Hi you all,

It took me a while but here is my account of the Benelux Championship.

First of all, my warband: Inspired Marshall, Frenzied Berserker, Wemic Barbarian, Gnome Trickster, Mialee, 2 Graycloak Rangers (with one wolf and one timber wolf) and a xeph warrior. 10 activations and the teleport map as my battlefield. I can’t help it, I just love this map.J

Now why did I go for this: I am a big fan of overactivating my warbands. I will always look if there’s a way to get 10 activations instead of the 8 that are normally standard as dictated by the “max 8 figs rule”. So there come the graycloacks with their minions.

Then there is the core of the army: Berserker, Wemic, Inspired and Trickster. The idea behind it is simple. You have two invisible beaters that have a long threat range (thanks to the inspired marshall) and can dish out a respectable amount of damage in one round.

The big problem is that if things go wrong these two beaters will go down very fast due to their not so good AC’s.

Mialee is there for the magic weapon. On Wemic, if there’s Damage reduction in play, and if not on Berserker to get the attack ratings up.

The Xeph is just another activation that can be used as invisible blocker, tile grabber, flanker or whatever.

My goal for this tournament was ending in the top half. I knew the Germans were coming (and believe me, they know how to play), Peter Scot was going to be there (everybody knows how good he isJ), Jan Elfman was coming along with us (I consider him the best Belgian Player at this time) and the Dutch had been practicing a lot in recent months…something I don’t have time for around this time of yearL

Anyway, I didn’t expect many other Belgian and Dutch players except the ones I knew already and was surprised that we ended up with 21 players.

It was great to see that there were other small groups in the Benelux and I will soon make work of contacting those that gave me their E-mails to get in touch.

Then come the match ups. They will be short cause I am not the guy who remembers all the necessary details, It’s more like presenting the general feeling of the gameflow.J

Round 1: Marcel Oschwald. Ryld, two LBD, Thrall off Blackrazor and the filler that comes with it.

I won map ini so teleport it was.

I can be very short here. Just winning the mapini already won me the game. My opponent didn’t feel comfortable on the map (I think he wasn’t playing for a long time yet) and fell for my lure (wolf, and inspired). The trap closed. One Dragon went down without my hitters taking damage and without using the grant move action. The game was decided then and there.

An easy win but I must mention that nonetheless, I was impressed by Marcel. He was learning very fast from his mistakes and showed that he had a natural feeling for the gameplay. I am pretty sure we’ll hear more from him if he keeps playing.

1-0

Round 2: Johan van Dammen. Ryld, Storm Silverhand, Elf Warmage, Cormyrian warwizard, Bat and the rest I don’t remember.

I won map ini so teleport again.

I started on the good side, he on the bad. He moved al his units up towards the top teleporter, I started to take all the teleporters I deemed important. I got tilepoints, he didn’t.

In round two I won ini and since he was leading with his bat, I teleported in front of his troops with a graycloack. Took out the bat and with it, the threat of its shocking grasp. I thanked the graycloack for his brave sacrifice…he didn’t live long enough to feel a hero. Though jobJ

After that things got strange…my opponent made some strange decisions (probably due to being inexperienced with the map) and exposed Ryld. Ryld got clubbered and I was still in very good shape. I don’t remember if my opponent resigned or if we finished the game but whatever happened…the game was decided there.

Anyway I was happy to play against one of the Belgians that I didn’t know yet and enjoyed playing him. A very nice chapJ

2-0

Round 3: Jan Elfman. Ooooh no not JanJ.�I’ve played so many games against him and I’ve seen him get better and better…and oh well his warband is not good for me if he gets his map.

Ulthroloth, Duergar champ, dragonmarked heir, Chraal, Snig + sniglets, greenspawn sneak, and two gobo skirmishers. 11 acts (yes he is also a fan of lot’s of activations).

He won mapini so this time the drow outpost.

I managed to win the exact same game in Utrecht with one point and decided to try the same strategy but should really have known better. Jan doesn’t make the same mistake twice and learns from every defeat…and the stupid thing is, I know this all too good, since we go back a long time alreadyJ.

I started the first round and turned invisible…ran a wolf on middle victory area and denied his Chraal access to it. And since he didn’t want to send in his sneak out of fear for the graycloacks I managed a tilepoint lead. I moved my guys so they could go either topside or downside and placed my tile grabbers within range of the middle and top victory area’s. The plan was to get tilepoints and hope the conceals would keep them alive once in a while.

Jan moved up his main force and kept all his fodder behind. AAArgh, I needed those little gobo’s to get killed to maintain a small point lead and to avoid getting behind too much in activations.

But it was not to happen. In round two he started hitting the little guys and the conceal gamble didn’t work. After round two I was getting behind in acts and out of fodder so somewhere in round three or four I moved in for one last desperate assault on Ulthroloth. I knew I needed some luck on this but he countered very simple and effectively.

In short…I got my butt kicked pretty hard.

2-1

Round 4: Erwin (Charles the Ghoul) Another good friend who I consider to be at my level of play. A mirror matchup but instead of graycloacks and 10 acts he plays a living flaming sphere and 8 acts. Oooh how I hate that invisible flaming sphere…I lost to him in Utrecht after missing conceal on that ball six or seven times in a rowJ.

Well, we both had teleport so teleport it was.

I am not going into details here since we played this match up so many times already that I am getting bored with explaining it (no offense but that’s how it isJ). Enough is said with the following: Erwin was very tired and had a bad day. He was not playing up to his skills and I didn’t miss those conceal rolls this time.

3-1

Round 5: Roger Witte (Janos) Ulthroloth, three Chraals, duergar Slaver, skeleton warrior, skeleton legionnaire.

I really was hoping to play against Roger today since I have great respect for him as a player and as a person…and off course…I never played him before.

I won mapini so teleport once again.

He took good side and I took bad side.

I can’t tell many details of this game in the right order…for some reason it’s all kind of blurry.

The whole game I felt outplayed although the result tells another story.

I know I started out pretty defensively and tried to take out the legionnaire with the graycloacks but failed to do so. As an answer to that he sends up one Chraal the back way to threaten the now visible graycloacks and Mialee.

Somewhere in round two he holes up Ulthroloth on a victory area with a Chraal and with another cones at least one graycloack who runs. (I think he got Mialee in the process too)

To deal with this pressure I decide to attack the duergar slaver with the wemic but fail the conceal check. Then things get blurry but I know I got lucky when he coned my inspired marshall and he made his morale check. A bit later I sandwiched a chraal that failed his morale check and ran of avoiding important deadburst damage to my guys (some more luck for me). After that I ran of and avoided losing points.

I won the game but not because I was the better player.

The game confirmed to me my respect for Roger as a great player and person. I am looking forward to see him in Manchester. (But I do hope to avoid him in the match upsJ)

4-1

Round 6: Van den Berg Marco: Ryld, 2 mounted drow patrol, some kind of dragon that boosts drows, 2Lloth’s stings, two 5 pt hyena’s?

I didn’t get to know Marco during the game as a person but he knew how to play and brought a very interesting warband to the table.

He won mapini and pulled out…another teleport mapJ

He took the good side and I took the bad side.

This match up worried me with the mounted patrols being able to use mounted melee attack and end on a teleport again. So I decided to throw in a little lure and if he didn’t take that, to go for a full scale assault concentrated on the patrols. 50 Hp go down fast once contact is made.

First round I went invisible except Mialee who just lingered there (bait) I also left the Trickster behind cause I was gonna need him if he would go for the bait. The rest of the warband went to top teleporter to disperse and the grayclaocks force morale on one Hyena that runs.

Second round: He goes for the bait and moves in the two mounted drow patrol along the bottom teleporters. Mialee dies. My last activations I bring back berserker who attacks one patrol and makes it rout. Wemic moves towards the second patrol.

Trickster sneak attacks the patrol and hits for 15.

I didn’t want to use the snake swiftness yet since it would be more useful later on.

Round three, he brings in the dragon and ryld. The patrols run of board or get eliminated. I takes some damage in the process…I know I am in control now. (barring bad rolls).

We fight on and the dragon goes down. I probably killed a Lloth’s sting too but I am not sure.

At one point he did manage to put the frenzied to sleep who was woken up by the xeph.

5-1

A much better result then expected but mainly because off me being able to play my own map in 5 out of the 6 games.

That was it…I had a great day. My congratulations to Jan for winning and my thanks to the help of Peter Scott, Kristin De Brandt, Marjolein and all the others for putting this event together.

Greetz,
GRUUMSH