Okay, everybody! I finally have the chance to sit down and actually begin writing on the Renegade Open tournament. I don't think I'll go into too much detail - there are 5 matches to cover, so I'll briefly sum up each of them (I can't remember what happened anyway). Besides, I don't think you guys want to read a super-long post. Assuming that anyone is actually reading this blog in the first place, and sometimes I suspect no one reads it (so why do I even bother posting?).
Basically I participated in the Babican Salient Campaign, set during the events of the Horus Heresy. So the Traitor Titan Legions are attacking, and it's up to the Loyalists to deny them from destroying the city. I personally took command of an Imperial Knight Household Force, with supporting Titans, to attempt to stop their rampage...and needless to say, I failed. Or almost succeeded, depending on whether your glass is half-full or half-empty. Speaking of which, I sent an email regarding the Knight Household Forces and whether they are allowed to bring supporting Titans as reinforcements, and I was told that they would do a FAQ really soon. How soon, I have no idea, but they requested that I wait for the eventual FAQ.
Anyway, match one was against a Myrmidon Maniple (that's 2 Warlord Titans and 1 Reaver Titan) with 2 supporting Warhound Titans and a few Questoris Knights. I did my best to hide my Titans aand Knights from the four Belicosa volcano cannons, and I'll be honest. I don't remember what happened throughout the game, except that I rolled the mission for Hold the Line or Engage and Destroy. I can't remember. I know, by the time the fourth or fith turn rolled on, I had essentially tabled him, destroying both of his Warlord Titans with my Knights and Warlord Titan, while my Reaver Titan...killed his Warhound Titan? I think? He didn't have much left on the table, and I managed to claim an overwhelming victory, scoring over 40 points to his 20 or so.
Match two was against an Axiom Maniple with a bunch of Knights (Questoris, I believe). This time, my Acastus Knights got wiped out in the first time by the enemy Warlord Titan's Belicosa volcano cannons. I got Honor and Glory, so I put everything into that Warlord Titan and utterly wrecked him. The opposing Reaver Titan, who possessed a chainfist, walked right into my lines and began hammering my poor Reaver Titan, who suffered critical damage. The Reaver Titan, ironically enough, survived, but the enemy Reaver Titan then walked up to my Warlord Titan and gutted him. Surprisingly enough, my Warlord Titan blew and I think I took the Reaver Titan along with him, while the rest of my forces wiped out his 2 Warhound Titans and Knights. Eventually, he was left with a single Reaver Titan while I still had most of my Knights ("most" being relatively, given that my Acastus Lance had been annihilated in the first turn, but I still had a healthy number of Cerastus Knights and Questoris Knights). Thanks to me getting 15 points for killing his Warlord Titan in the first turn, scoring Vengeance and Decapitating Strike, as well as 3 points for being in one corner of the table, I was able to score 26 points to my opponent's 20 or so, and scraped by a victory. Would have been more if I had used Full Stride for my Knights to run over to the other quarter of the table to deny him more of his Hold the Line objective while gaining another 3 points for myself, but I decided not to do that, because you know...good sportsmanship and all that. Besides, it's a narrative event that we were doing for fun. Why should I care about claiming an overwhelming victory? It was more important for the both of us to enjoy ourselves.
Match three was the final Adeptus Titanicus match. The other Loyalist Titan Legions had fallen and I was the last one left. Also, funnily enough, I had destroyed all the other Traitor Titan Legions, so we were pretty much the last Legions standing. We could have both chosen Engage and Destroy, but I decided to pick Hold the Line because it was more narratively thematic and off we went!
This time, the match took place in a pretty dense hive city, so for the first couple of turns, we couldn't do anything to each other because we simply couldn't see each other. The opponent had one Warlord Titan, one Reaver Titan and two Warhound Titans (an Axiom Maniple), plus a Cerastus Knight banner of 4 Knights and 2 Acastus Knights Porphyrions. In the first turn, we lost a single Knight Porphyrion each. The destruction began to ramp up as we began to move toward each other, but I had my Knights sneak up to his lines by hugging the edge of the battlefield and hiding behind the buildings while using Full Stride. Eventually, they reached my opponent's deployment zone and I had my Knights destroy the last Acastus Knight Porphyrion, the Reaver Titan, before they went to assault the Warlord Titan. The opposing Cerastus Knight banner advanced toward the Knights Porphyrion, but I shot them off the table, while my Reaver Titan took serious damage from combined shooting from the Warlord Titan and other enemy Titans (who could see him). Eventually the Reaver Titan was blown up by the Warlord Titan before I could destroy him with my Knights, and when my Knights did destroy him, his weapon magazine detonated, and being armed with a Belicosa volcano cannon (2 of them, in fact), he utterly annihilated all of my Knights. The Warhound Titans also destroyed my Acastus Knights, who had previously destroyed the Reaver Titan who had charged my Warlord Titan, and I was left with just the High Seneschal (Acastus Knight Porphyrion). The game sort of ended there, and I only had 41 or 42 points or so, even when taking into account Decapitating Strike and Vengeance. In contrast, my opponent had 46 points or so. The kicker was that, if I had chosen Engage and Destroy, I would have gotten 47 points and won the game, because I destroyed so many of his units. Oh well. Obviously I wasn't going to whine about it, so I accepted my loss, and somehow I got second place in the Adeptus Titanicus Renegade Open event, and achieved Best Loyalist. Yay!
The next day, we moved into Horus Heresy games proper, with my Questoris Knight Crusade army making an appearance. Wait, what? Why? ...because, frankly speaking, that was my only army that can double as a Horus Heresy one. I don't have any of the old Space Marine Legions, I don't have a Solar Auxilia army, my Leman Russ tanks were not appropriate for Imperial Militia (they were Leman Russ Executioner tanks and had sponsons, something that Imperial Militia and Horus Heresy tanks don't have), and my Mechanicum army was not up to scratch, with only a couple of Magi Dominus, 10 Secutarii Hoplites, 4 Castellax battle-automata and a Vultarax stratos-automata. I didn't even bring my Thanatar siege-automata. Not enough for a full army, and I would be bringing Knights to make up the rest of the points anyway, so I might as well bring a full army of Knights. Additionally, I thought it would be interesting - these were the same Imperial Knight House that had stood by the Loyalist Titan Legions and fought to defend the cities from Traitor Titans. Smarting from their defeat the previous day, they vow to enact vengeance on the Traitors by protecting the city. So they broke off from their Titan group (well, it was mostly a Knight Household Force to begin with) and descended to the Hive City to fight on the ground with the others.
So the first game was against Dark Mechanicum forces as the Traitors poured through the breach that my failed defense of the Hive City had left. Fortunately, my Knights stood strong against the screeching tide of daemonic scrap code and insanity. The opponent brought 2 Krios Venator tanks (I think, the ones that can fired 4 Ordnance Strength 9 AP2 shots), a bunch of Thallax with multi-melta on top of their standard lightning guns, a bunch of Ursarax, and a Magos Prime with conversion beam cannon. Oh, and 20 Tech-thralls in a...Tiraros Conveyor. The game did not go that well for me at first, with both of our shooting missing everything (because of fog and radiation, we all had a -1 to our shooting for the first turn). Instead, melee was where I did the most damage, where my Knight Errant and Knight Crusader stomped the poor Ursarax to oblivion before they could swing back with their power claws, while also taking out a couple of Thallax. On the other end of the table, my Knight Lancer charged and wrecked the Tiraros Conveyor with his lance, destroying it and causing quite a few tech-thralls to die.
The second turn was more devastating, with the Krios Venator and the Magos Prime's conversion beam cannon destroying and blowing up my Knight Lancer. Ouch. My opponent had just scored a massive advantage there. Funnily enough, my Knight Lancer's explosion scattered right on top of the poor Tech-thralls and wiped out every single of them out with Strength D hits (and the other hits as well). Ouch. Talk about lucky. At least my Knight Lancer's explosion didn't scatter back to my Armiger Knight Moirax! Next, my Knight Errant charged the Magos Prime while my Knight Crusader slaughtered the fleeing Thallax, who had fired their jetpacks to fly away. I failed to do any damage to the Magos Prime, even with my Strength D reaper chainsword, especially since he made all of his 3++ invulnerable saves. Ouch. However, funnily enough, I rolled a 6 for my stomp, and the dude was removed from the table. Just like that. Slay the Warlord for both me and him.
The Knight Crusader continued advancing forward and damaging the Krios Venator, one of them having crew shaken and can only fire snap-shots. Even so, they left my Armiger Knight Moirax with just 2 hull points and immobilized him. Fortunately, between the thermal cannon shots and my Knight Crusader's dakka, I succeeded in destroying both Krios Venators eventually by turn 4, tabling my opponent and winning 8 points to 4 or something.
The campaign had something called breakthrough, where you can have your forces move up the table and show up on another match somewhere, to help your allies. With my opponent tabled, my Knight Crusader and Knight Errant moved on to the next table, right behind enemy lines, and wiped out a bunch of Thousand Sons who were assaulting poor Dark Angels, thus saving the beleaguered defending Loyalist Legion, and almost tabling the poor guy (who only had a Contemptor Dreadnought left, if I'm not mistaken). Heh! The Loyalists fared pretty well, winning half of the battles and achieving a draw (3 wins, 1 draw, 3 losses or something to that effect, or 2 losses, I can't remember).
The second match, on the other hand...was pretty funny. I faced off against a Renegade Blackshield force, where the mission was for the dudes to get to my end of the table and escape. He gets 2 Victory Points for each unit who successfully gets off my edge of the table. So...what he did was put everything in Reserves, so I had a pointless first turn where I couldn't do anything but move and advance with no clue as to where he would show up. Then he drop pod his dreadclaws or dread talons (I can't remember what they're called, the flying drop pods that can still move around even after they come on from reserves), putting most of his army in there (3 squads, plus 2 HQ). He had 3 of them. He also had a special teams squad with combi-plasma packed inside a Termite Drill, and had 2 dreadclaws and the Termite Drill and a single Falchion appear from Reserves in the first turn. Funnily enough, despite all that firepower, he failed to kill even a single Knight, the combi-plasma taking about 2 or 3 wounds off my Knight Crusader. The Falchion fired his double volcano cannon at my Knight Gallant...and did no more than a couple of wounds. Then he fired the dreadclaws and had both of them fly off the table with their 18" movement during the shooting phase. So basically they came from reserves and flew off
all in the same turn, without me being able to do anything to stop him, whether it was to shoot, assault or whatever.
...oh, well.
At least I destroyed his Falchion, wiped out the Veterans except one, and destroyed the Termite Drill. His third and last Dreadclaw swooped in, along with the Avenger Strike Fighter, but once again he failed to kill any of my Knights, with me making all of my ion shield saves. The Dreadclaw, as usual, flew off the table in the same bloody turn, without me being able to stop it. Thanks to my Knight Crusader being a Scion Albaster, he had Skyfire if he doesn't move, so he promptly shot the Avenger Strike Fighter out of the sky, while my Knight Lancer killed the last remaining Veteran before he could run off the table.
I tabled my opponent, but I lost on victory points. I had 6 Victory Points to his 16 (2 x 8 units that flew off the table). Wow. Just wow. Oh, well. I don't blame him. I had Knights, so it would be tough for him to stand and fight the army. It was very smart of him to run, and I probably would have done the same thing if I were in his shoes, heh, play to the mission and all that. So it was all good. Honestly, I was more amused and ended up laughing at how ridiculous the mission got than miffed.
That was the last mission I played. Well, since I tabled him by turn 3, technically I could have all my Knights run off the table and do breakthrough, but because it seemed pretty imbalanced the other time, they decided to limit it to one Knight this time, but he got blown up by Terminators shooting their missiles into his back and me being unable to make my saves because Knight Lancers don't have an invulnerable save to their backs. Whoops. Couldn't do a single thing. Oh well.
That ended my involvement for the campaign, that being the last game played for the day. I didn't show up on Sunday because of personal issues, so I don't know the eventual outcome, but I think it was fair to say the Loyalists lost pretty badly. In the second round, the Loyalists won only one match but lost six matches. It was pretty lopsided in favor of the Traitors. Ouch. Maybe I should have just gone the next day, spend another $30 on Uber, but I decided not to, because I also had things to do. I'll never know, but I'll check with my friend and see what happened in the end. From what I heard, the Traitors won, and the city was in ruins. Good thing my Knights got off the planet and went elsewhere before the end (I'm joking, of course). They all survived to fight another day!
