The thirteenth tribe

Well, Winds of War has been and gone and we had a respectable showing it has to be said.

There were many compliments for my BSG themed force, along with questions of "What next?" (And admittedly to that question thus far I do not have a definitive answer!) and I was proud to be given an honourable mention in both Best Painted and Fergus (which went to two "characters" who, quite frankly, dressed as members of the races they were fielding...)

Game 1

Up against Orks/Dark Eldar. Voidraven bomber, Nob bikerz, couple venoms. Quite brutal. Game was kill points. I thought we started off ok, we put a few wounds in amongst the nobz, were a bit annoyed to see the venoms and voidraven making far too many flickerfield saves (the voidraven frustratingly double sixing two penetrating hits) which of course came back to haunt us when the very next turn the voidraven unleashed hell on the tau. 43 wounds later, yeah, that squad is dead. The wraithguard then opened up on the nob bikers, and did a measly 1 wound. And then found themselves *just* out of charge range, meaning he got the charge on me. My guys fluffed their attacks, his powerfists tore me to shreads, and the game was over bar the counting really. We were tabled a couple turns later. Bad start to the tournament.

At this point we had some time to kill so I wandered around the prospective opponents. I counted two voidraven bombers, several multi venom lists, 2 nob bikers, and three thunderwolves. Out of 14 teams (thus 28 armies) the cheese content has certainly increased since I started playing here...

Game 2

Game two was an objective based mission. Basically whichever team could get more scoring units into the 12" of the opponents table edge (along a lengthways table) was the winner. Between us Ken and I had three scoring units. We faced off against... a guard/guard infantry platoon list, with 110 men forming 12 scoring units. Ah...

With the fire warriors and one team of suits hugging cover to plaster shots as they ran towards our lines, I used my wraithguard and vypers with crisis suit support to blast a hole in the flank. The idea was the smaller squad of fire warriors would hustle through allowing my wraithguard to turn back and continue piling shots into the bulk of the guard force. However an early failed morale test put paid to that idea - the squad rallied, but the run distance and the turn of lost movement meant they would never make it. With my wraithguard broken through and heading for the finish line with nothing in their way, we had to ensure that the opposition couldn't do the same to us. I used my vipers to block lines of advance and slow them down, bunching them up nicely for Kens crisis suits to roast with flamy goodness. One very depleted squad made it into our lines, but was rebuffed by the fire warriors. My the end of turn 5, we had a scoring unit in their zone, and the only thing they had left was a rallied and battered unit about where they started from. We didn't bother rolling for a turn 6, this was clearly ours.



Game 3

THis was dawn of war multiple objectives against Tau (3 sniper teams, two fire warrior teams) and space wolves (grey hunters in rhino, plus the dreaded thunder wolves) With five objectives to claim and each side having 3 scoring units, this was a close match. We deployed first securing the centre ground in cover on an objective. The thunder wolves advanced tentatively. For two turns both sides played a cautious game, them not wanting to enter range of my wraithcannons, and me not wanting to be assaulted. They have fleet and a 12" charge, so the advantage was theirs, but there was a fair bit of difficult ground to cover...

This game took a turn for the worse when kens crisis team legged it after receiving sniper fire. That reduced the amount of firepower we could put out. And then the thunderwolves chanced their luck through the terrain... and the great shaggy dog in the sky smiled on them, getting a 5 for fleet and for the charge. They were in. Game over, I thought. But no. They fluffed their attacks. I got two wounds through their armour, they got none through mine. In swings the thunder hammer. 2 hits. 1 kill. I could have taken an inv save against it on the warlock but didn't want to risk the wraithsight at a bad time so took the hit and won by 1. And the thunderwolves duly fled. I failed to catch them, and some more shots and some conveniently positioned crisis suits kept them running almost to the byline. They rallied, and attempted a late contesting of our objective. Luckily for us there was a turn 6, and my wraithguard blew them away. We then survived the withering hail of fire to hold on to our two poorly defended objectives for the draw. A good game, good fun.

Game 4

Objectives again, all 4 players deploying in 4 corners trying to claim your objective from between the enemy camps. We were up against mech guard, and eldar (war walkers and vypers in abundance) Ken dropped a crisis team on the left which traded shots with the vypers and warwalkers and kept them busy for most of the game. Meanwhile my vipers did sterling work taking out the enemy artillery pieces, with one surviving the chimera retaliation, which then went on to peg two more chimeras. I had worried in this game those chimeras could put scoring units in our lines early and cause us problems, but I think our opponents dallied too much with them. By turn 4 they were just trying to dig my wraithguard out of their lines or contest for the draw. Not an easy task to dig out wraithguard it has to be said. We won this game quite well.



So with 2 wins, a draw and a loss I presume we sit mid table - considering we were using two of the oldest codexes out there and up against venoms, voidravens, nob bikers and thunderwolves, I think we did quite well. Ken does talk of using a more competitive list sometime, but unless he can come up with a good theme behind a cheese list I aint gonna be taking one. Though he has talked of racing teams... Nob bikers, with grot pit crew? maybe...