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Confessions of a Tournament Babe

by Chris Naish.

As Steve has just published his memoirs of last week I thought I would add my commentary. As a recent convert to Bristol Big’uns this was my first ever tournament with which I was taking my not-so-ard Orc army.

Sunday started badly with me getting hopelessly lost trying to find Steve’s house. After driving down numerous roads and a quick trip to the Esso garage for directions I finally arrived at Steve’s at 8.30, half an hour behind schedule. After 35 minutes of fast and furious motorway driving we arrived in Cheltenham in good time.

My army for this day consisted of the following:

Orc bigboss with great axe, Drogs dead ‘Ard armour and the Talisman of Protection
Night goblin shaman (lv2) with Buzgob’s Knobbly staff
Goblin shaman (lv2) with 2 dispel scrolls
25 Orc boys with full command
10 Orc Arrer Boyz
30 Night Goblins with full command and 3 fanatics
5 Wolf riders with musician
5 wolf riders with musician
7 Savage Orc boarboyz
Orc Boar chariot
2 Spear Chucka’s
3 River trolls

My main battle tactics was to use the Trolls to anchor my centre and handle anything tough. My Wolf riders and Night Goblins were to disrupt the flanks and the rest of my army just to run forward and maim anything within bashin range.

My first battle was drawn against another Orc and Goblin army, no problem I thought until my opponent started pulling Goblin chariots out of his case, by the time he had finished six (yes six!) chariots were facing my battle line, I was already having visions of my proud army being mutilated by multiple Gobbo Scythes. To cut a short and very Bloody (all mine) story short, by the end of turn 6 I did not have a single model left on the battlefield! The victory points sum up the battle perfectly, 2300 to my opponent and 230 for me, in all a thorough pasting.

My second battle was my biggest nightmare, on the drive in I had told Steve that I didn’t mind who I played against as long as it wasn’t Dark Elves. It’s nothing personal, just I have been on the receiving end of a Dark Elf crossbow bolt one too many times for my liking. So as you can guess not only did I end up against Dark Elves but as we had to swap armies I had to play with them!

To further cement my hatred of Dark elves, during the battle the Cold One knights were stupid three out of 6 turns and the only thing that actually managed to kill anything was the Cold One chariot which killed my 3 trolls and ended up marauding the back of the Orc battle line. In the end though the Orcs would simply not die quick enough and following a green coloured barrage from my very adept Goblin shamans there were not enough elves left to hold the centre. When the eventual green tide came my centre ran like High Elves and packed its bags and left for Naggaroth without even saying goodbye.

Slightly closer than my first game but a crushing defeat all the same: O and G: 1500, DE:960.

In my final game I was drawn against Empire and with this I finally thought my luck had turned; now I faced an army where my core troops were better! His army was standard mix of Inner circle knights, infantry, a cannon and a hellblaster volley gun.

His hellblaster gun maimed my Orc unit but then exploded on his second turn, my chariot took the obligatory cannon ball in the first turn but my battleline went forward. My boarboyz had the unfortunate duty of flanking into which they met stern resistance in the form of 12 handgunners which disappointingly shredded them before they could even get into combat. On a better note my Goblin fanatics killed 4 inner circle knights and sent them fleeing. The Gold medal award though goes to my spearchucka’s which not only manged to finish the battle alive (for once) but killed 5 inner circle knights, his general and a level 2 bright wizard. The wizard requires a special mention as he was hiding inside a graveyard and my spearchucka’s needed 7’s to hit! The rest is history as they say. Unfortunately my battleline fluffed it and ended up being destroyed by Halberdiers and a greatswords.

The Victory Points were close but it worked out as Empire 1490 to Orcs 1260, a narrow defeat but I was going home happy.

So to sum up my day, I had lost all three games but steadily improved as the day wore on. I hadn’t come last (16/18) and had got some valuable experience in for the Brawl.

P.s All the victory points are my rough estimates as I didn’t write them down.