Return from the BugEater GT Pt.1

Well, I'm back from the GT and I have to say that the tournament was an absolute blast! 6 games across two days and a bunch of awesome people, couldn't have had a better time.  While I went mainly with the want to just play a few fun games and just have a good time, on the ride down I set a goal for myself to get at least one win for my first GT and I did just that! Pulled out a 1 win to 5 losses, but the losses didn't feel bad. They were a great learning experience about how to play against armies and what to expect of them for the future.

While I won't write up full battle reports for each of the games, I will include a couple of pictures and a brief description of each, along with my impression of the armies that I faced.

First off though, here is the army I took down: The 422nd Valedor Consolidated

The list included: 1 Company Command Squad with Colonel Daniel Whitmoore (Senior officer), a 3 man Ratling unit, a 30 man outflanking infantry platoon with Captain Varen Contaire (Al'Rahem counts as), carrying 3 melta guns and melta bombs on the power sword Sgts. There was also a power sword Commissar attached. A 20 man infantry platoon and command squad, all 3 with Grenade launchers. Two veteran squads, one triple plasma with the demolition upgrade and a triple melta squad with Lt. Reginald Stelton (Bastone counts as).

For armor I brought a squadron of 2 regular Leman Russ Battle Tanks, with lascannon hulls. A Vanquisher variant with lascannon front and Commissar Maximillian Dren (Pask counts as) and an Executioner variant with lascannon hull and multi-melta sponsons.

Finally I brought a Vendetta Gunship to carry my Melta Vets.

0420012.M3 (6/2/12 7:16am)
Round 1: In the first round, my guard were pitted against an excellently converted, counts as, Chaos Daemon army, with a dark Mechanicus theme, played by Richard Coles.

First off, I'd never played against a Daemon army before, so going into the game I didn't really know what to expect, but my opponent was a great person to play against and very willing to explain what his troops did when I had a question.

The scenario was played out with a pitched battle deployment with the objectives being primary, Kill points as a secondary and the 5 objectives as our tertiary.

With the Daemon's going first and his entire army deep striking into the battle, I consolidated into one corner of the board with the intention of keeping consolidated while he came in slowly, then using my own reserves to grab or contest table quarters and objectives.

The first couple turns for him, were mainly his lesser daemons coming into play, with his heavy hitters, the Blood Crushers and his Fate Weaver coming in near the 4th and 5th turns.  Though, his Fiends and horrors came in and advanced towards me, allowing me to range them out and score some early wounds before they managed to get in close enough.

At the bottom of turn 3, my outflank platoon came in on the edge I had consolidated on just in time to wipe out one of his Horror units that had been taking shots at my Russ line. While my Vendetta came in on the other side and engaged a unit of Plague Bearers on 4, allowing my to take the objective in that corner.

In the next two turns, he finished off my Russ Squadron and my Executioner, before piling the platoon holding the objective I had deployed on, killing most of them, before running them down. In the end, my Vanquisher was able to put one or two wounds on his Fate Weaver from across the board.

When the game ended on turn 6 it was a victory to him, taking the Primary of Table Quarters, 3 to 1. He also passed me on kill points, mopping up a large chunk of my army, while I managed to tie him on Objectives, with each of us ending with 1.

Overall, even though I'd lost, I had definitely enjoyed the game and would enjoy playing against him again just to have a good game.

0420012.M3 (6/2/12 10:07AM)
Round 2: The second round saw my Guard pitted against the Double Lash list of last year's winner, Tony Staub. Again, another codex that I really have no experience playing against, so I went in not knowing what to expect, but not worried about it.

Scenario in this round was setup for Spearhead deployment, with primary objective being kill points, followed by objectives and finally table quarters.

After setting up the objectives around the center building, I won the roll off to go first and set myself up on a small rise, positioning my armor to cover both flanks and give them as many fire lanes as possible.  His deployment was held back to a pair of Rhinos, both daemon princes and 2 pairs of Obliterators.

 The first round passed with not a lot happening. I advanced forwards with 2 of my tank squadrons and infantry, grabbing one objective and going towards another. On his turn, he lashed my plasma vets closer and obliterated them with a couple of plasma cannon shots from a unit of obliterators.

On turn two both of us got reinforcements in, with my Vendetta coming in on his corner of the table and my outflank platoon coming in on my side. I also wrecked one of his Rhinos with a shot from my Vanquisher, leaving a unit of plague marines back on his objective. With his reinforcements, he brought in a squad of berserkers to meet my outflank unit and brought the last obliterator unit in behind my Vendetta, blowing it up and leaving the remainder of the vets to be killed by one of his daemon princes. His berserkers locked in combat with my platoon, killing a good chunk of them, while they struck back and killed 8 and being held in combat by the commissar.

On the next turn I stunned one of his rhinos, but couldn't do anything more, while the executioner and my other platoon turned to aid in the combat against the berserkers. On his, he lashed my starting platoon in and heavy flamered them to the man, while his last unit of plague marines came in and helped the berserkers finish off my guardsmen.

Nothing more happened from here on, my executioner was immobilized, but only stunned by the plague marines and my russes and vanquisher were able to put three wounds on one of his daemon princes as it flew across the center obstruction.  The game ended on round 5 with a full win to the chaos marines, winning all three objectives.

All in all, a fun game with a definite moral victory for myself, by killing 8 berserkers, before my platoon was cut down.

That's where I'll end this blog for today. Tomorrow I'll post about the remainder of the games, or at least the next two.