40K Battle Brothers Tournament - Day Two Battle Reports

After a poor start to the first day we pulled things back to give us a decent score of 23 VPs (out of a possible 31). Not perfect by any means but with a couple of good wins on the second day we could've been in contention. As I said yesterday, we were mostly hoping we'd avoid the super heavies and Daemons spawn lists. We'd have really liked a game against the new Orks too.

Game Four - Ripped Tights vs. Astra Militarum & Tau
Our opponents for the first of the day's games would be Ed and Rob with their combination of Astra Militarum and Tau. Their army consisted of a commander cyclic ion and shield drones, crisis bodyguard with burst cannons, two six-man units of fire warriors, four pathfinders, Longstrike in his hammerhead, a unit of broadsides, a company command squad, two squads of guardsmen, a hellhound, Leman Russ punisher and 3 ratlings. We'd be playing Purge the Alien.with Hammer and Anvil deployment.

Our opponents won the roll off but we managed to Seize and turn one was totally brutal. The wave serpent managed to strip all 3 hull points from the hellhound for First Blood. This was closely followed by the crisis team stripping all 3 hull points from Longstrike. We'd have felt bad already but this was followed by the riptides double pie-plating the broadsides and hitting all the pathfinders too. With cover removed we managed to wipe out all of the suits and the pathfinders with them. Suffice to say we felt pretty shitty from the off in this game.

The feelings of remorse were pretty short lived though as the Leman Russ took two wounds from the wraithknight followed by the ratlings pulling something amazing out of the bag by hitting three times and rending all three times too taking the wraithknight down to a single wound. Fortunately there was nothing else to fire at him though. On the other side the commander and fire warriors killed off all of the marker drones but they'd more than done their job.


We got one unit of kroot on each side and they started to whittle down the guardsmen on the left and the fire warriors on the right. The crisis teams and riptide started to try and chip away at the commander with his 2+/4++ and shield drones. I made the mistake of not pushing the riptides up the field to get into reliable melta range but our opponents were also forgetting to do their assault phase moves early on. On the other side of the board the wraithknight was downed by a melta from the guardsmen (I think). The wraithguard got out of their transport to try and start flaming stuff but met a demo charge which killed the entire unit, spiritseer included!

Despite this temporary morale boost for our opponents their army was starting to dwindle pretty quickly. At the end of turn 5 they had 3 guardsmen left and since we got a turn 6 we completed the tabling for a 16-5 win. As ever that's the problem with 40K in that sometimes it feels worse to win than it does to lose!

Game Five - Ripped Tights vs. Imperial Fists & Dark Eldar
We were drawn against our game one opponents again so swapped with the table next to us which gave us Kalon and Nick who were running Space Marines and Dark Eldar. Their list consisted of an archon with wyches in a raider, two raiders full of kabalites, three centurions with a terminator librarian, two 5 man tactical squads and a stormtalon. We'd be playing Scouring on Dawn of War and with the grav and poisoned weaponry lined up against us we expected this game to be tough.

We won the roll off but deployed conservatively as our opponents got the +1 to seize warlord trait and sure enough they seized (but on a 6 funnily enough). Their raiders all advanced with the wyches' one going flat out. The other two took some shots at the drones and managed to kill one. The centurions were out of range so we started our turn. The crisis team fired at a raider but could only take a weapon off one although they did at least force Jinks. The riptide tried to melta it but could only immobilise it which wasn't helpful and disappointed on a 4+ to explode! The other riptide managed to both overheat and take a wound which was special of it and left the centurions unharmed. The wraithknight blew up a raider for First Blood.

To our surprise the archon and wyches elected to charge the crisis team to score Slay the Warlord and succeeded leaving them in the open. The wraithguard retaliated by wiping out the wyches allowing the wave serpent to instant kill the archon despite his shadow field. The centurions moved out to shoot the wraithknight and managed to take it down to one wound which would've been enough for the storm talon to kill it had it not decided to target the wave serpent instead which it could only glance.

The riptide on the left tried to hammer the centurions in response but with their Forewarning 4+ invulnerable save they passed a whopping 5 out of 6 to keep them in the fight. The wraithknight did manage to kill one though. The remaining centurions split fire to kill the wraithknight and a couple of the wraithguard. The tactical squad began to advance towards one of our objectives to take it from the riptide with Objective Secured. This proved futile as they were cut down before they got there. The other riptide got a chance at half-range melta shots on the stormtalon but could only destroy the lascannon. The wraithguard advanced on their objective and did enough damage to the tactical squad to make them flee the battle. Meanwhile one of the remaining raiders tank shocked some of our kroot and made them run.

Over the next couple of turns we managed to kill off most of their force (the librarian helped with perils) but they were left with a single centurion to give them an objective and the immobilised raider (which just wouldn't die) to give them Linebreaker. We'd got all of the other objectives though and with all three secondaries again we'd taken a 16-4 win (although it should've been 17-4 since we again forgot the bonus point for the stormtalon).

Conclusion
We'd certainly scored a huge number of VPs over the course of the day but with the inclusion of Favourite Game votes (that we rarely seem to get) it was anyone's guess where we'd place. To our surprise we managed to finish second overall. Of course, being a GW event we only got a certificate for our trouble but better than nothing I suppose. Once again the favourite game votes proved to be our undoing as the guys who won scored 12 bonus VPs for four votes meaning we'd have needed two votes to win (we got none). I've complained about the system before but these days I just accept that's how the event works so a place in the top three is more down to luck than anything else.

It's frustrating not to get a single vote. We genuinely go out of our way to be pleasant to our opponents but of course there are times when we have to query rules etc. Trouble is, no matter how nice you are to your opponent they won't enjoy it if they lose. Anyway, I'm not going to complain again as I've covered my objections before. We had a great weekend once again and to come away with something is great. We ended up with 55 VPs over the course of 5 games which is pretty good I reckon!

On a side note there were something like a dozen Imperial Knights present with some lists having several which I was pretty surprised about but I suppose the model is well loved. Unfortunately we don't know what won the tournament in the end but I'll try to find out for my own interest as much as anything else.

40K Battle Brothers Tournament - Day One Battle Reports

We're starting to lose count of the times we've been to Battle Brothers (formerly Doubles) now. It isn't without its faults but generally speaking the atmosphere is good and you meet some great people. Doubles is a fantastic format and it's a shame there aren't more events available. This will actually be the last Battle Brothers this year as WHW is closing for refurbishment for a good while. This is our first tournament of 7th edition and the first where we're likely to come across Super Heavies and Forge World.

Sadly, with GW putting the ticket price up year on year (although this time they've dropped a meal and charged less) the numbers have been dwindling. This time there were only 48 teams when in the past there's been more like 150 teams. Even so there was a fair selection of armies. I counted over a dozen Imperial Knights with a couple of lists having more than one and one army being knight only. There were also two Warhounds (who ended up playing each other), a Revenant and a Transcendant C'tan amongst others. Fortunately during the first day we managed to avoid such nonsense.

We were running a slight variation of our Ghostly Tides list with a new name. We'd got a commander with two crisis suits all with missile pods and four marker drones between them, two riptides, two units of kroot, a spiritseer with d-scythe wraithguard in a serpent and a wraithknight.

Game One - Ripped Tights vs. Tyranids

Our first opponents were John and John who were running Tyranids with a Skyblight formation. I've never come across this before but it's basically a flyrant, harpies, crone and three squads of gargoyles (who get Objective Secured). This was joined by another couple of flyrants, warriors and genestealers. We'd be playing Relic with Vanguard deployment.

We ended up going second which meant everything was in the air in our first turn. We infiltated some Kroot which soaked up a decent amount of fire but eventually died for First Blood. This did mean our Wave Serpent survived though but losing FB in Relic is never good. The first few turns of the game were pretty bloodless with our first two shooting phases only causing a single wound. We'd forgotten that Grounding Tests are only taken when wounds are caused which messed up our plans significantly. Had we realised we'd have focussed fire more and positioned the Wraithknight differently. Ah well.

Eventually our opponents decided to land with all of their FMCs and that's when tables started to turn. The crisis team killed a crone and the Wraithknight charged a couple and easily instant killed them. The riptides were massively underwhelming (although they did fall victim of Paroxysm). They failed to cause many wounds at all which was partly due to FNP on their part and some disgustingly good Jink saves. Even so the flyrants were fairly unscathed thanks to poor Riptide fire. Luckily for us their gargoyles mishapped meaning they only had one unit of them near the Relic. We ended up with the Wraithguard contesting it with the Warriors. The riptides had a chance to redeem themselves by getting us Slay the Warlord but despite wounding 5 times (with only 3 wounds left) the Tyrant had the Warlord Trait that gives him FNP and he passed all 5!!

The game ended with neither of us having the Relic but they'd got all three secondaries and we'd only managed Linebreaker with some Kroot. A 3-1 loss to start the day is never good but thankfully with it being Relic we'd only missed out on 5 VPs. Still, it was an incredibly frustrating game as their rolling was amazing and our turns were short in comparison making us feel like spectators a lot. Nothing against our opponents though who were great.

Game Two - Ripped Tights vs. DE/Necrons

This was a much better matchup than our first game. Our opponents #### and ### were running Drazhar with 3 incubi in a venom, two venoms with 5 kabalites, two lots of 3 reavers, two night scythes with warriors, a destroyer lord with wraiths and an annihilation barge. We'd be playing Big Guns Never Tire (4 objectives) on Dawn of War.

Our opponents won the roll off but gave us first turn. They had a central piece of LoS blocking cover so we split our force on the flanks so that there'd be few places to hide. In the first turn we were able to kill a couple of wraiths and Drazhar's venom (for First Blood). Our opponents struggled to do much in response and the wraiths moved into the central ruin for cover. We had repeated attempts to destroy the annihilation barge but despite penetrating it several times it managed to Jink. The commander and his team dealt with the rest of the venoms. The kroot came on and slowly moved up to claim two of the objectives.

Their flyers arrived one at a time allowing us to force them to Jink with the Riptides. Even so, the combination of the flyer and the barge killed off the commander and his team. The Riptides slowly picked off the Dark Eldar but when presented with an opportunity to pie plate Drazhar and his incubi the weapon got hot despite having a re-roll! The Riptides were then reduced to charging the Reavers to kill them off.

Meanwhile in the centre the wraiths were left with only the wave serpent to charge and once it was wrecked the wraithguard punished them by kill most of them off with their d-scythes. The Spiritseer was pretty impotent though having rolled terribly on Runes of Battle. The wraiths attempted to charge the wraithguard but wall of death meant they were wiped out, although the lord got back up. The wraithguard charged into the annihilation barge with the Spiritseer making up for his lack of psychic power by killing the barge before being charged by the lord and some nearby warriors. Miraculously the seer passed his Mindshackle test and killed the lord with the rest of the squad sweeping the warriors.

The wraithknight killed of Drazhar in combat and this pretty much wrapped up the game but the central objective was contested by two Objective Secured units (wraithguard/necron warriors). This gave us the other three though and all three secondaries. We should've also scored a bonus point for the annihilation barge but we forgot!

Game Three - Ripped Tights vs. Carcharadons

Our opponents had a pre-heresy World Eaters force which they were playing as Carcharadons. The whole army was stunning to look at which always makes for a better game I think. They were running a mortis dread, rapier platform, land raider with captain and tactical squad, rhino with tactical squad, a sicaran battle tank and an Imperial Knight. We were playing Emperor's Will on Hammer & Anvil.

The wave serpent fired on the rapier and amazingly managed to kill it off for First Blood. The riptides set up to use their Ordnance blasts on the landraider (to clip the rhino too) but one was Pinned thanks to their Warlord Trait. The Imperial Knight set up to go for the wraithknight and this allowed us to play keep away from it for the whole game. We got a couple of penetrating hits on it but could only score 6 on the damage table each time. Eventually on turn 4 we knew we couldn't outrun it anymore so we set up to charge with the wraithknight who took it out before it could strike back.

Elsewhere the commander and his team down the dreadnought. The wave serpent advanced at full speed to get the wraithguard near their objective and more importantly their troops. The captain and his squad jumped out of the land raider and were subsequently wiped out by the wraithguard's d-scythes. The kroot came on nearby too but were wiped out over a couple of turns without doing much. The other kroot were holed up in a dilapidated building in our deployment zone holding the objective.

The riptides were yet again subpar with lots of getting hot, failing novas and generally underperforming. The crisis suits were great again though being able to strip hull points from the Sicaran and bring it down. The squad in the rhino were gunned down by the wraithguard and the crisis suits combined so that at the end of turn 5 they only had the land raider, a couple of marines and the rhino left. The crisis team dealt with the rhino and marines whilst the wraithknight charged the land raider and finished it off to make it a tabling. With both objectives and all three secondaries we took a 9-0 win.

Conclusion
Can't really complain at that start to the day. We dropped quite a few VPs in the first game but made a good effort to recoup those in the other games. As ever a lot of it comes down to what you're paired against and with random allocation it really is luck of the draw.

The stars of the day had to be the wraithguard and spiritseer. He did little with psychic powers (although shrouding was useful in game 3) but taking out the wraiths, lord and annihilation barge in game two was probably match winning. The crisis suits and wraithknight would be a close second but the riptides were terrible on day one. Let's hope they can redeem themselves on day two.

40K Battle Brothers - Army Painting Competition (pic heavy)

Sunday's painting competition was for entire armies. Usually they split it down into individual forces (i.e. two forces make up a doubles team) but this time it was for the whole 1,500pt army. There were several examples of where one half was outstanding but was let down by the other half. The weaker halves were by no means poor and I'd be happy if I could paint even half as well but the proximity to a better army made them weaker by comparison. The eventual winner was a full army of stunning pieces. The sort of army that amazes you but at the same time depresses you that you'll never produce anything like that kind of quality in your own armies.

Finally, here's several shots of the winner's army:

40K Battle Brothers - Legends Painting Competition (pic heavy)

On the Saturday the Battle Brothers organisers run a painting competition for individual models with the full army competition on the Sunday. One of the things I've always liked about the doubles events is that armies have to be fully painted which makes for some great looking battles. This time the Legends competition had very few entries in all but the "Hero of Legend" category which I think is a shame since I'd seen plenty of suitable candidates as I wandered around. Here's a selection from the cabinets.

Beast of Legend
This was the only category we entered using one of our dreadknights. The eventual winner was the minotaur chaos daemon thingy (I really ought to know the name).

Monument of Legend
There really wasn't many entries in this category and the stand-out piece and eventual winner were these fantastic objective markers.

Engine of Legend

Again, very few entries but the winner was the mauler-fiend and deservedly so as the panels were stunningly painted. 

Hero of Legend

By far the busiest category there were several models which would've been worthy winners. My vote went to the assassin model but the overal winner was the Ork pirate warboss which was frankly amazing.

40K Battle Brothers - Day Two Battle Reports

Here's a rundown of the final two games from last weekend's Battle Brothers event. Day one had seen us take 48 victory points having tabled two of our opponents and only missing out on tabling the third by three models. The first day's games had been a bit mismatched so we felt sure we'd now facing something nasty on day two.

Game 4 - Titanic Fenrisians vs. Necrons

Our opponents for game four were Liam and Kyle who'd brought the now classic Necron combination of 4 flyers with 5 immortals each, 2 lots of 5 wraiths, 3 annihilation barges and a destroyer lord. We've said before that our army just can't deal with multiple flyers and Necrons are always a tough game thanks to the sheer volume of fire they can put out. This was going to be an uphill struggle.

We were already tense then, but our opponents didn't help. Whereas the first 3 games had been a great laugh this one was an awkwardly silent affair. I tried to strike up some conversation by saying sarcastically how fun it was to play Necrons and I was met with "that's nice for you". Things didn't get any better when we rolled for psychic powers and showed them our cards. Without reading them they tossed them casually back in our direction. Obviously our opponents felt supremely confident then. They seemed a little less so when they noticed we'd scored more VPs than them up until now. Our attempts to engage them in banter later in the game failed miserably too so we gave up.

Anyway, we'd be playing Relic on Hammer and Anvil. This played into our hands somewhat as it meant that we wouldn't be spread to thin trying to control objectives and Purge the Alien wouldn't have been much fun against that list. Add in the long range deployment allowing us to keep them at maximum range during turn one and we'd at least got a hope but still weren't confident.

We won the roll off but let our opponents go first. Our opponents deployed everything up to the edge of their deployment zone. We deployed our army in such a way that they'd only fire snap shots on turn one but we'd still have all of the strike squad in range should they take the bait and move forwards. Unsurprisingly they advanced at full pelt but were unable to do any damage to us with their snap fire. We advanced the dreadknights forward with one trying to charge a barge and the other one of the wraith squads. The strike squad got everything in range of the other wraiths. Our drop pod slammed down behind their lines with the rune priest splitting off to use Jaws and the squad lining up to shoot the other wraiths from the back.

Given the frosty attitude of our opponents and the list they'd brought we felt no guilt when Jaws managed to kill two wraiths and the destroyer lord (who failed to get back up). First shot of the game and we'd already taken 2 VPs which are crucial in The Relic. The grey hunters weren't as lucky with the wraiths passing all their 3+ saves. We probably should've tried to melta a barge instead. The strike squad managed to cut down another wraith from the lord's squad though. Both dreadknights failed their charges on the annihilation barge and wraiths which might've been fatal!

The dreadknights weathered a huge amount of fire and both came out alive. The wraiths charged the one without a sword. They lose one to overwatch and a further two in combat but couldn't down the dreadknight. The remaining wraiths from the lord's squad charged the rune priest who'd split from his hunters. Thanks to the 2+ runic armour he weathered their charge but they also passed their saves. The immortals teleported in from the two flyers which arrived this turn and cut the grey hunters down to 3 men from 9.

The wolf priest arrived from reserve and his squad managed to wipe out 5 immortals with their fire. The remaining grey hunters from the priest's pack managed to hit a barge on rear armour with their melta but could only glance! The rune priest still held on in combat but suffered a wound. The wraiths once again passed their saves. The dreadknight was having a similar problem with his wraiths who just wouldn't die. The sword bearing knight cut down an annihilation barge though.

The remaining two flyers appeared and brought down the sword dreadknight. The barges killed a couple of grey knights. The strike squad attempted to down a flyer but despite hitting with several S7 and S5 shots they could only glance once.

The wraiths eventually finished off the rune priest but their triumph was short lived as the wolf priest's squad cut them down. The grey hunters again tried to kill the barge with melta but despite penetrating the armour the Jink save prevented any damage being done.

With the end of the game looming we moved everything we had towards the central objective. Our opponents brought back their flyers who'd zoomed off the board earlier and dropped an immortal squad directly on the relic. They kept another squad a little further back though with the idea being to keep them in cover. For some reason they deployed the final remaining squad miles from the objective. The combination of fire was too much for the remaining dreadknight who fluffed enough 2+ saves to be removed.

At the end of their turn 5 they'd got a single squad on the objective. As it stood we'd lose the game 3-2. If the game went to a 6th turn the weight of fire would be far too much for us. Our only hope of victory was to try and clear the immortals from the objective and then we'd at least win 2-0 if we couldn't get a squad close enough to claim.

The strike squad moved up into a position to try and charge the immortals but this wasn't necessary as the wolf priest's squad killed all 5 off with their Preferred Enemy fire. The strike squad was then able to run onto the objective and claim it. There was some contention about what sort of cover save their immortals should get but realistically the strike squad would've wiped them out in combat anyway so I don't think it was an issue. With Slay the Warlord and First Blood plus the objective we'd taken 5-0 from a pretty miserable game.

Game 5 - Titanic Fenrisians vs. CSM/Daemons
We'd been saying all weekend that we didn't want to face Heldrakes but luckily our next opponents Dan and Rich only had one. Their list consisted of a lord of change, 6 screamers, 3 flamers, a blob of horrors, a heldrake and two thousand sons squads with one joined by a terminator armoured sorcerer. We'd be playing Emperor's Will on Vanguard.

Once again we didn't get to first and we were made to suffer for it. The lord of change, thousand sons and flamers combined their various hellfire rounds, bolts of change and flames to kill off the entire strike squad leaving Coteaz feeling decidedly lonely and giving them First Blood. We brought down our drop pod and used the grey hunters to down the lord of change whilst the rune priest attempted a Jaws on the Thousand Sons but failed his psychic test. With the lord of change down he was in line for a dreadknight charge. The other dreadknight lined up to charge the screamers whilst Coteaz did the same with the Thousand Sons.

One dreadknight needed a 5 to charge the screamers and rolled a double 1, Coteaz needed 7 and rolled 5 (or similar) but luckily the dreadknight got in on the lord of change. The dreadknight inflicted 4 wounds on the greater daemon who failed two but with the activation of the greatsword he didn't get his FNP (thanks to the FAQ) and was slain. Even so, with the failure to charge the Thousand Sons and Screamers we still had a battle on our hands.

The heldrake arrived and with help from the flamers cut down the grey hunters and the screamers charged one of the dreadknights. In response the rune priest managed to jaws all three flamers whilst Coteaz and the dreadknight charged into the thousand sons and finished them off over a couple of turns. The other dreadknight was eventually victorious over the screamers. The Heldrake incinerated some recently arrived acolytes after vector striking a dreadknight down.

Our wolf priest arrived and with some unlucky rolls from our opponents his squad was able to gun down a handful of Thousand Sons. We moved on some more acolytes in a position where the Heldrake would need to hover to kill them and positioned our remaining dreadknight ready to pounce if it took the bait. Sadly it didn't and left the board instead. The horrors fired at the dreadknight but it survived with a single wound.

We'd now got two acolyte squads moving in on our objective. The wolf priest's squad had been severely depleted but could still hope to claim their objective. The horrors opened fire on the wolf priest's squad and with help from the thousand sons the whole squad perished.

We charged the horrors with our dreadknight to pull the from the objective. The rune priest got another Jaws off against the Thousand Sons and was able to kill both the Sorcerer and Aspiring Sorcerer almost certainly saving his own life. This left a couple of thousand sons to claim their objective. Our opponents quite rightly realised they couldn't kill both of our acolyte squads with the heldrake so they decided to put everything they had on the rune priest hoping to stop him contesting. Sadly for them I was on form with my 2+ saves and he survived. Coteaz was still wandering around at this point but too far away to do much but Misfortune stuff and hope he didn't kill himself again. The rune priest charged into the thousand sons but neither was able to kill the other. With the horrors about to be finished off and the Heldrake unable to kill both acolyte squads our opponents conceded giving us 5-2.

It wasn't until the drive home that we realised we could've been using the rune priest's 4+ cancel to try to stop the horrors firing! Might've saved our wolf priest.

Apologies to our opponents if some of these details are wrong, feel free to correct me. The reason is I'm writing this on Tuesday and didn't take anywhere near enough pictures to remember everything! 



Conclusion
The games on day two were very tough. Game 4 because of the list and game 5 because of the players. Our final game was easily one of the most enjoyable games of 40K I've had. It was too close to call right up until the end and a great laugh throughout. We were pretty unlucky early on when we failed some crucial charges but more than made up for it with dirty Jaws.

Speaking of which, we reckon the Rune Priest was probably the best unit in our army over the weekend. Game two he killed off a Tervigon and Carnifex with Jaws, game three he helped destroy the vindicator with lightning, game four he used Jaws to claim 2 VPs and then held the wraiths up for long enough to keep other things alive and in the final game his Jaws followed by contesting the final objective certainly won the game for us. There'll be many a saga written about him!

Once again, thanks to our opponents for putting up with some cheesy use of Jaws and punishing dreadknight shenanigans. Even without fave game votes we'd have finished 3rd but, despite what others may think, we felt we'd earned the win after two really challenging games. We were by no means faultless but I'm pretty proud of how well we played nonetheless.

Not sure we'll be going to the June one as it's a long day for a Sunday but we'll certainly be at the next weekender to defend our title!

40K Battle Brothers - Day One Battle Reports

Here's the first three games from our weekend at Warhammer World. I posted our list up yesterday for those who are interested.

Game One - Titanic Fenrisians vs. GK/DA

Our opponents, Chris and Elliot, were also fielding a similarly equipped dreadknight (no sword) supported by 5 GK terminators with a grand master, 5 DA scouts behind a quad gun aegis, 5 DW terminators and 5 DW knights with Belial. The GK terminators wouldn't do our dreadknights any favours if we got too close thanks to psyk-out grenades and the deathwing knights would be no picnic either as they'd be likely to "Smite" a dreadknight down.

We were playing Crusade (5) on Hammer and Anvil. Our opponents won the first turn and deployed with terminators on each side and the scouts within the aegis line in the back corner. Belial and the DW knights would be deepstriking. We deployed with our two dreadknights either side of our strike squad hoping they'd jump the dreadknight far enough for us to get in combat and bring it down turn one. They didn't take the bait of course.

Belial and co. dropped in behind our lines on an objective. With Coteaz having rolled the Misfortune power we were pleased when they landed in his line of sight. Sadly they triggered a booby trapped objective and decided to run to get out of the blast range meaning they were now totally obscured by a building. Instead Coteaz was able to misfortune the GK terminators and with Prescience his strike squad was able to force 17 saves with re-rolls. They failed 7 killing all but a single terminator and taking the grand master out for First Blood. My drop pod came down and through total fluke and support from a heavy incinerator the hunters managed to kill 4 DW terminators! Needless to say we felt like utter bastards already having caused so much pain so early.

We were keeping Belial and co. at a distance but the remaining terminator and dreadknight charged into combat with my Space Wolves. They killed 4-5 grey hunters between them but thanks to denying a challenge from the dreadknight I was able to spare my rune priest. The grey hunters killed off the terminator in return but were unable to hurt the dreadknight. Luckily one of our own dreadknights was in the vicinity so we managed to get some knight on knight action. Ours managed to get a single wound through and instant deathed theirs. In response theirs also got a single wound through but rolled an 11 to activate the force weapon. Gutted.

From then on we were able to incinerate the scouts with the other dreadknight and then the wolf priest arrived to kill off the last terminator before he and his squad claimed two objectives between them (as he'd become scoring thanks to warlord traits). We baited Belial with some acolytes who came on from reserve which left him in the open and easily gunned down. The acolytes were cut down to a single man but somehow managed to regroup just before the board edge.

All that was left now were the DW knights who sadly failed a charge against our recently teleported dreadknight. This left them within 3" of an objective and when we charged they were unable to finish off our dreadknight (even with Smite) and were still locked in combat when the game ended on turn 5. With one objective contested and the knights in our deployment zone were able to claim 4 objectives and 3 secondaries to give us a 15-1 win. Had we gotten a further turn, both the strike squad and second dreadknight would've been in with the DW knights and I'm sure we'd have claimed all 18. Can't complain at such an excellent start to the day though. Thanks to our opponents for staying in good humour as they removed models.

Game Two - Titanic Fenrisians vs. Tyranids

When we saw 2 tervigons and two carnifexes we were almost embarassed that we'd got Jaws on our rune priest. Our opponents, Emmy and Peter, also had 3x17 hormagaunts, 20 gargoyles, deathleaper and a mawloc. We'd be playing the Scouring on Dawn of War deployment.

Our opponents took turn one and advanced forwards (of course). We landed our drop pod behind the advancing bugs and were properly ashamed when we realised our opponents had never heard of Jaws. Sure enough the rune priest was able to cut down a tervigon (the other had been quite literally corked so would spawn no more termagants) and one of the carnifexes with a single strike. Elsewhere the dreadknights incinerated a handful of hormagaunts and the same of gargoyles whilst the strike squad gunned down the remaining carnifex with ruthless efficiency. The deathleaper appeared near the rune priest's squad waiting to pounce whilst a squad of hormagaunts charged the grey hunters cutting down a whopping 5 marines! The response was brutal though with 9 tyranids dying and without synapse they fled. The gargoyles could do nothing to the dreadknight who cut them down in combat. The other dreadknight might be in trouble though as he was fighting something like 30 hormagaunts with the remaining tervigon making them Fearless.

Sadly for our opponents Matt was on form with his 2+ saves though. The rune priest lined up to Jaws both the deathleaper and second tervigon but both passed their initiative tests with 2s. The tervigon was shot at by the recently arrived wolf priest and his squad who, with help from the strike squad, brought it down to two wounds. The dreadknight incinerator then charged some spawned termagants too. The drop pod fired at the fleeing gaunts killing one and forcing them to run again, taking them off the board.

The mawloc appeared directly under the wolf priests squad who I'd stupidly bunched together costing me 7 grey hunters. They ignored the MC though in favour of charging in to clear some hormagaunts
from the dreadknight who was now down to a single wound. A third Jaws attempted failed on a roll of 11 but the tervigon was gunned down by the strike squad and the other dreadknight killed off Deathleaper. Our opponents now only had a Mawloc and half a dozen termagants. In a somewhat dirty move we decided to hold off on charging the Mawloc with our dreadknight to buy us some time to get our troops onto another objective to give us as many points as possible from the game. The strike squad killed off the termagants in combat and consolidated onto the 4-pointer whilst our acolytes finally made it to a 3-pointer. Both dreadknights then charged in and killed the Mawloc, ending the game. Apologies to our opponents for the horrible tactics and equally nasty Jaws. With a 4, 3, 3 and 2 point objective, 3 secondaries and a bonus for killing a Fast Attack choice we'd scored 16-0 but felt dirty doing it.

Game Three - Titanic Fenrisians vs. Space Marines (Red Scorpions)

We were convinced that in some sort of karmic retribution we'd be facing triple Heldrakes to balance out the lucky draws we'd got in the first two rounds. We were pleasantly surprised then to face Space Marines. Sam and David had Lysander with terminators in a raider, a vindicator, 5 scouts and three drop pods with a tactical squad, sternguard and dreadnought. We'd be playing Big Guns on Vanguard Strike.

Once again we failed to get first turn which probably helped as our opponents only had a couple of things to deploy and it allowed us to get cover from the vindicator. In a jammy couple of rolls Matt got a scatterfield on both objectives meaning, with Night Fighting, that our dreadknight and strike squad were getting 2+ saves to the vindicator meaning it was unable to kill anything turn one. They brought in the tactical squad and dreadnought either side of one our dreadknights and despite hitting with the multi-melta on snap fire they were unable to harm the dreadknight with it's jammy 3+ cover saves.

We brought our pod in behind the vindicator and wrecked it with melta, bolters and lightning. The dreadknight and strike squad combined to gun down the tactical squad whilst the other dreadknight smashed the dreadnought in combat. You may not believe us but yet again we felt pretty terrible! The exciting thing was that Sam managed to roll a dice that landed on it's corner which seemed to have a devastating effect on the mind of Coteaz who rolled double 6 followed by double 1 for his powers leaving him with a single wound.

The land raider advanced and spewed its occupants out but unfortunately, after gunning down a grey knight with the raider's guns, they found themselves outside charge range. The response was brutal with the strike squad and heavy incinerator combining to kill a couple of terminators and badly wound Lysander. The dreadknight challenged Lysander and finished him off. Elsewhere the sternguard had arrived and somehow didn't kill the other dreadknight. A combination of fire from the rune priest's squad and dreadknight incinerator then charge, finished them off. The wolf priest and his squad arrived and started to gun down the scouts despite their 2+ save. In the next round of combat the dreadknight killed a terminator and the others broke and managed to get away.

Coteaz decided to try and Misfortune the remaining terminators but double 6'd killing himself! Luckily he wasn't our Warlord. The terminators were then gunned down anyway without the need for Coteaz to have killed himself. Elsewhere, one dreadknight wrecked the land raider whilst the other teleported to incinerate the remaining scout allowing the wolf priest's squad to claim the objective. The drop pods were finished off with shooting leaving our opponents tabled. With two heavies killed, all four objectives and 3 secondaries we'd scored 17-0 this time.

Conclusion
An incredibly lucky day for us. We know our list is great against some armies but weak against others and frankly we got the right opponents in all three games. We didn't play our games badly but I'd say all of our opponents felt it was an uphill struggle. We'd like to thank them for being in good humour despite what we were doing to their armies. This is where the random pairings that GW employs doesn't actually create a friendly atmosphere. It worked great for us but our opponents probably had miserable games. That's the thing with 40K. If you're tabling people then often neither side enjoys it.

Great start with 48 pts from day one but I was even more sure we'd get triple heldrakes on day two!