Fields of Blood 2018 - Day 1

Fields of Blood was a 1750pt 40k tournament held this weekend over in Khandallah Town Hall, Wellington.  The T.O. was Pete Dunn over on the Fields of Blood website.  I don't think Pete has posted the results yet and rather selfishly buggered off on holiday yesterday.  Nah, it was a great tournament really and he ran it excellently.

++Game 1++ Bruce Manning - Emperor's Children

This guy was seriously old school.  Noise Marines?! What the hell are they?  There were no flies on Bruce however and he had some gorgeous Defiler and Daemon Prince conversions.  The objective was 'Invasion!' which was a progressive scoring mission where you had to take and hold the 6 markers for points at the end of each player turn.

Bruce holed up in a far ruin with a twin Defiler fire-base, backed up by a sorcerer acting as spotter and force field.  A healthy contingent of cultists provided a comfortable meat shield.  His other cultists crept towards me, hugging cover.  The Daemon prince picked his way through the blasted ruins, approaching my own fire base with murderous intent.

The obscene remnants of the once proud III Legion commenced bombardment at dawn and never let up.  I stupidly didn't measure the distance to the enemy properly and one of the Defilers out-ranged my Dreadnoughts.  I had to split fire and the Daemonic shielding absorbed the Red Scorpions onslaught.

Brother Halar took round after round of Warp infused bolts to the face and I used a command point to keep him in the fight but the other Defiler made short work of him.  I rolled to see if he exploded and sure enough it was D6 mortal wounds to everything within 6".  I couldn't use another cp reroll and my core command units were caught in the blast along with the other vehicles.

Capt. Precarius decided it was hero time and abandoned his men to their fate, in order to contest a distant objective.  The Madcat joined him in a rather shite version of the Guilliman/Gunship combo.  Precarius performed the correct superhero landing in front of the surprised Noise Marines holding the raised plaza and bullrushed them.  He pulverised two but they were veterans of the Long War and refused to give up the fight without a last flourish. In one final blast, they shattered the auditory receivers of everything in a 30ft radius. Cpt. Precarius's head exploded like a depth charge.  The Obiterators mopped up my surviving infantry units and I fell so far behind in objective scoring that I conceded.

A fairly typical result for me in the first game of a tournament and I have no one to blame but myself since I had played no practice games whatsoever.  It was pretty cool to get a game in against the infamous Emperor's Children though and we finished on time.

"Erm... where's the captain, sir?"

++Game 2++ Harry Bright - Chaos Chaos

This game took place on my own terrain board (unfinished!) so apologies for the deluge of pictures.  The mission objective was 'Supply Cache' which is placed randomly under an objective marker and uncovered on a roll of 6.  The player holding the supply cache at the end is the winner.  Harry Bright lives up to his name and seemed to know more about the Codex Astartes than I did, reminding me about several rules when I forgot. 

This did not bode well for me but I was too busy drooling over his Horus Lupercal model to notice (proxied for Abaddon).  He also had Kharne the betrayer  (as a Chaos Lord.  Actually thats not Kharne is it?  Oh well, I haven't been sleeping much lately) which was rather sexy too.

It was a bit of a stand off while we jockeyed for position and claimed objectives.  Harry cleverly decided not to uncover the objective in his deployment zone.  If I didn't roll a 6 (statistically likely since I only uncovered 3) then either he would find it or it would default to his home firebase.

I took out one of his Land Raiders in turn 2 which vapourised several CSM grunts in an enormously satisfying explosion.  However, the ever efficient Warpsmith managed to keep the other one alive for most of the game.  I took a beating from it along with some units of Havocs carefully orchestrated by Horus (erm.. Abaddon).

In turn 4, I uncovered the supply depot with a badly mauled Hellblaster unit and the Ancient.  Kharne promptly jetted over and relieved them of the burden of their lives, claiming the the objective for himself (and eventually winning the game).

Bruce Banner-Bearer did not turn into The Hulk

Cpt. Precarius was ordered to re-secure the objective by any means necessary and foolishly decided to charge headlong into the waiting Black Legion trap.

The Razorbacks decided it was time to bugger off and advanced into his deployment zone to claim a measly 1 point Linebreaker.  The Black Legion stood waving them goodbye from the middle of the board.

++We interrupt this transmission for a 5 minute prayer and admonishment rest. Inspirational pictures of the Red Scorpions Adeptus Astartes will be broadcast for your contemplation.  Praise be to The Emperor!  Skip to end to continue with more Red Scorpions adventures!++

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++Game 3++ Alick Harris - Black Legion

He brought 146 models.  Oh the humanity! The mission was called 'Keep Your Friends Close' and was a bit like the Relic but with 3 objective markers, one of which had to be placed directly in the centre of the board.

Practically half of Alick's CSM/Thousand Sons army was poised, cat-like to jump on my head from deep strike reserve.  The bulk of the other half was hidden behind a ruined municipal building.  How the hell do you hide 30+ models behind a sodding ruin?  Somehow he managed it and never slow played throughout, despite the model count, so props to him.

I had completely blocked my deployment zone from backstabbing enemy unit types.  Alick decided to play the waiting game to see if I would move first and expose a gap in my cordon that he could exploit.  I didn't blink and stood my ground for 2 turns of nothing.  You could practically see the tumbleweeds blowing across the tabletop.  I actually sat down for the first time in the tournament.

At the start of the third turn he got bored and sent in the hordes. I suddenly found myself surrounded like something out of the film 'Zulu'.

Some hideous looking Chaos Spawn led by a bright red monstrosity, (who I labelled 'The Skinless One') crept up my flank.  I'd read somewhere that Chaos Spawn are rubbish but these buggers seemed to be very good at eating scouts.

They slipped through my lines and mired my command squad in a costly melee.  The rest of my army got a full turn of shooting at the cannon fodder but it wasn't enough.  Mutilators smashed into my centre, holding up the Dreadnoughts a tantalising 6" away from the objective. Hordes of Chaos cultists swarmed the middle to block me further and win Alick the game.

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++Tune in tomorrow for Day 2 of the Fields of Blood Tournament++