1500pts battle report - Dark Angels & Blood Angels v Deathwatch & Eldar - game 2

Game 2 and I'm paired with Matty Longmore and his Blood Angels and we're facing the Deathwatch and Eldar pair of Danny Evison and James Maynard. Unfortunately I've little detail about what everyone took. Danny had a Warp Hunter, two Hornets and a load of Jetbikes and Jame's Deathwatch were in a lot of pods. They conferred quite a lot at the beginning of the game which I was reasonably pleased about because I thought we were on a road to a hiding anyway so the longer it was delayed the better. They eventually decided we should set up first, at least that's what I thought, and that given how we'd been handed to go first I was damned if I'd let them dictate the play like that and so I suggested to Matty we deploy first with a view to go second as the rules dictate. Actually it turned out they had deployed first and elected to go second already - they just had nothing to deploy as the drop-pods were in orbit and arrived in their turn 1!

Regardless, with nothing on the board Matty and I could only play the objectives we picked [sadly I didn't record what we achieved but I know the VPs per turn]. Facing an empty board I think we must have captured and objective and held another one [my Tactical Squad and Matty's Veterans/Honour Guard (?) on objective 6]- using our drop pods for board control. We scored 2 VPs this turn.

James drop pod arrived, and his Frag Cannons tore through my Ravenwing despite the bolstered ruins they occupied. Not much else happened and they scored no points.

Swift vengeance came in the form of Matty's Dreadnought and my Dark Talon, removing the Deathwatch from existence. We managed to score another 4 VPs this turn, I recall one objective was to get one unit each into our opponents DZ. We'd both failed our run moves in the previous turn to reach their zone with our drop pod occupants but this turn we made it for 2 VPs and careful conga lining meant they were still in range of their objectives to score another 2 for 4 this turn.

D&J's turn 2 and two lone Assault Deathwatch arrived, the other is behind the hill in the second shot. Half the Hornets and Jetbikes showed up with the Warp Hunter but didn't do a huge amount of damage as far as I can tell. They tried to kill off my Tactical Squad but 2 survived.

Bizarrely, despite being completely LoS blocked by the hill James did move him into cover and failed his dangerous terrain test and then armour save. Danny couldn't believe he'd done it as there was no need and I said to forget about it as it was a moment of madness and put him back on the board - Double trouble is that kind of event in my book. Anyway they scored 2VPs that turn I think from capturing the objective from my Tac Squad.

Our turn three and fate handed us a perfect selection of cards to score 5 VPs if we managed to get all our ducks in a row. There was hold objective a couple of hold objectives and score 2 VPs if the other force holds 1 so Matty's Blood Angels needed to be on objective 6 to double up on the two named number objectives I was holding, probably my Land Speeders being one of them.

My Flyer zoomed in to target the bikes, I got greedy and the Rift Cannon was placed on the Deathwatch, killing one but meaning the remainder would get a cover save from the rock against his Hurricane Bolters.

Perhaps I should have taken out the Jetbikes, although they all seemed to have survived anyway. The Dreadnought smashed through the Warp Hunter. We come to tot up the scores and notice that Matty's veterans have moved off objective 6 into cover meaning we don't double up but thankfully spot his razorback holding Obj 1 and we end the turn with the 5 VPs.

Part of our mission was to score Obj 4 which I thought required me to kill the Deathwatch but my Scouts were ObSec so captured that regardless. Unfortunately they were then exposed to the two Assault marines.

Who had to end their control of the objective.

And cut through them with ease to recapture and score the 2 VPs

One of the Hornets managed to flank my Speeders but his shooting was well off.

I dunno what was happening here.

I dunno what was happening here this pic may be out of sync.

The last of the Tactical squad headed for the drop pod, I think he was eventually gunned down

I had Obj 5 which was behind this hill so I zoomed the Talon over in an attempt to capture it from the lone marine.

My Speeders put an end to the Hornet. We finished turn 4 with another 2 VPs.

D&J score another 2 VPs

The second Hornet tries to achieve what the first failed to do but again his shooting is comical and ultimately pays the same price as the Land Speeders take their second scalp! I thought Danny was going to evict his dice from the building at this point ;)

My Dark Talon gets into position and we score 4 VPs. Somehow I don't have any more pictures but D&J score 4 also to make it 17- 10 at turn 5.

We rolled for turn 6 and it continues, we score another 3 VPs, I think from individual objectives and D&J score none. Turn 7 happens and we rack up another 2 VPs and D&J finish strongly with 8 VPs in one turn! The final score was 22-18 and we did 1055 Blood Points.

Matty, myself, Danny and James

Another great game, highly tactical and quite a surprise to come out on top. As much as I see the wisdom in leaving a lot of you force off the board it did give Matty and I the opportunity to control the battlefield and get up a healthy lead. I've played a fair few Maelstrom games were despite this advantage loss of troops later on has lost me the game but I think it's always better to get a head start than chase from behind. Their 8pt turn 7 shows how that's possible but that was just lucky they got the 7th turn and even then a win was impossible. So, 2 wins, a lot of VPs and some considerable kill points - how well could I actually do in DT2?! Lets find out in game 3.

1500pts battle report - Dark Angels & Necrons v Oks & Custodes! - game 1

Double Trouble 2 and Alex From the Fang's doubles tournament replacing Blog Wars. 750pts with random pairings but all match-ups are Battle Brothers. Now in a weird twist of fate Ben and I get paired up. Once again my recollection is pretty hazy so for the most part enjoy the pictures, the commentary will be secondary ;)

I'm running a Techmarine, 5 Sniper Scouts with camo cloaks, a 5 man Tactical squad with flamer and Deathwind Drop Pod, 6 Ravenwing bikes with 2 Plasma Guns, 2 Typhoon Land Speeders and my Dark Talon

We were up  against Owen Brignall with his Custodes and Ian Connolly and his Orks. Owen's army amounted 11 models I think, here's 6 of them.

Ian's Orks were part of a Top Gun conversion, this was their Trukk

and this was their Battle Wagon containing Badruk's Flash Gitz Formation.

My Warlord Trait gave us 3 units to Infiltrate, Ben's was 3 enemy units pinning [but we forgot]. My Ravenwing held the left flank.

Snipers and Speeder in our centre-left ruins, Necron Warriors hold the centre-right.

Ben was our sweeping right flank, infiltrating with my Trait - C'tan and Warriors in the bolstered ruins

Owen and Ian went first, advancing.

Badruk gets out to start shooting by the end of their turn they've scored 1VP.

My Drop Pod lands in Badruk's face but the C'Tan does some pretty brutal attack that takes a fair few Orks out of the equation.

My Bikes skirt round the hill, they're going to get punished by the Custode's Grav Tank but at least it'll be kept occupied.

Speeders reposition to get good firing arcs on the Trukk.

It goes down in flames, taking a few Orks with it.

Th Flashgitz suffer under the wight of fire.

We finish the turn with 4 VPs having 2 of our units from each force in our deployment zone and controlling three objectives. Ian and Owen's turn leaves my Ravenwing reduced to two bikes who break and run and my Land Speeder with 1 hull damage, but they score no VPs this turn.

Our turn 2 and the Dark Talon arrives to punish the Custodes and Flashgitz in the centre.

Necron Warriors throw a load of firepower at the Custodes, whittling away a wound here and there.

My 2 bikes recover and I turbo-boost them into the ruins next to the Grav Tank. Actually it might have been three bikes and one dies as it goes into 'dangerous terrain'. We score another 2 VPs for holding objective 1 and another force hold another objective.

The Grav Tank flanks my bikes to get a bead on them behind the wall. 

And takes them down. Although a little disappointed the tank had got the angle on them I'd purposely put them in position to draw fire, or cause the tank to respond to them somehow, so it wouldn't focus on anything else, it worked just a little too well. They score 3VPs this turn.

I may have elected to hover the Dark Talon so I could get some shooting on the Custodes. I think it was pretty ineffective and so didn't justify the target now firmly on his hovering back. But one Custode was killed, possibly from Heavy Bolters on my Typhoons.

A further Custode was felled by the Necrons. Meanwhile over on Baruk's side the Flayed Ones rampaged through his Flashgitz and Scarabs destroyed the Battle Wagon with ease [or the other way round, either way it was pretty painless, for us]. We came away with 5 VPs this turn [2 for holding 2 objectives and twice as many as our opponent, 2 for objective 4 and the other force hold an objective and 1 for one of our units in their deployment zone]/

The Grav Tank re-positioned and looks to have taken out the Dark Talon.

So much for hovering. They rack up another 3 VPs, but what's that just on the right of the picture - Scarabs

Who manage to eat the Grav Tank to pieces, perhaps with a little help from my Land Speeders? We score a VP for holding objective 2.

Warriors and Canoptek Spyder get into melee with the last of the Custodes.

But it does not end well as he cuts threw them all with ease. The C'tan advances to finish him the Flayed Ones secure the enemy DZ. Unfortunately for the guys they score no points in turn 5

My Speeder's re-deploy to add support.

The C'tan makes it into combat.

And we could not have planned it better as the two Warlord's square up.

Chipping away at each other of the next three round of combat we score 6 VPs for holding two objective for two consecutive turns. The other guys score nothing as we go into turn 6 and then we score a final VP for controlling obj 5. The Custodes Champion finally succumbs to the C'tan's scythe, victory is ours.

Here's our scores - 19-7 and with the loss of the Custodes we unfortunately tabled Owen and Ian but I think they had a good time regardless.

At least it looks like they had a good time. Ben and I agreed that Custodes were pretty tough nuts to crack with their high save and 2 wounds. They took so much fire and yet still kept strong. However, with only 10 of them every loss was painful for Owen and poor Ian's Flashgitz just couldn't hold back the Flayed Ones who are so brutal.

Ben, myself, Ian, Owen

On to game 2...