I took my Howling Griffons, with 5 Sniper Scouts, minimal Tactical Squad with TLAC Razorback, Master of the Forge on a bike with a conversion beamer, basic Predator and a Stormtalon with Skyhammer. My team-mate was one of the boys from the store and his Eldar. He took a Farseer, two units of Rangers, 5 Dark Reapers and two sets of Vaul's Weapons Batteries.
We had a practice game on Saturday against Matt, who basically took the two Dark Vengeance armies together. Although we thrashed him with the strength of our shooting, I was under no illusions that the armies on the day would be a lot tougher.
Our first game was Scouring with Hammer and Anvil deployment against Orks and Tau. The Tau had a Commander with a load of gun drones, a mob of Kroot snipers, another Suit, a unit of Fire Warriors, a Piranha and a Sky Ray. The Orks had a Warboss, two mobs of Boyz, a Deffkopta, a Trukk and a Battlewagon with Deffrolla. I was worried about the Sky Ray, but in the end the game ended up beingvery slow and we only got to the end of Turn 3 in 90 minutes, in which my Storm Talon never showed up!
We managed to get first blood on the Trukk, but the Invasion tables now have more terrain than previously, so we found ourselves with poor LoS quite often.
We were getting frustrated at the time things were taking and so made a costly mistake as the game was about to end. We knew the Farseer's psychic power (I forget the name) could fly him 48" across the board for Linebreaker, and this succeeded, although he did have to survive a melta shot from a suit. Had we moved him to contest the four point objective in the centre, we could have won. Instead we lost 7-9.
The game after lunch proved to be much better, for us anyway! This time we were playing Crusade on Dawn of War against Guard and Wolves. The Wolves had a Rune Priest with the obligatory Jaws and Living Lightning, some Wolf Guard, a Melta-Dread in a Drop Pod and a couple of units of Grey Hunters. The Guard had a Company Command Squad, two units of Veterans, a Chimera and a Hellhound.
All 3 games we played started with Night Fighting, but I used my Searchlight to illuminate the Hellhound, which the conversion beamer then blew up from across the board (see picture below). The blast also caught the Chimera, which exploded as well, killing half a squad of Veterans inside it and 3 Grey Hunters next to it. Not a bad start!
On their first turn the Dreanought came down near the Heavy Weapons, but its Multi-Melta did very little before it was immobilised (apparently for the second game in a row) and then destroyed. Again my Stormtalon had declined to turn up on Turn 2, but their Vendetta came on and targetted my Master of the Forge, as they had decided they did not like him. Despite all the Lascannons, his Jink saved rescued him and he survived on one wound. Hooray for Toughness 5! We then managed to hit the Vendetta, putting it into locked velocity, before my Stormtalon finally joined the battle Turn 4 in the rear arc of the Vendetta and blew it up. It too suffered locked velocity from the Veterans with an Autocannon on a Skyfire objective, although it was still able to pound their infantry afterwards. This was a fun game against sporting opponents, who got back into the match after a dreadful start for them, although we still had a comfortable 9-4 victory.
The last game was Purge the Alien with Vanguard deployment against Tau and GK. We faced another Commander plus drones, more Kroot and Fire Warriors, a Riptide and 3 Piranhas, as well as Coatez and 3 HB Servitors in a Chimera, a Rifleman Dread, Purifiers and some Crusaders with Dealt Cult Assassins. We got first blood again by blowing up the Chimera, but that was about the only success. We just couldn't kill off Coatez, the Dread or the Piranhas. Again we were under time pressure, as the game was reduced to just an hour, as things were over-running and coaches from the other stores needed to leave. Had we focussed fire more, we might have had more success, but it was not a pretty 9-3 loss.
It was a fun day out and with 1 win and 2 losses we came 43/68 (results here), but I really must learn to play for objectives, as this was the second time the four point objective has been crucial for me.
Apart from my spectacular shot in the second game, another highlight for me was arranging a Stormtalon fly-past with Dave's (GW Reading manager) Brazen Claw flyer.
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I look forward to the new Space Marine codex, as I am keen to improve my recent record at these tournaments!
