GIANT FANATIC 8....

This weekend I have been out playing my yearly matches of Warhammer. I can't find the time to play Warhammer at a regular basis, but once a year I participate in the tournament called 'Giant Fanatic'.

The prize I go for is the one for best painted army - as I only play 6-8 games of warhammer a year I can't expect to be the best general in the world... There is simply to many rules and things to master - it's still great fun to play though.

This year I played 6 games, each with a little twist as each player was to play a 'strategy card' which influenced on the gameplay. When played, the strategy card was handed in to the referees and you couldn't play that particular card again. In the first games though, everyone of course had a full hand of possible strategy cards to play - which meant that my opponents played the 'high wind' card (which had a very bad influence on my cannon, mortar and hellblaster AND gave my griffon and pegasus a -6 penalty to their movement) as soon as they saw me... damnation.

My first game was against bretonian...

The game went quite well in spite of the 'high wind' - a terrific charge in the flank with my unit of 20 spearmen with the 'griffon banner' caused his main unit of knights to run away only to be run down by my electorcount on his griffon - great game :)

Next game was not quite as fun :( But at least the opposing vampire count army looked really cool - all the models being more or less converted orcs. My poor men of the empire didn't stand a chance against the undead forces of evil and their damned 'high wind' strategy...

My opponent had come all the way from the northern sweden - that is areeeally long trip - impressive.

Third game was against Dennis, a fellow empire-player. A super game and a great victory for the empire - my empire, that is.

Here you can see Dennis trying not to look completely beaten... I think he is doing a great job concidered he only had 1 model left at the end of turn 6

After this, things began to go the wrong way... even though I didn't encounter more of the #/"%*" 'high wind'...

Game number 4 was against another vampire count army - this time with a zombie dragon AND a black coach...brrrrr

I was extremely unlucky during the entire game, rolling nothing but miscasts and misfires.

Due to the fact that we were playing a 'capture the territories'-scenario I managed to get a draw.

Next game was against high elves and another opponent from Sweden (or was it Norway?).

My warmachines worked like I have never seen them work before. In the first two turns they killed 8 dragonprinces, an elven hero and about 15 elven spearmen - I felt a solid victory comming up. But somehow it didn't go that way. I still can't explain why it went wrong - but in the end I had not scored the 650 points I needed to win the game (only 610..grrrr), so it was a draw...

The final game was against another foreign guy (from Norway). He played very scary slanesh demon army - I knew it was going to be tough.

It was a great game. Unfortunately I made the mistake giving him the fist turn (what was I thinking?!) - It could have turned out better had I not failed 3/4 of my fear-tests... Oh it was a bitter test to fail, when my 20 greatswords refused to help out my knights in the fight against a slanesh hero and some chaos ogres - I think it was right when my opponent afterwards pinpointed this exact moment as the moment I lost the game. Bahhh greatswords...supposed to be the some of the best men of my army! Cowards :(

So in the end I had made 2 victories, 2 draws and 2 defeats. Added to the 3 out of 10 points from the quiz (it was all questions about fluff, so I had to make a guess in each and everyone of them) I made number 53 out of 127... Not a very impressive result.

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But, apart from playing warhammer, Giant Fanatic is the place where I get to see the great armies that other people do. Here you can see a few of them:

  This is a part of the skaven army which I voted as the best painted army last year (though it didn't win) - It's still a cool army with lots of conversions and funny little details... and lots of cheese. Great army!

Though it's hard to see (picture is too small), this is another nice army. Jesper Simonsen did a great job making this khemri army with a cool roman theme - roman themes seem to be the trend at the moment...

A very nice demonic army - with lots of weird conversions. It maybe does seem too dark overall  though...

The demonarmy of Asger Granerud - known from White Dwarf.

I would have loved to play against Asger - as I beat him this summer during my stay in Nothingham - I surely would have beaten him once more! (Asger placed second with 5 victories and 1 draw)

Another cool mini of Asgers... Though I'm not sure what the two bases at the side do?!

I know from Asger, that he has had a lot of help from danish sculptor Tue kaae on this one... I would certainly like some of his help as well :)

A model from Joe F.s Fantastic Nurgle demon army. I have seen it before, but it's still impressive - it got my vote as best painted army this year!

Unfortunately I didn't get to play against Joe either - it's always a pleasure to play against an army this beatifull.

More pictures of Joe's nurgle army...

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Apart from meeting people with great armies, Giant Fanatic is also the place to meet people who seem to be unable to paint a complete army, but sure know how to paint a single model. I spent some time chatting with Tue Kaae, Sonny Bundgaard, Tim Valimaa and an upcoming star Philip Rusinski (not sure I'm spelling that one right) - always a pleasure talking to people who really know their trait...

Tue (who had brought his newly achived silver demon), Tim and Philip - who sculpted and painted this beaty...

Sonny and Thomas 'Powerfist' (known from powerfist.dk)...

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As I had hoped for, my army was nominated as best painted army (for the sixth year in a row)...

- And for the third time it actually won!! I think it's quite cool to have painted an army 6-7 years ago which can still win :)

I would like to thank everyone at Giant Fanatic 8 for either voting for my army, playing me or just being there, making it a great tournament- weekend. I'm already looking forward to GF9...