25-09-2011 Independent club tournament, part two.

With the Players still thinking of the battle they gave some minuets ago the next round started, this time they had to compete in the Seize ground mission with a Dawn of war deployment. Seize ground means that the troops choices in each army will be the most valuable pieces and whoever has the most (and a proper transport for them) has a greater chance of victory or at least greater number of assets to use for his victory.

Dawn of War meant that in the first round all those troop choices will be - probably - safe from enemy fire, this means that the players have a good chance if both play defensively to get at least one or two objectives in the first rounds, the whole deal will be how they will be able to hold them and conquer their opponent's objectives.

What was also interesting in the second round of the tournament was the small encounter with miss Georgia Lemou, a Journalist (a real Journalist) from the Kathimerini newspaper (the Greek version of Herald Tribune) who came to make a report about this "Warhammer" thing, i have to admit that while i tried to take an interview from her she ended up taking an interview from me, you can read the interview in the end of the report.

The other thing was that the tournament included a best painted army award and the four best armies were exhibited in the end of the second round, there are photos of each of the four armies who were nominated from the players as the best and of course the one who got the best army award. See all of that in the report coming below along with videos, photos and the usual "comments".

Hotel Stratos Vassilikos was home for the first Independent club tournament, a remarkable place for the tournament that will be visited again on the next one.

First, lets see the pairs for the second round.

As the players take their place on the tables the Invulnerable camera starts shooting, lets see what the lens captured in the second round.

We will miss our flight!!!! press da red button! run over dat thing!

Aris Silogidis from Battle Bunker and Judge of the tournament stares into the future... and see even more tournaments.

Kostyuk Alex is either enjoying the event or is optimistic about his second round game, or both.

Guardsmen! get behind the Chimera, its armored might will protect us from what the Xeno filth will use against us, even better - you won't be able to see the Xeno filth and run away from terror.

Vasilis Apostolopoulos with his Blood Angels (2 Land raiders and 3 Predators with autocannon and Lascannon sponsons - a list that screams effectiveness) meets Stefanos Kapetanakis and his Tyranids, both players members of ETC team Greece 2011, Stefanos commented that it is like fighting against his brother, obviously commenting the bond the players who participated in the ETC tournament got.

Chaos Land raider is smart: it sends its smaller counterpart to check if the weird looking ruin is mined.

A parade of ork vehicles, first go the big ones and the other follow exactly behind them and in quite good order, not too much Orkish but its good enough to help the war trucks survive...

A photographer from Kathimerini was also on the tournament, here he is taking even more photos of the models and the players.

Dimitris Vlahos (left) and his daemons are puzzled since he has to be careful with his deep strike against Sfantos Dimitris Imperial guard. Too close and they might end up right in the heads of the guardsmen and on a probable mishap, too far away and they will get late into the melee and give even more time to the humans to shoot at them.

Arion and his Grey knights have to battle the Tyranid hordes this time, led by Konstantinos Lekkas - the Chronomancer. the Grey Knights have taken up defensive positions in the edges of a cliff while the Tyranids start their attack from the opposite hill right in the other side of the battlefield.

Lazidis Thanasis and his Space Marines try to hold the airfield from the Orks of Dimitris Maniatis

The Dark Eldar of Leonidas Fragkos wage war against the Tau, judging from the position of his raiders and from the fact that he is fighting against Tau who are known for gunlines Leonidas is on the start of yet another full out charge.

Anestis Potouridis with Space Wolves faces Hatzopoulos Yiannis with Blood Angels, In the starting moments of their game one of the Blood Angels vehicles have moved quite close to the space wolves.

Grey knights: And you're going to pull the monolith from the ground?
Nope, just the gem in its top, we have to think of our pension times...

The terminators turn their backs on the Killa-kans, they are not worthy for them! It takes more than a couple tons of metal armor to be equal to a terminator with a thunder hammer and a storm shield.

I'm telling you! this tomb is actually an entrance to those old Hero Quest dungeons! (see the statue with the battle axe)

Manolis in the organizers office (table) where Nikos kept scores and results, they even brought a printer to print the results right away.

I was also presented with space on a table to setup my equipment, as is usually the case with other tournaments too, the report required that the cameras should transfer videos and photos to the laptop so that their storage wouldn't fill, that was made possible with a memory card reader, it was also a nice place during the tournament to keep the equipment there and regularly recharge their batteries.

If you are also thinking of making tournament reports like the Invulnerable, organizing your stuff and assets is one of the most important things.

One of the Stormravens will handle the Termagants (lucky stormraven) the other Stormraven will handle the Trygon (ambitious Stormraven)

See Boss, i told ya! they don't have a clue about the rules!

Aris: "And those players are vile people seeking the demise of the world starting from our tourney...

Hideous Snake like daemon avoids the grey dice that is anathema to him!

Here is one of the most veteran warhammer 40k players, Chris Paliogiorgos who used to play with Orks back in Rogue trader and 2nd edition. Chris actually played on a card game tournament that was happening on the same time in tables right beside the Independent club tournament.

"oh there is a big ork Nob! hoooowwww cuuuteee!!!"

1.4 official update version of the rules, handy for the judges and most of the times needed, warhammer rules start to look like versions of Microsoft windows, they constantly get updated and they constantly lag somewhere.

Hive guards take point behind the hill as the queen-bee-like Tervigon readies the reinforcements.

Gargoyles: its mine! no it is mine! the land raider is mine! i saw it first! get away from my food!



Hive tyrant: No, it is mine, anyone say otherwise?

Walk softly, and carry a big gun - for the greater good...

Because you won't see anywhere else except from Warhammer 40k a gunship jet support cavalry charges.




The players who their armies were nominated as the four best painted one were called to bring their armies on two tables for the voting of the best painted army.

Kostas Synodinos, a known miniature painter who's work has even been shown on the official GW website missed the Golden Daemon competition but was here to see the best painted army competition of the Independent club tournament, Kostas made comments about the armies presented:

Kostas: All four of the armies are brilliant and each has its own character but i think that the most impressive army as viewed from a distance are the Daemons, the Tyranids have amazing conversions but the most detailed are the Space Wolves, the Dark Eldar are also very nice.

And here they are, best painted armies are not based only on how good the models look as individuals but how good image the army gives as a whole.

The Chaos Daemons of Vrachiolidis Marios got also nominated as one of the four best painted armies. Chaos Daemons are ideal for amazing paintjobs.

Anestis Potouridis and his space wolves with multiple armored personnel carriers like Rhinos and Razorbacks was also nominated as one of the best looking armies on the tournament.




But while all four armies were indeed a sight to see Stefanos Kapetanakis Tyranid horde won the best painted army award.



So much for the applause of the tervigon, lets give birth to some termagants for celebrations, and for Stefanos to paint!, Congratulations Stefanos!.

Some videos from the second round can be found here, the first video is an interview with organizer Tasos Grigoriadis about the second round.

And some footage from the second round.

And the results are...

After the second round we have seven players with two victories, all possible winners of the tournament, among them Arion with his Grey knights is no surprise to be with two victories, Fragkos Leonidas and Kapetanakis Stefanos are two players with ETC experience and are also in the top along with Hatzopoulos Yiannis with his Blood Angels, Ntikson Thodoris, Lazidis Thanasis and Yaggos Ioannis with Imperial guard. Among the seven players who will go for first place in the third round there are two players who have the same army: Grey knights.

Now if you're not done enough reading and viewing videos you might be interested in the following...

While the tournament round was raging on i had this small encounter with Georgia Lemou, the Journalist from the Kathimerini newspaper i was telling you about in the start of the report. Lets see what she had to say about the event.

Invulnerable Reporter (I.R): What do you think of all this?

Georgia Lemou (G.L) : All those things look extraterrestrial to me, completely.

I.R: it's a game that looks more like an advancement from chess.

G.L: If you see it that way yes, its more like chess, its a game that require strategy and brains, but if you see it ideologically - if you read the notorious "fluff" (yes she even mentioned the word: fluff!) you will discover that there is a world in it. And why this world has to be evil, disfigured and problematic? So far wars have been raged only by humans and there are wars who are justified and wars who haven't been justified, or an alliance of nations who go and wage war because of their perception of justice. In this story there isn't such a thing.

I.R: Everyone in this story has his version of right.

G.L: I don't know if there is a issue for right here, or anger.

IR: It's a racial war between the various races of the game, its more like Cortez exterminating the Mayans (and the Mayans fighting back in this case). Who you fight as a race in warhammer is totally alien to you (most of the time). They usually do not have political or cultural differences (there is no time for it).

GL: There is some cultural difference in this war, the Spanish waged war on the Mayans to get their gold and transfer it back to their king while the Mayans conceived treasure differently, in the case that you mention there is racist issue that is even more intolerable.

I.R: Yet it is presented on a game, look the situation on the Warhammer world is so bad that it turns out to be ridiculous. the bad guys in this story - actually everyone is bad in this world - are so bad that turn out to be more like cartoons...

G.L: ...Caricatures, from wherever they might be?

I.R: For example, humanity in this game, is so evil - that is unacceptable to us.

G.L: Its a bit idiotic (referring to humanity on the wh40k world) for example someone mentioned that the marine prays four times a day and has only 15 minuets of free time in 24 hours. How do you explain that?.

IR: they just present such information for the enjoyment of the fans. In the history of the game the space marine is so much an evolved human that seases to be human anymore.

G.L: You are using positive words for something that is completely negative, someone told me that the space marine is more like a war machine, whats good on a human turned into a war machine?

I.R: they are evolved in regards to their biology, obviously they are not better as humans, mutants would be a far better title for their condition.


Our conversation continued about collecting the miniatures and their cost, someone mentioned to Miss Lemou that he would have got a very good car if he had not bought all the miniatures he has, that led me to ask her how she sees spending all this money for miniatures:

G.L: I am not troubled by this, it is a different choice to them - instead of meeting up every weekend and go for "bouzoukia" they meet and get to play their favorite game, its far more healthy and humane to spend your money to a social game even if this game in some of its ethics has its "bad turns" (μπάζει) than to go and spend your money to night clubs.

Our chat led to talks about my choice of an army, i told her i got Blood Angels and when she asked me why i chose them i told her that because they are red, interestingly enough she told me that i could have bought any army and paint it red - as i told her another reason was that the first thing i ever bought about warhammer was the second edition main box and that came with a lot of Blood Angels.


I liked the small chat i had with Georgia, i think we need more of the media to turn their attention to our hobby that i believe will ultimately bring even more people into it.

With this the report for the second round ends, see the third part soon for even more photos and footage and a special surprise of costume players that stormed the event. Take care until then and have fun.

For the Invulnerable.

Panayiotis.