40K Conquest tournament - Battle for Helle's Reach

On the edge of the Traxis sector lies a series of war-torn worlds known by the men and women of the Astra Militarum stationed there as Helle's Front. Although not rich in resources or population (or biomass) whichever faction controls these systems will be in a key position of striking at several nearby tactically significant systems. 

In order to get my local players back into playing 40K Conquest I have started organising a monthly casual event. Tonight we managed to get all six of us local peeps together to fight over Helle's Front.

Warlord Breakdown:
Broderick Worr - 2
The Swarmlord - 2
Ragnar Blackmane - 1
Nazdreg  - 1

Final Scores:
1st: Luke Townsend  (AM - Broderick Worr) - 3-0-0
2nd: Darren Davis (SM - Ragnar Blackmane) - 2-0-1
3rd: Steve Osbourne (Tyr - The Swarmlord) - 2-0-1
4th: Colin Goodman (Orks - Nazdreg) - 1-0-2
5th: Matt Gibson (AM - Broderick Worr) - 1-0-2
6th: Brian White (Tyr - The Swarmlord) - 0-0-3

My first match was against Darren Davis and this was a very tough game. I was getting resources but not the cards to spend them on. He quickly got some space wolves down and first turn started his warlord hunt against my Nazdreg. Despite both our warlords having a major scrap which I thought I was going to win, he turned the tables and forced me into a defensive game that I wasn't prepared for. I got a little flustered I think as before I knew it he had secured three planets and won.

The second game pitted me against Brian White and his Swarmlord deck. Like myself, Brian is a very casual player and we had a really good fun game. He felt a bit down I think as he had chosen what he felt was the wrong synapse unit (savage warrior prime) and he found his deck wasn't working as he wanted it to. My deck on the other hand, kicked off fantastically well and managed to score me my only win of the night.

My final opponent was Luke Townsend who is already a top notch tournament player so I never held out any hope of winning this game. He'd been at an X-Wing tournament earlier in the day so was fairly tired which I thought might give me an advantage. I managed to gain command across the board on the first turn but in subsequent turns he was able to put down more and more units than I was able to compensate for. I had real trouble deciding where to deploy units and where my warlord needed to go. In the end the game came down to him bloodying and then defeating my warlord with some very hard hitting guardsmen!

Luke's winning deck was:

Total Cards: (50)

Warlord:
1x Broderick Worr (Decree of Ruin)

Army Unit: (29)
4x Anxious Infantry Platoon (Decree of Ruin)
2x Void Pirate (Core Set)
2x Cadian Mortar Squad (Core Set)
2x Sanctioned Psyker (Core Set)
2x Iron Guard Recruits (The Scourge)
2x Steel Legion Chimera (Zogwort's Curse)
3x Elysian Assault Team (Core Set)
3x Tallarn Raiders (Zogwort's Curse)
3x Blood Angels Veterans (Core Set)
3x Righteous Initiate (Decree of Ruin)
3x Sacaellum Shrine Guard (Boundless Hate)

Attachment: (3)
1x Commissarial Bolt Pistol (Decree of Ruin)
2x Bodyguard (Core Set)

Event: (9)
2x Summary Execution (Decree of Ruin)
2x Preemptive Barrage (Core Set)
2x The Emperor’s Warrant (Descendants of Isha)
2x Muster the Guard (The Howl of Blackmane)

Support: (10)
1x Forward Barracks (Decree of Ruin)
3x Troop Transport (Boundless Hate)
2x Rockcrete Bunker (Core Set)
2x Catachan Outpost (Core Set)
2x Inquistorial Fortress.

Next month we decided for fun that we should each play a random faction so that we don't have the same matches. I've pulled Tyranids so that should be interesting as I have only played them once or twice since their release.

Been a few months since my last update. Starting a new job and the club having it's Christmas break sort of got in the way. As it is the new year has not been great for the club. Too many players not turning up on an evening or unnecessary arguments has begun to hurt things. Hopefully things will pick up as we get going. It's not too long until the Age of Sigmar league kicks off and we have another day event planned as well.

I hope the rest of you have some good gaming going on and I'll try to catch up on your posts as I can.

At last!

After month after agonizing month the 2015 Warhammer 40K league has come to an end. As expected, Jon Q went on to win following a mighty game to see who would take the crown for 1st place. Well done mate, you deserved it.

It has left some issues though which will need to be resolved before the next time we do a league. I have an Age of Sigmar league-ish to do first anyway though. The main issue was that i went on far far too long but in defence of that we have so many players for 40K that I feel it rude not to allow people to play. In future there will have to be a limit though with certain players having to be left out (frequent drop outs, suspected of cheating...etc) which will help. It would also help if we had more than three tables but for the cost of the night I'm not going to complain too much. We also had some instances of potential cheating which no one really caught until after the fact nearly every time. That individual will not be being invited back next time.

However, despite the drawn out nature I think we all had fun which is the point at the end of the day. I'm looking forward to the Age of Sigmar event next year more and more though.

The club is now finished until the start of January so plenty of opportunity to rest and/or maybe get some friendly games in.

Moosive Battle to the Death!

Last night my chum Mike and I played a battle of Age of Sigmar featuring everything we had. My undead force came in at around 275 wounds and his Stormcast Eternals at about 265 wounds. Surprisingly the game took about two and a half to three hours to play.

To start with my undead did really well but I was claiming the initiative so I was able to replenish my units and models quite nicely and it kept him busy as everything else moved up to pile in. Half way through the game the tide turned and he had initiative. At that point my lines folded as I couldn't recover quickly enough to keep my units intact. I think the game went 6 or 7 turns before I conceded with about 6 skeleton warriors left on the table.

Surprise unit of the night went to the Carrion who are hard as nails and putting out 4 attacks a piece (5 bird unit) and although they did take casualties were great at holding up units that were otherwise being a pain.

Well done Mike. Looking forward to a somewhat smaller rematch. :)

Midas Crusade 2015

For some time I've been planning a local 40K event. I had wanted to try and get a large scale event going but due to costs and a not so great amount of interest among local players things were scaled down. Thankfully one of our local players, Jon, offered us the use of his extremely large garage. We lost a couple players but today six players met to battle it out in a large scale series of games.

Rules were:

* 2000 point games.
* Fixed list.
* Three games with three hour time limit.
* Unbound or FOC.
* Super Heavies, Gargantuan Monstrous Creatures and Lords of War are legal.
* Warhammer 40K Only - no Horus Heresy.
* No proxies.
* Cost: £5 paid in advance so I can organise prizes.
* Missions will be Cleanse & Control, Spoils of War, and then finally Tactical Escalation.
* Victory Points will be totaled over the day to determine the winner.

Using VP's to collectively determine the winner was something new and it worked so well that I think we'll use it in future for events and leagues.

Jon  : Orks.
Jaime : Farsight Enclave.
Ashleigh : Astra Militarum.
Sylvain : Blood Angels.
Benjo : Dark Angels with Imperial Knight allies.
Brian : Orks.

The unusual suspects.

 Three Imperial Knights march to war.

 The Blood Angels 1st company seize the high ground.

The forces of the Farsight Enclave.

The Astra Militarum prepare to defend against the Orks. 

A mighty Stompa!

The day's winner with his trophy!

I think the event went well enough that I plan to do a second event same time next year. Hopefully we can get some more players and a bigger event. 

Only a half dozen weeks to go and the league is done. Really it was far too big but for the most part it is nice to see the club being active and used.  The victor at this stage still looks like Jon to me but there are friendly bets floating around that it may be Jason or Ashleigh. I feel bad for Brian though as he never has the best of luck and this league hasn't done him any favours.

Once the league ends we can have some friendlies and just chill with fun games. I'm hoping to turn a few of the old Warhammer Fantasy players over to Age of Sigmar before I start a league for that next year.

Age of Sigmar

After a couple more games of Age of Sigmar I have pretty much fallen in love with this version of Warhammer. It is just so much fun win or lose, and yes, I have lost all my games so far. Mainly because my opponent plays Ogors (ogres) and they are bloody tough.

One player who has pretty much quit Warhammer has given me his entire Tomb Kings army which gives me the basis for a legion of the undead that I want. Now that the silly must have a vampire and crumbling army rules are gone, it is feasible to play one. I'm looking at finding a suitable necromancer figure to represent Heinrich Kemmler aka the Lichemaster, who will be my regular commander.

I find it odd that I really want to get into this game now. I am going to give an uncharacteristic thumbs up to Games Workshop for what they have created here.