Harmonic Convergence

off to campberwell gw today for 3 games of a 2k teams tourney. we took a pretty horrible list, although we certainly werent the only ones. greg and i had:

Lvl4 Tomb king lore dragon bane gem
LVL4 Big warrgh scroll
LVL1 Big Warrgh Shrunken head  
20x Skelie archers muso standard
20x skellie archers muso standard
24x Sorcbuns with FC
10x Horse Archers
2x Wolf Chariots
War Sphinx Fire breath
2x doom divers
1x rock lobster
1 casket of souls

we also had to write some fluff to operate as one army, rather than allies. heres ours:

Leaning against his gnarled staff, Gorlog Foestompa, head orc shaman of Ordak's 'Ordes, took a moment to consider his position.
With Ordak greviously wounded, his boys in disarray, and his trolls dispersed, he had sent Gorlog and the remainder of his forces to an old camp in the badlands to gather more orcs and raid anything that came past. With high walls naturally forming, it was an ideal camp, and known to many warbosses. There were, however, other forces that knew of their position, and with no sign of any scouting party returning, Gorlog's concerns were founded by the distant noise of heavy footsteps.
Through the twilight came hurtling both of Gorlog's sentry wolf chariots, shrieking about the skeleton men, before coming to a skidding halt. As the terrified goblins began to debrief Gorlog, through the murky dark came a whistling volley of deadly accurate blue flocked arrows, skewering the goblin crew to their machine.

Gorlog took another moment to consider, this time to recognise those arrows as belonging to the armies of a particularly belligerent liche priest that Ordak and Gorlog had crossed choppas with many times in the past. As savage orcs began to pour out of the surrounding tents, Gorlog raised his staff, and with a green mist beginning to form around his head, commanded the frenzied orcs to hold their position. His caution was rewarded when out of the murk began to emerge rank after rank of skeletons, flanked by the enormous bulk of a dreaded war construct. As the undead emerged at the camp entrance, movement on the top of the camp walls caught Gorlog's eye. As his staff pulsed a bolt of illumination into the air, Gorlog and his forces could see skeleton archers stretching all along the tops of the walls. As he began to mutter and spit a spell, his concentration was broken as a figure strode to the front of the assembled undead, and with a voice eerily like the one only he could hear deep in his shamanic trances, addressed him:

'Gorlog Foestompa, I offer you and your forces the opportunity for much carnage and violence. There is a war brewing, and war is the sole enterprise of orcs. Either join me or die'
As the last of the liche priests words echoed off the canyon walls, a handful of the assembled savage orcs could not restrain themselves any longer, and launched towards the awaiting undead. One by one, they fell dead, the bodies speckled with arrows. Once more, Gorlog took a moment to consider. He was realistically no longer under the thumb of Ordak - at least for now, and mork himself had told him once in a trance to follow the skeleton people for the opportunity to amass items of huge magical power. At least, Gorlog was pretty sure thats what he said.
Looking at the greenskins surrounding him, Gorlog reasoned - quite correctly - that the gobbos were completely replaceable, and an ideal source of war machine and chariot slave labour, both for technical know-how, and crewing their creations. The savage orcs on the other hand, were a tough lot, and if they didnt all die, Ordak would never believe their stories. Not to mention this was the badlands, where savage orcs are at their most prolific. Shuffling foward to the front of the savage orc ranks, Gorlog addressed the undead general:

'Yes, we will march to waaaaaaagh!' 

so, onto game one, battleline. our opponents had top to bottom - 4 belchers, 9ish bulls with bruiser, ironblaster, tz warrior block with l2 tz wizzie, marauder block, 5 knights and another 4 belchers. opponents go first. we shut down magic, and ironblaster does nothing. we move up, cast foot on the warriors, scatter off but blood forest does a hit or two, and moves directly into the centre of their lines, with the blaster in the marsh

heres their turn, before it turns to custard. tzwar fail a terror test from the kitty, who then charges the rauders instead. they too fail a terror test, and we charge em off the board. bulls make an ogre charge into me savages and kill a goodly amount, but the savages hit back harder and run em down. running to an inch in front of the belchers, who also die to wood and bone choppas. tz warriors rally, but we shoot and magic them to death. cant remember what happened to ironblaster, think it may have been king hit by a lobba. kilt one chariot tho.

other chariot tho, mvp for me. hits the knights in the flank, kills two with impact, wins combat and runs em down. overrun into other belchers, kill a bunch and catch them too, before rolling a one on dt and blowing up. savages take care of the belchers and the handful remaining reform. greg loses his hiero, and his archers slowly start falling apart. i hand one unit out of knight los and into shooting range at twar.

.

 that doesnt stop the rest shuffling forward and shooting and magicking the last tzwar and sorceror, i think. regardless, kitty dont crumble, and its a crushing victory to shirts off warhammer!

it was 20pts for a crushing victory - taking double the pts off than your opponent, 15 for a regular one, 10 for a draw, and 5 for a loss. 

next up were double woc, double hellcannon, dawn attack. we set up and went first. top to bottom they had hellcannon, some unmarked horsemen, maybe 14 halberd kwarriors, 18ish twarriors with bsb, lord on steed with 5 knights, 3 drogres, and another hellcannon. these dudes were crack up, which is particularly good, given how it went

got a few - 4 turns worth of - missing photos here unfortunately, but heres deployment

nec minute

some terrible luck for our opponents here again, greg shoots a drogre early on, panicking the unit through the knights + lord, who ofc panic too, and ofc run off the board. drogres rally. in the meantime, the twar get a lil visit from a certain foot, killing 2/3rds. then that cheeky foot comes back to visit the savages, thankfully with less effect. shooting kills all but champ and wizzie, who make it into savages. savages do what they do, and shred em. 

on the other flank, shooting+kitty take out horsemen, before kitty is king hit by a hellcannon. both are wounded by shooting too by this point, the bottom one quite mortally. chariots both hit the kwar, roll 11 for impacts and kill 11/14. last three take out one chariot, but are run down. go chariot! for the second game! drogres rally and charge it, but chariot flees and rallies on the board edge. lol

shooting accounts for the last drogres, and the savages take out the bottom hellcannon no probs. other one has no crew and few wounds left. another crushing victory for shirts off warhammer!

last game was against another woc + ok team, meeting engagement. we had casket,dd and my l1 start off the board, but started first. our opponents had a shaggoth, 16ish kwarriors with klord. monurgle bsb with the 7 bulls, along with a tyrant. theres an ironblaster and a pair of mfangs, who started off the board, along with l2 firebelly. more missing photos, but off we go

waaghtillery wasnt too effective, but down comes the foot again, killing a shit tonne of kwar. shooting accounts for all but champ and lord i think

more moving forward as shooting and magic takes its toll on the bulls. i fail a charge on the shaggoth with the sorcs, and we are in a bit of poop. fortunately both l4s are in the back archer bunker

fortunately, our opponents chose to try go through the skellies to the bunker with the ogres, and into savages with wounded shaggoth. it did a few wounds, but was torn apart, and i could reform to the flank of his ogre unit. turns out they had forgotten about how crumble works now unfortunately, and that was a game changer. savages go in and kill his bsb, but cant break em. ogres then reform and the fight goes on. greg gets a -1 s&t spell off on the bunker which helps in the subsequent couple combats immensely.

  
greg caskets the blaster off, while in an amazing display of dick move, blocks the m/f, who had come on and killed the lobba on the very right flank and overrun off the boarrd, with his wounded kitty.
it all comes down to the centre combat, with the remainder of our opponents forces vs savage orcs. i kill the last kwar who had charge in, but not the lord. wounded the tyrant and belly, killed 2/3 ogres, and lost by one. held, and dice down were called. 

 well that was close, saved by the bell it seems. another crushing victory, putting us in contention for a podium spot. being a gw event, it was handsomely sponsored, with teams with unpainted armies winning paint brushes etc lol. our shirts off b team - nick and james with woc and doc - had some issues and bad match ups, finishing 15/20 overall, but greg and i ended up 2nd, only a couple pts worth of comp&painting between us and the dreaded ginger thunder. 

all i gotta say is thank god we didnt draw them like nick and james did, it werent no 30 white lions - which were in attendance - but it was de and emp, with cauldrons, hydras, inner circle knight busses, 4 chooks, stanks and so on. good lord. they did bring along an insanely well researched page of fluff tho lol
but yeah, another great day of standing ass to ass in a stinky hot nerd hole with my brethren. the points system had treated us well, and we had some good games, good match ups, and good times. took home a steg's worth of spoils too. thats all for me, but final words from greg:

Hey everyone, Greg here, I just thought I would share my side of the story for our team tournament where Ben and I teamed up to have some fun. Ok so going into the event we had a very solid list with so much shooting and magic we really didn't have to many bad match-ups.

The best thing about the list we have was that my battle plan was that I let the Orc's run forward which is enough to put off even the strongest enemy and we take everything of there off of the table and yell "shirt off" at them....... And guess what happened.... Exactly what we wanted.

At the end of the day after standing around in an extremely hot room and playing 3 games against practically the same army we had 3 big wins and stood neck and neck with 'Ginger Thunder' (Dave and Nick) 2 of the best players that I know. What I will say is:

                                                            it is on at VICC you guys.