Finished Dragon Conversion and Brawler Bash V Report

I just returned from Brawler Bash, and I'm happy to report I had an excellent time this weekend.  Brawler Bash was the first GT-style event that I ever attended, and it remains an outstanding event.  Eric and his crew do an excellent job of running things, and I encourage everyone reading this to make a trip to NC next year for the tournament (especially all of you folks from Tennessee -- come on over!).

As I mentioned before, my primary objective was to score as high in painting as possible.  This, of course, is a bit of a challenge for me because I am not an outstanding painter, so I have adopted a "go big" strategy to army appearance:  I might not be the best painter, but I'm going to attract some attention by putting cool stuff in my army.  In the same way that an average looking woman becomes beautiful with the proper make-up, I try to work in some little touches that make the army stand out.  This year, that meant some spearman conversions, bowstrings for my archers, and this:

I posted the WIP process shots two posts ago.  I'm very excited by the way he turned out.  The only problem is that when I put the wings on, his balance was thrown off badly.  He spent most of the weekend tipping over, even after I added some weight to the base.  A friend has promised to make me a pewter base, and I'm hopeful that this will make him more stable.  I think people at the tournament really enjoyed the conversion, and a lot of people from the convention came over to talk about him.  As I've said before, I enjoy the hobby part of Warhammer as much as (if not more that) the gaming part, and it's a good feeling when something that I've worked hard on comes out right (heaven knows that I've had a lot of things that I've worked hard on fail).

Anyway, the dragon must have paid off because I was awarded the plaque for Bash Brush.  I've won a couple of player's choice awards but never best overall army, so I was really proud of that.  Here's a shot of the complete army:

As for the actual gaming, I ended up going 2-3, winning against an Ogre army and a Tomb Kings army and losing to Orcs, Skaven, and Chaos Warriors.  A couple of the losses were very close, and every game was interesting.  Most importantly all of my opponents were excellent generals and sportsmen, making the losses much easier to swallow.

Of course, I took a double dragon army, and there was a lot of discussion about my dragon mage.  A lot of people had never seen one on the table, and most lamented the fact that such a cool concept was marred by poor rules.  However, I'll note that in every game except for one, the dragon mage held his own.  A few of his highlights:

Game 1 vs. Ogres:  he killed some scouting ogres before chasing around a unit containing a firebelly.  He slowly fireballed them away until I had received all of their victory points.

Game 2 vs. Orcs:  a stone thrower ended his game early

Game 3 vs. Tomb Kings: Despite losing the mage early, the dragon went on a rampage, killing a unit of carrion, a unit of horseman, a casket of souls, and two catapults.  I won this game primarily due to his kills and the fact that you don't get points for killing ridden monsters unless everything dies (the lord survived after the star dragon died and the sun dragon survived after the mage died).

Game 4 vs. Skaven:  once again, ranged shooting took its tool on the poor dragon mage.  He managed to get a warp lightening cannon before succumbing to the poison of gutter runners.

Game 5 vs. Warriors: a fitting end to my dragons' tournament as the two of them teamed up to defeat a horde of marauders, a hellcanon, a unit of chaos warriors, and a chaos hero.  Once again, the game came down to whether my opponent could get the points out of the dragons.  The dragon mage died after the life wizard buffing him fell.  The star dragon lost his final wound in the bottom of the 6th round to a second hellcanon and the warshrine.  Despite their deaths, their stand against a thousand plus points of chaos warriors was pretty epic.

That's it for now.  As the next GT will likely be 2500 points, the dragons will go back into the display case.  I'll also begin working on a few more things to help the army stand out: a new display board, a hero for the maiden guard, and perhaps one other idea.  Hopefully, I can post the WIP of the display board in a couple of weeks.  The fine play of my Tomb King opponent has inspired me to break out those old bones, so I think I'll take a vacation from High Elves and see if I can't get the TKs tournament ready.