Blitzog's krumpin'

Sergeant Jenk of the 25th Carthage regiment, Planetary Defense Forces, wasn't sure what he was seeing.

"Uh, high command, do you copy?"

"What is it, Jackal one?" The operator's voice hissed over the vox, laden with static. Jenk winced as a shrill screech cut across the next sentence. "...peat, Jackal one. What do you see?"

"Smoke, sir. Lots of smoke."

"You have to be a lot more clearer than that." Jenk could almost hear the operator roll her eyes. "What's causing the smoke? Wildfire?"

"Hang on, high command...um, it's not just smoke. I see a huge cloud of dust. A duststorm?"

"What do you...?"

Jenk never heard the rest of the question. There was another high pitched shriek before the vox went dead. Clutching the receiver, he stared at the auspex in his Leman Russ tank, The Abridged. His eyes widened when he made out dark shapes within the cloud dust.

Impossible buggies, those that seemed as if they were manufactured solely out of scrap, were hurtling toward them.

The 25th Carthage PDF regiment was hit hard. Hot on the heels of the scrapjets was a Truk, filled to the brim with hooting, howling boyz. The Orks jumped off their ride, with a single Warboss in mega-armor leading the charge.

"Reverse!" He yelled.

"Trying!" Raina, the driver yelled back, slamming on the pedal. There was a squeal as The Abridged jerked before the engines coughed, but the gigantic greenskin was upon them. Swinging its massive axe with a roar, it dented the front hull armor in a single strike.

Jenks could hear yells of defiance and agony as the infantry fired futilely against the speeding scrapjets. The Ork buggies swerved about, avoiding the plasma fire from The Abridged's sister tank, which exploded as a pair of rockets slammed into its side with violent force. Shootas erupted thunderously, the slugs cutting down running soldiers of the Planetary Defense Force.

"Crush them, Raina!"

"You got it, sarge!"

The driver grimly shifted gears, urging her tank forward. There was a satisfying crunch as a boy was run over by the vengeful The Abridged.

Unfortunately, that was all they could do. The warboss chuckled as it raised its axe and smashed another chunk out of the shuddering Abridged.

"This loot iz mine."

Jenk could only stare frightfully at the massive greenskin, suddenly aware that there was nothing between him and his assailant. The Abridged had been peeled apart, and for the first time in hours, he was exposed to the dry hot air of Hamlicar.

"Get zoff my loot, humie."

The last thing Jenk saw was the huge weapon descending upon him, his vision then replaced by excruciating red.

Then darkness.

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Ahem, I forgot to say that I bought Cadia Stands and built a new Armored Sentinel. For comparison purposes, here's how he looks next to the old Armored Sentinels. Of course, I need the plasma cannons and the chainsaw because...I like plasma. My Imperial Guard regiment specializes in plasma weapons. So yeah. Hopefully I can get more Armored Sentinels in the future!

Interestingly, the weapons all fit nicely, so you don't have to glue them or magnetize them. Just pop them onto the socket and swap them if you want. I thought it interesting to have all the different options, so I assembled all of them. The plasma cannon is still the default weapon for me, though. But I thought it might be fun to try out the different weapons once in a while - experiment and see which is the optimal loadout! After all, I can't use the plasma cannons when the Sentinel is locked in combat. Oh, well. We'll see.

Alcazar Prime stands firm!

Despite the Loyalists' attempt to seize Alcazar Prime, the planet stands firm thanks to the combined efforts of the Iron Warriors and their Thousand Sons allies. The Loyalists, despite their best efforts, failed to retake the planet and were driven off Alcazar Prime. The fortress world stays firmly in the hands of the forces of the warmaster. The route to Holy Terra remains open to Traitor reinforcements and the beleaguered Loyalists are further stymied in their rush toward the birthplace of humanity.

This was meant for yesterday night. Whoops, sorry.

Um, okay...I'm getting way ahead of myself here. I should summarize the events of what happened in the fourth and fifth rounds, but it has been a long three days, and I barely had like three hours of sleep. I'm running purely on caffeine right now, ha ha. Oh, well. Anyway...

First, the Loyalists attacked in several places...I can't remember the results of the other matches, but I believe the Traitors secured the airfields in another match. Oh, now I recall! The Iron Warriors crushed the Raven Guard in the airfields. The Thousand Sons won against...Dark Angels, was it? I can't remember. Ugh. I was only paying attention to my match, which was kind of dumb of me. Sorry. Probably too pumped on caffeine and running low on fumes to look at what was going on beyond my table. I think the Imperial Fists won their game, but that's...about it? Oh, Blood Angels got massacred by the World Eaters, despite Sanguinius slaying Angron in combat (I think). Sons of Horus lost to Dark Angels, that one I knew for sure because...Interceptor on Contemptor Dreadnoughts shot down two of his Dreadclaws and caused them to crash and burn. Ouch.

I did manage to get a game against another army of Thousand Sons, but thankfully it wasn't as one-sided as yesterday. It was Tide of Carnage, and I took advantage of a gigantic building in the middle that obscured shooting from his heavy support squad with 10 lascannons (hitting on 2+ with Sunder), allowing my Knights to basicallly hide from most of the lascannons. The poor Knight Lancer got shot off the board without doing a single thing. As usual...I always lose one super-heavy Knight before he can do anything. Ouch.

Fortunately, I had Phalanx Warders holding my  deployment zone, though the squad in the no man's land got killed by the tactical squad with Ahriman leading them. Ahriman proceeded to slay the Imperial Fists Praetor in cataphractii terminator armor, but the two surviving Terminators held strong. I held my Knight Errant Seneschal back to avoid getting shot by the damned heavy support squad, and that was about it.

On the other hand, my Knight Errant and all the melta weapons from my 4 Armigers Warglaive managed to take out a Spartan land raider, a Vindicator laser-destroyer (I rolled explodes results for both of them!) and 3 Contemptor Dreadnoughts, including an Osiron Magus. I didn't bother trying to kill them in combat (though I think one Contemptor Dreadnought brought my Knight Errant down to one wound before he was cut down by the reaper chainsword - no need for stomps this time!). I also eventually took out the 5-men tactical support squad with aether-fire blasters and slowly but surely nuked the Sekhmet Terminators (or Cataphractii?) with lots of melta shots from both my Knight Errant and Armigers Warglaive.

Oh, and my opponent had a Scorpius shooting barrage at my Phalanx Warders, which slowly whittled down, but he was destroyed by another Explodes! result from my Armiger Warglaive. That was...hilarious. My Cataphractii Terminators didn't do much, despite having thunder hammers, because the Osiron Dreadnought kept withdrawing from them, and they failed their charges - except the very last turn, where Ahriman killed the Praetor. By then, I only had 2 out of the original 10 Terminators remaining. Ouch. I think I failed like a bunch of saves - there was one time where I rolled like 5 1s for an Explodes! result or something, and half of the squad just died. Yikes.

Fortunately, I managed to win the game like 11 points to 1. Having hidden my Armigers Warglaive behind the building to prevent getting shot off the table by the lascannon heavy support squad, I had two of them advance into the enemy's deployment zone to score 7 points, while about two remained in no man's land to deny my opponent's two tactical squads the objective. The Knight Errant managed to kill like 7 of the second tactical squad, but I didn't wipe them. That's fine, I drew with him in no man's land. With the second Phalanx Warder squad hiding right at the very far corner in my deployment zone, I gained 3 points, and that gave me 11 because I also scored Last Man Standing. A Phalanx Warder squad, two Terminators, my Knight Errant Seneschal and 4 Armigers Warglaive in contrast to his Master of Signal, heavy suppport squad, Ahriman and two tactical squads. His single point was Price of Failure for killing my Lord of War.

And so the Knights of House Yato and Imperial Fists allies secured the slums from the forces of the Warmaster, driving the Thousand Sons out of there. Yay? Unfortunately, the traitors won the game, with it being decided by the Iron Warriors, where Pertarubo slew Corvus Corax in combat and annihilated the Raven Guard forces in the airfield. Ouch. Victory to the Traitors.

My last game was a two versus two Zone Mortalis game against Sons of Horus and World Eaters, with me and my teammate both playing Imperial Fists. It was kind of fun, and instead of the White Dwarf mission, we used the old mission, sabotage, which I wasn't familiar with. Something about defenders controlling the locked doors and the attackers having to blow up generators? Yikes. We had 5 generators, and the successful destruction of each was one point for the attackers, while the defenders gained a point for each generator not destroyed by the end of the game.

In any event, the Sons of Horus and World Eaters moved up and destroyed two generators in the first turn. Yeah, that was...not good. I think the World Eaters were swarming up the table and hacking away at the doors and rushing toward the other three generators, including a massive despoiler squad, a flamer support squad, Red Butchers and the Praetor, and two Contemptor Dreadnoughts. The Sons of Horus fought against my allied Imperial Fists, having two Contemptor Dreadnoughts move up the table along with Reavers, Veterans and...Terminators? I think? I wasn't sure what was happening there because I was focused on defending against the World Eaters. I do know the World Eaters Dreadnought and an Imperial Fist Dreadnought killed each other in combat. Yikes. What else, uh, the tactical squads blew open the doors, only to eat a plasma blast from an allied Casteferrum Dreadnought with two plasma cannons. Ouch, they got wiped out. Yikes. The allied Terminators killed most of the flamer tactical squad, who proceeded to flee.

I don't know what else happened, but I do know I managed to shoot one Contemptor Dreadnought and took wounds off him before an allied Contemptor Dreadnought finished him off in combat. Uh, my Phalanx Warders and Contemptor Dreadnought then tried to defend against the Red Butchers, with the former killing them with a combination of melta shots and Brutal gravis power fist. The World Eaters continued to pour forward, and my Phalanx Warders killed a single tactical squad, successfully defending a generator.

Unfortunately, the Sons of Horus busted a door open and the Contemptor Dreadnoughts blasted the third generator to bits from distance with melta and haywire grav guns. Yup, we lost the game on turn 3 because the Traitors destroyed 3 out of the 5 generators. Uh oh.

Thankfully, we decided to play the game on and agreed that if my ally and I succeeded in tabling the World Eaters and Sons of Horus, the result would be a draw. By the way, sorry for being a pain in the ass. I was panicking when we seemingly lost the game, and I probably whined too much. I apologize for that. I should have known better.

Oh, I think my teammate had a few...battles going on with the Sons of Horus, with his Terminators killing a bunch of Reavers or Veterans or something...I dunno. Between him and me, we managed to take some wounds off the Sons of Horus Contemptor Dreadnoughts, and I think the Terminators killed one of them with a Solarite Gauntlet. Uh, the other one died...somehow. I have no idea how because I was busily charging a tactical squad with my Phalanx Warders at the time and wiped them out.

My surviving Contemptor Dreadnought pursued a Reaver and killed a couple of them with Brutal. They then smacked him with a krak grenade - unfortunately for them, their sergeant hit but failed to wound with his thunder hammer (he rolled 2 2s). Yikes. That meant I won combat by 3 wounds and I somehow wiped them out with sweeping advance. Yeah, I didn't anticipate that. I'm still not used to this whole sweeping advance thing because I play too much 40K. And my Knights rarely killed anyone with sweeping advance anyway.

I think my opponent finished off the rest of the Sons of Horus, and while his Terminators wiped out the survivors from the World Eaters flamer squad, I managed to charge the final World Eaters Despoiler squad and wiped them out, thus allowing us to effectively table our opponents and salvage a drew from the jaws of defeat. That was really close! I thought for sure the Traitors had won because they destroyed 3 of the 5 generators on turn 3, but thankfully they showed good sportsmanship and allowed us to play for a draw. Thank you, guys!

Um...I'm not sure about the other games, but I believe Thousand Sons won against...I think Dark Angels? I can't remember who else was still around at the point. The Blood Angels player went home, and I think the Raven Guard player did too. There were very few people left at the point. Effectively, the Traitors won the campaign and held the route open for the Warmaster's reinforcements and supplies to his invading fleet in Holy Terra. Uh oh.

Well, that was a fun three-day event! I don't know if I'll be able to attend Renegade next year because I'm finishing up my doctoral program and this is my last year here. We'll see, but yeah. I don't know, but fingers crossed, maybe I will have a chance to come again!

Oh, and I managed to get 5 Cataphractii Terminators! That was an unexpected and pleasant surprise. I honestly have no idea what to do with them - I have way too many Terminators at this point for my Imperial Fists, so maybe I'll use them for my Thousand Sons. I guess that works? I'll need to think about getting spare bits for them to make them more...Thousand Sons-y. I have 5 Thousand Sons Cataphractii Terminators right now, anyway. Might as well expand them into a 10-men squad. Yay, I guess? I do...dread assembling and painting them. I kind of burned myself out painting my Thousand Sons and Imperial Fists. I honestly am not looking forward to painting them again, but I guess 5 models should be fine. I hope. We'll see, at least I'm not rushing to get them done before Renegade now, so I can take my time. Phew. But hey, I'm certainly not going to say no to getting 5 free Terminators! Ha ha.

I probably should go get some sleep after the caffeine wears off. Drank like 3 or 4 cups of coffee today, so I'm still wide awake, if very high strung and...uh, hyper. I really need to calm down, ha ha. For some reason, my fingers (or finger) hurt quite a bit too ever since yesterday. I think it's from the cold, which caused my skin to crack and peel off, but I'm totally ignoring the pain because it's minor and I want to play and roll dice. Probably shouldn't be typing so much, ha ha. I couldn't even hold my dice properly, whoops! Ouch. Anyway, sorry for all the trouble (I need to stop being a pain in the ass and whining), and thanks for the event (am I allowed to mention names here? I don't know if anyone will be reading this, but they will know who they are!)! Thank you, everybody, those who participated and played, and especially those who organized everything, brought their terrain and mats for everyone to use! It was tremendously fun, so totally worth participating in!

Final score - the Traitors win overall!

Another day at Alcazar Prime

So the Knights of House Yato continue to attack Alcazar Prime in an attempt to drive the Warmaster's forces out of the fortress planet. Let's say it didn't go very well for them, despite the Imperial Fists arriving to reinforce them and retaking the garrisons they left in place. Oh, well...

Oh, right. This was pretty much the results of the games of yesterday, after the pickup games.

The first match I had today was the offensive launched on the Harribast East Manufactora, where the Knights of House Yato intended to seize the surplus vehicles and the laborers and servitors who work there. Unfortunately, the Knights and their Imperial Fists allies were blown away by the Iron Warriors, who utterly wrecked them with missiles from the Tyrant Siege Terminators and firepower from three Dreadnoughts. Not to mention the Spartan Land Raider and Proteus Land Raider. The Armiger Warglaives managed to kill all the Troops, but the three Contemptor Dreadnoughts wiped them out. Ouch. The Harribast East Manufactora fell to the traitors.

I believe the Traitors won this round, with them sweeping off the majority of the Loyalists off the objectives. Two Warhound Titans dueled in the Hives of Alcazar-Tetra, and despite the Imperial Fists trying to fend off the World Eaters, I think the World Eaters won. The Thousand Sons also defeated somebody, though another Thousand Sons player tied with Dark Angels. There was a protracted battle between Dark Angels and Iron Warriors, which ended in the Iron Warriors' victory (I think). By and large, the round didn't go well for the Loyalists, and the Traitors seized the round.

In the second match, the Imperial Fists launched an assault on Colossibast South and reclaimed the fortress from the World Eaters lurking in there. Oh, it was a Zone Mortalis game using the White Dwarf rules. Despite suffering horrendous losses, the Phalanx Warders claimed an objective, and the Cataphractii Terminators wiped out an entire Red Butcher squad, along with the Praetor himself, to earn the Imperial Fists Attrition and Slay the Warlord in a Zone Mortalis game. Frankly, I got lucky, and made a few mistakes with the rules, which was why I won, but it was a close match. The World Eaters would have won if the game went on to turn 4 - they were dominating two objectives and my Tartaros Terminator command squad would eventually succumb to the Contemptor Dreadnought's brutal blows despite their Vigil storm shields providing them a 3++ invulnerable saves.

The second round went better for the Loyalists, who took this round. I can't really remember what happened, but I believe the Dark Angels won against the Sons of Horus (I think?). The Custodes got wiped out by Iron Warriors, though, and...yeah, I honestly can't remember much fo anything from here.

The third round was an epic affair...for everybody else. The Knights had to defend the Western Airfields, but the Thousand Sons completely wrecked them. With two Leviathan Dreadnoughts and three Osiron Contemptor Dreadnoughts, the latter denying me reactions and pinning me with telepathic spells, I simply couldn't do a single thing or react. Lost my Knight Errant in the first turn before he could fire a shot, and the whole game went downhill from there. Almost got tabled, and in the end, I only had a single Archmagos Prime and an Armiger Knight Moirax left before the game ended. I only killed like 8 dudes from a heavy support squad, the three Contemptor Dreadnoughts and one of the two Leviathan Dreadnoughts, as well as a handful of Tartaros Terminators, but...nope, that was it. Oh, the Archmagos Prime killed a support tactical squad with rotor cannons by himself, soloing them with his power axe and wiping them out in sweeping advance after literally tanking their 20 shots by himself, saving all of them on his 2+ armor save (and their Strength 3 shots wounding his Toughness 5 stature on 6s). Jeez, that was surprising.

It was still an awful loss, though, but I completely expected that. I know the Thousand Sons player, he's a competitive player with a lot of amazing strategies, and he really knows how to utilize his list. In contrast, I just suck. I'm not a very good player, ha ha. I just play for fun, and I love my Knights, but I'm not sure how to maximize their potential. They are pretty...skewed. Either they own hard or they get destroyed hard. It is what it is. That's all I can say. Sigh. Can't make any excuses, I screwed up.

The other games seemed pretty close, though Raven Guard tabled the other Thousand Sons player. I think Custodes drew with World Eaters, and the Dark Angels won a handful of games. Imperial Fists beat Iron Warriors in an epic grudge match too, and the Loyalists managed to pull ahead ever so slightly. The deciding game was between Blood Angels and Sons of Horus, where Horus himself descended to slay the angel. Sanguinius challenged him and the two of them traded blows before the angel finally fell to the archtraitor. After laying low poor Sanguinius, Horus was promptly shot off the board by illiastus assault cannons, and the vengeful Blood Angels proceeded to annihilate the remaining Sons of Horus. That decided the round and Loyalists won that.

I forgot to take a picture of the final score, but the Loyalists pulled ahead after this. I hope I remember to take another picture before the 4th round tomorrow.

In terms of total campaign points, though, Loyalists trail the Traitors by 10 points, especially after the disastrous Adeptus Titanicus showing yesterday. Ouch. Oh, well. We'll see what happens tomorrow. There are two more rounds, and this might be decided...I dunno how. We'll see.

Anyway, it's late and I need rest. See you tomorrow...