Ratspawns Last Run

I'll try and do a lot more in-depth battle reports later but here is a
brief overview of probably the best GT I have attended in memory.

I'm not sure how it could have been much better. I think back and
thought, well if I had just won a couple more games, or pulled a draw
out of the loss, and then I think. Well then I would have gotten
screwed in the next round pairing and lost. So I'm very pleased with
how things worked out.

Friday, we get a bit of a late start in the Pope-Mobile loaded for
bear carrying most of the DAWGS as well as the LAWGS. We made great
time as I was the only one who wouldn't go over 85, and they called me
slow.

We unloaded our gear in the game hall and I met Paul V. for the first
time. We have talked on-line for years, so that was a real thrill. I
think I met everyone I wanted to this weekend except TDG.

One of Pauls friends Camerron (I may have the name wrong there, sorry
if I did.) A really great kid who pulled out a "soft" Orc and Goblin
army. But he played it to the max.
I really don't remember a lot about this one, as that was way too many
beers ago. But I do remember laughing a lot. Having 3 miscasts in
the game and fighting to an almost dead draw. I might have been up by
100 points or so. An outstanding practice game to get started off with.

I then went out to find my "friends", who had left without me. I got
directions from my other "friend" Greg on how to find them, and I find
myself on a dark street with nothing but parking garages, ally ways,
drug addicts and hookers. After hiding my wallet, switching to my
ninja outfit, and taking the safety off my Mac-10, I felt better and
after about 20 mins found a lighted street.
Got directions to a restaurant that would be open from a security
guard and decided to head back to the room. Ran into my friends, who
still had not found a place to eat, so we all turned around, went to
Union street and had a hell of a good time.

Saturday morning first game was against Ben Nietzel from the Direwolf
list. I've seen Ben post a lot, so it was great to finally put a face
to the name, and actually play a game. His Dark Elf list was
extremely comp friendly and looked great on the table top.
Ben, I have those pics, let me know if you want them.
It was grab Ruby, and she was in the middle of a swamp. So I set up a
herd to go get her.
Highlights included the terror bomb that made the herd holding ruby to
let her go and run right into his warrior unit and get wiped out. I
was winning the right flank pretty easily. And the far left flank.
But his general and cold one riders slammed into some hounds about
10-11" in front of Ratspawn's unit. I needed him to make short
overrun, but it was not to be as he overran 12-13" and hit Ratspawn.
A couple rounds of combat later and Ratspawn went down as well as the
whole unit. I was lucky to have a unit of 4 Minotaurs outrun some
Dark riders who charged them in the rear and rally on 6. So I pulled
out a draw and was thankful. With the objective, I got 13.

Round 2 was against a great young man Ty Williams. I've played Ty in
my local League and beat him badly. Ty had a fantastic Orc and Goblin
army that should have given me no problems at all. But Ty would not
go down so easily this time. He fought hard.
Highlights included when his pump wagon came up 1/2" short of hitting
a herd. So my herd was able to charge him.
I got a beast cower on another chariot, this caused his left (my
right) flank to crumble and I took out his 2 warmachines over there.
Furies ate the other warmachines.
I charged his black orcs with minotaurs, furies and chaos hounds, only
to lose by around 84 and everything popped or fled. This was after
the goblin hero exploded wiping out 2 units of mine and doing nothing
to him.
And it finally came down to a 4 minotaur unit charging his general's
unit. I charged, killed a bunch and he whiffed. I won combat and he
made his test. Next round he goes off killing 3 of the 4 minotaurs.
His boar doing the last wound on the 3rd one. This left my last
minotaur who fled, but he missed the goblins behind him running right
by them. He rallies on turn 6 to save me 92 vp. If he doesn't do
that last wound, I'm cut down by the goblins. When we add it up, I'm
up by 380 vp. That 90 points would have made it a draw.
Ty was a fantastic opponent, that will get better as he plays more.
I also got the objective, so 18 points to be at 31 after 2 rounds.

Round 3: Vs The Todd Thacker. I'd met Todd before but had never
played him. I knew he was good, but was hoping to give him a good
game. Todd brought out a hard but fair wood elf list. I know its
hard because I've looked at building something like this myself.
Turn 1 I get off dark hand on his highborn alter and do 2 wounds to
him, he is later killed by a minotaur.
But turn 2, he gets off a wild rider charge and wipes out my herd with
2 wizards. So much for magic dominance.
I get a flank charge on his glade riders with my furies, if he breaks
there, things are looking good, but he holds and dryads poor in.
After that it was just Todd picking me apart with dryads and
wardancers and I was spinning in circles trying not to get
slaughtered. When the spinning stopped and we called it a game, Todd
had the objective and the win.
Todd was a fantastic opponent that played his army to the max.
Nothing wrong with that. His was the hardest army I had to face the
whole weekend, and I thank many gods and Roy for that.

Saturday Night Blood Bowl: I played in the 3 round BB tourney
Saturday night. Hmmmm, Free Pizza, Free Beer, Free to play. sounds
like a combination that I cannot pass up. I entered my Skaven team of
4 Gutter runners, 2 storm vermin, a thrower and 6 linerats.
Game 1: vs Skaven: very tough hard fought game 1-1 tie. Brad was a
serious player, that was very tactical and thoughtful. It was still a
great game.
Game 2: vs Jeremy and his Humans who love to foul. I had a blast in
this game, laughed the whole way through as he kicked my ass beating
my players up, while I continued to run circles around him and win
3-0. Jeremy got my fav opponent vote.
Game 3: vs another human player and a great tactical chess match. Wow
was this one great. Matt pushed me right to the limit and then was a
great sport when time was called to let me try and score, which I did
and took the 3-2 win.

So 2-0-1 for the Blood Bowl. No one went 3-0. And only 1 other
2-0-1, and that was Brad, my round 1 opponent. Soft scores pushed me
up for Best Overall winning me a Waaagh plaque and a great looking
blood bowl pitch.

Sunday, I am dead tired as I drank way too much but then couldn't
sleep as I was too pumped up from the win. Sat down across from
Andoni and his 2nd Gen Slaan. My first reaction was still, great its
not VC or Daemons. My 2nd reaction was great, 2nd gen. But he had no
bsb, banner of fear, krox, steg, terradons, no skink priest, WTF?? He
had 3 saurus blocks, 3 skinks, salamanders. That was about it.

We had to capture the outhouse. We went round and round, as this game
looked like an easy win for him as I couldn't roll above a 2 to save
my life for turns 1-3. Minotaurs charge skinks and bounce off. 2
Tuskigor chariots charge a saurus block and bounce off. etc...
Add on his magic that I couldn't stop and I was dieing off way too quick.

Luckily things changed in turn 4 or so, and all the sudden his 2nd gen
was failing to cast with double 1's. My minotaurs traded in their
rubber weapons for real ones. And I crushed a saurus block, got the
salamanders, all the skinks, captured table qtrs, and did a turn 6 fly
over with the furies to contest a table qtr and grab the outhouse for
a very lucky 350 point win with the objective. 18 points. For a
total of 54 points.

Finally round 5 had me against the biggest punk there, Shane Knapp.

Well my dice continued their high rolling streak as I failed a
re-rollable Ld 9 panic test on my general. And if it wasn't for the
only insane courage I rolled for the whole tournament he would have
won in turn 2. No doubt about it.

Luckily I held on and tried to just bring it back for a draw. And
that was all I could get out of it. The only whole units I had left
were Ratspawn and company and 1 herd that was 1 model above half.
Everything else was dead or decimated. When we added it up, I was up
by 50-100 points or something, and I was thankful for that.

Shane and I laughed through the whole game, and it was such a
fantastic end to a weekend that had already been more than enough to
make it a great weekend.

Shane did get my fav opponent vote, but I would have liked to given
out at least 3 and the other 2 were so close.

So overall I finished with 64 battle points out of 90. Horrible for
me with a 2-1-2 record. At least only 1 loss.

Then during the awards Roy calls out my name for 3rd best overall.
How the hell does that happen?? That made no sense. But I ran up
grabbed it and got out of town before he figured out what happened.
So Roy, don't bother to call and ask me to return it. It aint
happenen. ;)

We all piled in the pope-mobil for the long drive back to DFW. My
head and prizes barely fit in the van. But everyone had a great time.
One of the Dawgs was pretty disappointed after going 4-0-1 and
getting nothing for his efforts. Sometimes things work out that way.
With 160 players, I'm still very interested in the final standings.

Sorry this got so long. I'm going to try and do a play by play with
diagrams and pics later. but wanted to get the weekend report out
there.

It was such a pleasure to meet all the new faces to go with the old
names. And see all the old friends again.

Until next time...