"Oh Throne! Oh Throne! Oh Throne!" 

- Historitor Meric Van Damm, witnessing the heretic assault on Perrin Hive -

Greetings fratres et sorores!

A fine example of the chaos of life, this. It's been a little over a month since I posted part one of the grow league highlights. School has started once more, and studying for those certifications takes time! 

Nevertheless! For the sake of completion, lets get on. We've had the "Hobby Progress." Now let's have the highlights. For part 2 I just wanted to share some of the epic, funny, and catastrophic moments from the games. A quick summary of each. As fun as it would be to write up a whole narrative report for each one, that might make for boring reading after a while. So let's see...

Phase 1: 500pts

This may actually have been my favorite phase. The realism of a smaller battle, more of a skirmish, is just really appealing. It's a surprisingly tactical environment, when you don't have all the units to cover objectives, guard the backfield, and erase the enemy all at once. It was a blast! Game one against Blood Angels had a very fun moment, where Lemartes and his warriors dropped in near the Salamander lines but failed their charge! Lemartes held on valiantly, fighting hard before he was finally gunned paintballed down. 

Game 2 against Necrons didn't have any particularly special moments, but it was fun to get some practice against my old nemeses (nemesi?*). The 'Crons regeneration really shines at such small scale. Makes for a good challenge! I did lose this game, but again, much fun, and much learned!

*if you recognize this, you're awesome :D

Phase 2: 1000pts

Here the Salamanders had another gunfight paintball match with fellow Imperials, getting pretty well smoked by Imperial Knights. They're such an unusual army but can be a pretty good fight if you know what you're doing. Can't say I do, but had a great time and even managed to take down a big knight! Fun moment occured when my vindicator took down an armiger in melee combat, only for the armiger to explode and take the vindi with it! This caused another explosion, as the wrathful machine spirits vengeful crews cooked off their ammo reserves started throwing paintball ammo at all and sundry. Super fun battle! Plus, I know the guy so we had some fun banter across the table and chatted about Necron tactics in the new edition (He mains 'Crons and we've had some really great battles and a friendly rivalry). 

Next followed one of the rougher... learning games of the grow league. My opponent for this one had a gorgeously painted Emperor's Children army - a wonderful blend of simplicity and well-executed highlighting. They really popped against their bases too. The brutality came when melee began. I'd been too aggressive of late and been getting steamrollered in the midfield, so for this game I hung back to let him come to my guns. Alas, it was impossible to circumvent his cover, and I was steamrollered in the backfield instead. 

Phase 3: 1500pts

Got to play against White Scars here! Another brutal defeat, but wow did I learn! The new Land Speeder is insanely good. I think I took a pot shot at one because I had no other target at one point, but aside from that just had to let them do their thing. The didn't seem very high-damage, but given I barely even saw them they seem well worth the points! 

An opponent dropped out here, so I was able to arrange a replacement. My new opponent wanted to go it at 2000 points, and it being a very casual league the store gave us the green light. He brought his gorgeously painted Necrons to the field, and we had a good time getting into the weeds, talking tactics, and throwing dice. Epic moments as Brother Umaroth faced down and destroyed a Shard of the Nightbringer before falling to its Destroyer Cult buddy. We both took a lot of photos :D

Phase 4: 2000pts

Fought World Eaters twice in this last phase. 1W, 1L. First opponent brought snacks! And some really nice Bloodletters too. Both games had much fun tactical play. In my final game of the grow league, Angron came to the field, bursting out of a shattered ruin in the last moments to wreak havoc on the Salamanders' center, bringing an end to my Land Raider's rampages and turning the tide of battle in favor of the Dark Gods. It was my first time seeing him on the tabletop, and while his action was brief, it was great to see the raw power of Khorne's greatest servants shown at last. 

The Miscellaneous Added-on Thoughts

Thanks for making it this far! Hopefully that made for a decent read. I've recently managed to get back into some serious hobbying, painting up Tidal Blades stuff and getting into Kill Team to actually try out the game and expand my collection. If the Emperor smiles upon my endeavor we'll see some of that on the B&C very soon. 

Emperor bless!