Warhammer Club
Tuesday 6th
With back-to-school blues hanging over Wellington the best way to beat the brain fog was to get some dice rolling! Joe Stockley challenged Mr Ashfield to a friendly match of 500pts forces in order to test out the newly tweaked tournament rules. Joe’s Tyranids were set to fight the barely-tested Wellington Space Marines!
Joe won the toss for placing scenery, choosing board edge, choosing deployment, and finally for going first… that’s not how statistics work!? With four objectives on the board it was going to be a scrabble for the two points in the middle, and the possibility of a sneaky grab for the opponent’s objective.
The final score was very close – the deciding factor being Mr Ashfield’s success in capturing a centre objective and defending it against Joe’s swarm of hormagaunts, while feeding a steady stream of delicious Space Marines to keep the Hive Tyrant busy near to the other objective. The result was a 9-8 victory to Mr Ashfield…not a comfortable lead at all! Joe played a smashing game and his younger brother William seemed to enjoy the show too.
*May Errata: Jasper Welton has asked me to kindly point out that in the final battle of the league he managed to set Joe’s Hive Tyrant on fire with his CHIMERA tank, not a Hellhound tank as I misreported.
Thursday 8th
Then for the main event; the culmination of several months modelling, painting, and gaming (with, of course, a healthy dose of joking, jesting, joshing and jeering!) The first Wellington Warhammer League had reached its conclusion!
The results were calculated, checked, re-checked, sent to the Ministorum for analysis, and then checked again to make sure Mr Crabbe hadn’t cheated.
Top of the league for the pupils was … Joe Stockley!!
Joe has played some fantastic games with outstanding tactical displays, great sportsmanship throughout and some amazing looking models. He thoroughly deserves the victory. Well done Joe!!
To mark the occasion, our very own Emperor incarnate Mr Beeley made the presentation of the trophy to a worthy victor and runners up awards to the other competitors. In the true sprit of Warhammer, the trophies were hand built and undercoated so that the recipients are free to paint and embellish them to their heart’s content.
Picture: Award all
Each competitor had also brought in their full army to showcase and I think it would be fair to say that Mr Beeley was quite impressed. All four participants (Joe, Jasper Welton, Luka Taylor and Colum Parker), have grown in stature, confidence and skill over the last few months and should be rightly proud of their achievements. Unfortunately, Colum was on a school trip and missed out on the prize-giving though we will make this up to him in some undoubtedly over the top way.
Pictures: Army Joe, Army Jasper, Army Luka
From the teachers, just 4 points separated the 3 armies with Mr Ashfield emerging the victor, having won all his games and putting Mr Brownbill (second place) and Mr Crabbe (an undignified but very much deserved last place) rather unceremoniously to the sword. The Chaos horde has grown in confidence, ability and ruthlessness and will take some beating. The Tyranids continue to eat everything in chomping distance, whilst the Drukhari (that had been so fearsome at the start) are now considered rather less terrifying since their commander has been correctly identified as completely incompetent.
Along with the awards ceremony there was a great turnout for the regular Thursday club. A number of Year 7 pupils (Daksh Balasubramanyam, Jack Goodman, Jensen Boyd, Grace Hardington, Finn Forster, Leo Davies) returned to continue painting models that they had previously started. We also had some impromptu Year 8 attendees (Isla Senior, Anna Vaniak, India Harding, and Jess Barlow) who got busy gluing scenery pieces to bases and adding more texture. We now have an awesome selection of scenery (in large part thanks to Cadence Williamson, who week-in week-out has been assembling and painting some amazing pieces) to really help capture the feel of the desolate battlefields of the far future.
Pictures: Busy club, Model Daksh, Model Finn and Leo, Model Jack, Model Jensen
We are not done for the year yet though. With the end of the league, next comes the cup! Doubles games in a knockout tournament that will test the skills of our generals and have them paired up with their previous opponents in some large-scale games that are sure to provide some excellent opportunities for previously untested teamwork. Undoubtedly there will also be some underhanded, double-crossing and friendly-fire incidents to liven things up.
Mr Ashfield