UK Throne of Skulls - October 2012

[Chaplain Admetus]

Good evening ladies and gentlemen. As many of you will be aware (and if not, you are now!) this weekend heralds the prestigious Throne of Skulls tournament at GW's HQ, and I'm taking my beloved Blood Angels for their second outing in the hallowed halls of the hobby. For those unfamiliar, the tournament is 1500 points, and played out in 5 rounds across two days. Last year I went 4-1, and narrowly missed best Blood Angels player by a single favourite game vote, so I intend to go one better this time around if I can.

 

The list:

 

Librarian Raphael with Shield and Lance, Jump Pack

 

Sanguinary Priest Sarathiel with Power Sword and Jump Pack

 

Sternguard Squad Anael -6 Sternguard, 3 combi-meltas, meltagun, Power Fist, Drop Pod

 

Tactical Squad Michael - 10 Tactical Marines, Power Fist, Meltagun, Missile Launcher, Rhino

 

Assault Squad Zadakiel - 10 Assault marines, 2x Flamer, Power Fist

 

Assault Squad Gabriel - 10 Assault Marines, 2x Meltagun, Thunder Hammer

 

Devastator Squad Suriel - 5 Devastators, 4 Missile Launchers

 

Storm Raven with twin-linked Multi-Melta, Twin-Linked Assault Cannon, and 4 Bloodstrike Missiles

 

(if anyone's curious about the names, I had 7 characters/sergeants, so I pinched the archangels from the Coptic Orthodox tradition cos they sounded the coolest)

 

I'll update the thread over the weekend if I can get access (I leave tomorrow morning to travel up), and will post batreps when I return or on Monday, depending on how tired I am :sweat:. I'll try and take plenty of pictures, both for games and cool looking armies, and win or lose, I intend to have a blast playing a game I enjoy with like-minded people - 5 great games is my ultimate goal.

 

Anyway, enough waffling and I'm off to catch up on sleep (500+ mile train journey yesterday with no guarantee of having anywhere to live at the other end will do that to you :ermm: ) - wish me luck, and I'll try and update the thread on Saturday evening with the first day!

 

For the Emperor and Sanguinius!

[Mykra]

I do the same thing with the names of my Blood Angels, although I take from Neil Gaiman and Mike Carey's heavenly host in the excellent Sandman and Lucifer books.

 

I'm really looking forward to the pictures and especially the reports. Here's hoping for massive fun firstly, and success to ice the cake :D

 

(if anyone's curious about the names, I had 7 characters/sergeants, so I pinched the archangels from the Coptic Orthodox tradition cos they sounded the coolest)

 

I'll update the thread over the weekend if I can get access (I leave tomorrow morning to travel up), and will post batreps when I return or on Monday, depending on how tired I am :). I'll try and take plenty of pictures, both for games and cool looking armies, and win or lose, I intend to have a blast playing a game I enjoy with like-minded people - 5 great games is my ultimate goal.

 

Anyway, enough waffling and I'm off to catch up on sleep (500+ mile train journey yesterday with no guarantee of having anywhere to live at the other end will do that to you :P ) - wish me luck, and I'll try and update the thread on Saturday evening with the first day!

 

For the Emperor and Sanguinius!

[Morticon]

RWaaaaar !!!!! KICK BUTT DUDE!!!!!!!!

 

I was there for the ToS in 2006, its such a great tourney. Cant wait to try again.

[sockwithaticket]

Good luck, Admetus. Hope the Storm Raven works for you after such a late list inclusion.

[Taranis]

Best of luck, brother. Go get them!

[Captain Idaho]

All the best mate. Keep us updated.

 

I'd like to know what kind of lists you opposed and what the average was for the races i.e. How many of the Ork lists were horde lists, how many were the old Battlewagon Spam, how many IG Vendetta spams were there, what were the Chaos list like etc?

[Chaplain Admetus]

Day one down. On a borrowed iPad, so this might be brief and typo heavy. I've won two and lost one so far. G1 was purge the alien, vanguard strike vs dark Eldar, with ravagers, raiders, venoms, razorwing, wracks, grotesques, rakarth, jet bikes ; game two was crusade (5 obj) against ultimate mech blood angels with ten tanks (3 Baal, two pred, whirlie, landy, triple razor) and game three was dawn of war, scouring, against daemons with blood thirster, lord of change, nine each of blood letters, daemonettes, horrors, and triple soul grinder. Not going to tell you which one I lost though! Save it for the bat reps. The de army was stunning, if it's not in with a best army shout its a travesty. There's one flier spam cron army with seven fliers, nothing else obviously filthy. There's ten BA players, not sure how the others are doing other than a drop pod army that's lost all three. If I win both my day two games I am probably in with a shout.

 

Got plenty of photos, and the phone is on charge ahead of day two, so expect proper battle reports, and some snapshots of the best armies on display. Really happy to have played against three different armies so far and that it's not been a power armour fest like day one last year. There's no duplicate missions so tomorrow will be two out of relic, big guns, and emperor's will.

 

@idaho, I'll try to get some details for you if I can and remember (I've spent more hours on trains than asleep this week!). Most lists have at least one flier or a quad gun. About 80% of the tables have bastions on them for some reason, but thus far we've agreed them as impassable so as nobody has a huge advantage by getting there first. Not seen many chaos lists fully, though there are a lot of them around. One or two of the guard lists had two vendettas, maybe the, but nobody see s to have gone overboard.

 

@sock, the raven was a pile of cack in one game, but absolutely stellar in the other two so I'm happy with it overall. wait til you see some of the tricks it pulled; there's one in particular I was really happy with.

 

All three games have been cracking so far, and the opponents were all outstanding. Win or lose, if my last two gamers are like today's three I'll be coming home happy. I'm off to grab a shower and an early night since I presently look like death incarnate according to the WHW mirrors, or 'aggressively tired' as one of my friends put it, roll on tomorrow!

[RebG]

Well, I'm there too though had a rough three games so far. I dropped a few of my Angels Sanguine for some IG allies but havent had much in the way of practice.

 

My two social games yesterday, against mixed IG and Draigo wing i won. Today, in competition i lost all three - luck balancing out i guess.

 

All have been good opponents and two were close. G1 i got 4 Cron flyers with min sized warrior squads, 2 lords with kitted out royal courts and some deathmarks. Not having played crons before this was rough, i lost 13-3 but learned a lot, both about my IG and how to remove models from Cron flyers (which are a tad ridiculous).

 

G2 i got marines, usually strong suit for me but i messed up with my DC amd stramded them. They died to shooting/overwatch plasma. Close game but he had ome objective to my none with one gone to ground marine - despite being shot by DC Dread, Raven and Vendetta. Damn.

 

G3 was Nids, 2 tervigons, tyranofex, 20 gaunts, ravenors, 2 x2 hive guard, 2 throes and a spore with warriors. I lost my bikes and RAS to early shooting, then nearly got overwhelmed by some very productive tervigons - they spawned almost 50 into my face! Came back with the Raven and DC and wiped the big stuff out but didn't have enough to recover the high point objectives, bugger. Lost that 13-9.

 

Good stuff overall though, despite the losses...will have to do better tomorrow

[RebG]

My list, by the way:

 

Reclusiarch, 5 DC, DCD, 10RAS, Priest, 2x melta attack bikes, raven. IG ally command squad, 3 squad platoon

 

Could be better but only just learning with the guard - last time I played them was 2nd ed...

[Chaplain Admetus]

Well, that's me back after another 5 hour train journey. Bleah. Too tired to post any of the batreps or anything witty right now, so I'll keep it brief. Played vanilla marines twice; lost the first one in a really tight game that came down to the final die roll, and won the second, leaving me with a final score of 3 wins and 2 losses. A quick chat with other players and general scouting of the other 9 BA armies later and I figured I was probably in with a decent shot, as I couldn't find anyone else with more than 2 wins (the other BA player on the team I went with had 2 wins and a draw).

 

Cut to the awards ceremony... tenterhooks, and the BA winner was announced as none other than RebG, who had a reported score of 11 points to my 10 (2 wins of 3 points each, and 5 bonus for 3 or more favourite game votes, vs my 3 wins and 1 favourite game vote). Pipped at the post again, curses!

 

However... they left out sheets with everyone's score by ticket number, enough for everyone to get one. So most people left and went home, but a lot of players hung around chatting and looking at stuff. Out of nowhere, the event staff start calling to check if I'm still around, and confused, I wander up... turns out RebG's been up to them cos one of his games has been misreported, and he only has one win rather than two, which meant his final score was in fact 8. Seems that the BA winning score is in fact mine with 3 wins, as the only Blood Angel player with a greater than 50% win record. Missed out on the big moment of glory, and a confusing way to win, but ecstatic :D

 

Also, major props to Reb for spotting it and bringing it up with the events staff so quickly, and for getting 3+ favourite game votes in the first place; that's quite an achievement in and of itself!

 

I'm gonna try and get some shut eye now, battle reports will start going up from tomorrow. BA for the win!

[RebG]

Well, I too am back home in London now. My phone won't behave to add the pics I took but today was good fun again. I've just read back yesterday's very brief battle reports and noticed all the spelling errors, sorry about that - was falling asleep writing it!

 

So, I went into today 3 losses down but upbeat and ready to roll dice. My first game was against a cool manga/mecha coloured Tau force. Shas'o and two Crisis bodyguard, Eldrad with 5 Dire Avengers, 2 x 10 fire warriors, 2 Piranha, 3 x 2 Broadsides. Another army that I've never, ever played vs.

Started badly with Attack Bikes shot up and an IG squad breaking. It was Hammer and Anvil set up so I had to travel the whole table into his guns as he was set up on his base line in a ruin and manned Ageis line. The Stormraven survived the broadside onslaught and interceptor fire though and dropped off the DC, DCD and Chappy alongside the deep striking RAS. This had him sweating and really threatened to end his game. The DC failed to charge again though, TWICE (snake eyes charge after low terrain roll) and endured 4 turns of fire warrior shots before getting into combat minus the chaplain. The DCD charged Broadsides which he then broke off as they couldn't hurt it. This cost me the game. I didn't check the rule and played it as he said. He moved away 2d6 in any direction he wanted, the suits survived, shot the dread a bit and ended up tarpitting the RAS for the rest of the game. When he did this again with Eldrad and 2 other Broadsides I read the rules! We did the initiative check and they were destroyed. As the first broadsides chose to fail their moral they should have fled straight back off the table. My dread would have been unharmed, the RAS would have attacked squishable fire warriors instead and I'd have held two objectives. Unfortunately this was turn 5 and too late to rewind.

 

He also had line breaker as his piranha survived 72 autocannon shots unscathed - it won him an award at the end of the day. He won 4-1 (home objective, all 3 secondary to my contested objective and linebreaker). Good game though but i need to brush up on 6th ed and challenge some interpretations of the rules more.

 

Game 5 was Grey Knights. Walked up to what looked like Draigowing - my least favourite regular opponent. Turned out to be not too bad - normal termie GK. Grandmaster with all grenades, incinerator etc, 2 x 5 termie squads with banner, psycannon, stormraven, 2 dreadknights. Surprisingly low model count for non-paladins.

He lost this in his set up in my opinion. Spread out, I picked off the Dreadknights with massed fire and the flyers while not having to worry about half the termies at the other end of the table (I deployed with a refused flank). His Raven ruled the sky, taking out the vendetta and my raven but I controlled the game quite well and won 6 or 7 to 1.

 

Then, low and behold:

 

Cut to the awards ceremony... tenterhooks, and the BA winner was announced as none other than RebG, who had a reported score of 11 points to my 10 (2 wins of 3 points each, and 5 bonus for 3 or more favourite game votes, vs my 3 wins and 1 favourite game vote). Pipped at the post again, curses!

 

However... they left out sheets with everyone's score by ticket number, enough for everyone to get one. So most people left and went home, but a lot of players hung around chatting and looking at stuff. Out of nowhere, the event staff start calling to check if I'm still around, and confused, I wander up... turns out RebG's been up to them cos one of his games has been misreported, and he only has one win rather than two, which meant his final score was in fact 8. Seems that the BA winning score is in fact mine with 3 wins, as the only Blood Angel player with a greater than 50% win record. Missed out on the big moment of glory, and a confusing way to win, but ecstatic :)

 

Also, major props to Reb for spotting it and bringing it up with the events staff so quickly, and for getting 3+ favourite game votes in the first place; that's quite an achievement in and of itself!

 

My friend and I weren't paying attention to the ceremony as we were both sure we hadn't won, especially me with 4 losses and only 1 win. When my name came up I couldnt believe it. As mentioned in the quote, a quick check had me as having beaten the Marines in my 2nd game. A brief moral debate later and I went and informed the team that I was actually joint 2nd - honesty is the best policy. Very glad Chaplain Admetus was still around to hand it over to, especially another Angel Sanguine player. Well done to him for those wins, at least someone won a few!

 

I'm really chuffed with the best opponent nominations, only 5 or 6 of 140 scored those points for 3+ 'likes'.

 

Overall a good weekend, with solid lists but friendly opponents and a relaxed atmosphere, my preferred way to play. Lastly, I rounded off my 3 wins to 4 losses by squeezing in another game vs my friends Guard. We ran out of time but he was almost tabled - a Leman Russ, Marbo, 5 Vets and 1 lone Sgt vs 30+ guard of mine, 4DC, Dread, Raven and Vendetta. A solid kill point game.

 

I'll be checking back here for Chaplain Admetus' reports. Another winner in the halls of the B&C Blood Angel forum!

 

Edit: so, so many spelling mistakes...damn phone!

[Nicodemus Doloroso]

Well done on the result, Chaplain Admetus. And huge respect for RebG for calling the error to the tournament organizers' attention -- in the finest tradition of sportsmanship, that.

[nurglez]

Well RebG did win quite a few sportsman awards (around 4 i believe?), he is a nice guy :)

[Morticon]

Huge props to you guys both!!! Well done on the awards and general allround awesomeness :D

 

BA all the way!~!!

[Morticon]

Question:

 

How did ToS rule the psychic powers? Did you have to have them written on your roster? Or could you swap out during deployment?

[Chaplain Admetus]

Cheers Mort! I'm just getting started on the batreps... I've got 38 pictures to get through :D so at least I kept my promises to take some this time around! All fully documented apart from game 3, where I clearly got really into it because I'm missing photos for half the game.

I went down with a group of Scottish friends - the Caledonian Deathwatch (go google our forum - we're always happy to see new guys); if anyone's reading this and was down there, you may recognise us as the massive mob of people in black hoodies with the logo. Most people were tired after late night army painting (including the guy we were staying with finishing at 5 in the morning and still getting his army in the best painted nominations....), but we all got there on time, got some caffeine and food, and lined up for our first games!

Round One

Mission: Purge the Alien

Deployment: Vanguard Strike

My opponent for round 1 was Liam with his absolutely stunning Dark Eldar force - another one that made it into the cabinet (full pics later). His list was light on scoring units but I still felt reasonably confident due to the large number of paper planes. His list:

Rakarth

Grotesques

Wracks (stayed in reserve)

Empty Venom

6 Incubi (I think it was 6)

5 warriors in a venom

3 Jetbikes (stayed in reserve)

2 raiders (1 with groteques, 1 with incubi)

2 ravagers

Nightwing

All vehicles had flickerfields and night shields

(I actually have a copy of his list, if I can find it I'll update fully)

Warlord traits were a bit useless, and my librarian kept his powers. He won the roll for table halves, but I got the roll for first turn.

Deployment. Annoyingly, he got the side with the ruin, so everything is bunkered behind it. I did consider keeping the librarian in reserve to deep strike and blood lance through things, but decided against it.

Turn 1 - AS: Sternguard landed right in the middle of his army, and everything else advanced (even the devastators, because they had nothing better to do with their range reduced by 6"). The sternguard slagged rakarth's raider for first blood, but that was pretty much all I could do.

Turn 1 - DE: Ravagers and venoms moved round, and the incubi hopped out of their raider. Ravagers and venoms put down 3 assault marines, and my sternguard were unsurprisingly hacked to death by grotesques and incubi.

End of turn 1.

Turn 2 - AS: Storm Raven decides to make an appearance, and I bring the rest of my team forward trying to get close enough to the paper planes to do something. The storm raven is ineffectual, only managing to take a hull point off of one ravager due to a combination of flickerfields and crap dice, and snap firing missile launchers from the devastators and the tac squad in the rhino manage to put down the empty venom.

Turn 2 - DE: No flier, no jetbikes. Wracks turn up and simply run and hide. Incubi get back into their raider which hides, and the grotesques move forward towards the pod, killing it in assault. The planes fly round the side, and kill a lot of assault marines (one unit is down to two), and one of the ravagers decides to take some pot shots at my storm raven. Two hits from 3 dark lances, one penetrates on a 6, I fail my jink save, and get blown out of the sky. Ouch.

End of turn 2. Conspicuous by its absence - the fail raven.

Turn 3 - AS: Probably going to struggle with the raven having died without doing anything, but giving up isn't in the Blood Angels' vocabulary. I continue to pelt forwards, perhaps against my better judgment. The rhino moves and disembarks the tactical squad, who proceed to not kill the venom. Other shots do the same to ravagers (I can get hull points, but no kills.

Turn 3 - DE: All his reserves show up. He continues zooming around being a pest. Tactical squad gets fairly raked by fire, as do some of the devastators. The rhino makes out like a boss though, shrugging off a blaster (it does this for 3 consecutive turns) and all the shots from a ravager. Result.

End of turn 3

Turn 4 - AS: I know I've lost by this point, so I just want to take as much with me as I can. I shove everything forward into his face in a last act of defiance. Can't scratch the venom, but I do manage to take down the blasted ravager.

Turn 4 - DE: Nightwing flies off to take care of the devastators (but he forgets to shoot with it). Everything clusters around the assault squad and shoots them, and they get assaulted by incubi, killing almost all of them.

End of turn 4, or as I like to call it, Operation Go Down Fighting

Turn 5 - AS: I shoot with the devs and it doesn't do much; the tactical marines charge the venom and get killed by the overwatching passengers (sigh), and my assault squad are cut down. In the DE turn, the flier shoots my devastators, but the bulletproof rhino soldiers on, only to get charged and killed by grotesques for the tabling.

Ah well... hardly an auspicious start, but it was a good game nonetheless. I could have played a bit smarter, but that wasn't really an option so early in the morning. Having the ruin on my side would really have helped, as my devastators would have had commanding fire lanes and he'd have had nowhere to hide. Still, all I can do is have a well earned lunch, and soldier on with game 2 - my internet's currently being slow with uploading pictures, so I'll try and do game 2 later on this afternoon.

[Morticon]

Question:

 

How did ToS rule the psychic powers? Did you have to have them written on your roster? Or could you swap out during deployment?

 

^ that came in just before you posted, so not sure if it would be missed!

 

Cheers! :D

[Chaplain Admetus]

ToS is really relaxed now. Its not even a tournament as such any more, more of a gaming weekend than anything else (its advertised as a gaming weekend rather than 'tournament' now), I had an interesting chat with the events staff after the awards ceremony. Means its really cool for the casual or semi-competitive player who just wants a weekend of fun and good games, hardcore tournament players should probably look elsewhere (unless your idea of 'fun' is mercilessly crushing people with non-tailored lists). They even changed the draw so that your opponent is completely random every round - you could have 4 wins going into your fifth game and get paired against someone with no wins.

Re: psychic powers, as nobody said otherwise, we just went ahead and played with the powers written on my list (though the BA guy I played didn't even have that...turns out he was running shield and fear, but I had ask) with the ability to swap out prior to the game, as that's how it works in the rulebook. I kept my powers twice, and swapped for the BRB ones three times, but one of those games he got killed on turn one, and another he spent the whole game riding around in a storm raven trying not to die.

Round Two

Mission: Crusade (5 objectives)

Deployment: Hammer and Anvil

Facing a fellow scion of Sanguinius this round, Phil of 4tk gaming. They're an independent website/retailer that have just set up based in Colchester, and had one of the biggest teams down at Throne of Skulls (ours and theirs were the two largest).

His list:

Librarian

5 assault marines, meltagun, heavy bolter razorback

5 assault marines, meltagun, heavy bolter razorback

5 assault marines, meltagun, heavy bolter razorback

5 assault marines, meltagun, land raider

Baal Predator with twin-linked assault cannon

Baal Predator with twin-linked assault cannon

Baal Predator with twin-linked assault cannon

Predator, Autocannon, sponson heavy bolters

Predator, Autocannon, sponson lascannons

Whirlwind

Holy total mech, Batman.... fortunately I have a reasonable amount of anti-tank, and there's no way I'm giving up on Blood Lance for this game as I'll need all the anti-armour I can get my hands on. I get the warlord trait allowing me to decide if its night-fighting on turn 1 (I choose day as I'm going first), he gets the outflank trait for his warlord so he promptly sticks the librarian with the 4th assault squad, and I now have an outflanking land raider to deal with... This is also the only player I played all weekend without a flyer.

Deployment. I'm playing from the right, the death company painted army from the left. Objectives are the round bases with BA symbols on them - ones in the ruins in my DZ, one in each of the forests (devs and rhino near them), one by the bastion, and one behind his forest. I've left the librarian and the melta assault squad back in reserve, as that seemed sensible; and combat squadded the tactical marines. I'll be referring to the other army as DC to avoid confusion.

Turn 1 - AS: The sternguard land away from the main parking lot - I plan to dominate the far side of the table, and then move round to where all the tanks are. Also, I don't like the lascannon predator. It looked at me funny. The rhino charges forth, and the assault squad advances. The Sternguard pile all their melta into the lascannon pred and blow it for first blood, and since I'm no longer concerned about giving it away myself, the combat squad in the rhino turbo-boosts to the side of the ruins. Assault squad runs, and the devs manage to blow 2 hull points off one of the Baals and stun it.

Turn 1 - DC: His surviving stuff backs up or moves sideways, and the squads get out of two of them. My sternguard are rightfully blown off the table before their meltagun and power fist can do any more damage, and the tanks nearest the camera take down my rhino. Whirlwind attempts to flatten some assault marines, but doesn't kill many.

End of turn 1. Let the de-meching begin!

Turn 2 - AS: No flying brick, but my assault marines come in in combat squads for maximum carnage. One has balls of steel and lands next to the wall of tanks in the bottom corner (between the Baal and the table edge), the other lands up near the predator and whirlwind. Blood lance would be better at the bottom, but I put my librarian up top as I don't want to risk him dying to a mishap or being exposed to retribution, as the bottom squad were very precariously placed. The assault squad advances, as do the tactical marines. Blood lance comes off and goes through the pred and whirlwind, but I can't even muster a glancing hit on either. Stupid lance. The meltagun up there is similarly ineffective. Down south is a different story, as the tacticals and the combat squad are able to pick off a Baal apiece (explode the one I dropped near, whilst the tacs finish off the wounded one). Devastators manage to shake one of the razors.

Turn 2 - DC: No land raider for him yet. His tanks shimmy around a bit, and prepare to fire. The stuff that goes after my librarian and his buddies doesn't do much, but all the stuff on the other side of the table does, killing 4 of the 5 assault marines and sending the last one running.

Bottom of turn 2. I'm quite happy with the assault marine legging it, as he can go take an objective that's further back.

Turn 3 - AS: Raven arrives and screams down the edge of the table. Unfortunately I'm out of range with my main guns, but I still manage to break something with bloodstrike missiles. Lone assault marine goes for an objective in the trees. The combat squad goes for the tanks in the corner and kills one, whilst the full assault squad consolidates their position. I think the priest goes solo here (its now or next turn) trying to meltabomb stuff, but he's rubbish at it. Tactical squad advances and shoots, and between them and the devastators I manage to kill a razor or two, kill some assault marines, and break them, making them flee off the table.

Turn 3 - DC: Landy arrives. Uh oh. It doesn't get the Raven, thank the emperor, but does manage to kill my lone ASM. Tac squad takes a pounding and is killed outright, and I believe bad stuff happens to the librarian and his friends (I can't tell...missing that part of the picture.

End of turn 3. Lets see what the Raven can do given a chance to play.

Turn 4 - AS: The Raven advances and rains death down on the bottom right hand corner. Priest manages to meltabomb something this time, and I kill more troops with missile launchers. Librarian and his few remaining assault marines are by the drop pod. I'm a bit hazy on the points for the last few turns, but I can remember the important highlights.

Turn 4 - DC: Some things move across to deal with my warlord and buddies, and some assault marines hop into a razor and high-tail it up the table looking for objectives. Something glances my storm raven, and my assault marines guarding the librarian are all shot. The land raider gets a pot shot lascannon at him on his own, but fortunately shield of sanguinius has my back.

End of 4. Its a lot tighter than it looks, and I think he actually has the edge here.

Turn 5 - AS: Potentially the final turn. I flip the raven into hover mode, as it'll be off the table otherwise. I put all my efforts into taking down the razor and its occupants, which I succeed in so doing.

Turn 5 - DC: I think he still has two guys left at the bottom, which move onto an objective, and something else down there that can shoot my librarian who's still solo (I'm almost certain of this, as that was his way to win). His guys disembark from the land raider, and get ready to charge my guys on my home objective. Shooting takes a wound off my librarian, but fortunately he survives to deny my opponent warlord. Combat sees him beat my marines but not wipe them out, I break and he wants to let me go so that he has the objective at the end of the turn, but I point out that he has to chase and we get locked in combat, meaning I still contest. We roll, and there's a turn 6.

Turn 6 - that was really his last gasp. The assault marines come out and down to take the objective nearest his board edge, and the librarian joins them for safety. He easily kills my guys, and in his turn the librarian leaps in the land raider which comes barreling back down the table, but shooting does nothing. Game ends on turn 6 - 1 objective each, linebreaker apiece, but I have first blood.

End of the game - I have a near full assault squad, all the devs, wounded librarian, priest, and raven on 1 hull point. He has assault marines on an objective, and librarian in a land raider.

Angels Sanguine Victory 5 VPs to 4

That was tight. I can't remember exactly when, but there were touch and go moments, most notably my librarian needing to run solo for a bit and nearly getting killed; if he'd died then I'd have drawn the game. Storm Raven was pretty good here, and I'm glad I loaded up on melta otherwise I'd have had issues. I'm surprised I managed to kill as many tanks as I did, since I generally struggle against mech. Still, a win is a win, and I was quite pleased until I looked at the draw for round 3, and saw that I was paired against Daemons...

[Chaplain Admetus]

Round Three

Mission: The Scouring

Deployment: Dawn of War

I already know I'm facing Daemons, and I've seen a lot of different daemon lists around the hall, most of which are varying degrees of scary, including some with flamers up the wazoo, some more balanced, a mono-Slaanesh list, way too much choice. Get to the table to see which one I'm facing.... oh holy balls, its the triple soul grinder list, with a bloodthirster thrown in for good measure. Crap.

Matt's list:

Bloodthirster, flying, attack boosting upgrade

Lord of Change

9 horrors

9 daemonettes

9 bloodletters

3 nurglings (because he didn't realise until the last minute that they couldn't take objectives on account of being swarms)

Soul Grinder, Phlegm

Soul Grinder, Phlegm

Soul Grinder, Phlegm

That's terrifying. I took one look and immediately decided that I'd be taken off the table within 3 turns and it would be no fun whatsoever. I could not have been more wrong; it went the distance and was a truly phenomenal game. His lord of change didn't get a decent warlord trait; I was cheeky and rolled on strategic, getting the trait that gave him -1 to reserves :D (shame he got everything in on turn 2 anyway except the nurglings). He won the roll and elected to take first turn, getting his preferred wave of lord of change, 2 soul grinders, and the daemonettes.

This is after his first turn (as deployment was kinda moot) - I set my assault marines up in battle cannon formation so they'd take as few hits as possible; that assault squad was the only one to take casualties. I've got 5 tac marines on an objective in rocks, 5 devs next to them, 5 other tacs in the rhino near an objective in the forest in the near left, and the -other- assault squad is in reserve. 5 in deep strike, 5 in the raven with the librarian.

Turn 1 - Daemons: His favoured wave turns up and battle cannons some assault marines. Fortunately poor BS and decent cover saves me the worst of it.

Turn 1 - AS: I pelt the rhino forwards, the sternguard land between the green and blue soul grinders. The assault squad advances on the horrors that have advanced into cover. I start shooting, and am able to bring down the horrors for first blood, and one of the soul grinders.

End of turn 1. I've suddenly realised that he only has 3 scoring units, and the most durable one is already dead. There may be hope after all.

Turn 2 - Daemons: Everything bar the nurglings turns up. Daemonettes in the back left (going to go for the objective near the bastion, worth 4), and the bloodletters by the ruins on the back right (1 point objective is in there, 3 point one in the forest nearby). Bloodthirster lands near my devastators, and the red soul grinder has a mishap, so I place it in the back left corner pointing into the next table. He won't be doing anything for a while. Shooting is relatively minimal, the soul grinder choosing to shoot and batter seven shades out of my assault squad, leaving the sternguard intact (poor choice, as will become apparent). Lord of change flies down and engages the devastators in combat, but doesn't do very well.

Turn 2 - AS: The assault squad turns up, landing next to the soul grinder in the back left. The sternguard move over and rake the daemonettes, who are finished off either this turn or next by the tactical combat squad in the rhino. Maybe taking them on with the soul grinder was the better choice. The assault squad fails to melta the soul grinder in the back, and the lord of change flails uselessly at the devastators once more.

End of turn 2. Unfortunately, due to either me getting really engrossed in the game or my phone being a nuisance, there's no pictures from here on out to the end, so I'll do the best I can without.

Turn 3 - Daemons: No nurglings. If there are any daemonettes left, they advance. The bloodthirster flies over into my combat squad, and the bloodletters advance to hold the objective. The blue soul grinder smears the sternguard across the table, and the red one turns round and charges my assault marines. Combat is weird... the soul grinder kills 3 assault marines, I choose to fail my morale test as my weapons are useless (krak grenade can't dent AV13) and the remaining two make it away and pelt back down the table, aiming for an objective in the forest close to my table edge. The lord of change kills the remaining 2 ML devastators, and the sergeant flees, and the bloodthirster has an epic fail and misses with all bar one of his attacks, killing a solitary marine. The remaining 4 respond by gluing a krak grenade to his face, taking a wound, and drawing combat.

Turn 3 - AS: The raven comes on, and comes down the far right table edge, to hose the bloodletters (the plan being to drop its cargo on the 4 point objective on the other side of the board on turn 5. The assault marines rally, and head for the objective. Dev sergeant rallies, and heads over towards the combat. I kill several bloodthirsters, and the tactical squad does something, I -think- it finishes daemonettes, but if they were already down then they tried and failed to kill the red soul grinder. In combat, I charge the devastator sergeant in to the bloodthirster and challenge it - he becomes a bloody smear across the floor, but it keeps the tac squad alive and the 'thirster tied down.

Turn 4 - Daemons: The lord of change flies over and tries to have a go at the storm raven, only succeeding in inflicting a glancing hit. Blue soul grinder blasts away at my assault marines, and red soul grinder does nasty things to the tacticals. Bloodthirster kills my other tactical squad.

Turn 4 - AS: The raven banks left and flies over, trying to melta/missile the blue soul grinder in the back, as that's really all I can do from here. Needless to say, it fails.

Turn 5 - Daemons: He sends the bloodthirster back up, and the few remaining bloodletters stay in the forest. The lord of change can't get rid of the raven, but I think the soul grinders manage to wipe out all my troops other than the squad bunkered in the storm raven. At this point, all I have remaining is the pod, the raven, and the 6 guys inside. Its gonna be tight...

Turn 5 - AS: Heading left is suicide as there's an unoccupied soul grinder over there, and a bad scatter from skies of blood would make me lose on the spot, so its too risky. Only one course of action left, but it needs balls of solid iron. I flip the raven into hover mode, and disembark the assault squad and librarian. They shoot and kill the bloodletters with the help of the raven, and are in control of the objective. If it ends now, I take the game. If it doesn't, pain is about to result...

Turn 6 - Daemons: Uh oh. The blue soul grinder comes back and kills some assault marines, but not all of them. The lord of change shoots some more (I think I have one and the librarian remaining), and the bloodthirster charges the storm raven. He chooses to smash, and then again misses with most of his attacks, and the only hit glances, leaving me my last hull point. Bad day at the office for the bloodthirster. It gets even worse for the daemons as the lord of change fails his charge.

Turn 6 - AS: Against all the odds, I still have that objective, but I am dangerously close to getting tabled. Now I think I play the smartest I do all weekend - I stop and think, and realise that in fact the ONLY way I can lose now is by being tabled, so I hatch a plan. The librarian splits off and runs into the back field for linebreaker, meaning he can't get slay the warlord from me, linebreaker for himself, AND kill that last assault marine with what's around. And for part two of the master plan - I put the storm raven back into zoom mode, and blast it off the table. Even if he kills everything I have, the raven comes back on in turn 7 to tie the game. Of course, if it ends on turn 6 I still win, but its nice to have a safety net. We roll again, and turn 7 does appear!

Turn 7 - Daemons. He sends the bloodthirster after the librarian, and unsurprisingly mulches him in combat. The soul grinder's harvester gun is powerless against the power armour. The lord of change shoots at my last assault marine... prepared to tie, I roll the dice, and make all my cover saves. The lord of change, 5" away from my final assault marine and the objective, rolls his charge dice.... and gets a charge range of a measly 3! Somehow, that lone assault marine is still sitting there, with nothing contesting him, and the game comes my way out of nowhere.

End of the game. The daemons have 3 nurglings, 2 soul grinders, a bloodthirster and a lord of change. I have a 1 hull point raven, and 1 assault marine clinging to an objective for dear life. Somehow, its an Angels Sanguine victory, 4VPs to 1

[Morticon]

Even if he kills everything I have, the raven comes back on in turn 7 to tie the game.

 

Curious about something matey.

How would the raven coming back on tie the game?

[Chaplain Admetus]

Even if he kills everything I have, the raven comes back on in turn 7 to tie the game.

 

Curious about something matey.

How would the raven coming back on tie the game?

 

You lose the game if you have no models on the table at the end of any game turn, not any player turn. So if I put the raven off the board, it means I can't be tabled - he can kill all my other stuff in HIS turn 7, but on my turn 7 the raven comes on, and I still have a model left so I don't lose by wipeout. We'd both have 0 primary objectives, and one secondary (warlord for him, first blood for me), and I'd -technically- have a shot of winning by gunning down the lord of change to get myself a warlord point. Whereas if I leave the raven on the table, and he kills all of my stuff, I lose the game.

[Morticon]

Even if he kills everything I have, the raven comes back on in turn 7 to tie the game.

 

Curious about something matey.

How would the raven coming back on tie the game?

 

You lose the game if you have no models on the table at the end of any game turn, not any player turn. So if I put the raven off the board, it means I can't be tabled - he can kill all my other stuff in HIS turn 7, but on my turn 7 the raven comes on, and I still have a model left so I don't lose by wipeout. We'd both have 0 primary objectives, and one secondary (warlord for him, first blood for me), and I'd -technically- have a shot of winning by gunning down the lord of change to get myself a warlord point. Whereas if I leave the raven on the table, and he kills all of my stuff, I lose the game.

 

Gotcha! Gotcha!!! Forgot you both had zero and one each !

[Brother Maxwell]

These battle reports are awesome I'm so engrossed. :) And congrats on the tourny!!!

[Chaplain Admetus]

Wait til you see the epicness that is game 4... rounds 3 and 4 were the best by a country mile, and I'm well annoyed that I didn't get pictures of the whole thing.

[Midnightmare]

Well done, sounds like you had fun. Glad you took the Raven in the end?

 

Thanks for sharing, looking forward to the rest.