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Well, this weekend was the NZ GT, also known as Fields of Blood.

The system ran a Win/Draw/Loss set up, where you got 10 points for a win, 5 points for a draw, 0 points for a loss.
On top of this, there were 5 bonus points, 1 for killing their general, 1 for killing their most expensive unit, 1 for keeping them out of your deployment zone, 1 for keeping your own general alive, and 1 for having a scoring unit left alive at the end of the game.

The tournament was 40% game play, 25% sports, 20% comp, 15% pres. Sports and presentation where a checkbox style system however, which made it pretty easy to get max or close to max scores there, meaning game play was really more like 65%, and when you throw in that even the worst armies wouldnt get 0 for comp, you're looking at gameplay being more like 70% of the overall thing.

I fielded my rather soft Pre Heresy Emperors Children, and was astonished to have finished 5th in battle points, and third overall thanks to my higher comp score making me jump 2 people, very happy! Pics of my army can be found here.

My list was:
Lucius: Chaos Lord, Daemon Weapon
6 Terminators: Heavy Flamer, Chain Fist, Power Fist, 2 Combi Melt, 3 Combi Plas, Champion, Icon of Glory
10 Marines, lascannon, plasma gun
10 Marines, Champion, Power Sword, 2 Plasma guns, Icon of Glory, Rhino, Extra Armour
8 Marines, Champion, Power Fist, Meltagun, Icon of Glory, Rhino, Extra Armour
10 Marines, lascannon, plasma gun
5 Bikers, Champion, Icon of Glory, Power Fist, 2 Plasma Guns


Anywho, onto the actual tournament itself! Please excuse the bad pics, I wasntpaying too much attention and had the camera still set up for taking pics of minis as opposed to normal pics, and then forgot to bring the camera on the second day!

Game 1
Opponent: Tom Damin
Mission: Annihilation
Deployment: Pitched Battle



Tom Had: 2+ Armour save walking Tyrant with 2 scything talons and an assortment of toys, 2 squads of 4 leaping warriors, a cheap combat carnie with scything talons, a broodlord with feeder tendrils accompanied by 8 genestealers, 2 units of 8 genestealers, 1 unit of 12 tooled up hormagaunts, 3 units of 15 spineguants, 3 zoanthropes with warp blast.

Tom had travelled all the way over from Australia, and was kinda staying with me (I say kinda, as he was, but he was travelling 3 hours up country and back for some Snoo Snoo each night), so I'm really glad we got to play - and first up. We had both drawn someone else for round one, however neither of our opponents had shown up, so we got paired up. I figured that worst case scenario, I could start with a solid submarine should I lose, as Tom is a very good player !

I won the roll for board edge and going first, and elected to take it, as I wanted one extra turn to put some pain on the fex and tyrant. I set up roughly in the middle of the board, keeping things close and tight - with a unit set up inside an AV12 building. Tom set up across from me, bunched in tight knowing that I only had one flamer as my single template.





Turn 1: I pushed the bikes forward a little in the centre, to be within 24 of the carnie for a couple of shots, pushed my rhino with lord and smaller squad up towards the left to give me some options with termie deepstriking, and shuffled my other rhino on the right.
A little bit of a fumble saw only 2 wounds going down on the carnifex, though to be honest that's pretty close to what it should be.

In toms turn he basically moved and ran everything forward. The Zoanthropes pushed up through some ruins in the centre of the table, and he had some leaping warrior and Genestealer protection on the other side of it, so if I tried to come near the zoeys I was in for a world of hurt. The zoanthropes all tried a powered up str10 shot to either pop the av12 building or the rhino, but missed. I think Tom got a bit ambitious when he ran his carnifex and hive tyrant forward, getting big rolls (5's and 6's), and bunched the broodlord + retinue up behind the tyrant.

Turn 2: My termies show up, and boy do they have some tasty targets. I come down off the Icon in the rhino on my left, landing them right infront of the tyrant + Broodlord w/ retinue. The rhino on the left moves up 6 but stays inside, sitting infront of the carnie, and my rhino on the right decides to go for a zoey, piling out for some rapid fire loving.
The termies open up on the tyrant, dropping all combi weapons, and hevy flamering him + 5 stealers behind him. 5 Stealers go down, and some great rolling see's 6/8 shots landing wounds on the tyrant, 1 problem gone!
One of the las/plas squads then opens up on the Carnifex, and does 1 wound to it. The rhino has a melta guy pop out of the top and drop the last wound, another headache out of the way. The bikes achieve sweet fudge all, but are semi screening the other lasplas squad, who only manage two dead stealers and a wound on thebrood lord, whilst the squad out of the rhino on my right kill a zoey. 3 Kill points so far, and another 2 on the horizon.

By dropping the termies where I did, I hoped to pull the genestealer squad on my right away, so that the tactical squad would only have to deal with 4 warriors, which I felt safe with. Tom took this bait, and moved all 3 genestealer units towards the termies. The warriors on my right came through the building to take on the tactical squad, and the zoeys suddenly looked menacingly at them. Oh ohhh! Everything else shuffles forward a little. A zoey powers up against the rhino, but again fails to damage it. The other zoey targets the freshly disembarked squad, and toasts 6 of them :( That squads suddenly looking very sad. The warriors charge through to them, and the genestealers swarm the termies. The termies geat eaten good and proper, whilst the warriors on the right fluff it, only killing one, whilst in return 2 wounds are done killing one warrior.

Before:


After:


Turn 3: Well, the termies pretty much did their job, paid for them selves kill point wise, and more importantly set up this all important counter-charge that was about to happen. The squad still in the left rhino hop out, and move off towards one of the genestealer squads. The tactical squad in the building on the right disembark, and move off to the warriors in combat. On the left, the bikes rapid fire at stealers, as does the rhino and the las/plas squad. killing all but 1 stealer of one squad, and with the help of the pistols of the rhino squad, all but 2 stealers of the other squad. The assault sees the last remaining stealers of both squads dispatched. On the right, the warriors are wiped out, but at the cost of the remaining members of the original squad.



Tom sets up a couple of assaults, my lord + squad are charged by warriors, broodlord, and gaunts, whilst my bikes are charged by the super-hormagaunt unit. On the right, the zoeys shoot at the las plas squad, for no damage, and kill a rhino - the spine gaunts kill a single marine, then charge. They completely bounce, lose combat and run, with me slightly behind. The hormies kill a single biker, who in return kill 2-3 hormies, and the all important combat goes horribly wrong for Tom. The chaos lord kills one warrior on the way in and wounds another, the broodlord fluffs and only kills one member of the squad, whilst the warriors and gaunts only account for a single marine. I then put all my attacks on the gaunts, and kill 7-8 of them, making me win the combat by about 5. The broodlord pops, the rest of the gaunts vanish, and there is now only 2 warriors left.

Turn 4: Really by this stage it's just cleanup, So far Tom has secured just 3 kill points, where as I have eliminated all his dangerous units, and have scored 8 or 9. I drive one rhino away to save a kill point, counter charge his hormies with the las plas squad, as getting this squad would net me a bonus point for being his most expensive squad, and the las plas squad on my right goes and finishes off the gaunt squad it had tangoed with in combat, also contacting a zoey while he was at it, finishing up chilling near Toms deployment zone in some 4+ cover ruins.
I elect to do the hormagaunt combat first, so that they will still be fearless, and wipe them out. The warrior combat goes terribly, and I die (daemon weapon epic fail!), with two warriors running around with 1 wound on them. In Toms turn, they eat the last biker, which I feed to him for an epic show down (kill points no longer matter by this stage).



Turn 5: I finish off the last warriors, and go for a run into Toms deployment zone to deny a BP.

The game finishes, with a total of 13 Kill points to 6, so a convincing win. I total up the points, and it comes to 14-1, with the only BP I dont get being losing my general, thanks to his daemon weapon stabbing himself to death, and tom getting a BP for this same thing.



Round 2 to follow soon : D

This game is a bit fuzzy in my head, and looking through the pics a couple of the things might not marry up so well to how I remembered them, a couple of things might be a turn out of sync for example. Oh well, such is life!

Game 2
Opponent: Alix Barklay
Million: Sieze Ground
Deployment: Spearhead

fear mr blurry


Alix had: 5 Termies with an assault cannon, a terminator armoured captain, a devestator squad with 2 lascannons and 2 missile launchers, a 5 man assault squad with fist and flamer, a tactical squad with melta gun and heavy bolter, a tactical squad with plasma gun and plasma cannon, and a tactical squad with power fist serg in a drop pod.

We rolled up 5 objectives, and after Alix won the roll for quarters, he chose the side with 2 in its deployment zone, and a third just a hop skip and a jump away, whilst another easily in range to contest. He setup 3 units occupying some very large multi level ruins in his deployment zone, his termies pushed up on the extreme flank, on my left - to challenge any advances I would make.

As I knew Alix would have the first turn, I set up with my 2 rhinos on my left flank, out of LOS, and the bikes behind them. I then set up a las plas squad in some multi level runs, in a position to advance and spread out in the last 2 turns to lock down 2 objectives if needed. The other las plas squad I set up to be a distraction, and decided I would move and run them from one bit of 4 + cover to another all game.




Turn 1: Alix advances his terminators to try get a shot off on the bikes with the termies, but it turns out only 2 storm bolters were in range. The rest of the army that can, shoots at the 10 man tactical squad spread out through various craters and such, some decent cover saves and lack of hits mean only 2 die.

In my turn 1, I push the 2 rhinos through the ruins, and the bikes fly up 12 to the termies. The rhino with 2 plas guns unloads its passengers, and the 10man squad on my right start their long walk and run across the table. the main purpose of this is to make it look like I'm making a play for the objective in my far right bottom corner, and save the rest of the army from a fair whack of firepower.
The bikes unload some rapidfire plas goodness, as do the squad that hopped out, and evaporate all bar one termie. The las/plas squad finally realises that he has left his commander standing out on his lonesome, and tries to lascannon him in the face - damn that invulnerable save, plasma wounds him though.



Turn 2: Alix's drop pod shows up, and lands down behind my bikes and las/plas squad in the building. The assault marines move along, ready to counter assault someone if needed. The commander and last remaining termie join forces, and come to whack the 10man plas/plas squad that had gotten out of the rhino previously.
The drop pod squad opens up, dropping just a single bike. The plasma cannon tries to kill some of the guys in the building, before rolling a 12 on the scatter, to have it scatter back 8 inches onto the drop pod! Nothing much other than comedy ensues however.
His last termie and his commander assault the 10man squad, and we manage to do a wound to the commander, and finish off the other termie, for the loss of 3 marines.

My termies show up, and drop down to roughly where his termies had initially deployed. This will keep them safe from the dev squad, and at least get cover from his plasma cannon. My other rhino with chaos lord and powerfist squad in it drives right up into the belly of the beast, and pops smoke. The termies knock off an assault marine, but still have their combi weapons, as they would be getting cover I decided not to blow them yet. The bikes, and las-plas squad in the building drop back to take out the drop pod squad.
The squad down the far end continues its cross country treck, usually traveling about 9-10 inches a turn.
Through shooting and a combined assault, the drop pod squad is wiped out, and the squads drift back slowly to where they came from.
The Commander is finished off by the sergeants power sword, and they spread out to be safe from the plasma cannon.




Turn 3: Alix moves his assault marines over to come get some revenge on the tactical squad, whilst the bulk of the rest of his army focuses on the rhino that is upclose and personal. Through some amusing good luck on my side, and bad luck on Alix's, it coes through completely unscathed, outside of not being able to shoot next turn.
The assault marines jump in and have a crack at the remaining tactical squads who had dispatched the lord, losing a couple each.

My bikes go over to help out the tactical squad, whilst my las plas squad hop back into their ruins in objective claiming position. My other las plas squad continues its epic run, actually reasonably close to the objective now, against the odds. The termies walk forward, getting ready to do a combined assault with the chaos lord and tactical squad who have now just hopped out of their rhino. This combined assault completely anniahlates his heavy bolter/melta tactical squad, whilst the bikes help finish off the assault marines. By this stage all he has left is 2 tactical squads in the ruins, and the devestators.

Turn 4: Whats left of his army opens up on the chaos lords squad, but little is achieved, outside of killing 3 or 4 marines from that squad. My cross country runners lose 2 more marines, and fail their moral check, falling back eleven inches!

In my turn 4, My chaos lord and tactical squad destroy one of his remaining tactical squads, whilst the termies destroy the other. The cross country runners rally, and continue on their track to the objective.



Turn 5: The devestators fail to kill the rhino.
Lord and unit hop back inside, to protect the mission bonus point, and the devestators are eaten by the termies. The now very tired trekking squad finally makes it to the objective, and does a little victory dance.



With Alix being wiped out, the game obviously ends - and I've managed to secure 15 points to 0.

Game 3
Opponent: Peter Rundlett
Mission: Capture and Control
Deployment: Dawn of War

Pete had: 10 Marines with a Lascannon, Plasma gun and Icon of glory, 10 marines with 2 meltas and a power fist with glory icon in a Rhino, 10 marines with 2 plasma guns in a rhino with glory, 2 units of 5 lesser daemons for objective grabbing, a daemon prince with warp time, 3 obliterators and 10 raptors with 2 meltas and a power fist with glory.

I seem to have to play Pete every tourney I go to these days! In fact just a few weeks ago, we met in round 3, and I had snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. Pete plays a very solid offensive game, so I knew if I was going to take this I would have to put him on the back foot and force him to play defensively.

I won the roll for deployment, and elected to go first so that I could force him back as far as possible. I set up both my squads on the roof of some giant ruins right in the centre of the table, and didnt deploy an HQ. Pete deployed his las/plas in a forest squad and his daemon prince behind the forest, in a position where it really couldnt be seen. This was in the extreme corner of his table, my left side.




Turn 1: As I wanted to force Pete into a defensive game, I wanted to give him some bait that would make him bring down as much as possible in that corner, so I turbo charged the bikes down that end, with a forrest shielding their right, meaning they were wide open to some firepower to come on oppisite them, but would require commiting to there. My two rhinos were feeling rather safe with night fight, and drove up next to each other as far as they could towards that corner. My two las plas squads shuffled around.



Pete took the bait hook line and sinker thankfully, and decided to bring his whole army on oppisite the bikes to try drop them and remove a potentially dangerous unit as early as possible. He mentioned later, that he was hoping the 3 obliterators would be able to take care of my tactical squads that were swarming on my objective, so felt he could commit the rest of the army to protecting his own. He opened up on the bikes, and the net result was that 3 bikers died, including the icon... drat, no termies coming down there then!
They pass their moral check. Pete manages to roll 36 inches for his night fight roll on his lascannon squad, and manages to shoot a rhino more than 30 inches away, but fortunately only shakes it.

Turn 2: Of course, true to form my termies come down early now. I pop them down 6 inches infront of the leftmost rhino, and then drive the rhinos forward as a protection wall. The front rhino pops smoke, also providing cover to the other by obscuring 50%, and hiding the termies from view. My remaining 2 bikes turbo charge back away, heading the long way around my large piece of terrain in the middle. The lascannons open up, one immobilises a rhino, the other manages to hit and wound the daemon prince it can now see, but cover saves it.



Petes obliterators show up, and the termies present too juicy a target for him. At this stage, Id actually be quite happy if they all died, as by pete bringing these down here, he's commiting himself to a draw at best.
One squad hops back into his rhino, and tries to hop in and outflank me, however Pete rolls a 1 on his terrain test, and immobilises the rhino. The raptors shuffle up, ready to try something, and one squad of daemons show up, hiding behind the forest. The Oblits open up with 3 plasma cannons, 1 gets hot, and the other 2 scatter - talk about some massive luck!

Turn 3: The termies, feeling like they've dodged a bullet, advance up through the forrest, eyeing up the oblits. My front rhino drives up, and unloads a squad so that it's hidden from fire, but able to shoot the oblits. The rhino behind drives up and boxes this in. The bikers turbo boost again, this is starting to be fun for them ;D The resulting fire sees the complete removal of the oblits.



In Petes turn 3, everything begins. The other daemon squad comes down, and lands in the forest next to my disembarked squad. Another squad disembarks from their immobilised forrest, and moves forward to assault, whilst the raptors hop forward ready to do some damage.
Pete turns the front rhino into an inconvenient patch of difficult and dangerous terrain, whilst the daemon prince flies out, and wounds himself upon landing.
The resulting assault sees 1 or 2 marines dying on the way in through the rhino wreckage, yay A few die on each side of the equasion - most notably the chaos lord doing 2 more wounds to the daemon prince, who then kills the lord, and in turn gets finished by the power fist, with noone running, and the raptors standing out in the open.



Turn 4: My remaining rhino drives forward, pops its smoke and unloads its squad, ready to rapid fire the raptors. Through some appauling rolling, only 2 raptors die. My jetbikes do one final turbo boost, so that they are within danger distance of the objective. The Termies hop over and join the assault, but fumble almost completely. Not much happens in the assault, 1 or 2 die on each side again. My 10 man las/plas squad in the building far away from the objective, knowing theyre safe - decides to push forward towards the objective more.

Petes raptors hop over the reckage, and join the fray, a raptor dies on the way in due to the burning wreckage once again, but proceeds to decimate the termies, for a couple of casualties. The origional tactical squad of petes is wiped out. Petes las/plas squad assaults the freshly disembarked squad, and we have a big slap off, doing nothing to each other.

Turn 5: My rhino drives through the forest, and finishes its move within 3 inches of the objective. My bike moves forward, shoots and assaults the daemon pack on the objective, and we both do nothing to each other. My las/plas squad again pushes forward slowly.

Petes Raptors hop over the wreckage, losing another raptor or two, but has no meltas left and cant hurt the rhino. 1 biker dies, as does one daemon for a draw, only 1 biker remains, but he is hugging that objective. Virtually ntohing continues to take place between our two tactical squads near his objective.

A 6th turn is rolled up...

My 10man las plas squad finally get to do something, and walk forward assaulting the raptors, protecting the rest of my stuff from being assaulted. They get the raptors down to 3 men left. Nothing much happens with the 2 tactical squads going at it, and the daemons/bikes are another stalemate.

In petes turn, the only things left are in combat, his raptors are brought down to 2 guys left, and the two tactical squads have traded blows to wind up on about 6 guys each. The daemons and the biker again just admire each other, and the game ends as a win to me.

Game ends, 1-0 to me on objectives.
Points wise, I get 10 for the win, 1 for his general, and 1 for having a scoring unit left alive. Mean while, Pete has hopped a squad into my half of the table to deny me that point, my general is dead losing me another, and I'm 2 raptors off getting his most expensive squad.
Pete just gets the points for my most expensive squad, and my general, making the game finish as 12-2. Something I was happy with, given how tough a nut it is to crack when someone deploys 1500 points of marines in a 12 by 12 square !


It was at this point I decided to be gak, and left my camera at home for day 2 :(

Game 4:

Opponent: Redmond Kirwan-Jones
Mission: Annihilation
Deployment: Spearhead

Redmond had: Eldrad, Seer council, Autarch, all chilling out in a wave serpent, 6 fire dragons in an unkillable falcon, 2 bike squads, 10 dire avengers in a wave serpent, and a fire prism with holofields.

I had played Redmond again, in round 4 at the tournament a few weeks ago. This was starting to get a little familiar. I had also lost to Redmond previously, though that was through some hilarity, including a single handed Eldrad holding against, and wiping out 650 points worth of marines. I had drawn that game on mission, but lost on VP’s, so here was hoping I could turn it around.

I won the roll for table quarters, and set up first. I set up my two lascannon squads so that they would have a good line of sight over most of the battle field, on 2 stories high worth of ruins. This position turned out to be VERY beneficial later on.
My 2 rhinos dumped down in a position where they could support these squads, and my bikes were hidden fairly close by.
Redmond deployed his Fire Prism in the back table corner, his falcon next to this, and his wave serpent with autarch, eldrad and seer council in it as far up as he could out of LOS.

Turn 1:
My first turn was highly uneventful. I figured I’d try use the bikes as bait, and pushed them 24 inches across to my left, that way if he was going to try bring the fight to me and ignore the bikes, they could harass his fire prism.
One lascannon had no LOS, so that squad walked further up the ruins, whilst the other could just get range to the prism by a fraction of an inch... only to miss.

Redmond flew his Waveserpent forward 24 inches, right infront of my entire army, after fortuning it, and the unit inside. Fairly gutsy I thought, considering just how much anti tank he was flying into the guts of, but I guess it must have paid off for him in previous games. Redmonds shooting did virtually nothing, though there really weren’t many shots at all at this stage.

Turn 2:
I couldn’t resist the meal that had just been thrown to me. Both Rhinos pushed up and unloaded their cargo. The bikes pulled back to help with killing what ever fell out.
Queue end of the game.
My first squad opened up with 2 plasma guns rapid firing, and got 2 penetrating hits. Redmond failed one of the rerollable cover saves, and I rolled a 5 for the result. I was now in a position where every other unit in my army could shoot what fell out, and in the end, all that was left was Eldrad having taken a wound, the autarch with 1 wound left, and 2 warlocks.

Redmonds bike squads arrived, but the dire avengers did not. They flew on a little, and just shot up some marines, killing one. The fire prism again unsuccessfully tried to kill a rhino. Redmond didn’t move the seer council remnants for some reason, though he was only 1.5 to 2 inches away from assaulting. He tried to assault, and rolled a double 1. Doh!

Turn 3:
Well, I considered the failure to assault as an omen, kinda saying “TAKE THESE KILL POINTS, TAKE EM!” The bikes turbo charged off towards the fire prism, and the rhinos moved to block LOS further to the marines. One decided to immobilise itself on a crater however :( The Autarch and remaining warlocks were wiped out, and the 2 rhino squads including lord assaulted Eldrad, finishing him off.
The termies on the other hand, had decided to show up, dropped down, and wiped a bike squad off the table. Looking fairly good so far, sitting on 5 kill points to nil.

Redmond was never really in it from this point, so I cant remember too much what happened, but basically – the fire dragons popped out of the Falcon, and the Dire avengers popped out of the wave serpent. His entire army then proceeded to shoot the termies, just wiping them out.

Turn 4:
This of course, allowed for another kill point to be had, yum yum. The bikes rapid fired into the back of the Falcon with plasma guns, but failed to hurt it, then did a combined assault against the Falcon and fire dragons, killing them, and chasing them down.

Redmond finished off the bikes, ran away with his own bikes, whilst the avengers got into the wave serpent and it turbo boosted away (I forgot you cant do this, but it made no difference really). The fire prism blew up the immobilised rhino finally, whilst the fire prism killed a couple of marines.

Turn 5:
A bit of a trick shot really, a lascannon fired through a window and blew up the Falcon…unkillable that! ;D The other Lascannon fired at the wave serpent and penetrated, but he cover saved.

Redmond turbo charged his wave serpent into my deployment zone to deny me the a bonus point, and the game ended.

The game finished a very comfortable 6-3, where 2 of those kill points I gave up, I had made the call that I was safe to sacrifice them and really didn’t mind.

Game 5:

Opponent: Adam Watson
Mission: Seize Ground
Deployment: Dawn of War

Adam had: Sorcerer with wings and lash, chilling out with 10 raptors, 2 units of 10 mairnes in rhinos with icons of Slaanesh and various special weapons, 2 single obliterators, 10 noise marines in a rhino, and a greater daemon.

Adam and I had gotten to play each other several months earlier at the nationals, where we kind of had a competition to see who could play worse, I had terrible rolling and crappy decision making, and he was tired and had bad decision making – we both terribled ourselves into a draw, so I think we were both kind of looking forward to a rematch under better circumstances.

Objectives were placed so that 2 were 12 inches apart, and one was way over on the other side of the table. Adam won the roll to go first, and made me setup first.

I deployed in, what is now becoming a familiar theme, on the roof of a large building with my 2 las/plas squads. My theory was, if I’m standing on the roof of a 5 inch tall ruined building, it’s going to take a fairly impressive lash roll to get me moving much. Adam deployed the noise marines and their rhino across from me.

Turn 1:
My rhinos pushed up on the right hand side of the table, ready to move over the objectives next turn.
My bikes pushed up behind them. Atrocious night fight rolls saw no shooting from me.

Adam basically mirrored me, driving 2 rhinos on opposite from me, his raptors supporting the middle, and another rhino supporting their flank.
Lash tried to cast, but failed the leadership test (though it would have been a steep night fight roll ontop of that had it cast), and the noise marines opened up on one of the tactical squads, killing 5!

Turn 2:The bikes turbo charged back around to the other side of the building, to support any attempts at mischief made by the lash. The termies turned up a turn too early again, and after much deliberation, I put them infront of the rhinos, and closed the gap.
Pretty minimal shooting, I think I killed a raptor.

Adam pushed the raptors right up the middle, and oblit came down across from my termies but unable to see yet through the rhinos, and a greater daemon popped out of one of the rhinos near the termies too.
He lashed the other las/plas squad, however wasn’t able to move them far enough to assault them with the raptors, so instead elected to move them backwards. The oblit tried to multimelta a rhino, but only stopped it from shooting. Another couple of marines drop to the noise marines.

Turn 3: Hmm, Action time. Both rhinos drive forward and unload, whilst the bikes push right forward towards the sorcerer and the large las/plas squad walks forward to rapid fire, surrounding the raptors and that pesky lash.
I um and ahh for a long time about whether to wipe out the greater daemon, or try to support the response to my middle squads, in the end I went with supporting, and moved + ran, but in hindsight, I think I should have gone after the greater daemon.
Mass rapid firing ensues, and all but 3 raptors are killed, the sorcerer looking smug.
I decide to assault with the bikes, to get a power fist into the sorc, hoping he doesn’t kill them all first. Sure enough, taking the risk pays off, and his head explodes in a red mist.

Adam pushed the greater daemon up, and runs it. The oblit fires his plasma cannon and kills 2 termies. A big combined assault by the noise marines and a tactical squad looks to crush my tactical squad with lord, however he fires up and kills 6 people, making adams CSM squad run, and doing a couple of wounds to the noise marines through fearless. Huge swing! The bikes finish off the raptors, and move across to take out that pesky greater daemon.

Turn 4: The termies push up to help out with finishing the noise marines, the tactical squad with plasma guns (who have somewhere lost like 5 marines) move around with the bikes, and the las plas squad on the roof still to take out the greater daemon, which they promptly do. The termies charge into the combat that should now easily be mine. Famous last words! One termie is killed on the way in. Lucius decides he’s emo, and does a wound to himself with the daemon weapon. Another wound is delt to him by a noise marine, which I fail to make my save on, bloops! Dead chaos lord. The rest of the tactical squad is killed, one termie on the way in dies, the other 3 power weapon and 7 power fist attacks only kill a single noise marine, and the termies run away, 3 members strong. The pendulum has swung the other way, drat!

Adam kills one more termie so they cant rally, kills the 2 plasma gunners out of the rhino squad still alive – leaving just the champion who is the young fabious bile, and kills enough of the 5 remaining las plas guys to make me fail a moral check, zing! An obliterator kills one of the 2 remaming bikers, and runs over to assault the other, who promptly kill each other, how cinematic !

Turn 5: Young Fabius hops back into his rhino, and move to contest an objective.
The other tactical squad moves forward to contest the other, and rapid fires the last few noise marines. A termie gets a parting shot with a rapid firing plasma gun, and all up, one noise marine champion passes 5 or 6 armour saves, and lives… this would wind up being heart breaking !

Adams Noise marine champion hops away into a rhino, and doom sirens out the roof, killing 2 members of the squad, and the moral check is failed. Drat, again! I figure I’ll be fine with a rally and run, but no, I run away only 4 inches, leaving me too close to rally.

The obliterator blows up the rhino, and the young fabius falls out, ready to kick ass and take names. The 9 man marine squad of Adams who lost their champion to the greater daemon shoot everything they have at young Fabius (keep in mind, he’s just a lowly sergeant at this stage game wise). I politely inform Adam that he is not allowed to change history, and that Fabius shall not die here, as we all know he goes on to make a pimp coat out of peoples faces. Adam does 5 wounds in shooting, and telling him that he will be fine, I roll them one at a time : - D All 5 save. 3 Rhinos then shoot at him, 2 of them wound, and again, 2 saves.
By this stage there is a big crowd around the table, and every time fabius makes a save, everyone cheers. Loudly.
Adam then decides to assault him, and by this stage I am sure he is doomed. With frag grenades, and I5, they get to attack before him.
Adam hits a tonne, and then wounds another 5 times. Wow I think, and roll them again, one at a time.. boom! Fabius lives. This is awesome I think to myself, I attack back, 2 hits, 1 kill. Adam rolls his moral check, and fails! Fabius rolls a 6 for the initiative check, and kills them all, the crowd goes wild!

Another turn is rolled, boo, now would be a perfect time for the game to end, a massively lucky draw, but alas, not to be.

Turn 6: Fabius runs over to the back of the rhino, feeling that I’d rather face what was there for the draw, instead of trying to take on an obliterator for the draw, lesser of 2 evils. He clangs on the back of the rhino, but fails to hurt it with his krak grenade.

The Noise Marine champion hops out of his rhino, and doom sirens Fabius.. the roll to wound; a 2! Again with the cheers. The obliterator shoots him with a twin linked plasma gun, hits, wounds, but as hes obscured by some wrecked rhinos, he passes his 4 plus cover save again! More cheers! 2 rhinos shoot, wounding him 3 times. The dice are rolled, 4, 5, 5! More living! In a last ditch attempt to kill him, and ultimately risking his own life in the process, the slaaneshi champion charges Fab, 2 hits, then the dice are rolled to wound,…2…4, dammmmmmmn! Talk about an amazing end to a very tight game. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and was happy to lose in such spectacular fashion.

In the wash, I had a scoring unit alive, and killed his general, but because that lone noise marine was alive, he denied me a point for most expensive unit, again he curses me! Keeping him out of my deployment zone left me with 3 points to adams 13. Oh well. The dream run had to end sooner or later.

Game 6

Opponent: Leigh Tressider
Mission: Secure and Control, with a twist
Deployment: Pitched Battle

Leigh had: 2 battle wagons, a decent sized nob squad with warboss, a weird boy, 2 trukk boy mobs, 2 deff kopta units, a bike unit, and a looted wagon with pie plate.

The mission was Secure and Control, but there was a third objective in the very centre of the table.

I had been hoping to play Leigh all weekend, after spending more time with him all weekend than the guy actually staying at my house, due to his Snoo Snoo retrieval project ;D Leigh has a big silly Mohawk that scares cats into thinking he’s a land-shark, a bull ring through his nose and doesn’t eat bacon because he finds himself oddly aroused by piglets, so I knew this was going to be a cracker of a game.

Leigh won first turn, and elected to deploy first. He basically just spread out roughly around the middle of the table, and covered his trucks very well.

I had a 10 man squad in terrain in my far right corner, sitting on my objective, and another squad next to it, with the 2 rhinos between it.

Turn 1: Leigh drove everything forward, moving one battle wagon slightly so as to not be too out in nowheresville, so that his force was now coming down complete through the centre of the table. The looted wagon pressed their big red button, bloops!

My bikes moved up to plasma a truck, and failed miserably. A las plas squad then picked up the slack and blew it up, whilst the other immobilised the battle wagon. I could see this las plas squad was going to get waagh-charged, so decided to make them bait in an effort to take the warboss out of the equasion, and set up a counter charge with the rhino squads.

Turn 2: Amid calls of the land raider going “AWW NO, IM BEACHED AS BRO”, the nobs ran out with warboss, and the other truck mob pushed up to take on the squad.
Sure enough they were wiped out, poor marines :’( The rhinos were big shooted a lot, but survived pretty well through both cover and Leighs poor rolling.

I counter assaulted with some rapid fire from the bikes and other las/plas squad, fired pistols from the 2 squads that got out of transports, and started driving the other rhino the long wayaround to his objective.
The combined assault saw 2 powerfisters come into contact with the warboss, and enough wounds were done to beat the squad by enough for it to run and be cut down.

Turn 3: One of Leighs deffkopta units try to shoot the last biker to death, before doing so in assault instead, his truck mob and bikers assault whats left of the 10 man plas squad, and I do next to nothing, losing the rest of the squad. As it would wind up doing all game, Leighs looted wagon does absolutely nothing… worst…grot pilots…ever.

My termies come down and make the truck mob no longer a threat, reducing it to ~2 boyz with their nob. A deffkopta unit is rapid fired to one model left, who fails his moral check. The other tactical squad forges forward, and assaults the battle wagon, and the weird boy who is next to it. In true lucius fashion, he emo’s and stabs himself with his daemon weapon, reducing himself to 2 wounds. The rest of the squad blows up the battle wagon, killing 0 orks, 1 marine and 1 terminator, Doh!

Turn 4: the last 2 guys from Leighs truck mob try to kill a rhino, and fail in a rather epic manner. The other truck mob makes a move on the chaos lord + squad. The bikes and other deffkopta unit shoot up the las/plas squad, then do a combined assault on it, which I win, both ork units fail their moral checks, and both get chased down by the marines – whoop whoop!
Leighs surviving truck rams my sneaky rhino, and succeeds only in blowing off its own big shoota.
Lucius proves to me that he is the king of emo, he has to roll anything but a 1 and the game is in the bag, and proceeds to emo again.
I can’t remember how it came about but basically as he was the last surviving member of a squad, he falls back despite being fearless or something. Don’t you love failing moral rolls The weird boy moves far enough to stop him from rallying, whilst the other orks move back towards their objective.

My termies move up, kill the last battle wagon (and take themselves down in the process once again!), and lucius falls back to be near my rhino. The weird boy is killed, as is the last members of that other truck mob. My rhino drives up to be near leighs objective for the next turn.

Turn 5: Leigh just has the looted vehicle and ~10 trukk boys by now, the truck boys totally fail to kill the rhino, and the looted wagon does nothing yet again, gotta love that scatter.

My termies try their desperate run to get to the truck boys, but leigh has closed it off with the looted wagon, so I have to run through the other broken truck, a termie trips and dies, oh yay! The rhino moves 7 inches, staying within range to contest, and pops its smoke finally.

So, so far a win, 1 objective to 0, but closer than it ought to be, damn emo weapon of emoism. A dice is roll is made, and there’s another turn.

Turn 6:
Leighs orks get a penetrating rokkit hit on the rhino which I save. The looted wagon fails to do anything. The orks assault the rhino, the klaw gets 2 6’s to hit, followed by a penetrating 5, noooooo!

All I can do now is fail miserably with my difficult terrain check on my termies, which I do. Another trips and dies btw. Damn ork truck. The game ends and it’s now a draw.

Points are added up, and I pick up all the bonus points, for a 10 point draw, to Leighs 7.



Wash Up:
Well, all in all, I had gone in hoping to win 3 games, and had won 4, drawn 1, lost one – with both the draw and a loss coming down to one dice roll, I really can’t complain with how well I got the army working Hell, I’d gotten to the top table in the second to last round, so I was stoked.

I had hoped to have 6 great games, and I really did get that. I gave out 5 5’s and a single 4 out of 5 for sports, and got to play 2 of the travelling Aussies who I knew quite well by now, but had never gotten the chance to play.

My only regret is that I am still yet to play Craig Latta and Bruce Manning, who actually went on to win the tournament. Bruce and I keep dodging each other, so I hope that comes up on the cards soon!

In the prize giving, I was stoked to find out that I had come 3rd overall, and won the Harlequin award for best presented. Both these trophies even came with little baggies to protect them, so shiney! They really are some of the most impressive looking trophies I’ve received.

Great job there mate! The 5th game Fabius antics were a hoot. Awesome report.

G

Cool NZ GT , shame it was in Wellington so I couldn't go (although I swear the background from that Mr Blurry pick looks like one of the Auckland venues from past years). Great report and well deserved Best Presented.

hey charlie just thought id add my 2 cents to the report with me (number 4)

You won the roll for table side, if you had your camera i think everyone would be able to see that giving you that side in a KP mission was a huge no-no as that was the side with the only piece of decent cover. On my side you had prevented me from using the piece in the corner on my left by taking the corner adjacent to it on your side.

You actually make a really good point about forgetting to move the council after the serpent was popped. I think probably a combination of factors influenced that, my 4 hours sleep and i didn't expect to roll double ones I won't forget next time!

I think with Eldrad in our first game (and thinking about it retrospecitvely), you shouldnt really have been surprised with him kiling so much. Statistically with that amazing 3+ invulernable re-rolled you have to cause 9 wounds to me for me to take one. As I recall i was only rolling perhaps two armor saves each time.

Perhaps your principal mistake was throwing so much of your army at him and not playing the objectives. If you had left that one squad to tie him up he would have then been walking across to the objective on your board and you could have rapid fired him to smithereens.

But back to our game at FoB: your right about flying smack bang into your army with my council, but to be honest there was no other alternative. You had two lascannons sitting in that position which I think you mentioned was quite amazing and I had noway of taking them out. If I had just engaged in a shooting war with my prism and falcon I think you would have clearly won.

heh I like your

"que end of the game"

very appropriate! and exactly what i was thinking one turn later after that double one charge.

It also happened in the game with hagan. Make that unit go pop (he did it by cleverly surrounding them so they couldnt get out on a wrecked result) and you pretty much win.

I think the next army I make will be slightly more balanced in not throwing all my points into one unit.

In any case, well played Charlie. If anyone reading ever gets a chance to play him, seize the opportunity as I have only had challenging and hassle free games with him!

ps wanna rematch

Whoops, fixed up
My memory was starting to get a little hazy, especially on the day 2 stuff without the camera, and a second day in a row of Buddha coming in at 3am after getting some wanganui snoo snoo !

To be fair with moving the council, when you're not even quite 2 inches away from someone, you probably don't think you need to move them ;D, With the ability to pile 40 marines into them next turn if needed though, I don't think it overly would have changed the outcome by that stage, the dice had already done their big swing with the serpent and most of the squad dissapearing :(

The kicker at CTA was the combat where I managed to only roll a single attack with 30 charging marine attacks on eldrad, but that's all by the by, it seems the pendulum swings both ways - evil dice gods

I'm not a fan of putting all my eggs in one basket myself, I prefer a couple of baskets as I find something always goes wrong when it shouldn't. I think you can probably throw a falcon right up like that, and probably survive due to the holofields, but a wave serpents probably in a bit more strife.

Thanks for the kind words, I look forward to seeing your army when you finish painting it, whats done so far is looking really nice

I have to say that this is probably the best tourney report I've read in a good long while - great job sir.

--Robert