Tournament: Battleforge Games 2-09-08

I played in the first Battleforge 40k Hobby Tournament last weekend and did pretty well without actually placing. I think I might have come in around 4th of 17 total players with two wins and a loss. It was a good mix, with plenty of marines (several pre-heresy armies), imperial guard, eldar, chaos, and even one ork army. There were only seven or so fully painted armies, not as many as I’d hoped to see, but maybe word will get around and more will show up next time. I brought the latest incarnation of my Space Wolves army, including two new scout models I had painted up over the last couple of evenings. As usual Brandon ran a great tournament, and I had three interesting games, probably rolling a little too well in each. Overall, the wolves performed a lot better than I had expected. The characters all did well in assault, except maybe in the third round due to user error, and the reserve elements usually managed to pour out some good shooting upon landing and survive long enough to earn their expensive asses back. The Land Raider shot and transported well, and the bikes knocked out some important targets on cue. The Vindicator got a few kills but wasn’t ever resilient enough for my taste. I’ll be dropping it for a couple of melta/flamer land speeders at the next tournament. Here’s the list I used:

Rune Priest – frost blade, runic staff, chooser of the slain, wolf pelt, frag grenades, belt of russ

Wolf Guard Battle Leader – frost blade, bolt pistol, wolf pelt, frag grenades

Wolf Guard Battle Leader – lightning claws, terminator armor, wolf pelt
Wolf Guard Bodyguard – 2 combiplasmas, 2 assault cannons, 3 power weapons, 1 power fist
Drop Pod

6 Wolf Scouts – meltagun, 2 plasma pistols, 2 power weapons, frag grenades

9 Grey Hunters – 7 bolters/ccw, 1 plasma pistol/ccw, 1 plasma gun
Wolf Guard Leader – power fist, bolter, wolf pelt
Drop Pod

9 Grey Hunters – 7 bolters/ccw, 1 plasma pistol/ccw, 1 plasma gun
Wolf Guard Leader – power fist, bolter, wolf pelt
Drop Pod

8 Blood Claws

2 Attack Bikes – multimeltas

Land Raider

Vindicator – power of the machine spirit, extra armor, smoke launchers

Game 1 – Pre-Heresy Emperor’s Children

For the first round I drew the bye and faced off against Brandon’s mean pink Chillens. I think this was the first game I’ve ever played against him when he wasn’t fielding his uber ass-can army. Saturday his force consisted of a jump-pack Epistolary with FotA and FoD, a jump-pack Master, a terminator squad in a drop pod, three 8-man las/plas tac squads with rhinos, a landspeeder with a multimelta, two dev squads with four lascannons and four heavy bolters, and a whirlwind. The primary objective was table quarters, and the secondary and tertiary were basically recon and assassinate. No victory points. He more or less played from a static gunline, laying in wait for my deep strikers and taking shots at my Land Raider as it tried to cross the battlefield. My scouts came in from his back right edge, pounced on one of his tac squads and proceeded to maul them unmercifully, making hella 4+ saves. Afterwards they segued into a second tac squad but were finally beat down. At the same time, my terminators dropped in behind the Master on his left side and opened up with assault cannons, killing him outright in the first blast. Secondary objective accomplished. Seeking revenge, his librarian came over to assist, handily breaking my terminator squad with fear of darkness, and escorted them away for a couple of turns. Run, little weenie wolves! When his own terminators dropped in nearby to finish them off, they got shot up themselves with combiplasmas for their trouble. Meanwhile, the blood claws and accompanying HQ badasses got pinned down for a couple of turns on my far left after he penetrated the Land Raider with his land speeder’s multimelta. Fortunately, the hit only destroyed one of the tank’s lascannons, and after the blood claws tackled the land speeder to the ground, they jumped back in the tank and continued their approach toward his right flank, avenging my dead scouts and taking care of the recon objective. On my own right side, the Vindicator was destroyed early on by his lascannon dev squad, but the attack bikes survived for quite a while and eventually reduced the librarian to a man-sized heap of melted slag. Since it was the bye, I automatically earned the primary objective (though I still accomplished it), and with the second and third objectives I went into the second round with full points. Space Wolves win.

Game 2 – Pre-Heresy Alpha Legion

My second game was on the ice board playing against Aventine's purple people eaters. The primary objective was to capture the hill terrain pieces, the secondary was field of battle with victory points dictating the winner, and the third was to destroy the enemy’s most expensive unit. To the best of my recollection, Chris had a command squad with two tank-hunting lascannons, a demonhunters inquisitor with the Emperor’s tarot and a psycannon, a vindicare assassin, a techmarine with a signum, a big cc-oriented veteran squad on foot, a small sniper/rocket scout squad, three melta/missile tactical squads, two melta/flamer landspeeders, and two predator destructors. The Rune Priest's chooser of the slain kept most of his infiltrators at bay, which was nice. He set up a big gun line with the veterans in the rear for the necessary counter-assault. I kept the Land Raider hanging out behind the hill on my right side, taking potshots across the field, and eventually knocked down a land speeder and a predator. The blood claws and rune priest occupied the hill there, staying deep enough in cover to be out of sight from his shooting. I was going to move up the raider and take the center at the end, but one of his tank hunters finally immobilized it in the fifth turn. Having had poor luck splitting the main army body before, I decided to concentrate on the left-side hill in his deployment zone and threw the rest of my army at it, wiping out the scouts, inquisitor, land speeder, one and a half tac squads, and most of a veteran squad, with about 50% casualties of my own in the process. However, at some point later I made the mistake of moving the surviving terminators to the edge of cover and they were finished off, costing me a ton of VPs for fairly little in return. He won the primary objective by holding his single hill and contesting both of mine by sidling up to them in the 6th turn with his land speeder and predator, perhaps a little cheesy, but I would have done the same thing in his place (and soon will with my own little jets!). I had killed or broken quite a bit of his army, but he had still earned more VPs from inflicting lighter casualties on my pricier units (something like 800 to my 600) and took the secondary objective as well. Killing off one of his tac squads did earn me the tertiary objective, so the final score was 17 to 3. One or both of us may have gotten some bonus points, too, but I don't remember. Alpha Legion wins.

Game 3 - Chaos

* File Accidentally Deleted by Servodolt *

In holding with a now time-honored 40kology tradition, I forgot to get a photo of the third game against Joe's Slaanesh-themed chaos force. He had a demon prince with lash, a greater demon, a lord with lightning claws, a big squad of possessed, two squads of noise marines, another squad of chaos marines, a big squad of lesser demons, a big squad of raptors, and a multi-melta dreadnought. This game was a little weird, we hadn't played before and I don't know if our styles were exactly matched, but the mood was tense at times. I may have ticked him off earlier in the day when I interjected a question/comment on a rule usage in his second game after mis-eavesdropping. I don't appreciate it either when people butt into my tournament games, but it's hard sometimes when you think you hear something flagrant. With strangers, it's probably best to just keep your mouth shut if it's not your own game. Anyway, the primary objective was victory points, with extra points for table quarters, the possession of which also determining the winner of the tertiary objective. The secondary objective was "suicide squad," where we both nominated one suicide unit and could earn the objective if they were destroyed in the battle. I missed seeing his roll for the possessed squad's ability; he said later that it had come up power weapons, but it was of little consequence in the end. He set up the noise and standard marines on his right side, with the raptors and more noisemarines in the middle, and the possessed and dreadnought on his left. Going second, I rolled up his right side with my Raider, Vindicator, and bikes, deploying the HQs and blood claws halfway up the table. Unfortunately for me, I goofed and forgot to cast Stormcaller - it would have come in damn handy in the subsequent assault. He counter-attacked with the dreadnought, thankfully missing the Land Raider at close range with the multimelta, as well as the daemonettes, who charged into the blood claws and characters. In return, the attack bikes moved up and destroyed the dreadnought with melta fire. Just as my blood claws started to fight the lesser demons back, his possessed jumped into the fray and finished them all off, including both HQs. The Vindicator and Land Raider managed to survive long enough to kill the demon prince with some clutch shooting, but were eventually destroyed. Most of my reserves came in early. The scouts emerged from his deployment edge, shooting up some noise marines to good effect, and I brought the terminators and grey hunters in on the left side of the table to attack his two marine squads advancing over there. In the fourth turn, the greater demon emerged and destroyed my terminators before following up into my second squad of grey hunters, who had themselves just broken his big raptor squad off the table. After several rounds of intense combat, where chainsword and powerfist dueled artfully with whipped tail and spikey boob, the Keeper of Secrets and grey hunters wiped each other out. The first unit of grey hunters dealt heavy casualties on their targets, reducing two marine squads to a man and breaking one of them off of the board. Some especially poor rolling on his part in the last two turns shifted the game strongly in my favor, and I took the primary and tertiary objective by capturing two quarters to his one, as well as a couple of extra bonus points for my suicide squad surviving and (I think) getting a unit into his deployment zone. Neither of our suicide squads were destroyed, so noone got the secondary objective. Space Wolves win.