Imagine having your own games room, lots of people do, now imagine that games room is the upper floor of a barn and has room for seven tables. Yes, SEVEN full sized wargames tables, plus a seating area with comfy chairs and a brew station. This heavenly set up does exist, it is the Gaming set up of John and being a really nice man, John invites his friends round to play games in his games room and every so often he has Tournaments.
These started off as just a small gathering of friends for a few games and the scores were noted down for fun, as the numbers grew slightly it took on more of the aspect of a mini-tournament arranged via Facebook until John had expanded his games space and scenery collection to be able to accommodate fourteen people, it was at this point he decided to open the event up to others and advertised the Tournament to all comers on the local Facebook groups. At this event we had 3 each from Cumbria and Northumberland, 4 from Lancashire and 1 from Yorkshire!
As this was the Fourth day I had been up to play at John’s “Battle Barn” and for the previous two I had made last place Spoons for, I made a spoon for this one, the previous spoon had featured “Shawn the Sheep” ( as John Lives on a Farm the days have become to be dubbed “Farm Wars”- hence the Sheep theme) I decided that this spoon would feature another of the characters from this popular TV series and so one of the 3 naughty Pigs made an appearance on the Spoon for Farm Wars IV.
As usual I agonised over which army to take, in the series so far, I have used Free Dwarfs twice and Northern Alliance once (the Free Dwarfs, in fact “Won” the first event) so I decided to use something other than Free Dwarfs. As my Ogres were being borrowed by another player and my Partner was using the Northern Alliance, I had to find an alternative list to take. While looking at the collection of models on my shelves I spotted Horace & Henry my Hydras, they had not been out for a run for a while and as we would be gaming out in the wilds of Cumbria, I figured a fun Forces of Nature army could be the way forwards. I had also painted up but never used the “Natures Wrath” formation and so this would be an ideal time to use it. All in all the Army was selected purely for the fact I had painted units but never or hardly used them and so the list below was born. Probably not the most efficient way to choose a Tournament Army but as this was a fun event amongst friends (although that description could be applied to the majority of KoW Tournaments I have attended in the UK and Spain so far)
The Earth Elementals and Hydras are the anvils, the Centaurs are there to be chaff as they never seem to do enough damage and the Air Elementals are the Threat Projection to leap ahead and seek out flanks. I opted for a Druid to provide Bane Chant and a small amount of Surge but my main surge casters were to be ….. a Treeherder and the Wiltfather, purely because I had never used them both together before, add a Unicorn for Cute value and the Farm Wars FoN is ready!
The draw was done on our Tales from the Warriors Hall Podcast and we ran through the Army lists at the same time, you can listen to that Podcast Here [LINK TO PODCAST]
As we ran through the lists, I realised that perhaps my method of army selection wasn’t the ideal way to choose a competitive army for the event but I was committed now. Besides with two Treeherders and two Hydras backed up by a load of Elementals I should have a good shout at the trophy?
The day dawned and we set off for the 90 Minute journey up the M6 to Sunny Cumbria, it’s always a pleasure to drive through the spectacular Lake District on the Way to an event and today was no exception. We discussed Tactics and Tournaments as we motored along and arrived in good time for the start of the event.
My First Opponent was Dan with his Nightstalker Army that contained 8 regiments of Dopplegangers, yes 8 Regiments. Added to this was the fact that we had got the scenarios twisted around and the first scenario was, in fact, Pillage and not Control as I had thought and planned for (not that this would have made too much difference) and as I was outnumbered and outgunned and using an Army I had never used before the game was pretty much a forgone conclusion, although the four Double ones I rolled for Nerve Checks just added insult to injury. Still, it was fun to try and hold my own against regiments that used my own stats against me. Needless to say, I lost this game and most of my Army.
Score was Dan 19 BeerTroll 7
The scoring system that John uses is basically 15 for a win, 10 for a Draw, 5 for a loss and then attrition scores between +1 and +5 for how much you kill. This results in a score out of 20 for each game and 60 for the event as a whole.
We had lunch and a chat about Kings of War and Armies and stuff, the usual conversations that Wargamers have at Tournaments and then we launched into Round 2 of the event, I was to play my regular club mate James with his lovely Undead army and this time the Scenario Was Control.
James deployed most of his infantry on his left flank and his cavalry in the centre and left his right flank empty, I deployed my slow movers in the centre with my Centaurs on a hill to their left and my Air Elementals and Treeherders on my left so we both had refused right flanks, I made a bold flanking manoeuvre with my Strike troops but they took too long to kill James’s cavalry and this allowed his mass of infantry to kill everything in my centre and then plod over to kill my left flank as well , luckily the Wiltfather survived and his 300 points was enough to stop James from maxing out his score (the +5 bracket was 2001 – 2300 points) but again I only killed 800 points to gain a +2 so the result was
James 19 BeerTroll 7
My third game of the Day was against Rick, I have played Rick at the last two tournaments I have attended and we always have a great game and a good banter, the scenario for this game was “Kill the King” which was a scenario thought up by John, in which the only way to win was to kill your opponents most expensive Hero model, which in my army was the Wiltfather and in Rick’s army it was the Dread Fiend as I was facing another Nightstalker army.
We set up and our “Kings” were on opposite sides of the battlefield (left flank for Rick, left flank for Me) and again I had refused my right flank and gone heave on my left with only the Centaurs in the middle of the board on a hill.
The Game followed a very familiar format with my army getting off all the charges and failing to defeat units through a combination of low wound rolls, low strength and double ones resulting in most combats bouncing off and then being annihilated in return, the Scarecrows with their crystal pendant did their worst and the bloodworms ate my “King” whilst I got nowhere near the Dread Fiend, however I did manage to kill more butchers this time and a Horde of Bloodworms to gain me an extra attrition point to leave me with a +3 this time.
Rick 19 BeerTroll 8
For a total of 22 points, this was worse even than James who only played two games as he had to go but ended the second game on 26 points!
I had donated a Wooden Spoon for the last place prize and here I was taking it home, it wasn’t even as though it was a close-run thing as I was the only person to get three losses. But I had a great day as usual and went home determined to do better at the Next Farm Wars!
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