April 15, 2006

Just thought I would send a quick battle report from yesterdays AFA annual tournament. I had three great games with some strong competition and great looking armies. Thanks to all three opponents for a great time!!
My army consisted of:
Tooled up lord w/ Manreaper, Terminator armor with retinue of chosen with one melta and aspiring champ with powerfist in landraider
2 units Plague Marines melta/flamer w/ aspiring champs with plague swords and demonic upgrades both in rhinos
2 fast attack Plague Marines melta/plasma w/ aspiring champs one with power fist one demonic chains both units in rhinos
great unclean one with gift of chaos


Game One: Ron S. vs Joe Conti

Joe had a well balanced Black Templar army with Las, Plasma canon, heavy bolter, 2 dread's one with assault canon and one with TL las, one typhoon, one speeder with assault canon, assault squad with combat shields and chaplain, landraider crusader with maxed out squad inside with power fist, and emp. Champ.
The table had most of the terrain on the outside of the board with little to no terrain in the middle. I set 3 rhinos up next to and behind a building in my deployment zone and the landraider behind them. The last rhino set up behind the hill in the middle of the board. I went first and ran everything on the flank 12" and popped smoke. The rhino in the center ran 12 to hide behind the only terrain in the middle of the board.
Joe shot every thing into the front to rhino's and managed to immobilize both of them. His speeder flies toward the rhino behind the woods and the assault canon destroys the rhino killing one Plague marine. He jumped his assault squad from behind the hill and then assaulted the lead Rhino with his chaplain. He failed to do any damage to the rhino and I luckily weathered round one.

Start of turn two the GUO pops out and moves toward the assault squad as do both units in the rhinos. The land raider rumbles forward to drop out my lord and retinue in front of the plasma canon squad. I shoot with two flamers and two melta's and kill 4 assault squad marines. I then Nurgle's rot to kill one more. I assault with both units and assault with the lord and his retinue into the plasma squad. I finish of the assault squad and chaplain in his following turn. The lord with his retinue make quick work of the plasma squad and consolidate into the emp. champ. On his turn he then rolls around 12" with the land raider and jumps out with his huge squad and assaults the lord and throws a dread in just for fun!! This battle last for several turns with the Dread ending up destroyed the large squad killed, the emp. champ killed, and my lord and all the retinue except for the powerfist champion dying. I do make a spawn from his powerfist with the GUO! At this point I think about spawning my powerfist champ since it is my suicide squad and I will lose 150pts if he lives but I decide that might be taken poorly by my opponent so I decide to chance it. The GUO manages to destroy the landraider the squad stuck behind the woods takes down the AC speeder with a good plasma shot.
All in all it was a good game but would have been a harder fight if Joe would have had better dice.

I score 18

Game Two: Rich J. Winner Best Sportsman
First off I have known Rich for a lot of years and we have had some great battles and everyone has been a lot of fun (even the losses).
He was playing the ultimate demon bomb.
Tooled up lord, 2- 9 units of flamers, 2- 8 units of bloodletters, 2- 7 units of plague bearers, 2- 6 units of steeds of slaneesh and 10 furies. It was a vicious battle taking up about 18" of the board. Rich came in a little rough on reserves but not bad. He did some great damage on the rhinos and then we got stuck in with hand to hand everywhere. The key moment of the battle was Rich assaulting with a unit of steeds and only killing two of the six remaining plague marines and then losing the unit. I was able to keep my points for the unit and the other was attacking 2 basic Plague marines with 3 furies. He killed one in the charge but two rounds of fighting his bad dice and my good saves kept him alive giving me the points for half the unit plus keeping Rich from getting the double points for it being the Hunted unit. In the end I pulled out a very narrow victory. If we would have played another turn or two I think the game would have greatly swung the other way. Thanks again to Rich for a hard fight and fun game.

I score 17

Game three: Levi
I was not wanting to face Levi's Ravenwing of death.
His army was 9 speeders with AC, 2 separate assault bikes with Multimelta, to bike squads with melta/powerfist, and tooled up character. And Levi knows how to use the army very well.
I go first and race forward 12" pop smoke and hide the landraider. And here comes the AC pain. We fight it out in a tooth and nail fight for 6 turns. The AC's just punish me but the plasma guns take a toll on the speeders. In the last turn I get really lucky with one squad of plague marines able to roll forward and between rapid fire bolters and plasma the take down to of the three speeders in his undamaged squad and the landraider finishes off the other. In the last turn his leader and mine kill each other but I end up with one guy from the retinue still alive. He rolls forward with the only bike he has left on the table and melta bombs the landraider immobilizing it for half points. When the dust settles we both have very little left alive!! A very hard fought game. We end in a draw

I score 11

A great turn out with nearly forty people and some great competition. My thanks to all the guys at Gamers Haven and to the Cadets at the AFA as well as Dale for running another great event. Hope to participate again next year!!