VENGEANCE!

This is not a post about revenge. It’s a post about the largest Guild Ball event I’ve been to, and possibly the largest in the UK. As such, this is a long post about Guild Ball – you’re warned! This year marked the third anniversary of the event and I finally overcame my social anxiety and concerns for my ability at the game to go along for the weekend extravaganza of Guild Ball and gaming. jumping in a hire van with five other Surrey Spartans, we began our literal Road to Vengeance after weeks of “planning” and “preparation”.

Barry’s Birthday Bonanza Snake Draft

Fellow Surrey Spartan and good friend of mine Barry (of Roll Better Podcast fame) turn another year older – only his 27th, I’m assured by ‘sources’ from said podcast – and since he, like many of my gaming club, are keen Guildball players local pundit John Parish (also of Roll Better fame) kindly organised a snake draft as part of his celebration.

Surrey Spartan’s Cabbage Punt

The Surrey Spartans have recently held their first ever Guildball Tournament! This was, of course, named the Cabbage Punt because really grown adults quite laughing at immature jokes – I mean, er, after Bushel’s ability and in honour of the Farmer’s release. Definitely. Whatever our ineffable reasoning, we hosted it

Surrey Spartans Smackdown 2016

And so the Spartans Smackdown has finally come around! It was a great two days of gaming with a large number of great people. My normal trepidation about the character of people who play Warhammer/9th Age and their unnecessary pedantic ism was swiftly banished and I thoroughly enjoyed the entire event.

Building Dread Elves, Not Dead Elves Part IV – The Scent of Cheese and a Ringing Bell

My fourth practice game in September was against Mike’s Vermin Swarm, as mentioned previously. Having already played Mike I was confident I could beat him. He had changed his list, adding in even more ranged firepower and somehow shuffling points about to get not one but two war platforms. He’d used this new list to beat John P, a regular tournament attendee and very good player, so perhaps I should have had slightly less bravado about going into this game. Mike was also the one who clarified how powerful the Magic Resist rules are to me, so again I should have gone in with a fairly sharp mind.

Building Dread Elves, Not Dead Elves – Part III

While I cursed DJ and prayed to the Dice Gods to set his beard a light in his sleep, I also got to play Matt “The Stampede”’s Beast Herds tournament list and got another game against Mike’s redesigned Vermin Swarm list. Both games held some concerns beforehand for me, and both held some surprises too. I’d like to thank both of them for some very fun and very educational games – I definitely learned a lot about my army and tactically!

Imperial Rim

No, this post is not some kind of sci-fi, supernatural romance Space Hulk fan-fic! My flatmate and I are both big fans of the giant mecha-monster slug fest that is Pacific Rim and have decided to recreate the epic and senseless-yet-awesome violence that the film embodies. We briefly discussed having this showdown through the medium of interpretive dance, then decided that the better way of paying homage to thoughtless, excessive violence would be using the thoughtless and excessively violent setting of Warhammer 40,000.

Designing Dread Elves, Not Dead Elves – Entry 2

So after my previous Dread Elf post focusing on list writing and what the book offered that was actually worth putting on the table, I have not one but TWO battle reports, albeit condensed somewhat and lacking pictures (sorry!). The first was against Dan P’s Beastmen army, the second against Mike’s Vermin Horde. Read on to find out how the games went, and whether my clever plotting achieved anything.

Designing Dread Elves, Not Dead Elves – Entry 1

I have recently begun practicing for the Surrey Spartans first official 9th Age tournament – we’re organising prizes and everything! Now that our competitive scene has evolved past the bragging rights stage, I’ve got to get my arse in gear and put a decent list together. This is a run down on my thought process

A Monster Mash

Since my next Spartans Summer Cup game has been cancelled I’m going to have to write about something else in the meantime. I haven’t got the next bit of my Shadows inspired story penned yet so it’s going to have to be a gaming post! We won’t talk about how unsuccessful my running attempts have been until I post that entry…so back to the Ninth Age for some thoughts on monsters!