Gaelcon Games 5 and 6

Yes, this is Captain Hero.*

Darren and his lovely Wolves: Seize Ground (5 Objectives)/Dawn of War.

Darren had one of those 'counts as' armies that he uses to represent every kind of Marine. His stuff has a lovely neon effect from bright green and bright orange colours with a brilliant white centre over black. I'll have to get pics off one of the lads as I used his camera to take some shots.

Darren's army had Pods. Lots of Pods. Lots and lots. About 8 if I remember correctly.

Rune Priest with Jaws and Lightning
2 Dreads with MultiMelta and Heavy Flamer in Pods
4 Wolf Guard with CombiMelta, Fist
4 x 6 Grey Hunters with Wulfen, Power Weapon, Meltagun in Pods
2 x 5 Long Fangs with 4 Rockets in Pods
Land Raider Redeemer with Extra Armour

I figured that with my greater mobility I would be able to pick my fights and overwhelm one unit at a time before moving onto the next and then make my move toward objectives toward the end of the game.

I'm not sold on Pod-heavy lists and that doesn't stem from my inability to roll anything decent when I scatter. It has to do with losing the initiative and being stationary for a turn while the enemy gets to react and can choose to stand and fire or simply drive away. When you arrive turn 1 (no choice in the matter) you can spread out or castle in one area. If you spread out you can be overwhelmed one at a time while if you castle the other guy's army simply drives/walks/scuttles off.

With this being an objectives game I wanted to go 2nd. The first reason was that it would give me a chance to grab objectives at the end of the game and the second reason was that I would get to see how Darren deployed his Pods and move to swamp him or just move away and blast him.

He deployed nothing and I set up a Rhino squad and the Lord, with the Lord going slap bang in the middle of my deployment zone so that I could cover just about every area if he dropped anything dangerous.

Oh so pretty: The shoulder-mounted gun is a combi-weapon. Magnetised. Nice.

Turn 1

As it was, he went first and dropped 4 Pods, 2 of which were empty and 2 of which had Dreads in them. He had elected to move one Pod squad on foot and they hopped into his Redeemer and the Long Fangs showed up too. The Dreads fired at the Lord but didn't manage anything while his Fangs showed up in very defensive positions.

My Lord raced straight at a Dread while my Long Fangs and a Rhino (with RP) rolled on and took up position. The Fangs spread out to cover the board while my Rhino moved into the centre of my half ready to counter any Pod Shenanigans. The Lord rushed a Dread but only managed to tear off an arm. I was worried that he'd throw the other Dread in there to tie him up even further and was a little apprehensive as to what his Grey Hunters would be able to shoot when they arrived.

Turn 2

A squad of Hunters arrived deep in my half and were set to open up on my RP's Rhino while his Redeemer moved ever closer. His 2nd Dread moved away from the Lord and also pointed its gun at the RP's Rhino. Not good. One of his Fangs squads was behind a hill so couldn't draw LOS while the other opened up on the RP's Rhino but only tore off a gun while the original one was reduced to slag by the combined efforts of the Grey Hunters and Dread. I was annoyed when the squad got pinned but very relieved when the Dread was out of assault range...

The Lord's combat continued to irritate me as I only managed to Immobilise and tear off the other weapon on the Dread while he did nothing in return.

My Scouts arrived and promptly ran for the Fangs on my right in order to give me control of the board with my firepower there, while the Speeders stayed at home. I needed them to stop the Redeemer and I was now consigned to losing one of my squads next turn. Oh well.

The RP's squad made straight for the nearest Hunters (and away from the Dread). My line of Long Fangs managed to destroy the Dread and pounded the Hunters and managed to kill a few. The RP threw Lightning at them while the squad opened up and 5 managed to survive. I felt pretty confident I'd take them with my Wolf Banner so I charged them after they'd passed their Morale test. Long story short: I fluffed my rolls and 3 lived while he managed to draw combat with his plethora of Power Weapon attacks. As a result my Priest was in base contact with a Power Fist Wolf Guard. Oh dear. At least the Scouts took care of the Long Fangs.

Turn 3

Another Pod squad arrived in my half of the board near my pinned unit (Moar dear). The Redeemer pushed forward again and was able to roast one of my units, although it left the Meltas alive. The Pod Hunters managed to wreck one of my Rhinos leaving me with but a single one for now but the squad thankfully wasn't pinned nor fleeing.

Combat went my way as the Priest and Mark of the Wulfen tore through the unit while Dave's fellas did nowt in return. The Lord finally wrecked the Dread and moved to where he could assault either the Raider or the newly-arrived Hunters.

On my right the last Rhino showed up and made a move for the objective on my right. My Speeders arrived and targeted the Redeemer while the RP's squad hopped into the nearby Rhino for protection. I managed to take out the Redeemer and exposed the squad to a torrent of fire from the angry Long Fangs leaving none alive. The dropped squad were battered by the Lord but they held. Things were looking up.

Turn 4

The Rune Priest and Co. arrived by Pod near the ruins of the Redeemer taking an objective. The Priest split off and I had a bad feeling about it. The Fangs on my left were only able to shake the Rhino with my Priest and my Lord was unaffected by the hail of Storm Bolter shots aimed his way. Then the Priest declared he was using Jaws on my Lord. My heart stopped - I'd never been the victim of this before.

Thankfully an 11 was rolled and I was able to breathe again. The Hunters opened up on my Speeders and took one out and Immobilised the other. My Lord cheered me up by finishing off the Grey Hunters though.

My Lord made straight for the Rune Priest - he wouldn't be allowed to get away with that twice. The right-hand Rhino pushed toward the newly-arrived Pod squad and the scouts did likewise as I wanted to tempt him to either move away or not target the Rhino.

The Long Fangs took out the Rune Priest (no more Jaws, yay!) and killed a few Hunters but they held. The Lord couldn't reach the unit so he took out a Pod.

Turn 5

The last unit of Hunters dropped near the RP's Rhino while the unit on my right raced for my Rhino. The new unit combined with the Long Fangs to blow up the Rhino and gun down the Rune Priest (I wasn't risking a scoring unit). The right squad only managed to tear off the Storm Bolter and shake the Rhino and the Pod gunned down a Scout.

The Lord rushed the last squad and the Rhino squad disembarked and pushed toward the objective. The Scouts did likewise. The Fangs took out a couple of Pods netting me some lovely points and I managed to mangle both enemy Hunter units in combat (thank God for Wolf Standards). With all of Darren's troops gone the game was mine.

Post-game

There was a turn 6 but it was just a mop-up exercise as it came down to how many Pods I could destroy and whether or not I could kill off his Long Fangs. I couldn't destroy all of either for what its worth.

I knew that this game was winnable when I saw all the Pods - there was a risk that he'd bring 2 of his Troops down with his Dreads and take out my Fangs or Rhinos and leave me with no support but when the Dreads arrived with a pile of empty ones I knew I'd be able to deal with being drip-fed Hunters.

The game ended 18-2 in my favour.

Game 6

Darragh and his Orks. Annihilation/Spearhead.
Again, we needed 2 KP to win.

Darragh, one of the better players on the tourney scene, was going to be a challenge. He had a quartet of Battlewagons and a pile of Rokkitbuggies that would plough toward me so I had to fan out and take as much stuff out at range as I could to force his stuff to walk toward me and then bag it in combat.

Ghazzy
Big Mek with Force Field
3 Meganobz with Rokkits
10 Burna Boyz
20 Boyz with PK Nob
18 Boyz with PK Nob
Grots
2 x 2 and 1 x 3 Rokkitbuggies
4 Battlewagons with Shootas and Deffrollas

I realise I should tease this out but there's not much to tell: this was over in 45 mins. I deployed in one corner with my Long Fangs hugging the board edge and he deployed in the opposite one. The Scouts infiltrated and the Speeders were going to Deep Strike to try to bag a Speeder.

The Scouts bagged one Battlewagon but were eaten by the Orks that popped out. 17 attacks and I kill 1, he kills 2 and I flee. Idiots.

The Speeders dropped in, did nothing to a Wagon and were promptly rolled over after I failed my 3+ dodge. I never make those. Their sacrifice did manage to pay off as a Wagon's side armour was exposed to Rockets and it was promptly wrecked.

I pummelled his Infantry units with Frag Missiles but he pulled them back out of range and simply stayed there. As did his vehicles - they were not only worried about the Fangs but the Lord was terrifying him too.

'I'm not going near him.'

My RP tried to snipe a Rokkitbuggy squad but Darragh kept passing his cover saves. Although I managed to destroy one of his Wagons in my last turn and go up by a Kill Point the 2 KP gap came back to bite me in the ass.

End Result: 10-10 Draw. I managed to get myself 7th position, finishing above Pinball Wizard. I was happy.

I was also going to do a big write-up about my post-tourney thoughts but I'll keep it for a later date.

*You may be wondering why Captain Hero is the pic for this - I had no camera and asked one of my buddies to take pics and Nick came through for me. Cheers Nick - you get to be called Captain Hero for a day. Enjoy.