Wrath of Sarum

So we had a Wrath of Sarum RTT today at Dreamers Vault, Hiawatha! I had three games, all with varying results! I'm a little exhausted, so I won't go into too much detail, but I'll just summarize each game.

The first match I had was against Goff Orks. Ghazghul Thrakka made an appearance, along with a bunch of Squighog Boyz, Beastsnagga Boyz, a Beastboss, Nobs in mega armor, grots, Kommandoes and a Beastboss on Squigosaur. Oh, and a Kill Rig, a Trukk, and...I think a plane. A dakkajet, maybe? Well, he went first, and tried to charge me, but my Knights killed the Squighog Boyz in combat. For some reason, he kept Ghazghul back, probably because he didn't want the poor guy shot off the board in the beginning, which made sense. I think he actually went ahead on objectives at first because my Armiger Warglaives were stuck on a bunch of Kommandoes, so I could only hold mine and the center. It took me a while to bring my Knights up the table, but I slowly whittled him down.

I think I lost an Armiger to the Beastsnagga Boyz and Beastboss (though I chopped down the Beastboss fairly easily). The Kill Rig failed a charge even with the 'ere we go! rerolls and died to my Knight Errant. Ghazghul did demolish the Knight Preceptor in combat, but he...died when my Armiger Warglaive killed him in overwatch. That was...hilarious and unexpected. And swung the game totally in my favor. I think the Armiger Warglaive also vaporized the Beastboss on Squigosaur with his meltas, and then was stuck in melee with another Kommando squad and grots for a long while.

The other Armiger Warglaive and his friend managed to kill a Kommando squad and the Beastsnagga Boyz between them, the Knight Paladin brought down the dakkajet, and between him and the Knight Errant, they wiped out a second Beastsnagga Boyz mob. Oh, and the Armiger Moirax killed about three Nobs in mega-armor...and the rest just ran away (failing the attrition test too - ouch). Eventually, my opponent only had a single Trukk, a single Boyz squad and a grot and a kommando left (I think). He conceded, and I decided to just count them as alive so I didn't care about No Prisoners or denying him Engage on All Fronts. I was already winning, so...yeah. Didn't want to rub it in or anything. And I was hoping he gets as many points as possible because it contributes to his ranking, yeah? While I don't care about my ranking, I'm just here to play and have fun. You guys know I'm more of a narrative player anyway.

So I won my first game 81 to 65. Not bad!

The second match was against Behemoth Tyranids, and...that was brutal. I started out badly, whiffing my shooting, but the next couple of rounds went better when I nuked his Hive Tyrant from existence with Calculated Targeting, killed 2 Carnifexes, including a Hunter Screamer or Screamer Killer or whatever it was called. I also managed to get rid of a bunch of Hormagaunts that were slashing away at a couple of my Armiger Warglaives.

Then everything turned around when the Tyrannid Warriors got into melee with my Knight Preceptor. Oh, and the super-smites and psychic powers from the Neurothropes and Zoanthropes.

Long story short, the Tyranid Warriors wounded my Knights on 2+ because...I don't know, they have Strength 9 melee weapons and bonus +1 to wound. So they took out my Knight Preceptor, Knight Errant and then Knight Paladin in quick succession, and though I did kill a Mawloc with the Knight Paladin and blew up my Knight Paladin with a hail mary move using the Noble Sacrifice Stratagem (he was my last model on the table, so yeah, it didn't matter) to wipe out a couple of Neurothropes, Zoanthropes, all of the Termagaunts and a few mortal wounds to the last remaining Carnifex, and a few of the Tyranid Warriors, my Knights were annihilated.

With so many models on the board to contest objectives, and with monsters counting as 5 models and having Objective Secured to steal objectives from my titanic Knights, my opponent won. He was never really troubled, even though he lost most of his big monsters because, quite frankly, he had complete board control and was all over the table. I might have removed most of his big threats, but the Tyranid Warriors were just...brutal. Wounding Toughness 8 Titanic Knights on a 2+. Who came up with that? Ouch.

So I lost the game 37-92. Yikes. Yeah, that was awful. Well, it is what it is. I tried. I really tried, but yeah.

The last game was against Space Wolves. Now this was a reversal of my game against Tyranids, and I ended up crushing my opponent to the point where I actually felt bad for him. Boy, but Games Workshop really did nerf Space Wolves hard. This was an opponent I lost to before - if you remember a couple of my battle reports last year, he played Space Wolves successors with the exploding 6s in melee and a ton of Terminators and Longfangs with missile launchers. So he wiped me pretty easily in the game last year.

It...didn't go so well for him this time.

I killed his Eliminators with tons of melta, and kept my guys out of his Eradicators' melta range. He took a couple of potshots and moved his Contemptor Dreadnoughts up to destroy my Knights, and I think he maybe...killed one Armiger Warglaive? I took out both Contemptor Dreadnoughts with tons of melta (well, destroyed one and wounded one, anyway), wiped out half of his Bladeguard Veterans with the Knight Preceptor (well, he had help from my Knight Paladin), killed his Aggressors when they arrived from Strategic Reserves and failed their 9" charge, and...yeah. I think I lost my Knight Errant to his Arjax thingy and also a Contemptor Dreadnought who swung at him before he died to my Thunderstrike gauntlet. My Knight Preceptor killed the rest of the Bladeguard Veterans and the Intercessors, while my Knight Paladin killed the Eradicators, who...didn't do a whole lot, surprisingly. In the end, I lost like maybe three Armigers and the Knight Errant, and he couldn't even kill the Knight Preceptor, who had a single wound left, much to his frustration. I think he forgot that my Knight regained a single wound every turn (my Command Phase) after bringing him down to 10 wounds with his Terminator Character or Chapter Master, only for him to go back to 11 when my Command Phase came through. So when he fought on death when I charged and killed him with the Reaper Chainsword, he did exactly 10 wounds (after my Taranis Feel No Pain), and he thought he had him, only...for me to point out that my Knight did actually have 11 wounds.

Boy, he was not happy. Maybe I should have just given it to him and let my Knight die. I feel kind of bad. Mechanicus Knights are pretty strong, I was rolling insanely well (and he was just rolling awful - he failed lots of saves and a few wound rolls with his power fists and meltas). Yeah, I should have just let him have the kill. I kind of understand how he felt, especially since I was on the receiving end of a spanking the previous game. Ouch.

Anyway, I won the game 74-53. A win's a win, so I can't complain, but...yeah, I feel bad for my opponent. I basically tabled him, I think he only had an Intercessor squad at the back, and a couple of Intercessors in the center, but he couldn't even kill my Knight Preceptor to at least attempt to even the score. Ouch. Just ouch.

Despite that, it was a fun day at a tournament, and I won 2 out of 3, so yay. Looking forward to playing Knights again for more Crusade games and the Horus Heresy event at Renegade!