The one where I met Battlefield Birmingham... Part 1.

Hello and Welcome to the first part of 5 (maybe) posts on Battlefield Birmingham! I'm hoping to get these posts up over the course of the week with all my games! I'm not entirely sure how long these posts will be but I will see how far I get! It's not a case of can't being bothered, just a case of not remembering all the details!

This tournament was my first independent tourney which I've attended and after listening to the 40kGlobal Podcast (early plug) I was quite excited! Especially when I knew some of the people who appear on the podcast were in attendance and I may get a chance to play them... in the first round because they're no way in hell I'm getting near the top tables!
So I got to meet and talk to some top tourney players such as Franco Muruffo, Gaz Donnelly and Rob Madeley.
Below you will see Franco looking really happy about playing in this event...

The small grey assembly underneath him is his force; 9 broadsides, Eldrad and a wraithknight the notable inclusions. As it happens, I didn't get to play any of those I listen to, however, Pete (@petehumpage) got to play Gaz Donnelly in the first round...

What you can't see in that photo is the massive hard on Pete has! In fact, they ran out of duck tape to strap it to his leg for the entirety of the game! Pete managed to absolutely batter himself and with Gaz's list build Cotez and Tigirus had bitten the dust in the 2nd turn!

A quick run down on Gaz's list (without full detail):
Cotez
Buff Inquisitor
3 Stormraven
Deathcult Assassins
Banishers
Crusaders
3 Dreadknights with teleporters/greatswords and incinerators

Gaz ended up playing on the top table for the tournament before eventually succumbing to a Space Wolf Drop Pod list! #funtimes

Anyway, back to me! Because after all, it's all about me!
I'm taking Grey Knights with Eldar allies...the fluffiest combination!
Before I start, I better run down my list:

Grandmaster with psybolt ammo

3x Strike squads with psybolt

Stormraven

2 Dreadknights with teleporters, greatswords and Incinerators

Farseer on a jetbike with Mantle and Sniper Rifle thing

2 x Jetbike Unit

Wraithknight with Suncannon

I didn't get nominated for best painted... I'm really upset... I put sooooo much effort into drybrushing these!!! More on that later!


It was going to be hit and miss how I do depending on the match ups I have. Against Vanilla Marines it's easy to slice through power armour with the swords and jump on objectives late game. However, against some types of marines (space wolves in particular) I think I'm going to struggle!

My first game was against Ozzie Lennon, a youngish lad with a Chaos Army! A good first opponent to start the tourney with and on table 5! Not important I know, but the highest I'd get all weekend!
Using the GM's ability to make a Dreadknights scoring, I make one DK a scoring choice.

Game: Emperor's Will (2 Objectives, one each side)
Deployment: Dawn of War

Powers: Prescience, Forewarning and Precognition

Warlord Trait: Master of Ambush (Acute Senses for Outflanking Units)... As you can see for my army.. REALLY helpful :-/

For this first game, it is the only game that I don't have the oppos full army list. But it went a little something like this:
Abbadon
5 Termies
3x Marines (5 man squad)
Helldrake
Land Raider
Aegis w/Quad
2x Rhinos (1 with Dirge Caster)
Cultists
3 Obilerators

So, I have first turn. Dreadknights surge 30" forward and the Wraith walks too. I thought it might be a close game, and I wasn't wrong.

It was very much tit-for-tat. My farseer took 6 wounds in the first turn, saving 5 of them thanks to the Mantle! (Thank you smiley face painted on a bike!)
Something which I was afraid of was the helldrake city that was going to be flying around the board and something I needed to do was shoot the thing out of the sky! The baleflamer with the helldrake provides something which really scared me, especially ignoring cover and AP3! Well, he did just that! A unit of GK's gone with one fell swoop!
Because I was going 1st my Stormraven came on with the probability of his turkey coming on and vectoring me off the board! This did happen in the 3 turn but when he came on in the second, he took out a unit of GKs which gave me a real problem!

One saving grace was the fact that my Dreadknights jumping up the board gave me a slight board control advantage when it came to getting hold of his objective, placed behind the defence line in the corner of the board! Coupled with jetbikes at the end of the game, this proved a fairly even match to contest the objective.

What I did do that was particularly twatish, was putting my Grand Master on his own when a deep striking Abbadon and Termies arrived... oh balls!

It came down to the fact that Abbadon's 10 attacks ripped through the Grand Master with ease, standing no chance! Going on to kill 2 other squads of GKs, Abbadon was on it! The unit above didn't die in vein; with 2 wounds on overwatch Abbadon took a wound and a terminator bit the dust! FACE!
One redeeming feature was the fact that the raven took off the Baleflamer, leaving the Vector Strike. This still proved deadly, as it kept going for the DKs and jetbikes in the corner of the board on his objective. Meanwhile, the rhino rush with the two squads surged forward and got out onto my objective.

With attention from the Land Raider and the Helldrake it was time for the Wraithknight to get towards the edge of the board to see what I could do... the answer... very little! It did however, draw fire away from the units behind the Aegis!

'And what happened to that awesome Overpowered Wraithybollocks?!' I hear you cry... It got blown away! But that's alright because it left me on turn 5 with things still alive!
This is where the game would be won or lost... the final roll! Does the game continue? Yep! It continues for another 2 turns! It turned out that I immobilized the LR so 1 set of Lascannons can't fire...but the others can!

Oh, that unit of CSM's holding my objective...pfft! Nope! The second unit of jetbikes went down to contest! So, at the end of the game I've got 2 objectives contested but... he has Slay the Warlord, 1st kill and Linebreaker. I have linebreaker! In the end: 3-1 loss.

This brings me on to tournament points:
For this tournament the 20-0 system was being adopted. So - 16 pts for a Win, 8 for a Draw and 1 for a loss! Then, you have points for: Slaying the Warlord and Linebreaker (1 point each) and 1 point for Denying linebreaker or denying the slaying of the Warlord! Something which would come back and bite me in the ass later on the tournament! But again, more on that later!

I've mentioned in previous posts about the custom templates I've had designed, I did forget to mention that I've had a dice bag too! Those of you on Twitter: @TheDiceBagLady! I managed to find it's twin this weekend! Just the wands in Harry Potter, there's always an evil twin... this one happened to be its Square Based counterpart!

Mine is the one of the left...clearly the best one!

Apologies if you have read this and thought that I'd go into great detail for the first game... the truth is, I can't remember all the much about it apart from the notes I made and the notable detail that is imprinted in my memory! But to be fair, I doubt that you would want to read endless reams of paper about every minor detail!

I will look at putting up my next game tomorrow...or tonight! Depending on how quickly I can go to bed!!!

I hope you've enjoyed reading... I'll see you soon!