I attended the 'Open War' tournament this weekend, yay me!

Here's my army list (It was my friendly IG list, with which I'd placed 4th and 5th at previous tournaments) :

Steel Legion:
- Regimental HQ Company - 500

- Mechanized Infantry Company - 400
- Attached Hellhounds - 150

- Tank Company - 650 (BTS)
- Attached Hydra - 50

- Baneblade - 200

- Shadowsword - 200

- Stormtroopers with Valkyries - 350

- Sentinel Squadron - 100

- Warhound Titan - 250

- Thunderbolt Squadron - 150




Game-by-game thoughts to follow.

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Game 1 - Imperial Guard


My first roll of the game was a double-1 spent trying to activate a formation, a good start hey!

My lack of artillery hurt me in this game as I lacked the reach to deal with my opponent's own artillery, so as soon as I could I sent my Thunderbolts in to ground attack the basilisk formation ; I lost a Thunderbolt but destroyed a Basilisk, and they then spent the game broken.

Mid-game I got my placement wrong and it became obvious that my opponent was going to get my Blitz and one of the objectives in my half, so I attempted to get two in his half and his BTS, which would force a turn 4 that I was fairly confident I could win (As I'd be in a better position than him with most of my big hitters still active and well placed).


Well, his BTS (Tank Company) shrugged off a good 95% of the 30 or so hits I placed on it (Grr) even when broken and two kills would have wiped out the 5 remaining tanks, 8 hits resulted in only one failed save.

In the mean time I'd spent so much energy trying to kill his blessed BTS that I had nothing left to stop my opponent's last Warhound from contesting one of the two objectives I'd claimed, therefore preventing me from claiming any points!

Final Result : 0 - 2

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Game 2 - Black Legion


I've never beaten a Black Legion army with my mechanized Guard list, the Black Legion simply have too many tools that are perfect for eliminating each of my formation types.

Guardsmen claiming cover from their transports? Not against Feral Titans & Decimators...

Storm Troopers harder than regular Guardsmen? Not when you have Macro-Weapon BP attacks hitting them.

IG Tank Companies a very powerful formation? Not against teleporting Terminators with enough Daemons to ensure I get no Firefight attacks...

My Shadowsword useful? Not when it's Destroyed by a pin-point strike.

Commissars are useful? Not when you only have 3 of them.


Most of my army was wiped out in short order.


My only glimmer of light was in repeatedly hammering his BTS until all that was left were two units of Obliterators... which then promtly shrugged off anything that was fired at them for two turns because of their superb saving throws and Fearless special rule...


Basically the balance problems inherent in the Black Legion army list were made even more obvious by my mechanised theme, and as usual I didn't stand a chance against a Black Legion army.


Final Result : 0 - 2

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Mechanised Company, surely?

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http://www.troublemakergames.co.uk/
Epic: Hive Development Thread

Game 3 : Imperial Guard



This guy really needed to be using the Minervan Tank Legion army list!

He'd attempted to build a Tank-based army with the Steel Legion army list, which of course doesn't work all that well.

His army list was:

- Tank Company
- Attached Hydra

- Tank Company
- Attached Hydra

- Shadowsword Company

- Shadowsword

- Shadowsword

- Shadowsword

- Warhound Titan

- Warhound Titan



Despite looking threatening, it's not hard to lay blast markers on 3/4 formations without doing damage, leaving the majority of his army activating on a 3+.

A few failed activations on his behalf later, and engagements and crossfires on my behalf, and I won 3-0.


If he'd been using a Minervan army list, he could have taken a few different tank types meaning he might have had the flexibility to deal with my army (For example a Stormsword could have helped deal with my infantry, up-gunned Baneblades could have tackled my infantry, different Leman Russ types could have provided more flexibility, and having a Supreme Commander riding in a tank would have helped him no end!).

So yeah, he would have done better with a more appropriate army list, but unfortunately for him that list wasn't allowed at the tourney, therefore he came 18th out of 18 players at the end of the day, and took home the 'Dice of Dave' (Which I gather are some sort of ritualist talisman of great power... either that or they're loaded dice, heh).


Final Result 3 - 0  (BTS, Three in my half, no unbroken enemies in my half)

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*fixed*


Pictures of some other armies to follow.

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A Black Legion Titan Legion with tank support.

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A Space Marine army.

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A Dark Angels army.

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An Ork horde with Gargant support.

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A Black Legion Infantry/Titans army.

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A Squat Warhost (Counts-As Steel Legion)

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Pity you didn't get to play against any of the "new" Marine list!

Looks like a good time though... and Black Legion sure loves their War Engines!  *laugh*

What are your thoughts on the EPIC UK "scene"?

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"EPIC: Total War" Lead Developer

Now living in Boston... any EPIC players want to meet up?

There were some more great looking armies but the photos didn't come out well.


In the end I placed 10th out of 18, not as good as my previous tournament outings, but it was a fun day.

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Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter