The Kara Sloan Tactical Fun Line Goes To NiCon

Another year has rolled by and Sean, Victor and myself headed off for another weekend of playing WarmaHordes at the now annual teams tournament, this time in sunny (and rather beautiful in an art deco kind of way) Napier.

Plan was simple - don't do as badly as last year.... Looks rather like my usual Kara Sloan force, but swapping out the Rangers for ATGMs and a Hunter for a Sentinel (sick of Kara dying to a lucky shot!).

The list was...
Captain Kara Sloan
- Squire
- Defender
- Hunter
- Hunter
- Sentinel
Reinholdt, Gobber Speculator
Journeyman Warcaster
Captain Arlan Strangewayes
Arcane Tempest Gun Mages
- Arcane Tempest Gun Mage Officer

Round 1 - Richard from Frozen Nightmare. I said I was not playing either of the two Cryx players and instead faced off against Richard and his Conquest. As usual, round 1 forgetfulness kicked in and my feat turn was a disaster! The Conquest with four mechanics proved too hard to shift and despite shooting up a lot of his army my failure to put the big man down resulted in eSorsha having a good day at the office.


Round 2 - Mark from Grumpy Old Men. Mark is an old school gamer and was running his Menoth eSeverius list. He pushed up the table and decided to not use his Choir to protect his 'jacks. I asked if he was sure.... he said yes... I removed one and badly damaged the other two. His caster spent the rest of the game hiding whilst I tried to push up field to him. In the end I timed out (50 minute death clock) however Mark conceded the game as he only had a couple of models left and was about to time out himself.


Round 3 - Dave from Good Players. Dave is another old school gamer, yet I think I have only played him once before (my Savage Orcs vs his Lizardmen about 6-8 years ago). He picked up WarmaHordes a couple of years ago and has been undergoing intensive tutorials and is one of the better players in NZ (although he does stick to Cryx...). I basically shot a third of his army off the table on my feat turn and left his Kraken on 1 box (which he failed to repair). He valiantly tried to take the game out by control points and did my best to help him, but managed to pull off the win. Lets be honest Dave is a way better player than me, but now that I am up 1-0 I am happy to let the record show that I am "statistically" the better player.... hehe.


Round 4 - Vincent from Mentally Impaired. Vincent was running a Nemo list with lots of units and I cannot remember much of this game other than it went the distance (i.e. he would have run out of time after forgetting to hit the timer at the end of his turn, except we "turned back the clock"). If I remember correctly Nemo was down to a couple of boxes and Kara found herself on the receiving end of a couple of lightning spells resulting in her looking a little crispy!


Round 5 - Graeme from Lobster Magnet. Graeme and I played at the last tournament and I pulled off a lucky win against his eCaine list. Short version... same deal! I shot a lot, he shot a bit less, kept eCaine out of the line of fire whilst we chipped away at each others forces but in the end he ran out of troops and Caine had to put himself out in the open, if he survived he won... thanks to a lucky shot from Kara he did not survive.


Round 6 - Mike from Maximum Compensation. More old school gamers... Mike was handy with his High Elves but has now turned to the Galleon/Bart list. He used the Galleon well, getting some lucky shots knocking out the guns on both Hunters before I could feat. I played poorly in places forgetting small things that would have made a big difference - that is instead of leaving the Galleon on 5 boxes he probably would have been dead (and Kara would have been alive). Came close to buying two Galleons and Bart after the game... but since my wife reads this I thought better of it!


Round 7 - Peter from Angry Birds. Last round, very tired... and playing Peter who I also played at my previous tournament. Peter was teamed up with two of my gaming buddies that have been playing a lot of WarmaHordes over the past few months. He was running a  Morvahna/Tharn Bloodtrackers/Warpborn Skinwalkers list and I remembered my lesson from the last time we played... kill ALL the Bloodtrackers in one turn or don't even bother trying. We spent the entire game trading figures and although he won, he did it with his caster and three Shifting Stones left and I just had Kara.... the Stones pulling off the win on Control Points.


Three wins out of seven games... that is about as good as I can expect at any WarmaHordes event, at least this time around I could honestly say that I had a couple of games where it would not have taken much for them to go my way, and a couple of the the dicey games turned out in my favour. Summary, great games, great opponents, great weekend... already planning for next years teams tournament in Tauranga. The only bad bit was that I failed to take many photos....

Waking up to this beautiful sunrise... but damn it was cold!

The hall

Dave, after loosing the figures on his left flank, failing his repair check and needing a wee break

At the venue there was also a Model Expo with some cool toys, including this awesome model

The Galleon and Bart - turns out that despite most of my force being alive the Galleon was enough to finish the job

Sean's Nemo3 list finally finished and based!

P.S. thanks Chris B for the new name for my list....