BOYL19 Review

OK, Just like most previous year, I had the privilege of getting my lucky self across the channel to meet up with some very good friends for BOYL !

It has become a sort of milestone in my hobby year, one I wouldn't miss.

Just so you're prepared, this is going to be a long post with plenty of picture, so now you've been warned, let's just look at what we've had this year !

On fridays, it's become a sort of tradition with my friends to meet at warhammer world to catch up and have a little campaign. This year's campaign was firmly oldschool and we played a combo of rogue trader and Realm of Chaos !

Can you beleive some guys didn't even have their army list done ? ^^

 I was playing the warband I've been building lately for the occasion :

We had plenty of tables next to one another to fit the 12 or so players at once !

The first scenario had me facing 3 other players to grab some objectives and bring them back to my area to catch the Gods' attention. We all started with our Renegade leader and two choices out of the four units we had available, I opted for the minotaurs and their good move stat and the orks to get some good firepower to cover them !

One of my opponents for this game would be Shane/Papafakis and his unsufferable Renegade :

My second opponent (and game master behind the whole campaign) was Colin/Whiskey Priest :

The third would be Sean who I've blogged along for years now but never had met irl so far so it was a  great pleasure to finally get to cross dice with him !

There were of course plenty other players on the neighbour tables like Jon/Axiom or our very own Ottovonbismark :

 So ! My orks did what I had planned them to do and covered the advance of both the minotaurs and my renegade leader who'd rush to grab the objectives and stay alive long enough to bring them back to security :

 I got lucky to clear some of Sean's troops enough to clear any threat from his side (thanks to a heavy plasma canon) and apart from Colin's annoying invisible unit firing me, I was able to benefit from his champion being unstable to claim 2 objectives and rush back to my corner !

Shane's champion at the opposite corner of the table, never got to do him any harm at this point but boy I hate this moronic cripple !

 Casualties for the game were low and all the dead turned out to be just injured and up for the following game ! I had won the first two objectives and the game with it, thus gaining two daemonic weapons that would allow my champion to fly and make people around stupid !

Game two involved three players this time and an extra unit to add to our force :

My partners for that game were Seán and Paul Ede with their superb warband !

Our objective this time was to seek and destroy a specific unit from the others' band. I was assigned to eliminate Paul's orks and my squats would be Seán's prey :

My plan was at first to keep the squats in cover and use them as a fire support (and to take down my targets with their lascanon) while the others would defend them and hunt.

Like any good plan, this one didn't survive a few turns, forcing me to escape into the woods and leaving the job to the others.

Seán annoyingly killed my target, thus taking the opportunity to score any victory points from me, After killing anything I could and securing my own troops, we had to settle for a draw !

 The final game had all of us join on the same table for a classic royal rumble/battle royale !



My champion moved in with his two trusted minotaurs right in the middle of the action at the centre of the table !

The dark gods had clearly smiled to Charwyn as his arch nemesis Johnny Darvo was right at graviton's range from him ! 

MWAHAHAHAHA !

"FFS Darvo, now's the last time your sorry cheaty ass ever soils this world !"

 Nailing him down with the graviton gun, Charwyn chargedhis rival ! The combat wasn't even worth calling it so with Darvo sobbing pathetic excuses, calling for his parents and such...
He was quickly followed by Paul Ede's champion who had the irritating same skill as Charwyn : rapid regeneration, thus making them almost invincible.

Meanwhile, the fight was brutal all around with troops from all bands colliding !

The two zoat brothers proved to be especially annoying with their psychic powers; making them able to teleport into combat or fry other people's brains !

 The Slaanesh leader had the perverted habbit to drown the entire scene under clouds from hallucinogen grenades, making one of my poor minotaurs flee into the woods...

... while the other was getting murdered by the psychic zoat. :/

Thanks to his flying ability, Charwyn managed to engage combat with another champion :

The rest of the fighter conveniently getting rid of one another in the meantime !

 The Slaanesh renegade sneaked it from behind (as you'd expect) but none of his treacherous manners managed to make him win the fight (although the khorne almost killed Charwyn who luckily regenerated the 3 wounds that would have killed him !).

Darl Charwyn was the great victor of the fight and his future in the chaotic pantheon made no doubt now !

That was a pretty intense campaign and a very fun one, absolutely perfect to break the ice and get into the right mood, right before some proper boozing between friends !

Day two, slight hangover, pretty excited to play some 2nd ed epic !
I was GMing the game this time and had three teams of three players, orks, Imperials and Chaos !

The goal for them was pretty simple : destroy other titans and either defend of kill the marines coming to secure some titan prototypes.

 The chaotic titans rushed forward to get clear lines and maybe get to the objectives ?

The imperials unfortunately suffered the first from the orks and got two of their titans destroyed pretty early in the game, the last one piloted by Pat did hold the line for a good while !

The chaos and imperial forces finally met in the middle to retrieve the prototype and claim it for their own purpose. Pat did manage to activate it and assigned it the order to take the chaotic titan down. The vast superiority of the chaotic machine in combat meant that the unstable prototype exploded right between the other two, destroying the imperial warlord utterly and damaging the Khorne one !

 The 3 ork Gargants were all safe in the end apart from a few fires and although the imperial did score more points as a team, Sean's great gargant won the title of greatest machine of the game by far !

Now the beauty of BOYL apart from playing fun games with great people is to get to see plenty of awesome tables and believe me, the level displayed this year was even greater than before !

BOYL is also the place where you friends, favourite bloggers and all, meet to play !
This is just a dream to see so many talents at the same table.

Now one of the most impressive display had tobe Alex's with his complete Wolf Time set (an old scenario from the book of the astronomican). The amount of work is unbelievable but it's not just the quantity, it's also the perfect vibe and quality of everything right to the smallest detail that make it a complete success, it definitely impressed anyone passing by :

How often to you get to see mighty empire boards and often do they look as good as Harry's ?

New game for me was run by Michael with Sean, Shane and Lopez, We each had a Strontium do and had to go check several Hitler impersonators to find the real one and take him back with us right under the nose of the nazis defending the place !

Johny Beta's ability to see through walls/matter was an absolute must for this game, making my life way easier than it could have been ! Staying hidden and shooting through walls is pretty effective !

Many of the SD agents managed to reach the central building before the nazis managed to activate the powers of an ancient arch !

Lope's agent was the perfect diversion fro Shane's to go and unmask the real hitler !

 So after getting rid of Sean's agent, I just had to shoot Shane's from below through the ceiling and get Hitler from his hands and escape !

Next surprise after that was the painting competition for which I got nominated as the winner for the best squad by no other than John Blanche himself ! That meant the world to us and all winners were friends as well which was just an added bonus !

Meanwhile, the magic of BOYL made an ork terminator Vs ork genestealers space hulk game happen on Nico's board !

Last game of the day would be run by Jon and consist in a race set in the ash wastes !

I really like those fun games at the end of the day like we've had in the past years, it's light headed and the perfect occasion for big laughs on top of being opportunities for nice modelling.

Just look at the contestants and you'll get a good idea of the kind of vibe going on !

Let's be clear, this is not the kind of game you play to win but to have maximum fun so you'll generally try to shoot other people more than to actually get first to the finish line !

The mechanics were inspired a lot by Blood bowl which worked great and it delivered all the occasions for back stabbing and other dick moves to have a great time.

 Did, I tell you there were great tables ? Check this epic table, just magnificent.

Last game of the WE was a game of Terminator where we each had survivors trying to rescue NPCs from a tragic fate with the town crowded with skelebots after us !

 Each of our survivors got into position at ground level...

... or at the top of closest thing to a third string

By using cover to the best of my abilities, I did manage to save 3 hostages, gaining rerolls for the rest of the game, which might come in handy to survive a bit longer.

 I even got ballsy enough to try and take down a few robots !

That was until some nasty reinforcements got in, in the form of T1000 or gigantic drones...

 One highlight of the game was when Rocket girl managed to take one of the drones down with her missile launcher...
...only to be taken down by one behind her.
 

 At the end, all humans were dead with David's leaving the last thus winning the honours !

I did tell you there were fantastic tables there right ?

Of course BOYL wouldn't be BOYL if we didn't come back with plenty more to paint right ?

So what did I get ?

Well the BOYL exclusive of course ! fantastic female halfling with her pug and she'll be just perfect for mordheim !

Then Foundry has converted a third fishman since only 2 out of the original three survived, I better paint those guys now !

And since 2020 will mostly be about cyberpunk, I guess having rioters and street vandals is absolutely mandatory right ?

Of course BOYL is followed by the traditionnal post BOYL blues but it also comes with a massive mojo boost and plenty of project ideas so clearly a great thing !
I hope you enjoyed this review as much as I enjoyed this out of time WE, always such a happy place !