So, the event is over and much fun was had by all. I spend the weekend at Firestorm Games in Cardiff, attending the Takaan-Reva: Drowned in Flames event organised by Greg Dann of The Imperial Truth podcast. Lots of friendly faces, a fair amount of beer drunk and many games (or half-games, more on that later) were played.
The Army Last year, I took a horde of Warp Cult goons to play my first games of Heresy, supported by some Word Bearers infantry and Daemons. Alas, that was way to many models to fit in a game, and I hardly ever finished one. This time, I cut the numbers of goons and filled in the space with as many big tanks as I could. The points had gone from 2250 last year to 3000 this year, but I'd cut to only having to set up three 20-man squads on the table, and played a few practise games which seemed to go pretty fast. Here's the list..
Primary Detachment - Imperialis Militia & Cults *
HQ 1: Force Commander, Provenance: Cult Horde, Provenance: Tainted Flesh - 120
*TROOPS 1: Militia Infantry Squad (x20), Auxilia Pistols - 50 (with
DT 1)
*TROOPS 2: Militia Infantry Squad (x20), Auxilia Rifles - 50
*TROOPS 3: Inducted Levy Squad (x20), Auxilia Pistols - 40
*TROOPS 4: Inducted Levy Squad (x20), Auxilia Pistols - 40
*TROOPS 5: Inducted Levy Squad (x20), Auxilia Pistols - 40
*
DT 1: Auxilia Gorgon Heavy Transporter, Twin-linked Lascannons, Lascannon Sponsons - 315
*FAST 1: Auxilia Thunderbolt Heavy Fighter, Ground Tracking Auguries - 210
*HEAVY 1: Auxilia Malcador Heavy Tank, Lascannon Sponsons, Hull Demolisher Cannon, Turret Battlecannon, Siege Armour - 295
*HEAVY 2: Auxilia Malcador Heavy Tank, Lascannon Sponsons, Hull Demolisher Cannon, Turret Twin-linked Lascannon, Siege Armour - 295
*HEAVY 3: Auxilia Battle Tank Squadron, 3 x Leman Russ Battle Tanks - 420
*LOW: Auxilia Baneblade Super-heavy Tank, Pintle Autocannon, Side Sponsons - 595
Allied Detachment - Solar Auxilia *
HQ 2: Tank Commander - 55 (with HEAVY 4)
*TROOPS 6: Auxilia Infantry Tercio: Veletaris Storm Section (x10), Rotor Cannons - 115, Aegis Defense Line - 50
*HEAVY 4: Valdor Tank Hunter, Sponson Flamer - 300
TOTAL - 3000
The Event The event was a 50-player, 5 round, 3000pt narrative Heresy event. The players were divided into Traitors and Loyalists, and each team had a small group of generals. There were five custom scenarios playable, each one having five tables set up specifically for that scenario. Each round, the generals could assign their team members to specific scenarios, at which point the team member placed their name-card face down on one of the tables. When all the cards were down, they were flipped, and people found out who they were facing. This way, armies could be assigned to missions their generals thought were appropriate, but nobody ever know exactly who they would be facing until the cards were flipped. It was a really good, fun system, though the organisation took a bit of time each round.
Furthermore, each mission gave a special bonus rule to the faction that won the most games of it. So, if the Traitors won the most 'secure the spaceport' missions, then all the Traitor armies gained a free orbital bombardment in the next game. One of these bonuses forced the opposing General to lay some of his cards down face-up so the winner could pick armies to counter. All great fun. In addition, there were a couple of Knights Errant-style characters which each general could give to a player each round for free. Named characters and primarchs were allowed, but it was recorded when they were killed in-game, and penalties applied to them if they were killed too often. I think, by the end of the tournament, Curze had been killed so much he had -2
WS and
BS, and had to re-roll successful hits in combat.
Game 1 - Blackshields My first game was against my fellow HATE-clubber Willard, with his Blackshield infantry force. 100 marines running at me, with a few Rapiers in support and some Castellans stomping around the middle. Willard also had 'The Ghost', the special Loyalist character.
I made my first mistakes quite early on, setting up a lot of objective on the side of the table i was standing near, only for Willard to win the roll and choose that deployment zone. The super-heavies did a great job of pie-plating marines, but I was penned in a bit by the number of tanks, and couldn't quite get to objectives all game. The Blackshields also held the centre with some Torrent flamers that made light work of any approaching cultists. Before we knew it, the half-hour bell had rung, and we were only on turn three. It was clear I wasn't going to win on objectives, so I rounded all tanks on The Ghost, hoping to kill him and force a draw. However, with a squad of marines as extra wounds, he survived the combined firepower of the Baneblade, Malcador, Valdor and Leman Russes, and remained at the end of turn four with one wound remaining. First loss to the perfidious Loyalists!!
However, it was a great, fun game, with lots of cinematic moments - one black shield even managed to one-shot the Thunderbolt the turn it arrived with a single Flakk missile!
Game 2 - Shattered Legions My second game was against a Shattered Legions force of Blood Angels and Imperial Fists. The Imperial Fists section was mostly quad-launchers assisted by a Siege Breaker, and two Deride dreads, set up on the board at the start of the game. The Blood Angels force dropped in with pods, and consisted of Terminators and Dreadnoughts. Although I lost the first game, the Traitors won overall, and so I had various deployment advantages, and selected my deployment zone well, starting in a corner and castling up as is usual against pod armies. We both rolled the same Warlord trait - pinning three enemy units, but the only unit I had that could be pinned was the Veletaris, and they passed their test. However, my opponent had worse luck and failed his test with most of his artillery, meaning he was without any firepower in the first turn.
I spent my entire first turn destroying a most of the quad-launchers at long range before the Drop Pods came in. He was forced to drop right in front of me (all those goons take up space in the backfield) but dropped Dreadclaws and Dreadnought pods so that he could stay inside, which forced me to stay still and spend the next turn blowing up Drop Pods. I managed to take out the closest pods and kill one of the Terminator units inside, and just as I was getting ready to start my advance and move forward (i.e when all the pods had arrived) the game ended on Turn 3! It was an cumulative-objectives game, and I had randomly held one through the first few turns, so I won, but it felt very incomplete. I never got to the point where I would move forward, and he never got to the point t where the things in the pods could start moving around and doing anything!
Game 3 - Iron Hands The third game was against an Iron Hands army with a scary deathstar unit - Ferrus Manus with a bunch of Terminators in a Kharybdis Assault Claw, which dropped right in front of my lines in the first turn! He supported this with some completely tooled-up Spartan and Land Raiders with more terminators and tactical marines.
It was Hammer and Anvil setup, with staggered objectives, so I had a little more room for manoeuvre and spent the entire first turn's firepower to blow up the Kharybdis and assault the contents with some goon squads. This combat lasted the entire game, with Ferrus and first some Terminators, later some Dreadnoughts fighting off endless cultists as I poured more units into the combat. I never really got a 'good' charge off with a full unit, so every turn I would score 1 wound on Ferrus, and every time he would fail his save, then regenerate it. On the other side of the table, the Spartan proved really difficult to kill - my Valdor was on the wrong side for it, and most of my other weapons had a hard time getting through the flare shield. In the end, he managed to destroy my Baneblade with it!
The game, again, ended early. We only got to turn three, and it was in a situation where it came as a surprise to both of us, and he probably would have done different things if he had known. So again, only half a game played and another win but not a 'real' one.. :/
Game 4 - Solar Auxilia The next day came, and my fourth game was a rematch against Joe and his Solar Auxilia, whose Infernus wiped me out last year. This time, he had less in the way of troops, but still a lot of quad-mortars and Leman Russes, and a Stormlord! The army was quite tricksy, stacking multiple abilities to help it along. One of the things that was particularly effective was to deploy everything behind defence lines and then choose the Shrouded warlord trait, so everything had 2+ saves in the first turn! Scary. I made a few mistakes in deployment which mean that my Leman Russes were a bit useless all game, and he took out the Valdor first turn with his Mutli-laser and Volikite Russes. I also spent the first couple of turns attempting to blow up vehicles before realising that, as another cumulative objective game, I just needed to kill the infantry!
Cue a couple of turns of rushing EVERYTHING forward to get as many points as possible before the end of the game in one turn, all the cultists disembarking from the Gorgon held four of the five objectives. We really rushed through the last few turns and still only managed to get to Turn 4, but once everything was in the open it was a bit of sitting duck and my gamble failed - Joe managed to destroy enough that I couldn't contest his objectives and won by a couple of points. It was another fun game, though - the Gorgon being seemingly invulnerable for a few turns - his Lighting being combat-interdicted by my Thunderbolt. Lots of cinematic moments.
Game 5 - Raven Guard The final game was Hammer and Anvil again, against fellow HATEr Andy's Raven Guard. Corax was leading a squad of super-assaulty jump guys, supported by Grav-rapiers and drop-podding Terminators and Dreadnoughts. Again, I castled up behind the wall to suffer the first wave of pods, and things seemed to be going well. Corax spent a few turns in combat with some cultists, with more waves to follow, and I threw everything at destroying the pods and their Terminator/Dreadnough payload. Flamers appeared in the second turn and burned through more goons, but then my flank moved forward and managed to wipe out a good third of the army with marine-killing AP2/3 pie-plates/
Everything seemed like it might go well, but then the game ended at the end of TURN TWO! Crazy, considering we had relatively few goons left on the table and his army was so elite. This turned out to be a win for Raven Guard (Relic objectives) but we never got to find out what would really happen.
Results So, the Loyalists overall won the event, and I made two wins and three losses, though a fair few of those felt a bit unfair as we never got to time. The event was great fun, with lots of spot prizes (I won one for having a super-heavy destroyed first!) and lots of good cheer from all involved. The narrative elements meant that a lot of the games were a light regardless of winning or losing, and no individual points or scores were kept from game to game, so nobody could 'win' the event.
The only big problem I encountered was the lack of time. The event pack allowed 2h45 for each game, but in reality a fair amount of this was eaten up by the process of allocating tables and then explaining through the army with your opponent. I think we maybe got two hours real 'playing' time out of each game, for two 3000pt Heresy armies. All my games were played pretty fast (I'm a bit of a tournament veteran, so no 'thinking time' for me!), but I still never managed to get past turn four. I think this was even worse than last year, when I was playing a true 'horde' army at 2250pts. Many other players seemed to have the same problem, and many others were fine, but there's a huge difference in play time between a 30-model elite Legion army and a 100-model Militia or Auxilia army. Speaking to other players, plenty managed to squeeze in a Turn 5, but I'm not sure what proportion of games actually went to a full six turns.
Also, they'd really benefit from a projector or whiteboard or something - there were a lot of special rules each round and though they were announced over the mic, but the time people had done their allocations, revealed their cards, set up and were ready to go, everyone had forgotten what they were!!
I'd definitely go again as it was lots of fun, but it seems that the format effectively rules out taking anything other than a relatively elite army (which pretty much rules out Imperialis Militia entirely). I'd happily go back to 2250, or even play less games over the weekend (since it's a Narrative event, this would be fine). If the event stayed the same, I think I'd end up just taking a tank company, or Word Bearers or something similar that plays really fast!
Here's some photos of some of the lovely armies:
Legion: Dark Angels 
Also rotary cannons 
