Events
NWG Tournament 2010
Aug 19th
The 2010 North Wexford Gamers tournament takes place on the weekend of October 9th/10th in the Ashdown Park Hotel in Gorey. This is a combined Fantasy and 40k event and both events will rank. There is also a free pub quiz on Saturday night and a non-competitive side event for newer players. Add in buckets of fun, great prizes and a fantastic crowd and it will be one of the best events in 2010!
Full details are available on the forum including attendee list and details on how to enter.
Tournament basics:
- Date – 9/10th October
Location – Ashdown Park Hotel, Gorey
Ranking – Yes
Cost – €30
Rounds – five; three on Saturday and two on Sunday
Friendly (non scoring) table quiz on Saturday night
Other – no grudge games, but if you submit a club name we will keep club players apart in the first round
40k basics:
- Points – 1750 points
Painting – 3 colours minimum
Scoring – 5 game rounds with 20 point available in each, 10 points for presubmission of list and 10 points for painting
Forgeworld – allowed, with some restrictions (no super heavy vehicles, gargantuan monsters or D weapons)
Composition restrictions – none except noted above with regard to FW.
8 places available in a non-competitive side event
Fantasy basics:
- Points – 2500 points
Painting – 10 points available for painting
Scoring – 5 game rounds with 20 points available in each, 10 points for presubmission of list and 10 points for painting
Composition Restrictions – No named/special characters and lists will be subject to NigelComp. Note that you must declare magic lores on your list and lists must be submitted by September 30th via e-mail to my address above.
8 places available in a non-competitve side event
I’m taking entries now for both tournaments.
Retcon 2011
Aug 19th
Retcon 2011 will take place in the UCD Student Centre on the 26th/27th of March.
The 40k event is a two day, 1750 point event and the Fantasy event is a one day event on the 26th.
Conclave presents October Tournament 2010
Aug 16th
The event will take place in Limerick at the Castletroy Park Hote on Saturday the 30th and Sunday the 31st of October.
Entry €20 http://www.castletroy-park.ie/
Warhammer 40K 5 rounds over 2 days 1750 points. (Ranked)
Warhammer Fantasy Battle 5 rounds over two days 2500 points. (Ranked)
Apocalypse & Storm of Chaos (non com)
Battletech Nationals the main 3 round tournament will take place on Saturday,
followed by the Solaris Design Your Own Mech Grand Melee on Sunday.
Rules packs to follow.
Contact The Gathering Gaming Store on 061-315133
Compensating for Something
Aug 12th
So there’s a new edition of Warhammer out (you noticed huh?) and there’s a lot of discussion about how the game will change as a result. This is of particular interest to a tiny sub-group of the Greater Warhammer Community – tournament organisers. These foolhardy brave souls have spent the last four years carefully tuning the house rules for their tournaments to provide what they consider to be the fairest and most even playing field possible. Underperforming armies have been buffed, strong builds have been neutered and cheese has been defromaged. And now, at the stroke of Matt Ward’s pen, all of that accumulated knowledge is obsolete. These sets of house-rules are known to tournament goers as ‘Compensation’ or, more commonly ‘comp’. Generally they seek to limit what are seen as the most overpowered combinations and sometimes to throw a bone to players who bring along an army considered to be uncompetitive. Most common comp restrictions include a ban on special characters or limits on certain magic item combos. If you’ve been to an independent tournament, I’m sure you’ve seen these rules in action.
I’m not going to get into the argument about whether comp is or should be necessary, almost all of the tournaments I go to are comped and it’s rare to find a zero-comp event outside of the official GW Grand Tournaments. Rather I’m going to talk about the scramble to re-evaluate comp in the wake of the 8th edition release.
Right now, most players are still using 7th edition armies. By this I mean that not only are they using an army book designed for 7th edition balance, but that in general, most lists I’ve seen in 8th have been the same lists that they’d have brought along to a 7th ed battle except that they might have combined some units into one or two really big blocks to have a go with the Horde rule. The army book issue is one that isn’t going to be solved in a hurry. The .pdf updates bring the rules into line with the new edition but the internal balance is still using 7th edition design assumptions (Fear is really good, US5+ monsters break ranks and so forth). Eventually the army books will be rewritten but this is obviously something that will take a while at GW’s normal rate of 3-4 army books a year. Some armies will still have 7th ed books several years from now. Lists on the other hand are far more reactive. Those people who are playing a lot of WFB (sadly this doesn’t include me) are experimenting with new setups, trying out new combinations and giving a new shake of the stick to units that they had previously left on the shelf. Old favourites are being tested in this crucible and their efficiency re-evaluated.
All of this is not an exact science. We are playing a game that is inherently random, where judgement and circumstance play a major role. We can calculate the mathematical odds of various events but these simple simulations are rarely to be found on the actual battlefield, our live games provide more variables than we can reliably account for in the theory stage. Even at this early stage some things seem to be evident; most people agree that magic is particularly powerful now, more so than in 7th. Oh, wait! Except when it bites you back and of course a lot of things that made 7th edition magic powerful have been scaled back – no more 15 dice magic pools or multiples of the same spell in an army. So, is magic ‘better’ now than it was? If spells are better but the magic mechanics are more limited how does that affect the overall picture?
Archery is another example. Previously shooting was effective because it was a reliable way to kill guys before they got to you. If you knew what army you were up against, you could reasonably accurately predict the number of dead guys they’d suffer per round of shooting. You could be assured of two rounds of shooting and probably three before your missile units would be in combat. Now it’s possible to only have one round, especially if you are playing one of the scenarios that start the two armies very close together. Even with the standard ‘line up twenty-four inches apart and run forwards’ pitched battle it’s possible even for infantry to cover that distance in two turns. So are gunline armies now worthless? Well, again there are a lot of variables to take into account. The new rules recommend a lot more terrain than previously but line of sight rules have changed to be more forgiving to the shooting unit. This is an area where the rules as a whole (including scenarios, random terrain and many of the other aspects that generally get ignored for tournament play) need to be considered and weighed up.
Right now I see a lot of discussion on comp which is entirely right, I’m also seeing a lot of comp systems based on initial impressions of the new rules which I believe is wrong. Too much has changed in this new edition to simply slap on a new coat of paint and call it balanced. The more tournaments that are held in this post-release period with heavy comp, the less we will learn about the new rules in a competitive environment. It’s important that we now only get a grip on the new rules but also get a grip on new lists and it’s not possible to do that if every tournament is using a different set of rules. This will necessarily require something of a leap of faith from tournament organisers, they will after all be giving up a lot of control however they, like the rest of us are looking into the unknown and everyone has to learn the system anew,
Gaelcon 2010
Aug 11th
Gaelcon 2010 takes place in the D4 Hotel, Ballsbridge on October 22nd-25th. Included in this weekend of gaming is a Warhammer Fantasy Battle tournament and a Warhammer 40k tournament. Both of these events are six round affairs, with Fantasy using 2500 points and 40k using 1750 points.The rulespacks are available here - http://w-ired.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=733
European Team Championship 2010
Aug 4th
This is the big one. The best players from over thirty countries representing their nation and playing for the honour of the best Warhammer Fantasy country and the best Warhammer 40k country. For many, this is the pinnacle of gaming. Playing for your country as part of a team in a foreign land…gaming doesn’t get much more fun or at a higher standard than this.
Team Ireland WHFB are attending for the second year in succession, with Team Ireland 40k making their debut. Northern Ireland are also represented by teams for both systems. The Irish 40k team have set the bar high, by winning the 2010 Six Nations event in Cardiff – beating England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Barbarians along the way. They have to be considered one of the contenders for the overall title, but the competition will be tougher in Germany. Team WHFB finished last in the 2009 Four Nations, last in the 2009 ETC and last in the 2010 Six Nations. However, they are optimistic that they can break this run in Germany.
Qualification for the Irish 40k team began in autumn 2009 when I entered a team in the competition. All I needed now was, well, a team. I approached as many people as I knew and, taking advice on board, approached four clubs to ask them to each put forward one player who would be automatically on the team – earning a “golden ticket”. Immediately, I asked the four “golden tickets” to commit to being part of Team Ireland 40k and to vote on a captain. The reason I chose four was to ensure that we had a team. Under ETC rules, you need four players from one country to make a team (the other four could be ringers). I chose four from different clubs for inclusivity. The remaining four would be chosen from the rankings system that I set up (based on the international RHQ system). So, way back in the depths of 2009 Paul was voted in as team captain and I took my leave – just helping with the rankings, advising and so on.
Later in 2009, Declan withdrew and appointed Stuart from the Drogs in his place. The team were happy enough with this. Unfortunately, Stuart asked to be removed from the team a couple of months ago. There appeared to be no Drog to take his place, leaving the team in a bit of a sticky patch. The three remaining “golden tickets” agreed to try sort this asap and Richard Flood was brought on board.
The Irish Warhammer 40k team is Paul Quigley (Captain), Joe Cullen, Jimmy Murphy, Richard Flood, Darragh Cullen, Paraic O’Confhaola, Cian O’Dowd and Barra Macniocaill.
The Irish Warhammer team was chosen as follows. I automatically qualified as I was voted Team Captain 2010 by the 2009 team. Mal Cooney automatically qualified as Vice-Captain as he was the 2009 captain. Brian Leonard, Alan Woods-Conway and Ciarán Dunne qualified by being part of the 2009 team and finishing in the top eight of the rankings. Dave Leahy and Ken Chambers qualified directly through the rankings and Halaigh Whelan-McManus qualified as the wild-card, voted on by the seven players.
Regardless, everyone is looking forward to competing in Munster, and we hope that we can continue the development and progression of wargaming in Ireland!
Title: The European Team Championships
Location: Munster, Germany
Discuss on our Forum: Click here
Description: The international team event for Warhammer and Warhammer 40k.
Date: 7/8th August 2010
Start Time: 9am
End Time: 6pm
Brocon 40K
Jul 25th
If it ain’t Brocon…
…and other such bad jokes.
I took a trip to Limerick for the Sunday 40K event. The event itself was a fairly straightforward 1750 3 round winner takes all rules pack. The use of the ETC style scoring was a little novel. It worked well on the day even though I’m a lazy gamer who hates having to tot up Victory Points every game. That was one of my favourite changes in 5th ed and my lazy ass reserves the right to grumble over a perfectly functional thing that doesn’t seem to bother anyone else.
On arrival I was handed a rather fetching high-visibility vest. Jay interpreted my raised eyebrow as a request for further information. Apparently I had a bounty on my head for the weekend. “Why? ” I imagine you saying. Well I’m part of the Irish 40K ETC team, and as Brocon is the last event before the team heads out to Germany it was decided it would be “good training” to incentivize our opponents to beat us. So we were all wearing hi-viz vests. Nice. Spoiler alert – I didn’t lose 
GAME 1
So I took my ETC Ork list and the first game was against another ETC member – Joe “I’m a lasher” Cullen.
Last time I faced Joe was at Warpcon so the rematch was going to be interesting. Both lists had changed significantly: 1500 pts to 1750 and crutch to crutchless for me. Joe however had dropped a single lash crutch, I mean “Prince” and replaced it with a zimmer frame made out of 2 Land Raiders and all the Obliterators he could scrape up. We had a spearhead 3 objective game that had lots of deathrollering, powerclawing and lashing.
The last few turns it almost became 3 separate battles. On the right my Boyz in a Trukk were paying keep away or die with a squad of Terminators. In the centre it was Battlewagons and Trukks vs Terminators and Prince and on the left my Biker Nobs and the Warboss were asking the Marines in the immobile Land Raider if they’d seen an objective around here.
The game ended with an objective draw and I swung the all important moral victory on the VP/malus.
GAME 2
So game 2 rolled around and I faced off against Gary. Playing one of the unicorns of 40K tournaments, Necrons.
So it was the good old draw mission with one objective each. Going first I did the Orky thing and setup on the 12″ line and waited for the fight to begin.
He deployed with 3 Warrior squads in the centre behind Nightbringer with 2 units of 4 Destroyers on my right flank and 2 units of 4 heavy Destroyers and some Scarabs on my left flank.
Turn one I rolled everything forward and took a few pot shots with Big Shootas and suchlike. The Nob mob boosted up on the left flank .
His turn one he came a bit forward with the Destroyers on my right and Nightbringer in the centre. His shooting destroyed one of the Battlewagons. Those lads got the fun job of holding my objective while their pals went and had some fun. He also took out the Looted wagon. I guess Necrons don’t like things with AP3 blasts.
Turn 2 was funny from my side as everything in my army zipped past the big scary godmonster and kicked the electronics out of his minions. There were cries of “BRB – LOL!” from the Boys in the Battle Wagon as they went rumbling past. One Ork wagghh later and there were a lot less necrons on the board. All the Warrior squads were after breaking but not running far enough to be outside of 6″ of my troops. The scarabs were gone as was one of the Destroyer units. The destroyer unit that was left had it’s hands full of orks.
At the start of Gary’s turn his three Warrior squads ran off the board and he conceded defeat. On the plus side he got a spot prize later for the quickest defeat. I felt a little bad until he told me he’d taken 10th at the GT with Necrons and was already hatching cunning plans for revenge, mainly centred around not letting me get within choppa range of his army ever again.
GAME 3
So good news I’d won a game . Bad news I was facing another ETC army. Darragh’s Sisters of Battle. Really horrible news, it was killpoints. My army has more killpoints than facebook friends.
The details of the game are a bit hazy at this point. There were epic charges and heroic Deathrolla attacks followed by cowardly shooting of flamers and melta weapons. The Deffcopter decided to take a spin around and check out the scenery before turning up and killing Inquisitors and Sisters of Battle and making a real nuisance of itself.
My highlight was rolling over one of Darraghs transports and laughing manically at the expression on his face as he searched the rule book to find something to save the girls inside from also being rolled into mush. As it turns out a meltabomb in the tailpipe works very effectively at stopping Battlewagons.
The game ended with neither of us able to say who’d won until the KP’s were counted up. I’d swung it 12-9 with a 200ish VP difference to get me a 15-5 win.
So overall I snagged 4th place. Critically preserving my dubious slagging rights by piping Joe for by 1 point.
The presentations went well with 4 of the top 5 players being in the ETC team. Tristram managing to sneak into 1st place when no one was watching.
Paul as ETC captain took a minute to promote the team and explain to the lads from Galway that Cork and Donegal are not actually part of Dublin. Who knew he was that good at geography being from within the pale himself. The ritual humiliation of the ETC players who lost a game completed he let Jay hand out some prizes. Congratulations to the people who got one. What’s so special about 3? 4 is a much nicer number to include. It’s even and we all know even is another word for fair…….
So a big thank you to Jay for a great set of games. It deserves a mention that Jay managed to beg and borrow the terrain from several sources mainly Ronan Murphy, Gary and WAC. Proof that gamers can actually cooperate.
Final rankings from RHQ
1. Tristram Hills, Imperial Guard
2. Richard Flood, Space Marines
3. Paul Quigley, Dark Eldar
4. Jimmy Murphy, Orks
5. Joseph Cullen, Chaos Space Marines
6. Ralph Risk, Black Templars
7. Mervyn Murphy, Space Wolves
8. Michael Tangney, Eldar
9. Nick Meade, Space Wolves
10.Michael Foreman, Space Wolves
11. Darragh Cullen ,Witch Hunters
12. Luke Osbourne ,Space Wolves
13. Rowan McLaughlin, Space Wolves
14. Andy Farrell, Space Marines
15. James Barrett, Daemons Of Chaos
16. Pearce Condren, Blood Angels
17. Gary Griffin, Necrons
18. Keiran Waters, Space Wolves
19. Barra Macniocaill, Blood Angels
20. Eugene O’Gorman, Imperial Guard
21. Padraic o’Confhaola, Tyranids
22. Sean Nee, Blood Angels
23. Frank O’Donnell, Space Marines
24. Philip Johnston, Imperial Guard
25. Gearoid Madden, Space Wolves
26. Donal Cooney, Orks
27. Jason Lane
28. Patrick Bourke, Blood Angels
29. Darren Kerwick, Space Wolves
30. Michael Murphy, Tau
31. Ruairi McGovern, Orks
32. Jonny O’Driscoll, Space Marines
33. Robert Brennan, Imperial Guard
34. Alex Storey, Tau
35. Rob Martin, Space Marines
36. Donnacha O’Mahony, Space Marines
Warmachine/Hordes Tournament – August 28th
Jul 17th
Ciaran Bolger will be running a Warmachine and Hordes tournament on the Saturday the 28th of August in Gamers World. This is a chance for you to get your MkII armies out and show what your made of. The Steamroller 2010 tournament format features a lot of challenging scenarios, giving you a chance to really stretch your tactical muscles!
Entry into the tournament will be 10 Euro.
The tournament is set at 35 points and will follow the Revised 2010 Steamroller format [PDF].
Title: Warmachine/Hordes Tournament
Location: Gamers World, Dublin
Discuss on our Forum: Click here
Description: 35pt Revised 2010 Steamroller format
Date: 28th August
Start Time: 11am
End Time: 7pm
BroCon 2010
Jul 13th
BroCon 2010 is the second ranking event being held in Limerick in a week. This time, the University of Limerick is playing host to both Warhammer and Warhammer 40k tournaments. Cleverly, the organisers have arranged that the WHFB takes place on the Saturday and the WH40k on the Sunday meaning that dedicated players can attend both events.
The Warhammer tournament is a 1500 point four round affair and is likely to generate quite a few rankings points. The rulespack is seventh edition, but with lots of restrictions to level the playing field. This should be a very interesting event, with 1500 points not a common points level.
For WH40k, the tournament is a three round 1750 event that uses three different scenarios and a scoring system very similar to the ETC.
A quick scan of the names attending the events throws up a veritable “who’s who” from the rankings. Some of the very best players will be attending this event from both systems, so pride will be on the line along with the rankings scores.
I hope to see you all there!
Title: BroCon 2010
Location: UL, Limerick
Discuss on our Forum: Click here
Description: BroCon 2010 is a WHFB (1500 point) and WH40k (1750 point) tournament
Date: 17th/18th July
Start Time: 9am
End Time: 6pm
