Blog Wars 2 - Scenarios and Ticket News

Firstly, just to say that Blog Wars 2 tickets will hopefully be available at the end of September. This is because the venue is changing the way they do catering and I want to get a firm price from them before I try and budget for the event and decide on a ticket cost. I'm hoping it'll be the same as June at £15 but the food should be a smaller proportion of that so there should be more cash available for prizes and general improvements to the tournament itself. Like last time I don't intend to make a single penny from Blog Wars and all the proceeds will be shared out in the prize pot once the food has been paid for. There's nothing worse than going to a tournament and shelling out for a ticket only to get a certificate for your efforts (are you listening GW?). Anyway, more details will be available towards the end of next month but for now I want to talk about the scenarios so you guys can play test them if you so desire.

As I've mentioned in previous posts Blog Wars 2 is going to be different (and hopefully better) than the last. Therefore, Matt and I have come up with some slight variations on the usual 40K scenarios to try to highlight the importance of the special character in your Blog Wars list. Last time around everyone had an SC but it varied whether you'd got them as a key part of your army philosophy or if you'd tacked them onto an already tried and tested tournament list. We want to encourage people to embrace the spirit of the tournament by centering their lists around a special character and choosing their units with them in mind. Please remember that I'm always looking for feedback and suggestions for any aspect of the tournament and the scenarios are no exception. If you test them out and find their too biassed towards army X or punish army Y too much then let me know and I'll try and address it.

We wanted a bit of a narrative campaign feel to the games so the missions will follow a sequence based on a very loose story. Whether you like that sort of thing or not doesn't really matter because the missions are pretty simple. It's there if you like it but if you don't just roll the dice!

Last time around we had modest numbers of attendees which meant we had quite a few clashes where people had already played. This time I'm introducing a slightly different scoring system where degrees of victory are more important (there won't be any soft scoring though). This should hopefully balance things out between different armies. For example, an army with very few units will naturally do well in kill point games so they're likely to win by a large margin. However, victory points will also be taken into account so this should go some way to levelling the playing field. I've seen this work out nicely at other tournaments and it means that it's always worth trying to hammer your opponent rather than just getting sneaky objectives at the end. Unless stated all of the missions have a standard 5-7 turn game length and allow infiltrators, reserves, deep strikes, etc.

Scenario 1 -  Halt the Advance

As the invaders make ground towards the defenders main settlements a force is sent out to intercept them and halt their advance. Their forward scouts report that the enemy commander is present in a force in this sector. If they can remove him from the equation the invasion will struggle to maintain its pace.

This mission is essentially an Annihilation battle played on Spearhead deployment from the normal rulebook but with the exception that each force's "Commander" (who will be a special character nominated by each general) is worth 3 KPs if they die. All other units (including any bodyguard) will be worth 1 KP each as normal. This could mean the difference between victory and defeat but you will still be rewarded for decimating your opponent's force. The secondary objective will be VPs with the tournament points broken down as follows:

5 TPs for having 5+ KPs more than your opponent

3 TPs for having 3-4 KPs more than your opponent

1 TP for having 1-2 KPs more than your opponent

5 TPs for having 1500+ VPs more than your opponent

3 TPs for having 1000-1499 VPs more than your opponent

1 TPs for having 500-999 VPs more than your opponent

Therefore a very narrow victory might result in 2 TPs for the winner (and nothing for the loser) whereas a tabling will give a maximum of 10 TPs.

Scenario 2 - Push the Advantage

With the enemy commander slain, the invaders try to consolidate their position by eliminating their enemy from the entire sector. By doing so they can secure an area to base their final assault on the enemy's headquarters. The commanders of each force are determined not to let their opposite number get the upper hand.

This mission borrows from the Cleanse scenario from the 4th Edition rulebook. The deployment will be Pitched Battle from the current book. Instead of objectives the table is divided into quarters with a point for each quarter that is held by a scoring unit and contains no enemy units. In this mission the special character on each side counts as a scoring unit. Otherwise it's the usual rules for scoring units from the 5th Ed book. The secondary objective will be VPs with the tournament points broken down as follows:

5 TPs for controlling all four table quarters

3 TPs for controlling 2 table quarters more than your opponent

1 TP for controlling 1 table quarter more than your opponent

5 TPs for having 1500+ VPs more than your opponent

3 TPs for having 1000-1499 VPs more than your opponent

1 TP for having 500-999 VPs more than your opponent

Scenario 3 - Final Assault

Having crushed the enemy resistance only one thing stands between the invader and total domination of the planet. The enemy's final stronghold and their supreme commander will be defended to the last man but buoyed by their previous triumphs the invaders are confident of victory.

Coming into the final game the player of the two with the most TPs (or failing that VPs) will get to choose whether to be the attacker or defender. The defender has a central main objective (3 points each) and four minor objectives (1 point each). The main objective must be placed in the table centre with the other four objectives anywhere on a 12" circle around the main objective (provided they are not within 9" of another objective). The defender sets up anywhere within an area 18" by 24" in the centre of the board. The attacker goes first and can bring anything upto his entire army on in the first turn. The defender's army will be Fearless until their commander falls whereas the attackers will gain Fearless at this point. All units on both sides retreat to the nearest board edge. Obviously the winner is the one controlling the most objectives at the end of the game, again VPs are the secondary objective (but with less importance) with the tournament points broken down as follows:

5 TPs for controlling 3+ more objectives than your opponent

3 TPs for controlling 2 more objectives than your opponent

1 TP for controlling 1 more objective than your opponent

5 TPs for having 1500+ VPs more than your opponent

3 TPs for having 1000-1499 VPs more than your opponent

1 TP for having 500-999 VPs more than your opponent

Conclusion 

These are the three scenarios that will be played at Blog Wars 2 in the order given here. I'd be very grateful if people could playtest the hell out of them to see if there's anything I've not thought of. Obviously I don't want to penalise one army more than another but inevitably there will be an element of it. It should be a challenge to build a list that's capable of doing well in all three scenarios. For example, a mobile army that does well in scenario two might have difficulty as the defender in scenario 3. As you will notice you can still gain tournament points if you lose but kill more. However, otherwise there are no points for a draw or a loss so everyone needs to play for the win.

Now I appreciate the first two aren't really breaking any new ground or anything but if you can think of some reason why any of the three aren't suitable please let me know so I can rectify it asap. The main one to playtest is scenario 3 but hopefully people will try out all 3. We'll certainly be testing them out a lot between now and December so if I find any problems I'll address them.

Looking forward to seeing what people can put together for these missions. Finally, I might run a competition to design the Blog Wars 2 logo and offer some suitable prize for the best. Perhaps a free ticket to the event or something. More details of that to follow.

Final Game at End Times - Space Wolves vs. Tyranids Bat Rep

After two crushing defeats at Summer Skirmish to my Dark Eldar (sorry about that), Graham from Claws & Fists was keen to play a rematch against my Space Wolves. I'd managed to avoid the clash in the penultimate round but the final battle saw me pitted against him. On the adjacent table another epic clash between Space Wolves and Tyranids was being played out. The battles would determine who was the ultimate victor on the day, xenos or the mighty Imperium of Man.

However, with 3 hours to play 2,000pts, Graham and I decided to take things easy and allowed ourselves some time for a chat over a consolatory cupcake. We sat eating our baked treats and mocked the top table players for taking things so seriously. Then after sticky fingers had been cleansed we were able to think about starting to maybe have a battle! My 2,000pt list was very similar to the 1,500pt one but for the addition of my Thunderlord (Thorgrim Darksteed) and his thunderwolf cohort. The game was Seize Ground on Spearhead deployment. Graham had a (from memory), 2 hive tyrants, 2 tervigons, 4 raveners, 2 zoanthropes, 2 more zoanthropes in a spore pod, Doom of Malantai in a spore pod, plenty of "dogs" or termagaunts to the rest of us and a crap load of genestealers.

Space Wolves vs Tyranids (2000pts)
Graham won the roll off and placed all of his nids right up against the edge of his deployment zone ready to charge forward and into my lines. The only things in reserve were the pods. I deployed similarly aggressively with the exception of my long fangs who were towards the back of course. With the stage set for an epic conflict I rolled to seize and pulled it off!

I piled all three rhinos forward and brought my lone wolf and thunderwolves in close by. The drop pod landed right next to the front of Graham's lines. The dreadnought inside incinerated 7 termagaunts and caused a wound on one of the raveners. The rune priest then fired off murderous hurricane at the same raveners causing more wounds. The other rune priest set himself up for a dirty Jaws attack which lined up 4 chunky tyranid models including one of the tyrants. The only monster to fall was the tervigon which was the target all along. The long fangs hammered missiles into the zoanthropes and both failed their invulnerable saves vanishing in a puff of gore. The other long fangs scored wounds on one of the tyrants. Then, thanks to the deployment I was able to get off a first turn thunderwolf charge and slammed into the raveners but only the lord was in reach. He pass 5/6 to hit rolls but fluffed 4 wounding rolls meaning only a single ravener fell. Luckily for me there were no return blows.

Graham responded by charging most of his force at the thunderwolves. A tyrant, lots of termagaunts, a pile of genestealers and the raveners all let rip at their various initiative levels. All of Graham's attacks were on the squad so it wasn't long before the lord found himself in a very lonely position. The tervigon and genestealers tried to bring down the dreadnought but struggled allowing him to claim a few wounds on the tervigon in return. Elsewhere the grey hunters rapid fired into a genestealer brood causing heavy casualties. The Doom landed and killed 6 grey hunters instantly bringing him upto a maximum 10 wounds.

As the epic combat continued I charged into the zoanthropes who had arrived in their pod bringing them down over a couple of combat phases. The Doom passed ALL of his invulnerable saves against the krak missile barrage of two long fang packs. In response the genestealers charged one of the packs killing off a couple of the missile launchers but the wolf guard and squad leader conspired to finish them off a turn later.

The thunderlord thinned the genestealers out and kept on passing 3+ saves to stay in the fight. With genestealers taking out one of the grey hunter packs and the other dying to a swarm of termagaunts I was left with a single objective claiming unit. Luckily for me the tervigon stop spawning termagaunts. The Doom finally succumbed to missile fire as did the other tyrant. The grey hunters secured the central objective but with the tervigon sitting pretty on the other I'd need to win the combat to claim victory. With the news that the other games had finished and the xenos scum had the lead my thunderlord had it all to do.

The long fangs cleared up the remaining spore pods so everything Graham had left was now in combat with my thunderlord. Not wanting to risk losing my only remaining troops I had to hope he'd win through. I didn't fancy my chances when the tervigon also waded in though. Miraculously I continued to pass a sickening number of 3+ and 3++ saves to keep him in the fight. Having taken down the smaller stuff he was left with the tyrant and tervigon to deal with.

Thorgrim claimed the remaining wound from the tyrant in my turn 5 (remember we started this in turn 1!) and in Grahams turn he looked towards the tervigon who had 2 wounds remaining. With 3+ to hit and re-rolling 5+ to wound I had no trouble seeing off the remaining monstrous creature to complete the tabling. An epic combat which will go down in the sagas of the Space Wolves for all time!

Conclusion
Credit to Graham for keeping a smile on his face as he took off handfuls of models throughout the game and not throttling me when I kept making saves on the thunderlord. After a couple of disappointing battles against opponents I'd have struggled to beat on a good day it was refreshing to play such a fun game. Overall the battle between xenos and the Imperium ended in a tie which I'm sure will please GW if no-one else!

End Times Tournament - Day Two

After a somewhat mixed start to the contest I found myself sat in 6th place out of 12 competitors. Not bad but not great. We'd now moved up to 1,500pts and I was up against Simon's Chaos Space Marines again... or so I thought. Cue the nerd rage (I apologise in advance).

The top two people in the tournament had played each other before and whilst one was happy to play again the other wasn't so in the interests of variety the tournament organiser decided to swap things around. Those in 3rd & 4th place had already played the top two so they were no help. This meant Simon in 5th place would play 1st place and I'd be playing 2nd place. I had issues with this for several reasons. Firstly, out of the 4 people only one had a problem so surely majority rule should've taken over. Secondly, the top two were already through to the knockouts so why did it matter who they played? Thirdly, they hadn't played at 1,500 points yet so they'd have totally different armies and it seems a bit much to bring Grey Knights to a tournament and then complain about having to play several Grey Knights on Grey Knights games. Finally, and most importantly, if Simon and I had played (and Matt had won the 3rd/4th position game, which he did) then we'd be playing for 4th place. Not that I'd relish being up against 3 GK lists but all the same it'd be nice to finish 4th at least.

However, all that being said Franco had to try and keep people happy and to be fair to him he did his best. It was pretty inevitable that at such small numbers there'd be duplicate games but I just felt Simon and I had been cheated out of our shot at 4th place. Anyway, onto the reports.

Game 6 - Wolves vs. Grey Knights

I found myself up against 2nd place man John with his unbelievably huge GK army considering how expensive they are and that we were at 1,500 points. There were a crapload of razorbacks (all with strike squads), 2 chimeras (with death cults/servitors and terminator inquistors) and 2 psyfleman dreads. We were playing Pitched Battle and Capture and Control. With the sheer amount of firepower at John's disposal I was going to need 1st turn if I were to have any hope of surviving the match. Sure enough John got it and I failed to seize!

At the end of his turn one after a barrage of fire I found myself with one long fang and a wolf guard out of both long fang packs, 2 dead rhinos out of the three and two squads pinned (rather unbelievably). My cunning plan however, was to bring in my drop pod dreadnought right on his objective and ensure that he'd have to deal with both in order to avoid a cheeky contest. John had other ideas and warp quaked on all of his strike squads meaning I had a tiny area at the back of his lines that I could drop into without risking mishap. I came down near one of the strikes squads and killed off a couple. The remaining long fangs wrecked a razorback (I was hoping for an explosion of course) and I retreated the remaining rhino back to my objective.

John's second turn of "bringing the rain" cost me one more long fang (the terminator just wouldn't die!), the final rhino and a few grey hunters. The dread lost an arm and couldn't shoot but was still able to move. My other "ace in the hole" was my land speeder which if it came on late might be able to contest and provided my grey hunters could hold on I could still steal a dirty win. Brilliantly he came on straight away on turn 2 and with nowhere to hide him I was forced to blast him 24" and hope. My rune priests killed a razorback each (rather satisfyingly) and the dread charged some strikers and killed them, leaving him open to shooting. The lonely terminator shook a razorback but it would be his last act of the game.

John swiftly dealt with the landspeeder wrecking it straight away with a psyfleman. Then he did his best to bring as much of his army towards my objective as possible. One hunter squad was still a little way away and they were caught by a strike squad charge. They held on for a couple of turns but when one of the inquisitors came to reinforce the grey knights it was game over for the hunters. I now had an immobilised dread and two hunter packs remaining to help me hold onto a draw. I got lucky and blew up a chimera (John immobilised the other moving it through cover next turn) and then I used Murderous Hurricane on the occupants. This killed the servitors and meant that the rest of the squad wouldn't reach me for combat.

The remaining (weakened) grey hunters had to hold off 1.5 strike squads and a terminator inquisitor in order to hold onto the draw. At the end of turn 5 it was all set up for a bloody stalemate but with me getting a turn 6 I knew I didn't have much chance. Sure enough I got wiped out in combat and then in Turn 7 John completed the tabling by killing off the drop pod. Can't say it was as one-sided as I thought it would be but I certainly never felt like I got off the back-foot.

Game 7 - Wolves vs. Blood Angels

Having been paired against Graham from C&F's Tyranids I found myself swapped AGAIN to play someone of much higher rank than me. This time in the form of Eddie's gorgeously painted Blood Angels with some really well executed conversions. We were playing everyone's favourite Dawn of War but this time coupled with Annihilation. I didn't get first turn but Eddie wisely chose to let me have it anyway. I brought on my entire army in turn one with my drop pod scattering off the table (behind a tactical squad) allowing Eddie to chose where it arrived.

Eddie brought on his entire army too (2 storm ravens, 2 dreads, death co. w/ librarian, 2 razorbacks with squads). The razorbacks' occupants and one of the storm ravens easily destroyed the dread and his drop pod and I was already 2-0 down. The other storm raven could only rip off a storm bolter from one of my rhinos though which was a lucky break. I managed to bring down the nearby storm raven but a torrent of fire from the rest of my army wasn't enough to kill the dreadnought (as he passed all his cover saves) instead he was just immobilised (which suited me fine). The death company had to charge a rhino and blew it up and the dread finished the other rhino wrecking it (yet again I got pinned on Ld10).

The lone wolf charged the immobilised dread and got himself killed but I'm not sure if Eddie remembered to lose an attack for being immobilised (not that it probably mattered). The tactical squad's plasma cannon thinned out my grey hunters who charged the death company. I managed to kill all but the librarian who managed to fight off both grey hunter packs taking both rune priests and passing all his storm shield saves. At this point it was pretty clear how it was going to go and despite killing the other storm raven and dread I was never going to win it and it was only because two grey hunters huddled behind cover that I avoided being tabled.

Conclusion
There's one more battle to talk about but it was so brilliantly epic and fun that I want to dedicate an entire post to it so I can get in all the gory details. I finally got to play Graham's tyranids in the end and with another 'nids vs. wolves battle on the table next door it was suitably awesome.

Overall it was a fantastic tournament and it was clear that the organisers had put a massive amount of thought and effort in to everything. Fair play to them for trying to keep everyone happy (I know from Blog Wars that it isn't easy). I'll happily attend again next year if they run it. Congratulations to Frank Marsh for leading his Eldar Army to a surprise victory over all three Grey Knights players, couldn't have happened to a nicer bloke. I'll leave you with some prize ceremony pictures featuring Nick Bayton from GW as a tech priest!