NMTBW Game 1 - 2000pts battle report - Dark Angels v Orks

Nevermind the Blog Wars, Alex From the Fangs return to full scale singles tournaments, the friendliest of tournaments and the 7th event I've attended that Alex has organised [he'll start to think I'm stalking him next]. First game was with Tom Kendrick and his Orks. Apparently it was his second tournament as well.

The low down:

•  Cleanse and Capture [3 objectives per turn]
•  Blood Points
• Dawn of War deployment
• I went second

The initial deployment, cover was sparse unfortunately, aside from the four ruins there was only the Ork mudbath for me to hide my scouts in on top of an objective [just in case it popped up in my Maelstrom].

They were pretty close to all these Orks and Ghazgkhull too, which was intimidating. He had these two  big mobs of Boyz, a Weirdboy, Painboy, Ghazgkhull, Lootas, and an Ork Nob on a bike.

On  my left he also had another mob of Boyz and a Weirdboy, two big blasta guns [or whatever] on the tower, a Battle Wagon full of Tank Busters, and two Dakka Jets, one on each flank.

I had the Black Knights, Devastators and Land Speeder Typhoon [in the ruin] on the left flank to try and deal with them, while my Knight held the centre...

Tom's first turn and naturally everything moved up with the Dakka Jets zooming forward. The right Dakka Jet managed to rip apart my Ravenwing Bike Squad, leaving just my Plasma Gun toting biker alive.

The left flank moved forward too.

Then the Weird Boy cast 'da jump' and flung 20-30 Ork Boyz right up in the face of my Black Knights. The Dakka Jet, big weapons and Tank Buster blasted all their worth at the Imperial Knight, stripping  a load of wounds off it thanks to some pretty appalling dice rolls on my saving throws. But by the end of turn 1 Tom had failed to score any VPs.

With limited experience I had no idea if charging the Boyz with my Black Knights was sensible or suicide. But killing a fair few with Plasma Talons helped reduce the overwhelming numbers of greenskins. The Knight went for the Battle Wagon, by this stage just on 5 wounds [whether from the previous round or after some lucky tankbuster overwatch], but he was pretty damaged.

My Dark Talon had dropped it's Stasis Bomb on the big blob and I moved the remaining Ravenwing bike, Librarian and Techmarine to support the Scouts as I believe Tom needed to score that objective. At some point I kick myself for not shooting the Scouts at Ghazgkhull, Toms says to go ahead but I say no it's too late now we've moved into the assault phase. About five minutes later I suddenly realise I didn't shoot with the Dark Talon either. Thanks to dropping the Stasis Bomb in the movement phase I'd just figured I'd done it. But 24 Bolter shots on that mob of Boyz would have come in real handy, not to mention the Rift Cannon on the Dakkajet! You live and learn

The end of the turn and the Orks suffered so much damage the failed their morale and amazingly the Ravenwing had seen them all off. Meanwhile the Knight is now on three wounds.

The Dakka jet zooms past the ruins.

His partner coming in from the right for a side by side pass. The Battle Wagon falls back, meaning the Tankbusters thankfully can't shoot the Knight but opens it up to attack from the weapons platform, that promptly whiff!

Boyz line up on my spirited but outnumbered defence of the mudbath jacuzzi.

And get swamped, in both senses of the word. The Ravenwing Biker gets chopped down and all but the Scout Sergeant. Techmarine and Librarian survive but not enough bodies to stop the Orks claiming the objective which thanks to another objective scored meant Tom walked away with 4Vps this turn!

Tactical Squad with Flamer move up to support the remaining guys in the mudbath.

My Black Knights move up to secure an objective at the base of the ruins and the Dark Talon Zooms over. Shooting at the Battle Wagon destroys it.

The Tank Busters now out in the open among the smoking wreckage of their Battle Wagon.

Moar shooting at the weapons in the towers.

Lots of shooting at the Dakkajets but I can only reduce them to 2 and 4 wounds, which still gets me half Blood Points each, but I was close to getting full points on both.

With the Battle Wagon gone the Knight charges the big mob of Boyz, stomping with his Titanic Feet. I'm not sure how it ended up, but I think his feet were a lot greener by the end of it.

A big melee took place in the mudbath, making it more a bloodbath. No idea how it ended up either but ultimately I scored 2 VPs this turn. The we ran out of time I think.

This was a really great game with Tom and felt tactical and unlike many of the 8th edition games I've played so far. I lost on VPs 4-2 but somehow won on Blood Points killing 700pts+ compared to losing just 532. I must kick myself for not shooting the Dark Talon, he might have had a decisive impact on the game with his 24 shots but winning on Blood Points was a 'win' for me. I surprised myself by thinking that was all I needed to consider the whole event a success regardless of what was yet to come!

On to game 2...

If you're interested in any more of my Battle Reports, point your cogitators here: www.40kaddict.uk/p/battle-reports.html

Terrain is everything - 'Brian the Sewer Vent'

You all know I like terrain, but there is one particular piece of scratchbuilt terrain I'm partiuclarly fond of and recently I discovered it pride of place on the Catachan Jungle Fighters box. Now I've contacted GW a couple of times for more information. If they had any background information on it, who built it, when it was built, if there was a tutorial in White Dwarf showing it’s construction? I’ve always been interested to know what it’s function is ‘fluff-wise’, what’s the story behind it?

But the responses, although pertinent have never answered any of those questions. On a whim I decided to post again on the Warhammer 40,000 Facebook Group and while I was at it showcase where it's snuck into the background of normal army shots.

As I kept on posting I got a little giddy with the hope of finding what its name was and instead decided to seize the initiative, rolled a '6' and called it 'Brian the Sewer Vent'.

Which then prompted me to set up a Brian the Sewer Vent Facebook page, as you do!

But then the GW Community Team responded with the absolute best answer EVER!

There's much more in the comments worth reading.

And I then shared it among some of the other 40k and terrain groups which means the Brian the Sewer Vent Facebook Page has over 170 followers!

This is a prime example of the new GW Community engagement and I absolutely love it. I'm also going to enjoy playign around with Facebook to collate more sightings of Brian over the years. It appears in the grimdark 41st millennium there's not only WAR, but a few laughs too ;)

2000pts battle report - Dark Angels v Astra Militarum

In preparation for Nevermind the Blog Wars, Ben and I had a practice game with our respective lists. My Dark Angels versus Ben's Astra Militarum plus Inquisition Warband. Ben got to choose deployment and opted for Hammer and Anvil but I finished deplying first which allowed me to go first [although we did roll off

Ben had a huge amount of firepower arrayed against me but for some reason I was most terrified of the Hellhound... go figure?

Those sneaky Ratlings appearing at the back of my DZ were an unexpected problem as well.

A problem that was easily solved thanks to my Land Speeder and the Tactical squad holding the objective. What they didn't kill broke and ran scoring First Blood. The Knight crashed through the ruined farm to use the bulk of the church to obscure it from the Leman Russ's

Dark Talon sped up the board, dropped it's Stasis Bomb on a unit of Guard killing a fair few while it's other weapons wreaked havoc on the remainder and Rift Cannon did some damage on a tank. I ended the turn with 5VPs because I'd got Supremacy [3 objectives] and Area Denial [nto to have anyone within 12" of the board centre - so easy first turn I did offer to put it back]

Ben's turn 1 and his Crusaders went for the Scouts.

It runed out the Knight hadn't been quite as effective at hiding as it hoped.

The Russ's could just about see him.

With the Dark Talon lined up in front of quite the array of anti-aircraft weaponry it suffered significant damage left smoking in the sky on just one wound. Still a threat Ben decided to let his Commissar take a potshot with his Bolt Pistol. There was a moment when I wondered was that such a good idea having just read Nick Throwers article on blessings in disguise. So he shot, managed to hit the damaged but still fast moving target, managed to get the wound and I typically failed the armour save but then this was the roll to explode!

BOOM! Mortal wounds all round.

With the Leman Russ trained their guns on the Knight.

With additional supporting fire from the Vendetta.

CRUNCH! The Knight collapsed in on itself, luckily not exploding next to all those Tactical Marines. The Wyverns were also particularly effective at culling many of the Ravenwing Black Knights

The Crusaders get into assault with the scouts and while I'm momentarily excited at my scouts extra attacks thanks to their combat knife.

Before they're wiped out by the Crusaders powers swords. They pile into the church and hold the objective for 1VP

With just my Ravenwing Apothecary left from the Black Knights he charges the remainign guard unit.

I'm not sure what else happened this turn, my forces were decimated, I think my dice rolling started to give up but I came away with another VP.

Ben threw his Psyker and Commissar at the Apothecary.

Their combined attacks sufficient to pull down the Medic who had 4 wounds remaining!

Despite my best efforts the Hellhound still remianed on the board and by the end of the turn Ben had scored 4 VPs and Line Breaker. So by turn 2 it was after midnight and I called it.

Ben had effectively tabled me, he'd won on Blood Points, I had very little left to counter him. It was 7:6 in VPs but he would have easily overtaken me in subsequent turns as I didn't have the cards or the man-power to score them. Funnily enough though, Ben was more disappointed than I was. The same issue remains - 8th is too brutal. Ben disliked Apocalypse because of that first turn wholesale cull of units. I think he felt a bit devastated when I took out the Ratlings and a chunk of Guardsmen, but compare that to the Knight, Dark Talon and most of my Elite Ravenwing. He may not have suffered those loses but he realised just how disheartening it can be to be on the receiving end.

Anyway, it is what it is, I'm thinking that perhaps getting into combat as soon as possible might be the best tactic, but even so I'm not sure that was possible in this scenario. It did make me realise that the Hammer and Anvil deployment was potentially the cause of my downfall >24" to close with the enemy was just too much, leaving me stranded and exposed to the weight of fire set against me. I'll be really interested to see how his amry fairs against the likes of Guilliman or Mortarion but all the tactics, orders and stratagems made his shooting devastating! I'll just enjoy the bottom tables again ;)

Armies on Parade 2017 - Part 2 - Deathwatch Vs Genestealer Cult

Games Workshop Southport let me set up Friday night and it's the first time I'd got all of them on the board together.

I decided at the last minute to use one of my 'man-made hills' - the Mercury Plateau as something for the Deathwatch to stand on and defend.

I also plugged in the 40k Dawn of War Plasma Generator as well.

I'm really pleased with the final result I think I could have thrown more Stealers at it but it might have been too much.

The guys at the store didn't hold out much hope for Kill Team Cassius but who knows.

I'll post up some pics of the other entries when I'm there later on.