Grail Quest V -- Lethal Flagon

The tournament season is upon us, so this blog is once again resurrected from the dead.  Last weekend, I attended my first tournament of the year: Grail Quest.  This annual tournament normally features a 1980s movie theme (last year it was Highlander theme; this year it was Lethal Weapon) is the first hobby (meaning the first to score paint and other hobby aspects) tournament of the year in NC.  This years event proved to be extremely popular with 35 folks in attendance.

The organizer (whose blog you can find here) does a good job of thinking outside the box in regards to rules.  This year was no different. Instead of using the traditional win/loss/draw system, Grail Quest was all about victory points.  The goal was to amass as many victory points as possible across three games. This changed the game in several ways, especially for me.  I normally play an avoidance game in which I try to pick off easy to kill supporting units while avoiding the enemy's large, dangerous blocks.  As a high elf player, I think this is necessary because we don't have the force to win a war of attrition.  In this tournament, I had to go straight ahead in order to gain as many points as possible.  In the end, I did well enough to finish middle of the pack as I gained 1200, 2200, and 1100 (or something close to that).  The other Manglers did even better as Billy was on table three and Paul was on table four in the last round.

In addition to getting to play some very fun games, I was also able to catch some expertly painted armies.  Several people had broken out new armies for the new year, and it looks to me like the painting and modeling aspect of the game  is getting much more competitive.  While several armies stood out, I was most impressed by the Spartan-themed High Elf force.  Although it did not ultimately win best painted, the modeling work and creativity was quite impressive.  The impressiveness of the armies inspired me to get back on the painting wagon, so I spent most of Sunday afternoon working on two pieces.  First, I have the prototype for my phoenix guard turned spears conversion:

There are a couple of things I need to clean up, but he's more or less finished.

The next major tournament is the Brawler Bash held in Raleigh in April.  It's an excellent GT, and since it is held in the North Raleigh Hilton, play takes place in a very nice facility.  Here's a link to the tournament website: (the message board and the blog).  My plan is to perfect a double dragon high elf list before the tournament takes place.  It's not a very good army, but I think it will look nice.  Hopefully, I can post again next week and let you know how the painting and the practice games have gone.