40k Batrep: The Decider

So the time had come. The big one. The decider. Crow Valley Crusaders vs Tredeager Reavers. Best of three, first two games split, only one left and everything to play for. Alun had informed me that we'd have 3k pts. Each. This would be a chunky game! Alun was taking Guard this time, using the Militarum codex that had been released just the week before. On one hand, it was fresh and Alun hadn't used Guard before, but on the other I don't think Mike or Shaun expected Guard... lets see how it goes. 

Upon arriving, Mike and Shaun tell us we'll be facing 4 Chapter Masters. Shocking!

I'd decided not to take one, and had plumped for Tigurius and a Captain (aka Squat Slayer). Alun had taken Stracken as his warlord, with Tiggy as mine. We got first turn and set up. Most of our units were on the right flank, which, in hindsight, not a good idea to bunch things up.

Then 'IT' happened. One of the most devastating first turns I've ever seen. Unfortunately it was from Mike and Shaun who seized the initiative. 3 orbital bombardments later and 2 leman russ tanks, 2 chimeras and a vindicator were blown to pieces. Alun, who had also taken some Grey Knight allies, lost his Vindicare to an unlucky roll of '1' to save him. I think the boys said they had around 27 blasts to come down on the first turn. Needless to say, they got first blood. It did not look good. Shauns sternguard drop pod down beside my plasma cannon devastator squad and only a couple are lost.

Two of my drop pods entered play, and I attempted to assassinate Mikes Warlord. 10 combi grav shots later and I butcher the tactical squad he was accompanying but he loses just one wound... and gets it back later on from it will not die. Oh well, worth a go! Elsewhere we take a couple of hullpoints off a contemptor, stop one of the plasma preds from firing and I blow on of the other ones up, although this enrages a nearby contemptor who comes charging back to deal with my tactical squad in the next phase. The plasma cannon squad, lead by Tiggy take aim at the Imperial Fists Sternguard and wipe them out. Presciene and Perfect timing working incredibly well together!

Turn of the flyers! Most of the flyers enter play except for Shauns Fireraptor. We take more losses this turn, a combat squad is wiped out from Mikes huge terminator squad in the spartan, the Guardsmen behind the Aegis Defence Line take a hammering and the plasma cannon devs are reduced significantly. Not as bad as that first turn though!

Aluns surviving Leman Russ takes position to cover the Relic, its battle cannon threatening to any infantry looking to capture the objective. I drop pod nearby the Relic and attempt to run onto it to capture, but roll dismally and fail to reach it. After some concentrated fire, Shauns Warlord is left alone after his accompanying tactical squad were blown apart by rockets and battle cannon.  A missile launcher toting Krohmus Guard tactical member takes aim and looses off a krak missile. The missile hits home and Shaun fails his save, giving us a vital victory point. With the objective in the middle of a killing zone we realise that the objective wont be held by anyone and its via bonus VP's this game will be won. We'd already lost out on First Blood and Linebreaker looked likely to be held by both sides, so Slay the Warlords would be huge. 

More of the Iron Hands and Fists units deepstrike onto our right flank, and guardsmen are hit by fire, although not before a demolition charge is thrown at Shauns terminators, but Alun misses and only catches four in the explosion. My plasma cannon devs are wiped out, and Tiggy is left on one wound after fire from umpteen sources. Off he hides! Shauns Stormtalons are wiped out in retaliation and it seems the right flank is safe, despite not much being left. The Techmarine and Thunderfire weather the storm and are left on one wound. 

The Fireraptor also gets dealth with thankfully, although my Stormraven gets battered and left with one hullpoint. Aluns Inquisitor deepstrikes down and takes so much firepower yet still a few survive! And then get charged by a contemptor... Mikes Warlord hides in some ruins with another Tactical Squad, and this now is our prime target. Both of my Storm Talons swoop over and manage to kill a few of the squad. Aluns Valkyrie also flies over into a position to drop off his stormtroopers for a fusilade in the final turn. 

Becoming fed up of Mikes plamsa pred getting fixed up all the time the Stormraven destroys it before the thunderhammer termies assault wrecking the third and final one. Noll the Squat Cyber Slayer also launches himself into the other thunderfire cannon, easily dispatching the Techmarine. The heavy flamer dread torches three of the marines but leaves himself out of range when he assaults... oops! 

With both of our Warlords safe, the score stands at 2-2. Mikes Warlord is now the only thing we kill to earn us victory, the Relic seemingly secondry to killing people! The stormtalons go into hover mode as the Stormtroopers disembark and loose off a hail of fire, taking down the last few of the tactical squad guarding the (one of many HA) Chapter Masters. Alun also manages to take off a wound from the Warlord and the Stormtalons open up finally killing the stubborn sod! With that, we edge out a win 3-2, although I'm still not sure how after that first turn!

So what a game and what a way to end this best of three series against Mike and Shaun. Both were awesome opponents and I can't wait to play more games against this scheming duo. I'm sure many more interclub games will be held, if they're half as fun as these three games have been they'll have an awesome time playing! 

Coming up is a game against Aluns Daemons that was again, incredibly close, and also some WIPs of projects I'm working on. This Saturday too I'm going to Warhammer World with a few of the CVC lads to the GCN EGM, so that should be a great day out and it'll be awesome to meet some of the people involved at the GCN. Its a shame I never got to meet Anthony Barnes who passed away recently, and was the president of the GCN. Whoever takes over has some big shoes to fill, but I'm sure they'll be upto the task. I'm also looking at perhaps a couple of Forge World additions....

International Tabletop Day at the Reavers!

And so International Tabletop Day has come and gone, and my word was it a cracking event. Not only did we have members from the Tredegar Reavers and the Crow Valley Crusaders as usual, but we had a good dozen or so people who weren't members of a gaming club come for a visit to try some tabletop goodness, and judging from the comments everyone had a great time!

Above we have Morgan, Gareth and Alun playing some Magic the Gathering, of which I had a go later on in the day and although I'm still unsure of how it works, did enjoy and wouldn't mind a few more games to see if its something I want to get into. Excuse Morg scoffing his face, breakfast pizza. Lucky bastard!

The Crow Valley Crusaders brought some games and tables up, and set up this awesome looking Infinity display. The bottletop barrels were great, as were the use of toys for vehicles. 

Heres one of their members setting up Deadzone, a game I really wanted to try but didn't get a chance too. The scenery looks pretty cool and I've noticed Mantic have announced that they'll be bringing it out more widely soon... interesting!

One of my favourite board games of all time, Scrabble, got plenty of use and there must have been 5 or 6 games played in total. I lost one and won a game, but enjoyed both immensely. 

Of course No Quarter was played, Huw putting on another great game that got plenty of peoples attention. Huw scowling while mentioning Mikes name could become a new tradition at club!

Chaos in the old world, with a daemon dice!

The aim of CITOW is to get your Greater Daemons together for an intense hugging battle where the softest yet firm hugs win out. In truth, Morgan played a card from the Khorne deck making all the greater darmons in play jump to the same region to do battle... but before a weapon was swung I used a card to get my Lord of Change out of there! 

Scuse the mug, but my mate Louise... I mean Lewis popped over with his lady for a visit. 

Things getting serious as Byron and Shaun look to be in a good postion to win.... but who does?

Heres how the hall looked at mid afternoon, we had people come in and out all day, such a good turnout!

More No Quarter, but with a new cappin' on board! 

Dungeon Petz, a strange game that I didn't quite understand but the players seemed to be loving it. There were different counters for sand, grass, food, and poo. Yes, they were brown! I think you had to look after the pets and nurture them to sell them on. I could be wrong, but thats the sense I got. Louis and his lovely other half also brought Ticket to Ride which I didn't get to play and I really wanted, dabnammit!

So CITOW ended with Byron almost winning, only for Shaun to steal victory from him. The Skaven expansion added some cool elements to this and was a great laugh.

These guys were also part of Dungeon Petz, and I think they either help you or they live in the dungeons that the game takes place in. Cool little counters though thats for sure!

I pulled CubeQuest out for Alun to try, and it wasn't long before EVERYONE was having a go. We tried to set a league but ran out of time, it was hilarious though watching people going from just flicking the cubes over to them actually trying serious tactics out, some great moments fair play.

Five of our visitors had a great time playing Guards! Guards! I really like the look of the hexagonal board and even though I'm not sure what was happening, they players were well into the game and you could see them schemeing over their cards!

As you can see, getting down low to line up a shot in CubeQuest became a nessecity!

More Magic being played, this time between Byron and Morgan.

More hardcore Scrabble action, defiantely an all time classic!

Just some of the games that people brought to play. This isn't even half of them, we had over 30 games for people to choose from!

Heres my hand while playing Gloom, one of my favourite games to play with people new to tabletop gaming. My friend Cassie brought a couple of her mates over as they were interested, so I took them through a game. Some of the little stories that were told were fantastic, and a copy was bought on amazing when the game had finished!

More CITOW

More of Gloom being played by some of our guests.

You can tell when Louis forms a plan, he has that evil smile on his face! Probably about to make someones character happy in Gloom, devious man! 

Without a doubt, the most concentration I've ever seen on Byrons face was when we played CubeQuest. Such a great game, and its quick to play!

All in all then a great day, and one I feel should happen more than just once a year. Everyone seemed to have had a great time and so many games were played! It was incredibly rewarding seeing everyone enjoy themselves and be inspired by new games and meeting new people, and I can't wait til we put on another event like this. I have to thank not just our members but also the Crow Valley Crusaders, especially Byron who helped coordinate the event, organising these things are half the battle! Mainly though I have to thank every person who came and rolled a dice, drew a card, or flicked a cube at me from across the table, it was an amazing day and one we'll be having again!

For more info on our clubs, visit the Tredegar Reavers and the Crow Valley Crusaders or just give me a shout on here. Thanks for reading!

Batreps: CVC Longest Night Visit!

So Friday night I noticed the Crow Valley Crusaders, a club based in Cwmbran and occasional visitors to our own Tredegar Reavers, were having one of their more famed events. The Longest Night. Plenty of dice rolling from 3pm on Saturday til 6pm Sunday. Oh yes! Myself and Alun went down with some 40k and managed to get a couple of good games in... and the pizza...

Heres some of the CVC lads playing Game of Thrones, Alun has this and it looks awesome, deffo need to play this soon! 

All hail pizza. What was that Byron? Order over £50 and its all half price? SWEET! 

Not sure what the best thing about the pizza was, that it lasted longer than Aluns Eldar, or that it was one tasty summa' bitch! 

Check these beauties out too, Alun wondered where the cape was from.... 

Then we were told they were ALL based on Calgar. So much money, but so much love! I love the look of these guys, just awesome conversion work! Even using one body they all look different, good lesson in posing there folks! 

Onto the first of two games... the first I played against Alun who was using Eldar. Wave Serpents, are dicks. With this in mind I wondered what the best way to shoot them down was. Then it hit me. Don't shoot em, Power Fist or Krak Grenade em! My list consisted of two full assault squads, two tactical squads, bikers with Khan, devs, TF cannon and a lascannon pred plus a dreadnought with multi melta in a drop pod. Of course, the Legion of the Damned appeared too... 

Both my assault squads jumped as far up as they could, and the scouting Rhino (its a vindicator, but I forgot rhinos so had to use him) dropping out its guys straight away, they were almost in the Eldar deployment zone in turn one. Most of my fire went on the dark reapers... not all, cause they died with some shooting left. I hate those guys, they're deadly! 

Alun retaliated but didn't do much damage due to night fighting, and I consolidated by assaulting a prism with one unit of assault marines, which they destroyed, the surviving forward tactical squad blew up a wave serpent, Khan split from the squad and also assaulted a serpent, his hammer of wrath alone blowing it up. I can see him wheelie-ing up and into the cockpit killing the driver then skidding back down as it explodes! the bikes fail to assault some fire dragons, and I lose a few to fire. The other assault squad gets stuck in combat for the next few turns with some Direavengers who prove difficult to shift. Dreadnought makes a 10" assault into another serpent and wrecks it, Farseer and warlocks exposed! 

The game ends in my fourth turn, and Aluns force is wiped out. I won 9-0 in the end, having gained first blood, kill the warlord and linebreaker along with the two objectives (Emperors Will). I don't think Alun expected a fast moving force and I caught the elfling offguard. Score!

The second game was a bit more important... on our last visit we got beat up on quite a bit, so we wanted to regain some club pride. 1500 points per player, doubles! So I had to team up against the person I'd just tabled... hmm! All of the enemies shooting pretty much got poured into my bikes. Khan and the attack bike survived, but thats it! Our shooting did little, couple of Chaos termies died and a few troops but not much. 

Mikes Fireraptor came on but luckily did little, and in reply my Adeptus Stormwing comes on, the Stormraven doing nothing but the one stormtalons assault cannons takes down the flyer. We both do some damage to each other, wave serpents take down more of the enemies troops, the thunderfire cannon slowing the enemy advance down and a couple of the contemptors are stunned, weakening them for later fire. 

Khan kills a plaguemarine champion before hit and running out and into combat with the Chaos Lord, and gets kill as he strikes the Chaos Lord down after I rolled a 6 and the player failed to save, instant death ya'll! He gets one VP, I get two due to Khans trait. Couple of eldar tanks succumb to enemy firepower, although they lose a few of their own along with a couple of the contemptors. My thunderhammer terminators assault the plaguemarines on the relic and are able to wipe them out, although it takes two turns to do so! Aluns Dire Avengers are able to take the objective and hold onto it. 

I believe the game finished 2-5 to us, we had the objective and 2 vps from the warlord kill, and the CVC guys had one for first blood and one for killing Khan. We had a hell of a laugh playing this, the Chaos players dice rolling for saves was incredible, and I had to shake his hand 12 times for rolling four 5's or 6's to save a unit being destroyed, impressive stuff! Hopefully we'll be able to visit the Crow Valley Crusaders more often, and vice versa.... we have some coming up tonight so I'm expecting more battling tonight! 

Also saturday we have International Tabletop Day coming up at the Reavers, cannot wait for this!