Well, Saturday saw a gaming extravaganza of 3 games at 1750pts. A great little tournament with a good turnout of 30 players with a good selection of armies.
All Saints Church social hall hosted The Immortals - GCN Club event with bacon butties and tea & coffee on offer.
The Purgatus Force Karamazov deployed into the 3 rounds of gaming, painting & best army judging with sportsmanship scores going to the overall Tournament scoring system. 3 points for a win, 2 for a draw, 1 for a loss. Unpainted (0), basic (1), painted 3 colours etc (2) and "Wow" (3 points). Sportsmanship points per game from your opponant 0-3. Then an overall judging from the players of Best Army and Best Sportsman. 1st, 2nd, 3rd place & wooden spoon awards of figures for generalship.
Onto the 1st game:
Dawn of War (not my favourite) with Capture and Control.
My opponant Steve set up with .............................. Witch Hunters!!!!! What's the chances of that! A good selection of: Inquisitor Lord with Gun Servitor retinue, 3x foot Battle Sisters Squads, 2x Exorcists, 2x Dominion Squads, a Retributor Squad and Stormtrooper squad with Rhino (plenty of plasmas) and a Callidus Assassin.
Each objective was placed in respective ruins.
I placed the 2 foot SoBs in my ruin and Karamazov opposite his objective. His was covered by the Lord squad and a SoB in the ruin another Sob deployed in cover.
He had first turn. His first act was to evict one of my SoB forward with "a word in your ear".
Then he brought everything on apart from the Assassin. With the 2 Dominions flanking on my left. I brought everything on opposite to the objective apart from the assassin (running up to the top floor of my objective, and the Repentia to speed bump the Dominions (more on that later).
The main highlights (amid a lot of laughter at our dice rolls) were; An exorcist immediately taking out my Immie, even with nightfighting, Karamazov strolling across the table like a Sunday stroll, only managing to stun an exorcist. My Vindicare did OK by taking an exorcist out with a Turbo penetrate round in the side armour, taking out special weapons but failing to damae the Inquisitor & retinue. Racing across the table, it was "Handbags at dawn" around his objective with the arcos engaging his SoB squad in cover (and wiping them out), my Dominion scaring off the last Exorcist, a heavy flamer personally accounting for his Stormtroopers and ..... my Repentia .....................................
OK, competition time.... Spot the difference!
The right-hand shot is lots of flamers later! A Barbie, anyone!
Finishing with me ramming a Rhino through the rubble onto his objective and me dropping back to shoot the snot out of his late arriving Callidus (that had previously cleared my objective of a squad of SoB). The game ended at the time limit and I wasn't clos enough to mine to claim it back.
A well fought Draw.
Game 2:
Spearhead setup with Seize Groud (5 Objectives).
Scott placed down a very nice Necron army (Sisters & Necrons faced!!!! excellent). 1 Lords with Resurrection orbs (one a Destroyer), 3 Troops, an Immortals Squad, a Heavy Destroyer Squad, deep striking Scarabs and 2x Wraith Squads.
I left the Repentia and the Arcos in reserve and got first turn again.
I really thought I had more photos of this game ... alas, no.
The Highlights:
Lei Harvei (Vindicare) ..... couldn't hit the side of a bull Grox!!!! Scott turbo boosted both Wraith squads into my quarter (by the baseline), but my reserves turned up early. The Repentias hit on squad, Karamazov hit the other. History in the making now, the Repentias actually swung, hit and won .... huzzah! Leaving onewraith in each squad left, they were locked and tied-up. The Arcos went on their merry way to try for the nearest loaded objective.
My Sisters did a great deal of damage now that they were in range on turn 2; clearing the Immortals and putting the hurt on everything else.
The Repentias cleared their combat (yes!) in the Necron phase and fair sprinted with Holy Rage able to charge an objective .... then winning again, and forcing the Necrons (& Lord) to fall back off the objective. With the Arcos and the Repntia trying to cut off the retreat, they were still forced to fallback in their next turn: A Rhino then forcing them off the table in a subsequent turn.
The Lord Karamazov was tied up the entire game with a single Wraith that just would not die, even with dubious assistance from Lei Harvei (it is great to be able to target into combat though).
Phase out of the Necrons was narratively correct when the Arcos finally got to grips with a Necron Lord, and promptly launched 25 attacks that he couldn't recover from ........ A win for the Sisters and an impressive display from the Repentias ... finally. The wooden spoon shared by the tag-team of Karamazov & Lei harvei.
Game 3:
Pitched Battle with Annihilation.
Against Orks!
I got first turn; this is where any chance I had, vanished.
This was always going to hurt.
All I had on my right was Karamazov and the Arcos; not ideal against the Nobz Bikerz from hell. But I thought they might give a bloody nose to weaken the steamroller of choppy goodness. Just about everything else was thrown forward, trying to wheel right to block of the trukks and prepare for the worst as he shot forward at breakneck speed.
It was just a sea of green and revved engines.
I got the first "licks in" with Lei Harvei still having a bad day (a 2+ to hit is all that is needed) even failing to pop a ramshackle ork truck with a Turbo round.
Karamazov & the Arcos bravely charged in; caused some damage, but the great way of wound allocation meant no physical losses. Then payback. They didn't survive the riposte.
Poor target sequencing meant the main body of my attack wasn't as effective as it could have been. Two trukks destroyed and one mob in the range of the Repentias (supported by an SoB squad) again successfully dispatched the Mob (a cheer again). Ok, loss from embarking damage and a couple of kills from the SoBs (due to initiative helped a lot).
Sam then swung the bikes around for the transports and charged into the woods to clear the annoying Sisters embedded therein. The Nobz visited revenge on the Repentias and Sisters. But the transports remained intact as I kept the squads inside them. I had a counterattack still.
Juggling around the transports, offloading and better target selection cleared the Bikes and Trukk Boyz in the woods. Lots of the Adeptus Sororitas "Holy Trinity" of Bolter, flame, melta poured out in vengeance.
Lasting one more turn of me being able to run the remaining bikers off the board and taking a lot of damage from the Nobz piling in again.
A loss by 8 to 6 kill points. Plus a hell of a difference in VPs (to my deficit).
A fantastic and enjoyable day that thanks to maximum scores for the painting and sportsmanship allocation, saw me sneak into 11th spot.
A lot better than I was expecting at the start. I wanted to field a fluffy army to try new units out on the board.
I got it all.
My thanks to Geraint and the rest, for putting this on.