Origins 2008

I jumped in the car this Friday to make the trek down South to Columbus to play in the first GLADBAG Invitational Tournament and the Origins DBA Open event.  Origins is a wonderful venue (far, far, exceeding the Lancaster Host), and I hope to make it back there to compete again.

For the Invitational, I brought Polybians, hoping to try them in a tourney before Historicon; for the Open I brought Alexandrian Imperial.  I was “Power Gaming” to the hilt!  What follows below are my recollections of the events.  The first event was the Invitational.

First Round: My Romans vs Andy Swingle’s Seleucids.  This pic was taken after my Ps supported Bd 6-1′d his Kn general.  I hate to have games end this way, even if it was in my favor!

Second Round: Jenny Torbet’s Thessalians.  This one ended with me killing her general as well.  Jenny’s a great sport; at the end of the day I apologised for always beating up on her Greeks.

Third Round: Dave Welch (my new nemesis)   Dave was playing New Kingdom Egyptians.  I believe we played over 1/2 an hour before actually rolling for combats.  This is mid-game.  In what ultimately proved to be his undoing, Dave committed all his mounted to one flank, giving me the opportunity to send some Bd to take his camp.  Both of my games with Dave were real nail biters, Dave is an obvious contender for being one of the best players around.  Great job Dave! I believe I won this game 2C-2.  Below is a shot of one of the final bounds.  You can see there was quite a bit of maneuvering.

On the right you can see my Sp and Cv holding the flank against the onslaught of the Egyptian chariots.  In the center my blade struggle against Dave’s Bd, who got Bw support later, killing some Bd IIRC.  Up to the left, my Romans are almost at the camp.

Fourth Round: Tom Graves and his Christian Nubians.  Tom taught me that I am still a novice!  This was the only game that I lost the terrain for.  Tom wasted no time in putting down favorable terrain for mostly bad going army.  I did the best I could to protect my flanks from bad going assaults and rushed my blade line up to smash into his general.  What a disaster!  His Cv general 6-1′d my Ps supported Bd, I lost another combat to unsupported Wb in the open(!), and somewhere I lost some Sp to Wb.  Ugh!  I lost 0-4 (yikes!)

The picture above shows the hole in my line that used to be in front of his general.  Tom played Rob Runnels for the trophy, falling to Rob’s Tamil.  Congratulations to Rob for winning the first GLADBAG Invitational!  Thank you also to all of my very gracious opponents–truly among the finest players!  I went 3-1 in the Invitational: On to the Open!

HotT For Sale

I’ve had this 36AP army sitting around waiting to be finished.  Minor stuff really: I have to finish the stronghold (which can double as a Mongol DBA camp), paint in some teeth and horns and finish the bases.  My opportunities to play 15mm HotT in the next three years are zero to none, so I’m looking to finish it and send it to a new owner.  Feel free to make an offer.  You can email me at: portertm at gmail dot com.  If you are going to Origins, I plan on being there on Friday and can deliver in person.

1xHero
2xBeasts
4xKnights
2xBehemoths
1xBehemoth Gen.
3xRiders
2xLurkers

The figures are 10mm GW Warmaster Orcs & Goblins.  Two of the behemoths are 28mm D&D figs with conversion work (back spines).  I also have loads of unpainted foot and some more wolf riders I can throw in.

The Lurkers are GW goblins on LotR Giant Spiders.

The knights.

Beasts.  This is an example of the finished bases.

Riders

A Hero stand.  This is the element that needs the most work, but should paint up quickly.

The Behemoth brigade.

More LotR HOTT

Here is some more LotR goodness.

My first stand (out of 3) of Warg Riders (classed as Beasts).

Here is another angle.

My first Riders of Rohan element (classed as…Riders).  Luke Ueda-Sarson makes a good argument for the RoR to be classed as knights, but my armies are “inspired” more by the films, wherein I feel they acted more like cavalry.  Therefore, I chose to make ordinary riders classed as Riders for game purposes.

A rear shot.

Treebeard; perhaps a controversial choice, but Luke Ueda-Sarson does include Ents as allies in his DBM/HOTT lists.  Again, for me it comes down to inspiration and plausibility when making these armies, rather than recreating a “historical” list as David Kuijt and Luke Ueda-Sarson approach it.  SO while technically, Treebeard never fought alongside the forces of Rohan, it is not out of the question that he might have.  Same thing goes for Saruman-he never left Isengard during the War, and therefore shouldn’t be included in any list.  However, his influence and will was certainly driving the armies of Isengard, so I include him in my list.   On the flip side, I am replacing my troll with  the Warg riders, and Treebeard will be replaced with either some warband (dismounted riders), or Household Knights.  I have Eowen  on the bench as well, but I will probably replace her with Theoden when I can get my hands on the mounted fig.  My apologies to MrF. if Jack starts to pester you into painting his LotR figs! :p