KoWabunga

First I would like to announce that I just achieved my highest ever tournament placing (cue trumpet flourish):  6th Place!  I should perhaps also point out that there were only 8 players in the tournament.   Still, 2 wins and 2 losses amounts to the dizzying heights of generalship for me.  Its almost mid table obscurity!  I won best sports too (they were probably being nice to the newb but I was chuffed to bits all the same)

Robert Higgins was so terrified by my zombies that he tabled me in self defence.

I took my mostly grey, unpainted  Kings of War army to the Warlords Super Series 'summer' tournament.  The embarrassing monochrome of my models may account for the fact that I only took one picture.  On the other hand, playing with chess clocks does not give you a huge amount of time for idle photography.  The timed player turns certainly add an edge, a sense of urgency and can force mistakes. I never actually ran out of time and finished one game in under an hour, but it was always there in the back of my mind.

As I faced a succession of mostly Dwarven opponents (both the evil and good kind), it quickly became apparent that my Undead army was not a 'smashy-smashy-egg-man' list.  In fact, the rate at which zombies move and fight reminded me of this scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.  I had to bide my time and contrive little set pieces, getting in behind or flanking.  I learned most of these tricks off the internet, rather than having flashes of inspiration (yes, I took a Pharaoh Troll). When I rushed in blindly, I was punished.  I'm not sure I have the patience or finesse to become good at this but the games go quickly and are enormous fun.  Playing four tournament games, I only had to resort to the rule book three times for clarification.  Each time, the reason turned out to be that I hadn't read the rules properly and my opponents were nodding with that 'yeah, everyone makes that mistake at first' look in their eye.  If you play four straight games of 40k in a tournament setting, your brain is like porridge by 5 O'Clock. Well mine is anyway.  I think some people actually thrive on rules interpretation and mental arithmetic but I'm not one of them.  I like grand, sweeping armies rupturing each other and loud explosions. All playing out to the internal soundtrack of Conan the Barbarian.  Lots of french horns and that sort of thing.  In some ways, 40k is better in that regard because you get get those little 'story' moments but, compared to KoW, it really isn't a tournament game (yeah, yeah, I'm stating the bleeding obvious)

It would be pointless to attempt a battle report and would only serve to showcase my ignorance.  Suffice to say, I was tabled by Robert Higgins and in one game Cameron Talks had to point out that if I stopped flapping around like headless chicken and flanked his Foot Guard with my Undead Dragon (it can fly over enemy units! Who knew?!) then I would win the game and save us both time.  What an absolute gentleman.  I gave him best sportsman vote.