Conquest - 2000 point WHFB tournament, 5 games, held over Easter Sunday and Monday.... +1 to result for unit in opponents deployment zone, killing general and holding most table quarters.

Using the same army that got me 4th at Cancon, very happy with the way it works.

Liche High Priest: 4+ Ward, Flying Cloak, Hieratic Jar
Mounted Liche Priest: Dispel Scroll
Tomb Prince: Collar of Shapesh
Tomb Prince: Dispel Scroll

23 Skeletons, Full Command
23 Skeletons, Full Command
20 Archers, Muso and Standard
3 Chariots
2 Tomb Scorpions
Bone Giant
Screaming Skull Catapult: Skulls of the Foe

Game 1: Dene Murphy - Empire
Dene is a friend of mine from the Hampton Games Club who I’d managed to convince to come at 8pm the evening before the tournament. Scenario was to capture enemy standards which didn’t effect things very much, with the High priest in the army I had way to much magic for Dene to stop with his lone scroll caddy and my skeleton units were able to maneuver into his flanks and charge with ease. My bone giant terrored his generals unit of spearmen who were charged by a unit of skeletons and subsequently fled back into the giant and were destroyed. With the loss of all of his blocks and most of his knights there was nothing Dene could do to stop my army and I came out of the first round with a good 20 points.

Game 2: Ben Morrison – Nurgle Daemons
Ben is another friend of mine from the club, we play occasionally and the last time we met in a tournament was in the last round of the GT last year, where my stubborn leadership 10 dragon fled with the last dice roll of the game. So revenge was on the line and I was out to get it, I deployed defensively, trying to funnel Bens troops into a corridor where they would hopefully get stuck on my skeleton blocks for a few turns. Things started well when I flanked a unit of plagueriders with a bone giant and a unit of chariots, I killed one and the other two popped giving me a strong advantage on that flank. I quickly rushed the bone giant back into the centre of the field flanking the plague riders in combat with my two skeleton blocks. Boney couldn’t live up to his earlier feats and lost a few wounds from combat resolution. With my bone giant flanked by a great unclean one and a unit of plaguebearers things were looking grim. In Bens final turn my chariots defeated a unit of nurglings on my flank and I raced them in to grab the objective in the centre. The archers continued to win combat against the smaller nurgling unit but Ben wasn’t failing any leadership tests. Despite my constant raising my skeleton blocks crumbled and the game finished a draw, 12-10 to Ben.

Game 3: Peter Spiller – Vampire Counts
What did I do, am I condemned to playing club friends for all eternity, 3 games and 3 players who I play on a regular basis. In fact as a warm up game yesterday I played Pete, thankfully for my sanity he had changed his list so we were in for a good game. The aim of the game was to stop the enemy getting into your deployment zone by the end of the game, so we both set up and started fairly defensively. We both attacked strongly down each others left flank, him with a unit of Grave Guard and me with a bone giant and a unit of chariots. The grave guard were stalled by some archers and then flanked by a unit of skeletons with 2 tomb princes in it. Pete in revenge for the grave guard tried to killing blow my general with the champion, thankfully the collar of shapesh diverted this wound onto a heroic sacrificial skeleton and my king lived – the grave guard did not. The Bone giant and chariots killed about 15 skeletons, leaving 2 remaining at the end of the combat. Unfortunately with no more impact hits or unstoppable assault the skeletons came back quicker than I could kill them and in the end the bone giant was flanked by 30 skeletons with a pair of vampires in it. In the last turn I managed to charge the zombie-necro bunker garnering me a lot of victory points as well as a precious overrun move into Petes deployment zone. The game ended as an 11-10 draw in my favour.

Game 4: Aaron Manuel – Dwarfs
After a night of watching 300 at IMAX and sweating about having to fight a 2 treeman Drycha led tree army led by another friend from club (as we were on the same battle points) I was pleasantly surprised to be staring down the barrel of 2 organ guns, a cannon and 2 bolt throwers. Oh and I was outnumbered by Dwarves. The scenario was to kill the general but neither of us wanted to advance. I didn’t have the combat power to attack 3 dwarf blocks at the start of the game, let alone after I withered the hail of Organ gun fire to get to them. So I sat back in my deployment zone, sending the chariots up one flank and the archers up the other to shoot at the bolt throwers. The catapult killed a good 9 clansmen with its first shot, they didn’t panic so I killed another 4 with it in the shooting phase. The Dwarves decided this was to much and buggered off leaving my archers to a unit of 10 slayers. Things progressed pretty slowly, in my 5th turn I jumped everything out of cover for some 6th turn charges. My Bone giant lasted through 2 organ gun shots and died, didn’t even draw attention from the bolt throwers. In the final turn I magically charged my chariots into the rear of some clansmen and charged the longbeards with lord and thane with my skeletons. The lords unit promptly failed their fear check and fled, Aaron had taken first turn so didn’t get a chance to rally. The chariots failed to break the clansmen and the game was over. Another draw but I garnered 13 points to 10 out of this game.

Game 5: Dom Holloway – Mortal Chaos (Khorne)
Dom is a great bloke who I have played on a number of occasions, both times I have come out with a win and both times the games were extremely enjoyable. This game looked to be no different, there was a slight rules dispute at the start but that didn’t make it any less fun. I managed to draw out Doms Khorne Knights with a unit of chariots and got a flank charge on them with my skeletons. I killed the champion and the Knights broke, Dom rolled a measly 7 to flee but I only rolled a 6 to persue. Unfortunately for me the knights were about 7.2 inches away from the table edge so when the giant flanked my skeletons and the knights rallied things weren’t looking good. In the centre I flanked some chaos warriors with my bone giant but they failed to break and Boney got flanked by bloodletters. The ‘letters were then flanked by a skeleton block who managed to lose combat and summarily had the ###### beaten through them by Bloodletters and an exalted champion. The catapult landed a hit on the exalted Daemon taking 2 wounds off of it. A 10 inch scatter from a scorpion put it in range of said Daemon and the last wound was struck. Over on the left flank the giant had used yell and bawl twice to stop me killing it before the Knights charged, but the gods light shone down upon me and the Knights failed the fear check to charge the skeletons. The Catapult turned its attentions to said knights and killed the aspiring champion and another knight. The two remaining knights charged the skeletons and were run down by a bunch of angry skeletons. Thus the game ended in a 15-5 win for me, bonus points got this to a 16-7 which was all I needed.

I ended up in 3rd place overall, edging out Dom and Greg Johnson by a measly point but still a good 14 points off of second place. Well done Chris on running a great tournament and congratulations on Joe and Ben for 1st and 2nd.