I had my Elves: 3 Magicians (inc. General), 4 Shooters 2 Spear

Getting to Burton was much easier than expected, and if I could do it in 1.5hrs from Stroud the I suspect Sebastian could have shaved a good 45 mins off that ;-)

Got there early and wandered in to find Graham and Richard busy with boxes, James turned up not minutes after me so we retired for a coffee. James looked rather worse for wear, in fact that is a gross understatement so I had a good chuckle at that.

Jay rolled in along with a mate, Graham - sorry but I didn't catch you surname Graham, and off we went.

I was drawn against Birthday Boy Benedict Sharrock first with his Egyptians. I was the defender and put down some nasty terrain to mess him up. He had a Hero General so my first plan was to go for that; Benedict had deployed with his Magician behind impassable and well over 1200 paces away from his general so I was safe from that. Sadly PIPs did not allow this but I did spot he'd left his general behind the Behemoth so my Shooters ran down the field to shoot it. I got one shot off but it missed and he quickly removed the general. After that he went for my exposed Shooters with his own but coming in from the side he ganged up on them. I quickly lost 2 Shooters and had to regroup on the left flank. I was conscious of the "Don't panic" thoughts from Alan so got my remaining Shooters away from the firefight and went for his Knights. In the mean time my Magicians moved up to distract the Shooters...nearly to the cost of the game as a single Shooter of Benedict's drove one of my Magicians back into the rough. On the right flank Benedict's Magician advance as and when he got the PIPs and my Spear moved to meet it. Back to the left I used my 2 Shooters to pop his Knights. He'd got himself in a mess coming around the flank and the Elven bow had a field day recoiling 2 Knights off the table and killing another out right. His Hero general came round to try to help his Shooters vs. my Magicians as by now I'd got one of his Shooters, but it was too late; I'd managed to get my Spear to the side of his Magician and so hit it in the flank on the board edge, he turned to face and lost, recoiled of the board. 44 - 4 to me.

Second game was against Brian Pierpoint, which worried me as regulars will know Brian is a bit handy. He was the defender and had a Papal army with Cleric general, and Aerial Hero, 2 Blade, 2 Shooters, 3 Knights, 1 Horde. The Cleric effectively nullified the Magicians, or at least made it a pointless exercise unless critical. So I'll come clean - I corner sat, Brian laid enough terrain for me to have 2 Shooters each side with my Magicians and Spear in the good going in between. As expected the Aerial Hero zipped off around the side and toward my rear. Cries of "Hold the line!" rang out as I refused to be drawn and just redeployed some Shooters to protect the rear of my Magicians.

As his army relentlessly marched toward me he went for the quick kill on what he though was my Magician General, i.e. placed between the other two. It wasn't and Brian did not realise until late. I had of course pointed I out but you'd be surprised of the number of people who expect the Magician General to be in the middle if 2 other Magicians are present. Either way it failed, and it was ensorcelled. Still I stayed put but reassigned the Shooters to protect my flank now the Aerial Hero was temporarily gone.

His Blades now lined up against my Spear (in single rank) and he got some overlaps so some shoving back and forth, mainly back from me, ensued. My Shooters kept his Cleric general from getting stuck in, as my Spear and Magician line were well protected either side. The mixed fortune for Brian as he got his Hero back but manage to lose a Blade and Shooter through bad dice. To cover the gaps in the line his Knight boldly ran in, cut down a Spear, and then recoiled a Magician under his Hero and out the other side - off the table. Whilst this was appeared to be good at first it meant that I was then able to turn his Knights by hitting their flanks with My Shooters who were in the rough. Scratch 2 Knights.

Brian's last gasp effort was to do another recoiled special on another Magician with his Blades and the Aerial Hero taking up any free space I could recoil into (remember I was still only about 500 paces from my board edge). I managed to hold that that off then used all 4 Shooters to drive the Hero off the board. 42 -6

Third game in the afternoon was against Graham (Jay's mate). A grudge match of Dwarves vs. Elves. Graham had, Blade General, five more Blades, Hero, Shooter, Cleric and Airboat. Again, I was the defender and topped up on terrain much to Graham's vexation. He was immediately at a disadvantage in the terrain and his deployment made the best of a bad job.

I went for the 'Shooters around his flank' job as he was on one side of the board only and the Magicians to protect the Stronghold. After numerous turns I got some Shooters up whilst he moved his Hero and Cleric around to help protect that flank. I knocked off a Blade with 3 Shooters and then moved up the rest.

The next few turns were heavily involved in getting decisions from the umpires...or Ken in their absence. Effectively the lesson here was thank God for HOTT V2.0 as all the points are clearly resolved in 2.0. Graham and his group had obviously come to some different conclusions on wording and results. The actual points are academic really with v2.0 imminent so I shall not go into them as it was all resolved and we got on with the game. Must have been funny for watchers though as Graham and I both sat there saying "Well I don't really agree to be honest" with both of us trying to ensure no offence was meant or taken.

With my Shooters I then shot his Hero out of the saddle and went in for the kill by trying to drive his Blade General into impassable. That failed and he managed to regroup and do for 1 of my Shooters and a Spear the had joined the fray. With his Blades now safely in the good going and me not coming out and my Magicians hampered by the Cleric the game petered out to a draw. Zero points each; in fact, this result ensured neither of us won the event. I've tried to persuade Graham to join us for Berkeley; Jay, the rest is up to you!

To the final game and I end up against Tim Sharrock; which is back where I started this. Tim had his reptile with 2 Flyers, 2 Riders, 1 Beast, 2 Behemoth (1 the general) and 6 Hordes. For the third time, I was the defender and, yep, terrain overkill it was. This effectively put Tim's Hordes out of commission.

After we deployed, I hared off after his Behemoths. Tim had the presence of mind to move them forward to they did not run off the table in the second go but I still managed to get his general to flee far enough away so as to cause problems. Tim had his Riders on one flank and they readied to get around me to go for my Stronghold but then also made a rash move to send a beast forward against one of my Magicians and into a position that was overlapped with no support for it. I recoiled it in his go then brought my Shooters around in my go and shot at it, in it's hurry to recoil it got splatted by one of the Behemoths.

Tim then started to redeploy the Hordes to help the Behemoth but rashly moved the Behemoth into combat with my Shooters before the help arrived. Once again it was a gift in gold foil with ribbons for me as he was overlapped again (Once is unlucky Tim...but twice?), so I destroyed it. Actually, it could have gone well, as had I lost I'd have been turtle food but....

In a desperate bid for glory Tim's Riders made the break for the Stronghold, one was pinned but the other got passed. Next go I dragged the pinned Rider into combat whilst I was in the rough and butchered it. In his go the other Rider made it to the Stronghold but there were not enough PIPs for the Flyers to help - who through bad PIPs were inconsequential in the game. Sadly, it was all for nothing as the Rider recoiled. After that my Shooter shot the Rider off the board and my Magician tried to bespell a Horde with no recoil space, that failed and buoyed by the success of the Horde the Behemoth general finally managed to get back to the front line, only to encroach within 200 paces of my bows. Apparently afterwards some of the elves were heard to remark that the gaps between pins in a pincushion were larger. 48 - 0 to me

After all that I came third (out of 12), 2 points behind Graham (who's Dwarves I drew with) who was second. Richard and Graham were using the original Berkeley system for scoring...had they used the later version that was used at Berkeley I would have been second with 2 points ahead (Richard 6AP down and me 4AP down). Oh well, theme's the breaks.

Still, it was a fab day and I enjoyed all my games and was glad I went (it was touch and go at one point). Many thanks to Graham and Richard for running it, it was nice top play and not having to worry about running things :-). Ta also to Ken for umpiring. I managed to beat both Tim and Benedict Sharrock so saved face (unlike Jay...but that's his story), Dominic I didn't get to play, next time maybe, beat the legendary Brian and got a draw.

Good to see some of the usual suspects and nice to meet Tim and his lads, Benedict is one to watch for the future, he quickly picked up on some points after our post match discussion and promptly gave Jay a good kicking.

Sneaky barsteward move of the event goes to James... he can tell you all about it...I just laughed all the way home.

Some nice armies were present, didn't notice any Lurkers or large Horde armies (Tim's had 6). Artillery was very sparse...unless of course you were James. Also thin on the ground were Dragons and Gods.

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