Battle Report - High Elves vs Isengard and Galadrim

The Thursday night league has closed but that is still Lord of the Rings night down at Collectormania.  We have not had any games in a couple of weeks and Jonathan and I were both Jonesing.  In addition, Huntsman is back in the rotation, so there are three of us who plan on being there every week.

Last Thursday was the last night back and with three of us we had to get creative.  We decided to play a three player game, (all right, so not really that creative when you have three players).  There was an objective in the center of the table, victory points for each model within six inches when the game ended.  There is random deployment with a die roll determining where each warband comes in.  A 1 means, not this turn, 2 your opponent chooses a North/South edge, 3 your opponent chooses an East/West board edge, 4 you choose N/S, 5 you choose E/W and 6 you choose any board edge.  There are also points for wounding and killing the enemy general.  For players of LotR this is the Hold Ground scenario.  The effect of this deployment, with just two players, is chaos as warbands come in all over the table and head for the center to mix it up, often fighting as they go.  With three players there was even more confusion. 

Initial deployment.  Arwen will come in behind the ruins top center.  Galadhrim top left and bottom left with Rumil's band bottom center.

Battle Report - Harad vs Isengard Part I

On Monday I was able to get a couple of games in against Huntsman and his Isengard army.  Huntsman was recently blessed with the addition of a little orc in the family and has not been able to play in several months.  Our first game reflected his re-learning the rules.  Our second showed that he was definitely playing attention during the first.

Nuradan was again attached to the command of the Betrayer.  It was clear that Sauron had a plan for his men, it just wasn't at all clear what it was.  The army had force marched to the north and crossed into the lands of the horse lords.  They were supposed to meet with Saruman's Uruks.  The problem, from Nuradan's point of view was that the meeting between the Betrayer and Saruman went poorly and he found himself facing an army of angry Uruk Hai, deep in doubly hostile territory.  Some days it just didn't pay to roll out of the blankets.

The battle lines on turn four. 

The Betrayer was interested in five chests, spread through some ruins.  Saruman, apprently, did not want to give them up.  This fight would be for control of the chests, but also for the survival of Nuradan and his men.  Nuradan was able to get one of the chests, on a hill, firmly under his control.  There was a second, in some ruins at the base of the hill, that he knew he could contest at will.  The other three were on the wrong side of a bunch of angry Uruk Hai and one angry wizard.

Battle Report - Harad vs Gondor and Dwarfs

With the league in hiatus there were only two of us playing last night at Collectormania.  When Rhys and I arrived there was no one else there to play so he played with his Star Wars Squinkies on some Osgiliath terrain while I talked painting and rules sets with Russ and Chris.  Chris is a great painter with a really entertaining blog, which I can't find right now.  Hopefully I'll be able to dig it up or someone will shoot me the link.

Micah showed up a little after 1900 and we agreed on a game.  I had played him a couple of weeks ago, before the switch over from Legions to Warbands.  In that game he had an avenger bolt thrower and Boromir.  Two very expensive options.  His new list is led by Faramir as a ranger.  It had a Capt with five knights, Faramir leading nine rangers, a captain with six sword/board and six spear and shield and finally a Dwarf captain with five or six Iron Guard.

We rolled up Reconnoiter, which is not my favorite scenario.  It pulls me out of my comfort zone.  This is not a bad thing.  My army is designed to stay out of combat as long as possible while shooting the hell out of everything that gets in range.  If I haven't whittled my opponent down, by a lot, before we get into combat then I am going to lose.  My guys are squishy and my force is only average sized.  The opposition last night was very crunchy, and had almost as many models as I did.  Not a good place to be. 

Reconnoiter gives points for getting models off your opponent's table edge, wounding or killing the opposing general and for breaking the enemy.  His knights were a priority target.

I apologize now for the pictures.  I forgot my camera so these were taken with my phone.

Two warbands, one of which is the Nazgul and Hornblower.

The knights moving forward to try to get off the table.  Faramir, his general, with the rangers, moving up in the background.

The Gondor Phalanx followed by the slow moving Dwarfs.

Battle Report - Harad vs Galadrim - Again

The ongoing grudge match between Harad and Lothlorien continued tonight.  I got to Collectormania early.  Jonathan showed up a bit later and, yet again, we were left with only each other to play against.  Don't get me wrong, I always enjoy playing against Jonathan, he's a great opponent and our games are always nail biters.  It's just that, if you look at the bat reps on this site, you'll see that we play each other more than anyone else.

Now that the league is over we are firmly into the new "Warbands" era, leaving "Legions" behind for good.  This means a new meta-game.  All armies, in the local group, have gotten smaller.  We are, mostly, still trying out new lists and making our first purchases of new models, mainly heroes.

Jonathan's list was Rumil, an archer captain and a mounted captain.  Rumil had his phalanx, spears and pikes, though smaller than under Legions.  The archer captain was leading, oddly, eight archers.  The knight captain had four knights, two with bows and six sword and spear elves.  My list is pretty much the levy of Kharna list.  The Betrayer, Haradrim King, Taskmaster, Chieftan, one Warrior of Abrakhan with horn, six Abrakhan guards, twelve haradrim with spears and eighteen warriors of Kharna with bows.  This gives me eighteen shots hitting on threes with poison re-rolls on a third of the dice (1-2).  With the points for the Kharna upgrade I could add five more models.  So far, in four games, the upgrade seems to be worth the points.  We'll see how it works out in the long run.

Initial Deployment.  The Taskmaster's ill fated band is behind the ruins to the left.  You can see the hornblower.

Battle Report - Harad vs Galadrim (Warbands)

This last Thursday was the last night of the league down at Collectormania.  Only Jonathan and I showed up to play, and he was about to leave when I walked in, twenty minutes late.  He suggested that we try the new warband composition rules.  I threw together a list and off we went.

The Galadrim were led by Rumil, who is the default choice of all Galadrim players.  He was asssisted by two captains, one mounted.  There were the usual five knights (2 with bows), the phalanx and the archers.  He had 36 models total, though we discovered later that he had been playing two short.

My list was the serpent's sting list from the blog.  I was able to look it up on my phone and just copy it to paper.  I wanted to test the Haradrim Warriors of Kharna with their shoot of 3 accompanying the Betrayer with his poison re-roll on a 1-2 instead of a 1.  In the interests of full disclosure, I went into this game expecting the 2 point upgrade for Kharna warriors to not be worth it.

We rolled Lords of Battle as the scenario.  Cause as many wounds as you can.  Points for expended fate as well.  Once one side is broken, roll a d6 every turn and the game ends on a 1-2.  The new scenarios have alternating deployment, which we both liked.  Coupled with the fact that, on average, half of your army will be in the forward half of the board it gets the game rocking sooner and adds some additional tactics during the deployment phase.

Initial Deployment.

Here is the Galadrim Phalanx, led by Rumil with the archers off to the left.

Battle Report - Harad vs Gondor and Dwarfs

The Thursday night league at Collectormania has come and gone and I got in another fun and interesting game.  I was there early and Micah showed up.  I haven't gotten to play him yet so we agreed on a game.  600 points using the old composition rules but he, kindly, agreed to my request to play one of the new scenarios.  We divided our armies up between our heroes, to serve as our warbands.

This is turn two.  You can see each of the warbands in action.  Boromir and the two Knights are just visible behind the wood, top right.

The Knights and rangers battling the Mahud.  Almost everyone in this picture was dead by the end of the game.

Battle Report - Hard vs Galadrim

Last night was League night down at Collectormania again.  Rhys and I got there early and hung out for awhile.  We talked about the new books coming out this weekend.  We talked about what new models we are likely to see.  We talked about Russ's new orc models.  We watched Craig (Harad with a Mumak and Serpent Riders) play a game against Jonathan (Galadrim).  When that game was over I asked to get one.  I wanted to play Craig as I have not played him yet and I haven't played against a Mumak in years.  On the other hand Evil is behind in the League and I wanted the game to count.  I played Jonathan, which is not second best by any measure.  He is a great opponent and he has beaten me the last two times we played, both good reasons for a re-match.

Battle Report - Harad vs Eagles

Last night was the second night/week of league play.  We had a large turnout with nine people getting games in.  Off the top of my head we had two Harad armies, one horde infantry (mine) and one with a Mumak.  There were the Eagles of the Misty Mountains.  There was a woodelf army and an Isengard army.  Two Moria armies, one with a cave troll and one with Black Shields and a Dragon.  There was also a Dwarf army led by Durin.

My game was against Russ and his eagles.  He had six eagles including Gwahir.  I had the same list as last week, Nazgul, Harad King, Harad Chieftan, Taskmaster, horn, banner, 6 Abrakhan Guards, 26 spears and 14 bows.  I don't like the banner.  I will not play it after this round of the league.  I never make my re-rolls with them and even if you accept the odds at 50% I think the 3 inch range is too short to make it worth while.  The horn, on the other hand, paid for itself again last night.  In this case it was the huge number of terror tests I had to take in order to charge the eagles. 

The table, looking towards the Eagle deployment zone, after the battle.

League Night

Today is league night at Collectormania.  Last week I had to change my list and drop my Far Harad in order to comply with the league rule that you can only have one ally.  This rule was a holdover from the first round of the league when there were a whole bunch of new players and they wanted to keep it simpler for them.

After some discussion we have decided to open it up to the normal army building, Legions of Middle Earth, rules.  This will help people prepare for the Mayhem in the Mountains tournament in September.  They will get to build tournament legal armies and play against them as well.

After all of that, I have decided to keep my list the same for the rest of the league.  I'll be sticking to a list of Harad with a Nazgul allied in.  This will force me to learn to play the less great aspects of my army without the Far Harad crutch.  It will also simplify my painting and give me something to work on for the next round of the league.

I'm actually pretty sure I'll be able to stick to this decision, though a total shellacking tonight could test my resolution.

P.S.  I'm totally going to try to remember my camera tonight.

Four month plan

I re-read this blog last night, just to see where I've been.  That's the main reason I'm keeping it, to help myself track this hobby.  Here's some themes I took out of it.

1.  I need a deadline in order to paint.
2.  A goal of 20 models a month - painted is reasonable.
3.  I love terrain.
4.  I need more pictures.
5.  If you want to do something someone has to organize it.

Based on these five things here's what I am going to aim for.

1.  I am currently in a six week league at Collectormania.  I am going to aim to have my Haradrim list painted by the end.  This is a stretch goal, to say the least.  It will put me way above the 20 a month, but what the heck.
2.  I am going to paint more than 20 models in January.  I only have a week and a half left so I'd best get cracking.  February is going to be the same story.
3.  I am going to make some Harad specific terrain.  This will be done after the current league round.
4.  I will take my camera to the shop tomorrow night (Thursday) and I will take pictures of my games.
5.  I want to play in a campaign.  I have been planning to build a 3-D campaign map for the last couple of years.  My goal will be to complete that by the end of April.  That way we can play a campaign out in the league, two rounds from now.

So, nothing to grandiose but definitely some stretch goals there.

Battle Report - Harad vs Galadrim

Last Thursday Jonathan and I played my first game of the league. It was a reprise of the game from the week before, his Galadrim led by Glorfindel and Rumil against my Haradrim. I was tripped up at the last second by the League rule that you can only ally one faction into your army, a rule I believe we should change, by the way. Consequently I was forced to drop my Far Harad and went with a list that consisted of Bob the Budget Nazgul, a Haradrim King, a Haradrim Chieftan, a Haradrim Task Master, a banner, a hornblower, six fat guys (Abrakhan Merchant's Guards), fourteen archers and the rest spears for a total model count of 56. We played Domination with the MitM change of only three objectives.

I had a big hill in my deployment zone. there was a ruins between my zone and the objective to my left. The rest of the terrain, of which there was a lot, did not really factor in the game so I'll leave it off. I made a lot of mistakes in this game. Jonathan only made a couple. He, again, got a well deserved win with a minor victory. One more turn would have given me the minor but two more would have made it his game again. This was a real nail biter and I found myself thinking about it quite a bit the next day, which is the mark of a great game, to me.

We started off with a general advance on the part of the elves towards the left and center objectives. The elven phalanx headed towards the left while the cavalry and archers, with Glorfindel riding along, went towards the center. I left my archers behind the hill, firing in volleys most of the game (mistake number 2, I waited way too long to start firing directly). I split my force with a strong infantry force heading towards the left objective and a smaller force going over the hill and towards the center, (mistake number 1. I shouldn't have split them the way I did and had too many high value units in this group with no meat shields.)

My volley fire was average over the course of the game but started out strong. I killed both knight archers and another model in the first round. I got rid of most of his highly prized archers over the course of the game with volley fire. Jonathan killed all of my fat guys with arrows, a very disapointing development but well deserved the way I left them hanging out in view.

I pushed my infantry up into the ruins, about twelve inches short of the left objective, and stayed there. This was where Jonathan made the only real mistake of the game. He brought his phalanx up and charged me. Between the wall bonus and some good use of transfix/compel, I kept Glorfindel out of the fight, killed Rumil and managed to bounce the phalanx. Jonathan realized that he didn't need to fight me and pulled back to the objective, still too strong for me to sally out and contest him.

He also shifted his archers and remaining knights to hold the other two objectives. this is when I realized that the reason I was feeling outnumbered was that I had 15 models hiding behind the hill. I marched my archers out to contest the center and right objectives. Killing Rumil had made me a happy little Haradrim. I had also put a wound on Glorfindel with a Black Dart, something generally frowned upon in tournament play. Most players consider it too risky for too little pay off. Now Glorfindel found himself facing down a haradrim gatling gun of fourteen poisoned bow shots. This is where I made mistake number 3. I rolled all the dice at once. I killed the hell out Asfaloth but didn't have enough left to finish off the elf, though I did put another wound on him. I would have been better off taking the individual shots. The reason I did this is becase it was almost 2100 and I had Rhys (7yrs old) with me. I had already gotten a testy phone call from Mama and 2100 is closing time, though Chris very nicely and characteristically offered to keep the store open for us. So I was rushed. I took another turn to kill Glorfindel. Another moral victory in my eyes.

I managed to take the right objective and was one turn away from having more models on the center objective. I had broken but my hornblower more than paid for himself. Jonathan was one model away from breaking. I had moved my Nazgul up so his phalanx would be taking break tests with no heros on a -1 courage. He was moving troops up to the center objective, who would start arriving a turn after I controlled it. We survived the roll on the first turn after I was broken but the second one ended the game.

Accomlished this week.

It was a busy week.  I got a lot done and played my first game of Warhammer 8th edition.  I began the week by finishing base coating my Warhammer trees.  I then got the first coat of dark brown paint on them.  Two more, dry brushed, coats and the trunks will be done.  After that it is down to the bases and, finally, the leaves.  I have nine trees to do all told.  These need to be done for September for the Mayhem in the Mountains LotR tournament we are hosting at Collectormania.

The next thing to be done was base coating my Sorylian fleet for Firestorm Armada.  I hit them with Army Painter Desert Yellow primer.  They will be bleached bone and some shade of blue, as yet undecided.  Bleached bone is my favorite color and seems to end up in most of my armies somewhere.  The bases and flight stands are black.  I need to drill a hole in the end of the bases and in the ships and glue a pin into the base.  Magnets and other such attachment methods all sound nice but are too much work at this point.

The next project was assembly on my M10 3" GMC Tank Destroyer Platoon for Flames of War.  This involved cleaning and gluing two M10's two jeeps and an M20 utility scout car.  There are crews for all vehicles and two dismounted carbine teams.  I still need to clean the flash off of the crews and mount the carbine teams on their bases.  That will happen at the same time as the infantry company gets stuck to theirs.

The third project of the week was making my new Faramir, Prince of Ithilien.  I don't like the new model very much.  I also didn't think a lot of the mounted model of my mounted Faramir blister.  Easy fix.  I glued the shield from a Warrior of Numenor to the mounted Faramir model.  Boom!  Bob's your uncle.  Done.

In preparation for Fantasy 8th edition, which I am super excited about, by the way, I borrowed the book from the shop and read through the rules.  As I went I compiled a list of changes from 7th.  14 pages later I had a PDF we could use, down at the shop, to learn the new rules.  I also listed out the new spells so we can all plan our armies when we don't have access to the book.  Magic items will be next, if I can borrow it again.

We played a 1500 point game.  I didn't use any magic items, and Jud only used the ones from the High Elf book.  We left the special terrain rules out of it but we rolled for the scenario and got the one where you deploy a foot apart at an angle and roll to see which units will come on as reinforcements. 

Jud brought High Elves.  A unit of five or six Dragon Riders with Musician and Standard but no champion.  Two units of Spear Elves, one of 20 and one larger.   A big unit of archers and a unit of 20 Lothern Sea Guard.  He had one dispell scroll on his Level 2 fire mage, who was his general.  He also had a mounted BSB with the +D6 to CR banner, which he put in with the Dragon Princes.

I had my Empire.  One unit of 25 swords, full command, with a ten handgunner detachment and a 12 swordsman detachment.  One unit of 25 spears full command with ten crossbows and 12 swords.  One unit of five Knights with great weapons, banner and musician, one unit of five pistoliers with musician and outrider with repeater pistol.  Artillery was a great canon, mortar and Hellstorm.  My heroes were a General of the Empire with full plate, shield and pistol, a mounted BSB and a level 2 with the lore of life.

He had to leave his seaguard off.  I lost my BSB and cannon. 

Here are my impressions.  This is a completely new game.  I loved it.  Movement is about the same but the phase is easier to understand.  All charge stuff happens at once now.  In my experience people usually moved their chargers when they declared them.  Now that is how it is supposed to work.  Random charges are something that I was not really all that worried or excited about.  After the first game I have decided that I like them a lot.  They add to the phase.  Before, I just had to know how far eight inches was.  Now I can take the chance and go for that 16 inch charge if I'm feeling lucky. 

Magic is AWESOME!  This is great stuff.  I love the winds of magic.  I love the new lores.  I love everything about this.  Our two level 2's got spells off, they affected the game.  They were viable but not overpowering.  My support spells were critical at times.  His damage spells killed a bunch of dudes.  His double six killed half of his archer unit.

Shooting is about the same but my warmachines were really good.  I usually made most of my guesses, and you still have to be good at placing the first spot for the canon and Hellstorm, but I killed a lot of elves with artillery.  True line of sight was a pain in the ass, just as I thought it would be, and added nothing to the game.   I do not like this rule.

Close combat was wildly different.  You beat me by 12, my leadership is 9 with the general in there and I'm stubborn with the BSB.  I'll just stick around for the rest of the game, thanks.

You won combat with your Dragon Princes?  Wait, they're not going to run off the table for the rest of the game?  They're going to reform and get a charge off next turn?  Crap.

It goes on and on.  Being able to move through terrain was great.  We had a bunch.  It was tactical.  It didn't stop the game.  It looked great.

My detachments play completely differently in this edition.  I ran 3x3 CC detachments all through 7th.  Now, with 5 wide and at least two ranks to take away ranks, they are a lot more vulnerable.  I am going to have to give some serious thought to how to make them work.

The game was fast and fun and, TLoS aside, I liked every single rule.  I love 8th edition.

Tournament

Tournaments.  They are a lot of fun.  They are a lot of work.  There are not very many LotR tournaments, and certainly not many in our neck of the woods.

Three of us are talking about setting one up in the Denver area.  We are discussing dates, locations, scenarios and terrain.  I think we can make it happen but there are a lot of things we need to get sorted quickly if we are going to pull it off.

The first issue we are discussing is whether or not we want to do it as part of Tacticon, the big Labor day convention here in Denver.  The first thought was to hold the tournament there.  We are now leaning away from that for several reasons.

1.  There is a $30 convention fee.  We would have to charge on top of that for prizes and food.  We are looking at a two day tournament, so there would not be a lot of time for people to use their passes to see/game the rest of the con.
2.  Labor day is not going to work for me.  Not a reason not to do it that weekend if that makes the most sense, but definitely a reason for me not to be all that thrilled about putting in all the work to make this thing go.
3.  The convention organizers have not bothered to get back to Keith regarding his request for ten tables.

Reasons to do it somewhere else.
1.  We run it at Tim's store, Collectormania, and it won't cost us anything.   We can fit in ten tables, and he might be able to get a bigger space if we need more.
2.  We can charge a reasonable amount and use all of the money for prizes and food.
3.  We are not locked in to a particular weekend.
4.  We only have to deal with ourselves, not the convention organizers.

We are going to have a meeting next Friday to discuss this.  If we are serious the biggest issue will be coming up with the terrain.  LotR is best with a lot of terrain on the tables.  I have enough for two tables.  I don't know about Keith.  Tim has a few hills but nothing else that really fits.  We will need to build a lot of terrain.

We also need to come up with the scenarios that will be played.  We have, realistically, all but one or two figured out, so that should not be bad.  It also gives us an excuse to play a lot of games to play test them.  We will also have to decide if we are going to announce the scenario's before the event, or let people show up blind to them.

I think we can pull it off and make it a great event.  Our goal is to have twenty players.  I think we can hit that easily, but partly that will depend on when we decide to run it.

I am excited about this.

Doldrums

I am having a hard time getting back in to the swing of things.  I started painting up the rest of my Gondor army but I just can't bring myself to finish them. 

I think I need to play.  Playing always motivates me to throw some more paint on my models.  When I'm throwing dice and my opponent's army is painted, and mine is not, it is a huge motivator to get it done.  I'm always good for at least a week after that.  Likewise, if my opponent's army is not painted I think about how crap it looks and want to get mine looking better.  Either way the gaming is what keeps me painting.

The other thing that helps is having a deadline.  I got more painting done in the lead up to the GitD than I have in any given year before.  Having that sort of goal is hugely helpful to me.  I have always worked best under a deadline.

Bottom line, I need to figure out a deadline or play some games.  We have our warbands league this weekend, so I may be able to get some gaming done then.  That would get me kick started on my Empire.  I have a lot painted for that army but there is more I can do.

Next weekend is our 40K league.  I have not played any games yet, but we are doing kill teams from the Battle Missions book.  That would give me a chance to learn the rules and to get motivated to paint my IG.  I have one squad of them painted.

I also got an American Rifle Company box for Flames of War for my birthday this week.  If I get them assembled then I could play some practice games of that.

I guess I just have too much hobby and not enough time or motivation.  I know what I need to do, now I just have to do it.

Hiatus ended

I'm back from a short deployment.  For a month I had no time to even think about the hobby.  It's good to be home.

I pulled out my last White Dwarf.  I went down to Collectormania to watch some 40K.  I pulled out the rest of the models for my Gondor army.  I even threw a little bit of paint on some.

It's going to take a while to get back in to the swing of things.  My brush control was crap.  my patience was thin.  My paints needed to have the stoppers cleaned out.

I'm starting to get excited about it all again though.

Gathering in the Desert - Overview

The Gathering in the Desert is over, and it was a fantastic event.  I will do all I can to make it again next year.

Tim McKnight, the manager of Collectormania, and I had been planning our trip for a couple of days.  His army was almost completely painted a year ago, he only had to add a couple of models.  We both made up our display boards at the last moment.  They were functional but not all that hot.  The only good thing about mine was that the holes were cut in such a way that when the first four rows were filled I was broken.  It acted as a nice score board for both my opponent and I.

Keith, the other Colorado player, was flying down.  I offered to carry anything he might not want to take on the plane as we had plenty of room in the SUV.  He chose to send his display board with us on the way down, we brought his army and paints back with us.  It turns out, by the way, that you can't take a whole bunch of bottles of paint on the plane.  TSA and Keith had it out, guess who won?  Keith ended up checking his army.  The Sabol army case worked as designed and the army arrived with no damage.  Good stuff, but nail biting for Keith.  The other problem that Keith had was that, as a physician, he has been told that he can work for days without sleep.  When we got down there he was down two days on sleep, minus about three hours.  The night before the game he stayed up all night finishing his army.  He finished as Tim and I were heading for the door for breakfast.

Tim and I met up at the store at 0530.  It had snowed overnight and I was a little bit concerned about the drive.  As it happened, getting out of the parking lot at Collectormania was the worst part of the drive.  We loaded Keith's display board and Tim's stuff into the car and we were off.  The drive down was great.  Good conversation all the way and an easy drive.  We made good time and got straight to the hotel with no issues.  Once we were checked in we called Keith, got handed around for awhile, and got directions to the store.

Empire Games is an impressive venue.  They have twenty (or so) 4x6 tables, tons of terrain and the largest stock that I have ever seen.  The store is brightly lit and the staff were great, helpful but not pushy.  Tim spent some time checking the place out, professional curiosity. 

We checked in on Keith, who was playing in the March to Mt. Doom.  We met a few of the other guys and got directions to a local Mexican place.  Dinner was great and the beer was a godsend.  We hit a grocery store, since I had forgotten my ditty bag at home.  It turns out that in Arizona you can buy real beer at the grocery store.  We found some good Colorado beer, no local beers were in sight.  Once we were done we found our way back to the hotel.  At this point we were feeling pretty good about our ability to get around town.  It helps that Mesa is laid out on a grid.  Good system.  I wonder why we don't do that so much in Colorado.

Tim and slept like crap.  Hard bed, too hot, too cold.  I was looking forward to sleeping in, being away from my boys, but I was up at 0600.  I jumped in the shower and headed down for some coffee.  The hotel had breakfast set up so I ate and waited for Tim.  He got down, we called Keith, who was alive and awake but not really all that with it.  It took a few minutes to get to the store and get our armies and display boards into the store and we were ready to go.

I'll cover the games in separate posts.  The day flew by.  I enjoyed all three of my opponents and the tables were gorgeous.  I learned something in each game I played.  My opponents were all great sportsmen and very reasonable about everything.  It was the best day of gaming I've had, at least from a fun point of view.

Not so great from the gaming stance as I started out with a Major win, then a draw and ended with a total shelacking Major loss.  Over the course of the weekend I played against the best overall, Best General and 3rd Best General.  I learned a lot at least.

When we were done gaming for the day we all headed out for dinner again.  Since people were coming from all over the country they wanted Mexican.  Tim and I volunteered the place we had eaten the night before so we headed over.  Most of us even found the place.  Dinner was good and the company was great.  The dinner ended up sitting a little heavy though.  Back to the hotel, drink a beer, watch some curling on TV.  Hit the rack.

The second night was no better than the first, and the third was just as bad.  Day two was a shorter day, only two games.  My first game of the day was no fun at all but the last one was great.  I ended on a high note at least.  The awards were given out and Tim won best sportsman.  That was all he was really gunning for at this point so he was very pleased.  Jeremy, who we had met there and fallen in with, won 2nd best sportsman.

I packed up my army and board and talked with everyone about their games and weekend.  I was sad it was over but I was also beat and not looking forward to the drive the next day.  Anyone who had not already left went to dinner again.  A bunch of us headed back to the hotel and Tim and I picked up some beer.  We got a variety pack of New Belgium as Jeremy had just been snow boarding in Denver and was raving about the beer.  He was thrilled and we burned through the beer while we all sat around and talked through the games, history, sports, women, whatever.

Tim and I slept badly again so we were up early and out of the hotel.  The drive started out well, a little overcast.  As we got farther north we transitioned to rain, snow, harder snow, freaking BLIZZARD in ARIZONA and back to snow.  It took us two hours to finish the last twenty miles before Flagstaff.  It turns out, oddly, that Arizonan's can't drive in the snow.  If they weren't driving really, really slowly, they were in the ditch.

Once we were out of the traffic jam/blizzard we grabbed some breakfast and got back on the road.  The drive was reasonable until we hit Santa Fe and it got crappy again until we hit the Colorado border.  At that point the roads were clear and dry and the rest of the drive was easy.

I had brought the Fellowship of the Ring on CD so we listened to that on the drive back.  Tim had not read the books and was surprised by how different the books were.  We both agreed that the first few chapters of the Fellowship could have been tossed out the window and no one would notice.

We hit town about two and a half hours later than we had planned.  I dropped Tim off at the store at 2100 and headed home.  Mama and the boys were all racked out but I woke each one up for hugs an kisses, then went to bed myself.

As I said at the beginning, this was a great event.  The blizzard aside, the trip up and down was great.  I can't wait to head back to Phoenix next year.  Tim and Dean put on a great event and Tim's wife did all the book keeping, so thanks to her as well.