Wow...

 
I can hardly imagine that getting into Gray Sage's car was only last Friday... The second Direwolf (and other lists) Get Together in Europe has proven to provide an excellent weekend! I'll keep it short because I'm still suffering from a whole weekend of sleep deprivation :)

 
Friday
After Archeonicus, Gray Sage (& Junior) and I arrived at the tourney location there immedeatly was the same feeling of recognition we had at the first EuroGT we had in The Netherlands. Meeting up with people like Garett Kutcher, Spider, Goeran, Andreas and the rest of our Dutch deligation, as well as the first batch of the Austrian locals was great! Discussing the 6th edition (and for some weird reason, the subtitline and dubbing of series & movies in various European countries), getting to know each other as Siamak's place and meeting up with the first few players of your Empire's teammmembers, all I can say, it was as great as Stefan's home made Chilli.

 
Saturday
After a good but short night of sleep at the hotel, we first got to see the school where the Austrian SCA was organising the actual tournamey. Lots of tbles and a command center were already set up, and the first players were already unpacking their armies.

 
Me and my Bretonnian army were placed in the Rose emperium team, together with Arjan's and Marco's Empire armies and through the twist of fate, Florian's (a local Austrian player) Vampire Counts as the fourth team member in our Goody Empire (fluff reasons quickly added to this last minute change was that we had never seen our 4rth ally and only had been in contact with him through mail).

 
The Empire Teams tourney was improved and the setting was that all the good empires (2 Empire/Bret combinations, the High Elves team, the Dwarves and the Woodelves) were being invaded by several evil teams, (the Greenskins, The Dark elves and the Cahso teams) and each team got several contitions they had to meet to actually win the tourney. We were right next to the point where chaos was placed to invade the old world, so the first game I played was against a Chaos Warrior player, a local Austrian player who completely wiped me of the table (500+ VP difference), the next game I was looking for revenge.

 
My movement on the large-world map placed me against Garrett Kutcher who was playing Dark Elves. This time through a lot of luck and my infameous stalling techniques (Sorry Garrett :) I was barely able to defeat him, and I needed 2 extra contingents to do so, 1 contingent from ym VC teammate, a large unit of skeletons, and one hired mercenary Chaos Chariot... (Who would have thought you'd be facing that when you are opposing Bretonnians :).

 
Then decided to camp my army, and lend out my contingents to suport my allies, while I myself had a champion of mine entering a side game, Dungeon Quest, where one could grab some nice booty from the treasure room, if you were able to get out of there alive... I didn't get anything, ad by the fifth turn, my hero was completely killed by 2 falls into the catacombs and to creatures who normally couldn't kill a fly if they wanted to :)

 
Then for the next battleround we were asked to help to other Empire/Bret team, who was having troubles against the skaven... Well, sure if they would help us vs. the chaos invaders... But during the discussion, the organisation had decided there were too many good-empires, and the evil ones were having a too hard time pressing ong, and decided the wood elves had become true neutra and were no long part of the good-epires, and thus we all decided (including the High Elf and the Dwarf team) we'd show them woodies what it meant 'to leave the good-empire' :) All players possible to attack a wood-elf territory did so, and a massive attack-wave was launched against them.

 
I was facing a wood elven army, played by the excellent local player Bernard, which contained a lot of scout-units a treeman, a flying general a, a mounted wizard, a unit of wardancers, and there rest of the army was filled with archers and a magician. Even before the first turn the woodelf play had surrounded me. This was going to be a though battle. And that it was, and it was great, at one point I had "the lonely bowmen", where he had shot a whole unit of them but one, sadly he didn't live to see the end of the battle though, and at another point, my hero on pegasus charged his general, and in the second turn was able to kill the him, though not before the general was able to kill the pegasus, so now I had a Hero on foot who found himself being approached by a group of wardanced... he ran into a house and turned around to see what was happenening... The next turn, I was wondering whether or not it was possible for him to charge out with the lance, on foot, as he had the virtue of the joust (I am still not certain whether it is legal or not, I'll have to check the army book, whether or not lances can only be used on mounts). As we both we're sre on this technicality, and all marshalls were busy elsewhere, we decided to roll for it, on a 4+ he was allowed to do so, and luck was upon me, as I rolled a 5 :) so this hero comes chargin out of the house and kills two wardancers :) I'm sure at that point we both made mistakes, but in the fun of the game (other funny things were happening all over this game :) we decided that it was all okay...
At the end the battle was a draw (I got 40VP less then Bernard, but he held 2 quearters and got a Banner from me, while I only held 1 quarter (D*MN scouts wouldn't even panic even if their lives depebended upon it #$^*$@#! :) so I lost the battle after all.

 
Returning to the world-map, I also saw that the whole 'let's kick some WE b*tt' plan had failed miserably, as only the other Bret player was able to win, and all others had lost their game.

 
After the battles it was time for some relaxation discussions and a decent meal.

 
Sunday
After what seemed to be even a shorter night, all 40-ish players arrived back at the tourney hall for more battle-rounds. Meeting up with more old friends like Stefan, and off course the illustrous duo Mark & Cameron, as well of people I had been talking to via mail in advance of this event, hi Gerald! was abviously great.

 
The first army I was matched up against was Goeran Tanzer's Dark Elves, and after my elven debacle of the previous game I thought this is going to be ugly, as I've seen Goeran in action, and he's a far superior player than I am, but I had the lady of the lake (or rather lady Luck :) on my side, and Goeran rolled to what must have been the worst dice-rolling ever for him, shooting on short range on my big 9 Kotr + General lance with 90% of his army and only being able to kill off 2 knights is not a pretty sight, especially when I mention that the Cold one unit (which included his general) managed to kill only 1 additional knight on their charge. The general using a 2nd-ed wepon on the charge enabled mine to strike first, scoring 4 wounds on his general. Goeran missed all his saves, but then used his Black Amulet, trying to rebound at least some of the wounds... And failed miserably... Seeing his General killed on his charge... (I think he's throwing away those dice now :). As his luck didn't change I was able to pull out my second win of this tourney.

 
Then I decided to camp out, and take a small rest from playing, when through some rulings a Chaos army was contending 2 of our territories, and all my empire-team members were in action elsewhere, so I had to fight this Slaneshi Chaos army... Well, all I can say is that I must have used up all my luck during the previous battle, as all I was able was to kill off his wizard (I think). I was able to block the charge of his chariot with a 6 knight lance, which he completely destroyed, though this enabled me to get the charge in with my big 10 large lance, but during the battle I failed to do even 1 single wound on anything of that chariot. And the reast of my army wasn't doing any better either. At the end I had only 1 6 kotr lance standing and half a bowmen unit, when I reached my army's breakpoint... So we lost the 2 territories (which actually were very important to us for wining the tourney... Bummer).

 
So then I decided to try and collect as many booty from my 2nd Dungeon Quest game, and 2 of my allies decided that chaos was allowed to proceed, and we wnet for the treasure hunt... Result, 2 dead and one escaped withough any treasure, but it was a great game!

 
By then the tourney had ended after the 7th battleround and it was time to see which empire had scored the best of their victory conditions... We thought we probably would be last (or perhaps just above the Orc & Goblin team), but actually one of the tiles we needed to get was luckily fallen into our hands during that final round of combat, where our VC player was able to defeat the DE army in the mists of the goody emperium, and we were ended third, tied with the Wood elf (IIRC) team. So amizingly enough we didn't even do as bas as we thought (though we only won 4 out of 12-14 games).

 
Anyway, as we needed to drive back home (11-12 hour drive) things were mopped up too quickly (parting is always done too quickly). Saying goodbye to everybody, promissing each other that we would see everybody again next march, when the third EuroGT will be held in the Netherlands again...

 
So big thanks to all the players who played in this 2nd edition of the European Get to Gether for the Dirweolf, Mordheim & Warmaster mailinglists, and of course big thanks to the organisational team who put up with all of us, and especially, extra extra big thanks to Siamak and Gerald, the Brains behind this while tourney...

 
I hope to see you all, next time in March :)

 
Ser Tachyon