Old Line Massacre - The Tournament

Well, I'm glad so many of you enjoyed the look at the last post, Old Line Massacre - The Armies. Here are a few more shots from the Tournament. Most of these are from my games as it was tough to break away from the action and shoot other games, but I tried to get what I could : )

Game One: Mechanicum vs Traitor Night Lords (Jay Feigenhimer)

In this mission my Mechanicum had to scramble forward and get scarring units into the Defenders deployment zone. Jay just had to sit still and not lose his scoring units.

Jay started with just two models on the table, his Scorpius and a Spartan loaded with Marines, a Master of Signals, Primarus Medicae, and Sevetar. Three Terminator squads were left in Reserves, so I had to be wary.

On my right flank I pushed up my two Adsecularis Covenants, backed by a Tech-priest Auxillia unit and my Myrmidon Secutars (meagre defense against Terminators, I know).

On the left my Usarax lead the way, followed by the Thallax and backed up by my Castellax and Archmagos.

In an inauspicious start to the tournament, Jay's first shot was from his Master of Signals calling in an Orbital strike. With some pretty special rolling, Jay called down three templates, who all rolled Hits. Right from the off, my right flank strength had been cut in half.

In the center, some sharpshooting from the Thallax, and an aggressive assault from my Usarax, saw off Jay's 20-man Marine squad (cut down fleeing from combat). Jay dropped his three Terminator units within 6" of Sevetar (using his special rules to avoid scattering).

This pretty much ended the game, as both Jay and I came to grips with all the 30K special rules (and 40K special rules in general). So, after two turns, I was still out of the deployment zone, and out of luck.

Victory to Jay : 5-0

Nate's Night Lords face off against Jake's Word Bearers (also painted by Nate).

Ty's Survivors force (a mix of World Eaters, Sons of Horus, and Emperor's Children) up against Matt Murphy's Death Guard (also painted by Ty).

 Robin's Alpha Legion in action (although I can't remember who they fought in this round).

Game Two: Mechanicum vs Traitor Night Lords (Nathanial Taylor)

Night Lords again? Hopefully some of the things I learned in the previous game would see me through in this one. My deployment was within a circle in the center of the table, while Nate brought his units on from either end of the board. Like my previous opponent, Nate only deployed two units. This time it was a badass Contemptor Dreadnaught (and the scenario gave additional special rules to them) and a squad of Night Raptors.

Clustered together in the center of the table, I felt a tad vulnerable, particularly with a combat Contemptor barreling down on me.

The Night Raptors weren't quite as scary, as my Castellax were within range, and those shoulder-mounted cannons are called Maulers for a reason.

Once the Raptors had been taken care of, my Castellax advanced (per their programming) and charged into combat with one of Nate's Terror squads. I chose to take advantage of their Monstrous Creature and Rage rules, where I'd be bringing 9 St10 AP2 attacks to bear on the Night Lords elites. I just needed 4+ for my rolls To Hit. As you can see in the photo above, that wasn't to be. Both Nate and I fell about laughing. My laughter may have been slightly more manic than his.

Fortunately, my shooting managed to take down his Dread, and a couple of his Terror squads found themselves locked in fierce (and seemingly endless) combat with my Thallax and Usarax. It was this game that really showed me how resilient my Mechanicum troops could be. I think this game also went 4 turns : )

Victory to Me! 5-4

Game Three: Mechanicum vs Traitor Alpha Legion (Marc Raley)

Marc is a guy who really has his 30K head screwed on. He knows what his units can do, and really knows where to put them. He's also incredibly aware of what your units can do. In this game I had to keep his Alpha Legion back from a central extraction zone. Fortunately for me, a scenario rule that threatened air support possibly causing damage to Marc's units after turn two kept him back from the extraction zone.

One of Marc's 20-man Marine units, huddled together in cover, looks out over my battleline.

A Vindicator and jetbikes deployed to keep the extraction zone as clear of Mechanicum troops as possible.

My troops start to roll forward to capture the precious objectives that would not only score VPs, but determine game length.

An outflanking Javelin put a rapid end to my AT support, the Krios Venator Tank Destroyer : (

After being thinned by fire from my Castellax and Thallax, Marc's Marines were assaulted by my Usarax. The forced his second 20-man squad to advance.

And in the final turn of the game, Marc was able to bring his Caestus Assault Ram into play. The Thallax cohort in the mid ground soon felt the sting of hot melta and Kheres assault cannon death.

In the end I managed to get quite a few scoring units into my extraction zone. Combined with the VPs from objectives earlier in the game, I eked out a win over Marc's beautiful forces.

Victory to Me! 9-5

Jay's Night Lords and Robin's Alpha Legion race for the objectives.

The two borrowed forces stare each other down - Jake's Word Bearers and Matt's Death Guard.

Ty struggles to bring all of his survivors into bolted range with Nate's Night Lords.

 And John's Sons of Horus create havoc amongst Chris' Emperor's Children.

Conclusion:

At the end of the day there were some cool trophies to hand out. I must admit I didn't keep track of who won what, but I'll update this post once I hear from the other guys. I can say that I won the "Eidolon's Luck" award, for the player with the lowest VP total for the day. Apparently other folks may have scored fewer, but as they'd won other trophies higher in the award heirachy, "Eidolon's Luck" fell to me to bear. I'm ok with that, it netted me a cool trophy and a $15 gift card : )

Overall, the Loyalists scored a considerable victory over the Traitors, which meant that each Loyalist commander was awarded with a special template weapon. The rules for these weapons were sealed in little envelopes, to be opened during the Apocalypse game when we wanted to fire them.

A great, and busy, day of gaming with plenty of carnage across the surface of Istvaan V!

Part Three will be posted soon.

Cheers
Dave