8-10-2011, taking the train to Kifisia.

Someone could say that the blog so far haven't visited every single place where a tournament in Greece can be held, this is true as in its short life of 4-5 months the Invulnerable mostly has covered events in the Fantasy shops of Kalithea and Victoria and the Games Corps in Halandi that started its activity right on the same month as this blog has gone online.

Mostly this was the reason (to start covering tournaments somewhere else too) why i choose to take the train to the north part of our city all the way to Kifisia in a boring 47 minuets (counted with stopwatch) journey to reach the shop in time.

Another reason for going to the tournament was that i was planning to play in this tournament too, packaging your army and photographic equipment can be tricky and the SLR camera got cramped together with the Stormraven and the infantry with the IC recorder, i run out of space (and hands) for the video camera and the tripod so i couldn't record any video for this tournament (and you were cooking popcorn already huh?).

Someone told me a day before that i should bring my army too in case not too many players were to come and i was actually waiting for quite a few gamers to arrive too because of the distance the shop has to the city center, when i arrived on the mall where the Fantasy Shop is i found only the Overmind, Takis Valeontis who would be also the Judge for the tournament was there.

1-10-2011 Back to Victoria

It was nice getting back to Fantasy Shop Victoria for a tournament, it isn't just the fact that i have connected as a player the meaning of Warhammer 40.000 with the Fantasy shop in Victoria (we old players know why this place is important to the hobby) but it is also the fact that many of my old time wh40k friends are still there, including the hideous Tyranid-thing that so far masks itself as a human being and organizer of many tournaments, i am speaking about Takis Valeontis if you haven't guessed already - the Overmind.

This time the Fantasy shop announced the start of a ranking system for the players that take part in their tournaments, the players will keep their scores from every tournament that they will participate in and we will have a more general view of the players level and ability, the Invulnerable blog will follow closely the scores as they will be posted on a separate page on the blog that can be found here:

http://invulnerable40k.blogspot.com/p/fantasy-shop-ranking.html

With all that in mind i woke up quite late to get to the tournament, the first thing i did was call the Overmind and ask him to what round they were still in, he answered that the players were just finishing the first round and to my question of how many players were there the answer were twelve, i quickly grabbed my SLR and the video camera and headed as quickly as i could to the tournament!.

Voice of the Servo Skull - 01

What the Servo Skull says, no comment.

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

The last round of the tournament started and the place was half full of players since almost everyone went outside for a snack, drink, burger or all three of that. A little bit afterwards we got back into the hotel and for the one last round that would reveal the best player in both gaming and sportsmanship.


The third mission was Annihilation and the deployment was Spearhead, with the armies deploying with their flanks covered by the edges of the battlefield players were able to defend their weaker units better and bring forward their more tough units.

So lets see the pairs on the third round.

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".

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

Usually shops run tournaments and events, the reason is quite obvious, a shop who sells warhammer and miniature wargames usually makes sure that it will have some tables and sometimes quite a lot of tables for the players who get to the shop to be able to play the games they buy from the shop, its a very understandable and successful method to satisfy the players need for gaming space and also promote the hobby.

What was different with this tournament is that it was held from independent clubs and not from a shop, while it isn't so rare for an independent club to run a miniature wargames tournament it isn't the most common thing, what is really an important thing here is that player clubs as Espairos (ΕΣΠΑΙΡΟΣ) and Battle bunker - the two clubs that organized the event are motivated completely by their love for the games, this the players know and they are attracted from it - hence the latest tournament attracted no less than 36 players and many people who just came to see the games making it one of the biggest ever tournaments to take place in Greece.

Espairos, one of the two hosting clubs for the tournament is an official gaming club for role playing games, boardgames and miniature wargames, they have their own gaming hall with multiple rooms ready for gaming. Espairos is the one of the oldest gaming clubs in Greece and in ten years of activity has housed more than three hundred souls that share the same passion for gaming. You can find their forum and community in the following website.

http://www.espairos.gr/portal/