So on the weekend I attended the Fields of Blood tournament. I should start out with a thanks for Pete with putting up with us all and a thanks to everyone who supplied terrain for the event, it was great playing on well done table vs well done armies.
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| My Army |
To sum up the gaming side of things it was 1750pts with a hidden handicap designed to try encourage fluffy armies. Each game had custom missions with a twist and big focus on objectives. With a maximum of 10 Battle Points per game, 7 points for a win and 3 other points for First Strike (Kill a unit on your first turn), Line Breaker and Slay the Warlord.
Game 1 - Acid Rain, 6 Objectives Accumulative Scoring Vs Alpha Legion.
I was shaking with pre-tournament nerves, I rushed through deployment knowing I had to play fast. Still with two horde armies it took almost an hour.
Acid Rain applied a -1 to shooting and charges and was in play for round 1 and could disappear on a 4+ starting round 2. Deployment saw a huge horde of Berserkers just outside of my deployment ready to charge my Guardsman Neophytes who didn't look like they would hold the objective for long. I silly decided to put everything I had into the cultists who were strung across 3 objectives. I amazing rolled 12 shoots for one leman russ and 11 for the other, sadly acid rain and Alpha Legions -1 trait converted that to 1 hit. The Termagaunts did a lot better wiping most of them out. In my rush to get through the turns so quickly I forgot to use the stratagem to shoot them again. My Genestealers and Patriarch charged a unit of marines on the first turn, looking at the clock he said don't bother rolling and just picked up the squad. His berserkers then made short work of most of my army. His Daemon Prince charged my Miasma Cannon Tyrant between that and the fight again stratagem I was able to get Warlord. By the end of the game my nerves had calmed and my opponent and I came to a gracious agreement that my Patriarch could hide in his deployment zone. I lost massively in terms of table presence but not to badly on objectives from my genestealers, rippers and scout sentinel doing work. Still with all 3 secondarys each it was good game in terms of Battle Points for both. However between my nerves and the clock I totally forgot to take pictures.
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| Heres a photo of the best table instead. |
Game 2 - Meteor Showers, Hidden Supply Cache Vs Farsight Enclaves
We placed 6 Objectives around the table with the idea being from round 2 we would start rolling to see if one was the supply cache removing the other until there was 1 left or if we found the supplies. We were also meant to roll 3d6 at the start of every turn with each 6 representing a meteor hitting an enemy unit. This was usually done at random points in our turn when we remembered that there was meant to be falling meteors.
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| What fitting Terrain when Facing Tau. |
I managed to get first turn and got a 6 on cult ambush to deploy the Patriarch and his genestealers with them right on top of a riptide and a the Fusion Coldstar I was happy with how this was going to go. I also managed a solid ambush to get my Magus within Mind Control range of a riptide. Mind Control however failed to go off but Mass Hypnosis denied the Fusions as my Patriarch ran in for the slaughter.
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| Things were looking good at the end of my first turn. |
My Opponents first turn saw half the genestealers disappear along with Magus who must of been feeling rather silly. Round 2 began with me finding the supply cache on the edge of my deployment. My Rippers settled on building within range and the last warrior fell back to give it some added protection. I didn't achieve a lot in my shooting or charge phases with the Riptides 3+ invulnerables making sure that they lived with 1 and 5 wounds each. However my opponent was able to spend the last of his command points on his Farsight and Battlesuit Bomb. He was able to get exactly 12 wounds onto my Warlord with this. Round 3 started with the only meteor in the game to hit and it landed on his riptide who had 1 wound remaining. Switching Focus to the newly arrived battlesuits and the drones I was able to knock out the remaining threats over the next two turns. Turn 5 became a race for me to destroy the last 2 Devilfish and kill his sneaky warlord hiding within which I just managed to do.
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| Fully Deployed |
Set piece deployment was roll off to see who would deploy first with full army deployments. This also included a massive 2+ to go first for whoever had to set up first which no chance to seize the initiative. 3 Objectives were placed. One dead centre and one each to place in our deployments. This was a very back in forth game with me holding the middle objective for most of the game however at the end of turn 3 he was Order a single guardsman to run run onto the objective after his basilisks and gunships had just wiped my Warriors off the objective, with 10 minutes on the clock I insisted we could do round 4. I was able to clear the guardsman off the objective smite his warlord to death and advance a total of 3 neophytes onto the objective. However one platoon commander survived and was able to order another 4 guardsman onto the objective to claim it. A narrow loss that didn't do how close the game was. My Sentinel was sitting in his deployment zone still as he ignored all game to focus on real threats so was able to get all 3 secondary points however.
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| Rush the Artillery |
With Day 1 over I had 16 Battle Points after 2 losses and a win. I didn't feel like I was out of the race yet and set my eyes on the Best in Race Trophy. Sorry for the lack of photos, sadly it only gets worse with day 2.
