1750pts battle report - Imperial Knights & Astra Militarum v Astra Militarum & Khorne Daemonkin - game 1

Double Trouble 4 and Alex From the Fang's doubles tournament replacing Blog Wars. 875pts with random pairings but all match-ups are Battle Brothers. Once again my recollection is pretty hazy so for the most part enjoy the pictures, the commentary will be secondary ;) 

Here we go with the last Double Trouble ever. I'll cover my feelings in the wrap up but suffice to say the event was it's usual fun, tinged with a hint of sadness as it has come to a fitting end. First game and I'm partnered with Matt Greenwood [Alex's regular opponent] and his Astra Militarum [3 Leman Russ with Pask, a Psyker, some Ratling Snipers and Vets but with no Command Point farm!].

Facing us was Greg Barber, again with Astra Militarum [Baneblade, Command Point Farm, Psykers and a Bullgryn squad]. He was partnered with Duncan Gray and Khorne Daemonkin [Soul Grinder, Blood Letters, Flesh Hounds, Skull Cannon and some Forgeworld Greater Daemon].

Setup was table ends but with the pointed ends 18" apart. That would have been beneficial for my Knights if only the apex wasn't right in those ruins. Regardless we paid 3 points straight off to put one of my Warglaives in reserve and outflank. We finished deploying first, won first turn and then Greg stole the Initiative. Greg and Duncan move up to secure objectives [which were scored each turn]. With my Cerastus in full view he took a pounding from the Baneblade, despite rotating the Ion Shields he took 7 wounds, down to 20. Greg and Duncan scored 4VPs this turn.

The Cerastus Advanced but was nowhere near the Baneblade. The Warglaive followed along in support. Matt managed to takemost of the wounds off the Soul Grinder [down to 3 or 1?] he also dinged a Flesh Hound with Heavy Bolter fire.

The Skull Cannon fell victim to concentrated fire from the Leman Russ and my Cerastus Shock Blast. With the Lancer exposed I decided to assual the Flesh Hounds [costing 2CPs to assault after advance] then used the Shock Lance.

Only killing two but 'safely' remaining in combat, while the Warglaive attacked the Bullgryns killing one. We scored 2VPs of objectives and then the Daemon Prince and Bloodletters appeared in our midst!

You see the thing with being locked in combat so you then Fall Back and charge again is that your opponent can also Fall Back leaving you exposed and vulnerable! I'd somehow forgotten that and suddenly all the Baneblade's weaponry was traind on my Knight but was killed with just the main cannon! Another ignominious performance from the Lancer.

While the Bullgryns set to work on the Warglaive, clubbing it to bits until it blew up in their midst putting mortal wound on all those around it. The chaos Forces pushed forward, the Bloodletters making a huge charge to tie up Pask and another [or both the other] Leman Russ, luckily the Daemon Prince failed his charge and they scored another 4VPs.

Things were starting to fall apart, but I had my last Warglaive arrive from reserve. I think our plan here was for it to try and help kill the Prince and Bloodletters, with the Veterans who appeared int he back field. This would free up the tanks to focus on the Baneblade. Unfortunately the the Veterans whiffed and he couldn't manage but take some wounds off the Prince. We scored another 2 VPs

The Bloodletters took some heavy losses but were still positioned to keep the tanks locked and score our objectives. 

Meanwhile the Baneblade set to ram the Warglaive.

The Baneblade crushed the Warglaive under it's tracks, the Blood letters continued to distract the tanks in combat.

While their Prince assaulted the Veterans, killing them with ease.

More Bloodletters died, but so did Pask as it was shot by the Baneblade having moved out of combat.

The Chaos forces added another 5 VPs to their tally.

The Daemon Prince set his sights on the remaining Leman Russ and smashed it to pieces.

All that was left at this stage was Matt's psyker...

oh and an infantry squad in the ruins scoring us 1VP. I think they must have finally taken donw the Soul Grinder but the Psyker was not about to be bludgeoned by the Bullgryns.

"Death or glory!"

And there endeth the game. We'd lost 23 VPs to 8 and scored 923 Blood Points

Another great game, the loss of the initiative had been unfortunate but the deployment  map didn't help. However, with fewer units deploying the Lancer out of sight of the Baneblade was never an option.

Greg, myself, Matt and Duncan

Everyone was super-cool to game with, so the result was once again broadly irrelevant, on to game 2.

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875pts battle report - Imperial Knights v Tyranids

I managed to arrange a little game with Otty in preparation for Double Trouble 4. Never having solely used my Knights and with their new rules it was a perfect opportunity to familiarise myself with my 3 guys. The main issue with taking the Lancer is you automatically lose half your Stratagems as they invariably work with Questoris Knights, or those with specific weapons. Take away any other Knightly houses and I was left with just on page of Stratagems to choose from! I gave the Lancer Land Strider to add 2" to his move and the Warglaives too. He also had the Sainted Ion Armour for a 2+ save!

Otty brought 2 Broods of Genestealers [one maxxed out], a Broodlord, a Neurothrope and 6 Hive Guard. Otty got first turn, moved the Neurothrope into the crater and the Hive Guard into range of the nearest Warglaive. The fired off two salvoes, taking it down to just 2 wounds

Big Brood advanced, little brood conga'd to secure objectives. No combat this turn but the next turn?

The Lancer advanced, [14" move +2" Land Strider + 2D6" Advance!] so he was really up in their grill first turn. The shock lance put a couple of wounds on the Neurothrope and the charge managed to catch both it and the Hive Guard. I did a lance strike and Titanic Foot Stomp each on both units. I think I killed two Hive Guard but the Neuro remained intact.

The wounded Warglaive held an objective, it's twin managed to kill 1 Genestealer with its Thermal Lance and hold the other.

Genestealers sought revenge for the loss of their pal.

Neurothrope smoted the other Warglaive killing it [he had an auspicious first game].

The Neurothrope was very pleased with itself! He even healed his 2 wounds back with a stratagem.

Stealers surrounded the other Warglaive

And ripped it to pieces with 80 attacks, hitting on 2s, wounding 5/6s re-rolling 1s [Gorgon]. Neither blew up either, just collapsing in on themselves.

In retaliation the Lancer fell back, shot the Neurothope 2 wounds again then stomped all over the Hive Guard! S8 on Titanic feet is awesome!

Can't recall how the Neurothrope died, maybe the shock lance did more than the 2 damage? The Broodlord did 6 Smite wounds on the Lancer though as the small Stealer brood closed in.

I couldn't kill the squad though, one survived to secure the objective while the Lancer was on 19 wounds.

Remaining Stealers and Broodlord arrived.

The Broodlord itself very brave to get within range of my lance, but after the massive Smite last turn took psychic feedback with double 1 perils for two wounds on itself. They could only put 4 wounds on me, keeping me within the top tier [House Hawkshroud looking pretty awesome right now]

In return I kebabed the Broodlord and stomped the lone Stealer [for Blood Points] and then stomped a couple from the big brood.

The end game, for honour and curiosity. Otty had won with objectives it was just a matter of seeing who would kill who first. With Fall Back, shooting and attack the Genestealer still managed to knock me down to the bottom tier. This made it increasingly difficult to land stomps.

But I thinned the brood, reducing their claw attacks.

But not enough as they sliced through my armour and the Lancer too fell without fanfare or explosion.

The conclusion - Land Strider is probably unnecessary in this force - they're pretty fast anyway. +1 attacks is more useful as an extra stomp would have made all the difference against the Stealers/Hive Guard. Not much I can say about the Warglaives, perhaps learn not to 'sell them cheaply'. Hopefully at DT my pairings will provide numbers to hold objectives instead of half my army standing around doing nothing until they were swamped!

It does show how effective a large blob of Stealers can be - they killed a Warglaive without loss and took the Lancer down nearly 600pts and they were still alive! Anyway, bring on Saturday!

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1750pts battle report - Genestealer Cult & Iron Hands v Death Guard & Ad Mech - game 1

Double Trouble 3 and Alex From the Fang's doubles tournament replacing Blog Wars. 875pts with random pairings but all match-ups are Battle Brothers. Once again my recollection is pretty hazy so for the most part enjoy the pictures, the commentary will be secondary ;)

I'm running my Genestealer Cult for the first time ever. I've got a Patriarch and 12 Genestealers, a Primus, 4 Abberants [2 picks & 2 hammers], 10 Acolytes, 11 Neophytes [with Grenade Launcher], 10 Neophytes [with Grenade Launcher] and my 2 Scout Sentinels [with Heavy Flamers and Chainswords].

I'm paired with John Purves and his Iron Hands - 2 Redemptor Dreads, 2 Venerable Dreads and 2 Techmarines to keep them healthy. The opposite side was Dave Irving [who I played at DT2] with Ad-Mech and Matty Longmore [who I played with at DT2] running Death Guard. Here was our table setup with some pretty decent terrain thanks to Element Games North West Gaming Centre.

I set up the Patriarch and Purestrains in ambush, the Primus and Aberrants also hiding together and the Acolytes too. This left me with the two squads of Neophytes to screen objectives and board control while John had his Venerable Dreadnoughts sit on our objectives and Redemptors prepare to push forward. Lastly my Sentinels prepared to Scout forwards to capture the objective behind the rock outcrop.

Unfortunately Dave and Matty got to do their Scout move first and the Dragoons captured the first objective before the game had even begun. They were going first but we stole the initiative though! The Sentinels went in for the kill, but their Heavy Flamers were ineffective.

Their Sentinel Chainswords even more so. Seriously they are not worth the 2 points, why do the Sentinels only have 1 attack? Surely 2 or 3 for something that size? Anyway, they did nothing and one of them was struck down but he blew up causing a Mortal Wound on the Dragoon and the remaining Sentinel. By the close of turn 1 we'd only managed to capture 2 objectives, and our other shooting had been pretty ineffective. 

In return Dave and Matty managed to blast one Redemptor to pieces with massed fire from the Kastellans and Kataphrons, plus the Blight Hauler.

The Dragoons continued to attack the last Sentinel and killed it, again it exploded in a ball of flames. I was beginning to think the Cult had jury-rigged it to blow up [that would be a cool stratagem, apparently Nurgle has something similar]. DG & AdMec turn one score 3 VPs.

My ambushes turn 2, the Aberrants and Primus arrive 9"+D6", getting a 4 so only 5" away from the Poxwalkers holding an objective 

I was struggling to fit the Genestealers in, with them coming in alongside the Dragoons but still 9" away.

Acolytes also appeared behind enemy lines, pincer manoeuvre for the Poxwalkers but out of range of Skitarii who get to overwatch things from reserve within 12"! I charged both my units in. As you can see the Poxwalkers had two lines double stacked but the Aberrants in particular were in luck as I got to employ Nick Nanavanti's consolidate tactics because you can see that they were quite spaced apart, with room for their bases to slip through, get past that first line and attack the back line, getting closer to the objective.

Five Poxwalkers remained at the end, which was when I found out the Primus buffed those Cult units within 6", something I would not forget afterwards but would have possibly made a difference in wiping out this unit. However, we scored 4 VPs this turn, with the Redemptor holding the other objective.

Unfortunately he was left exposed to the Blighthauler and was destroyed, together with support fir from half of one of the Kastellans, their robotic gaze swinging round to add 1.5 robot's worth of shooting at my Genestealers.

The Stealers were wiped out, serves them right for not making their charges on the Dragoons. The melee in the top was interrupted with the Poxwalkers killing a few Acolytes and replenishing their numbers. I would subsequently wipe them out and send the remaining Acolytes after the Skitarii Snipers in the hills and the Aberrants toward the last Kastellan, I think his twin destroyed by the Venerable Dreadnought. The Primus had to stay behind to hold the objective, meaning he couldn't give his buff. I think John used the last CP to reroll and kill the Kastellan which meant when my Aberrants go 4 for a 5" charge they had no options but to remain stranded and suffer destruction from the shooting of the Kastellan.

I'd retreated my Neophytes back to hold one objective while the others held the one the last Venerable Dreadnought had been shot off. Unfortunately Typhus made a 10" charge, he killed a lot of them but they held on for 2 turns I think, thanks to some lucky morale rolls. The Blighthauler, having wiped out the remaining Techmarines then went for the other Neopyhtes.

With the Aberrants gone, the Acolytes exposed after killing the Skitarii and the Primus on his own it did not take much for the Kastellan to eradicate the threat in their own deployment zone.

Typhus's Terminator bodyguards finally caught up to him and their foul infections spread through the Neophytes wiping them out too and finally capturing the objective.

This left us tabled and Dave and Matty in control of the centre of the board. Typhus had been a little overzealous, I think Dave forgot the game ends immediately meaning they lost the chance to hold the objectives for longer and score more points, unless he did know in which case he was playing fluffy instead of trying to rack up points for the overall win. 

But the game ended and somehow we'd actually won on VPs 13 to 12. Obviously we lost on Blood Points, I'm not even sure how many we killed, I forgot to take a picture of my scoresheet. Either way it was a good game, John had to take a lot of shooting while I sat off the board and sadly did not weather the firepower as well as Iron Hands are renowned for.

John, Matty, 40kaddict, David

Still, good game, great people, everything Double Trouble stands for.

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