Back with a Target - The Arena: Armageddon

Been very busy, and so have forgotten most of what happened in my most recent game. The main thing that I can remember is that sticking Eldrad and Imotekh the Stormlord in a squad of Dire Avengers in a Wave Serpent and then repeatedly using guide to allow Imotekh to re-roll his failed to hit rolls with his lightning is pretty cheesy, especially when playing Apocalypse (how this came about).

Other than this, I've managed to get my hands on a box of scouts, all I need now are some suitable arms and a melta gun for one of them, maybe some Cadian arms. Got a tiny amount of painting done on my Grey Hunters as well. But anyway, on to the arena.

Today I have rolled up a bit of a grudge match, Yarrick vs Ghazghkull. I would honestly think that that Ghaz should win this, but depending up how many wounds Yarrick can inflict before Ghaz can unleash his Waaagh! And how well he rolls to keep getting back up again, he could take it. So, straight into the action.

Both characters hit simultaneously.

I roll for Yarrick first, who rolls a 2, a 3 and a 4 to hit, only hitting once. He gets a 5 next, wounding Ghazghkull, who rolls a 4 for his save taking a wound.

Ghazghkull is rolled for next, getting 3 hits after rolling 22366. He gets 334 to wound, but is forced to re-roll by Yarrick, he then gets a 566, knocking Yarrick flat. Yarrick then rolls to see if he gets back up, getting a 3 and standing up, battered but alive.

Yarrick lunges with his power claw, getting 256, followed by a 1 and a 4 to wound, the wound is swiftly ignored however when Ghaz rolls a 6 for his save.

Ghaz then tries to hit back at Yarrick, and kill him properly this time. Hitting 3 times with a 12556 and wounding twice with 135, both of which make it through after the re-roll when he makes a 2 and a 3. Yarrick falls down again, but only rolls a 2 to get back up, meaning that Ghaz has subdued him

The victory goes to Ghazghkull who continues to the next round.

That's all for today, hopefully there should be at least 2 new posts after this one before the end of the day next Sunday (GMT). Yes, I'm setting myself targets now.

The Arena - Introduction and Swarmlord Vs Stormlord

Right, on with a new post series. I'm going to start using labels for this one because previous posts may be found relavent for the new ones. This post series is going to be called, 'The Arena', or 'Arena' in the tags. The concept behind it has been done to absolute death. Essentially, we have 1 big bad HQ choice from each Codex, and in a knockout style they battle it out to see who wins. These posts will be quite regular, and yet none of it is staged, as I write as I roll dice.

Each unit starts in close combat, with neither unit counting as charging. The only HQ that is banned is Saint Celestine, as having a model that can't die is purely unfair. Also, there my be some points irregularities, with some HQs being a lot cheaper than others, but hey, Logan Grimnar is a very expensive character but that doesn't make him a raging beast like Draigo, Abaddon or Ghazghkull. So, without further ado, here are the competitiors.

Black Templars: Chaplain Grimaldus

Blood Angels: Mephiston, Lord of Death

Chaos Daemons: Skarbrand, the Exiled One

Chaos Space Marines: Abaddon the Despoiler

Dark Angels: Azrael, Supreme Grand Master

Dark Eldar: Drazhar, Master of Blades

Eldar: The Avatar of Khaine

Grey Knights: Kaldor Draigo

Imperial Guard: Commissar Yarrick

Necrons: Imotekh the Stormlord

Orks: Ghazghkull Thraka

Sisters of Battle: Uriah Jacobus, Protector of the Faith

Space Marines: Captain Darnath Lysander

Space Wolves: Ragnar Blackmane

Tau: Commander Farsight

Tyranids: The Swarmlord

So, these are the combatents. Onto the first round.

The first draw for round one is Imotekh the Stormlord vs The Swarmlord. On paper, you would expect the Swarmlord to cruise this one and fly into the next round. The Swarmlord would be striking first, hitting and wounding on 3s and forcing Imotekh to re-roll his passed Invulnerable saves. Ouch. On the other side, Imotekh needs 5s to hit, although he does get a re-roll, and 5s to wound, and even when he does, he doesn't even have a power weapon. Still, stranger things have happened. The fight begins.

The Swarmlord strikes at Imotekh, rolling 2 1s, a 4, a 5 and a 6. Hitting him thrice. He then rolls to wound, getting 2 6s and a 5. Imotekh only manages to save one of these with his phase shifter, but luckily for him after the re-roll he still passes, although he only has 1 wound remaining.

Imotekh then strikes back, getting 2 2s and a 3. Missing, he re-rolls all of the dice only to get a result that replaces one of the 2s with a 1. Imotekh fails to hit.

The Swarmlord strikes for a second time. Getting one of each of the numbers ranging from 1 to 5. Hitting thrice once again. It then proceeds to roll 2 3s and a 6 to wound. Imotekhs phase shifter performs averagely on this turn, and results in him passing 2 of his saves. But it is not enough. He is felled and the Swarmlord steps past him into the second round.

Well, sometimes the most likely candidate does win. See you soon for the second match up of round one.

In other news, and to stop you from scrolling to the end to find out who won rather that read through the 'blow by blow' account, my Throne of Skulls ticket for the July 40k event arrived through the post today, so if any of you reading this are attending the same event, just let me know. Also, I've managed to kick start a new army in the form of some power armour (finally) and have 8 Grey Hunters primed and ready for painting, with 2 just waiting for their Melta Guns to arrive.

Game 2: The Game

Note: For the lists, see the post below this one.

The game was 4 objectives, with each player placing one in their deployment zone and then a further objective being placed in the centre of the board. On one of the 6 feet sides of the table, a player deployed in each corner, and on the other side of the table, the other player deployed in the centre. I won the roll to choose deployment zone, choosing to go in the middle of one side hiding behind the Sanctum Imperialis, with the other 2 deploying in the corners. ZachArPaladin won the roll for priority and decided to go first, with Sam going second as he rolled the second highest and me last. However, although I chose not to attempt a seize, Sam did, and succeeded. Leaving him to go first, followed by ZachArPaladin, and then me. ZachArPaladin left his Genestealers and Trygon in reserve, I left my Scorpions, Hawks and Avengers in reserve.

Turn 1:

Sam starts to push out his vehicles, with the exception of the Manticore, with the Punisher and the Bane Wolf heading towards the Tyranids, and the Hellhound and the Vanquisher towards the Eldar. The Manticore fired, killing 5 of the non-devourer armed Termagants and 3 Tyranid warriors, blasting them into many scattered fragments of gore and chitin. Furthermore, the Master of Ordanance called a bombardment against the Scatter Laser armed Guardian squad, vaporising 4 of them.

Tyranids turn 1 was less eventful, everything pushed outwards a little while the spore mines shuffled around the board.

The Eldar turn was sort of a mix, not quite as eventful as the Guard turn, but certainly more so than that of the Tyranids. The Rangers shot at the Carnifex, and wounded it twice, while the Missile toting Guardians unleashed a Plasma missile taking out 5 of the Termagants from the already depreciated squad. Furthermore, the Scatter Laser from the Guardians fired at the Company Command Squad, killing the Astropath.

Turn 2:

The Punisher and the Banewolf all but wiped out the larger Termagant squad, reducing it to a single creature, while the Manticore did the same to the Tyranid Warriors, taking them down to 2. The Hellhound roasted 5 more of the Guardians, 2 in the Scatter Laser squad and 3 in the Missile Squad, Conceal proving unusable against its mighty flamey cannon of impending doom.

The Tyranid turn 2 was slightly more eventful than the first, not that that's a particularly awesome achievement. The Genestealers came on, originally rolling to come on behind the Imperial Guard but the Officer of the Fleet made them re-roll this making them merge next to the Eldar. The Hive Tyrant fired, killing 2 Harlequins, and the lone Termagant pounced upon the objective it, claiming it and resulting in the Tyranids being in the lead coming out of their turn 2.

Turn 2 for the Eldar started ok, the Striking Scorpions came on, again behind the Guard but were again forced away, ending up next to the Tyranid objective, slicing through 15 of the devourer armed Termagants losing only 2 of their number in the process. The Guardians with the Missile Launcher even blasted away 5 Genestealers, the Scatter Laser even killed the lone Termagant on the centre objective. However, none of this mattered considering the grand tragedy that unfolded for the Eldar. Eldrad Fortuned the Rangers, but rolled a double 1 and a 2 in the process. The Runes of Witnessing forcing him to discard the 2, resulting in a Perils of the Warp, no biggy, he has a Ghosthelm allowing him to roll a decent save against these things. Roll for the save. 1. Oh. Eldrad dies.

Turn 3:

The Scatter Laser Guardians are melted down by the Hellhound, the Punisher takes out the Hive Tyrant and the Devil Dog disposes of the Carnifex as well as one of the remaining Tyranid Warriors. The Vanquisher also had a good go at removing the Avatar, but only managed to wound it twice. Meanwhile, the Guard Troops reconcentrated around the objective ready for any end-game shenanigans that may have come their way.

The Tyranid Genestealers pounced atop the Eldar home objective, eating the Rangers, the Harlequins too far away to do anything in the previous turn but ready for a counter assault. The Tyranid Warrior also managed to Immobilise the Devil Dog, getting so vengeance for the havoc that it had previously unleashed upon the Tyranid army. Furthermore, the Striking Scorpions finished off the Termagants, clearing the Tyranid home objective.

In the Eldar turn, nothing really much happens other than a display of close-combat ability. The Harlequins do what they do best, and with the help of the Guardians counter charge the Genestealers, wiping them out and clearing the home objective. Also, the Avatar charges the Hellhound, tearing straight through it. Oh, and the Swooping Hawks arrived, deep struck, scattered onto the Veteran Squad, and died in a deep strike mishap. Dissapointing, but it wasn't like they were going to do much anyway.

Turn 4:

The Manticore fires at the Guardians now squatting on the Eldar objective, killing several of them and disposing of all of the Harlequins bar the Troupe Master. The Punisher also wiped out the Striking Scorpions, and the Vanquisher had another go at the Avatar, but failed to damage it.

In the Tyranid turn, the Trygon finally arrived, but deep strike mishaped and was placed back into reserve. The remaining Warrior ran around the other side of the Devil Dog and hid, tearing the vehicles weapon off in the process.

The Eldar turn threw a spanner in the works for the Sam, who had been so confident all game that he had this one in the bag. The Avatar used its Wailing Doom and blew up the Vanquisher, but the most important part was that the Wave Serpent with the Dire Avengers arrived, and used its Star Engines to throw itself onto the empty Tyranid home objective. Making it 2-1-0 to the Eldar followed by Guard going into turn 5.

Turn 5:

The Punisher unleashed its load upon the Guardians on the Eldars objective reigning the scores back level. However, this left ZachArPaladin in a position of power. He could deep strike the Trygon next to the Guard objective, meaning that Sam would lose, or next to the Eldar objective, which depending upon whether its shooting killed the Wave Serpent or not meant that the Eldar might lose. In the end, he acted in the spirit of the game and deep struck in the middle, attempting to kill the Devil Dog, the Tyranid Warrior ran onto the middle objective claiming it, and in a similar style I ignored the Tyranid with my Wave Serpent and shot the Devil Dog. The game ended at the end of turn 5 resulting in each player having 1 objective each.

A well fought and enjoyable draw. I hope that you enjoyed this battle report. There will be a new segment which will last a couple of weeks coming up in the near future so make sure to look out for that. See you soon.

Game 2: Lists

I know that I said the second battle report would be up a couple of days ago but I got distracted trying to make a little start-gif for the YouTube channel videos, which is still not done. But when the video is up, I'm sure that I'll post it here as well. So, on with the game.

I was trying out a fun sort of Footdar, as I only possess 1 Eldar vehicle chassis. At 1,500pts, my list was as follows.

HQ:

Eldrad

The Avatar

Elites:

7 Harlequins

-Shadowseer

-Troupe Master w/ Power Sword

-2 Harlequins Kisses

-2 Fusion Pistols

6 Striking Scorpions

-Exarch w/ Biting Blade

-Shadowstrike

-Stalker

Troops:

5 Rangers

-Pathfinders

12 Guardians

-Missile Launcher Platform

-Warlock w/ Conceal and Singing Spear

12 Guardians

-Scatter Laser Platform

-Warlock w/ Conceal

5 Dire Avengers

-Exarch w/ Diresword

-Wave Serpent w/ Twin Linked Scatter Lasers, Shuriken Cannon and Star Engines.

Fast Attack:

6 Swooping Hawks

-Exarch w/ Power Weapon

-Skyleap

-Intercept

ZachArPaladin was also participating, this time with his Tyranids. The theme of this battle was very much a 'back to your roots' sort of thing. Where we each took the army that we first played, and this was his first 'proper' army. Anyway, he took.

HQ:

Hive Tyrant

-Stranglethorn Cannon

-Hive Commander

Troops:

25 Termagants

-Fleshborers

20 Termagants

-Devourers

15 Genestealers

7 Tyranid Warriors

-2 Rending Claws

-4 Deathspitters

-1 Barbed Strangler

Fast Attack:

5 Spore Mines

Heavy Support:

Trygon Prime

Carnifex

The third player was a new guy called Sam. He's appeared on the YouTube channel before but I really can't remember what he was called, but he was the Guard player in the doubles battle report that we never finished but uploaded anyway. So here he is again with his Imperial Guard, which can be seen below.

HQ:

Company Command Squad

-Colonel 'Iron Hand' Straken

-Officer of the Fleet

-Astropath

-Master of Ordanance

-1 Flamer

-1 Melta Gun

-Carapace Armour

-Regimental Standard

-Medi-Pack

Troops:

Veterans

-Power Fist

-Plasma Pistol

-Grenadiers

-Heavy Flamer

-2 Melta Guns

Penal Legion Squad

Fast Attack:

Hellhound

-Extra Armour

Bane Wolf

-Extra Armour

Heavy Support:

Manticore

Leman Russ Punisher

-Knight Commander Pask

-Lascannon

-Heavy Bolter Sponsons

-Extra Armour

Leman Russ Vanquisher

-Plasma Cannon Sponsons

-Extra Armour

So these are the lists, making this already a rather long post. So I'll leave it there for now and hopefully have the report itself up in written form in the next half an hour or so.

2 Days - 2 Games

I've been very busy ready for this update, but unfortunately, this only started this weekend and so everything here is relating to Friday and Saturday, hence, late update. I had not done anything before this.

The first game that I played was a 1,000pt game against a Dark Angels player, who was honestly one of the nicest guys that I've ever had the privilege to play against. The game itself was on a 4x4 board and Kill Points with Pitched Battle deployment. I was taking my Daemons in an attempt to have some fun and get to grips with them a little more, and my list was as follows: (Sorry for the lack of pictures in this one).

HQ:

Skulltaker and the Masque

Troops:

10 Bloodletters

9 Bloodletters

9 Horrors with Bolt

Fast Attack:

5 Flesh Hounds and Karanak

Heavy Support:

Soul Grinder with Phlegm

Total: 992

My opponent had approximately:

HQ:

Belial

Interrogator Chaplain in Terminator Armour

Elites:

Dreadnought

Troops:

5 Terminators with 2 Lightning Claws and 3 Thunder Hammers and Storm Shields

5 Terminators with 4 Power Fists and Storm Bolters and 1 Power Sword and Storm Bolters

Heavy Support:

Predator with Hunter-Killer Missile, Autocannon and Heavy Bolter Sponsons.

The game started well, I won the roll off to see who goes first and gave him frist turn so that he effectively wastes a turn of shooting. I also got my preffered wave for the first time out of the 4 games that I have played with Daemons, which was nice, so in my turn I proceeded to deep strike the 2 bloodletter squads, one of which had Skulltaker in it, the Masque and the Soul Grinder. The Masque got dead on, ready to pull the Power Fist Terminator Squad out of the woods that they were hiding in, the Soul Grinder scattered back a couple of inches, but this wasn't an issue, Skulltakers squad also scattered, but they ended up behind the woods, giving them a nice cover save from any shooting that would come my way.

Then everything flipped, the larger bloodletter squad scattered atop the Soul Grinder and died in a deep strike mishap, and the Masque missed with all of her pavanes at the Terminators. In my opponents turn, said Terminators stormed out of the woods, Belial pulled out his Storm Bolter, and in an epic moment of awesomeness shot at the Masque twice, hit her twice, wounded her twice, and then she failed both of her 3++ saves and died. The Dreadnought stomped forwards and immobilised my Soul Grinder as well. At this point I'm in real trouble, and as none of my reserves come in either, something dramatic will have to happen.

The Soul Grinder fires at the Dreadnought and fails to damage it. Skulltaker's squad when charge at Belial and his squad, Skulltaker doesn't have much luck, only felling a single Terminator, but the Bloodletters go crazy, all but annihilating the squad leaving only Belial with a single wound remaining, Belial then kills a single Bloodletter but this doesn't stop his demise and he is taken down due to fearless wounds. 2-2. Entering turn 3, the Dark Angels unload with everything that they have at the Bloodletters, after the fire subsided, only Skulltaker and 3 Bloodletters remained.

Now some reserves arrive. The Horrors come in and attempt to land behind the Predator, looking for an easy kill point, but the scatter around the side, out of line of sight of the Terminator squad. The Bolt fires, hits the tank, penetrates it but only manages to rip the Autocannon off. Skulltaker splits from the squad in a heroic attempt to take down the dreadnought, but not before the Soul Grinder immobilises it. However, this doesn't help as he is wounded without dishing out any damage in return.

In my opponents turn 4, he moves away the Predator, leaving the path clear for the Terminators to munch on some Pink Horror goodness, their 4++ doesn't help them at all here and they are swiftly dealt with, leaving the Terminators to consolidate back towards the Bloodletters. Elsewhere, Skulltaker takes another wound from the Dreadnought resulting in his death and another point to the Dark Angels.

The Flesh Hounds finally arrive, about 4 inches in front of the Terminators, the Bloodletters then proceed to move up next to them, ready to counter charge if the Terminators get them. Risky as I realise that it could end with the Dark Angels picking up an easy point, but when you are down 2 points in a 1,000pt game, sometimes you need to take risks. The Terminators however don't go for this, shooting at the Hounds, of which I remove the front 2, denying the Dark Angels the charge.

In my turn 5, it is almost as though the Daemons knew what how bad the situation looked, as they go absolutely crazy. The Soul Grinder being the only exception to this, once again his weaponary bouncing off the back of the Dreadnought. The Flesh Hounds charge into the Predator, Karanak immobilises it, leaving it easy pickings for the remaining 3 Hounds, who tear it assunder. The 3 Bloodletters make a charge against the Terminators, and somehow manage to kill 2 Terminators with Storm Shields and 1 with Lightning Claws, as well as wounding the Chaplain, but only loses one of their number in return, taking a further Storm Shield Terminator down with Fearless wounds.

Unfortunatley, we were unable to see this epic combat reach its end as the game ended at the end of turn 5, with a 4-3 victory to the Dark Angels. This post is already pretty lengthy and so I'll post the second battle report tomorrow, which is a 1,500pt, 3 player game with each player going back to their roots and playing a list that goes against the grain of internet punditry.