Jungle camp
Jungle ruins
Desert base
Koral land
Industrial area
Woodland
Town ruins
Again it was time for ChopCon, taking place in Nykøbing, Falster, Denmark again. Again I was going to take part in the VOID tournament which this year would be an official ranked tournament. I therefore made sure that my army was in best condition. This years BloodBowl tournament was cancelled due to lack of players. Instead of that I planned to play a game or two of Urban War. Additionally there should be more time for chatting or trying out other games.
This year I took the whole trip a lot easier, taking the train to Hamburg on Thursday, a day earlier then last year. Thorsten was so great to offer me
I started at 5:20 am on Friday (2. April) and took the train to Hamburg where Thorsten picked me up at the station. We stored my stuff in his car, made a short stop at a super market to buy some essentials (e.g. beer) and then hit the road to Kiel to gather up Frank. Well, the car then was pretty crowded with all the gaming stuff we had with us. But we savely managed to reach Nykobing at 3:00 pm (so it was a 10 hour trip for me) and checked in at our youth hostel.
Around 4:00 pm we arrived at the event location, just in time to help the guys from Berlin (Christian, David, Gero, Jano) to set up their shop and stuff. Over the next few hours there was a lot of chatting and watching minis and such as more and more people arrived.
After dinner we started the BloodBowl tournament. We were 6 players and each should play 3 games over the weekend, one on each day. The first match of my Skarfjell Slayers (Norse) was against Mathew with his Sisters of no Mercy (Shadowforge nuns, played as a human team). I was able to score a 3:0 victory (1:1 casualties) due to some lucky dice rolling.
At 9:00 am the next morning we were back for breakfast and then to start the most expected VOID tournament. First we set up the tables to provide a wide range of different battlefields:
Jungle camp |
Jungle ruins |
Desert base |
Koral land |
Industrial area |
Woodland |
Town ruins |
|
The opponents:
 Morten (m0b0) |
 Søren (Mongoose) |
 Mathew (nemesis) |
||
 Torben (Phoenikuz) |
 Zacharias |
 Thorsten (voidlegion) |
||
 Bjarne (bj_sink) |
 Ole (Cynic Boy) |
 David |
||
 Frank (Hoarfrost) |
 Christian (christian) |
 Inge (Jenova) |
||
|
||||
My viridian army for the tournament reads as follows:
Graham as referee decided that in round 1 a local dane should battle a foreign german/irishman and it turned out that I had to fight against Inge's Metal Alien Menace (Koralon) first. I HATE koralon!!! She had a broodmaster, 2 larvan squads with those nasty neutron staffs and 3 big squads of assault araktons.
Fortunately the fight took place on the 'jungle camp'-board - hometown of my viridians! The scenario said that both armies set up along the same long table edge, seperated by some impassable terrain between them. We then had to run for a datachip on the other side of the table, trying to recover it. Whoever touches the chip first would get 50 victory points (vp) extra and who possesses it at the end of the game would get another 200 vp. Hm, those koralon are pretty fast and the chip can only be carried by foot troops (so my jags were out).
I managed to infiltrate with my commando squads halfway on the table to equal out the higher speed of the koralon and set up the rest of my army to provide covering fire. In turn 1 my tank-buster squad of assault marines was able to take aim at Inge's broodmaster. The squad took the first step on its way to become legend - all soldiers hit, the 5 gauss rifles scored 2 wounds and the 2 rocket launchers scored the last! Phew, one big threat eliminated.
The rest of the game was pretty straight forward - one commando squad picked up the datachip and then ran for cover. The rest tried its best to bring down some aliens. Inge managed to charge the commandos carrying the chip with some araktons in the last turn but failed to kill anyone. In reaction the commandos were able to bring down one arakton and the whole alien squad panicked! In the end I lost nearly half my army but I had the chip and almost wiped out the slimy aliens (only one larvan and one arakton left). It was a funny game and Inge a great gal.
Some more battle shots of round 1:
 Zack (Koralon) vs. Christian (Koralon) |
 Zack (Koralon) vs. Christian (Koralon) |
 Zack (Koralon) vs. Christian (Koralon) |
 Zack (Koralon) vs. Christian (Koralon) |
 David (Koralon) vs. Ole (Junker) |
 Mathew (VASA) vs. Søren (Viridians) |
 Gero (Syntha) vs. Torben (Viridians) |
 Gero (Syntha) vs. Torben (Viridians) |
 Gero (Syntha) vs. Torben (Viridians) |
 Frank (VASA) vs. Bjarne (VASA) |
 Frank (VASA) vs. Bjarne (VASA) |
 Thorsten (Junker) vs. Morten (Syntha) |
 Thorsten (Junker) vs. Morten (Syntha) |
 Thorsten (Junker) vs. Morten (Syntha) |
 Thorsten (Junker) vs. Morten (Syntha) |
|
The scenario in round 2 was a slight modification of the 'Reclaim' scenario out of the rulebook. Modifications were that one gets 50 vp for each resource counter he posseses in the end plus additional 50 vp if the resource counter is in its own deployment zone. And each will get vp for destroyed or panicked enemy troops. Oh and there were some local forces with sniper rifles on the table, shooting at everything possible (randomly choose on squad at the beginning of each turn). My opponent in this round was Morten with his syntha force. He had a cyclops grav tank, 2 squads of assault androsynths, 2 squads of tactical androsynths (with plasma guns of course) and a total of 3 biomechs. The battlefield was the 'jungle ruins'-board
Again my commandos infiltrated, immediately picking up 2 of the resource counters. the rest was set up to intercept the approaching robots as soon as possible. The local snipers were mostly on my side throughout the game, killing at least one of his plasma gunners. With my commandos already in possession of 2 of the resource counters and a third right next to my deployment zone Mortens syntha had to try and track down my troops and therefore moved on. My assault marines wanted to keep up their good work from round 1 and managed to bring down Mortens grav tank with 2 salvos of rockets without giving it a chance to shoot at my retreating commandos. The jaguars managed to kill one and a half squad of Mortens tactical androsynths, the rest got killed by mortar fire and the terrasaurs.
One of his assault androsynth squads managed to charge one of my commando squads but failed to kill it completely so that I could intercept him with my marines and terrasaurs.
In the end I had lost a third of my army but had managed to bring one resource counter into my deployment zone and to kill all syntha except the 3 biomechs which were constantly dodging all hits (damn little buggers!).
Morten had one resource counter in his deployment zone and anotherone in his possession. So I had only won because of the killing points. We had great fun playing the scenario.
Some more battle shots of round 2:
 David (Koralon) vs. Christian (Koralon) |
 David (Koralon) vs. Christian (Koralon) |
 David (Koralon) vs. Christian (Koralon) |
 Frank (VASA) vs. Torben (Viridians) |
 Frank (VASA) vs. Torben (Viridians) |
 Søren (Viridians) vs. Ole (Junker) |
 Gero (Syntha) vs. Mathew (VASA) |
|
The last scenario was some kind of a 'king of the hill'-thing. Whoever had the most points of troops in the designated evac area in the center of the table at the end of turn 6 will get 200 vp plus points for all killed or panicked enemy troops plus all enemy troops in the evac area which are considered to be captured. The battle took place on the 'town ruins'-board and again I had to fight against koralon. Zacharias' army consist of a broodmaster, a hydra, a phazon, some larvans and lots of araktons (both assault and tactical).
We had a wide open center on the board (the evac area), surrounded by ruined buildings. I placed my mortar teams in one of the ruins to cover the whole area. The commandos again infiltrated to ambush Zach's advancing forces with their flamers.
The marines were placed in a high position so that the sniper had a good view. Assault marines and terrasaurs should secure the center area while the jaguars were designated as a rapid response squad.
Until the end of turn 3 everything went fine - the assault marines closed a gate of the phazon in and dealt 2 wounds to the hydra in turn 1. In turn 2 the assault marines dealt another 3 wounds to the hydra killing it (my heroes!!!). The phazon opened another portal but before any other slimy alien could make use of it my sniper managed to wound him and the gate collapsed. One of the commando squads wiped out a squad of assault araktons with its flamer and the rest of Zach's army was slightly damaged by mortar fire and the jaguars. At the end of turn 3 Zach had lost over one third of his army (with only minor damage on my side) and was close to giving up. But Graham and me talked him into playing on. And on he played!!! I managed to keep most of the rest of his army at bay but couldn't bring down his broodmaster which slaughtered himself through two third of my army, including my heroic assault marines.
In the end he controlled the evac area and had killed enough of my army to win the scenario. Great example that a VOID battle isn't over 'til it's over... ;-)
Some more battle shots of round 3:
 Christian (Koralon) vs. Ole (Junker) |
 Christian (Koralon) vs. Ole (Junker) |
 Christian (Koralon) vs. Ole (Junker) |
 Christian (Koralon) vs. Ole (Junker) |
 Christian (Koralon) vs. Ole (Junker) |
 Frank (VASA) vs. David (Koralon) |
 Frank (VASA) vs. David (Koralon) |
 Frank (VASA) vs. David (Koralon) |
 Thorsten (Junker) vs. Bjarne (VASA) |
 Thorsten (Junker) vs. Bjarne (VASA) |
 Thorsten (Junker) vs. Bjarne (VASA) |
 Thorsten (Junker) vs. Bjarne (VASA) |
 Thorsten (Junker) vs. Bjarne (VASA) |
 Thorsten (Junker) vs. Bjarne (VASA) |
 Gero (Syntha) vs. Søren (Viridians) |
 Inge (Koralon) vs. Thorben (Viridians) |
After all battles were fought and all points calculated it was time for some glittering prizes:
1st place: David (Koralon - three VOID boxes)
2nd place: Christian (Koralon - three VOID boxes)
3rd place: Gero (Syntha - three VOID boxes)
The Lucky git award: Torben (Viridians - VOID starter set)
The unlucky git award: Bjarne (VASA - Typhoon box)
The sportsmen award: Zacharias (Koralon - a special 'oversized' junker convict provided by Ben Brownlie)
Best painted army award: Me (Viridians - Inge's awesomely painted Trask)
Overall the whole event was a lot of fun (as you can see on the pics of the participants) and, as it was my first VOID tournament, I was pleasantly surprised how well my army fought. There was a lot of cool terrain and even cooler armies to watch and all the people were very friendly.
After we had packed our stuff at the youth hostel and checked out we returned to the ChopCon location for breakfast. After this the final round of the BloodBowl tournament took place. In the last game my norse had to play against some dwarfes. Well, to make things short, it went on where it has ended the last evening - my guys weren't able to pick up the ball, the blocks mostly failed and the outcome was a clear 0:3 defeat (0:2 casualties). This meant that my team ended fifth (of 6 players) in the tournament - not too bad considering that it was my first BloodBowl tournament and only my 7th or 8th BB-game ever.
I then took the opportunity and made some pics of my VOID minis using all the cool terrain from the VOID tournament. At 1:00 pm after some nice chatting, we had to hit the road again for our trip back home were I arrived round midnight.
It was a sometimes stressy weekend with a great lack of sleep but it was all worth it. I have met so many cool people, had some great games and generally a lot of fun. I will do my very best to come again next year. Cya all hopefully!!!
Sven "Vulture" Wichert
I want to thank Inge, Thorsten and Morten for the pics as I had no camera and therefore had to use the ones they took.
