Fri 23rd 2.15pm: John pulls up at mine (15min late!) and I bundle into the car and we head off to Nottingham, upon hearing of a crash on the M5 we take to the A roads to reach the M42, it's all going a bit to smoothly. Exit the M42 the directions from the route finder seem to be for a parralel universe as there's no roundabout in sight and the fun begins, finally through a bit of blind luck and guess work we find ourselves 6 miles from Nottingham where we grind to a halt in a queue of traffic.
Eventually entering the city we try again to decifer the route finder, when Johns eagle eyes spots we're right by Lenton Industrial park, a quick drive round, chat with a security guard for directions, double back and we arrive at Warhammer World!
Fri 23rd 6pm: We stumble out of the car and go straight up the stairs into Bugmans Bar for a refreshing pint (bottle) and meet up with old friends Tim my & Chris Stone, along with new friends Jim & Daryl. From here on out it got a bit messy, we went to hotel and after a quick change had some food and visited a few pubs, I had 3, yes count them 3 drinks the entire night (two bottles & a pint), though this did include a nice exchange by Mr harrisson who managed to swap a 3rd drunk bottle of Coors Light (worse than dish water) for a bottle of bud. The rest drank a bit more and we stumble to bed between 11-12.30.
Saturday Morning and Campaign day 1: My Liver rejects the choice of alchohol and responds my forcing it out of my body, the way it entered, a couple of offerings later and it's down for breakfast and then off to Warhammer world!
The campaign rules were explained to all by organisers Darren & Andy from Gripping Beast, who also very kindly lent me an army for the weekend. We were split into two factions, Vikings with Irish & Breton allies vs Saxons with their Norman allies, meaning I was on the opposite faction to John & Scott, each game was a scenario and along side the minor or major victory that could be won you also earned Glory Points by killing characters, capturing Standards and the enemies baggage. The most glorious people on bothe sides would gain additional units & characters for the final battle, the overall number of wins/losses per side would also result in a tactical advantage in the final battle.
Saturdays 3 games were great fun (despite 2 of my opponents cheating), I drew the first game but racked up 10 Glory points, the second was against John and his rock hard line of shield wall troops crumbled under the Viking might (he ran away from fear a lot!) and I racked up another 12 Glory Points. Third game was a minor loss, the objective was to take and hold two river crossings Survivng a hail of fire from a maxed out Norman list the draw was snatched from me when a failed panic meant I couldnt contest the second crossing, I did kill his general though and a further 7 Glory Points were mine.
Saturday was rounded off by a meal, some drinking (considerably more than friday night) and a visit to Rock City for some crazy dancing and Cowboy Hat antics.....good times.
Sunday Morning and its down for brekkie feeling as fresh as a new born lamb and no offerings either (go figure!).
First game and I'm drawn to play new friend Jim and it's a stright fight for Glory Points, after battering his army senseless the game draws to a end and I've lost!
Jim has 1 unit left on the board to face half my army but has sneaked away with 8 Glory points to my 4. This was mainly down to his Generals unit worth a whopping 12 Glory Points running away from my fear causing Generals mob and never rallying. So its time for the big show down and despite showering themselves in glory the Vikings are behind in victories giving the advantage to the Saxons (this gave them 2 special play cards to hand out among the generals, vikings got 1). The top placed Glory Point generals were awarded the King of the respective factions and the next two had there captains, each player was then assigned to a table by the factions King, with the overall length of tables being seen as one battlefield split into wings. Left hand 2 tables were left wing, central 3 the centre and right hand 2 right wing. We were to play the game against the opponent on our table and the overall wins/losses in each section would determine who controls it and overall victor.
The Kings have to fight each other in the centre and our gaffa decides to put one captain on each flank. I'm put on the left flank with one of the captains and his Irish horde. Two bumbling shapes amble up to us and after a bit of discussion choose who they want to play and sit down, Scott plays the Irish while Johnny fancies some revenge on my Vikings!
Roughly 90min later john packs his toys away between sobs and rubbing his backside, where I forgot to use lubricant. A massive 2600 victory points were earnt by the Vikings, along with another 13 Glory Points, he flank was looking good!
Then we turn to see how Scott was doing and notice that the entire Irish army had run away, Scotty had earned 2800 VP's and the Saxons hand scraped a minor Victory on the flank.
A bit of milling around to place as we awaited the final result with the Saxons looking good for the win, however the news came in that they had been utterly crushed in the centre and despite winning one of the remaining flank battles drew the other one and the Vikings carried the day!
All in all it was a great weekend and very different to normal tournaments, the pressure wasn't there and players attitudes were generally a lot better. The Glory Point system was really good fun and I ended up coming third with my total!
I can definately reccommend these weekends or anything close to them, for a great weekends gaming against nice people and in a friendly, not too competetive enviroment.
