COSH Team I - Team Redshirts Rides Again!
Looking at the rules that Sam decided on, we all thought that Lizardmen and Chaos Dwarfs looked the strongest options as they'd been put in the Tier 2 category and had more skill options than they normally do. Gary was already painting up Chaos Dwarfs so we all thought it would be good if we just all took the same team (although we all took different rosters). The other guys liked the idea of a Minotaur on their team but I went for something different :
2 x Bull Centaur (Block and Break Tackle)
6 x Chaos Dwarf Blockers (3 x Guard, Claw)
4 x Hobgoblin Runner
3 x Rerolls
1 x Apothecary
Come the morning of the tournament we were quite looking forward to battle and we got settled in for a long day of gaming!
Round 1 - Gethyn from Team EATBATS with Lizardmen
Chaos Dwarfs vs Lizardmen - it seemed we both had seen the opportunity for some extra skills on our teams. Gethyn's Lizards had the Krox and all six Sauruses with Block and a Sure Hands Skink. He did a great job of maximising all the strength on his team and despite my Guard doing sterling work, I had some bad luck at a couple of key moments and I lost this game 1-2 although I did go 4-1 on casualties.
Round 2- Besters from Vulture's Squadron with High Elves
Jim is the one coach I've played more times than anyone else in tournaments - this was our thirteenth game. He's definitely the chap I set my standards against as I've only beaten him twice out of those. So when I started knocking out all his players, Jim really had no option but to just suffer and watch my team go 1-0 up at half time. He did get all his elves back for the 2nd half and I started smashing them up again - and at my turn 7 of the final half I had a chance to go 2-0 which would seal the deal. I just needed to make a 4+ dodge with a bull centaur to do it. Of course, he tripped over - and Jim then made a lot of elfy rolls to equalise on the final turn. I was really quite annoyed as I thought I'd managed to beat him! Argh. The game ended 1-1 and another 4-1 on casualties.
Round 3 - Larkin2012 from Team Friendless with Humans
I was playing Daniel in this game who is a member of my Chelmsford Bunker league - and we'd only been chatting the night before about the nightmare he was having with some of his models melting while he was trying to get the basing dry on them! Thankfully he'd done a great job and they were ready for action despite this setback. Daniel is a fairly new player and this was his first tournament - so although he had some solid decision for his team, I think my experience showed through. It was a bit of a bash-fest for my Chorfs so the game ended 2-0 to me and 5-1 on casualties. I think he was glad when the game was over!
Round 4 - Ackredies from Alpharest Alphas with Halflings
Definitely the most interesting Halfling team I've ever played against as he had Deeproot and Captain Colander from the latest halfing rules. I set about trying to keep his trees tied up so they couldn't wander around but Deeproot was as much of a menace as ever. I kept picking on the halflings and took out both of his Catchers early on - and eventually I just keep hitting hobbits so they couldn't do anything. The game ended 1-0 to me and 4-3 on casualties.
So my tournament finished with a 2/1/1 result which was okay but I was annoyed about not beating Jim having had the upper hand for most of the game. Ah well! Next time :) Andrew had a bit of a rough weekend and ended 1/1/2 and Gary did the best of all of us and finished unbeaten on 3/1/0. As a team we finished 4th overall which wasn't too bad. I also ended up winning the Most Casualties award with 17 which was quite cool.
That was my final tournament of 2019 - but I'll be playing again early in 2020 at the UK Team Challenge in York where I'm teaming up with Gary, Jim and Jack - the Unlikely Lads :)
