Hey everyone! I'm back now from Wintercon, held here at EPIC in Canberra, after a two-day, five battle odyssey! There were highs, there were lows, and even some middle ground, but all in all I got to roll dice, meet new people and have a great time so nothing to really complain about (aside from having a cold).
Wintercon itself was reduced from three days down to two- although the 40K side of it has always just been a two-day event- however this year the second day was only five games (instead of six), meaning that the second day was a lot more relaxed and we were able to get away relatively early- important when you have a young family as I do. As I'd previously sold off my terrain (well, most of it) as well as my Blood Angels I wasn't really intending to go along anymore, however about 3 weeks out from the event I thought it might be worth a go. Cancon had kind of burnt me out a bit and left a bad taste (Im still not entirely sure why), so I thought that Wintercon might be worth attending to see if it could rekindle some of the love I have for tournament play.
To that end I pulled out what I had of the Dark Angels that werent in pieces/ in the Simple Green and tried to build a decent list that I could semi-complete in time for the 'con. Settled on the list below, based on what I had and what I could build in the time beforehand.
HQ
- Grand Master Belial- Sword of Silence, Stormbolter
EL
- Dreadnought with t/l Lascannon, m/launcher
- Dreadnought with t/l Autocannon, m/launcher
TR
- Deathwing Terminators (5)- Assault Cannon
- Deathwing Terminators (5)- Plasma Cannon, C/fist-
- Deathwing Terminators (5)- all with TH/SSs
- Tactical Squad (10)- Heavy Bolter, Flamer, Vet. Sgt with Power Maul.
- Scouts (5)- sniper rifles and camo cloaks
FA
- Dark Talon (flyer)- Rift Cannon, Hurricane Bolters, Stasis Bomb
- Ravenwing Black Knights (3)- 1 grenade launcher
HV
- Devastators (5)- 4x Missile Launchers
Sadly, in the last couple of weeks before Wintercon I came down with some fairly nasty flu and bronchitis type symptoms, which was further compounded when all my coughing strained a muscle group near my T5 vertebrae- so it was a solid couple of weeks off work on painkillers, antibiotics, throat lozenges, gargles, heat and cold alternating and so-on. At the very least I was able to piece together a five man Devastator unit, a ten strong Tactical squad and complete the base colours on these and my newly constructed Deathwing unit (hybrid of regular terminator box parts and the flash new DW Command arms/torsos/extra bits). If given enough time I would have presented a much nicer looking army but it wasnt to be. Alas...
Anyhow, on to the battles!!
Game one vs. Antonio's Chaos Space Marines + (Traitor) Guard Allies
Deployment: Dawn of War
Mission: Crusade
We were basically chasing down control of 6 objective markers, each worth 3 VPs. Antonio set up first, and I failed to seize.
Result: Disastrous Defeat to me (tabled)
Highlights:
- Dark Talon and Ravenwing Black Knights make their maiden appearance, and debuff/own everything in their path, working in tandem. The DT soaks up loads of AA fire from the quad gun and keeps going!
- Deathwing deepstriking on turn two and open fire with twinlinked to annihilate the Spawn and wound the Khorne Lord.
- The Vindicator was unstoppable! Couldnt even glance it with loads of missiles, Las cans and autocannons, so it just kept laying down the huge blasts.
- My TH/SS Deathwing absorbed huge Plasma fire from the CSMs, a round of shooting from a Vendetta and only very unluckily died to a concerted four meltagun attack from the IG command sqaud that had disembarked- would have been a couple more points in my favour.
- Similar story for the Tac squad parked up the back- the Helldrake came in and Baleflamed them to death, before destroying my last dread with a merciless vector-strike in the last turn!
Game two vs. Dale's Dark Eldar + Eldar Allies
Deployment: Hammer and Anvil
Mission: Big Guns Never Tire
Lengthways boards arent the best for my army, which is mainly subdivided into green/white/black portions all designed to work together at close quarters- this was going to be a long table shooting gallery, so I was forced to get up in the Eldar/DE's face to try and get into close range..
Result: Disastrous Defeat to me (not really unexpected- vehicle heavy list with insane firepower and range. And twinlinked everything, and so on etc etc. On a lengthways board...). Tabled!
Highlights:
- Scouting RW Black Knights were able to pop open a Falcon underneath Dale's giant Skyshield Landing Pad, using only a couple of Plasma Talon shots. Honestly, that was it- the rest of the time i couldn't hit anything, do wounds or armour pen, and got run around like crazy.... hence the giant list of things that went wrong.
- Table deployment setup and cover was minimal for me, which really made it hard to get any forward momentum going.
- Eldar Farseers on jetbikes with 2+ cover saves and rerolls and crazy jacked up combat drug-like psychic powers (rampage??)= lots of dead things. Epic.
- Every Falcon put out a bucketload of dice to hit- most re-rolling, some ignoring cover, some ignoring armour. Had no reply to that!!
- Deepstriking my Terminators in really wasnt the best idea in this mission- should have castled up or advanced in a large block to the central terrain- all my units got picked off piecemeal at range.
- Dark Talon was dropped by a couple of Falcons throwing buckets of Str6 shots its way, had no ral chance of jinking out of it.
Game three vs. Eddie's Nurgle Daemons
Deployment: Vanguard Strike
Mission: Purge the Alien
Vanguard Strike saw us deployed diagonal with a 24" no mans land strip up the middle- straight heads up kill-or-be killed here with VPs per unit destroyed- I decided to play it safe and start with all my DW on the board and to lay in fire while the Daemons came to me...
Result: Tactical Draw (points win for Eddie, on secondary objectives)
Highlights:
- Just versing this beautiful army was a treat in itself (albeit slimy and nurgle-y)! Loads of FW and new Daemon units all round, with loads of customisation.
- Kept all my Deathwing on the board and put the Hammernators in a defensive line to shield the Tacticals and Scouts perched on the round bunker terrain behind them. They and Belial eventually ran into a line of advancing Plague Flies and wiped them out, before engaging the Great Unclean One.
- Tacticals and Sniper Scouts poured huge amounts of bolter/ sniper rifle into multiple units, inflicting decent casualties. They were continuously bombarded by a Plague Drone (flyer) and lost most of their men, however neither broke at all.
- The Black Knights and Dark Talon came in right next to a squad of Plaguebearers that had materialised in my deployment zone- Rad grenades, Plasma Talons, Dark Rift Cannon and rapid firing twinlinked hurricane bolters saw them wiped out in short order!
- Belial accepted the Great Unclean One's challenge, and basically muffed most of his attacks, either missing his swings or failing to wound (one a 2+!!). Only thing I had forgotten was that he had a re-roll for every five guys he is leading- there were five termies backing him up. Wouldnt have done much to be honest, there was a load of invulnerable saves I failed.
- The portal that Eddie dropped near my Devs and Dreads was scary- kept dropping out D6 amounts of any type of lesser daemons, which diverted fire away from the big scary soulgrinder in the distance that I was trying to blow up.
- In the last turn one of the Plague Drones landed a blast template on
the last survivors of the Tactical and Scout squads- their deaths
giving Eddie enough VPs for a tactical draw, and getting his unit in my
deployment zone for Linebreaker.
- Game four vs. Evan's 'Iron Snakes' Space Marines
Mission: The Scouring (6 variable value mission markers)
This game saw Evan and I on Eddie’s beautiful modular-style city board. Once the markers were placed face down and deployment was done I infiltrated my Scouts to the middle of the board, in the canal that ran up the centre, giving them lots of nice cover (3+ with their camo cloaks). Evan had won the roll for first deployment/ turn and I didn’t attempt to seize. The markers when turned upwards were quite in my favour- I had the ‘4’ in my deployment zone, a ‘3’ was on the bridge close by, a ‘2’ right next to my scouts and the remaining 1, 2 and 3 were closer to Evan’s line.
Result: Victorious Slaughter to me, all secondaries acheived.
Highlights:
- The terrain was AWESOME! Evan and I had a great time fighting over this board, it was exceptionally scenic and made for some awesome photos (See below).
- The Deathwing proved extremely resilient, soaking up loads of Bolter (and worse) firepower, and their Fearless rule kept them on objectives even when taking casualties.
- The Dark Talon mowed down the remaining Assault Marine next to his Drop Pod- 12 twinlinked boltgun shots will do that!! Rapid firing chews through infantry.
- The Lascan/ML Dread lined up the rapidly approaching Stormraven and dropped with with a Lascan shot straight through the nose- the giant assault transport dropped like a stone, however it landed on the squad of Scouts with a S10 large blast! Somehow the one scout pulled himself from under the wreckage, to face the three Command Squad Veterans who had survived the explosive crash- they were keen to avenge the death of their Captain!
The lows:
- Nothing to report- the worst was the Scouts being crushed by the Stormraven but I actually laughed at this...
Game five vs. Ben's Khorne Chaos Space Marines
Deployment: Dawn Of War
Mission: Purge The Alien
This was to be a meatgrinder of epic proportions- Ben's crazed and Fearless Khorne Bezerker army vs my implaccable Dark Angels- straight up VPs (+ secondaries) for units destroyed. I decided to keep the DW shooty units in reserve till turn two, to give them the best chance to land behind Ben's lines and draw his army in two separate directions...
Result: Solid Victory for me
The highlights:
- Belial and the Plascannon DW squad dropped in close to the Khornate lines and opened up with a huge burst of firepower, wiping out 7 bezerkers from one squad alone. The other squad dropped behind in Ben's deployment zone and opened up on Kharn's Bexerker squad, but the Assault cannon used 'split fire' to target the Forgefiend to their left- one rending shot shot got through and detonated the steel monster!
- The Black Knights Outflanked on from the left side in turn one, hitting the Daemon Prince with a Rad grenade, and then four twinlinked rapid firing Plasma Talon shots- he failed all his Invulnerables and was sent screaming into the warp! The Dark Talon was poised nearby to open up with everything but found itself without a target!
- The two Deathwing Sgts and the Tactical Vet Sgt all land precision shots before engaging in close combat- two power-fist wielding Champions are dispatched before they can cause too much harm.
- The Tactical Squad decides that its best to not let the Bezerkers get a charge in- they assault themselves, boltpistols and flamer blasting away! They stayed in the battle with leadership tests each and every round as they lost men but never broke, and were only finsihed when Kharn joined the fray.
- When Kharn finally detached and set off to his own deployment line to engage the last DW squad the DA Lascannon dread decided enough was enough- a single shot vaporised Kharn and it was all over.
The bad stuff:
- The Helldrake roasted a bunch of the scouts, leaving only one alive- nearly nothing can stop their attacks against 3+ armour! It then went hunting for the Ravenwing Black Knights, scorching two of them (one got lucky!)
- Kharn carved up Belial before he had a chance to reply- he laid down 7 wounding hits, and Belial failed three, using up all his wounds. He then carved through all the Terminators in the next round, with his 2+ to hit AP2 Str6 (re-rolls to wound) 6 attacks... very frightening!
Pics from the tourney
Game 1 VS Antonio's Chaos Marines with IG allies- the traitors are holed up behind their Aegis defence lines.
Snipers provide covering fire.
(He was back down to T4, and WS/ -1 Initiative though- Ravenwing de-buff attacks!)
One of the Plague Drones swoops in opening fire on the Tac Squad and Scouts. Despite many casualities they hold firm. 
The Scouts infiltrated up the canal in some nice and solid, if somewhat murky, cover.
Unfortunately I didnt get any more photos of this game (or any of game three!), but I hope you like whats up here :)
Next post will be up really soon, with a detailed analysis of how each unit performed, ideas for next time, etc!
Cheers,
Tempest
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