Darkside Team Tournament: June

Well, things have been getting a tad crazy over the past few weeks with my birthday, a trip to St. Augustine mixed in with the 6th Edition roll out chaos with the last week of the fiscal year at work that has kept me from posting as much as I would like. While I no longer have the lists from the event and details of the games are fuzzy now (after all these weeks), I am just going to present a series of pictures and and overview of the event.

As this was the last team event for 5th edition the turnout was very high as I invited another friend that brought over a few other guys from his area to play. Mixed with the local regulars, a few out of town regulars and a few new faces we had perhaps one of the best turnouts.

Chris and I brought "Blood Wolf" Team this time, this was a mix of Blood Angels and Space Wolves. The list was straight forward with two units of Wolf Scouts, Rune Priests, Grey Hunter Squads (I think 3) in Rhinos with melta guns and power weapons, Wolf Guard (mixed in the Grey Hunter and Scout Squads), one Long Fang squad was there if I recall correctly sprinkle in some Ferensian Wolves for fun. Chris has several jump troops with melta guns and inferno pistols, a Librarian with Blood Lance (and some other power), two Baal Predators rounded out his list.

Our first round was Tau and Grey Knights, an interesting mix of Rail Guns, Crisis Suits, a  unit of Fire Warriors and Kroot. The Grey Knights was very small with two units of Terminators, two Storm Ravens, Librarian and Dreadnought (or two).

The game was lost simply by some bad choices on our part, we had the upper hand by the end of the game but it was simply not enough to take the win. This was a great first round that was a blast...here is some shots...

Our opponents...

The table...

Our Deployment...

Their deployment...

Baal sneaks in...*dakadaka*

Our second game was double IG, lots of troops, Chimeras, tanks, heavy weapons...oh my! Chris and I went for the theory of reserves. He opted to drop this time as the table was more friendly to deep strike than the one prior. Otherwise his army would be turned to goo in a moment along with mine. I held back some troops and planned for the worst entrenching my Long Fangs in a tower and hiding mos to of my rhinos except one for reserves. We took a solid win from this table after a rough loss to start...

Commanders of the IG

First turn, Rhino goes all out into the lines and the other hides  as the squad inside bails out to allow the Rune Priest to line up a shot with living lighting.

DOA from the Blood Angels, dead on...

Hey! A tank! Nuke it!

Blood Angels wipe out conscripts...

Blood Angels amok in IG lines..

Space Wolves move to support...

Our last game was against IG and Sister's of Battle, wow this was a crazy game and again a great set of players...by this point we was happy with who we played and how we did...we took a stunning victory here as everything just went our way with the dice.

SOB player on the left (not SOB, but SOB) and IG on the right!

Early on, Rhino down, Wolves Advancing...

Later in the game Valk down, Wolves advancing to support the Blood Angels that deep struck.

Rune Priest is unaware Saint Celestine has arisen from the dead!

Epic fight with the Rune Priest dead!

3 great games, 3 great players and a decent mix of non-marine lists oddly. We had a blast and was a nice leader to our birthday week starting in a few days. We are looking forward to September next with 6th edition in the wings.

An Outing with Two New Armies

This battle report is about a week late, but work has been taking alot out of me and I've been lazy.

Chris has been toying with a Blood Angel list and just was able to cobble enough together for a 1500pt list. I tossed together an all Inquisition list to see how this would turn out.

Chris had:

• Stormraven
• Land Raider
• Tactical Squad
• Partial Tactical Squad in Razorback with heavy bolters
• Large unit of Death Company with 2 power weapons and a power fist.
• Captain with power weapon.
• Full Jump Troop choice.

I had (from memory):

• 2 chimeras (standard) with 8 psykers, 2 Jokero and 2 Plasma Weapons
• 2 chimeras with (heavy flamer in the hull), each with 4 Crusaders, 4 Death Cult Assassin, 3 Melta Guns
• 1 chimera (standard) with a mix, 1 crusader, 3 death cult assassins, Demonhost, 3 melta guns, servitor and 2 normals.
• Vindicare
• Techmarine with Warding Stave and Rad Grenades
• Cortez
• Xenos Inquisitor with Rad Grenades and Psyker Upgrade.

Base game was Capture and Control (2 objectives one in each deployment zone) with spearhead deployment.  I won the dice off and opted to go first. He had range over me and this could end badly for me without some bit of luck.

We deploy, I try to setup in a defensive stance to get cover while he spread out to engage from different vantages.

Chris tossed a 6 on the dice and took the first turn! He moved the Stormraven up, advanced the Land Raider, pulled the Razorback out of cover and turned it to shield the jump squad behind it.

Shooting resulted in some bad dice rolls for Chris first turn, he removed one weapon off and very little else happened. He either missed or failed to pen the vehicles.  My return fire blew one lascannon off the land raider. The Raven took a hit from either the lascannon or psyker blast and went crashing down in flames of an explosion. The Razorback also took a pen and blew up also.

At this point the game was already written in stone. Next turn the Land Raider took another hit and was made immobile and I started to slowly shooting his army apart. Only three assaults happened in the game and was all rather one sided. The best for Chris was charging into cover and he again had some bad dice rolls and I was able to mop up the squad with Hammerhand and some power weapons. Same for the other two, shooting down the unit then the assault finished off everything else. In the end I lost two Chimeras and about 1/3 out of 3 squads.

The game ended on turn 6 and Chris only had the character, land raider and part of the Death Company left to defend his objective. I kept rolling badly to take out the Land Raider, it was still alive at the end of the game despite 6 melta guns trying to work it over. BS 3, bad pen rolls or a bad roll on the damage chart didn't work out in my favor. It lost a heavy bolter, lascannon and was immobile.

Looking back on the game here are some of my thoughts:

For Me:

• I need more long range. BS 3 on the Jokero was a joke. The psykers was ok but LD 8 sucks, I failed about 1/3 of my rolls. One squad usually sat around every turn doing nothing. Perhaps adding more Jokero or perhaps an orbital bombardment option would be some good options.
• Add more Crusaders.
• Reserves. I feel if I went into reserves, this would have thrown off Chris and I would have been able to push to his objective quicker to take it.
• Lack of Frags. I am looking at taking Land Raiders for their Frag Launchers, I was very afraid in that one assault going through cover. I could see a unit get slaughtered very easy.

For Chris:

• Could have played for a draw very easy. A good defensive stance could have kept me at bay and if he stuck to range, damaged my transports this game would have went badly for me. If he stayed back out of range and slowly sniped my army to bits.
• Reserves: Putting the Raven, Land Raider and Jump squad into reserves would have been a great idea. Deep striking the Raider and Jump Troop would have put two units in my face and the Raven could have went flat out and delivered the Death Company. Even moving in from the long table edge would have been a huge game changer to me.
• Chris purchased a Librarian and is adding it to the list. This would have also been a major thorn in my side as it would have shut down Hammerhand and the Psyker blast powers causing further impairment to my army if he was in range.
• Chris forgot to roll for Blood Rage.

This was a first game and just a test to see how the armies would perform and if Chris had his usual Space Wolves I would have been wearing Milk Bone Underwear.

Pics of the game:

My Deployment Zone

Objective Marker

Deployment Zone for Chris

/Another angle.

Proxiy Land Raider

Death Company after the Raven goes down. Jump troops hide behind the wrecked Razorback.

Taticals pile out of the Rhino into cover.

Jump Troops prepare to press forward.

Another shot.

Jump Troops prepares to assult Cortez and crew.

Failed shooting and assult ensures a good assult next turn for the Magos (Techmarine)

Pile out boys! Shoot'em up!

Inquisitor takes cover towards the end of the game. Land Raider downs another Chimera.

6 Meltas Guns = Epic Fail

Cotaez finishes off the Tatical squad.