It was 5 games over 2 days and 350 miles or so from my house so myself and Bradimus Prime had to set off at 4am to be there on time.
There should have been 50 players but after drop outs that shrunk to 42. I ran Black Templar, a kinda hybrid assault/gun line list, it did what I wanted it to but not anywhere near as well as I needed it to.
The list looked like this;
Black Templars 1750
HQ
Marshall (185 points)
Terminator Armour 25 points
Chainfist 30 points
Storm Shield 15 points
Adamantite Mantle 35 points
Emperor`s Champion (140 points)
Accept any challenge 50 points
Elite
Sword Brethren Terminator Assault Squad (556 points)
2 with lightning claws 86 points
4 with Thunder hammers 172 points
Furious Charge 10 points
1 Landraider Crusader
Blessed Hull 25 points
Dozer Blade 5 points
Smoke Launcher 3 points
Venerable Dreadnought (163 points)
Multi-Melta 10 points
Heavy Flamer 10 points
Extra Armour 5 points
Smoke Launchers 3 points
Venerable 20 points
Furious Charge 10 points
Sword Brethren Terminator Squad (265 points)
3 Terminators 129 points
2 Terminator Cyclone Launchers 138 points
Troop
Crusader Squad (148 points)
4 Bolt Pistol + Chainsword 64 points
1 Lascannon 31 points
Rhino 50 points
Smoke Launcher 3 points
Crusader Squad (148 points)
4 Bolt Pistol + Chainsword 64 points
1 Lascannon 31 points
Rhino 50 points
Smoke Launcher 3 points
Crusader Squad (145 points)
4 Bolt Pistol + Chainsword 64 points
1 Lascannon 31 points
Rhino 50 points
These are brief run downs of the games
Game 1 V's Mike Collins Space wolves
Mike is on the Welsh 40k team and it showed but I had a great game, he was running with a Thunder Lord and 4 thunder wolves, I had never encountered these before and I have to say I should have mashed them but alas it was not to be. Turns 1-3 I had it all my own way but then the raider got popped and the termies got pinned, bad news, the ven dread got stuck in and held up 2 thunder hammers and a powerfist for 5 assault phases before I failed to do anything with the assault marines and I lost them on the grind, turns 4-6 went very very badly and I lost 3 KP to 9.
Great opponent, great game. After the game Mike was kind enough to give me a "where I went wrong" rundown which was great. I hope I get to play him again.
Loss
Game 2 Dan Edom's Eldar
I thought I was going to have trouble with this army, I always seem to struggle with Eldar lists however, the dice gods spanked him up, down left and right. I dealt with his Fire Dragons early on and popped a transport or two in the early game and he failed to do anything, nothing, nadda.... I took his objective and he failed to take mine, he killed 1 terminator and immobilised the raider but that was it, I in return killed or destroyed about half his army. His dice hated him that day, he either hit nothing or hit and failed to wound or pen. It was not a great game, the poor guy wasn't able to put up any resistance. Another great opponent, fingers crossed ill get a game with him at caledonian uprising in January if he goes, I hope the dice gods smile on him.
Win
Game 3 Rob Madley Dark Eldar
This was table quarters with 5 objectives.
I wanted to play Dark Eldar, my LR Crusader had Blessed Armour and I hopped this would save my Bacon. Not so, Rob is a great player, he outplayed me all game, grabbing 3 objectives early on and then applying pressure on the objective I had meaning that I could never get out of my table quarter. the highlight for me was the assault terminators smashing into 18 Helions and and winning combat by 16. The ven Dread once again showed its worth absorbing 8 lance hits and then tying up a beast pack. the game ended 2 objectives to 1. Rob is a very careful player, great at manoeuvring, he out played me turns 1-6. Yet another guy I would willingly play again.
Loss
At the end of day 1 I had played 3 cracking opponents and had lost 2 and won 1.
Day 2 comes around and I have a nice surprise, in the morning before the pairings are anounced Im asked to leave my army out over the lunch break as I had been nominated for best painted army!!
Game 4 Mike Foulks Chaos Space Marines
Hows this for starting a game with confidence, before I met my opponent Brad says to me "He running a lash list, I think your gonna have bother with it". I had only faced lash once before, with mech guard and I had smashed it in 4 turns, to I thinks to myself "nothing to worry about".
WRONG
Turn one my Raider got popped after absorbing 10 Lascannon shots from Landraiders and Oblits then my Termies ended up getting shoved into a nice, easy to plasma cannon pile then shoved back towards my table edge. I managed to kill of a unit of Deathguard, a squad of Oblits, 3 Chaos Terminators and a Deamon Prince. I managed to hang onto one objective but Mike had 3 at the bottom of tun 7 and I suffered my 3rd loss...I think I was as unlucky as anything else, Mike at one point apologised to me for the dice he was rolling, I think he felt the same way about this game as I did on my second. Great opponent, hope to play again at some point.
Game 5 - Andrew Brampton Imperial Guard
This was a beautifully painted army, loads of freehand work on the Chimeria top hatches. Stunning. This one was kill points and table quarters. Things went well for Andrew turn 1. Once again I lost the Landraider but this time to a Manticore direct hit .... once again the Termies were walking. That's as well as it went for him, I popped 3 chimeras turn 1 and then 3 more turn 2 also immobilising a Russ, the termies went forward and dealt with the infantry scoring me a total of 9 Vp's over 6 turns. By the end of the game he had 1 immobilised Russ and about 10 infantry left. I won convincingly 19 VP to 3. We had both done so badly we were playing for fun and that it was, a great game against a very sporting opponent.
This was great fun, I came in 25th and won Best painted army - players choice. I was well made up with that.
Ill go through how the army performed in another post later on, may be after the weekend.
Von Muller