We got there and were told that there would only be two other contestants. Luckily, one more showed, giving us a whopping three to play against- at least no null rounds...

First battle was against a couple of guys who had not played a tournament before today. They had onyl brought 500 points each to the party- a pity seeing as it should have been 500 pts each. And this is AFTER someone (an unnamed GW staff-member) had screened the list for validity- they forgot to screen it for size! Luckily, Adam (played brets at axe remastered) had some spare gobbos these and they were able to fill in the gaps.
SO that was undead and gobbos- an untrusted pairing. Had a good game against these two and massacred them (7-1 victory), and also gained the three bonus battle points for objectives (standards in this case).

Second battle was against Dale and Jack (both from vagabonds- but neither in team colours) playing dwarves and lizardmen respectively (another distrusted alliance). Pretty much the same idea as Sam and I, which was to have a crunchy core (brets in my case, dwarves in Dale's) surrounded by a creamy layer or pure dairy-milk skinks. The onyl difference being that my crunchy core was a bit more manouverable, and we ended up getting the upper hand.
I felt bad about a rule that has changed in 7th ed, stating that chargers must align as much as possible, and then the defenders finish the allignment. Dale's carefully designed trap for my knights basically fell in a heap because of this rule. Sam and I did feel sorry for this rule coming into play, but it was agreed that we really hadn't meant to exploit this rule.

The upper hand was gained and we managed to pull a massacre from this battle too, also taking away the maximum of three bonus BPs.

The third battle was up against a pairing of two bret armies (the only trusted allies on the day), which consisted of 5 minibusses (one questing), three birds and a handful of characters (including a paladin of the ideal- the black knight).
We managed to get in and around our numerially superior foes, putting plenty of skinks in their way to slow them down. On two occasions, sam's skinks managed to pull insane courage out, meaning that *one* skink was able to hold the line and cause the questing knights to cop a flank charge from one of my busses. The rest of the army managed to take advantage of this and the game started lookign up.
I choked on my honour during this game, which I only justify because Sam was present and I reasoned it unfair to force my honoury quirks onto him in the middle of a tournament: At one stage my pegs stood to receive a potentially game-losing charge from virtually an entire brettonian force (two busses) and give them a convenient staging ground off which to assault the rest of the army. I fled from the charge (something I wouldnt' have done if it was only me playing- and vow never to do again) onyl to be faced with a forest which I would land in if not careful. Luckily, I rolled a 13 (?) and managed just fly over the woods and not lose 250 points worth of pegasus knights.

They subsequently rallied and we're able to help in blokcing off escape routes. But they had dishonoured themselves in the meantime. A bitter victory, but victory all the same (again, massacre with full bonus of 3).

Sam and I walked away with first place, cementing my first (and probably only) ever tournament victory (from a field of four). We picked up a copy of "Storm of Chaos" and "Lustria" between us, the first I've seen of GW giving away free stuff at a tourney. I doubt they were sellign many of those anyway, but I'm not one to look a gift-horse in the mouth so I accepted the Lustria book graciously. Will be a good read if anything- maybe I'll find some good fluff for Conquest next year.

Amusing this was, most of the soft points for this tourney were based on percentiles: If you got into the top 10% (players' choice) for sports, you got bonus BPs. Top 20% for painting got you further bonus BPs. As there was a field of four, both of these bonus were mathematically unattainable. I think they tweaked the system after seing the field.

Overall, a great day was had by all (or most at least) and I again say that I really enjoy playing doubles. Unfortunately, I didnt' get to go up on stage in front of everyone and shamelessly plug Axemaster for us (there were 40+ new fantasy gamers there today- it'd be great to see them all as tourney regulars).

KF this year will feature 4000 pt armies, with a maximum of two races, and as many players as you like for each side. If you do have more than one force in an army, then any after the first may only be up to 1500 pts (so you could have one army of 4000 pts, or two of 2500 and 1500, or three of 2500 and 1200 and 1300 etc...). Sam and I are considering doing a larger version of the crunchy knight centre with ablative skinks. Full 2500 points of brets with a whirling cloud of skinks around it- the Bohr model of the army if you will. See you there!