Australian Warmachine Nationals Weekend - Day 1

It was a dark and stormy night. A Friday actually, and it wasn't really that dark but it was definitely gloomy and it wanted to storm so bad that it jumped up and down trying to wet itself with anticipation. And it was still only evening.

I'd gotten home to Dee in the kitchen talking with Mel about shenanigans as I packed up my gear to go to Kelvins for the night. Stop to take a call from Scotty to make sure where I was; my two privateer press related shirts; my laptop in case he wants two people to check lists; a network cable in case he didn't get one; stop to take a call from Scotty to ask Kel about whether he could stay the night; pack both my Warmachine: Prime and Hordes: Primal; make sure my wallet is in the bag; pack a pair of pantaloons to sleep in; take another call from Scotty to ask if I'd asked Kel the questions or not, to which his disappointment lay with how I hadn't gotten to Kels yet because I was still packing up my shit.

It was at this point that I was starting to remember why I don't like organising things with Scotty, because he will call you to make sure you're going to do that thing that you were going to do right then and there. It's almost as if he doesn't trust in people. I could understand with Aaron, because Aaron is quite unreliable and will either leave things to the last minute on principle or he will just not turn up at all without notice.

After bumming a lift from Dee to also discuss things like numbers for the house she's buying and I'm renting out of, I finally got to Kel's place, asked the questions Scotty wanted me to ask, and got a call from Scotty to ask if the questions had been asked.

This was the last night though, the night before the Australian Warmachine-Hordes Nationals. I was helping Kel organise the finishing touches with the event, such as event bags and checking army lists that people had sent in. To help pass the time with having background noise, Kel put on Alice in Wonderland, the Tim Burton one. Yeah, didn't really like it. Looked too sensible. And the girl looked like her innards were about to burst out like a waterballoon.

But after that, he really brought on the good stuff by playing Flash Gordon. I'd never seen it before, and neither had Scotty, but sweet jesus titty cinnamon. My favourite character is Dr Zarkov, because he's so ridiculous. "The Sun is not out? CHECK THE ANGLOVECTOR OF THE MOON!"

Also, Scotty and I were sad to discover that Hot Hail is quite lame. With such a fiendish machine that can create a variety of natural disasters, earthquakes, typhoons, hurricanes, why would you even bother putting Hot Hail on there?

Long into the night we prepared, organising prizes, table top terrain, etc etc etc. Midnight we eventually go to bed.


At 5:30 we rose to victory, which smells like reheated hawaiian pizza. Much like the delivered pizza I had last night...

We drove off to the venue, Comic Warriors in Annerley, and we got into the venue thanks to Glen the Owner and we set up the tables with the assistance of Disco, Allan and Olaf. I have no idea who Olaf is, I assume he was here either for "Magic the Gathering" or because he worked there. He was very keen on the game though, and we let him have a browse through the general rulebook to see if there was anything in particular he was keen on.

The day was divided up into 5 rounds between the 34 players that had registered and turned up. Four had to pike at the last minute for various reasons that I'm unaware of and will remain unaware of, so I will just say that they're off saving the galaxy from the moon being drilled by a gigantic laser and eventually causing it to land and making us explode.

The day for me was divided up into 7 parts, and behind the scenes I was messaging Jenny as much as possible to keep her updated with what was happening.

The first part was the first round of the tournament. We got right into it and I was faced up with the only Girl at the event. Righto, I'll take my Heavy Infantry List full of dudes in Steam Powered Armour.

Yeah, she ignored them and took out my Kommander with Teleporting Boulders. Oh sorry, Baulder. My bad. He's the big hippy guy who looks like Brian Blessed? Yeah, he disappears in a group of trees and teleports into a different set of trees near him.

She was nice though. Dani is dating Terry from Adelaide, who is a really nice and funny guy. I faced him at the end of the day at part 6. We found ourselves at the table closest to Kel and, because of the particular list he was fielding which is a REALLY nasty mob of skeletons with massive fuck-off axes, I said he was wearing a Dick Hat to compensate for using said list. Oh how we laughed. A few of the guys next to us were just wanting to get a tape recorder and place it on the table to listen to us yell at each other until we were stupid.

Second game was against Rob, with him using a Themed list as well full of the heavy infantry of his faction, and me using Karchev the Terrible who only lives up to his name when he gets assassinated by a zooming dude with hair spiked up with enough gel to straighten the tower of pisa, waving a big sword and thinking he's oh so scary because he remembered his dick hat this morning and the only reason he wasn't wearing it is because it got crushed in the luggage.

Third game was after lunch, to which we reach the third part. Lunchtime was simply a sausage sizzle out the back. Kel had gotten his aunt over to cook, and boy was she a bloody good sausage cooker (See, I haven't had a decent sausage in months because my roommates always leave them juicy and just that little bit undercooked rather than grilled), and I helped out by guarding the table from fiends who were very keen on the sausage sizzle, not that you can blame anyone. For about an hour (at least it felt it) i was guarding the table and saying the following lines.

"Okay, do you have your white card? When you want your drink, go to the counter, hand it over and grab you drink from the fridge."
"You don't have a card? Go up to the counter, they'll ask for some money and you get a raffle ticket. Bring that to me and I'll take it off your hands."
"You may have two sausages in a bun."
"Yes, that's two... of a sausage in a bun."

Everyone was really good about it, so I was happy with that. I had an extra half sausage for my efforts. Can't go wrong with a cold half sausage that has been cooked properly.

Third game, now, was against a fairly new player with one of the more difficult to face armies. One of those armies that has big buttons all over saying "This is good, and this is good too". Playing the Karchev list again, because he was really fun the other times I played him so why not play him again, I got the moral victory for making him kill EVERY single piece of my army. I think we sat there for a good... 6 turns before he finally whittled me down to nothing.

I was a little disappointed that I didn't have much more of an effect, because I had some bad rolls. Particularly a half dozen Snake Eyes (which are an auto fail on attacks) which would've been wonderful for them to hit. I would've also done better if that fkn elf who turns your warcasters impotent every turn she gets a chance, wasn't there.

Fourth game was my first, and only victory where he had made the fault by spreading himself a little TOO thin across the field and inevitably just ruined his chances for any sort of success. So I threw everything I had with, yes, the Karchev List. I felt a little bad because he knew he had spread himself thin, but *Shrug*.

Skipping the fifth game because we already know about Terry, we move onto the aftermath. Kel, Scotty and I were wasted. We wanted to get some food, and go home. So Terry and Dani joined us for dinner at the Pub across from Comic Warriors, got ourselves a dinner of steaks, lamb cutlets and pies (not in one serving, all different orders of course), before we made the trek back to Kels place to get the last bits and pieces for the event tomorrow and get what shuteye we could.

Speaking of which, goodnight. Talk to you latre. I mean later.