ZekeR

Steve's Army:

Isaac's Army:

(no picture provides, I need to do a better job of this)

Deployment:

The ruined city scape was inspired by the Chapter Approved "Tipping Point" tournament terrain layout.

The Primary Mission ended up being Supply Drop, which means only the middle No Man's Land objectives would give points: 5 each during the first 3 turns, during the forth turn one of the objectives would be removed and the remaining two would be worth 8 points, during the final fifth turn only the middle objective would remain and be worth 15 points.

The game started with a quick run through on the current understanding of ruined terrain. Ruins block line of sight when shooting through the ruins. However, to shoot anything INISDE the ruins, well that's simple line of sight, brother!

With these details ironed out, deployment began with the Deceptors planting a fat stack of cultists PLUS Dark Commune and establishing the choicest of cult clubhouses near the center of the board. 20 normal cultists plus the Cult Commune adds up to a total of 25, ensuring every seat in the shack was filled. After placement, the Demagogue fired up his latest slide presentation explaining the steps of accession in his new vertically-integrated marketing program, while I continued deployment.

The Blood Angel Infiltrators set up in the house next door, with the central No Man's Land objective set up between them.

For my next group, I picked my smaller (10) group of cultists and set them up in a wide, deep-strike-blocking net over my home objective. This was maybe unnecessary, especially considering the chosen primary mission assigns no points to the home objective, and instead only considers the middle 3 No Man's Land objectives. BUT in previous games Steve had made a habit of dumping Sanguinary Guard into my back field, and I wasn't having it.

Next, Steve placed a squad of Scouts on the edge of the board.

Me, having exhausted my infiltrating troops started dumping vehicles on the edge of my deployment zone, ready to zip out into the action. Steve ended up spreading a squad of Sanguinary Guard in his own home zone, and placed similar amounts of vehicles at the edge of his deployment zone. My Forgefiend crouched in the backfield, hiding behind a building but 8" away from walking around the building and opening fire on any enemies he encoutered. Likewise the Blood Angels Impulsor Floating Tank idled in a similar position, its cool open-top truck bed full of hungry Blood Angel Sword Guys plus Mephiston.

Final Deployment:

Steve rolled high and went first. He managed to draw a nice Cleanse mission for his secondaries and immediately put his scouts to work scrubbing and polishing the No Man's Land objective on my side.

He moved his right side Gladiator out of the deployment zone and immediately found a juicy spot to take aim at my Rhino. The rest of the army also moved cautiously forward, taking firm control of the right side of No Man's Land.

During shooting, Steve windmill slammed an "Oath of Moment" on my Noise Marine Rhino, which is what Blood Angels do when they don't like something. Then he shot it with his Gladiator Lancer (which is what they do when they REALLY don't like something), and the Lancer did its job, blowing apart the Rhino and leaving my noise marines, legionnaires, and cypher in a state of intense discombobulation. They would surely recover by the time my turn came around.



My discombobulated marines.

The Lancer on the other side of the board also crept up a bit, and I could tell it also wanted to Lance things with its powerful tank-destroying turret weapon.

At the end of the turn, Steve was easily awarded 5 VP for his cleaning. A great first turn.



First Turn: Isaac

The Cultists, hopped up on bad coffee and having sat through 10 mediocre slides of the Cult Demagogue's most inane marketing material, decided they needed to exit the clubhouse and beat up something. They dumped out the back patio, and moved towards their Blood Angel next-door neighbors. The Cult Demagogue followed in the back, infuriated they didn't let him finish his presentation but yet still willing to broadcast his powerful "Faithful Flock" aura and grant the entire Cultist mob a nice 5+ invulnerable save against Blood Angel aggression.

My tanks and forgefiend all rolled/stomped into firing positions.



Each tank chiseled away at the Blood Angel lineup, but didn't manage to make much of a dent. The Vindicator in particular managed to not only roll a one for number of attacks, but managed to roll one again after I used up a command re-roll.

At the end of the turn, I earned 5 points for securing a No Man's Land objective.




Second Turn: Steve

Steve earned another 5 points during his command phase thanks to completely controlling the right side No Man's Land objective.

He continued to move his troops into position, getting ready to do some charging.


Steve's impulsor sat idling in the backfield, waiting to bring decisive reinforcements, probably on the final turn of the battle so that he could get those sick 15 victory points.

At the end of Steve's movement phase, I took the opportunity to rapid ingress my terminator squad into Steve's backfield. This would allow me to shoot his advancing troops in the back, Uncle Fester style. My Vindicator also cashed in another command point to overwatch on Steve's advancing Gladiator Tank. I managed to hit once and do 3 wounds (leaving the Gladiator with about 9 more).

During his shooting phase, Steve combined both his Gladiator Lancer's lascannons Ghostbusters-style and totally evaporated my Vindicator.

During the fighting phase, his intercessors went to town on my large squad of cultists.

Chainswords engage!

Unfortunately for Steve my Cult Demagogue was still using his Faithful Flock aura and some of those chainswords found no tender flesh to chainsaw into. Instead of wiping out a squad of 25 cultists in a single turn of hand-to-hand combat, instead the Blood Angels only found themselves killing MOST of the cultists. But this was a big distinction as it kept the Blood Angels from earning additional points from a "Cull the Horde" secondary objective. And of course it also kept them from gaining complete control of the center No Man's Land objective.

Isaac's Second Turn

I drew sabotage and assassinate for secondary objectives. Remembering the massive amounts of vehicle healing delivered by Steve's techmarine in the last game, I decided to take the guy out.

But first, I gained 5 more VP for controlling a No Man's Land objective.

During my movement phase, my forces moved closer to the central tussle developing.

My Rhino full of Chosen moved up the board to just outside the center objective and the Chosen disembarked. This would be the objective that's worth 15 points in the final round of the game and its value was becoming very apparent to both of us.

The shattered remnants of my cultist mob were the Cult Demagogue and his two Blessed Blades. They decided to fall back towards my starting territory and live to fight another day.

At the end of the movement phase, my Chaos Lord dropped down next to the Impulsor, while the Terminators moved in on the other side.

Steve chose this moment to Rapid Ingress his deep-striking unit of Sanguinary Guard. This squad of three elite Blood Angel jump pack dudes dropped down in my back field, suspiciously close to my Forgefiend.

Game after game of my Forgefiend vomiting plasma onto his forces had created some serious bad vibes, and this sinister deep strike was more evidence for my on-going investigation into anti-demon engine harassment.

During shooting, my Terminator Sorcerer used his Death Hex ability to hex up the techmarine. Surely I can assassinate a single character!

Well it turns out I couldn't.

After lengthy stare-downs of the techmarine from multiple angles, I determined the only squad who could actually see that techmarine were my Terminators.

And despite firing a full squad's worth of combi-bolters and a reaper autocannon, the techmarine ended the shooting phase with a single wound left.

My massive squad of Chosen went to town firing at the remaining intercessors that held the middle objective. Much like all the Chosen shooting I've experienced so far, I found it wanting. Four of my Chosen have combi-weapons where are supposed to be quite lethal against elite infantry. However the combination of them only hitting on a 4+ with only inflicting a single wound (all space marines have 2 wounds in this edition), meant most of the intercessors were still standing there when it came time to charge.

Away from the heat of the center objective, my Forgefiend decided to empty all three heads into the Gladiator Lancer on the flank. The result was an exploding Lancer, and one less thing to potentially affect the middle objective action.

During charging, my terminators charged the Impulsor chilling in the backlot. This impulsor contained the Veteran Sword Guys and Mephiston, but they had yet to disembark. Remembering the ridiculous "wrap-around" action during the last game, where my Chosen were essentially blocked from leaving my land raider, I charged the Impuslor and wrapped it with an similarly-constricting layer of Chaos Terminators.

An Illegal Procedure

At the end of the charge phase, my Chosen charged into the intercessors. In retrospect this was entirely illegal. The correct way to do this would have been to drop the Chosen off BEFORE the rhino moved, but in reality I dropped the Chosen off after I moved. This is doubly a bad move because the Chosen can move really fast…they are allowed to do both an "advance" move as well as a charge in the same turn, so its very likely they would have made it from farther back.

I was completely unaware of this until a couple days after the game, so I couldn't even get mad at myself. Instead all I could muster was a classic Family Matters Urkel "Did I Do That?" which I didn't even say, just thought it in my head.

Back to the Fighting Phase

The Chosen, having illegally charged, did what they always do, they totally destroyed the unit they charged into. This squad is totally overloaded, containing the maximum 10 Chosen plus TWO characters: a Sorcerer and Master of Executions. Neither of the characters even got to swing their weapons, as the concentrated power of all those Chosen's accursed weapons did the work. I make a note now that this unit will probably never make up the huge amount of points I spend for it, so in future army lists I'm definitely going to explore cheaper, less-lethal options.

Against the Impulsor, the Chaos Terminators did some damage (I have one chainfist, on my reaper autocannon guy), but did not manage to blow it up.

My fighting had cleared out the objective and it was held by a massive squad of chosen for now. But there was a Blood Angel Dreadnought on the horizon, as well as some Assault Terminators, that would certainly be contesting the objective on the next turn.

End of my turn looked like this:



 
The Pizza Interregnum

This pitched battle over strategic resources came to a crashing pause with the arrival of lunch. Much like a half-drawn Etch-a-Sketch, my grasp of the battle strategy was shaken and replaced  by a blank slate and both combatants went up stairs and got in line for the za.

The pizza was of the Take n' Bake variety, some much thanks should be given to parties other than the two combatants, who took the pizza and baked the pizza and provided it now for our consumption.

I believe the main pizza was a Papa Murphy's Cowboy Pizza, containing a selection meat, cheese, and black olives.

This pizza brought up a long-running dilema which has plagued me in recent years. How much pizza should a 47 year old man realistically eat? Looking back on the day and how it progressed, with the clarity of hindsight, the answer is obviously two. Two slices.

As a teenager, I could easily eat an entire pizza by myself, barely taste it, and polish it off with a couple cans of mountain dew.

But now I was a middle age adult, my body blossoming with the fresh crapulance of my late forties. Instead of Dew, I was furiously guzzling water out of the tap in an attempt to keep my rules brain fully hydrated. And it was clearly obvious I should have eaten only 2 slices of pizza.

I did eat 2 slices of pizza.

But then, as I sat drinking my water and watching Steve's kid's eat, Steve decided to play 3D chess with me again. He gently pushed the remainder of the Cowboy Pizza towards my plate. He was nodding his head and smiling. His mouth slowly formed words which I can still hear now as I type this.

"Go for it."

And so I ate another piece. Another full piece of Cowboy Pizza. And after I ate it, its perception-altering powers were almost instantaneous. All the water I had been guzzling was sucked up by this new doughy interloper.

My brain was drying out like the Salton Sea.

I was confused. Delirious.

But the game had to go on.
 
Third Turn: Steve's Blood Angels

The Deal with Steve's Dreadnaught

During this game, Steve brought up a rule that the Dreadnaught reduces all damage done to it by 1 wound, every time it is hit. He was doubtful that it applied to attacks were were only 1 wound to start with (effectively making it invincible to 1 wound attacks). But I played it like it was effectively immune, focusing none of my shooting at it, ever.

I don't know if this was good or bad, since I did end up shooting quite a bit of infantry instead, and probably did more damage overall.

However, the fallout from this decision was that the Dreadnaught has full wounds and was trouncing over to the middle of the board.

In addition, the Blood Angels Assault Terminators were also slowly waddling up to the plate.

In addition addition, the squad of Sanquinary Guards jump packed into easy charging range.

Over at the Impulsor, the Blood Angel's Chief Librarian, Mephiston, managed to get out of the Impuslor by himself and got ready to charge my Chaos Sorcerer. The Veteran Sword Guys were stuck inside, with the punching and cutting of my Terminators on the outside of the Impulsor probably making them slightly nauseous.

Finally, down by my Forgefiend, the other tiny squad (3 guys) of Sanguinary Guard were flying into charging range against my Forgefiend.

And finally, the Sanguinor flew down into the middle to also get to chopping.

During charging and fighting, my entire squad of Chosen, my entire squad of legionnaires, and the last remaining cultists from the big group (the Cult Demagogue and friends) were totally wiped out.

Crucially, the small squad of Sanguinary Guard was NOT able to destroy my Forgefiend. He wasn't able to do much attacking back, as his only melee weapons were his tiny stomping feet. They did nothing.

The middle objective was filled with Blood Angels, edge to edge. And pretty beefy Blood Angels at that, all of Steve's Terminators and large squad of Sanguinary Guard (with Jump Captain inside).




Third Turn: Isaac's Chaos Deceptors

Well, now's the time to pull back the veil. I WANTED all of Steve's army on that center objective. That's exactly where I wanted them all along. Maybe.

All that was left in my Army...happened to be the majority of my shooty guys.

I used the Coils of Deception strategem to fall back AND still shoot, which was targeted on my forgefiend and allowed him to move away from the Sanguinary Guard and shoot into the center of the board.

Here's what was shooting in this turn:
Cypher (with 9 total shots, 6 bolt pistol and 3 plasma pistol)
Noise Marines
Predator Destructor
Forgefiend

I managed to kill most everything, with a single Terminator and the Sanguinor still remaining.

My Rhino charged the Terminator, and my noise marines charged the Sanguinor.

In the fighting phase, The Sanguinor seemed to have no effect on my noise marines. However considering the damage ability of the Sanguinor I almost wonder if he fought something else, and my noise marines consolidated into him.

Likewise, the single Terminator was not able to take out my Rhino (and that seems more believable).

At the end of the turn, I scored 2 VP for Cleanse, and 5 VP for Overwhelming Force.

At the beginning of the Fourth Turn, Steve conceded after doing some Warhammer calculus and determining he didn't have enough OC (Objective Control) to hold the center objective in the Fifth turn. I personally think it was way closer, and it was more calling the game due to time. It was running long again with a 5 hour game instead of what should have taken probably 3 hours.

The final board state:

In Minnesota winter, the weather can be 40ºF one day, and be 10ºF the next day with windchills taking it down to below zero.

My poor brain isn't equipped for it even after many, many years of the same cycle.

After a couple days of warm weather, things get real sloppy. I inevitably leave my hat and gloves back at home. Or in the car. Or at the restaurant.

The solution seems to be to keep buying cheap new accessories and stuffing them into every nook and cranny I can for easy retrieval when the wind starts blowing again and I can feel the moisture in my eyes crystalizing.

The types of accessories that make all the difference:

Gloves, both bigger "choppers" and lightweight porous fabric ones
Hats (hopefully with a built-in way to cover your ears)
Scarves: Wow its always surprising how much difference a scarf makes when you put it on
Balaclava: You look like you're going to rob a bank, but if it keeps my cheeks/nose from getting frostbite, I'm all for it

This retail-store blogical is the perfect summary of military surplus cold weather options.



Just observations I discovered as the world moves farther into January. (and we still have February and March to go!)