The Road To SCGT 2014 – Part 2

 

Road to south coast

 In this post I run through some details about the tournament pack, list composition and my army preparation for the event. I am currently leading the arms race against Gaz who still has 40+ skeletons to paint before he heads down south next week when he finally learn how REAL men play Warhammer. Enjoy.

This year the South Coast Grand Tournament is operating an unusual tournament pack with its own unique take on army compositions and restrictions. Essentially it is a heavy comp system that enforces a lot of house rules upon the attendee’s. These restrictions aim to limit ‘filth/strong’ choices across the WFB armies and encouraging ‘soft/weaker’ ones. The comp pack then awards ‘softer’ lists with positive modifiers to all rolls made at the start of the game such as; deployment, scenario, scouts/vanguard and first turn deciders.

Over the weekend there will be 6 games played using ‘out of the book’ Warhammer with an additional House FAQ to clear up some issues with the basic rules. To win their games players must gain a total of 100 VP over their opponent using the win/loss/draw system. In addition to these rules each game also has the blood and glory fortitude breaking scenario, awarding 100pts to the first person to break their opponents fortitude. On top of this each player also has 6 secret mission cards with various objectives that can be achieved (1 per game) awarding 100 points for its completion. This provides a lot of oppurtunities for players to snatch the victory and should make for very interesting games. If you want to see more of the extensive rule pack please follow the link below:

http://www.heelanhammer.com/SCGT/SCGT2014RulePack.pdf .

As you can see there was a lot to think about in preparation for this tournament and after looking at the Skaven army restrictions I had more cause for despair. Sadly, my Skaven army is the only thing I have that is anywhere near painted enough to meet the tournament painting restrictions, so I had to man up and sort out a game plan. Stepping away from my usual army due to it being illegal in the comp, I knew I only had a few months to build/paint any new additions. Unfortunately, as we have also been decorating our whole house during this time I figured that this would more likely be reduced to a few opportunist days off and some late nights hiding away from the Mrs.

Practice Games - Playing Skaven Cornerhammer

Practice Games – Playing Skaven Cornerhammer

After a few play testing games I decided to keep my army very similar to my standard screaming bell list but sadly dropping the Hellpit/Doomwheel and increasing the amount of skirmishers/shooting units in the army. This was enforced by my painted model restrictions as well as issues with the comp and ended up with me taking an un-fluffy comp score of 2.

Overall this left me with a small yet time consuming ‘To-do’ list that included making 5 skirmisher movement trays, converting a Warp Lightning Cannon, actually putting weapons on my Stormvermin (They are a bastard to rank up with them on) and adding some unit fillers to bulk up my now increased core. Add to this organizing the trip as well as mentoring Gaz on Skype and it was starting to look like a lot of effort to get boots on the board.  So I got to it.

Luckily after finding some useful YouTube help the skirmisher trays came together a lot quicker than I had thought, spurring me on to assemble the rest of my Gutter Runners and prep some Plague Monks ready for converting into Globadiers.

Sanding, PVA glue seal and painting

Sanding, PVA glue seal and painting

After a rummage around in the Hobby Conservatory I managed to locate an old metal ogre scrap launcher, some Doomwheel bits and a 6th ed starter set cannon that would be the base materials for my new Scrapheap challenge-esque WLC.

Empire cannon + Doomwheel bits.

Converting a WLC using Empire cannon + Doomwheel bits.

This took a lot of fiddling (Damn I hate metal models) but overall I am happy with the conversion as it turned out a lot nicer than I expected and may even deserve some decent attention on the painting table.

Converted 'Scrapheap' WLC

Converted ‘Scrapheap’ Warp Lightning Cannon

Adding some character to the core units.

Adding some character to the core units.

With Unit Fillers now complete I have been storming through the rest of my preparation and after a few test games can feel the army starting to take shape. At the moment I feel like the list is very one dimensional but apart from taking a dwellers/pit to the face it can be quite hard to crack and should have me at least competing across a few turns, which is all I want from my first major tournament. However, I do feel like it might not be very fun to play against as it is very defensive and cagey, but hopefully I can try and make a decent game of it for my opponents.

The Tournament is just under two weeks away now and I am expecting the social media hype to slowly build up as people start getting excited for the long weekend away. Here’s hoping for sunshine, chilling and some functional gamers.

If you missed Gaz’s entry in Part 1 you can catch it after the link here http://t.co/wkHzkysGJi.