Saturday. Got up in the dark at 5am. Packed car with essentials and self with coffee by 6am and shot off down the motorway for the four-hour journey to Berkeley.

Arrived at 9am. Realised that four hour journey to Berkeley only takes three hours. Met Brian.

Alan, Sebastian and Roger arrived. Sebastian's expression when he discovered he'd been duped into getting up extra early was worth the entrance fee on its own.

Game 1 - my Star Wars rebels vs. Roger using Brian's Baba Yaga army (Russian Civil War types led by a hut on chicken's legs). RBS-style, I advanced a line of 4 shooters onto an area of bad going on my left. Roger advanced towards them with a force including his General. The Shooters shot. I rolled a 5, Roger a 1 - game over. Berkeley tournament is 10 minutes old and I lead 48 to everyone else's nil! This does not last long.

Game 1a - Roger wanders off and is replaced by a chap whose name I didn't catch but who had come along to spectate having played his first HOTT game the day before. We played the first of several all-Star Wars games over the weekend and eventually the rebel Airboats took out the Empire AT-AT.

Game 2 - Paired with Tony Horobin using 15mm Lizardmen. Decided to use Alan's Morthbrood (was told I had to). Rolled a total of 5 PIPs in first four turns. Deploying 8 Hordes with Bad Going across most of the deployment zone and no PIPS to speak off is tricky. Eventually the Mara (Morthbrood Behemoth) clashed with the Lizardmen's Behemoth General and got a flank kill. Points were level but a quick bespelling of the Lizardman Hero ended the game in a 'brood victory.

Lunch. Cottage Pie. Marston's Pedigree kept a little too cold.

Game 3 - Star Wars Rebels take on Brian's Papal Army. Brian's Aerial Hero angel starts to roll up my line of Airboats. Hypnotised into using all my PIPs to defeat the angel I fail to cope with Brian's Blades making mincemeat of my Shooter General. At least I got the bugger though.

Game 4 - Decided to use Sebastian's Bikers against Andy Thomas's lovely Home Guard. Slightly bizarre match-up but there you go. Riders don't hang about. Soon had two battle lines on both of which I had overlaps. On every occasion where I had an advantage we got a draw. On every occasion where we were at parity I lost. Biker Hero General crushed by Jones's butcher's van Behemoth. All over after one round of combat. Still, nice to contribute to Andy's improvement in position even if Steve did manage to score it 98-0 for a while!

Saturday evening. Dinner with the sluggards. May not have seen James's ears light up but did get to watch Brian put away an improbable amount of meat in an improbably short time. Played several silly games. Was crap at all. Best to draw veil.

Bed. Slept the sleep of the contented. Woke the waking up of the dehydrated.

Sunday morning. Oh damn! It's 7:30 and I've missed both Sebastian's early morning run and Alan's gentle stroll. I'll just have to take an even gentler constitutional of my own. Then breakfast and on with the war.

Colin Evans first. Colin set the trend of the day by choosing to meet my Star Wars Rebels (4x Airboats and 6x Shooters) with the Empire forces (AT-AT Behemoth General, 6x Blades, 4x Shooters). The Empire ground forward slowly occupying two big areas of BG near the centre. I tried a few cautious probes with the Airboats then decided it was too risky winkling the enemy out of Bad Going and decided on a mass Airboat assault on the Empire's Stronghold. Remember aerials can't capture a Stronghold but they can destroy it by doubling. Not much of a chance but we were running out of time. At this point Alan pointed out to me that I could have stuffed Colin's Blades as Airboats only count woods and BUA as Bad Going so I wouldn't have got the -2. Grrrrr! How could I have been such an idiot? Well, partly because I'd never used Airboats before Saturday's games! Anyway time ran out before I reached the Stronghold with one Rebel Shooter down so a 26-22 draw.

For Round 6 Steve Thompson made the fatal error of deciding he too would like to see the full Star Wars set up in action. This gave me a chance to put my newly learned lesson into action. Airboats nibbled away at those Blades who strayed in to BG (+5 vs +1!) until I got enough PIPs to concentrate three of them on the enemy General for a kill. The Rebel Shooters made only a single move all battle and were never engaged.

Round 7 was the much anticipated clash with Steve's mighty Ottomans. Steve defended and used his standard deployment with a huge area of BG centrally, flanked by impassable crags. Behind this lurked his Blade General and two Artillery. On the flanks lurked his Shooters (both sides), Riders (left) and Magician(right, a lovely rocket launcher team with pack camel)[1] I decided to keep to my right as Airboats flee from Magicians. Airboats eat PIPs though so my right hook was a rather pedestrian affair. I eventually got in behind Steve's flank taking out an Artillery and a Rider but losing two Airboats. I pushed back his General a couple of times but realised that I'd underestimated how much room he had to recoil. If we'd been able to play on it would have been a come down to a race between my Airboats getting into position to trap the General and Steve manoeuvring his anti-airboat Magician or hunting my Shooter General through the woods. As it was we drew (25-23 to Steve).

Finally I played Chris Cale. Chris was another hypnotised into recreated the Battle of Hoth. The result was a repeat of the game against Steve Thompson. Eventually the Airboats ganged up on and killed the Behemoth General. I felt a bit guilty as the Empire forces were proving difficult to use against the Rebels. Seems to me the answer is to find a route avoiding Bad Going and to keep trundling forwards at all costs - you need to put some psychological pressure on the Rebel player and to reduce his room for manoeuvre.

All of my opponents were charming and played with faultless sportsmanship on both days. I hope I didn't fall too far short of their standards. Thanks to Steve for a splendid organisational effort.

[1] How about a "nicest element of the tournament" prize next time?

Back to The Stronghold