40K New Years Doubles League

My Howling Griffons are getting a bit of attention again just now with a doubles league I am running at Newbury Gaming Club.  We had one doubles game with my Orks before Christmas which was good fun so I put the idea of a league forward and twelve players were up for my suggestion.

We drew random pairs and my partner turned out to be Paul, who also has Ork and Marine armies. He is a better convertor and painter though! He was keen to use his marines so I thought I would use mine again too.

The other army combos are Iron Hands + Tyranids, Tau + Dark Eldar, Dark Eldar + Guard, Tau + Guard and BA + Eldar.

Paul decided on his 1000pt list first, using Salamanders tactics.

Captain- artificer armour, plasma pistol, power fist, storm shield, digital weapons
Ironclad Dreadnought
3 Assault Centurions- omniscope, meltaguns
5 scouts- heavy bolter, 4 snipers
10 tacticals- heavy bolter, flamer
Stormraven- extra armour, TL lascannons, TL multimelta

I also went with an Ironclad and flyers in my list:

Chapter Master - bike, artificer, Teeth of Terra
5 Bikes - Vet Sgt PF, 2 meltaguns
Tac Squad +5 - Vet sgt, combi-melta, meltagun, multimelta, meltabombs
2 Stormtalons - Skyhammer
Ironclad - 2HKs, Ironclad assault launchers, drop pod

I have previously only ever taken a Captain,  but the Chapter Master proved his worth in the first game when his Orbital Bombardment took out George's Sicaran and a Rhino. My Ironclad came down on our right flank to block Nick's Broodlord and Genestealers from threatening our objective.  This did tie up my dread for most of the game, but Paul's Ironclad,  Captain and Assault Centurions also arrived in the Stormraven on that flank and ground down the rest of the Nids. In Turn 5 we were pretty much tied on points, but luckily we went on to Turn 6 and grabbed their objective from Luke's Tervigon for a solid 9-1 victory.

In our second match we were up against Steve's Tau and Nick's Guard. (sorry Astra Militarum. ..) I managed to drop the Ironclad behind a tank this time, which immobilised Nick's command Chimera Turn 1 before wrecking it Turn 2 and then charging the survivors.  Orbital Bombardment had given us First Blood again but then my bikes let me down a bit. First off the Sergeant with Power Fist hit Nick's Leman Russ 3 times in combat, which was fine until I rolled three ones for damage! The Chapter Master split off to charge the Broadside to stop it shooting, only to lose combat on the next turn and ride off. Luckily my Ironclad was on hand to mop up. Despite the shame of this we still managed to keep the relic for a 7-1 win.

Both games were really enjoyable against sporting opponents.  I hope that they had fun too.  The league certainly seems to have generated a fair amount of excitement and discussion, which makes it all worthwhile.

Next up for us are Wiggy's BA and Tom's Eldar. Tom has 3 Wave Serpents and a Wraithknight   Wiggy's Death Company will also be fun!