Guild Wars IX, Warhammer Fantasy, Aspiring League. 14-5-2011.

Its one of those posts that makes the "Invulnerable" looking weird.

We should have named the blog "Armor save" because in this way it would have covered both the two major miniature board games, Warhammer 40.000 and Fantasy Battles.

Because for that Post Invulnerable should have been called "Ward Save" since it covers the Aspiring League Guild Wars tournament for Warhammer that was held in Kalithea some days ago.

But what are the Guild Wars?

There are several "teams" who regularly meet usually in a specific place, shop or club and play together their favorite game, usually and most commonly Warhammer fantasy battles, those teams or group of people are formed because of the same place that they hang out in, the same city they are in, or because they usually got drunk one day and woke up all together in front of a miniature battlefield.

So, because those teams wanted to see what team is the best they started a tournament that is held every 3 to 4 months, and because there are more teams than a single store or club can hold they organized two leagues, the first was named the "Exalted League" and the second the "Aspiring League".

There are four teams in every league - to a total of eight teams, the team that ranks 4th in the "Exalted" League when the teams face each other on the guild wars tournament drops to the "Aspiring" and the team that ranks first in the Aspiring League rises up to the Exalted.

This tournament is the First part of the Guild wars with the four teams of the "Aspiring" league battling each other for the 1st place and rise to the Exalted league, one of the teams, the "Demonic Pigeons" had dropped in the last tournament and they were hoping to get back to the Exalted, another team the "Failed Chargers" who were also the Hosts of this tournament were also seeking to end up in a better rank than the last tournaments and hopefully even end up first, two other teams, the Demonic Sparrows and the Meraklides Hammer also participated.

But lets see what happened.

At the first round of the tournament the Failed Chargers faced the Meraklides hammer team, the Failed Chargers emerged victorious with 71 points to 29 points for the Meraklides, in this photo to the left, Robomarine of the Chargers faces Lord Limenix, who was the only player who won in a match for the Meraklides with a 14-6, Robomarine commanded his Skaven against Lord Limenix's Orks.

And we can only guess that for the Ork victory someone who was also responsible was this huge spider who made a snack of several Skaven ratmen!

Even with his team defeated at round one, Metaller, of the Meraklides team never loses his spirit. Here he is, happy as ever. 

Seeing that the competition is very hard the Brettonian general asked from the lady of the lake for protection but all he got was a huge protective sheet over his knights.

Here is Grom, Captain of the Demonic Pigeons and organizer of the Warhammer Fantasy guild wars, events like this needs wits, organization skills and many bottles of water, especially in a hot day. 

Invulnerable reporter, obviously supporting the Failed Chargers team (no reason to hide that actually) did a little bit of spying during the tournament.

The "Grandfather" (player to the left) with "Robomarine" are discussing after round one, their team at that point was first in the ranking after round 1 with 71 points to 66 for the Daemonic Pigeons.

Judge (Referee, the guy with the white shirt) Laskoulas (something like Judge Dredd but way more cool) is checking what Limenix has to say about the battle under an outdated War of the Ring Poster.

And Grom takes the score for the battle. There are 20 players in the league and they give 10 games in every round, 30 games in total, Grom will have to take note for each one and come with a result at the end of the day, lets hope that his pen will never run out of ink.

This the "Admiral", he used to be a player for the Failed Chargers but he moved to the Meraklides team, several other players change team during the time between the tournaments, For example...

...Sotiris "Flames" who takes a "V" victory pose as his empire army defeats one player after another (thus he was also ranked Most Valuable Player of the tournament) Flames moved recently to the Failed Chargers team.

Wait, this player has to take a breath, 
we will continue with a photo of more meaning right away.

Live Fast, and pack your army even faster for the next round.

Robomarine smiles towards the Camera.

And Gregory "Elnor" smiles towards his results.

  More and more bikes appear Athens, they have even found a way to infiltrate the Warhammer tournaments by folding their shape, sadly for this infiltrator he has been found...

Big smile, no comments.

Sir Boggy's troops are so brave that all of them deployed closer to the enemy than their general, (at least to the model that looks like a general - green guy on top of a horse) although it leaves a question about the general's bravery.

This tournament had some of the new products of Games Workshop on its tables, one of them was the gigantic spider, lets hope we wont see a gigantic cockroach anytime soon.

What you really need to play Warhammer fantasy in Greece, apart from miniatures are tape measure  dice, drinks, smokes and a mobile phone, having your terrain or miniatures painted is mandatory.

A relative to Batman the dark knight was also around, and everyone felt much safer.

This regiment is multicolored and display the colors of the rainbow, 
as is the dice used by their player.

As also multicolored are the Bretonnian knights 
who at least have a good taste about fashion.

The Avatar of the "bloody handed god" is carrying a cauldron full of unpainted blood - obviously a trap, whoever gets close for a drink will meet thy doom from his sword.

This measuring has just measured the smoke cloud (now gone) 
from the firing of the cannon.

The Chaos Daemons of the "Grandfather" (left) face Wilhelm's Skaven horde, 
result was a 12-8 for the Chaos Daemons.

A common practice: put one of your hands on the wall and the other on your waist, look down, it makes you feel better during a game of Warhammer, those two players practice the trick at the same time.

Its feeding time for the Spider (again) and this time it chooses this panicked player.

As is also feeding time for the local cat who happened to be around for a snack, served from a local lady who uses to feed kittens in the area.

Slaanesh would be proud.

This player takes a funny pose...

...And this thing try to do the same, it steps on one foot, lifts its arms as high as it can but nobody laughs...

Metallica asked for whom the Bell tolls, now we know.

Completely ignoring the fact that litter is not permitted on the tables this horrible beast did its poop: a red dice.

The point is not to take anything too seriously, play the game and have fun.

The tournament close to the end of the 3rd round.

  I think that this is undeniable fact that this player has fallen victim to bullying by those two.

The tournament ends and some of the people have left while others relax since time comes for the....

Victory ceremony! where Judge Laskoulas presents the trophy to the winning team, the Demonic Pigeons ranked first with 203 points and in the next tournament they will play in the Exalted league, where Judge Laskoulas also compete.

But for now it is time for cheering! Congratulations!

The Results of the tournament are as follows:

Round 1:

Failed Chargers 71 versus Meraklides Hammer 29

Demonic pigeons 66 versus Demonic Sparrows 34

Round 2:

Demonic Pigeons 83 (149) versus Meraklides Hammer 17 (46)

Failed Chargers 60 (131) versus Demonic Sparrows 40 (74)

Round 3:

Demonic Pigeons 54 (203) versus Failed Chargers 46 (177)

Demonic Sparrows 56 (130) Meraklides Hammer 44 (90)

In case you like competition, you believe that you have what it takes and you and your gaming group are at least five (or a bit less) players and each of you a Warhammer fantasy army of at least 2400 points and you are interested to join the guild wars leagues you should contact Grom in the forum where the whole thing is discussed and organized: 

http://www.demonicpigeon.com

For the Invulnerable

Panayiotis.