Double Trouble 1500pt battle report - Dark Angels & Dark Eldar v Space Marines & Tau - Game 3

Game 3 and all my Christmases at once I'm not only paired with From the Fang event organiser Alex for the last game, but I also got to play against Luke Fogg from Darksun Life and lets not forget Matthew Spencer and his Tau who paired with Luke

The low down:

• Each force deploys diagonally opposite to their partner in a 27" x 15" rectangle
• Double Trouble Maelstrom missions - 3 cards per turn. No secondaries.
• Warlord Trait - Move through Cover and Stealth in Ruins
• Night fighting first turn, we went second, failed to steal.

OK, do I have a clue what went on in this game? Perhaps Luke and Alex can fill in the details in the comments and I'll try and add them in. Clearly I infiltrated my scouts into these ruins with Alex's Dark Eldar.

We then found the rest of the family for my dice, I'm not sure we were taking this seriously, we'd already gone for drinks at the start of the game, ha, ha!

I was on the left, Matthew the right, Luke opposite me with his Howling Griffons and Alex top right. I'd scouted the bikes into the wood to score that objective, clearly.

Turn 1 and Luke and Matt get off to a roaring stat, slaughtering our forces and capturing objectives. Alex kept telling me excitedly how his Scourges were making their 6+ armour saves against Luke and then looked over at my side of the board asking where all my ravenwing had gone, failing to make their 3+ cover saves. I hadn't jinked so they could still fire so didnlt get to re-roll - lesson learned?

In response we managed to score 4 VPs in turn 1, not sure how far into the game this was but my tactical squad is on foot, so I'm guessing they lost their sweet old skool ride. I'd eventually storm those ruins and capture the objective inside.

Meanwhile the Tau went pretty unmolested, their stealth capabilities making them nigh indestructible and adding a further 2 VPs in turn 2. I think our cards were pretty dire, asking for unattainable objectives held by our opponents and we failed to score anything.

Alex's force wilted under the Centurions assaulting the ruins, my own scouts had been shot to pieces, denying us 3 VPs for holding the objective for two consecutuive turns, we'd gambled and lost.

Turn 3 and our opponents threw another 4 VPs into their tally, we didn't do so bad in return making 3 back.

Sadly turn four saw us drop another 4 VPs and we failed to score again! The final score being 16 to 7 with Luke and Matt suffering only 371 Blood points to our own 1,300! Jeez we were poor.

OK I admit the Battle Reports a bit weak on details but I honestly haven't got a clue what went on, it was just fun. 40k was just a reason to be in that space at that time with those people and all I get is a sense of camaraderie, laughs and giggles. I mean you saw that video Luke did of me after the game ended, I couldn't stop grinning AND I hadn't even won the raffle at that stage! Was it a 'good' game, it depends how you define good! Obviously we were slaughtered but I think it's a shining example of why I still play this hobby. And why 'win at all costs' [and the fact my gaming sobriety cured me of that nasty trait at least] should not be the be all and end all for enjoyment, certainly not when you're with such decent folk. In context I see these people no more than twice a year [with Dan I've met him once and that was 3 yeasr ago], but they comment on the blog and I read and comment on theirs and yet somehow it's turned 'virtual friendship' into friendship. For this I'm glad I play space toy soldiers and I'm unbelievably grateful for Alex for taking a gamble on organising such an event and the other attendees for giving it a shot too. Hopefully we can get another one next year, if you can make it I'll see you there!

Here's Luke's vlog to help fill in some of the blanks:

Double Trouble 1500pt battle report - Dark Angels & Adeptus Mechanicus v Imperial Fists & Nurgle Daemons - Game 2

Game 2 and I'm on the same table, for a minute I get confused and think I;ve been paired with Dan Johnson's Nurgle Daemons [was this some cruel trick of the Chaos G.O.D.s trying to tell me something?] and then it transpires I'm partnered with Rob Hill and his insanely awesome Mechanicum which was great considering the support he's shown to this blog and how much of a fan I am of his own - mutual back slapping and modest compliments ensued! But we were also facing Chris Buckle and his Imperial Fists.

The low down:

• "Cleanse and Control" deployment but with a bigger centre circle
• Double Trouble Maelstrom missions - 3 cards per turn. No secondaries.
• Warlord Trait - Move through Cover and Stealth in Ruins
• Not night fighting first turn, we won deployment, lost first turn but stole the initiative!

Again not sure how to report this as not only did I not take too much notice of what missions were drawn but Dan kept track of the scoring on a dry wip board, which looked handy.

Having won deployment I selfishly shifted everyone round so I could take full benefit of the ruin in the right corner for my Devastators and bolster it thanks to the Techmarine, who subsequently hung around the back of Venator becuase I figured it'd draw a lot fire and he could try and fix it.

Chris had a pretty static gunline with Thudd Guns and Vindicators!

Having stolen the initiative I think we had to secure objective 6, or get double objectives than our opponents and onjective 6 was the key. To do that my bikes scouted forward and that Vindicator had to go!

The Venator did the business, alongside an orbital bombardment by the crazy looking guy leading the automatons. The Vindicator exploded and with a 5" blast took out one of my bikers who'd closed on the objective [actually it might have been the plasma gun biker that made the killing blow] Either way I think we had a good turn, although my Rhino did immobilise itself in the trees, at which point I was wishing the Techmarine was't so far away [and that I didn't forget every turn to try to fix the 'immobilised' with the Rhino's special rules!]

In response the Thudd Guns tried to do some serious damage on the Devastators, they weathered the fire, taking only one casualty but they were pinned in the process. The Daemon Prince jumped down to assault my Assault Marines who stood fast, which was either brave or foolhardy. Interestingly Dan  suffered a Dangerous Terrain test wound for the Prince which confused me as for a few years now I've been of the understanding that they don't take them. Monstrous Creatures have the 'move through cover' special rule that means they automatically pass Dangerous Terrain test, so even though he would jump into difficult terrain he would automatically pass the test. I tried to raise this in our game but everyone was of the opinion he was playing it right which makes me question my interpretation. I've been playing it this way for years now, ever since I saw PeteB's Wraithknight was jumping in and out of cover, without dispute. When you consider multiple Flyrants dropping into cover you'd imagine folk wanting those Dangerous Terrain tests to be made if wounds could be taken. So have I got it wrong? Because I can only see the Move through Cover Rule over-riding the Dangerous Terrain Test, not the other way around and Jump rules trumping the MC rules.

Turn 2, my other unit of bikers go for the Nurglings, although I can't kill them I remove enough to get them out of range of the objective so I can score it!

The last Vindicator gets wrecked, sweet revenge for my bikers which were destroyed by the Great Unclean One.

The Thudd Guns continued to plug away with mixed fortune.

The Daemon Prince entered it;s third round of combat with the Assault Marines and the Great Unclean One advanced from the ruins.

He wanted to kill Rob's Warlord, but it's invulnerable saves held.

Chris managed ot dislodge my bikers from the objective with his Fists, clearly the Inquisition need to have a word helping out the almost but still alive Nurglings!

In some deft positioning the Vneator had moved to hold the objective in those ruins while I was holding the objective in the woods. Both of these missions required our partner to be controlling and objective and this doubled our score for that turn from just two for each to four for both. The Techmarine had dawdled repeatedly to keep up with the Venator, too enamored by it's majesty no doubt, but eventually he was right behind it when it was hit with so much firepower he didn't even have achanc eto effect any repairs!

So the smoke settled and we were pretty despondent only for Dan to reveal we'd manage to snatch the win, thanks to a poor final turn by our opponents. The final tally was 15:12 however we lost on Blood Points 563 to 1305. Now I'm sur eI missed a lot out but Rob will be writing a Battle Report too so check out his blog for a different perspective.

It was an awesome game though and although the Dark Angels suffered a lot I feel we clearly sacrificed all we need to, to guarantee we completed the mission. We did not sell our lives cheap and I think we worked as a good team in the end. The Daemons were nigh unstoppable, with Iron Arm and FnP making it pointless for the Daemon Prince ot actually swoop, he was more effective on the ground, even if it took him 3 rounds of combat to kill five assault marines! That's Rogue Trader era models for you...

Double Trouble 1500pt battle report - Dark Angels & Tzeentch Daemons v Ravenguard & Space Marines - Game 1

First up I was partnered with Matthew Grimes, he'd brought Tzeentch Daemons. Now I'm not saying my Dark Angels had been visited by some Tzeentchian door-to-door missionaries but they may just have 'fallen' a little bit for this game. We were up against Steve Horne's Ravenguard and Kai-Uwe Müller-Joswig [Hendrik's brother] who'd flown over from Germany just for this tournament! Kai-Uwe had the Space Marines, I think they were Dusk Wolves but using Space Wolf rule. For all games the two partners would be Battle Brothers and the missions were based on this rule pack

The low down:

• Dawn of War"
• Double Trouble Maelstrom missions - 3 cards per turn. No secondaries.
• Warlord Trait - 3 enemy units must make pinning test first turn [which I forgot about]
• Night fighting first turn, Steve and Kai-Uwe won first turn.

Not sure how to report this as I didn't take too much notice of what missions were drawn and what was scored. For our set up Matthew held the right flank, with my Devastators in the Techmarine reinforced ruins.

The Pink Horrors filled the middle with my Scouts hiding in the forest, to hold that objective, should we draw the card.

Long Fangs and Scouts were opposite, almost a carbon copy of my own force.

A Lone Wolf was on the left flank, opposite the bulk of my force but close to that objective.

Some more Marines held this back field objective. By the end of their turn Steve and Kai-Uwe had scored 2 VPs. Their main focus had been my Tactical Squad with the Missile Launcher on the left flank and wiped them out.

In response we advance. Matthew was full of energy and totally knew how his army worked so I was a bit of a passenger at this point, which was cool with me as it meant the burden of keeping track of all the rules was lifted and I could just spend time having fun [the thing I'd felt hadn't been happening in previous tournaments].

The Tzeentchian magic phase was brutal.

A new chariot was spawned and wreaked havoc on our opponents, the Scouts and most of the Long Fangs were all but wiped out. The Storm of Chaos also blew but failed to hurt anyone.

I was able to contribute with shooting some of the Wolves off their objective.

With Terminators on my doorstep I was trying to whittle them down with whatever firepower I had, hoping to assault with my bikes to a smaller force.

Unfortunately I couldn't find a chink in their armour.

And lost a Ravenwing biker [either to plasma overheat or Dangerous Terrain, both equally embarrassing]. I'm sure one Terminator did eventually fall but have no record of it. We also scored 2 VPs to draw level.

Turn two and the Marines had tried to attack our right flank with their Land Speeder storm. They scored 4 VPs that turn, I think with the Scouts scoring and also destroying my bikes on the left flank. In return we destroyed the Land Speeder and assaulted the scouts.

When the dust had settled we'd won back 5 VPs, I think we got 3 for holding the same objective for 2 turns. We were a point a head.

Turn 3 and I've no more pictures, all I know is we both scored 3 VPs each. With the final score being 10:9 we scored 1073 Blood Points and I only suffered 223 Blood Points, with just the Ravenwing, Tactical Squad and 1 wound on the Techmarine for half his points. Not sure how bad Matthew was hit but I can attest his army was insane. He had all sorts of spells and every time a chariots was destroyed he could spawn it back again in the psychic phase. They're fragile but pack a punch and I think 3 went down and 3 came back. He eventually won the tournament, saying he would use his winnings to buy a fourth chariot! G.O.D. help us all! A great start to the day and although I was the least effective part of the force Matthew and I worked well together and had a great laugh with our opponents.

Blog Wars X Painting competition pics

The Blog Wars painting competition was up to it's usual high standard. Of course I knew what Liam and Otty were bringing but there weere some really good entries from other people too but my mates efforts did cause some people not to display because they didn't see the point. Which although I don't agree with, because if you've painted an army you should show it off, but I do understand people may feel it's pointless. Hypocritically I didn't display my army either. I'd intended to, but not to compete but as I may game finished dead on 2 hours 30 I really couldn't bring myself to set everything up when I had lunch, keeping up with the family at home and buying my Vargheist.

I did take pictures though and I know Alex wanted better ones if they were available as Liam did all his best army shots and was unfamiliar with the camera. In fairness lighting was pretty grim so I'm not sure my shots are an improvement but I may have caught some angles and shots Liam didn't, so enjoy.

This Dark Mechanicum army was fantastically creepy

Best painted special character category.