MIF 5 Games + Pics (HUGE Thread)

[majorspeirs]

Hello all, and welcome to my grand tale of Melbourne in Flames 2011. This was my first official two day tournament, and involved five games over four days. Before I begin I wish to thank the organisers for all their dedicated work, and for my opponents for making it such a fun experience.

I’ve spent the last few days writing up battle reports of my five games. The end result is this huge sequence of posts and 68 photos. This took ages, and I did it for you lot, so don’t anybody whinge about quadruple posts and the like.

First up I’ll here is a copy of my list (and the term I use to reference them):

CCS w/ 3x Plasma and Chimera (CCS/Major Savoy Watson’s squad)

5x Stormtroopers w/ 2x meltagun (stormies/glory boys)

Platoon (the infantry)
PCS w/ Autocannon
Infantry Squad w/ Autocannon
Infantry Squad w/ Autocannon

Veterans w/ 3x Flamer in Chimera (flamer vets)

Veterans w/ 3x Meltagun in Chimera (melta vets)

Veterans w/ Meltagun, 2x Plasmagun and Plasma Pistol in Chimera (melta/plasma or plasma/melta vets)

Devildog w/ Heavy Flamer and Smoke

Devildog w/ Heavy Flamer and Smoke

Russ w/ Lascannon

Griffon w/ Heavy Flamer

Basilisk w/ Heavy Flamer (If I mention “88” or “Blitzen 88”, this is what I’m referring to – if you want to know why check out the “Osarian 10th” blog in the Hobby section.

1500 points



Like most tournaments the five games involved a number of standard-ish games with a few quirks. Overall I had two wins and three losses, and placed 69 out of 101 players. For my first competitive tournament I was pleased.

I must make a disclaimer before I begin. I’ve been working with photos and memory a few days after the fact for these. Whilst I remember most of it, I have needed to fill in a few gaps with the most likely course of action. I apologise to my opponents if this isn’t quite the way things happened, but the overall result and game play is either the same or at least achieves the same result.

Each report is different and unconnected, there is no need to read them consecutively. Enjoy.

[majorspeirs]

Game 1 – Dark Angels
The first game was basically a pitched battle with two main objectives. My opponent was a Dark Angels player with Ezekial, Beliel (ie, terminators as troops), a basic scout squad, a tactical squad with rhino, two units of terminators, a venerable dread with lascannon and a vindicator.

Deployment:
- There was a big arse warehouse smack bang in the centre of the board. Initially I thought we established that you could only move through the walls at the doorways, and I could have sworn he agreed to this, but through the game he was moving things through the walls. If I’d known this I would have deployed my objective as far away from the building as I was allowed. As a result this building that took up half the battlefield obstructed shooting but not movement – I would have definitely given a better show had we both started with the same preconception of movement. Whilst a contributor, I will not blame this for my defeat, as it would not be fair to my opponent’s game play.
- I deployed with the basilisk on the far left flank, out of the way. The two devildogs and plasma/melta vet squad were ready to roll up this flank. The we had impassable templates to place, and the objectives but bestowed stubborn and stealth on friendly units, so I blobbed my platoon squads near it, with the CO chimera to the left behind the warehouse, the russ was to the right and the PCS off in the corner.
- The Vindicator was directly placed opposite with the supporting flamer/rhino combat squad. The other combat squad was camped on the objective and the two terminator units ready to scale the walls. The dreadnaught was sitting at the left (my left) corner of the warehouse ready to take on my flank. The scouts infiltrated into the centre of the warehouse





Turn 1
- I had first turn. I pushed forward with the two devildogs and chimera on the left flank, both 12 inches. They both fired on the dreadnaught, missing it and shaking it. The Russ on the right flank opened up on the vindicator, immobilising it, conveniently out of range of anything. The rhino was shaken by autocannon fire and the griffon landed a template on the scouts, killing two.
- The dark angels advanced towards me, with the dread moved into the corner of the warehouse (the big open side on my left). The rhino advanced and the terminators started their trudge towards me. A cyclone launcher on a terminator shook the left devildog.



Turn 2
- The melta vets arrived and moved in to pursue the other vets on the left. The shaken devildog advanced 18 inches up the flank whilst the melta/plasma vets and other devildog followed at combat speed. The devildog fluffed its attack on the dreadnaught, whilst the griffon missed the scouts completely. The veteran’s multilaser took out a further two scouts, the last of which fled. To my great relief the autocannons of the platoon on the right flank managed to destroy the stormbolter on the rhino. The russ followed up by wrecking the darn thing. The five marines inside bailed out into the warehouse.
- The fleeing scout automatically re-grouped and ended up back to where he started. The terminators continued their implacable advance at a slow rate due to poor running rolls. The dread moved out to take on the melta vet chimera, whilst the terminators on the left exploded the plasma/melta vet chimera, killing many. The dread shook the chimera with its lascannon and assaulted, immobilising it. On the right the scout came flying through the rubble like a rabid hampster on heat. The far-forward devildog was immobilised and had its cannon blown off. The one near the dreadnaught was stunned.

Turn 3
- The flamer vets arrived and moved to reinforce my threatened right flank (as opposed to the threatened left). I began proceedings by disembarking the melta vets to show that annoying dreadnaught a lesson, whilst the other vets in the ruin of their chimera prepared to blast the heck out of the terminators with their AP1/2 weaponry. The command chimera aligned itself so the occupants could fire on the terminators through the only opening on my side of the warehouse. Various forms of artillery landed in the warehouse, but it didn’t do a whole lot. The melta vets proceeded to blow the flamer arm off the dreadnaught and immobilise it, and the command squad killed two of its own (and that was all). The veterans in their destroyed chimera also failed to do anything. The storm troopers grav-chuted in, blasted away against the terminators on the left and also did squat. The PCS moved forward on the right flank behind the russ.
- In retaliation the terminators came storming out of the warehouse, along with the lone scout. The combat squad got as far as the wall but ran out of puff. Ezekial prepared to kill the plasma/melta vet squad whilst the terminators broke off to take out the stormies. The terminators wrecked the command chimera, and the lone scout won combat against the 20 guardsmen (!!!). Luckily they held (phew!!). Ezekial killed off the veterans and the termies plastered the poor stormies. The termies on the right with Beliel blew the CO’s chimera.





Turn 4:
- By this stage things are looking a little bit grim. The meltavets lined up Ezekial and vaporised him. The scout was finally killed off and the platoon consolidated. The basilisk hit the terminators on the left flank, but failed to kill any damage. The griffon landed a shell on the flamer combat squad, but it caused no damage, whilst the russ missed them all together They were half out of the wall at this stage). The remnant of the CO’s squad failed to kill any more terminators with their one plasma gun and three las shots.
- In retaliation the terminators shot the melta vets, causing them to flee with their tails between their legs, and the dreadnaught took a pot shot at the basilisk, whilst continueing to pummel the chimera (not sure how legal this was, but I didn’t complain since they were both immobilised and it didn’t really matter). Beliel took out the flamer vets chimera whilst the combat squad and terminators took on the CCS and platoon. The remaining few men of the platoon hung on due to being stubborn, but the CO was ripped apart.



Turn 5:
- With turn 4 looking grim, turn 5 was looking positively black. My artillery was unable to target the enemy on my own objective, so they opened up on the combat squad on the other. The basilisk missed and the griffon killed one. The flamer vets opened up on Beliel causing a wound. The PCS and Russ advanced further on the objective. The remainder of the platoon squad was wiped out in combat.
- Beliel launched into combat with the flamer vets causing predictable carnage, and the terminators on the left consolidated back to their home objective. The terminators on the right assaulted the russ whilst the combat squad shot the PCS. The tank was destroyed and the PCS fled off the board.

It was around about now that the game ended, and I had lost convincingly. I there hadn’t been the misunderstanding with regards to the movement of models and the walls of the building, as I think I would have given a better show. No matter, it was still a reasonable game. The only standout for me in this game was my artilleries ability to shoot without line of sight.

[majorspeirs]

Game 2 – World Eaters
For the second game we had a list of five victory conditions, and each player had to nominate a primary and secondary before the game started. My primary was to break the opposition (below 75%) and the secondary was hold more objectives (of which there were four). I shied away from holding the centre of the table, getting more kill points or controlling more table quarters. My opponent was a World Easters player, who had a flying deamon prince lord creature, a crazy dreadnaught, two units in rhinos, one in a land raider, a vindicator and a unit of daemons (which I completely missed when I perused his list, so the daemons came as a surprise). We were able to opt for one enemy unit that had to be placed in reserve – I chose the land raider and he chose my platoon (I think he would have been better off with the Russ or basilisk).



Deployment:
- I won the roll and chose my quarter. I put my basilisk as far back as possible and the griffon to its right. The other tanks were split into three groups. On my right there were the melta vets flanked by the two devildogs (planning to rush up the flank to stall the advancing rhinos), whilst on the left were the plasma/melta vets and the flamer vets (to act as a response unit to the inevitable land raider and anything else that came up), whilst the russ and CCS anchored the two flanks on the central high ground. The World Eaters were initially going to deploy on the left flank (my view), but decided to take cover behind the rock formation and come at my right. I think the left would have been better because it was a less-obstructed route, and was closer to me from the offset.





Turn 1:
- I began proceedings by rushing pushing my devildogs and meltavets into position on the right, and gunned the CCS chimera forward. My basilisk launched a shell high into the air and it landed it smack-bang on the top of the central rhino, bursting it into flames and causing the blood crazed lunies inside to bail out. The russ also opened up on the forward rhino, scattering onto the now rhino-less squad, killing four of their number. One devildog scattered off target, but the other shook the forward rhino and took a wound off the daemon prince.
- The vindicator swung around the back of the rocks to threaten my left, but didn’t move far enough to get into range. The remaining rhino powered forward 12 inches, with the daemon prince flying 12 inches to seek cover behind it, and the dread followed suit with a meagre 6 inches.

Turn 2:
- This turn began with the arrival of my reserves. The platoon trudged on behind the russ, whilst my dedicated landraider-disposal-squad had to take on different target. They landed about 4 inches from both the dread and the daemon prince. Most of my units sat tight or adjusted their fire-arcs. I was torn about whether to shoot the stormies at the prince or the dread. In the end I figured the prince would be more of a headache, so the opened up, sending him back to the warp (probably the best rest they have ever gotten). I landed a basilisk shell on the four remaining world eaters from the rhino, wounding them all. I regrettably said “unless you go to ground, that is all four dead”, to which he replied something along the lines of “going to ground you say, I forgot about that”, he then rolled two sixes *facepalm* . The vindicator was shaken a few times, but nothing happened due to daemonic possession. Aside from that not a whole lot happened.
- The land raider did not arrive (yay!), and the rhino rushed 12 inches forward, popping smoke, and the dread killed the stormies. The vindicator immobilised the left devildog.



Turn 3:
- Again, not a lot of movement was required this turn. I opened up on the rhino that was now kind-of encircled on my right with everything I had, trying to leave some of the heavy-hitters to mop up the survivors. Basically I kept firing at it with everything, and it was the melta vets, who were fired last, who popped it. As a result the world eaters hopped out and were otherwise untouched.
- The land raider again failed to show up, but the unit of lesser daemons sure did. They landed right in front of one of the squishy infantry squads. The rhino unit assaulted the un-immobilised devildog, immobilising it and taking off both guns. The dreadnaught assaulted the other devildog ripping off both its guns as well. The daemons slaughtered the poor guardsmen without mercy.



Turn 4:
- The much maligned infantry of the platoon lined up the daemons, as did most of my other units. The melta vets fired on the world eaters who were trying to kill off the devildog, killing two of their number. The daemons were wiped out with concentrated fire of lasguns, the battle cannon and griffon (a few risky shots here). The vindicator was again not-stunned or shaken by the basilisk and other fire. The CCS advanced forward and killed the dreadnaught with their plasmaguns. In combat the world eaters managed to explode the hellhound, killing two more of them (huzzah!).
- The land raider arrived this turn, firing on the flamer vet chimera, immobilising it just past one of the objectives. The remaining two world eaters from the first destroyed rhino advanced towards the centre of the board (where there was an objective), whilst the other two assaulted the melta vet’s chimera, exploding it, killing five vets.



Turn 5:
- The PCS made a move to contest the objective near the stricken hellhound, whilst the CCS drove towards the central objective. They opened up on the two world eaters, but they were saved by cover. The Russ took out the vindicator whilst the melta vets killed two more of the world eaters who wrecked their ride. The crew of the basilisk swivelled it around and lowered the barrel, levelling a shot straight through the front armour of the land raider, wrecking it. I didn’t have anything left to shoot at the occupants unfortunately.
- These unhindered occupants made a run for the objective where my two veteran units were, whilst the other two remaining world eaters on my right decided to ignore the melta vets and move in to take the nearby objective. They assaulted the devildog, but failed to do anything. The two world eaters in the centre moved a bit further through cover.



Turn 6:
- The melta vets decided they should try and contest the right objective (with the lame devildog), but two died as they clambered out of their vehicle’s wreckage and they fled off the board. Everything else opened up on the land raider squad, killing three of their number (largely due to the plasma/melta vets). The PCS ran in to try and hold the objective.
- The land raider squad ran forward again, bringing them up to the two chimeras, whilst the other assaulted the PCS, killing all bar the lieutenant.



Turn 7:
- I disembarked the flamer vets to bring them in claiming range of the objective, and shot the plasma/melta vets towards another objective. The combined shooting of my remaining force killed off three more of the landraider world eaters, but couldn’t finish off the last two. My lieutenant valiantly died.
- The world eaters on the right again assaulted the devildog, achieving naught. At this stage I’d easily broken his force (my primary objective) and my melta/plasma vets held my one objective (the other was held by a non-scoring unit and the hellhound contested the third). It all came down to the flamer vets and the last two world eaters from the land raider. They assaulted, the vets ran away, and they levelled the objective score.

Overall this was a vastly enjoyable game. In the end I won, but we both had a great time. I was quite impressed my opponent’s painting abilities, and I loved the Spartan theme he had taken for the army. The Inquisitor Scale model used for the daemon prince was a real centre-piece. The stand in this game was the basilisk for its beautiful shot that wrecked the land raider. I always view this as more of a field gun than artillery, and it performed exactly as I imagined.

[majorspeirs]

Game 3 - Guard
This was a game of accumulating objectives. At the end of each turn (after they were activated by a reserve style turn role) you got points for however many objectives you controlled, and then this was tallied up at the end of the game. My opponent’s choice of army would warm the cold hearts of all you generals out there: he played Guard with a manticore, two russes, and somewhere in the vicinity of one hundred and forty infantry (yes, you read that correctly: 140 of the little buggers). There were so many of them that he used movement trays to speed things up (templates be damned!). It was a Mars Exploratory theme regiment (unfortunately I cannot remember the proper name), with a Tech Priest heading it up (it still had a CCS to order things around though). There was a unit of ratlings as well, but the rest was largely infantry squads.

As a disclaimer, I can’t remember the full sequence of events after the start of this game. I’ve had to abandon the turn structure after the first turn or two and just outline the happenings of each flank.



Deployment:
- It was from this point onwards that I knew I was going to have trouble in this game. I won the roll, and deployed the melta/plasma vets on the right flank amid some industrial-type terrain. My opponent then proceeded to place a 20 man blob opposite these (with 2 meltaguns), and then strung a 50 man blob (with commissar and flamers) out across the left flank. Being Dawn of War deployment, they were right in the middle of the board, and were already sitting on an objective. The techpriest was in the ruins on my right with his plasma cannon servitor. It was a little paradoxical to have my heart warmed by the sight of so much infantry, but to also have it sunk by them opposing me

Turn 1:
- Everything except my stormies rolled on in the first turn. The basilisk, russ and infantry stretched from the left to the middle, and the chimeras and griffon came on the right. Everything that could opened up on the two blobs, inflicting around 8-ish casualties on the 50 man squad. One of the devildogs advanced straight towards it and the other came around from the left side.
- My opposing number brought everything in. He had two distinct flanks. On the left (my left) were three infantry squads the CCS and a PCS (both of the last two were unarmed). On the right he brought on two lascannon PCSs, the ratlings, the other russ, the manticore and the last infantry squad with a meltagun. He proceeded to direct most of his fire at my infantry squads, decimating them somewhat, and he stunned one of the chimeras with a manticore missile.





Turn 2:
- The stormies came sailing in to take out the manticore, but scattered into a building and died. The devildogs advanced to the 50 man blob. The one closer to the centre pushed past one of the objectives. The plasma/melta vets moved a little closer to the 20-man squad, whilst the CCS and melta vets came in to support. I opened fire, taking out another 10-15 of the blob with templates and whittling a few out of the 20-man squad. The basilisk shook the manticore.
- The bare PCS on the left moved into a crate and the big blob advanced on the forward devildog. On the right the melta infantry squad from reserves ran forward to support its comrades, whilst said comrades fired on the melta/plasma vet chimera with their meltaguns, failing to do anything. Assorted heavy weapons then harassed my other units and vehicles stunning and shaking a few things. The large blob then assaulted the hellhound, immobilising it and loosing knocking off the flamer.

After this point my memory of this game is a bit hazy. I remember the general gist of things on each flank though, and will run through.

Turns 3-6
- On the right the large blob was whittled at by the undamaged devildog heavy flamer and other templates. This devildog then proceeded to run-amuck in the opposite backfield with its flamer, killing off an infantry squad and the CCS, and just making a general nuisance of itself. It even killed men when it exploded. The combined fire of other units also managed to knock out the rest of the troop unit holding the objective in this quarter of the field.

The flamer vet squad forsook it’s brethren on the right flank and made for blob on the left, which was now dwindling in numbers. With other fire and their flamers they were down to around 7-8 men and the commissar, when the flamer vets assaulted, killed them off in two rounds of combat in the closing stages of the game.





On the right the melta vets chimera was blown up by the roving single-melta infantry squad, and were half wiped out. A few tripped and died when the removed themselves from the rubble, and when the last two assaulted the two remaining members of the melta infantry squad, they impaled themselves on the opposing bayonets and died without killing anyone. The melta/plasma vet squad chimera tank shocked the large melta squad at 6 inches towards the objective, flamered them and shot them from the hatch with lasguns (not plasma!!). The three remaining fled for the hills. The two melta infantrymen who had just killed the melta vets wrecked the plasma/melta vet chimera, but were killed by my CCS. The plasma/melta vets moved onto the nearby objective and held it for a few turns, but were eventually whittled down and wiped out in the last phases of the game. The CCS was hit by the last manticore rocket, and said goodnight.



All in all, considering the mission objectives, I lost by something like 13 to 5 points. That said, there was considerable carnage and I am proud to say that I was the only person who broke this guy’s army in his five games (got it below 75% of the starting model count) – that said I was also broken ). He had about 20 infantry left, the two russes and the manticore.

This was his survivors:


And his dead:


My survivors are four photos up. By the end I had a basilisk, a chimera a griffon, the russ and the flamer vet squad still alive. I will also concede that my opponent had horrible luck shooting with his gun line in the second half of the game. I now know what it is like to be facing a ridiculous amount of weaponry, only to have the other player systematically run through it and achieve anything. I at least was able to genuinely empathise.

[majorspeirs]

Game 4 – Space Wolves
The second day began with a kill point annihilation against a space wolf opponent. The twist to this mission was that the unit that finished of another gained a “scalp” (kill point token). If the unit who gained a scalp (or multiple scalps) was killed these point was lost. The mission bonus point was if you had a unit finish the game with three or more scalps.

My opponent had three 5-man grey hunter squads in lascannon razorbacks, one accompanied by Ragnar. There was a Wolf Lord on a big-arse wolf-thingy with two little wolves, a vindicator, a drop pod with 4 lightning claw terminator wolf guard and a melta/flamer land speeder. This is a photo of his army below. I must commend him on his absolutely stunning painting and modelling, it was a real pleasure to play against such a well crafted army.



Deployment:
- I again won the roll for deployment, and basically filled my quarter with models. The devildogs were separated onto each flank to pose as a distraction/destruction force. The infantry and artillery were posted far back out of the way, accompanied by the command chimera. The melta and flamer vets were posted on each flank, whilst the plasma/melta vets were in the middle, ready to respond to the wolf guard drop pod, should it land in my midst.
- My opponent placed one razorback on the right (my right) of the ruined superheavy with the land speeder, whilst the other two were placed one behind the other, next to the vindicator and the wolf lord.





Turn 1:
- I had the initiative seized from me, and most things cautiously advanced. The vindicator missed the devildog facing it, whilst the lascannons shook a few chimeras. The drop pod came screaming down and scattered near the board edge on my left, next to my melta vet chimera. They disembarked on the far side of the pod out of sight of most things.
- I moved the melta vet chimera to take on the newly arrived wolf guard, and shuffled a number of other vehicles around. The command squad ordered an autocannon to fire on the right hand razorback, immobilising it. The griffon lobbed a shell straight through the top armour of the vindicator, wrecking it and taking a wound from the wolf lord. Everything else managed to shake the front and rear razorback on the left and kill one of the lord’s accompanying wolves. The melta vets were able to kill a single wolf guard (with a lasgun, as the meltaguns all missed or rolled ones to wound, for memory).



Turn 2:
- My opponent moved the front razorback on the left forward and jetted the land speeder further around the building, bringing it into melta range of the flamer vet chimera. Ragnar and his cronies disembarked from the rear razorback and prepared to assault the devildog on that flank. The grey hunters in the immobilised razorback on the right bailed out and moved into the cover behind the wrecked superheavy (I’m not really sure why). Their razorback stunned the melta/plasma vet chimera. The Wolf Lord advanced towards the right devildog, and Ragnar’s razorback moved around behind the wrecked vindicator. The wolf guard assaulted the melta vet chimera, immobilising it and destroying its multilaser – the flamer was unable to take any further part in the game. The wolf lord was unable to do any damage to the right hand devildog. The land speeder immobilised the flamer vet chimera.
- The meltavets promptly disembarked, managing to kill not a single wolf guard termie. The griffon missed the land speeder, and my assorted other shooting failed to do much to ragnar’s unit, although the right devildog (who just reversed out of combat) did kill the remaining wolves of the Wolf lord. At this stage I opened up with the melta/plasma vets, taking another wound off the lord (2+save/3+invulnerable made this a good result). I forgot my poor storm troopers, who then did not arrive until turn 5.





Turn 3:
- It was at this point that I saw the “2” on the dice resting on the melta/plasma vet chimera which indicated that it was stunned. I profusely apologised and informed my opposition that his lord should not have lost a second wound. He was very gracious.
The Wolf guard ambled around the chimera and assaulted the veteran squad, they killed three, however the vets rolled a five for their morale and held on (when I had the plasma command squad sitting within 12 inches – why?!?). The wolf lord forsook the devildog and moved an impressive 20-24 inches to assault the infantry squad next to the melta vets – they too held on after suffering a few casualties (again – WHY!?!?!). Ragnar’s squad again assaulted the pesky devildog on the left flank, this time immobilising it. The land speeder moved within 12 inches of the flamer vet chimera but failed to do further damage. The grey hunter squad in the razorback stayed put and the other squad behind the superheavy remained out of sight.
- Unable to apply fire to the two units in my backfield since my valiant (but stupid) guardsmen had them locked in combat, I focussed my fire on the assorted razorbacks and land speeder floating around the field. I immobilising the razorback next to the wrecked vindicator and shook the other on the right. The land speeder was immobilised and lost its multimelta from autocannon fire. The melta/plasma vets, fresh from their gaff of the previous turn, launched forward and killed two three grey hunters from Ragnars unit, putting a wound on the big cheese to boot. Much to my shock, both the melta vets and the infantry squad held on against the wolf guard and wolf lord (maybe they weren’t so stupid after all). Ragnar finally managed to wreck the immobilised hellhound.





Turn 4:
- Ragnar and his cronnies advanced on the plasma/vet chimera, exploding it with their meltagun, killing a plasma gunner and four regular vets. The razorbacks stunned and immobilised the remaining devildog, whilst the wolf guard finally scared off the last few melta vets. To my continuing horror, continued poor effort from the wolf lord meant that the last few members of the infantry squad held on for another round of combat.
- The CCS lined up the wolf guard with their plasmaguns and ordered themselves to make them re-roll successful cover saves (ordering themselves in a chimera is an issue I was unsure about, so broached the subject with each opponent before the game started, some were fine with it, some were not – I went purely with what they were happy with), this finished the remaining three off. I focussed the rest of my fire on killing off the remainder of Ragnar’s squad, finishing off the land speeder and knocking a few lascannons off the razorbacks. The plasma/melta vets did me proud by vaporising Ragnar. The Wolf lord munched through the last members of the infantry squad (one more round would have been too much to ask for it would seem )



Turn 5:
- My opponent now decided to commit the squad from behind the wrecked superheavy, and began to move them forward. His wolf lord then assaulted the other infantry squad beside the basilisk and again, to my continuing surprise, they did not flee.
- My storm troopers finally arrived. Instead of committing them to a complete suicide mission against the grey slayers in the opposing backfield, I figured I’d drop them to kill some of the immobilised vehicles to gain some kill points. They did me proud when the netted a razorback upon landing. My remaining fire tinkered away at the remaining vehicles in vain. The wolf lord finished off the infantry squad and consolidated towards the PCS.



Turn 6:
- The grey slayers in the back field advanced again, and the unit inside the razorback disembarked and blew up the devildog with their meltagun. The wolf lord ploughed through the PCS, gaining its third kill point.
- This turn the stormies failed to net another tank, and the CCS was unable to take any more wounds off the wolf lord with their plasma. The russ landed a shot on the forward grey hunter squad, killing three, and the basilisk wiped out the squad in the backfield with a well-placed shot. The plasma/melta vets finished off the final two grey hunters in front of them.



This is where the game ended. By this stage I had about 7-8 kill points floating around and my opponent only had three left (on the wolf lord), since the other units who gained them were dead. As a result I won, but didn’t get the bonus point (which my opponent did) because none of my units had the three tokens.

If my opponent had moved the grey hunters in the backfield and in the immobilised razorback in the fore at me around turn three, they would have significantly swung the results of this game. I would have been hard pressed to handle the three small units straight in front. I think that the result would have been either a narrow win for me, or more likely a draw.

This said, this was a very enjoyable game of the tournament, helped by my opponent’s wonderfully modelled and painted army, and the crazy number of double ones and sixes which were rolled.

[majorspeirs]

Game 5 – More Dark Angles
This time it was an all terminator force. There were three units of five, Beliel (again!), a land raider and two dreads (a venerable one which was shooty and a regular combat one). This game had the most quirky mission of the tournament. Basically the objective was held in reserve. It was valkyrie that gets shot down and lands at a random position on the centre line (12D6 inches from one edge). Whatever it lands on takes a battle cannon type hit (str 8, AP 3, large pie plate) and the template stays in place as the objective (difficult and dangerous terrain with a 3+ cover save). Also D6 small str 6 ap 4 templates scatter out. The winner is the player who can get the most scoring units on (actually ON – not near) the objective.



Deployment:
- This game was over a desert landscape, with a huge tower in the centre. I was given first turn, and deployed on two flanks. On one I had the basilisk, russ, infantry squad, platoon command and the plasma/melta vets. On the other I had an infantry squad and the flamer vets and command squad. I held the melta vets, devildogs and stormies in reserve.
- My opponent put his shooty dread in the ruins on the right (my right), then his land raider in the centre (but towards the right). To the left of the land raider was a termie squad, the other dread, then the final termie squad. He failed to steal the initiative.





Turn 1:
- My first turn was basically just a shooting phase. The autocannons fired on the assault dread to no avail, the multilasers failed to kill any termies, and the basilisk dropped a template on the land raider (which as out of sight and thankfully outside 36 inches), achieving a whole lot of nothing.
- My opponent moved everything forward, blowing up the melta/plasma vet chimera (killing all bar the sarge, a regular and a plasmagunner) and stunned the flamer vet chimera.

Turn 2:
The objecting did not arrive this turn
- The meltavets and first devildog did however, both moving 12inches forward (the melta vets behind the big building). The storm troopers also arrived, but managed to scatter off the board, not once, but twice (due to their re-roll) and were lost on the deep strike mishap table, thus removing my principle anti-landraider device. The basilisk and the devildog both took shots at the land raider, but achieved nothing. The russ was more lucky, killing the combat dread, whilst the remaining firepower on my left was able to kill a termie in the far left squad.
- My opponent continued his advance, killing a guardsman from the far left squad and immobilising the CCS chimera. He also managed to knock the meltacannon off the devildog.



Turn 3:
This turn the objective arrived in a blaze of glory. It came screaming in from the left hand side, but we rolled an impressive 54 inches from 12D6, so it landed dead in the middle of the right flank. Nothing was killed by the blasts (unfortunately).
- Being the first to react, and having a devildog without a cannon, I jetted it 18 inches and plonked it right on top of the objective (thankfully I passed both the dangerous terrain tests on the way) – I figured the longer I can keep terminators away from 3+ cover, the better. The other devildog arrived, and between it and the basilisk I failed to do anything to the land raider, which was now poised to make a run at the objective. I opened up my shooting on the left flank, killing a further termie in the left hand squad and another three in the right. My flamer vets shot forward close in to the land raider, ready to try and do something to the occupants next turn, whilst the meltavets also moved forward. The three plasma/melta vets broke cover and started towards the right flank.
- My opponent disgorged Beliel and the termie squad from the land raider, ready to assault the devildog on the objective. The land raider spun around and rumbled 12 inches back to the other flank, ready to taxi the two members of the middle termie squad to the other side. The remaining three terminators continued towards my right flank. The dreadnaught exploded the flamer vet chimera, killing five, whilst the termies on the left fired an assault cannon into the side of the melta vet chimera, immobilising it. The termies on the right and Beliel assaulted the devildog, immobilising it, but they failed to destroy it.



Turn 4:
- Since the devildog was still alive, I was now unable to direct template fire into the terminators at the objective. As a result I moved various units into position to fire. The flamer vets lost two more men to dangerous terrain (one flamer left), whilst the melta vets also trudged forward. The CCS and the infantry squad legged it up the side of the field. The plasmagun and plasma pistol left in the plasma/melta vet squad were able to take out two more terminators on the left flank. The combined fire on the right was able to kill two terminators around the devildog. The other devildog and the basilisk failed to damage the land raider. The terminators finally blew the devildog on the objective, killing one of their own in the blast (yay!). The remaining two consolidated onto the objective, whilst Beliel moved to kill the guardsmen squad advancing towards them.
- The terminator on the right promptly killed the three last plasma/melta vets, whilst the two in the middle squad hopped in the land raider and were ferried to the other flank. Beliel slaughtered some guardsmen but the squad held on, and the fire from the terminators, land raider and dreadnaught killed off the last three flamer vets and caused the melta vets to flee.



Turn 5:
- The melta vets continued to flee and were now out of order range. The CCS however moved into plasma range. The remaining devildog tankshocked one of the two termies off the objective (but I shouldn’t have gone as far as I did), passing both dangerous terrain tests. I opened up on the terminators on the objective with the russ, griffon, basilisk, plasma CCS and an autocannon, but failed to kill any. Beliel slaughtered the remaining infantry.
- The land raider disgorged its two terminators onto the objective (one of which died by falling on his face as he clambered on) and it rolled forward to shelter them from direct fire. The CCS suffered four casualties to shooting but Major Savoy didn’t run. The last terminator on the left flank blew up the Russ. Beliel assaulted Savoy, inflicting three wounds, and much to my shock I rolled fives and sixes for all three with his refractor field! They don’t call him Savvy Savoy for nothing!! Ha ha!



Turn 6:
- An autocannon round took out the last terminator on the left flank. Without any scoring units capable of contesting the objective I let loose with everything at my disposal to knock out the three last terminators. Through the devildog, griffon and basilisk I was able to kill two more, but I wasn’t able to kill the last one. Major Savoy obviously used his fancy wrist watch and the majesty of his moustache to distract Beliel, and the Marine Captain fluffed his attacks.
- My opponent, how holding the objective, blew up the devildog with the combined fire of the land raider and dreadnaught. Beliel struck out in anger, causing another three wounds on Savoy. With baited breath I picked up the dice, knowing that if I rolled a single five or six, I have a legitimate claim to fame for the incompetent Major Savoy Watson. The dice bounced on the sandy surface, with a two, a three and a six...... HA HA, HE LIVES!!! Savvy Savoy has gone toe-to-toe with a named Marine Captain for three rounds and lived!! It was then convenient that he did not flee, and that the game ended here This was a great way to end the weekend.





Ultimately this was the most hard-fought game of the five. Whilst a win was not possible, I was so close to scraping a draw in that last turn.


As a side note, once this finished I went and watched the last moments of the third opponent’s (the Guard player’s) game against Dark Eldar. It was a brilliant ending – at the start of the last turn there were four dark elder warriors on the objective, and about three guardsmen. The guardsmen fired on the warriors, killing one and causing them to flee off. As they fled they fired on the guardsmen, killing one and causing them to flee off! As a result it was a draw.



This was my first full scale two day tournament, and I had a good time. Kudos goes to all of my opponents for giving me five fun games, and kudos also goes to the tournament organisers. I will definitely be attempting to go next year.

[majorspeirs]

If you made it through, I hope you enjoyed this truly epic tale. Here is a treat – some of the armies that were also floating around:

[majorspeirs]

[Walrus]

Oh my god... That is amazing! There are so many brilliant models there it is unbelievable...


In the 1st match, you state you are fighting Dark Angels... yet in the 4th picture the rhino has the forgeworld Salamander door?

[Morat]

Some glorious looking armies, and terrain there, your guys certainly didn't disgrace themselves in that department.

Think I've seen the skitarri with the "cog" motif around on the internets. Always nice to see showcase armies getting used.

[treadiculous]

Awesome... ticks every box!... great games, excellent scenery, imaginative armies, ace conversions and fantastic paintwork.. stunning...

love the mechanicus army!

may have to borrow the ork / greyknight conversion idea..

[mccaptain]

Where do you play at?!?! I want to go! That many awesome tables and beautiful armies, I would road trip for that!

[littlemac]

This is so cool, I love how everything is painted.

[egon]

Some really nice battle reports and some lovevly pictures. You wouldn't happen to have some more of the skiitari army or the SoBs? They were REALLY amazing.

[upguardsandatem]

New here, just wanted to say great thread! Good reports and some amazing armies there! Thanks for taking to effort the upload it all.