last updated:
21.08.08 | 19:43 gmt
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Sheffield Slaughter 2001
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Ahhh… the Sheffield Slaughter… what an event! Always a sell-out, always a great laugh, and the only tourney I know of that provides you with three square meals. El stupendo! The last one, in September of 1999, was actually the last event the then-SDS held, 'cos after that the all-conquering SMDS was formed; would this one prove to be as popular under the new reign? Only smarties had the answer...
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Sheffield
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United Kingdom
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event rules:
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Warhammer 6th
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unavailable
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The slaughter gets off to a good start!
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Bring Your Daughter, etc.
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It was quite a surprise when
Pete Scholey popped up one day in January and said "We're doing the Slaughter!" Iron Maiden jokes aside, with
John Hoyland gone AWOL I honestly thought it couldn't happen and we'd end up doing another Maul, and only four months after the last one... the boys proved me wrong though, and it wasn't long before I got roped in of course! Right from the start Pete decided it would be he and
Mick Charlesworth (who's also been AWOL, but 'cos of his new babby) who would run the event, which I was thankful for 'cos I wanted to get some games in! As my wumman Trace had done such a sterling job with the scores at the Maul II, Pete decided it would be a good idea if she could do the same at the Slaughter; nay problem, apart from we didn't have a 'puter... so up stepped new MWC boy
Paul Corcoran (a rising star if ever there was one) with his all-singing, all-dancing DVD-empowered laptop. Put me name down!
Cough. Anyway, the run-up to the event proved remarkably smooth, just like the Maul II; which was a bit of an omen, 'cos just like the Maul II, we had a nightmare on the Saturday morning of the event. Well, to be correct, I had a nightmare...
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Printer Problems
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The rather wet Saturday began early for us (even though I was up until 2am painting miniatures) and Trace and I managed to get to the event at around 8:30… unfortunately I decided to pull my Dunce hat out and wear it for the next hour, 'cos I somehow managed to think the laptop didn't have a parallel port, only a USB, which meant I couldn't use the printer I'd brought along. After much fretting I eventually cajoled
Darren Dabell into going home and seeing if his printer was USB compatible, but by the time he got back
Paul Corcoran (who'd just arrived) had shown me the flap under which the parallel port resided, smug and carefree despite all the attention wasted on it. Yes Daz, I am a numpty.
I was still fretting though! Thanks to those who had dropped out without warning the scoring spreadsheet was giving me some right gyp, and it took me half an hour to fix it. Even then I gave out the wrong first round draw! Ah well, we got there in the end and it was with some relief that fifty-six geeks actually began their first games of the Slaughter on time, and as it turned out,
Pete Scholey had to play to make up the numbers, leaving Mick and Trace to do all the work. I dunno, some people get all the luck… said Rob, who was playing anyway...
Time to tell you about the Slaughter rules, I think - we made a point of doing something different on this one!
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Slaughter Rules
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Since the last Slaughter eighteen months ago a lot of things have changed, both with Warhammer, the SMDS and tournaments in general, but thankfully the Maul II (way back in December) provided a bit of a fall back. Even so, we knew we'd have to sort out a few things. Probably the biggest area of contention was army selection scoring; the painting and sportsmanship worked so well at the Maul II we decided to keep them pretty much unchanged, and the game scores haven't changed since the first Maul, apart from widening the "Draw" belt (now within 200 points). Now, as some of you may be aware, I'm against army selection scoring altogether, but that doesn't mean I don't see a need for it; as some have said, a lot of people feel threatened unless some kind of scoring is in place. Both myself and Pete are of the opinion that people should be able to take what they want - after all, the new system of selection is much better than in 5th - but to emphasise a good ratio of Characters / Core / Special / Rare. In other words, let's have lots of Core troops! The only problem was how to achieve it...
We could have gone down the WPS road and imposed restrictions that force people to take a set amount of Core, but we were against that for the simple reason that forcing people to create army lists in a certain way is wrong, especially as we've only had the new rules for six months. After bandying a few ideas about we realised that the scoring system we use in SMDS tournaments - thousands of points rather than tens - meant that we could relate the scoring directly to how much somebody spends on their army. Emphasising Core proved easy - whatever somebody spent on Core is what they would get (up to a maximum of 750 to stop people exploiting this), and when combining this with rewarding people for spending less on Characters, Special and Rare selections we knew we were onto a winner. It proved remarkably easy to judge someone's army selection score on the day and there were absolutely no cries of "Huh! I only got -insert bad score here-!" afterwards; truly a simple but effective system! Check out the SMDS Tournament Rules if you want to go into the details, of course!
Mention also has to be made of the three ideas we had to keep the games from being the same old boring Pitched Battle we get all the time; we decided to give players something else to think about, but not too much 'cos we know how stick-in-the-mud so many people are...! First of all came Marked for Death, in which you had to kill a unit Champion in the enemy's army for more points; then came Mercenary, in which everybody got to spend 100 points on a Dogs of War character (either a Captain or Hireling wizard, basically); and last but not least the Objective, for which everybody had to create a little diorama on a 40x40mm base to capture and thereby gain some points. It worked really well, actually, and I reckon we'll do summat similar for the next tourney.
Now, on to the gaming!
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Adi and Geoff get down to it
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Andy's off to a flying start!
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Pete has to play thanks to a drop-out
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John has to play Jason...
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...who can't see the wood for the trees
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Game Time
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The Davy Sports Club hadn't seen the like for a while - fifty-six of us crammed into a little hall to play with toy soldiers isn't an everyday kind of sight, I must admit. Still, we all set to with a will - my first game was against Carl Floyd, a Yorkshire Sneaky Git man, and it proved a cracking one; more on that in my own player report of course (if I ever get time to do it). The first games are always over dead quick, apart from
John Dale's of course, which meant I could do some work on the scoring spreadsheet, which was still giving us some gyp. Lunch came and went and I was still working on it, but I finally got it sorted and retired to the bar to down a well-earned pint before the second game. At this point the usual suspects were up near the top, even
Pete Scholey, whose Slaanesh Daemons were proving a rip-roaring success (his words, not mine!)
Adrian McWalter's newly-released Vampire Counts were doing well, beating
Andrew Chesney's Wood Elves, and Max Horseman started as he meant to go on by battering some poor sod with his fifteen magic dice. Nasty!
The second game seemed to pass by even quicker than the first; but that's probably 'cos I played Jerry Marshall, a cracking bloke if ever there was one. He was using Skaven with the notable addition of a Vermin Lord; it's funny really, but I suddenly noticed that there was an immense amount of magic compared to just a month or two ago at the Ribble Rumble, and both myself and Jerry had around eight or nine casting dice. Perhaps it's just a phase, but I think magic is actually more powerful (perhaps more influential) than it ever was in the old edition. Perhaps it's still too early to tell.
Anyway - after a great game with Jerry, as usual, the third game came about pretty quick. I only had time for a quick look-see around the various armies inbetween, but it has to be said that the quality of those on show was much improved compared to the Maul II. I think the reason behind this is because the sixth edition has meant the creation of new armies, and six months allows good time to paint up your soldiers - apart from me, of course. I just seem to take longer and longer every time I paint something... or it might have something to do with having a real job instead of sitting on my arse all day! Unfortunately by the time the third game was underway I was feeling well and truly knackered, so my apologies must go out to my opponent Max Horseman if I was a little irritable. Perhaps this was the very same reason that the slight trouble between
Jason Annett of the SMDS and Geoff Porritt of the Northern Warlords occurred, but even so, tiredness is not an excuse for ungracious behaviour whatever the circumstances. Unfortunately this put a bad air on the end of the proceedings, and I hoped a good night's sleep would make everybody a little happier in the morning.
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Aw... don't cry Andy!
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Smithy was rather proud of this bruise. Don't ask.
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Hmmm... they're up to summat...
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An extreme close-up of Martin
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No explanation needed
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Rob Sedgeman in his element
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A typical example of wargamers at play
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01.04.01
Dave
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Dave Batten, doing well
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Three Dragon Slayers on the top tables
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Bloody Taxis
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Saturday nights in Sheff are always a good laugh, so at the end of the games we packed up and scooted off to our B & B, the rather oddly-named Noose and Gibbet pub down in Attercliffe. Thankfully Burger King was right next door so we got ourselves summat to eat, changed our clothes and made our way back to the Davy Sports Club, where we'd meet the rest of the lads. Getting back there was a little eventful to say the least though - the BFP lot were also staying at the Noose & Gibbet, and we got a lift in Wayne Kemp's Astra. Nothing unusual about that, you might think; thing is, there were seven of us in it, including Rob Mitchell in the boot! Talk about a cramped space! I'm just glad Alan Thompson didn't let one of his famous air biscuits off.
We got there in one piece and had a couple of pints, whereupon
Darren Dabell turned up and told us we were all gits for not bringing trousers again. I ask you! Why doesn't he just come in jeans? It would make everybody else a lot happier. Eventually he stopped moaning and joined us in going to the Cavendish, a relatively nice bar that reminds me of the Walkabout Bar in Nottingham. After a couple more pints - by which time
Andrew Chesney was looking rather the worse for wear, especially when you consider he let Trace put lipstick on him -
John Dale decided to drag us all off to the Town Hall with the rather vague notion that "it's great". Off we tootled, only to have to queue up for twenty minutes and get into a bar full of idiots, or so it seemed. Still, we're more or less idiots ourselves, so we fit right in.
After another couple of hours, by which time we'd got slightly sloshed, Trace and I decided to bugger off back to the Noose and Gibbet and so took John's Taxi Rank Advice (tm); unfortunately he didn't tell us it would be two hours before we got a taxi! We eventually got home at around 3am, after playing the usual Saturday night Full-Bladder-In-A-Queue and Talking-To-Strangers-And-Trying-Not-To-Laugh-At-Them games (which are funny if you're not freezing to death). It was still a good night though and no less unusual than any other night out with the boys!
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Sunny Sunday
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Sunday turned out to be probably the best day of the year so far regarding the weather, so our moods were only slightly dampened by the rather feeble breakfast and the non-working shower at the Noose and Gibbet... thankfully we got out quick, vowing never to stay there again, and got to the Davy Sports Club in time to hear that most people had, in fact, had a Taxi Problem the night before. Made me feel a bit better, anyway.
It wasn't long before all the punters turned up and we cracked on with the Sunday gaming. Two games of course, and the fight for the top placings was hotting up. Max Horseman and his Slaanesh Daemons were a front runner, along with Geoff Porritt's Lizards,
Adrian McWalter's Vampires and John Dale's greenskins; to be honest it was the closest I'd seen a tournament for a while! I managed to finish my first game - against Nottingham Club dude and all-round nice guy
Dave Batten - pretty quick thanks to a well-placed Irresistible Comet of Casandora, so we retired to the bar early to down a pint and chat over all things geeky. Dinner arrived and as usual I had to sort out a couple of things on the laptop, but that was mostly to do with the team scores so it only took a few minutes.
Game five was, of course, the clincher; up on the top tables, Max was playing
Adrian McWalter and
John Dale were playing Ian Foster, two games that proved to be crucial in finding out the winners. I was playing
Göran Farm's Strigoi Vampire Counts, and a right ding-dong it was! I managed to get through that with my sanity intact (it was so close it was unbelievable) and it seemed to be the same for everybody. When the last few games had finished I had a scout round and all I could see were knackered but grinning faces - it looked like the Slaughter had lived up to its reputation as one of the best tournaments around and no mistake!
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Sam Street, Best Army Selector
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Phil Rosenberg, Best Sportsman
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Paul Hartshorne, third place
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Max Horseman, second place
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John Dale, first place
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S-Type Wins the Day!
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As usual it took bloody ages to pack away all the miniatures, and I was banned from the laptop anyway so I took longer than usual to get out of the way of those strong-arms taking the tables down. Most of the battles finished on time but
John Dale's was one of the last, as usual! Eventually everything was sorted and all the scores had been calculated (although I had to reissue them later), so Pete took centre stage.
First of all came the prize for the Best Team, which somehow turned out to be Air - myself,
John Dale,
Jason Annett and
Paul Scrivens-Smith! We got a blister pack for our trouble, and for all those who doubted, the teams were in fact picked in alphabetical order so it wasn't a fix. Honestly. Next came Best Objective, but I really can't remember who won that one so we'll skip it... sorry, whoever you are! Then we got on to the more serious business of Last Place, and it was no surprise to find Martin Thornton had got that one (sorry Martin). Well, before this tournament Martin had only had four games of Warhammer in the past three years, so a little bit of understanding is required here! Unfortunately, due to the aforementioned problem with scoring, it was in fact our
Greg Chambers that came last, but don't worry - both of yers will get free entry into the next SMDS tourney.
Best Army Selection was given to Sam Street and his Dogs of War, who not only got the best score out of the lot of us, he was also the judge's pick (it wasn't all down to who got the best score, y'see). Well done to him! Best Sportsman was a new SMDS dude, Phil Rosenberg - apparently he was the nicest chap around! Nice one, another trophy for us lot! Next award was Best Painted Army, and thanks to finally getting some more Silver Helms done, I managed to impress
Pete Scholey and
Mick Charlesworth enough to take away that one for the SMDS too. What can I say? SMDS Rule! The final award before the placings was Best General, and this went to Max Horseman, whose Slaanesh Daemons managed to rip everybody's heads off (including mine and
Adrian McWalter's). Nasty!
And so on to the top three placings. The tourney had been a really close one, and thanks to the scoring system we used there were no draws, only clear differences. Alright, not much of a difference (in the end only 800 points separated 1st and 2nd place) but enough to matter! In third place was Paul Hartshorne, and a well-deserved placing too; he was using a lovely Empire army that scored well for army selection too. Second place was Max Horseman, who'd done brilliantly in all five games with his Slaanesh Daemons; he looked a little disappointed not to get the top spot, but I think a few of his other scores let him down in the end (see, Whitterers - painting does make a difference!)
First place went to a man who really puts the Wensley in Dale - the Chief Gimp himself, Old S-Type
John Dale and his Orcs & Goblins! Well done to the man, his first win since the Bristol Brawl last year and yet another success for the SMDS. What can I say? Washed up we are not!
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Phew!
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What a cracking tournament! The Sheffield Slaughter was always one of the best events of the year, and the eighteen-month absence has proved only one thing - it's still one of the best events of the year, even if the wrong scores were given out at the end... sorry folks, that was my fault! I'd forgotten to add in the points for the Best Sportsman vote (each of which gained you 200 points); it didn't make that much difference in the end, but it did jiggle around the placings somewhat.
Confession over, what were the highlights? The gaming and general atmos was brilliant, and a good Saturday night out was had by all; the meals were great as usual, and the scoring system worked perfectly (when I eventually got it up and running). The lowlights were few and far between, but the disagreement between Geoff Porritt and
Jason Annett took a little of the shine from the proceedings on the first day. The two-hour wait for a taxi wasn't very funny either, and neither was the shower not working at the Noose & Gibbett inn...
These were small things matched against the event, however; big thanks must go to our Trace for the scores,
Paul Corcoran for the loan of the laptop,
Mick Charlesworth and
Pete Scholey for running the show and the SMDS for all the help and assistance they gave the Umpires. A big pat on the back should be had by all the entrants for a cracking event overall!
See you later on in the year for the Maul!
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download:
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Sheffield Slaughter 2001 Results
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Warhammer Fantasy Event Awards
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first place:
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second place:
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third place:
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Max Horseman
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Paul Hartshorne
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last place:
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best general:
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Max Horseman
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best sportsman:
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Phil Rosenberg
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best painted army:
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