Big thank you to the guys at From the Fang for a great treat of a day at BlogWars. A lot of hard work went into a smashing day. After spending all day there I can confidently report that:
a) Bloggers are 50% normal, 25% geekizoid and 25% very cool.
b) They are also quite cagey about their identities...
c) Some can be quite weirdly competitive about their popularity ... as I discovered.
I never got to meet Mr Colonel Corbane ... despite him being the only person I actually sorta knew.
Anyhow, I met some great boys who travelled in packs, from the following blogs:
Claws and Fists: (clickety click) a bunch of really nice guys (and a very opinionated one with Navy links in his thirties... LOL), I played against Grazer/Graeme in my last game and he was a champion gentleman and a top bloke too.
Sons of Sanguinius: (clicky click). Didn't play any of them (and I'm glad), as these guys creamed all the top spots in the tournament. Two brothers came first and second, and the winner crack'd first place with Dark Eldar - which he'd pick'd up a few weeks before.
Brother Loring from 3++: (if you need a clicky click ... you'll need your head examined). Very nice fella, very nice girlfriend. Good to play against...
On with the battle reports:
Battle One: This is where my day sort of started and ended really. 7:30 start ... first game. I'm toting 105 guardsmen and 7 vehicles against. Draigo and 20 Grey Knight Paladins, 4 Psycannon with an Apothecary in two two wound mass blobs. It was nicknamed as the 'cheesy' list by the tournament runners. And it was VERY boring to play against. It was spearhead and capture and control and I really didn't know what to do about these boys.
I layered up in one corner and then sent the mech out to the other corner with the Vets and platoon command to challenge the other objective. I managed to put a wound on Draigo in the first turn. Then in turn three 20 2W Terminators with FNP arrived within charge range of my blob. I unleased everything at a squad and killed all but a few. They then shot at me and I lost the platoon command and the autocannons (running) (double Ld9 fail!) and then they ate my blob. All of them.
I hurt him, getting many victory points (747), but Draigo sat on his home objective and contested "LIKE A BOSS!", and my vehicles were left licking their wounds.
Battle Two: Brother Loring from 3++. Building a balanced list with unconventional units was a real joy. And then 16 Black Templars Terminators supported Grimaldus, a Chaplain and an Emperors Champion (2+) into my lines...
I played the beggining well. Placing two 'sacrificial' mortars squads on the 24" forces all the Terminators back at 6" from the start and started hurting them. Everything in his army not in Terminator Armour died badly.
And then a dreaded sense of deja vu overcame me as I was yet again trying to kill terminators with mass firepower. At this point it all got a little much ... a multi-army tournament and I'm facing nothing but 2+, 5++, 3++ ... boo.
It's a killpoint game. He's got 8 kill points in total and he topped ten... so there we go, 2 game sin and I'm too down.
And I'm so tired of Terminators.
Battle Three: finally Graeme arrives with Landraiders and Predators and stuff that most people arrived at the tournament with and I'd weirdly avoided. And this went the other way. Turn One, I wrecked his Landraider and a rhino in the first turn. Next up, Kharn and his Terminators went down kicking under the hooves of my rough riders.
With vehicles to bite into and only 4 termies on the board, the mortars ripped apart the Berserkers and the game finished with 3 objectives in my control and only 2 obliterators on the board. After two games of frustration, everything worked. Graeme was a real champ in taking some really hard knocks as all the rolls worked out.
So overall I scored 17th out of 26ish players. Damn you 2++, damn you to eternity.
Conclusions
The army list worked well, except against Terminators ... blasted termies...
