13. The Old World Lives

29/11/21

It's a Christmas Miracle!

An Adelaide FLGS is holding an 8th ed WFB Tournament during the Christmas break! This is exciting, not for the tournament per se, but to throw some Fantasy back down onto a table, see some other armies and play with like-minded nerds.

I've never really been a part of the local scene in Adelaide, so I'm keen to see what it's like and if my army is the dustiest.

I'm super keen for the narrative theme to the scenarios. I know there's a lot of chat in amongst these pages of tournament stuff. But don't let it fool you, I'm really not a tournament player, or at least not a top end (or even middle ground) tournament player. I like the opportunity to throw down against new opponents and seeing great looking armies.

What shall I take to this one? Having run a small Christmas themed tournament once I could try and go all in and convert up a Christmas themed force. But there's not nearly enough time for that. With only a month to go, my choices are very limited

I'm very sad and ashamed to admit, but I don't think I've actually got a painted 2000pt army. 20+ years in the hobby and I never got to this point..... I think Lizardmen are close.

So what are my most painted options?

• Ogres

• Vampire Counts

• Lizardmen

• Empire - some weird conglomeration of states and some very poorly painted models

• Tomb Kings - still a lot to paint, but at least it's easy painting

I think my Feast Hunter tribe of Ogres is the list with the least painting required. Ogres are always fun to use, and generally pretty simple. Which is a big tick at the moment, as I haven't played much fantasy for a while. However, I'm also kinda keen to get the tomb kings out and try out my new Heirotitan from a recent kickstarter. But my Tomb King painting list is quite large, and a month isn't much time.

Lizardmen will probably be my backup, while a good amount of them are painted, the Temple Guard aren't, and they don't look like quick paint jobs. Despite that, I can still field a 2000pt army without the Temple Guard. Having the Slaan and a Scar Veteran on Carnosaur both starting at 300pts is a bonus though. Means I still have some points do something interesting with them at that level.

Empire would be great fun, but I have no idea at the moment what needs to be completed there. I might even be able to do a heavily mounted force. I'm a bit hesitant about pulling out models that were painted a long time ago. I know I shouldn't be, but I want to only pull out my best painted models. If I'm really trying to be a show off, I'd love to use my Arabyan Ogres, but there's way too much painting to go to get them to 2000 pts. Bretonnia are one of my favourite armies to see fully painted, but that's a target too far away for me this time around. Also, bumping the peasants to WS3 offends my Knights too much.

So where does that leave me?

The realistic choices are between Ogres and Lizardmen, the wishlist choices are between Empire and Bretonnia.

Let's focus on Ogres, what does 2000pts of them look like? Firstly, my Hunter on Stonehorn is above the 375pt limit, so he'll have to be relegated to the rare choice stonehorn. Next, under the regulations, the largest I can make Ironguts is 8 models (374pts) and Bulls is 10 models (350pts).

• Slaughtermaster

• Bruiser Battle Standard (not painted)

• 8 Ironguts

• 10 Bulls

• 2 Mournfang

• 2 Mournfang

• 2 Sabretusk

• 1 Stonehorn

This is a pretty reasonable starting point. Two block units is probably not quite enough, so hopefully the Mournfang can do enough to support them while the Sabretusks goes war-machine hunting and the Stonehorn runs into something.

As mentioned above, the easiest additions to this are Gnoblars and maneaters. Luckily I've been planning on adding these to the list anyway. Firstly the Gnoblars get the trappers upgrade and maneaters are my more experienced hunters that have learnt their craft following Urgnog around. I do have a Giant lying around too I could re-purpose, but I don't have a clear idea of how to convert that, so that can wait. I'd love to include the new Mega Gargant, but not for $320AUD

16/12/21 Update:

Only 11 days left until the big day and I haven't lifted up a paintbrush... Really been struggling for motivation to get down into the hobby room and paint. I've built the Maneaters, but not the Gnoblars, so they are out.

Now to tidy up a more manageable 2000pts list. With the gnoblars out, and realistically the maneaters out, I'll have to try and get the BSB painted and perhaps one other model to use as a hunter/bruiser. I could always include some of my Arabyan ogres if I needed to, but feel like that would be too jarring to use alongside each other.

I've got 1,733pts fully painted, so I should be able to stretch that to 2000 with just a Bruiser BSB and a Hunter. Hopefully I can get two ogres painted...

One or two sessions should be enough to do that.

6/1/22 Update:

Well the tournament came and went and I chose not to attend. It seemed like it was a good event, but a combination of Covid, and unfinished armies meant I pulled out.

It wasn't a completely lost day though, as I had some mates over for a fun game of Fantasy to make up for it. Check it out here