff (which would have be stupid to charge) with chosen, knights and a tooled bsb behind. I just kept backing up hoping for the left flank stuff to come round and help, while he kept throwing massive fireballs and flame cage at me (which did bugger all). In the end he charged in his bsb into the general lance, challenged the unit champion, it was handbags at dawn for two rounds (including some epic ward saves where I made 5/5 in one round!) till he lost by a few and popped. The chaos knights came in T6, fluffed epically and did no damage, I killed a few and won on static, and he broke and got run down. This a gave me a 12-8 win. If the peg knights hadn't got caught at the end by the marauders I would have got a 14-6, and jumped into second place. As it was despite winning I was too far behind the leaders and came in a perfectly respectable 4th.


So undefeated, got a couple of T1 charges, and didn't get shot to pieces so I'm very happy.  Overall I was very impressed by the bretts. The high armour and wardsave makes them a bugger to shift, and the epic fast movement and long charges is a really dynamic feel. At this points level the were very strong, especially as I'd go for loads of knights, people didn't really have the tools. No magic wasn't an issue as I just got fire mages who could lob fireballs at me all day and I wasn't that fussed. Really winners of the list was 5 baby errant: the best (if expensive) chaff in the game as they were so survivable and also could bit. Basic knights were really good too (when I wasn't spannering to hit rolls: dark elves have spoiled me in that regard). Fails were the treb: I hate scatter and misfire dice. Peasant bowmen were meh, a little useful but not great. Peg knights I just need to use better: great on the flanks and amazing vs the empire getting the war machines pronto. The vanguard was useful for reacting to scouts as well.

All in all I think it was a great little event, good tables and scenery, great opponents, cheap booze and 4 good games. Many thanks to Mark for sorting it all out: it ran very well in my opinion.

Comp: if I'm honest I didn't face anything too bad (the khorne warriors were mean but that was a matchup rather than comp thing and it was top tables), but some of the deamon armies looked revolting. The dark elves too were scary (who the hell takes metal magic!). The only thing I would say is ban dwarfs. In a small fun one day event the absolute negative play style just looked horrendous: no one who played the dwarf players sounded like they had any fun at all.

[noahtonkin]

certainly agree, infoact I think i said to someone as we walked past the BBQ that BBQ and warhammer would make a fantatic combo!

Only thing would be I know people were playing football, is there a changing room? otherwise the stench by the end of saturday might be unbearable!

[noahtonkin]

Comp: if I'm honest I didn't face anything too bad

that might be beacause you had a bret army...who are horrible at low points games!

[Meals]

Now that I've recovered somewhat from my trip to the Church yesterday (this one has beer and strippers, all churches should  ), I just wanna say I had a great time, despite backing up from a massive Friday night, sleeping through my alarm and having to drive up, when Ol finally woke me with a txt at 7:30...which left me feeling like I'd been hit by truck.

The Daemon list Mo wrote for me was completely left field, and alot of fun to play with. MSU 20" movement ftw!! I actually think I might take a version of it to Valhalla. Adding in Bloodthirster can only be a good thing, right? Just have to make sure Screamers are only units of 3, otherwise as I found out, you can never find them a place to land, so they can't actually do anything...

Also: Best Army Votes: Tom Hale   Bretonians   1
, who was this blind monkey???!!!! 


Finally, I was gonna avoid this one, but I just wasted a morning getting screwed over by Health and Safety BS so I really need this.

/RANT

I don't get Dwarves. What a pointless waste of an armybook... I'm sorry, but you don't move, you don't cast, you don't get into combat, so all thats left is rolling some dice and watching your opponent remove models, or you both sit in opposite corners and have a 30minute draw... How the !@%$#%@ is that an entertaining way to spend a day??  It's not like that hobby-killing army even has a chance to win a tournament either, which I could at least understand. Its just mind-boggling... I can't even see how GW can fix this either, without Dwarves losing their identity, just give them the Squat treatment please, and we can all move on.

RANT OVER!