Ok then! Thought i'd just post some thoughts on the games while i still remember them reasonably well. For this event i was using my Black Legion, with an assault focused list.
Team UK got pitched against Denmark 2 for the first round, and i was playing Elrik's Imperial Fists. Unsurprisingly the Fists dug in, although if anything there was too much digging in going on, and this led to some unfortunate intermingling around a certain set of bunkers in the middle of the table. A combined assault with a death wheel and retinue saw a bunch of units broken, and the centre of the line crumble somewhat. I brought the terminators down turn 2 to take a shot at the BTS Reaver titan and promptly lost the strategy roll off. Elrik sensibly moved it away, and then broke them with some horrible disrupting thunderfire cannons. This put paid to any attempt at taking down the BTS, so i focussed on the Blitz and another objective. This paid off, and in turn 3 i was able to take a 2-0 win after a bit more intermingling allowed be to break the pesky thunderfires and bastion. It was a bit touch and go though after i won the strategy roll off for turn 3, assaulted some terminators with my BTS, and promptly lost the assault, despite lots of deamon summoning and suchlike. Even worse, my obliterator died, so the unit was no longer fearless. Thankfully the bikes were able to go back and break the terminators and secure the blitz before anything serious went awry.
Round 2 saw us up against Germany 2, and i ended up playing Stephan's Marines. It was an unusual list with 3 units of whirlwinds and 2 units of predators, and a warhound pack bts, and i wasn't considering this an ideal matchup due to having so much infantry and Stephan having all those templates. Stephan got a bit impatient turn one though, and after dragging things out a bit he started doubling forward and shooting me with the whirlwinds (as i was out of range), and really started to come at me pretty aggressively. This kinda played into my hands though, and the end of the turn left him in a pretty vulnerable position. After dropping the terminators and winning the strategy rolloff, the only saving grace for Stephan was some abysmal rolling on the assault, which only saw 2 wounds taken off a warhound despite a bunch of daemons participating. Still, with the warhounds broken and another unit of preds dead, Stephan's army started to crumble rapidly. While i couldn't take down the BTS, i was able to hem in the remnants into his own half, and take all the objectives for a 4-0 win in 3. It's an interesting take on Marines, but i feel it could really do with some assault power for when opponents get close.
Round 3 and we were against Sweden, and more marines for me! This time Magus, with an interesting take on the list again, and playing them super aggressively (which i always approve of). However, perhaps too aggressive, given his BTS tactical co. came barrellling forward, allowing me to park a terminator unit next to them, and after winning the turn 2 strategy roll i was able to wipe that, and take out some predators and also break a warhound through supporting BM's, which left him in a pretty rough situation. If he'd won the rolloff it would have been a very different game, but it was a bit of an all or nothing gamble, that left him struggling to keep a toe in the game. Still, Magnus pulled off a very interesting move in turn 3, dumping his thunderhawk and double assault marines between his blitz and another objective, all just outside of 5" of each other to stop a complete rout, holding me to a 3-0 win.
Round 4, and Germany 1 this time. I had Matthias with his Necrons (huzzah! Not marines!). Thankfully i've played with Necrons a fair bit, so know all their devious little tricks, which did put me in good stead for this game. Most of the army bunkered up with some key units on overwatch in case he decided to go for early assaults, while my Terminators went pylon hunting, primarily with the intent of luring him away from my army early on and hopefully getting him out of position. Things went very nicely, with the Pylon taken out, and the other getting a BM for supporting fire, which was then promptly broken by some death wheel fire. This left my planes in a good position to start strafing the crap out of any infantry on the board, and despite eventually losing the terminators in their entirity to an assault, they weathered sufficient attacks to keep most of the necron forces busy early on, and did manage to put some casualties on the Necron BTS on their way out at least. Disappointing to lose the Obliterator though, who i'd hoped would run off somewhere to be a pain in later turns! The assaults went back and forth pretty viciously on turn 2, but unfortunately for Matthias, his BTS was one of the broken casualties, and he'd used his supreme commander re-roll for their fateful engage, and of course promptly failed the rally roll, giving me BTS straight off the bat. I was then able to take all the objectives and break anything in my half to take a full 5-0 win. The phase out rule really hurts them as an army when you know how to abuse it...
Final round was against Denmark 1, and i was up against Stephan's Biel Tan. I managed to weather the early barrages with my chosen taking the brunt of the pain, which was a relief as it allowed the rest of the army to get to work unhindered. Stephan went pretty aggressive with his BTS early on though, and misjudged the assault range of the bikes with summoned daemons, and with some help from a retinue i was able to get a cheeky clipping assault that just broke the unit. Stephan then poured resources into this wood in the middle of the table though, and destoyed the offending supporting retinue. This had pulled all the assault punch of his army into one place however, and i was able to march my remaining retinue onto his blitz, now guarded by only a unit of falcons, a void spinner, and a broken night spinner. As expected the aspects rallied, but i won the rolloff, and promptly took out the void spinner, re-broke the night spinner, and wiped out the aspect unit and intermingled falcon unit near the woods with my bikes. It didn't all go in my favour though, with a death wheel dying to a cheeky crit after he then doubled the aspect bts back into the fray and engaged it with the avatar. His luck ran out though when trying to engage with his jetbikes on my bikes and they failed to activate. Turn 3 i tried my luck with the terminators to go after the BTS, but Stephan won the roll and caned them with his BTS. After this i focussed on objectives, and took a 3-0 in turn 3. Overall a very interesting game, and could have gone very differently had Stephan not been a bit overly keen with his vampire assault! It would have meant the retinue would have survived, but he would have been able to stop me taking out everything around his blitz, so overall i think that would have helped more overall.
An interesting weekend! I was very pleased with how the army performed overall, and a bit of good luck in some key points of games helped things along nicely. Looking forward to next year
(if i make the UK team of course)