Astronomi-con Toronto 2012 Game Reports – Day 2

This is a continuation of my Game reports from Astronomi-con. The post below details my games from Day 2, if you want more info on the tournament or the reports of my first three games check out my post from Day 1.

Game 4

IMG_0739

Day 2 started out with a long awaited rematch with Nick Itsou and his awesome Space Marine Army. Nick partly inspired the strategy behind my army and our game last year ended up being a pretty solid win for me, so it was interesting to see what would happen this time around. We ended up on the Hill 0.25 table which was pretty much like the old Cleanse mission (holding table quarters) with the twist being the large hill in the middle counting as a 5th ‘quarter’ and any unit could hold a quarter.

His list was the same as last year:

  • Pedro
  • 5 Sternguard with a heavy flamer and power weapon in a Razorback
  • Librarian
  • 5 Bolter marines
  • 10 marines with plasmagun, heavy bolter, power weapon in a rhino
  • 5 Sniper scouts
  • 5 Bikes with 5 meltaguns and a power weapon
  • 3 Attack Bikes (2 melta, 1 heavy bolter)
  • Predator with lascannon sponsons and autocannon turret
  • Lascannon Dread

The game ended up being really bloody with the advantage switching almost every turn. With an early vindicator shot taking out all his Attack bikes and my Droppod unit taking out half his bike squad I was doing well early. I made the mistake of dropping a squad in right in range of his Librarian with Avenger, but I managed to prevent my whole squad from being wiped with a lucky psychic hood roll. He responded by charging his 2 power weapon sergeants into my marines and just mowing them down. Seargents with power weapon/close combat weapon charging while within 12″ of Pedro puts out a LOT of attacks!

The rest of the game played out with us both rolling horribly but still managing a full 7 turns. At the end we both had just barely claimed 2 quarters each for a tie.

Final game points: 6 for me, 10 for him.

 

Game 5

No picture taken

In my fifth game I was matched up with Alex and his Space Wolves. He had quite a nasty list and right away I was fairly worried. Although we were playing on the Convoy Raid table, which is one of my favorite missions. There was a convoy of 3 chimeras and 2 sentinels that moved at the top of each game turn, firing and charging the closest unit. Each chimera had a supply crate inside that was dropped out  an access point if the chimera was destroyed or immobilized.

His list was something like the following:

  • Wolf Priest with Living Lightning and ?
  • Wolf Priest with Jaws of the Wolf and ?
  • 6 Grey Hunters with a meltagun, banner and attached wolf guard in a rhino
  • 6 Grey Hunters with a meltagun, banner and attached wolf guard in a rhino
  • 6 Grey Hunters with a meltagun, banner in a heavy bolter razorback
  • 6 Long Fangs with 2 plasma cannons, 3 missile launchers in a heavy bolter razorback
  • 6 Long Fangs with 2 lascannons, 3 missile launchers in a heavy bolter razorback
  • 6 Long Fangs with 2 lascannons, 3 missile launchers and an attached Wolfguard with terminator armour and cyclone missile launcher
  • 5 wolf scouts with a meltagun and attached Wolfguard with a combi-melta

As the mission had escalation-type deployment neither of us really started with anything on the board. I started off by dropping in my librarian and tactical squad (combat squaded) right beside the convoy hoping to get early objective control. I did manage to immobilize the middle chimera, but I forgot the sentinels would charge and they got both my units. This left my librarian/sgt squad tied up for at least 2 or 3 turns while my multimelta squad ended up being tied in combat the whole game. These two combats would have been over a lot sooner if they were not Armoured Sentinels, meaning I was fighting AV12 with krack grenades all game.

Due to careful use of cover, and some late reserve rolls on his part, I managed to reduce the threat of his long fangs. They would come on the board, I would hit them with autocannon shots and kill a few, leaving the reduced unit to take hard cover shots for the rest of the game. After popping two of the chimeras early and near eachother, I had a good idea of where I needed to be to hold those two objectives. Later in the game he managed to pop the third chimera but accidentally destroyed that 3rd objective as well. Later in the game I managed to bring in some support to help free up my Marines from that sentinel (as the objective was right close and I was running out of bodies) but that just served to tie up 3 of my squads through turn 5,6 and 7.

Turn 7 had me with no squads free to actually take an objective, and one of his Priests holding one of the two. My final shot of the game was my vindicator instakilling his priest causing the game to end with neither of us with an objective. Tie game.

Final game points: 7 for me, 8 for him.

 

Game 6

Matt's Imperial Guard Matt's Imperial Guard

My final game of the weekend was against a familiar face. I was matched up against Matt, who is one of the 7 guys from our gaming group that went to Astro this year. We were fairly familiar with each others armies and we were playing on the Sink the Baneblade table which is always a good time. Sink the Baneblade is basically a Kill Point mission with a Baneblade on the table. The Baneblade moves straight down the middle of the table and will shoot each of his weapons at the closest target (not shooting the same unit twice if possible) Each of the Baneblade’s structure points are worth a kill point each.

His list was the following:

  • Command Squad in a Chimera
  • Jr Command squad with 4 flamers(?) in a Valkyrie
  • 30-man Infantry blob with 3 power weapons and a Commisar
  • 3 Mortars
  • 10 Vets with 4 meltaguns in a chimera
  • Hellhound
  • Hydra
  • Vendetta
  • Leman Russ
  • Manticore

This was another escalation type deployment meaning neither of us really had much to start on the board. As he deployed his blob in a far corner, I began by trying to get some early damage on the Baneblade and dropping in my Librarian and melta squad right next to the Baneblade. All this did was prevent it from moving away from my squad meaning they were going to take some punishment. This move did pay off next turn though, when a lucky melta shot ended up stripping 2 structure points and almost taking off the third!

img_0745 My squad dropping in to try to take out that Baneblade!

After preventing my squad from getting another round of melta shots into the Baneblade (they ran away) Matt managed to finish the thing off when his Vendetta came on the board. The remainder of the game had is trading shots across the middle no man’s land. My dice were a bit luckier than his though and after he turbo booster each of his flyers to get better positioning I immobilized each one with my Autocannons and brought them down. This was my third game of the day to go a full 7 turns and we ended it with 7 kill points for him and 8 for me.

Final game points: 10 for me, 4 for him.

 

That’s it for my weekend! I didn’t do as well as last year, but I had a respectable 2-2-2 record and a higher painting score than I managed last time. Overall the weekend was a success and I really great way to close out this edition of 40k. 5th edition has been my favourite edition of 40k by far and I’m looking forward to seeing what 6th edition will bring! (not to mention what Astro will be like under 6th edition!)

It was great to see the Astro regulars again and I hope to see you all again next year!