Saturday and Sunday were a busy couple of days! I’m currently on a train towards London, three days from the weekend, and there’s a general buzz of excitement still lingering. It’s hard to work out which part of the weekend brought the most joy, which makes it hard to know where to start with this post.
I think it’s only fair to start with a massive thanks to the team behind the event. Each year this event gets bigger, and each year the team delivers a brilliant weekend. Something I really enjoyed this year was the quality of the army painting. That’s not to say it wasn’t as good last year, it was more just a case of me not really taking time to have a look around as I was too busy trying to dodge Twilight Kin and failing.
Having started to put a bit more effort into the painting and hobby side of things, I’ve gained quite a bit of inspiration for my next project, which is likely to be another halfling army for fourth edition, whenever it launches. So, does that mean things went well? As it happens they did turn out a little better than expected.
The games over the course of the weekend were absolutely fantastic. All incredibly close, with the last couple of turns generally being the earliest point at which I could tell whether I was winning or losing. What was also great was to get to play against people I’d never played before. I’ve put some pictures from most of the games below, nothing from game 2 though as it was on the livestream so I was busy trying to look like I knew what I was doing (although my reforms gave the game away and based on what the commentary team had to say I have some homework to do).
Playing on the livestream was a new experience, and honestly it was pretty relaxed. I had a great opponent and being able to watch it back on Monday gave me a bit of a brief renewal of Clash based excitement.
I’m always interested in what other players who are playing the same faction as me are taking. With almost 200 players and no easy way of identifying lists by faction I didn’t even attempt to dig them out of the folder shared before the event, but I did have a nose around at the event and was really pleased there seemed to be a full range of units represented. It didn’t look like there was a template army, which was great given that there were 12 halfling armies in attendance. Balloons ranged from many to none, Iron Beasts were a must, but other than that there were some really nicely painted models on display.
My first game was the only game where the halflings really caused serious problems for my opponent really early on. A nimble Jugger charge into woods managed to take out a key horde of Ogre hunters that then gave my cavalry access to the flanks of the enemy, resulting in a rather rapid crumbling of the Ogre lines. This was further accelerated by a lucky flank charge by the flying dog into Nomogarok that took the warlock off the table in one round. Beleaguered on all sides the ogres ran from the field leaving a lot of happy halflings wondering what was next.
The answer came, in the form of the Trident Realms. It was a beautifully cagey game, made all the more cagey by the scenario, Fool’s Gold. Trident Realms is an army I have so many problems playing against as their ensnaring and speed gives them great board control. I would say we probably had similar amounts of fast units, but they had a lot of Thuul.
I did manage to get my flying dog behind their lines, but he was not the distraction I had hoped, failing to rout a giga horde and getting eaten by angry Thuul who took the opportunity to punch him in the rear. Unfortunately, the Trident Realms just held up that bit better in the grinding combats, giving them the opportunities to grab objectives, which they duly did.
My final game on Saturday was against someone I’d wanted to play for a while. Anyone following this blog knows that first and foremost I’m a Ratkin player. There’s been a beautiful Nightmare based list hanging around the top of the faction rankings for several years now and I was excited to get a chance to play it. The list really capitalises on key synergies in the army, and I knew it was going to be a hard grind. Happily, for me, an opportunity came up early on for my flying dog and grenadiers to start gnawing on an Impaler at the end of the rat lines. A swift application of pressure by Juggers and some brutal from the gastromancy soon resulted in the rats looking for opportunities to get their captured tokens away from me. However, despite the rat rout there still looked like a good chance that the vermin would hold onto their precious points for long enough to win the game. That was until Greedyguts stepped up and managed, together with an Iron Beast, to tear apart token carrying tunnel runners which resulted in the Halflings carrying the game, ending the first day on 2 wins, and a loss.
The next morning, I awoke to another opportunity to have fish for breakfast. The Trident Realms were up again (different player and very different list). Having had a really enjoyable game 2, I went into this one with a little bit more confidence, and a bit of a plan, which rapidly deserted me as I saw a large collection of gribblies surrounding a kraken pointed in my general direction. It turned out to be such a close game, although the result made it look like a Trident Realms landslide. An extra pip on a couple of nerve checks throughout the game might have changed the outcome, but I couldn’t have been happier with the result, because whilst it might have been a loss it was certainly entertaining. It was also at this point I remembered that my historical performances at Clash of Kings has been limited to two wins per year (both being on the first day), so I decided my work here was done.
Next up was my first game against one of the highly regarded Spanish cohort. I’ve heard a lot about these players, and I believe I’m correct in saying 2 of them featured in the top 5 places this year. My opponent had a beautiful Northern Alliance army with a fair amount of shooting and some real heavy hitters. I relaxed into the game and was very happy for my opponent to pick up the stockpile loot counters (I’m starting to realise that this is very much my preferred way to play these sorts of scenarios, wait patiently for my opponent to pick them up and then go and grab them). Waiting patiently maybe isn’t the best description of what was going on as he collected the counters. There was a pretty solid stream of nasties thrown my way which the Juggers and trolls did their best to manage, and slowly, as the frozen beasties were worn down counters begun to be won. There was an unfortunate moment where (although not for the halflings) the Pride of the Shire managed to execute a near perfect flank charge on a unit carrying three tokens thanks to gastromancy, but then had to redistribute them as I realised a frost troll prime had appeared in it’s rear at the end of turn 6. Fortunately turn 7 was not to be, the halflings took their third win, and the troll’s charge did not materialise.
With my Clash win record smashed I moved onto the final game, and I had an absolute cracker of a match up. I found myself facing a fantastic Kingdom’s of Men force, which I believe is a first for me at any Clash of Kings. The army was built around hordes. A horde of knights, a horde of foot knights, a horde of pikes and 2 hordes of beast cavalry. Playing control against such a mass of nerve felt like it was going to be a bit of an uphill struggle at this stage in the event. I popped my halflings down and hoped for the best. As it turned out the little guys and gals performed brilliantly. Every part of the army delivered, especially the chip shooting which really wore down the beast cavalry making them relatively easy to take off the table when they finally made it into combat. The crowning achievement of the event was pulled off by the Ej Grenadiers who, after 5 games of flying into things, failing to do anything and dying, not only pulled off a decent flank charge that took a beast cavalry horde out, but also used their unit strength 2 to grab a scoring section away from a troop of mounted scouts. Despite early misgivings the game turned out to be a great way to finish the weekend.
In amongst catching up with friends it was also great to exchange a quick hello with the lovely Page Neo, who was playing on the table alongside me for game 6, and of course, see what’s on the horizon for 4th edition. By now I think there’s a fair few rumours hitting Kings of War Fanatics on Facebook, so I’m not going to get into that, this is already a fairly long post. What I would say though, is that I’m certainly intrigued by what I’ve heard so far, and I’m thinking halflings will be the faction I make my first outing with. I quite fancy trying out a force more based around the Tinker synergies, or whatever that might translate to, so to that end I’m currently working my way through the halflings Champion’s boxset, so at the very least I’ll have a shiny new character to use.
I’m going to sign off now, but just want to wish a final, massive thanks to Steve and his team for making Clash happen and to all my opponents for some great games. I’m already looking forward to next year.
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