Here's a writeup of my games for the 40k Challenge. I might get my 'Ard Boyz games done too, but for the moment I've had enough of ranting about this. Thanks a lot to Chris for running his Traitor Guard with my Eldar, and of course to Nate, Michelle, John, Greg, Bill and everyone who volunteered to help with terrain, setup, teardown and prizes to make this weekend a huge hit. Kudos.

Miro and Mike
Black Templar/ Crimson Fists

Their list: 3 Land Raiders (I think it was 2 crusaders and a generic), Rhino, Terminators, 2 squads Black Templars, Chump, Librarian, Squad of Tac Marines

Scenario: Dawn of War, D3+2 objectives (4), VPs, kill points and survivors on tertiary I think.

Gameplay: On turn 2 one of Chris' lascannons managed to immobilize their middle landraider which was partially blocking the one behind it, slowing their advance. They made 2 errors that won us the game after this: they didn't wait for the trailing raider to catch up and fed themselves to us piecemeal, and failed to deal with a squad of firedragons after they hopped out and vaporized one of the remaining raiders, allowing them to kill the immobilized one as well. In the mop up phase Chris just sat on the objectives near us and I boosted tanks onto further ones – pretty straightforward. The guard command squad lived, and I believe kill points were a tie, leading to us going 32/32 on battle points.

Turning point: Immobilizing the land raider to break up their assault wave was a huge boon.
MVPs: Can't recall any particularly spectacular performance from any one unit – I guess I'll give it to melta squads in general (both fire dragon units and the melta vets) for dealing with the heavy armor.
Goats: Dire Avengers I suppose... lots of power armor and vehicles is not what they're good at.
Result: 32/32 if I recall correctly.

Nathan and Howard
Dual Chaos

Their list: Land Raider with Abaddon and friends, Noise Marine Rhino with Noise Marines, Rhino with Chaos Marines, 2 squads of Devastators (or whatever Chaos calls them)

Scenario: Control/Sabotage: turn 3 and onwards units could either control an objective for a (primary objective) point or sabotage it for a (secondary objective) point. Tertiary if I remember correctly was our destroy the grunts (more troops remaining) to their kill points (?).

Gameplay: With the diagonal deployment, a portion of Chris' army ended up dedicated to sitting on objectives and lascannon pot shots (similarly to the chaos devastator equivalents). We rolled some tanks up the right flank, sabotaging an objective on the way, and all the chaos armor rolled down our left, leading to a desperate effort to continually contest the objective in that region. Notably, a falcon and a chimera were sacrificed to the cause. On the top of 3rd turn a surprise move using the star engines on the wave serpent to turbo boost all the way onto the chaos deployment zone objective from our lines gave us the advantage as we got up a couple control points early on. Between the wave serpent and the dire avengers in it, that objective stayed contested until the end of the game. This was a really tough scenario to get your head around, but I think Chris and I had essentially the ideal army to play it.

Turning point: Contesting their deployment zone objective on turn 2.
MVPs: The Dire Avenger/Farseer squad that took on a squad of marines and obliterators and held long enough to keep contesting that objective until it was too late.
Goats: Chris' Lascannon teams for sure. They cracked their first rhino on turn 5 (though to be fair they followed it up immediately with a second). Well them and my fire dragon squad that didn't manage to do more than shake the land raider, then got Abaddon-ed. On the other side, Abaddon never made it to our main line, falling far short of making his points back.

Result: 30/32

Aaron and Chris
Guard/Marine

Their list: Not entirely sure, there was some proxying going on, which is a sore point for this game. Mostly marines in rhinos and razorbacks, a valkyrie with melta vets, some guardsmen in chimeras, a russ with plas sponsons and a hellhound.

Scenario: Corner deployment. Each team had 2 “team” objectives, 1 at the edge of deployment zone, the other in the far unoccupied corner. Secondary is units in opposing deployment zone. Tertiary was our kill points to their vendetta (our command squad to live).

Gameplay: Most of the game was really just their armor and squads continuing to advance and back us into a corner and covering a wide margin around us, preventing an easy escape. Losing the majority of the guardsmen led Chris to pull his last squad into a chimera and get a move on toward our objective in the far corner. A last ditch turboboost from the wave serpent contested their objective and a falcon contesting their other (immobilized and down 2 weapons) snatched us the primary, but we got served on the secondary and lost badly in the kill point tertiary (though our command squad lived).

Turning Point: Can't say there really was one, we just had our line outright rolled over. I guess the valkyrie coming in was what catalyzed us into a full retreat.
Goats: Fire Dragon/Falcon combo that went after their russ, as it never completed its mission.
MVPs: Once again the star engine wave serpent was fantastic, getting us the last turn contest to take the primary.

Result: 18/32

I should point out that our total battle score at this point was 1 point shy of matching us up againt Ricky and Cory, which would probably have been much messier than our last game turned out to be.

Khal and Rich
Dual Tyranids

Result: 31/32 (I think we had 1 tac bonus)

Their list: 2x Hive Tyrant, 2x Dakkafex, 2x Combat Fex, 3x10 gene stealers, 2x10 without numbers spine gaunts.

Scenario: Pitched battle, VPs, Table Quarters, both teams with vendetta for their tertiary. Nominated were one of the combat fexes and the guard command squad.

Gameplay: We got first turn. All 30 genestealers went down, as well as one dakkafex. We were very pleased. The nids advanced, and next turn a hive tyrant and a combat fex (that was doomed) bit the dust. The nids kept coming at us, still not quite able to assault (as we picked off the closest targets first). In the third turn, the remaining hive tyrant bit it, along with all the gaunts. In their turn the gaunts turned out to have without numbers and all came back, albeit far away. The last combat carnifex then lined up to smash through our lines. Bracing ourselves, we set up a wall of tanks in front of the fex to make it try to run around to our lines and started shooting. A turn later it had made its way mostly around and we shot it some more, to little avail. In the meantime we also failed to kill the second dakkafex, and the fire dragons were assaulted, but managed to cause a wound and only took 2 in return, removing the dakkafex as a target for at least a turn. Our entire firebase was dedicated to the combat carnie and just barely managed to take it down (they mulliganed the last 2+ armor save and re-rolled the 1...). Notably the dire avengers bladestormed with guide and doom for something like 16 wounds, putting only 1 through. At this point it was basically mopup, making sure to keep the gaunts in line and control 1 quarter while contesting the other 3 (gaunts, gaunts, fex).

Turning point: Chris rolled a 6 to steal the initiative. Without that, it would have been a much messier game.
MVPs: Again, all the melta squads I think. They kill big bugs fast, and even better, don't die to exploding tank results.
Goats: I'm pretty sure everyone held their own this game. The inquisitor was a bit of a coward hiding away from all the action, but he DID count as a tac bonus for the enemy, so I suppose he had his reasons.

Result: 31/32 (I think we missed something about being on the other table edge).

We finished 4th overall for day 1, and took best general, somehow :)

Shaun
Chaos Marines

His list: Greater Daemon, Daemon Prince, 50 chaos marines in 5 rhinos, 40 summoned lesser daemons.

Gameplay: My armor failed to crack a rhino that was in my face on the top of the second turn, leaving the rest of my army that was waiting to shoot the contents standing there looking a little foolish. I got 20 summoned daemons and 10 marines all over my lines for my troubles. At this point everything unengaged that could get into a tank did and started pulling away. I spent the rest of the game running like hell, unable to shoot from being glanced continually and unable to get out of my tanks since I wanted a chance to control objectives and everything I had left was troops (and the seer council/farseer, which needed to survive for the secondary). I was bleeding tanks and ultimately got basically wiped out except for some stripped immobilized tanks and a the seer council, which broke on the bottom of the last turn on a Ld 9 check to give away the secondary far too easily.

Turning point: I applied fortune to my fire dragons rather than my seer council, which I could argue cost me the one warlock I needed most (embolden).
MVPs: None, I got wrecked.
Goats: All my armor for failing miserably at opening a simple rhino. I think I glanced it twice...

Result: Massacre against me.

Mark
Orks

His list: 20 stormboyz, 2 burnabuggies, 3x30 boyz, 20 ard boyz in a trukk, 10 commandos with that commando nob unit upgrade, warboss on bike.

Gameplay: First turn the stormboyz rolled 6 for extra distance and assaulted my pathfinders who had scouted just slightly ahead of my line (with a 6 for DT, and a 6 to consolidate o.O). After that, things went downhill for the orks. He fed his units toward me single file, allowing me to easily shoot each before it was a real threat. He also failed to lead hit units with his power claws, so I could safely block his advance with my skimmers as I saw fit. I very easily wiped out a squad of orks per turn without losing anything further except 1 squad of 5 dire avengers to absorb his commandos coming on behind my lines.

Turning point: When he called the Waaaagh, none of his units fleeted more than 2 inches. I attribute it to him calling it after the death of the warboss...
MVPs: I think this is spread pretty evenly, all my units did a good job of shooting up orks.
Goats: The swooping hawks scattered 10 inches onto one of my tanks and rolled a 2 for deepstike mishap, dying horribly.

Result: Massacre in my favour.

Randy
Crimson Fists

His list: 2 Thunderfire Cannons (!!?!?), 2 Ironclads in pods, 10 sternguard in pods, 5 marines with Cantor in razorback, 10 marines in rhino, Predator.

Gameplay: I castled in a corner, with my tanks in a circle to avoid melta shots into rear armor when the dreads came in. As expected, I had 2 ironclads in my face turn 1. My light anti armor managed to wreck both pods (sadly without exploding either to strip the dreads of cover). My fire dragons dealt with the other dread easily. The thunderfire cannons had caused all but 1 of my tanks to count as in difficult terrain, but I managed not roll 1s to immobilize any of them. I began what turned into a shootout between his predator and my 2 brightlance wave serpents, but didn't manage even a glance. In the second turn my fire dragons were obliterated by 8 S6 blasts from the thunderfire cannons and a heavy flamer from the other ironclad. The predator wrecked one of the wave serpents. I then hopped out my warlocks and lightsabred the second dreadnought easily, and took some pot shots at his advancing light armor. On the top of 3 the sternguard came in right beside my snipers and no-cover-boltered them to death. The thunderfire cannons scattered wildly, sparing the warlocks (with a couple of passed saves). Bottom of 3 I shot a falcon into the sternguard, 1/2 on the pulse laser and 6/6 on the shiruken cannons to wound. He then rolled a spectacular 0/7 saves. Some dire avengers moved in and bladestormed into the remaining 3 to finish the job. Meanwhile my swooping hawks tried to land sneakily behind his cannons, but scattered into the ruins where they were, killing the exarch. The rest of the game was largely uninteresting. At the end I failed to knock him off of his objective in time to control it myself, and Pedro was alive with 1 wound contesting mine.

Turning point: 0/7 3+ armor on sternguard. From 1 tank. What more can I say?
MVPs: The falcon that killed the sternguard?
Goats: The 2 brightlance wave serpents went down to the single predator without even scoring even a glance.

Result: Minor victory for me, as I had 2 units on his board edge for the secondary.

Mike (same one as Saturday)
Black Templar

His list: 2 Land Raider Crusaders, 1 Vanilla Land Raider, 2 Rhinos full of Black Templars, more Templars in one crusader with chump, terminators in the other.

Gameplay: Top of turn resulted in the Shot Of The Weekend from my army (yes, this beats even the falcon from last game!). My pathfinders had a pretty questionnable line between 2 crusaders (through the sponsons basically) into a rhino. With no other targets I could damage, I decided I may as well, but agreed to a 3+ cover save for the rhino since it was nearly invisible. I hit with 4 pathfinders, managed a rend with one of the AP1 shots, rolled a 5 to get the pen, he rolled a 1 for cover, and then a 4 (+1 for AP1) to wreck it. I don't know what that bullet hit, but it must have been important. I managed to crack a landraider with my fire dragons on turn 3, the other rhino with a pulse laser turn 3, somehow he let the fire dragons live and drove a raider up to them without getting out to assault, feeding them another. The seer council lost their falcon to an assault cannon, so they ran up and sliced open the terminator crusader. They subsequently spent most of the rest of the game tied up, before a thunderhammer finally came to bear on the farseer. He occupied a building with an objective, which I contested with a wave serpend on the roof, a single fire dragon lived in assault with a full squad of templars to contest another objective. The pathfinders held one objective, and a falcon with dire avengers another. We tied on squads reduced to half or less.

Turning Point: opening up all his armor in 3 turns to cripple his ability to reach the objectives on my side of the board.
MVPs: The pathfinders, just because they can apparently snipe tanks.
Goats: The swooping hawks again; for a unit that allegedly specialises in vehicle interception, fleeing from tank shock is a little weak.

Result: Major victory in my favour.

I ranked 20th/58 for day 2. I should point out that Chris and I tied for battle point for any of you smart asses who would claim one of us carried the other day 1.

And that's that.

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