Last weekend we went to Halandri again for a doubles tournament, this time i had the privilege of playing with my friend Antonis - Azrael and also a Failed Chargers team player. Βecause of me playing too on the tournament i didn't had the time to take many photos or cover the event as much as the last one (in the last one i took almost seven hundredth photos (battery of my Olympus E520 almost run dry) and notes about every player and match!).
In this doubles tournament eight teams or pairs - answered the call to arms, that is 16 players, including the shop owner!, lets see who those 16 players and their teams were.
Team Helix with Stefanos - lord Limenix (left) and Dimitris - Hellspawn (right) in the center Giorgos - Metaller their team mate and captain in their Guild wars team "To sfiri tou merakli" poses with his friends.
Olympiakos Volou team! (didn't knew Olympiakos Volou had also a warhammer team!) with both players using blood angels it's no secret anymore why some fans of the Olympiakos volou team are subject to "Rage" as are also many fans of football teams.
Void corsairs team with Kostas and Dimitris.Silent and serious looking, like proper Dark Eldar.
Manolis - also captain of the team Taratatzoum! gives the finger to his team mate Panayiotis. Giving the finger to a fellow team member is a form of ritual for good luck before a tournament between the players of the newly formed Taratatzoum team.
The Failed Chargers team (no kiddin' check the t-shirt!) consists of Azrael (left) and his grey knights and Markador (right) with Blood Angels.
Tempest wrath team consists of young player Ploutarhos (left) who uses Orks and Dimitris (right) with Space Wolves.
Hypnotoads team, is too serious in front of the camera. Hypnotoads are John Parks (left) also owner of the Games Corps and Odysseas - Khorne, both players using Imperial guard, Odysseas is fielding a more ground oriented force while John uses the imperial guard Air force, lots of Vendetta aircraft and vulture gunships.
Arion and Dimitris from Battle bunker also came to the tournament, Arion has already won every tournament that he participated in Games Corps so far (please someone stop him - voices from far away...), Dimitris brought his Blood Angels (hence the box he carries) and Arion brought his Grey knights, grey t-shirt and a nice attitude!
Now lets see some photos from the tournament.
Yes honey... i have in front of me the guy who will probably... win this tournament too, what do you want to say to him?
There is a Vendetta pointing at me!
Failed Chargers Blood angels army for this tournament, Failed again but never beaten!, note the disrespectful techmarine that poses in front of Mephiston.
I think that some buildings in Hiroshima had more "interior" than this one.
The Leman russ follow the Land raider to the right, the Chimera goes alone to the left, guess who is the bravest guardsman tank driver now.
Don't worry Knights! we have them! they can't possibly fire all those guns at our unit alone! they must have some other targets, or do they?
Some more knights smarter than the other fellows take cover behind this building.
Hey guys, shouldn't we get... behind the cover and not standing on top of it?
Note the Medusa conversions on the left, and the daredevils guardsmen unit who deployed half an inch away from the gruesome miniature death that is dropping from the edge of the table.
An imperial guard player is ready to roll dice: Commence firing!!!
Vendetta gunships arrive by outflank and deploy veteran guardsmen armed with a-lot of meltaguns. Quite an usual sight.
People too anxious to use a stormraven build their own versions of it, this one by far right now is the best converted stormraven.
There's another picture of it...
And when someone stops looking how beautiful the stormraven is and starts shooting at it only its base remains and its deadly cargo of death company marines!
Task force mechanized blood angels sit on the far side of this terrain piece, right in front of one of the objectives, the knights in our right side are hammered by the shooting of our opponents.
The Blood Angels retaliate in a shooting phase and take out both the stormraven and the land raider with a lucky laser cannon shot, instantly the game turns in a stalemate when Mordrak drops behinds the enemy lines and draws the death company near them, while the devastators unleash missile fire on the assault marines. With only two troops units, the knights and the terminators held back to secure their objectives all we had to do was stall the assault marines attack enough for a draw.
Our opponents vindicare assassin's rifle took out or land raider too, the marines attempted to hold the objective on the corner of the terrain (the euro coin was the objective - lately euro coins are the objective of many people).
With 2 objectives secured for our side and 2 objectives secured for Arion and Dimitris, Mephiston (hidden - as usual behind cover) tries to be within assault range of the opponent lines, the death company after finishing off Mordrak and the ghost knights run towards a razorback that moves them as far away as possible.
But they finally got it after it got immobilized. tough luck!, they covered all the distance to our second objective later and made sure that our assault marines couldn't take it - although they tried in another dramatic assault!.
With our side holding only one objective Mephiston attempted to eliminate an assault squad, a librarian and a sanguinary priest - he did actually - but not soon enough so that he could fly and contest another objective from the grey knights. In a good move Arion led his grey knight terminators to secure our last objective and take victory for his side.
Those terminators eliminated some remaining grey knights fighting in our side even one holding a warding staff and took our objective too.
The green gun tower (or john) should play the role of air traffic controller, with so many aircraft on the table.
A drop pod carrying terminators can drop significantly your chances of victory.
Panayiotis and Manolis in the process of a game, each player in a corner of the battlefield.
Getting your space wolves to ally with Orks mean that you will get some holes into your land raider...
We had a short conversation with Dimitris and Arion while they were waiting their next game about the throne of skulls tournament, Dimitris has participated once in a Throne of Skulls tournament in England and once more in a Grand Tournament, i chose to take a small interview from Dimitris about it, let's see what he has to say.
Dimitris: The throne of skulls is a series of four tournaments that are organized from Games Workshop each year in England, other countries too organize Throne of Skulls too such as France and Germany and i think in Italy too, we don't have Throne of Skulls here.
Each tournament are five battles without victory points in a weekend, on the Saturday you play 3 games and on Sunday 2 games, on Friday, one day before the tournament there is also a small briefing for the players, it isn't mandatory and you don't have to go to the briefing.
Victory on a game is three points, draw is one point and defeat zero points, after all five games are given you are asked to vote one player you had as an opponent that you think was the better one regarding sportsmanship, if a player accumulates 3 votes as best sportsmanship player you gain 3 extra points, if you have 2 then you gain 2 points and if you have 1 you get 1 point - but this point everyone gets just because they were playing on the tournament. In the start of the tournament your first opponent is choosen randomly but as you go forward into the tournament based on your score you will play against players with the same ranking as yours.
Based on this point system the overall tournament winner is nominated plus the winner for each army separately (best space wolf player - example) plus the best painted army is also awarded.
IR: Points based - Throne of Skulls looks a lot like our point system we use here with the exception of the victory points and best player / army that is reasonable in a tournament like the Throne of Skulls with quite a lot of players, i can guess that over a hundredth players participate there, while it would be ridiculous to play with this ruling in a tournament here with - for example - only one participant with a particular army.
What is the difference from the tournaments here in Greece than the ones you have seen abroad?
Dimitris: the difference is tremendous, first of all there the fact that you will go to the tournament with a fully painted army, modeled correctly is a given, you can't play if you don't have that, second: the players that go there except some cases of players who are locals of Nottingham, are good players because someone will not start to go to a tournament from Greece, Scotland or anywhere else to make all this journey for nothing.
The tournament has changed a lot from its predecessor: the Grand Tournament because of the sportsmanship voting system, you want to be friendly to your opponent player because of that, for example the top player in the last Throne of Skulls took the first place because of his sportsmanship: he had 4 victories and 1 draw and because he gained the three extra points from Sportsmanship he ended above the second player who had five victories.
Last game of Arion and Dimitris was against the Dark Corsairs with their dark Eldar, Arion and Dimitris won in this tournament too, first place.
The tournament was held until quite late and some players left, the remaining ones posed in a group shot, lets hope that Arion wasn't thinking of attempting to see if the Vendetta gunship can actually fly!
And last but not least... the winning "fluff" of team Helix from Lord Limenix and Hellspawn.
The tournament encouraged players to write a small story why the two armies combined forces, Stefanos and Dimitris came up with this idea and it was nominated as the best, and i think the only. you can read it here and maybe come up with one of yours for the next doubles tournament.
We are waiting now for the next tournament that is coming this weekend that is organized by the Battle Bunker and Esperos gaming club in the hotel Stratos Vasilikos, you can expect that a big and thoughtful report is coming. Until then, have fun and take care!
For the Invulnerable
Panayiotis.
In this doubles tournament eight teams or pairs - answered the call to arms, that is 16 players, including the shop owner!, lets see who those 16 players and their teams were.
Team Helix with Stefanos - lord Limenix (left) and Dimitris - Hellspawn (right) in the center Giorgos - Metaller their team mate and captain in their Guild wars team "To sfiri tou merakli" poses with his friends.
Olympiakos Volou team! (didn't knew Olympiakos Volou had also a warhammer team!) with both players using blood angels it's no secret anymore why some fans of the Olympiakos volou team are subject to "Rage" as are also many fans of football teams.
Void corsairs team with Kostas and Dimitris.Silent and serious looking, like proper Dark Eldar.
Manolis - also captain of the team Taratatzoum! gives the finger to his team mate Panayiotis. Giving the finger to a fellow team member is a form of ritual for good luck before a tournament between the players of the newly formed Taratatzoum team.
The Failed Chargers team (no kiddin' check the t-shirt!) consists of Azrael (left) and his grey knights and Markador (right) with Blood Angels.
Tempest wrath team consists of young player Ploutarhos (left) who uses Orks and Dimitris (right) with Space Wolves.
Hypnotoads team, is too serious in front of the camera. Hypnotoads are John Parks (left) also owner of the Games Corps and Odysseas - Khorne, both players using Imperial guard, Odysseas is fielding a more ground oriented force while John uses the imperial guard Air force, lots of Vendetta aircraft and vulture gunships.
Arion and Dimitris from Battle bunker also came to the tournament, Arion has already won every tournament that he participated in Games Corps so far (please someone stop him - voices from far away...), Dimitris brought his Blood Angels (hence the box he carries) and Arion brought his Grey knights, grey t-shirt and a nice attitude!
Now lets see some photos from the tournament.
Yes honey... i have in front of me the guy who will probably... win this tournament too, what do you want to say to him?
There is a Vendetta pointing at me!
Failed Chargers Blood angels army for this tournament, Failed again but never beaten!, note the disrespectful techmarine that poses in front of Mephiston.
I think that some buildings in Hiroshima had more "interior" than this one.
The Leman russ follow the Land raider to the right, the Chimera goes alone to the left, guess who is the bravest guardsman tank driver now.
Don't worry Knights! we have them! they can't possibly fire all those guns at our unit alone! they must have some other targets, or do they?
Some more knights smarter than the other fellows take cover behind this building.
Hey guys, shouldn't we get... behind the cover and not standing on top of it?
Note the Medusa conversions on the left, and the daredevils guardsmen unit who deployed half an inch away from the gruesome miniature death that is dropping from the edge of the table.
An imperial guard player is ready to roll dice: Commence firing!!!
Vendetta gunships arrive by outflank and deploy veteran guardsmen armed with a-lot of meltaguns. Quite an usual sight.
People too anxious to use a stormraven build their own versions of it, this one by far right now is the best converted stormraven.
There's another picture of it...
And when someone stops looking how beautiful the stormraven is and starts shooting at it only its base remains and its deadly cargo of death company marines!
Our (we the Failed Chargers team!) game against Arion and Dimitris starts with some good shooting from their side taking out our vindicare assassin, knights and terminators protect their objectives while a stormraven carry death company marines and the land raider assault marines,
destined (or at least ordered) to capture our objectives.
Task force mechanized blood angels sit on the far side of this terrain piece, right in front of one of the objectives, the knights in our right side are hammered by the shooting of our opponents.
The Blood Angels retaliate in a shooting phase and take out both the stormraven and the land raider with a lucky laser cannon shot, instantly the game turns in a stalemate when Mordrak drops behinds the enemy lines and draws the death company near them, while the devastators unleash missile fire on the assault marines. With only two troops units, the knights and the terminators held back to secure their objectives all we had to do was stall the assault marines attack enough for a draw.
Our opponents vindicare assassin's rifle took out or land raider too, the marines attempted to hold the objective on the corner of the terrain (the euro coin was the objective - lately euro coins are the objective of many people).
With 2 objectives secured for our side and 2 objectives secured for Arion and Dimitris, Mephiston (hidden - as usual behind cover) tries to be within assault range of the opponent lines, the death company after finishing off Mordrak and the ghost knights run towards a razorback that moves them as far away as possible.
But they finally got it after it got immobilized. tough luck!, they covered all the distance to our second objective later and made sure that our assault marines couldn't take it - although they tried in another dramatic assault!.
With our side holding only one objective Mephiston attempted to eliminate an assault squad, a librarian and a sanguinary priest - he did actually - but not soon enough so that he could fly and contest another objective from the grey knights. In a good move Arion led his grey knight terminators to secure our last objective and take victory for his side.
Those terminators eliminated some remaining grey knights fighting in our side even one holding a warding staff and took our objective too.
The green gun tower (or john) should play the role of air traffic controller, with so many aircraft on the table.
A drop pod carrying terminators can drop significantly your chances of victory.
Panayiotis and Manolis in the process of a game, each player in a corner of the battlefield.
Manolis and Panayiotis played Space Wolves and Dark Eldar, i want to see what kind of alliance was that (excuse to field SW and DE together), in this photo the venom craft point their weapons on space wolves, was that a hint of the "strength" of their alliance?
Getting your space wolves to ally with Orks mean that you will get some holes into your land raider...
Dimitris: The throne of skulls is a series of four tournaments that are organized from Games Workshop each year in England, other countries too organize Throne of Skulls too such as France and Germany and i think in Italy too, we don't have Throne of Skulls here.
Each tournament are five battles without victory points in a weekend, on the Saturday you play 3 games and on Sunday 2 games, on Friday, one day before the tournament there is also a small briefing for the players, it isn't mandatory and you don't have to go to the briefing.
Victory on a game is three points, draw is one point and defeat zero points, after all five games are given you are asked to vote one player you had as an opponent that you think was the better one regarding sportsmanship, if a player accumulates 3 votes as best sportsmanship player you gain 3 extra points, if you have 2 then you gain 2 points and if you have 1 you get 1 point - but this point everyone gets just because they were playing on the tournament. In the start of the tournament your first opponent is choosen randomly but as you go forward into the tournament based on your score you will play against players with the same ranking as yours.
Based on this point system the overall tournament winner is nominated plus the winner for each army separately (best space wolf player - example) plus the best painted army is also awarded.
IR: Points based - Throne of Skulls looks a lot like our point system we use here with the exception of the victory points and best player / army that is reasonable in a tournament like the Throne of Skulls with quite a lot of players, i can guess that over a hundredth players participate there, while it would be ridiculous to play with this ruling in a tournament here with - for example - only one participant with a particular army.
What is the difference from the tournaments here in Greece than the ones you have seen abroad?
Dimitris: the difference is tremendous, first of all there the fact that you will go to the tournament with a fully painted army, modeled correctly is a given, you can't play if you don't have that, second: the players that go there except some cases of players who are locals of Nottingham, are good players because someone will not start to go to a tournament from Greece, Scotland or anywhere else to make all this journey for nothing.
The tournament has changed a lot from its predecessor: the Grand Tournament because of the sportsmanship voting system, you want to be friendly to your opponent player because of that, for example the top player in the last Throne of Skulls took the first place because of his sportsmanship: he had 4 victories and 1 draw and because he gained the three extra points from Sportsmanship he ended above the second player who had five victories.
Last game of Arion and Dimitris was against the Dark Corsairs with their dark Eldar, Arion and Dimitris won in this tournament too, first place.
The tournament was held until quite late and some players left, the remaining ones posed in a group shot, lets hope that Arion wasn't thinking of attempting to see if the Vendetta gunship can actually fly!
And last but not least... the winning "fluff" of team Helix from Lord Limenix and Hellspawn.
The tournament encouraged players to write a small story why the two armies combined forces, Stefanos and Dimitris came up with this idea and it was nominated as the best, and i think the only. you can read it here and maybe come up with one of yours for the next doubles tournament.
We are waiting now for the next tournament that is coming this weekend that is organized by the Battle Bunker and Esperos gaming club in the hotel Stratos Vasilikos, you can expect that a big and thoughtful report is coming. Until then, have fun and take care!
For the Invulnerable
Panayiotis.
Oi! Don't make fun of that terrain piece, I made it ages ago.
ReplyDeleteCool report mate, I'll see you on Sunday.
thank you Antipope, see you on Sunday too and good luck on the tournament.
ReplyDeleteSorry about being funny, apart from the fact that it is quite empty - its not a bad thing - its quite a nice big terrain piece. nice base too.
So what was the ranking?
ReplyDeleteI wasn't provided with a final ranking, apart from the fact that Arion and Dimitris were placed first and possibly Manolis and stathis plus the Dark corsairs were also placed high, 2nd and 3rd possition i guess.
ReplyDeleteGreat Report Markador.
ReplyDeleteAwesome pictures as always.
We had a lot of fun at the tournament
and we are training our forces to be ready for the next one.
IN THE NAME OF THE EMPEROR