The one where I met Battlefield Birmingham... Part 2

So, in my first game I ended up with a 3-1 loss, which meant I ended up losing 19-2 on tournament points. As you might expect this scuppered my plans somewhat of being totally awesome and actually winning a game! Only 4 games to go to have a go at winning! No matter, I will try again!

Before I go onto that... I would like to give you a brief interlude with some other models that weren't in my game but that were in the 40k tourney.

This time I was up against Graeme Matthews on Table 16! Throughout the tourney we got to know Graeme really well and found out he's on Twitter: @gremer987! This lad has 3 titans, yes you read it right... 3 - 2 Warhound and 1 Reaver all painted in the colours of the Emperor's Children! He hasn't posted them on Twitter yet but watch out for them they will be big! Just to put that into context, from what I've been told, that was his student loan! Not a bad way to spend it!

Okay, we're on Table 16...

Game: Scouring
Deployment: Vanguard Strike

Powers: Prescience, Misfortune, Perfect Timing.

Warlord Trait: Personal: Master of Manoeuvre (Warlord and Unit have the outflank rule)... Yep, another useful trait to add to the pile!

Here's the list:

Not a bad list and the trip riptides is something of a concern! That and the fact I had no idea how I was going to deal with them! But, I thought back to what a wise old man told me years ago 'play the mission' and with the mission being 6 objectives it was an opportunity to score big points if I could get my troops covering all the bases! Again, my GMs ability made DK's scoring, which would hold me in good stead since one of the objectives was placed firmly behind the Aegis of the Tau!

Turn One I surge forward...

Told you!
Both Dreads hammering forward the full 30. One (on the right) laid down the torrent of flame towards his sole unit of Fire Warriors behind the line. I love the list he took and especially the way it was painted. It was easier for me to put the template down and blast stuff away due to the bunching! The other (on the left) went to torrent the squad which you can just seen in the top left corner of your picture. In both cases, leadership checks were failed at both units ran nearly towards the edge of the table!

*SIDEBAR* You can tell this is real time (and I post everything that runs through my head) - My opponent has posted the pictures of his Titans (@gremer987 if you didn't get it before)! Check them out! Seriously!!!

Anyway, back to reality... or maybe not!
I thought that the firepower laid down by the Dreads and Wraith was sufficient for the damage ratio and that was okay! What was pleasing was the Tau 1st turn... Can I remind you the Marleys were dead to begin with... oh shit, wrong story! Let's try... Can I remind you - 3 riptides, 1 skyray, fire warriors and snipers...among other things! That is a LOAD of firepower being pumped out! 'What the fuck was pleasing about that?!' you may ask. Well, it took ALL of that shooting to kill both Dreadknights. The sniper team picked off one all on its own landing first kill and 4 seeker missiles, 3 riptides and the firewarriors snapshooting took down the dreadknight! It was good for me that everything had been on the two DKs, which is what I want from every game so I can position everything around it and get objectives secure!

The markerlights proved muchly a lot of a problem! For what they do, it is an excellent tool and as soon as my Stormraven came on (and all the interceptors were dodged) it was lit up like a Christmas tree...or Graeme's Aegis!

I should note, something I've never seen before in the game - the Tau flier! Something which is very good but in this game, not effective! It did shoot at the Stormraven but with no effect.
In Tau's turn the Commander and bodyguards dropped in right behind the Stormraven, near to my Grand Master and his unit. The intention was to drop the raven, but unfortunately this didn't transpire which left the unit open, in the corner of the board with no support, for me to munch through the armour with the force swords, which they did willingly.

Meanwhile, the Wraithknight was a dropping his AP2 template on top of the head of the Ethereal and his unit, wiping them out! There was a unit of warriors left in a devilfish hiding behind the terrain which made a break an objective, blowing away a unit of GKs. Luckily my Wraith was close at hand to deny the objective.

The game ended with my GKs holding two objectives and the Tau holding none. We decided that we wouldn't look at the objectives' points before the game and it would be better after the game. As it happened, it didn't matter what the scores were in this game but I held the 2 and the 1! Something which would have made a massive difference had other objectives been held!

At the end of the game, I had Linebreaker, Warlord and 2 objectives. Whereas Graeme had 1 for first kill! So, a 5-1 win for me and in terms of tournament points, 19-2. This put me on 21 points after 2 games.

I really enjoyed my game with Graeme, a genuinely great guy with a fantastically painted army! He would go on to play both Pete (@Petehumpage) and Nigel (@NigelSBartlett) in the same tournament, unfortunately losing to both of them, however the good news in this story is that he did win in the very last round against a footslogging Space Wolf list! Congrats dude!

What was good about this game was that I played an army I've never really played before! In our gaming group there isn't a Tau player who builds like this and I really enjoyed the challenge! By sticking to my principles and playing the mission I was able to eliminate the scoring and then worry about holding my objectives.

So, end of Game 2; a win and a loss... next up would be a winner of the previous game too... which just so happened to be a Drop Pod Space Wolf army... That story however, is for another day!

I'd like to leave you tonight with a few pics of other models around the tournament:

Thanks for reading! I'll see you soon!