Blood fury!

Khorne was pleased tonight. The noble blood of the high elves quenched khorne a appetite.

My chaos lord smashing aside a whole unit of dragon princes

The Blade Bay Packers

So in preparation of our upcoming Bloodbowl league I'm building a Norse team out of Marauder spares I have.

So far I have a thrower, 2 blitzers, 2 werewolves and 7 linesmen.

I had my first game today and I've realised when playing elves, you need to take ten out of the game. I also need to learn how to roll more than 8 on 2 D6. Seems I was incapable of doing this!

Vanquish 2013 - game 5: Imperial Guard

My last game of the tournament and possibly the best and most enjoyable. So enjoyable in fact I managed to remember to take no photos :\

My opponent ran a mech vet army along with a hydra flak cannon squadron, a devil dog and a vendetta gunship. This was going to hurt as I knew my own flyers were in for some chop.

The game was very evenly balanced all the way through. I managed a coupe of early wins blowing up a demolisher and wrecking a chimera with my stern guard but making the fatal mistake of going to ground with the sternguard for the return fire which prevented Lysander running on to the central objective and beating up gunner sgt harker and his vet squad. As it worked out I shot them off the objective any way but as guard do another vets squad disembarked to hold the objective.

The game saw my opponent fail no less than 4 dangerous terrain test immobilising 4 tanks.

Most notable points of the game. Sly mambo turned up in my back field who threw a demo charge at a lone tac marine who simply head butted it away then gunned down Marbo (with the help of my dreadnought :)

The game came down to the last throw of dice as my opponent decided to tank shock me off my home objective with the 2 hydra tanks. Lining up his tanks he moved the, both into position. My sgt with his krak grenades stood tall in the name of the high lords. He was squished mercilessly. Then came the roll for the dangerous terrain test. Boom a 1!!! One of the tank ground to a halt and I was still on the objective. Nail biting stuff but I had won by the skin of my teeth.

Result: victory

Some pictures below of some of the other units and armies on display.

Vanquish 2013 - game 4: Ultramarines

Day 2 and I'm at the wrong end of the tournament ladder. Up next, Ultramarines!

I've always had an aversion to the boys in blue and this is probably why I chose Minotaur marines.

My opponent was new to the game having only started in November last year and had brought a nice army of the units he liked.

Calgar with 5 terminators bodyguard I'm an outflanking land raider (warlord trait) a scout squad, a deep striking terminator assaukt squad, a devastator squad, 2 tactical squads, one on a drop pod and a land speeder squadron.

I have to say my opponents strategic acumen was not all that great as to be expected from the level of his experience.

My sternguard ripped through the land speeder squadron and then the static tactical squad. My vanguard vets were my heroes of this game took out the scouts, the devastators and the drop podding tactical squad to deny my enemy lime breaker.

My enemies finest moment came when I tried to repeat my success against Fuegan by charging Calgar with my 2 tactical squads thinking I could take him down through weight of numbers. Despite having only 2 wounds left as I charged he hung on for three turns whittling down my 18 marines down to 4. If the game had gone on any longer I would have been wiped out.

Result: crushing victory

Vanquish 2013 - game 3: Salamanders

Game 3 and a tough one.

Strangely I had played the same guy using the same mission and the same set up only 5 days previous at pit local gaming club, BattleUX (shameless plug) so the game was a bit of a grudge match and also we knew what armies were being used and what tactics we would employ.

I faced a Salamanders drop pod list with Vulkan Hestan (bloomenthal) Vulkan is left over cheese from the days of Matt ward OTTness. Re rolling that many heavy flamers, meltas and even thunder hammers is ridiculous. I'm not bitter at all.

My enemies list also included a cestus assault ram. Again ridiculous. But to be honest was little impact on the game. The most notable action is saw was trying to ram my dreadnought who simply nutter it to a halt!

I claimed first blood by taking out a dreadnought from the rear with my sternguard but after that they failed to have any real impact on the game. Lysander spent most of the game running to reach a combat. I think he managed to kill 2 marines by the end of then game.

Catastrophic bad luck hit me when I only managed to wreck a drop pod which then blocked line of sight to the relic and the 2 tactical squads defending it. This put a seizable portion of my firepower out of line of sight for half the game.

This time I was on the back foot and was unable to turn things around.

Result: crushing defeat

Vanquish 2013 - game 2: Eldar

My second game of the day was against Eldar. A well painted host from the early seen Luggnath craft world. My opponent fielded two units of Harlequins who would later prove difficult to deal with and a very dangerous D-cannon battery.

The board was terrain heavy with limited fields of fire which oddly didn't have that much effect on the game.

I dropped my sternguard first turn and killed his wraithlord claiming first blood. His harlequins took on the stern guard and Lysander taking 4 turns to wipe them out.

He boldy moved a fire dragon stuffed wave serpent into my deployment zone before getting shot to blitz by my dreadnought, predator and 2 tactical squads. As the dust settled only the exarch and Fuegan survived. I assaulted with both tax squads and 3 turns later, through sheer weight of numbers killed off the Phoenix lord.

Somehow I managed to force a panic test on the crew of the d-cannon battery who fled off the table alongwith the Eldar Farseer warlord!

My enemy was on the back foot all game unable the gain the upper hand. As an Eldar player myself I sympathised, but not for long.

Result: Victory

Vanquish 2013 - game 1: Necrons

I took my hastily built and precariously painted Minotaurs to Bristol for the Vanquish tournament hosted by the Bristol Vanguard games club and here's how I got on.

First game and I get drawn against some gribbly looking Necrons. I've not faced Necrons before so not surprising I fell for a few of their tricks.

First thing ill say is that before you go charging into combat with a CC monster like Lysander trying to claim Warlord make sure you get the right lord.

Second thing ill say is 'mind shackle scarabs'. I DO NOT LIKE mind shackle scarabs. Lysander spent 5 close combat phases punching himself in the face before squishing the Necron Lord and only then I was told I still hadn't killed my enemies warlord as he was the other side of the board.

Other notable points of the game were my sternguard wiping out an entire unit of destroyers in one shooting phase then tying up two further units of warriors. And a unit of 10 tactical marines holding up and then destroying a unit of 6 wraiths much to the chargrin of my opponent.

Unfortunately the rest of my army proved ill disposed to deal with the ancient macabre host.

Result: crushing defeat.

New high elves??

I'm not the first to post this (by any means) but here's a leaked pic from the new high elf book.

Looks like some flying monstrous cavalry are heading our way! My little bro will be pleased.