Brawler Bash Game 2 and a Damsel

While tournaments are great for inspiring progress in the painting of armies, I'm seriously burnt out on painting High Elves.  I thought about painting up some more Tomb Kings, but since I haven't really seen the book, I decided against it.  I'd hate to spend a bunch of time working on  a Bone Giant that was useless with the next book.  Fortunately, my friend Paul came up for a game on Saturday.  After getting trounced soundly, I started looking over his army and noticed that Bretonnians have some great figures, especially some of the older edition metals.  The damsels in particular are excellent, and I asked if I could paint one of his.  After spending a couple of days on it, this is what I came up with:

I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.  I wanted to paint it green because I have a fear of red (and I think green would look good); however, Paul really wanted her to wear red.  I was a little apprehensive about that because I have always found red difficult to paint.  I initially tried to wet blend parts of her dress but gave up on that pretty quickly.  Still, it was a nice model to paint.  I'd be willing to bet that she was sculpted by the same person who sculpted the High Elf Maiden Guard, which are some of my all time favorite figures.  Both models have excellent hair,  which really stands out.  You'll notice the old school green base as well.  Normally, I hate the green base look, but after painting this one up, it's not as bad as I remember.  I'm going to stick with Graveyard Earth or Black for my own armies, but I guess green still works just fine.  Hopefully, Paul will like the way she turned out.  And if he doesn't, maybe he'll just let me keep her.

Anyway, my second game at the Bash was pretty interesting because I drew another High Elf list.  This one was banded hard (I was only medium), so I knew it was going to be an uphill fight.  He had a Book of Hoeth mage, a BSB, and another hero accompanied by 4 eagles, 2 blocks of 25 phoenix guard, and 2 blocks of sea guard.  I knew I was a little outgunned, but I still felt pretty good about my chances.

The problem was that the scenario was Watchtower, and I know that I'm not alone in saying that Watchtower is the worst balanced of the six basic scenarios.  There are some units that are just impossible to move, especially with the watchtower granting steadfast.  The tournament organizers tried to mitigate some of the problems with the scenario by making it King of the Hill instead of Watchtower.  However, the building isn't the problem.  It's the steadfast on the holding unit.  In the end, I couldn't get the Phoenix Guard off the hill. By the end of the game, I had won combat three straight times, but the BSB who was hanging out in a nearby unit with a LD 10 general made certain that no one was leaving the Hill.  At the end of that game, I was 0-2.  Things were looking grim, and I was worried that I might end up being the tournament whipping boy.  Fortunately, the Brets were next, and my luck was about to turn!

It was interesting to hear about other people's experiences at the tournament with this scenario.  Several of the top players lost this game (and it was their only loss).  I really believe that this scenario comes down to certain units getting on the hill.  I'd suggest changing it to take out the steadfast and to allow for full combat resolution (instead of just kills).  I think that would make the scenario more fair.  As it is, I just don't think it should be allowed in competitive play (truth be told, I always suggest rerolling it when it comes up in friendly games).