Cry Havoc 2014 Tournament Report

Wow what a weekend! I have been an extreme form of crazy busy and have been a bit slow on the social media from so sorry for any delayed responses! The highlight of the weekend however was attending the Cry Havoc tournament run by the DWARF gaming club. Once again those guys knocked it out of the park and put on a great event. Well run, well attended and well good fun!  My only minor negative comment was the heat, which in the gaming hall was stifling to say the least! Not sure there was anything that could have been done but personally I would have loved an ice bath! Only other thing would be to offer bottles of water for the health conscious as well as soft drinks. That said it was still one of the best tournaments I have been to!

As you know I unleashed the OrcOgres for their first tournament outing and I was a just a wee bitty excited to play them! It had been a long slog to get them ready and I really enjoyed using the ogres again! My army list is here:

Borgut Thunderfist "Custodian Of The Titans" (Slaughtermaster): Armour Of Destiny; Crown Of Command; Dragonbane Gem; Level 4 Wizard; great weapon

Gurgoroth "Herald Of Cronos" (Bruiser): Talisman Of Preservation; Iron Curse Icon; great weapon; heavy armour; battle standard; Lookout Gnoblar

Cronos' Fury Guard (8 Ironguts): Standard Of Discipline; Gutlord; Bellower; standard bearer; Look-out Gnoblar
The Tempest Berserkers (3 Ogres): additional hand weapons; Bellower
The Tempest Berserkers (3 Ogres): additional hand weapons; Bellower

The Burning Barrage (8 Leadbelchers): Bellower
The Storm Bringers (3 Mournfang Cavalry): heavy armour; ironfists; Bellower
The Thunder Heralds (3 Mournfang Cavalry): heavy armour; ironfists; Bellower

Prometheus' Wrath (Ironblaster)
Ungoliant (Stonehorn): harpoon launcher

So on the gaming front I had the pleasure of playing Jon Pugh (If Carlsberg made opponents, they would probably make them like Jon!) and had a whale of a time with lots of big gesturing and build up. We were playing a fatty off (Jon being Scotland’s premier and most consistent Ogre player). Jon was touting quite a different list, with a lvl 4 on Beasts (Glittering Scales, Fencers Blades), a BSB (Runemaw I believe), Maw Butcher (Hellheart), 9 Ironguts, 2x 3 bulls, 4 Mournfang, 6 maneaters (Swiftstride Stubborn), 2 ironblasters and 3 Sabretusks.

We were playing Blood and Glory which in this match up meant whoever lost their characters/gutstar was losing the game so we were naturally quite cagey. Jon got first turn and had some pitiful luck rolling to wound with his ironblasters and amber spear (note to self: try beasts out more!!!). In my first turn my single ironblaster took out one of his and we swung around the building in the middle. I had the ranged superiority so I was shooting up stuff and killed off a tusk. Cheekily I got off an bubble regen which meant his Ironblaster and amber spear bounced off me next turn! My turn I killed another tusk,  half a unit of bulls and 3 wounds off his remaining ironblaster. Jon killed off one of my units of mournfang with his maneaters and I wiped out his units of bulls in the following. I also got a cheeky ironblaster kill with the bonecrusher magic missile! I made the mistake of casting regen instead of stubborn on the leadbelchers who were smashed and killed in the second to last turn by Jon’s mournfang. I had set up a trap with the ironguts (who were place to flank the morunfang). This meant a big 700pt swing in Jon’s favour. His hellheart was also ineffectual this game! Last turn I try to get Jon’s Maneaters but fail to reach him after he flees. The last roll of the dice is Jon trying to Amber Spear (Twiglet) the sole remaining Mournfang on one wound, in a spectacular run of shit dice Jon rolls a 1 to wound! The game ends with a 12-8 win to Jon! I learned a lot and defo paid for my mistakes but got lucky with Jon’s poor cannon and amber spear rolls lol.

Next game I played Nicky Claisse with a slaanesh warriors of chaos army. I’m afraid he wasn’t too experience and this game was rather one sided. We both had some spectacular ups and downs of luck. I gunned down his daemon prince with leadbelchers, I failed a anything but Double 1 charge and I failed 5 ward saves on my slaughtermaster (only had to take 5 strength 5 saves lol!!) but pretty much everything went my way. I lost the gutstar and characters but had still tabled him. Pretty rough but I am sure he learned a lot from our game about how to properly prevent charges and to watch out for overruns (if that gutstar charge had got in on turn 2 I would have tabled him on turn 2/3!). The game ended in a 15-5 win to me!

Last round I got to play (Average (not in this game lol)) Joe Pirson. Upfront I’ll say that (other than Mike lol!) I have never seen anyone roll such terrible dice. We played meeting engagement and  as a sign of things to come I stole initiative. I had set up expecting second turn so wasn’t much I could capitalise on but my ironblaster decided to blow it’s gun up straight off the bat lol. I shot off a unit of dogs with the leadbelchers too. Then Joe started rolling dice…. Throgg and the trolls failed their stupidity test (and continued to do so for the next 4 turns until I killed them all!). Basically we played a Mexican stand off for 3 turns until the stonehorn killed one unit of trolls, drew out his knights with BSB which were then flanked and smashed by the ironguts. The guts then overran into his Daemon prince who was killed over 3 more rounds of combat (pro tip: never accept Daemon Prince challenges!). I killed off throgg and buddies with one mournfang unit while the other mounfang unit killed both his dragon ogre shaggoths. All Joe had left was 2 chariots while I had only lost the ironblaster and the stonehorn. The Game ended a 19-1 win to me!

This left me 42/60 Battle Points and 82/100 tournament points, which put me in 9^th place! This was my best tournament performance to date and I was over the moon with it! I learned a HUGE amount from my games. One thing I noted was that I didn’t once use my crown of command….. I was either steadfast or winning every combat! Kinda thinking I might drop this from my lists in favour of a scroll or the Trickster’s Helm on my Slaughtermaster. This would make him CRAZY difficult to kill and would really soak up the hurt in protracted combats, especially on the corner of units where opponents have to direct a lot of attacks his way! Im still not sold on the necessity of a scroll/hellheart and really think people should try playing without one, Daemons manage just fine!!! Full results are below!

Position Name TP Army
1 Donald McCallum 94 Empire
2 Andy Currie 90 Ogre Kingdons
3 Dave Souter 88 Warriors of Cheese
4 Trev Moffat 86 Lizardmen
5 Stuart Dobbie 85 Skaven
6 Tim Gronneberg 84 Skaven
7 Micheal Ross 83 Vampire Counts
8 Fraser McIntosh 82 Wood Elves
9 Rich Payne 82 Ogre Kingdons
10 Graham Hart 82 Dark Elves
11 Liam Watt 81 Dark Elves
12 Dave White 81 Warriors of Cheese
13 David Reid 80 Dark Elves
14 James Gilray 79 Warriors of Cheese
15 Sean Stahly 79 Warriors of Cheese
16 James Esland 79 Empire
17 Darren Allwright 78 Dwarfs
18 Jon Pugh 78 Ogre Kingdons
19 Alan Liddle 76 Ogre Kingdons
20 Graeme Davidson 75 Dark Elves
21 John Craig 74 Chaos Dwarfs
22 Will Esland 74 Warriors of Cheese
23 Graham Duffy 74 Wood Elves
24 Tony Swallow 73 Vampire Counts
25 Gus McCabe 73 Wood Elves
26 Gary Wyper 73 Brettonia
27 Dave Pyle 72 Dark Elves
28 Andy Bushell 72 Empire
29 Chris Murfitt 71 Dwarfs
30 Rich Gentry 71 High Elves
31 Ryan Savage 71 Warriors of Cheese
32 Leigh Martin 69 Deamons of Chaos
33 Charles Mitchell 69 Tomb Kings
34 Scott McGregor 68 High Elves
35 Liam Prior 68 Wood Elves
36 Hugh Scarlin 65 Lizardmen
37 Adam Souness 65 Dwarfs
38 Iain Cochrane 65 Tomb Kings
39 Tam Whyte 63 Lizardmen
40 Scott Smith 62 Deamons of Chaos
41 Chris White 62 Orc & Goblins
42 Steve McCormick 61 Ogre Kingdons
43 Dave Taylor 60 Empire
44 Javier Boveda 59 Wood Elves
45 Micheal Arnott 59 Lizardmen
46 Mark Shields 59 Lizardmen
47 Mark Singleton 52 Tomb Kings
48 Alan Wolstenhome52 Warriors of Cheese
49 Nicky Claisse 51 Warriors of Cheese
50 Phillip McGuiness 51 Skaven
51 Fank Miller 49 Warriors of Cheese
52 Joe Pirson 45 Warriors of Cheese
53 Alex Easson 45 Warriors of Cheese
54 Leon Haig 40 Empire
55 Joshua Bryant 37 High Elves
56 Finlay Kemp 31 High Elves
57 Craig Ross DNF Warriors of Cheese

58 John Harper DNF Brettonia

On the painting front I was lucky enough to win best painted! Thanks for all the votes and kind comments people made, really left with a big smile on my face! The prize support was great too this year and I went away with £20 voucher, GW sculpting tools, paints, a paint pot and custom engraved templates! There were some really great armies on the day. Rich Gentry’s new high elves looked incredible (pics below) and were shown on an awesome display board, he got my vote. Had a great chat with Rich and I think we share outlooks on a lot of things in the hobby so it was nice to have a good natter! Dave Taylor (DWARFer) had a brilliant looking Ind themed Empire army with magic carpets, elephants and camels!  The usual crowd had some great armies too like Tim Gronneberg, James Esland, Trev Moffat and Charles Mitchel to name a few of the many great armies there! Once again thanks to all who came up to say kind words and who voted for me, really appreciated it!

The crux of all of this is that I can’t wait for Winter War (DWARF charity event) in November to which I will be bringing a lot of new models (Rock Idol Stonehorn!!) and will hopefully get to smash up Rich Gentry on the table (is it too soon to grudge?!). Hopefully the other PaintHammer boys will do a write up of their tournament experience (Scott, Gary, Andy)! We have two new additions to the team: Gary Wyper and Andy Currie! Gary as many of you will know is an expert twitter/forum troll and a lover off all things fluffy and underpowered! Andy is usually touting the filthiest filth in the west but for Cry Havoc he was using a giant(!?) and amazingly came 2^nd overall with said large humanoid!? Pretty sure the internet died a little on the inside when this happened! Might be the first podium in an uncomped tournament with a giant!