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!