I woke a little hungover this morning from a couple of glasses of wine, and went off to play in the Chaos Cup. The format is four games on the Saturday, followed by two more tomorrow.
I started with a game against Dwarves. With my scantily armoured rats, Dwarves are one of the worst teams to play. Still, I pulled a 2-2 draw out of it – my first one turn touchdown in a tabletop match (maybe even the first I’ve had ever) and a flukey pass in bright sunshine.
Then it went downhill. My second match was against another Skaven coach, but he played so slowly as to drive me to distraction. The game is meant to take about 2 hours: the first half took 90 minutes, and it felt like every time he threw dice he had to shake them for ages first. Worst of all, we both thought I managed to pull back a 2-2 draw in the last turn, before I realised I had made an error moving a stunned player, and I was back to a 2-1 loss.
Still, admitting to a loss is probably better, because every match after the first you’re seeded against players with a similar level of success – which doesn’t explain why I lost 2-1 again, this time with only two players not dead or knocked out. I’d gone into that one with the wrong mindset, defeated from the start, and a combination of bad positioning, terrible luck with the dice and my spirit being broken meant I had little chance. You want to be a fun opponent and not gripe about how bad you’re playing, but when it’s endless defeat following you, that is a bit tough…
My last game of the day was against another coach who must have also had two losses, so I was feeling hopeful, or over confident. Although things ended 4-3 this wasn’t a close match – I couldn’t do a thing to stop his wood elves moving around me and knocking me down. Even my last touchdown was a screw up. We forgot the last dice roll so if it wasn’t for both of us agreeing and submitting the paperwork, it could have been a 4-2 defeat. (Although thinking about it, there was a 75% chance I would have rolled the right dice for that pick up to score, so let’s not be too upset…)
Anyway was quite down, having travelled so far to meet with so little success. But there’s always tomorrow, and the chance to win the "Most Improved" prize… Or perhaps the Wooden Spoon. Let’s see how this all works out…