The School League Finals
The UK School League is back and it's bigger than ever before. Last week saw Warhammer World packed to the rafters with several hundred excitable wargamers, all eager to see their school crowned the School League Champions 2012. Having fought their way through the regional heats, this horde of hobbyists are some of the best tacticians and painters out there, and it was great to see so many like-minded hobbyists all gathered in one place. They also got a day off school to play Warhammer, which can only be a good thing, right?
During the feeding frenzy (also known as lunchtime) I went over to Warhammer World to get a few pictures of the best-painted armies. You can see the two winning entries in the galleries below.
The winning Warhammer 40,000 army was this Adeptus Mechanicus-themed Imperial Guard army. As a huge fan of all things Mechanicus based, I was immediately drawn to this army. I was also incredibly envious because Edward Wells (from the Sir Robert Pattinson School), who converted and painted the army, has done a superb job making the Nemesis Dreadknight into a Mechanicus unit. In battles he uses it as a Leman Russ battle tank, which caused untold damage throughout the day. A large blast marker does a lot of damage in small games.
Edward also went to a lot of effort painting freehand designs onto the tops of his Chimeras, which gained him valuable extra points when it came to deciding the winning armies.
When he's not busy painting miniatures, James Foster attends the Slough Grammar School and you may recall seeing his Empire army in last year's article about the School League (check them out here). This year he's returned with them once again, but with several new units. The large Knightly Orders regiment that formed the centre of last year's army were put on the subs bench, while the newly painted Demigryph Knights took to the field, and the Helstorm Rocket Battery has been swapped out for a unit of Huntsmen. Meanwhile, his army commander has acquired a new mount in the form of a Pegasus so he can always be right where he's needed on the battlefield.
According to James the army took him around 124 hours to build and paint, not including all the new units that he's added to it (but including tea and biccie breaks). Much like his existing Empire collection, James has based all of his miniatures with street cobbles to give the impression of an army fighting in a city.
Time permitting, I'll post up a few more pictures of the other nominated armies later in the week.
And so, after a day of wargaming, the School League Champions were finally decided. Boston Grammar School took home the trophy for Warhammer 40,000, Redcar Community College won The Lord of the Rings and De Lisle Catholic Science College were victorious in the Warhammer competition. Congratulations to all the winning teams who gave a proper thrashing - you have truly shown your skill on the battlefield. We'd also like to give a special mention to Brendon Rogers from the John Hampdon Grammar School, who was given the award for Most Sporting player. Throughout the day he helped other players out with rules, including his opponents, and everyone agreed that he was a thoroughly nice chap to play against.
If you're at secondary school in the UK and you would like to find out more about the School League then why not get in touch with our Community Manager - Bek Hawkby (or get one of your teachers to - we all know they love playing Warhammer too). Simply send her an email at bek.hawkby@gwplc.com or give her a call on: 0115 900 4821
