Örb Wars 2 – review

Disclaimers first

So we went to Austria to play the Örb Wars tournament. This blog post reviews the tournament, the ambiance and shows pictures. There may be a 2nd blog post where I review my army and my results some day, but this isn’t that one!

As I do not know if all participants want their faces on the internet, this blog does not show people, only their armies. Therefore all the great group pictures we made can be found elsewhere!

Review

As we travelled to the beautiful land of Austria (they have actual mountains, something we lack in the Netherlands) we didn’t know what to expect. We did Clash of Kings for 2 years now, other than that we only play in Dutch tournaments.

We had a blast! The tournament was organised remarkably well (much better than we did) and the locals were incredibly friendly and helpful. The tournament included food and drink but no charge. The entree fee was “whatever you want to give”. This level of dedication was humbling.

Games

I played six games, three in the saturday tournament, one against the winner of the tournament and two more on sunday. Without exceptions, the games were hugely enjoyable and the opponents fun to play against.

Honourable mention for Florian Wolf with his excellent order-of-not-so-saint-lazarus undead army. (pictures above) His army was wonderful to play against (look at those werewolves) and remarkably similar to an army I played a year-and-a-half ago or so. I faced Florian in the 2nd round.

Florian unfortunately made the mistake of marching his revenant horde one inch too far on the hill, right in the sights of my handgunner horde. With a freak result of the dice, my 20 attacks (fives to his and threes to wound) resulted in nine wounds, adding a few shots from the balistas, the horde ended up with 13 wounds at the end of turn 1 shooting! The fact that his main anvil was handicapped at the end of turn one made his game really hard. That said, Florian took it in stride and we proceeded the game.

Florian won (and rightly so) the general of hearts trophy. Congrats!

Other battles

My first battle was against Martin’s riftforged orcs. Martin introduced himself as “the worst player in Austria”, which probably wasn’t true. That said, Martin didn’t have that much experience and his army got squeezed into my classic anvil-and-hammer situation, which did show his inexperience. The army before my turn 4 combat:

and one turn later:

That said, I immensely enjoyed the chatter between rolls, the relaxed atmosphere and the sight of his nicely painted army. (The giant is particulary impressive). Here’s a picture of the intimidating guy:

My 3rd (and final) tournament batle was against Markus’ Ratkin.

Markus is a careful planning player with a gorgeous painted army. He rightfully won Best Painted.

The game was decided when he flanked my handgunners with a (hindered) rat demon and didn’t rout them. The dice were not in his favour in this turn and the result was a messy rear charge from one of my generals which took the demon out. Another of my generals killed off one of his hordes which gave me a signifciant advantage. The turnabout came when I “double oned” one of his remaining hordes on turn 4 AND turn 5 but ultimately turn 6 I got rid of it with a mind fog and took the game.

In the end it was one unlucky roll for him which gave me this battle.

More honourable mentions:

The most impressive part of this tournament was the terrain. the tables were simply gorgeous. Each table was themed and had an accompanying bit of lore.

I understand there’s one lady who made most of this terrain and mostly from scratch too. Wonderful!

Conclusions

I’ve had a marvelous time! The great time there was well worth the drive. Will we be back next year? It’s a certain possibility but depends on a lot of factors. (time, family etc.) I certainly hope we can make that happen!