申し訳ないが、日本語版のリポートはリングテイルのイベントページとブログをご覧ください： www.ring-tail.com :)

Over the weekend of June 12th - 13th, a small horde of gamers descended on the hot springs resort town of Beppu in Kyushu. This was Kyushu's very first Warhammer Tournament, and we managed to attract gamers from as far as Gifu and Okinawa prefectures. Fukuoka prefecture was a little under-represented as we had some late cancellations, but at least we can improve on it for next year (which will probably be in May or October - mark it in your diaries!).

Tournament co-organiser Vlad stood in at the last minute to even up the numbers, and so we had tables full (mostly, eh Adam?) of beautifully painted models and terrain. This is a brief report of event highlights, plus a dozen of the best shots. For a full slideshow of 120 (!) photos from the event, please take a look at the green Events page of www.ring-tail.com .

Setup on the Saturday morning took a while, with the 3 main tables used for tournament games supplimented by two extra free-play tables, demo display games of the Black Reach and Skull Pass boxed sets, plus the ever popular Squig Hunt multi-player game and the skirmish scenario Necromancer Battle. I don't know how, but Vlad even managed to fit an entire galaxy into his car for a beautiful Battlefleet Gothic table! Then we had a large modelling table for people to try their hand at modelling terminators and ork nobz (kindly provided by Giovanni at GW Japan), and also a painting desk full of freebies.

We had a couple of hours free once the tables were set up, but spectators had already started arriving. So Miyao-san invited them to join the minigames of Squig Hunt and Necromancer Battle. Not sure how the first necromancer game went, but everybody had a laugh at how crap Night Goblins are at anything. Little did they know what a spectacle of inefficiency there were about to witness on the main tables...

Oh, I should apologise now for the bias this report will show towards my own games. We played 2 games on the Saturday and another 2 on the Sunday, and the sheer number of goblin units to be moved meant that I didn't have much time to take a break and view other games going on. So all I've got are the photos. Sorry!

Second group playing squig hunt. They had to use spare dwarf models while the real squig models were being used in a big game. But happily the problem was soon solved, as the squig herd unit had a reliable knack of blowing itself up in every game. Even worse, my unit always managed to take out more of my own units then the enemies in the ensuing squig explosion! Not taking those bloody things in a tournament again!!

Two spectators get a chance to try out Skull Pass. Well done to Miyao-san and Vlad for getting hold of all the extra tables and boards, by the way! The guy on the right stayed for both days, and came to dinner with us on the Saturday - keen, eh? Oddly, I think that game ended in a draw.

We had a bundle of undercoated models for people to try out, and here you can see Miyao-san demonstrating how difficult it is to paint while standing up! Take a close look at Miyao-san's T-shirt, by the way. 'I-want-to-be-so-busy-I-die' Vlad actually took the time to print two blood red tournament T-shirts for himself and Miyao-san. His girlfriend did a great job of drawing the troll-in-an-onsen logo for the flyers.

The tournament got under way after lunch on the Saturday, with a small crowd of amused onlookers. This was the first of my games, against Stuart's (from Gifu) High Elves. As it turned out, I never even got to play against Kane-chan's greenskins army, so my Night Goblins actually suffered from fear against EVERY army they played! Don't you just love goblins?!

This first game was actually my best result, with a draw (barely) against Stuart's High Elves. It would have all gone badly, if his left-flank of archers and bolt-throwers hadn't unexpectedly broken in the 6th turn. Well, he didn't move the whole game over there, so a stone thrower had to hit sometime, didn't it? Although to be honest, it was the humble night-goblin spearmen who did the real work. 20 High Elves charge in to only 11 night goblins (no doubt expecting just a warm-up slaughter). Not only did they pass their fear test  (on a 5), but they only lost 1 goblin to the attack. In return they hacked down 7 pointy-ears, and the high elves fled.

This giant spent the last few turns hiding in the woods, but had one glorious moment when he managed to charge into the Silver Helms and destroy them all in a single turn. Shame it wasn't the Dragon Princes...

As I said, I didn't have much time to view other people's games, but this very photo-friendly game was taking place in the desert sands on the next table, in between Michael's terrifying Dark Elves and Vlad's ghastly undead. Ethereal black coach versus Lord on Dragon, huh? Ouch.

Adam's Dark Elves almost look like a painted army in this photo, don't they? I have no idea how this combat turned out between his Lord in a chariot, and those 3 hard-hitting units, but somebody probably had a bad day.

The best moment of Saturday for me was this one - glancing up from the table to see a wall of 15 people all walking in at once. Cool!

I can just about make out Miyao-san in the background of this photo, being swamped by half-a-dozen curious onlookers. Crikey!

Sunday:

Sunday morning found me facing Vlad's vicious undead army. He played very nice against me, and I actually started to think I had a chance. As you can see in the photo, his ethereal unit held up one flank by drawing out 5 out of the 6 fanatics I had taken. Brave fellas, but ultimately rather useless. They prevented his Black Knights from charging in to finish the job, but in the end only one fanatic actually managed to steer himself towards the Knights. Flying straight through the unit, he only got 1 hit. He only needed a 2+ to kill, so of course I rolled a 1. sigh.

On a happier note, I came extremely close to killing his vampire general. Took 2 of her 3 wounds off in a fun fight with zombies, skeletons and squig hoppers, but couldn't quite finish her off. And then my giant fell over while trying to jump up and down on Grave Guard. Thankfully, that marked the end of that game!

My 4th and final game was against Michael's scary-ass Dark Elves. Much more aggressive than Adam's gun-line army, these guys brought a mean-looking Hydra to the battle. It was gift from the gods when my spiders fled from its charge and left it only one inch in front of my giant. Both beasties were under half-wounds at this point (turn two?), so it could have gone either way. Thankfully, the charge went my way and Mortag the Slightly-drunk managed to break its spine with a well-aimed tree trunk. Phew!

I lost the game (again), but it was a seriously fun game to play. Massive bloodshed on all sides. Lovely. 

... and as it turned out Michael and his dastardly Dark Elves actually won the tournament. If you squint at the board in the background, you'll see how the scoreboard stood after 12 games. Well done to Michael, who received a copy of the soon-to-be-released Warhammer from Miyao-san Ringtail and also this very cool winner's trophy. If you look closely, you'll see that it actually has a stone troll sitting inside it, in an onsen of blood. Excellent job Vlad and Miyao-san!

So that's about it! Two very fun days, and lots of new friends/enemies and new recruits into the hobby. We've even picked up 5 or 6 new club members too. I hope to see a whole lot more Kitakyushu and Fukuoka support at next year's event, but even so this year's first ever Beppu Tournament was a definite success!

... perhaps not for Goblins, but...