Well, I'm not up for any report writing at the moment, but here are the photos that I took.

Ah yes, that ill fated terminator drop next to the castle. Never a good time to lose the initiative roll!

It would definitely have been a much closer game if Simon had managed to pull that off.

With great regret, I have to announce that the list I played with, posted here was illegal, a fact that only came to light yesterday during an email conversation with Dave. This was as much a shock to me as it was to Dave and I can only apologise to him and the rest of the competitors for the completely unintentional mistake I made in posting and then playing a list that was 250 points (an extra Falcon formation) over the tournament limit.
The scores have been adjusted to put me in last place, and I can only hope that this has not marred the event for Dave or the other five opponents who unknowingly played at a disadvantage.

No need to apologise to me Ginger. I probably should have spotted that what you were playing wasn't quite what you'd submitted during the weekend.

You've used those 3 castle formations for so long now they just look 'right' when you deploy them .

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@MephistonAG for all sorts of twitter madness

No need to worry about it as far as i'm concerned, it's an easy mistake to make at 4k

Thanks for being up front about this Ginger. Didn't spoil the tournament for me - then again I didn't play you.

Look forward to seeing you at the next one.

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www.epic-uk.co.uk - home of the UK Epic tournament scene
NetEA NetERC Xenos Lists Chair
NetEA Ork + Feral Ork + Speed Freak Champion

So a week on and a little bit of time to get my quick reports written up.

Game 1: vs Joe’s SM. We set up a long way apart and through careful use of the terrain Joe was able to keep most of my long range shooting down to the odd attempted sniping shot. The game was quite cagey with both of us trying to whittle each other down whilst looking for the opportunity to win. Main point of note in the game was a ground attack from a Lander carrying Whirlwinds which then shot down my back line. In the end neither of us could score enough goals to do this and the game went to points which to both our surprises was a draw rather than points win to Joe.

Game 2: vs Simon’s Dark Angels. Silly fluffy army from Simon, five terminator formations, five thunderhawks, two devastator, spacecraft and a whole load of hurt. We set up corners and thankfully the barrage missed as it could have down some serious damage to my army. The drop podding Devs did cause some hits and wounds but not as many as they should have. Retaining Simon engage my BTS bikes and intermingled my Falcons. I pushed the Falcons forward to protect the bikes and managed to win the engagement for the loss of the Falcon formation (one formation of vital AA down at the start). I went after the second Dev formation and wiped them out followed up by the single formation of terminators that had teleported on breaking the BTS bikes. Trying to keep my shape I attempted to shuffle forwards and keep my remaining AA (the Fire Prisms) safe and covering my BTS. These were broken by sniping Thunderhawk attacks allowing just a single AA shot at them as they proceeded to break the Prisms. Game progressed with me trying to keep some unit coherency whilst Simon committed more terminators to the fight. Again I couldn’t break out fast enough and we ended in a draw with me wining on points count back.

Game 3: vs Chris’ Orks. Not Space Marines. I was able to relax into this game facing off against a Great Gargant felt that I finally had a target to justify including a Cobra in my list. Chris was a little AA light so I went after this and his ‘Uge Blitz Brigade formation containing two Supa-Zzaps to try and protect my Engine’s of Vaul and Fire Prisms. Using a small holding force on my left flank I went after the Gargant to try and get BTS. It took me three turns, three fires and a turn missing from the Cobra, but finally the last wounds were taken off it. Meanwhile I had slowed down the ork flanking force enough to protect my Blitz and I was with the Swooping Hawks and sweeping movement able to take the Blitz for a victory to the Eldar.

Game 4: vs Dave’s Tyranids. The wave of ‘nids came rushing towards me. I attempted to snipe the small war engines but didn’t score enough hits to slow them down. Again jumping forward with my forces to whittle down the nid formations I was able to break elements, but not quick enough to force my way through and go for the victory. Count back gave me a points winning draw.

Game 5: vs Mark’s Necrons. Mark set up his 4 Pylons behind cover so that my ground troops couldn’t get to them in the first turn. At this stage I decide to try and leave my 3 Vampire Hunters off the table for as long as possible. However I had a pin-point attack from my spacecraft and Swooping Hawks so I teleported these in and looked to at least break two of the Pylons early on to allow me the chance to use my aircraft against them. Spacecraft hit causing one point of damage which was saved by Living Metal – thankfully anticipating this I had targeted the one pylon that had teleported in with a blast marker, thus breaking it. Attempting to retain with the Hawks to engage the second pylon, on the Blitz, I preceded to fail to activate even with the supreme commander screaming at them (Snake’s Eyes, baby) and so they sat there waiting for the tomb complex portal to open. Which it did and I was one formation down. I then compounded my poor start by pushing forward with my Shining Spears and Falcons only to lose both of these to further engagements. Mark then started to snipe my Scorpions with his Destroyers over two turns he repeatedly got two hits, one wound and a critical to even further reduce my forces. In desperation I brought on my Hunters, but they didn’t fair much better and it was a solid well played win to Mark.

Game 6: vs Richard’d Krieg. If I wanted to forget the previous game this one was even worse. Turn one I went after Richard’s ground AA with my Vampire Hunter killing three units and breaking the formation. The Hunter was intercepted and shot down.... My spacecraft failed to activate... It took my other two Hunters to place a wound and break a Shadowsword. Richard pushed forward whilst I placed some blast markers until he ran out of activations and I positioned myself for turn two with a formation of Falcons, Shining Spears and the Cobra lining up on Richard’s three Warhounds. Joy of joys with my plus two advantage Richard won the roll-off and proceeded to wipe out the Falcons, destroy the Cobra, whilst moving out of range of the Spears. Effectively game over. My remaining two Hunters were then shot down by the Thunderbolts and it was game over. I tried to push towards a draw and sneak points, but with the loss of activations, Krieg numbers and the Warhounds still active I didn’t really have a chance. Massive victory to Richard.

So from a position of second at the start of the final day I collected a total of 3pts out of a possible 64 and dropped down the placings. I think that I went too far along the lines of trying to have MW shots and didn’t have enough tough units to face up to my opponent’s large units. My BTS was also one of my main attacking options but I didn’t use it that way as the low armour save and need to try and protect it mean that I was constantly worried about losing it. In fact failing armour saves became a main issue for me and I think that I either need to go back to a hoard army or pick a list with better saves. Oh well onto ITB with a fresh army.

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www.epic-uk.co.uk - home of the UK Epic tournament scene
NetEA NetERC Xenos Lists Chair
NetEA Ork + Feral Ork + Speed Freak Champion

No harm, no foul my good man. Thanks for being so up-front about it but I'm not bothered in the slightest. We had an enjoyable game and I doubt that one less Falcon formation would have made a huge difference to the outcome of our game.

I did actually do a brief write up on my blog.. with the few pics I took.

The final thing to say is that the dates for Britcon 2015 are 7th-9th August at UMiST once again... let the 4,000 point plotting begin

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@MephistonAG for all sorts of twitter madness