Here is my report of Berkeley as I remember it.

Saturday - Preamble

Got up at 6:00am, on the road at 7:00. An easy drive down, despite one slight navigational error that almost saw me entering Wales. That was a lucky escape. Arrived at 9:00, a good hour before registration. Met Jay, James, Rick Lawrence (list lurker) and ... well, everyone else. Tournament started.

My main army was Redwall - Horde general, 2 Heroes, 2 Shooters, 2 Warband, 1 Behemoth, 1 Flyer, 1 Lurker

I brought 9 15mm pool armies, but hadn't really planned on using them; I wanted to try out other people's armies. I had no 25mm armies, so was relying on the charity of other there as well.

Game 1

I used Redwall against Colin Evans' Time Warp army. I attacked. This was a close game; he won by destroying 12AP of my army, but had lost 11AP himself. The high point for me was destroying his three element airforce in three straight combat rolls; my first of the tournament. The low point was having both heroes mown down by his artillery, and managing to squash my own general with my own recoiling behemoth. A 11-37 loss for Redwall.

Game 2

Andy Unwin used Thomo's Lizards (winner of the best painted 15mm army award, by the way) against Redwall. I attacked. The main thrust of the battle was my warband trying to take some bad going on the right flank of his army, as this also gave me a clear run at his stronghold. He was trying to march hordes through it, and they died in droves. only to have replacements march out of the stronghold and into the fray. I lost that particular fight. On the other flank I did better, tying up his riders with a flyer. When the centres met we were getting close to time being called; there was lots of pushing and shoving between his giant turtles and my heroes and badger behemoth, and I even killed his general. When time was called, however, we had both lost 7AP, so the game was a 24-24 draw.

Game 3

My first using a pool army, and first in 25mm. I faced Roger Court's Funky Death Mice (winner of the best painted 25mm army award) and decided to use Steve Price's Elf army. I had a good plan too, deciding to hold back from a big patch of bad going in the centre and blast his warband general with a double magician whammy until I either killed it (1 in 6 chance) or he came out into the open to fight (when my knights would ride him down). On my flank four shooters seemed adequate to hold off his behemoth, sneaker and magician. They weren't; he basically won the battle with the behemoth, helped by the fact that one of my magicians turned himself into a rather attractive purple worm by rolling a pair of ones. The elves didn't kill a thing; 48-0 to the Funky Death Mice. Oh, and I attacked again.

Game 4

This time I faced some elves, under the control of Rick Lawrence. I attacked with Redwall once more. His one flank consisted of a line of shooters on a hill, his centre was a pair of spears and his other flank had a hero and some magicians. Somehow these latter troops never really seemed to get into the game. I attacked his shooter line with my shooters and heroes, and swept it away, his spears fell to double ranked warband (hooray for 2.0), I launched three unsuccessful attacks on his stronghold, and eventually won by killing 12AP of his army. I'm afraid the brain cells with the score of this game have gone missing.

Evening

The first business of the evening was to play James Ewins in the Berkeley Flower Wars. Devon Aztecs met Staines Aztecs and the Staines boys won. The game was overshadowed by a large and boisterous 4-a-side 25mm big battle HOTT game going on next to it. James and I also had a game where I pitted U.N.I.T. against his 15mm standing army, the WWII Germans with the walker and motorbikes. This army nearly clinched the best painted 15mm army award, and nearly clinched a victory here as well. Nearly.Then it was off to Dursley for a curry, and back to the hotel for light refreshments and intelligent conversation. Ahem. For those that are interested, it can be confirmed that Sebastian more than lives up to his posts to this list. Resisting Sebastian's attempts to ply me with whiskey I crawled off to bed sometime (just) after midnight; I'm getting too old for this sort of thing.

Sunday

Got up at 7:00, went for a brisk walk and returned to the hotel for breakfast. Then back to the fray.

Game 5

Redwall was pitted against Jay Woolrich's Normans. I didn't fancy this matchup mutch, as I thought I would be facing loads of knights, but these were dismounted Normans who seemed to rely mainly on blades. Phew! Anyway, Redwall was the attacker (again), but that didn't stop me from sitting and waiting for him to come to me. I did send the shooters off round his flank and towards the stronghold, and he sent a rider and hero on a wide sweep around my flank, but the battle was decided by the main lines (when they eventually met). I lost a hero to one of his heroes, but my warbands accounted fro some of his blades, and a flank attack did for his general just as 'time' was called. 44-4 to Redwall.

Game 6

Thomo used his Carolingians and I decided to use one of my other armies, the Techno Dwarves. The Carolingians had loads of knights and a couple of paladins, I had a main line of blades plus various support troops. Needless to say I was attacking again, but chose to sit on my baseline and wait for him to come to me. After much shuffling of his line to get optimal matchups he did so, pushing the blades back and killing my only shooter. Unfortunately one of his paladins had a fatal encounter with a steam-powered tank, which then flanked his general. Game over for the Carolingians; 42-6 to the Techno Dwarves.

Game 7

I got to use Steve Price's 15mm Tupi against Ken McEwan's Orcs. For the seventh game in a row I attacked. This was really two battles, as a large rocky hill and a patch of bad going in the centre halved the battlefield. On my left, warbands, shooters and a tame dinosaur faced Orc blades, riders and a knight. On my right I matched hordes and a magician against shooters, artillery and a behemoth. I was never able to close on this flank (not unsurprising really), but the hordes shielded the magician, which is all they were really for. On the other flank I defeated the Orcs, but things got a bit hairy when my warband general found himself behind his own behemoth when the same behemoth was having some trouble finishing off some wolf riders. A repeat of game 1 was avoided when I managed to extricate the general, and the behemoth did for the rider in the end. Time was running out, I still needed one more element for victory and I hadn't got my army organised for the final assault, when a lucky bespelling roll managed to double an Orc shooter. 43-5 to the Tupi.

Game 8

I was drawn against Richard Bodley Scott and his Anti-Claus army. I chose to use Sebastian's pool army, the Enemies of Queen Victoria - clockwork penny-farthing Daleks, stolid Prussian foot, Fu Manchu, bizarre lurkers and the Goddess of Lust. This army won the Best Army award. For the first time I got to defend, which meant, unfortunately, that I had to use Sebastian's four foot high twin towers. This is a stronghold so big that you can't even see your own army deployed in front of it, but people were still perverse enough to vote it Best Stronghold. I bet they never had to use it! Anyway, the game can best be summed up as: god appeared, god didn't roll a one, god killed lost of elements. The lurkers did do for one shooter, but Lust was responsible for all of the other kills. The magic of Christmas saved, Anti Claus went down to a 46-2 defeat.

Final position: 4th, but I did get the highest score of anyone whose surname was *not* Bodley Scott!

Summary

What a top weekend. Many thanks to Steve for organising the whole thing, and to the Berkeley Arms Hotel for putting up with us. I agree with others who have posted here that the range of armies on display was fantastic; using a pool army became a very tricky choice between a variety of strange offerings. Sebastian's Daleks were popular in this respect, although their actual on-table record was not so hot. The only downside from my point of view was that I never got to use my (expensive) Forgeworld stronghold, although Thomo did borrow it a couple of times. I saw some of my other armies in use; U.N.I.T. had at least a couple of outings, and Rama actually achieved a victory. And, finally, it was interestng to meet various list members in the flesh (or pixels).

Looking forward to Berkeley 2002.

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