Blood Bowl League at the Outpost - Part 2 - Skaven-a-go-go

I managed to get in another couple of league games down at the Outpost in Sheffield last week. Both of which were rematches. The league allows teams to play each other a maximum of twice to avoid people playing too many games against the same opponents and racking up a silly number of league points. Both of these games were also against Skaven who are quickly becoming my nemesis!

Game Six vs. Martin Collins' Skaven 

I hoping to get another game in before playing Martin again but the last game had been great fun so I didn't mind so much. The game couldn't really have started much better for me. The first half was almost a perfect half for a dwarf team. I managed injure two of his players, knock out three more and score an 8th turn touchdown even though I'd kicked off.

I did say "almost" perfect though. I got a little greedy on my final turn of the half and decided to try a foul which only managed to knock out his player and resulted in a sending off for me. Looking back I should've never bothered but I had a reserve and wanted the maximum numbers advantage in the second half. I then had a guy injured on Martin's final turn of the half and then to really top it off Martin managed to get all of his knocked out guys back (with help from the Bloodweiser Keg he'd got as a result of the stadium we were using). Turning what should've still been a decent numbers advantage into 10 players each. 

Nuffle was decidedly displeased with my foul play and punished me by making Martin's block dice red hot. I had a decent opportunity for a second touchdown with my blitzer but Martin sent one of his gutter runners in on a desperation (two-dice in my favour) blitz. He got a double defender stumbles and my hopes of scoring disintegrated quickly. He quickly turned this into a score for him to tie up the game.

Still, I was feeling pretty good about my chances of getting a game winning TD when my runner managed to break through his lines. Unfortunately for me his blitzing gutter runners were at it again scoring a "knocked down" on his single block dice. He managed to scoop up the ball but couldn't get it far. I therefore had a chance to try to steal it back but could only push his gutter runner.

This proved fatal as his gutter runner easily dodged out and ran up the field to hand of to another rat who legged it down the pitch out of my range. I at least managed to put his rat ogre out as a casualty only for him to use his apothecary to prevent his death and put him in the reserves box. The final insult came when I tried a two-dice block and it came up double skulls which I re-rolled to another double skull (1 in 1,296 chance or 0.08%). Unbelievably my next roll of the block dice (on my subsequent turn) was also a double skull which is a 1 in 46,656 chance or 0.002%! 

The game ended 1-2 to Martin with me scoring three casualties to his one. A massive blow to my play off hopes and a game I really felt like I threw away with some poor decision making.

Game Seven vs. Ashley Rodgers' Skaven

My first game in this league had been against Ash and I therefore felt reasonably confident. I wasn't thrilled that he now had an AV8 AG5 gutter runner and a recently purchased rat ogre though. Ash surprisingly elected to let me receive and set up asymmetrically to limit my punch early on. He rolled a "Blitz" on the kick off table too which saw him dash behind my lines and get pretty close to the ball.

What followed, thanks in no small part to the torrential rain, was a comedy of failed pick up attempts and knocked down ball carriers that burned all of Ash's re-rolls and ultimately resulted in me only managing to make a break for it by an incredibly risky pick-up and throw from my Troll Slayer to one of my Runners. That meant if everything went right I'd be in a position to score on the final turn of the half. Of course, it didn't all go right. Ash was able to use his Rat Ogre to blitz down one of my players to free him up to mark the runner. I then elected to make a risky dodge to get a Blitzer to Blitz the rat ogre out of the way to free up the runner. I'd still got a chance of scoring but only a turn to do it.

On the penultimate turn of the half Ash was able to stun my ball carrier and get players back to mark the ball. I knew I had no chance to score now as none of my players were in range so, knowing I was kicking to Ash to start the half I decided to do as much smashing as I could. That resulted in another couple of injuries and knockouts. Unfortunately there was still a gutter runner standing near the ball. 

Here's where I was a little foolish. Ash was convinced he couldn't now score a TD but I helpfully pointed out he could make a somewhat risky play that involved dodging through, picking up the ball then passing to a gutter runner who already have needed to dodge out from my players with Tackle to wait in the end zone for the long bomb from the half way line. He was just about to declare the pass action when my second bout of foolishness hit. I reminded Ash that he probably ought to stand up the gutter runner he intended to throw to and get him to the end zone before he declared his pass. I felt pretty confident that I was going to be punished for my generosity and sure enough Ash made all of his dodges and completed a 5+ pass and 3+ catch without any re-rolls to score a touchdown just before the half!

Whilst I felt gutted that it had worked out the way it did at least I'd probably earned some good karma for the second half right? When I managed to cage up and grab a pretty solid position for a touchdown I certainly felt like things were going right. I had two options at this point. Hold onto the ball and play for the draw or score straight away and hope to be able to capitalise on my numbers advantage and score again before time expired. At the point where I was about to score there were very few skaven still standing and I was pretty well covered. However, I know from bitter experience (and the first half of this game) that the rats' speed lets them quickly turn a loose ball into a touchdown the other way. I also knew that my best chance of making the playoffs was to win the game. I therefore decided to score straight away.

That gave me four turns (might've been three) to score a game winner. I was feeling pretty good about this when I managed to drive a kick quite far into the Skaven half of the field. I put another rat out of action and knocked all but the gutter runners down. That quickly proved to be my undoing though as the gutter runner with the ball handed off to another at the line of scrimmage who was able to make a 4+, 4+, 3+ and 2+ dodge roll (all of which had Tackle on them I think) and break free into my half. A further two GFI rolls (one of which needed a re-roll) and he'd managed to put a runner in a position where all I could hope to do was put a tackle zone on him (and one without the Tackle skill at that). I positioned myself in case something went drastically wrong but unsurprisingly the gutter runner easily dodged away for the score. My only hope now was for a riot that never came. I did a bit more smashing up but I was looking at another 1-2 loss to Skaven albeit with 5 casualties to his zero.

Conclusion

I certainly got greedy in the first game. The foul was completely pointless and ended up leaving my short-handed when Martin injured one of my players. I should've also burned a re-roll to try and take out his gutter runner with the ball rather than simply pushing him back. He wouldn't have had the movement to manage the play that lead to his winning TD and I might've even managed to get the ball back for my own score. Ultimately the odds balanced themselves out. My dice had been great in the first half and Martin's came hot in the second. Still, an enjoyable game against a great opponent. 

The second game was frustrating for different reasons. Sure, I felt good knowing I'd helped my opponent out and not just watched him make a significant mistake. Doesn't help me make the playoffs though. I think ultimately this has always been my problem with any table top game. If I'm playing anyone other than Matt I don't play ruthlessly. It's been between me and tournament success for a long time. I don't like the thought that you can't win without being a bit cut-throat but experience tells me otherwise. I'm not saying I'd have definitely won the game had I not done what I did but we'll never really know.

Still, there's potentially plenty more games to be had in the league so I still have a chance of making the playoffs with another couple of wins. I have mixed feelings about my Dwarves. I really enjoy bashing other teams up but their lack of mobility frustrates me. I think I'd rather be playing with a team that can cover ground better and score plenty of touchdowns. Maybe a little more fragile but more exciting when things go right. I suppose like Dark Eldar in 40K. They can be amazing when things fall right but incredibly brittle when they don't.

Blood Bowl League at the Outpost

It's been quite a while since I posted here. I'll be posting about NMTBW straight after this (although I'll schedule it for Monday probably) but I wanted to update you on what I've been up to during my absence. My enthusiasm for 40K is at a low ebb at the moment. I'll go into more detail in another post but it means I've directed my attention to other games for a bit of a break. Absence makes the heart grow fonder or so I'm told....

I've always put off joining a BB league because I didn't think I could commit to playing games regularly enough. However, the latest one at the Outpost is pretty laid back. You can play as many (or as few) games as you like with the only limits being a maximum of two friendlies and two league games against each other coach. It's a typical TV1000 league but using the rules for Stadiums and Sponsorships from DZ2.

I've had five games so far so here's a brief rundown of each. Oh and I'm using a pretty standard Dwarf team consisting of 2 troll slayers, 2 runners, 2 blitzers and 5 blockers. You'll notice from the pictures that these are the old metal models (3rd edition I think).

Game One vs. Ashley Rogers' Skaven
I fully expected a baptism of fire in my first ever league game but Ashley was great to play against and patient when I was taking my time to make sure I wasn't doing something stupid as a rookie. He was also kind enough to get a couple of his rats knocked out when trying to dodge out of my tackle zones. I'm pretty experienced against Skaven as Matt uses them most of the time so I knew my Blockers' Tackle skill was important. He scored pretty quickly though and I fully expected to end up in a hole pretty quickly. Quite a few rolls went my way though and I somehow managed to equalise before the half and add a second shortly after half time.

On the ensuing kick off it started raining too which made it difficult for Ashley's players to get their hands on the ball. My players were able to capitalise on this and score a third touchdown to give me a 3-1 lead. Oh and kill a linerat in the process! When a Riot happened on the kick off and cost us both a turn, Ashley had pretty much no chance of getting back into the game, especially when he had something like 5 players left on the field! The game ended 3-1 (I caused 3 casualties too).

I managed to give one of my Blitzers the Guard skill and collected 50K which allowed me to add an Apothecary too.

Game Two vs. Mitch Henson's Undead
Well, it's safe to say this was more like the kind of league game I was expecting. Mitch was just as friendly but clearly a competitive player. I've never played Undead before so I did a bit of research beforehand. He'd only played a single league game so I'd hoped he'd only have a couple of Ghouls at this point and no skills. What I didn't realise what he'd played 4-5 friendlies first and had gained a couple of sponsors too. That game him plenty of cash to have all four Ghouls with skills on them and Guard on one of his Mummies (he had one killed in a friendly though - ouch!).

I never really felt like I was a contender in this game. Mitch got right down to just outside the end zone in his first drive but held off scoring as I had no-one in range. He proceeded to bash my team into the ground. I ended up with 3 players injured (though thankfully just two Badly Hurts and a Miss Next Game). The game quickly got out of my reach and despite a well caged attempt at a touchdown I never quite made it and the game ended 0-3 with Mitch also scoring two casualties (one of my injured players was the result of a Throw A Rock! kick off). Still, the Stadium gave us an extra D6 winnings so at least I got 50K gold.

Game Three vs. Steve Ashton's Orcs
Well, I say his Orcs, they're actually mine. I'd invited Steve down to join the league and gave him his first game. It was a pretty close game with the expected low number of touchdowns from a pair of bashy teams. My biggest problem was that three times in this game my Troll Slayer rolled a 1 for his Dauntless against a Black Orc (which costed me a re-roll) I then rolled a double skull (which I couldn't now re-roll). This pretty quickly made me regret giving me Troll Slayer the Mighty Blow skill instead of Pro!

Still, I managed to keep Steve out of the end zone and squeaked out a 1-0 win despite Steve's Orcs causing two casualties, one of which was the death of my Guard Blitzer after I'd already used my Apothecary to prevent a Troll Slayer from losing AG. In hindsight I shouldn't have cared too much about the loss of AG as it isn't like they dodge or touch the ball much!

Game Four vs. Dan Tolley's Chaos
With a fresh Blitzer in the lineup I moved straight into the next game against Dan and his Chaos team made up of Horrors as proxies for Beastmen and Warriors. This game was the story of the S4 Blitz from his Beastmen (Blue Horrors). There were several times when I had a runner through into a good position with the ball but then regretted leaving him so exposed when the two-dice block came in. I did at least manage to keep the game close and very nearly tied it up.

My Blitzer getting blitzed by a Beastman (Blue Horror). I still scored when I got back up though!

I managed to get a touchdown but Dan scored twice giving him a 2-1 victory. However, I did manage to make his victory bittersweet as with pretty much the final block of the game I killed one of his Chaos Warriors.

Game Five vs. Martin Collins' Skaven
Another game against those pesky rats and the forever irritating Gutter Runners. Martin had played three league games to my four so he'd managed to get the full four Gutter Runners and give them all Wrestle. This proved to be a pain!

He elected to receive first and quickly made it down to near the end zone. I had a choice between either trying a risky Blitz to take out the ball carrier or use my numbers advantage to smash up his team to make my life easier later. What swung was the decision was the though of him holding onto the ball and not scoring to run down the clock. That gave me most of the first half to try and equalise which I did within a couple of turns.

The problem was that I simply wasn't getting anywhere with my blocking game. I'd gotten through the rats' armour with reasonable ease but kept stunning them. When I did manage a couple of knock outs it was just before my touchdown and they came straight back. I scored on T7 which gave us a T8 where I tried to massacre the only three rats on the line of scrimmage. That proved fruitless as again I could only stun. I even fouled since we'd been given a bribe each from Get The Ref! earlier in the game but another stun! Fortunately for me Martin was having similarly bad luck with a couple of 1s re-rolled to 1s on his dodges.

Still, Martin managed to score again pretty easily in the second half and again I had to find a way to equalise. I ended up in the situation you can see above but still broke my way out and used a couple of GFIs to get into the end zone. That tied the game up at 2-2 but with 4 turns left it was still anyone's game. I'd considered holding onto the ball near the end zone to run down the clock and hopefully put some more rats out of action but I decided it would be more fun to play for the win, no matter how slim my chances were.

On the ensuing kick off I suffered another Riot (there'd been one in the first half too) which gave us both just three turns to score. My kick off was fortunate to stay in bounds on the right side of the field and when Martin continued to have some awful luck and couldn't get to the ball I spied my opportunity for an unlikely game winning score (see below).

I managed a Push on a two dice block to free up the Blitzer on the right of the picture to go and grab the ball. He needed a re-roll to pick it up but successfully passed on a 4+ to the other Blitzer in the centre who succeeded on his 3+ catch. I could almost taste victory but having burned my re-roll I knew what was coming. He needed two GFIs to get into the end zone and fell down on the first and ended up a square from home! So near but yet, so far!

Still I'd managed to score twice and almost a third time which isn't easy with Dwarves. It was a great game but mainly because both of us had some rotten luck. I think it's probably the first draw in the league too.

Conclusions
I've now got a TV of 1,270 with a smattering of Guard, both runners with Block and Mighty Blow on a Troll Slayer. Not only that but I've got both an Apothecary and a 12th man to give me some resiliency.

I'm learning something about playing Dwarves with every game and experimenting with different setups and tactics. I'm glad I took the plunge into league play and I only hope I can keep managing to get down to the Outpost for some games.

Fluffageddon Tickets Now Available!

Those who attended Blog Wars X and Double Trouble will know that I'm only running one event this year. There's a chance I'll go back to two next year but to fill the void, Matt is going to be running his first event, Fluffageddon which should hopefully have a similar atmosphere to my events. Here's Matt to tell you a little more and how you can buy tickets:

Hi everyone, Matt here. This is a small post just to let you all know that tickets and rules pack for Fluffageddon are live.

 

Fluffageddon is a Warhammer 40k tournament that I will be running on Saturday the 12th of November at The Outpost wargaming centre in Sheffield.

 

In summary Fuffageddon is 3 different games of 40k at 1,500pts in a competitive setting with certain restrictions to army lists and some slight modifications to rules.

 

The link to the tickets and rules pack is here:

http://the-outpost.co.uk/our-products/tickets/Ticket-Fluffageddon

 

Tickets are £17.50 each and include lunch.

 

Please direct any questions to matt_greeners@hotmail.com

 

Hope to see some of you there in November.

Please give Matt the same support you've given me over the years. I'll be getting my ticket soon and look forward to playing at a similar event to Blog Wars without actually running it! As with Hero For A Day, I'll be posting some army lists and painting progress when I get around to it. I'm thinking my Space Wolves need a bit of love for this one.

Tournament Report - Scorched Skies (Outpost) 1750pts - Tau/SW

In a complete departure from my usual army building I actually decided to run an allied army at a tournament! I've never really been a fan of allies but figured it was probably about time for me to get over it and dive in. I also rarely make use of psychic powers so thought I'd dabble with those too! Here's my list:

1,750pts of Tau/SW
Buff Commander
3x Missile Suits with target locks and 6 marker drones
Riptide (ion, fusion, EWO, VT)
2x 10 Kroot
2 Skyrays (Blacksun)

2 Rune Priests (ML2, axe).
2x 7 Grey Hunters (melta, chainswords), TDA WG (CM/PF) in a pod
5 Grey Hunters (melta) in a pod

Apologies for the blurry photos in these reports. I was taking them quickly so I wasn't pissing off my opponents too much.

Game One - vs. Tau

My first game of the day was against Tom Roberts' Tau (Farsight Enclaves). This being probably the first time I haven't run a pair of riptides it was frustrating to come up against them in my first game. Tom also had a couple of solo broadsides, a hammerhead, some fire warriors, two squads of pathfinders and two lots of crisis suits (one plasma, one fusion) with a stack of drones each. We'd be playing Big Guns on Hammer & Anvil.

My first turn was a damp squib, with the grey hunters dropping in but failing to kill a hammerhead and only killing a couple of fire warriors. The rune priest did kill a broadside with Jaws though which was fun. My opponent on the other hand was doing a decent job of thinning out my grey hunters and killing off my marker drones. His crisis teams scattered on arrival though which probably saved a Skyray from fusion death. The buff commander wasn't so lucky with the weight of plasma fire bringing him down quickly.

My second turn really turned things around though. One unit of Kroot arrived behind the hammerhead (which had sped off from the Grey Hunters). I declared the shooting but my opponent decided to risk it and not Jink (with disruption pods for 3+ too) thinking I was unlikely to get three 6s which, of course I immediately did. The Grey Hunters turned their attention to the pathfinders with the rune priest killing off three with Fury and causing them to flee before charging into the other unit and wiping them in combat. The other, much depleted, Grey Hunters charged the fire warriors and stayed locked.

I was struggling to bring down his Riptides though with their 3++ (from Nova) and FNP. The suits had FNP too but sheer weight of fire was enough to bring them down and Farsight suffered a seeker missile to the face. In the end my opponent made it pretty easy to ignore the Riptides though as he targetted my Kroot with their blasts and stayed away from the objectives. With all four objectives at the end of the game, Warlord, Linebreaker and two bonus points from heavies, I scored a whopping 16 VPs. Not a bad start to the day.

Game Two - vs. Necrons

I'd made the mistake of scoring too many points in my first game and found myself on the top table against Chris Scothorne (Scoffer)'s Necrons. I've played Scoffer a few times before and I think it was something like 2-1 to me so far. That being said I'd need some luck to beat his two command barges, two ghost arks, three annihilation barges and two night scythes (one warrior, one deathmark). We were playing a mission that used the old table quarters deployment with the central 12" circle of no man's land. There were two 8" circular control zones in the other quarters which scored points for control at the end of your turn (1 VP for the one in your half and 2 for the one in theirs).

Remember I said I needed some luck? Well I managed to get first turn but, as I feared, Scoffer stole the initiative. To make matters worse the deployment allowed one of his command barges to only need 6" to charge my crisis team and the other needing an 11" charge to my Kroot who'd infiltrated into the control zones. The 6" charge he made easily but fortunately I managed to lose the combat and run (to regroup next turn). The 11" charge he rolled a 6 and a 1 for but thanks to the chariot rules he was able to re-roll the 1 to a 6 and make it! Where's that luck I needed eh? The Kroot lost the combat and ran whilst the other unit was cut down by a ghost ark and two annihilation barges. Not particularly devastating losses in themselves but it gave Scoffer a 3-0 lead after his first turn. My drop pods came in but were underwhelming thanks to missed melta shots and Jink saves. The crisis team regrouped but Snap Shots weren't enough to help them with the command barges.

There's little else to say about this game really. Eventually the barges used their sweep attacks to take out the Skyrays. The Riptide charged one of them but kept missing his Smash. When he did hit the invulnerable save protected the barge and the Riptide died. The barges then moved onto the crisis team with the deathmarks and warriors dealing with the Grey Hunters. I allowed Scoffer to hold off tabling me so he could get as many points as possible. Might sound daft but it would mean someone else wouldn't have to face him on anything but table one.

Game Three - vs. CSM

I was smacked back down to table 7 where I found myself across from Rick Miller and his Khorne CSM. He'd got 4 units of berserkers (two in rhinos, one of which had Kharn), a maulerfiend, vindicator, heldrake (hades) and some warp talons. We were playing Purge on Dawn of War.

This was a mismatch on paper and Rick's dice certainly didn't even it up. I took first turn with my pods coming down to get weapon destroyed on the vindicator and kill and handful of berserkers with the other. The riptide and marker drones combined to vaporise some more berserkers and the missile team (with skyray assistance) killed the maulerfiend for First Blood. The berserkers took their revenge on one unit of grey hunters with two units charging at once to cut them down. This was just about the only bright point in Rick's game though as by the end of turn 3 I'd all but tabled him. He had some terrible luck with his saves and heldrake reserve roll. The warp talons were gunned down by Kroot and the riptide just kept killing swathes of berserkers with pinpoint accurate blasts with Ignores Cover. It was all over pretty quickly with me feeling immensely guilty for taking another 16 VP win.

Conclusion
My overall score was only good enough for 9th place but not bad for a list I'd never used before with allies and psychic as two mechanics that are new to me. You'd think it wasn't a big deal but I did try to markerlight a unit for my Grey Hunters at one point as I never normally have anything but Tau with my Tau! Generally speaking all three games were horrible mismatches. The first game was the most even on paper but Tom was pretty new to tournament play and I was able to score far more points than I perhaps should've done.

I enjoyed using psychic powers for a change and allies weren't as bad as I thought. I might start using both more often in my lists. We've booked in for our next Outpost tournament too but this time it'll be X-wing and the Store Championships!

Tournament Report - Lurking Threat (1750pts) at the Outpost - Dark Eldar

Proxy TWC on lions..... Thundercats ho!

As you might recall, I'm currently taking a break from Tau. This meant that my last tournament of the year was with my Dark Eldar. Somehow I achieved second place so I had high hopes of a good performance at my first tournament of 2014. The Outpost was the venue and for those of you who haven't read my reports before, they run custom scenarios which I'm quickly becoming a fan of. My list was the same as before with 4 kabalite venoms, wyches in a raider, two squads of reavers, two ravagers, a voidraven and Duke with trueborn in a raider.

Last time around the field was full of wraithknights, riptides, daemon princes and nids which really flatter Dark Eldar. This time around there were some very strong lists. Some of the players were using this event as Caledonian warm-up so there was a Farsight bomb, broadside spam, Necron flyers and a couple of Daemon flying circus type lists. None of the lists were as optimised as you might find at the top flight events but there were no easy matchups for me.

Game One - DE vs. Necrons

The first game was Hammer and Anvil with Emperor's Relic which is similar to the Blog Wars version with the exception that First Blood is replaced with First Strike. This allows both players to score a VP if they manage to kill a unit in their first player turn. Mike Porter's Necrons were not my ideal first opponents. The sheer volume of S7 fire isn't much fun when you've got AV10/11 vehicles and T3 infantry who rely on FNP. I wasn't confident then but if I could hold onto my home objective, grab some secondaries and use my reavers to contest his objectives then I'd be in a with a chance. Still, night scythes aren't much fun! At least I got the first turn, Night Fighting and a 6 on my drugs to give me a fighting chance.

Thanks to some refused flank deployment my only hope of scoring First Strike was to kill a barge with a single Ravager. Obviously I failed. I'd also made a fatal error. Having not played Necrons in a while I'd forgotten that wraiths are jump infantry and positioned a unit of reavers within charge range. There was absolutely no need for them to be in that position either. I'd blasted the two raiders up the board too, expecting them to go down but hoping I could get my haywires into the middle of the castled Necron vehicles. One of my venoms went down and, as expected, the wyches' raider exploded (but only after taking a hefty amount of fire thanks to cover saves). Sadly, the wyches took enough casualties from the blast to cause them to break meaning no haywire fun. This unfortunately also allowed the wraiths to multi-charge the wyches and reavers. Even more unfortunate was that neither were able to break from the combat protecting the wraiths from retaliation.

My second turn started well with Duke's unit destroying the ghost ark and then a combination of a venom and the other reavers killed off the warriors inside. Sadly even both ravagers combined wasn't enough to kill the command barge and the voidraven arrived too early (and also failed to kill an annihilation barge). With all the other troops off the board in flyers the venoms were pretty impotent. Meanwhile the wraiths finished off the wyches and the final reaver ran. In the Necron second turn all three night scythes arrived killing off a couple of venoms. One of the annihilation barges tried to down the voidraven but could only glance it once. Meanwhile the scarabs arrived from reserve close to Duke who found himself in a crater thanks to another barge. The wraiths chased down the remaining reaver and caught it in a multicharge with a venom and a kabalite warrior squad. The squad ran and the venom survived so it wasn't a total loss. The lord in his barge tried and failed to destroy the ravager too.

The voidraven flew off the board but not before bombing an annihilation barge and exploding it! That's the first time I've achieved anything notable with a void mine. Duke and his unit elected to ignore the scarabs and instead split up to take on an annihilation barge each. The trueborn killed theirs but Sliscus failed to destroy his (it's a shame he doesn't get haywires too). Meanwhile I moved one of my two remaining venoms deep into the enemy deployment zone to hopefully contest (or even claim) my opponent's objective. The reavers swept across the scarabs killing a couple of bases but not enough to prevent them being killed in combat with the swarms. One of the flyers dropped off some warriors before destroying the venom. Meanwhile the overlord finally killed the ravager but was now in the far corner in the back of my zone. One of the other flyers dropped immortals on the relic before killing off a venom.

The wraiths were slowly being brought down but not before they helped the immortals finish off the kabalites which might've contested the Relic. Duke joined the trueborn again but despite his blast pistol and their haywires the last annihilation barge was still hovering there taunting me. One of the night scythes cut down all of the remaining trueborn but Duke passed his Shadowfield saves. The shot then arc'd back onto the flyer and Mike rolled a 6 followed by three 6s on the penetration rolls to glance his own flyer to death! Hilarious! Meanwhile the warriors and scarabs combined to finish off the trueborn and secure a grip on their home objective. My best hope now was to hold onto my own objective and hope my flyer could shift the warriors from his. If Duke survived I might just force a draw. My bomber returned and failed to kill a night scythe despite penetrating. This pretty much sealed the game as the warriors inside were able to finish off the warriors who were holding onto my objective.

The flyer moved on to try and shift the warriors from Mike's objective. The missiles weren't as effective as they needed to be and the warriors unsurprisingly passed their Ld test. In a cruel twist the barge that Duke had repeatedly failed to kill proved to be his undoing as he failed the final 2+ save he was required to make and was vapourised. The remaining Necron flyers squared off against my bomber and there was only going to be one outcome there. This left me tabled with no VPs and gave my opponent maximum VPs. Least I didn't need to move my stuff!

Game Two - DE vs. Daemons/CSM

My first battle had been a total mismatch that I'd never expected to win. The next game involved three objectives spaced 18" apart along the centre line. Each objective was worth 1VP to a scoring unit at the end of each player turn. This is an interesting mission as it encourages players to get their scoring units into the midfield early and forces them to leave their transports. My opponent was Joe Freeman who was running four flying princes, a great unclean one, some plaguebearers, cultists and a heldrake. I was pretty sure I could deal with the big daemons but it'd come down to how many points I could score before the heldrake arrived and upset the apple cart.

Knowing that scoring points early was crucial I disembarked two units of warriors onto objectives. I was then lucky enough to gun down the CSM prince and reduce the GUO to a single wound. The reavers double bladevaned the plaguebearers and cut a decent number down. I positioned the bikers in such a way that a daemon prince wouldn't be able to vector strike one and fire at the other. With two objectives in my hands I took 2 VPs. My opponent failed his Grimoire reducing one DP to 6++ which was left in the open. Another DP charged a squad of reavers and easily cut 3 down with the rest fleeing. The final remaining DP was able to use Psychic Shriek to clear one squad of kabalites from an objective. I was still able to take a further VP though.

The wyches advanced onto the central objective whilst I brought up some more kabalites to replaced their fallen comrades. The ravager brought the 6++ prince down to a single wound but he soaked up wounds from the wyches pistols, fleeing reavers' and fire from a venom on his 2+ cover save. It took a second venom to finish the job. This meant I wasn't able to lay much fire down on the prince in the centre, even so I managed to reduce him to a single wound which he only held onto thanks to 4+ FNP. The final daemon prince was able to survive fire from a Duke's squad with his 2+ cover save (I miss markerlights!). Still, I'd score another 3 VPs with my opponent yet to score.

The heldrake arrived and now the game was on. Unfortunately for him he wasn't able to clear enough wyches to stop them controlling the objective. The GUO and the cultists advanced towards the objective on my left. Luckily the unit of plaguebearers in reserve mishapped and would be delayed. I still held onto three objectives so I now had a 10-0 lead at the top of turn three.

My bomber arrived and targetted the GUO, thanks to the proximity of the cultists I was able to position the blasts to give me a lot of hits on them too. The GUO died to give me Slay the Warlord and all but one of the cultists perished. I tried to kill the final one off with a venom but only wounded once (!) and he made his cover save. The heldrake used it's vector strike to kill the remaining wyches and allow the plaguebearers to finally score a point. The plaguebearers came in from reserve successfully this time but for some reason they weren't dropped onto an objective. My bomber hit the remaining daemon prince with a bomb but cover saves protected it again. The bomber then managed to penetrate the heldrake only to strip the baleflamer away.

By this point I'd racked up so many VPs that my opponent didn't stand a chance. Still, he managed to make Duke run off the board and did enough to kill 75% of my army for a secondary VP (part of the custom scenario). In the end it finished 23-3 which helped make up for my zero in the first round.

Game Three - DE vs. Tau (Farsight Bomb)
My final game would be first time up against a Farsight bomb. Chris Cole was running it with a FW librarian (who's name I forget) that allowed him to simply pick Gate and any other powers he wanted.

The mission might allow me to still win the game though despite the mismatch. This is a scenario I think the venue has borrowed from Warmachine (I don't play it though). Basically there's an area in the middle of the board (the white bit that blends into the white table!). You need to have scoring unit in there to score VPs when you kill an enemy unit. Your unit can remain in its transport but if you haven't got a scoring unit in the zone when you kill something you don't get a point. At the end of the game any units in the zone (scoring or otherwise) count for 1 bonus VP each. Basically I'd need to kill off Chris' troops and stop him scoring more points.

I won the roll off again (I'm pretty good at that!). The bomb had to be deployed of course but there was very little point shooting at it. I had the odd speculative shot but didn't kill anything thanks to 2+ saves. The rest of my army focussed on his troops. I was able to take out his scouts and pathfinders straight away giving me 3 VPs (two plus First Blood). I'd tried to spread out my vehicles as much as possible but I'd left a glaring hole in the middle of my army that also happened to be area terrain to give his bomb 2+ cover. This effectively lost me the game in one stroke. The bomb moved into it and he managed to kill 6 units with it thanks to the number of target locks. Knowing in the final turn he'd move them into the "mosh pit" and claim 4 extra VPs I now needed to find 8 VPs from somewhere!

Basically I'd need Linebreaker and kill everything outside the bomb plus two units from inside the bomb! Pretty much impossible after losing so much. Even so I lined up a couple of things against the bomb including my flyer which scored 14 wounds with it's missiles only for Chris to save all but 1 on 2+. Otherwise I focussed on the three units of kroot that made up the rest of Chris' scoring. A venom finished one unit off that'd been weakened by reavers in turn one whilst the other two units fell to charges from the reavers and wyches (now joined by Duke who'd lost his trueborn). This gave me FNP on both my units (useless against the S6+ of the bomb) but more importantly Chris couldn't score any more VPs until the end.

Sadly by now I had very little left to deal with the bomb which could happily jump around and pick me off. One of my ravagers tried twice to kill one of the two skyrays but failed miserably. Meanwhile the reavers charged in hoping to use their Furious Charge to bring down the other skyray failing miserably too. This left me with no hope of victory as, with the clock running down, Chris teleported the bomb back into the centre giving himself a 10-7 win.

Conclusion
Two of my three games were mismatches for me but I'm pleased that I managed to make my opponent work for the victories. Mind you, in both games I made crucial errors that really could've shifted the game in my favour.

In the first game I gave the wraiths a target to charge first turn. This gave them protection during my second turn and allowed them to consolidate up the field and cover more ground. There was no reason for my reavers to go so close and no way the wyches would've been locked in combat if they'd been charged on their own. Given the barges limited range I probably could've kept my venoms further back too. In my first turn I only scored a single wound on a wraith and the penalty was a dead venom. Rookie errors.

The second game was over by turn 3 really. Once I'd opened up a 9-0 lead and killed most of his troops there was little to no chance of him coming back. Nurgle daemon princes can be great against other armies but my poisoned and S8 weaponry doesn't care about T6. Mind you, FNP 4+ became annoying.

In the third game I left a piece of area terrain empty in the middle of all my vehicles. This was an obvious drop off for the Farsight bomb so I should've blasted a vehicle in there to force them elsewhere. This might've meant moving into the open where they would only get a 4+ cover save instead of 2+. This would've undoubtedly resulted in more drone casulaties and maybe even a few suits. With their firepower reduced I might've held onto my troops for long enough to score more VPs too. That and I'd have also minimised the number of targets they could hit in their first turn. Overall a huge mistake.

I wasn't originally a fan of the "mosh pit" mission (which I think is borrowed from Warmachine) but that and the second mission proved to make things interesting. If we'd been playing normal kill points then I couldn've have hoped to beat the Farsight bomb. It makes me think about looking at custom scenarios again for BW7. More on that after the Tyranid codex reviews though.

Ultimately this was the kind of performance I expected from my Dark Eldar. I was lucky last time to win all three games and I think the matchups flattered me. It hasn't put me off using the Dark Eldar though, if anything I'm more determined to get them painted and now that my airbrush is here I'm going to go at it in a big way. I'll leave you with the winner of the best painted:

Target Sighted - Game 3 - Space Wolves vs Dark Angels

Despite my earlier concerns I'd managed to avoid playing either Necrons or Daemons and instead found myself playing Dave Wigley and his Deathwing. I'd spoken to Dave earlier in the day about how he was finding Deathwing and I was interested to play them to better understand their use.

With the tournament running backwards we'd be playing the first mission now which was Purge The Alien on Dawn of War with the additional rules that for each FOC slot you killed something from you got a bonus point e.g. the first time I killed an HQ I'd get 2 points but the second HQ would be worth 1 as normal. Dave was fielding Belial, an Interrogator chaplain (TDA of course), 2 squads of 10 DW terminators (two plasma, two cyclone, rest TH/SS) and some FW missile things. Therefore he'd only got 5 normal points available and 3 bonus points from HQ, Troops and FA. I on the other hand could give away 13 pts with choices from all but Elites (as the wolf guard become troops when they join squads). This was always going to be difficult as I'd need to comfortably table him to score enough points. We were both in a decent position in terms of the rankings too so there were potential podium spots to play for. I couldn't rely on sheer luck at this stage.

Battle Report

I won the roll off and elected to go first. Now this may or may not have been stupid (I'll get to that later) but I decided to spread out my forces across my deployment zone to minimise the number of places that Dave could deploy safely. I chose not to Outflank the wolf priest as I thought I could use the firepower if I was going to try and down so many TH/SS terminators. As the rules for DW and the 50% in reserve haven't been clarified Dave was playing fair and deploying 50% of his army. This consisted of one of the DW squads and the two missile thingies. He did so in the far corner of the field as far away from me as possible.

Great I thought. I know how this game is going to go. I'll struggle to pick those terminators off and he'll slowly chew through my army with their heavy weapons. With this in mind I decided to put the drop pod down behind some cover nearer my deployment zone.

Unfortunately we got Night Fighting so it wasn't until turn 2 that I started to fire at the turrets and managed to kill one straight away with my long fangs. All I'd need to do is down the other which would give me 3 VPs (one for killing it, one for First Blood and one bonus point from the mission). This would put Dave in a position where he had to come to me if he wanted to win and hence allow me as much time as possible to thin out the terminators before they got to my lines.

Unfortunately for me Dave was firing back all the time. I was pretty lucky with the long fangs cover saves though. I was repeatedly casting Prescience to ensure the best chance of downing the missiles but around turn 3 I managed to double-6 it and not only fail to get the power off but strip a wound from my Rune Priest. If I did it again I'd be sure to lose as I'd be gifting Dave 2 VPs. Luckily enough I still managed to take a "wound" off the missile thingies (I really should find out their real name). Belial came down on turn 2 via Deathwing Assault and the plasma cannons didn't really help me out, leaving the long fangs with a single missile launcher and the pack leader who I'd unfortunately put out of sight meaning launchers died rather than him.

It was now a case of whether the sole long fang could managed to kill off the missile thingy before he died. At this point I moved the rune priest out of the squad and into a grey hunter pack who'd been thinned out by more plasma cannon fire. This meant he'd still be able to cast Prescience (nervously) but he'd also be able to move himself out of range quickly once the long fangs had done their job.

It took until turn 4 for me to finally kill off the missile thingies and score the 3 VPs. I was pretty certain that I'd sealed the game. Sadly for me in Dave's turn 4 he hit the long fangs with the plasma cannons and despite going to ground for a 3+ save they both perished. The score was now 3-2 to me. Dave would only need to kill either the rune priest or some grey hunters to push it to a 3-4. With the other long fangs way out of range I decided my only hope was to play it safe and pull back everything I had as far as possible to keep them safe. The rune priest and wolf priest were buried in the remaining full grey hunter pack and everything else pulled back as far as possible.

This worked well for turn 5 where I lost a single thunderwolf but the other 2 held their nerve and were able to fall back further in my turn 6. I was pretty confident I'd managed a narrow victory. Dave then opened fire for the final time. The plasma cannons could only kill a single grey hunter (I'd been pretty lucky with Dave's poor scatter rolling) which left just the cyclone launchers to fire. In a move I have to say I wasn't expecting Dave realised he might be able to down the drop pod and win the game. Unfortunately for him he only managed to penetrate with a single missile. This would mean I'd need to fail my 4+ cover save and he'd need to roll 5+ to blow it up. Of course, both of these things went Dave's way and although no more space wolves died in the explosion Dave had done enough with the last possible shot of the game to make it 4-3 to him. Gutted.

As a consolation we decided to honour the tradition of a champion from both armies recreating the famous tussle between the Wolf and the Lion. For the Wolf it would be Arjac Rockfist and for the Lion it would be Belial. Belial managed to inflict 3 wounds on Arjac but he only failed one of his saves. Arjact hit back with his foehammer and inficted 5 wounds. Belial only failed a single save but since he lacked Eternal Warrior (unlike Arjac) it was enough to cut him down. Victory to the sons of Russ! Hail the Allfather...ahem.... moving on.

Conclusion
What I thought would be an incredibly dull game actually turned out to be really tense and tactical. It had a real feeling that every dice roll mattered. Every time Dave fired his plasma cannons I was sure I'd lose a squad. Every time the cyclones fired I thought the long fangs were toast. I felt every single model I lost and was nervous about every morale check. At the end of the game we'd only managed to completely destroy 220pts worth of units between us! Hardly a bloody affair but certainly one I'll remember. Can't imagine there'll be many sagas written or songs sung about the deeds of the Space Wolves as they heroicly cowered in cover!

When the game ended I suggested to Dave that he should've really used his low KP advantage and just come at me. There was little or no chance of me managing to kill enough terminators before they scored more VPs than I could reasonably achieve. From his point of view this would've also given him the best chance of climbing the leaderboard toward the podium places.

As soon as I realised that it was a case of kill the missiles and hide I should've been moving my entire army back as far as I could. This would mean that Dave would only get the long fangs. From a game point of view it would still have been a draw but for personal pride I'd know it was a win!

We're going to try and arrange a rematch to see what would've happened if Dave had played it more aggressively but I think I know how that'll go. 

Target Sighted - Game 1 - Space Wolves vs Space Wolves

In a change to a mission order that was advertised the organisers decided to play the last mission first. The reason for this was that they'd run a mirror event on the day before and realised that the last mission ended up being low scoring and hence didn't give a dramatic conclusion. Fair play to them for changing it up. Anyway, we'd be playing for 3 central, fixed objectives and Vanguard deployment. If either army ever controlled all of them (after turn 2) they'd win automatically. In turn 4 one objective would vanish. So my first game would be against Chris Thorne and his purple Space Wolves. I was mainly relieved to get at least one game that wasn't Necrons.

Sadly, Chris had included a stormtalon which put me in a difficult position. First game in a new venue against a new opponent. Do you point out that SW can't take them? Do you risk making the game feel miserable throughout? Obviously this is the sort of thing they should've picked up from the pre-submitted lists but nevermind. Anyway, I decided that I wasn't going to win anything so I wouldn't be an arse. I pointed out that other people might make him ditch it but my main problem was that I didn't actually have it in writing that they couldn't take them. I hoped it wouldn't make a difference but read on for that.

Otherwise he had a thunderlord with hammer joined by some fenrisian wolves, a ven dread in a drop pod, two tooled up grey hunter packs led by wolf guard, a vindicator and two packs of long fangs. It's at this point that I realise he only had two wolf guard which again is illegal. Sigh. Anyway, here's a shot of my army, a list for which you can find in yesterday's post, they aren't arranged into squads properly because I was throwing them down for the painting comp before dashing off for lunch!

Battle Report
I got to pick deployment zone but sadly Chris got first turn. I knew that it would be costly. He deployed fairly aggressively with the long fangs slightly behind his front line. He got a Warlord trait that let the thunderlord Outflank but either chose not to use it or else forgot. I stuck my long fangs in craters and a hunter pack mid field. The thunderwolves were sat on my right flank so they'd be as close as possible. My mistakes started here. The grey hunters should've been positioned so that he couldn't hit them with anything in his first turn. The vindicator certainly could've been avoided. Anyway, in Chris' first turn he managed to decimate the grey hunter squad by killing 7 of them from a combination of vindicator and long fangs. The dreadnought and other long fangs killed all but one of the long fangs that weren't joined by the rune priest.

As he'd needed to move the vindicator forward to get shots on me it was a simple case of charging it with the thunderwolves who's S10 power fist would almost certainly blow it up. Sure enough they did it with ease giving me First Blood. Elsewhere Arjac's squad arrived but rolled badly and failed to kill one of the long fang packs (they did run though). The remaining hunters that'd been thinned out were out of range of everything else so took pot shots at the fenrisian wolves, killing a couple. The remaining long fangs couldn't seem to kill the dreadnought despite Prescience.

The stormtalon arrived in turn 2 and with help from the dreadnought more long fangs perished. The stormtalon hit with a missile and I decided to risk it on the rune priest's runic armour costing him his life when I rolled a 1! This lost me Prescience and much hope of downing the flyer. The wolf lord turned 180 and headed back towards Arjac and his hunters. His packs of hunters combined to kill two thunderwolves from shooting. One squad then charged the remaining cavalryman but could only wound him once. In return he struck wounds but all were saved.

On my turn 2 the wolf priest squad arrived behind the unengaged grey hunters and thanks to Preferred Enemy they decimated them leaving 2 from the original 11 who then ran! Sure enough the long fangs couldn't kill either the stormtalon or dreadnought again. The remaining thunderwolf rended twice killing two grey hunters but inevitably lost his final wound in return. Arjac and his squad shot at the fenrisian wolves before attempting to charge, which I failed miserably. Turn two had at least been better than turn 1!

The stormtalon would have to hover to take further part in the game (as it would spend at least 2-3 turns turning around to be able to hit something so Chris elected to fly it off into ongoing reserves. The long fangs were further thinned out by the dreadnought but still clung on. Elsewhere the grey hunters who'd killed the thunderwolf headed for the central objective. The long fangs tried to thin out Arjac's squad but could only land a couple of hits which Arjac saved. The thunderlord charged in and I challenged him. The grey hunters easily dealt with the fen wolves without loss. Arjac struck with his 5 attacks and the wolf lord inevitably bought it thanks to S10. He struck back with his hammer causing 3 wounds. Arjac failed 2 of his 3++ saves on 1s and thanks to the standard managed to re-roll 1 to survive.

In my turn 3 Arjac and his squad shot the fleeing grey hunters and finished them off. The drop pod tried to kill the lone remaining long fang but failed. The long fangs again failed to deal with the dreadnought. The wolf priest and his squad moved up onto the objective and ran to try and be in range of the central grey hunters. My remaining hunters broke cover to head for the central objective and took shots at the enemy hunters killing one.

At the top of turn 4 Chris rolled to see which objective disappeared and sadly for me it was the one controlled by the wolf priest's squad meaning they'd need to break cover and head for the centre. The storm talon re-appeared and killed a few of the wolf priest's hunters. The drop pod killed the lonely long fang with its storm bolter (gutted) and the dreadnought finally finished off the other long fangs. Elsewhere Chris' remaining long fangs gunned down the remains of Arjac's squad including Mr. Rockfist. The drop pod was made to pay for failing to kill the lascannon long fang as he blew it up.

In my turn 4 the wolf priest and co. couldn't get into decent range of the central hunters so the other, dwindled squad of mine charged in. It was a straight hunter vs hunter fight but Chris managed to pass 4 3+ saves to keep his fist alive who then made the most of it by finishing my squad.

I'd now only got the wolf priest and his thinned out squad to try to hold out for a win. With the clock ticking down I knew I had a decent chance. Chris only had a very small scoring unit left and with me taking First Blood & Slay the Warlord he'd need to table me to win.

Stupidly, (I'll get to that) I decided to push the wolf priest forward to clear the remaining hunters and try to grab the objective. Over the next couple of turns Chris' dread, long fangs and stormtalon thinned out the squad enough that in turn 7 (it was a compulsory 7 turns) the wolf priest was on his own with far too many saves to make. Depsite being tabled I'd actually got 2 VPs to Chris' 1 from Slay the Warlord, because of the tabling though it had to go down as a loss for me.

Conclusion
I should've played for one of the objectives on my left, deploying a squad of grey hunters on that side. This would've kept them safer and force him to either risk the dreadnought near them (which they had a good shot of killing) or else the rest of his army would've needed to advance to get range whilst I shot them. The thunderwolves did their job but by waiting a turn or two and hanging around the edge of the vindicators range I could've shot it with long fangs and protected them so they wouldn't have been left vulnerable after killing it. Still it did give me First Blood and nearly give me the game.

Had I thought about it better I should've shot the dreadnought rather than the stormtalon on my second turn. The talon was going to have to hover and ultimately the dreadnought was more of a problem. I doubt I'd have killed it though with the rolling I was having combined with its Venerable rule.

Finally, I really should've hugged cover with the wolf priest's squad and killed the hunters at range. With Preferred Enemy that would've been a fairly simple task. I could've kept them out of sight of the long fangs, out of range of the dreadnought and got them cover from the stormtalon. The objective was irrelevant at this point but I think I was boyed by the turn around I'd managed despite feeling like it was one-sided for the first half of the game.

I'd love to say I don't think the stormtalon thing mattered that much but it was pretty decisive. I was always going to struggle to kill it even with Prescience and it managed to kill most of the long fangs, finish off the Wolf Priest on the final turn and distract my attention from the, easier to kill, dreadnought. As much as I didn't want to be a dick I screwed myself by not pointing out the illegalities of my opponent's list. I really wish the venue had properly checked them so that I wasn't in that situation but I know from Blog Wars experience that it isn't a fun or easy task.

Anyway, having lost I should manage to avoid playing Necrons or Daemons in my second game!