EuroGT Bad Vöslau.

 
So it was going to happen. A very large car drove op to me an Lex Emerged from behind the wheel. We then waited for a little while, as Remi wanted to make a walk around the block before starting.
Then we were on our way.

 
The trip was rather smooth, until we passed Nürnberg. Then the "baustellen" started, but the hindrance was kept to a minimum. We arrived in Bad Vöslau and then someone asked carefully: "Anybody got Sia's address... perhaps... ?"
Which was the signal for driving wrong and more mishaps. :-) But finally someone was waving at the side of the road and we did, as expected, completely ignored him the first time.
We had arrived.

 
Then there was that excellent chili (con carne) and a lot of talk and some introductory words for the tournament, then we hit the hay. 12 Hours driving was more exhausting then I thought...

 
The first day.
We arrived in a splendid tourney hall, nice roomy tables with lot of scenery. The guys really put some effort in it.

 
As I wanted to play woodelves, I was part of the excellent woodelves Empire. The Empire of the Unicorn. This was Together with Mark, Bernhard and Norman. (BTW tanx Sia for the Glade riders on loan :-). We were the protectors of the Glades and a secret artifact and we were supposed to help the Goodies...

 
So then it happened, choasincursions, green invasions and a black arc (or at least the lesser model of it :-). Norman was going to face some Greennies, Mark and Bernhard moved north into dwarf country. Thuarindir (my general) thought it was to leave one army behind to protect the glades. He send his hero into a recently discovered dungeon to explore...

 
My Wardancer champion got four tiles far into the dungeonquestgame before he got chewed up by snotlings... for Pete's sake... Although he was not dead yet, the falling into the catacombs finished him of. Camping brought me more interesting stuff, The first was a nice magical item and the second was a "free" night for Thuarindir's elves at madam Sia's. Then there was some scouting and I got a whopping one intel...

 
Time to kick some but now. And the greenies were to powerful anyway. No woodelves could stand for that. So there we stood on opposing sides. My army consistent of the following regiments, al with champions:

 
2 archer regiments.(8&9)
1 regiment of 7 scouts
1 regiment of gladeriders (6)
1 regiment of wardancers (10)
Further more a 1st lvl and a 2nd lvl mage assisted my general Thuarindir (on war hawk) in the battles. As really heavy panzerfaust there was a treeman.

 
The greenskins in front of me were manifold and if it was not the local KFOR-troops (or is it IFOR) of the flying brigade of the high elves. I would have been done for. But a contingent of sword masters held the center of the battle, long enough for me to speak to the dice. So the 1's disappeared and the right numbers starter to show up. (example: he twice casted Waaagh! and due to reinforcing I only would fail on a 1, guess what I rolled. And that in 2 consecutive turns...)
After that I was able to amberise the Orc general and the battle slowly turned. Victory.

 
The second battle I assisted the high elves against the DE with 2 contingents (yes, rules were unclear at the moment...) and trounced an abysmal rolling Gareth.

 
Then something extraordinary happened. We were declared "outlaw" by the Judges. Seemingly the good side was doing to well (al due to the masterly fighting of the woodelves of course :-).
Result: Al glades were invaded, with a lot of WE armies outside their homeland. On the good side Al following battles were won and al invaders were repelled, except one. This one held the middle glade and only could do so because no WE-army could reach him.

 
Thuarindir had to fight the guy (sorry for not remembering all you names... ) who helped him in the first battle and who he helped against the DE of Gareth. Let me just say I shot better then him, only barely, and he used about 900 points of army to chase a 280 point treeman. Result, he lost. The extra cheery on the cake was, he didn't want to part from his money (victor got 50 euro...erm... gold) so he traded the Armour of Dargan instead.

 
So ended the first day's battles and we were of to the joined eating frenzy in then "Heurigen". There we had an excellent meal and some nice wine. Finally it was back to the Hotel, were a game of dungeon quest should make us more drowsy, but only lead to discussing Mordheim for the EuroGT 2001 till 2.30 in the morning (or was it 3.30...)

 
Second day.
We al were happy to hear that Sia was feeling better again (was coming down with the flue, of al things). And the battle for the empire continued.

 
The first order of the day was to give that empire player the boot and get one of the alleged artifacts back. (by taking the glade he took control of an artifact, which had 1/3rd of a chance to be the artifact the WE had to protect) So four armies were bearing down on him. And even before we could discuss things, he was there (thanks Spider) to offer it back. All as an payment for certain favors of course... ;-).

 
As al glades were in our hands and save again, we now could start and free several forests on the map (revised secondary victory option, a bit hard as proved later). Both Mark and me moved north and took over the dwarf regions. They only put up a fight against me. I had to attack a great wall, full of dwarfs. They brought friends and I was facing 4 war machines, 2 organ guns, a cannon and a gyrocopter. As this looked a bit grim I tried for a certain mercenary regiment, a regiment containing a treeman. :-) So there were 2 treeman, rushing forward to batter the defenses, Being targeted by all artillery and crossbows the dwarfs could muster. Luckily someone informed me in the last round that the victory condition for this battle was to take the wall and not score points as normal. So I managed to get 2 units behind the wall. One was the fast moving gladeriders, who where almost cooked by the gyrocopter's steam canon, but held there ground. The other was a treeman climbing the wall to chase after a fleeing group of dwarfs.... So victory was mine again...

 
The other were doing well too and all looked rather rosy at that moment. Then as the last battle round started al looked grim again, there were some incursion into the glades again, or at least a lot of empires seemed inclined to do that.

 
Arjen's high elves invaded a glade and Thuarindir had to face him. Guess the KFOR statues are not known to high elves... This was a battle with out any contingents except out own armies.
Highlights: The WE firing al they got including a 16 arrows hail of doom and only managing to kill two high elves. An archer and one bolt thrower crew. His spearmen breaking my treeman, who rolled snake eyes for fleeing. Then his spearman rolled them too... My wardancers doing 30+ attacks on his general and only wounding him twice. He then killed the wardancer champion.

 
Finally the gladeriders and wardancers did in the white lions (afflicted enough casualties) and the general was taken down...

 
Final results. I personally won al battles I took place in. And the empire of the Unicorn managed to get in third in total.

 
We were a bit rushed to get the price ceremony on the way, as people had to leave because of trains and other stuff. But it was a very nicely done.

 
So hereby I want to thank al participants and I hope to see you all in March... ;-) Also my thanks goes to the organizers for making it such a rememberable event.

 
So there we were, inside Lex's car driving back to the Netherlands. Discussing a lot of things, missing a turn of, but making nice time overall, due to less traffic at night.

 
Tjeesh, what was I happy to get my head on a pillow, when I arrived in Venlo at my parents. I slept for 6 hours and then headed home for Utrecht, in my memory recalling a great event...