Blog Vs Podcast

It's been about 12 months since my last pilgrimage to Warhammer World, so I though it was about time that this injustice was put to rights. Myself, Matt and Craig made the journey and also invited Sam from the Adeptus Terra Podcast to come and join us for a day of gaming.




I'm sure the other guys will put up their words about the day later, but whilst it is fresh in the memory, I'll try and review my side of the epic games that we had today.

The day started with a 1500 point game of an evolution of the Eldar and Harlequin list that I ran the in my last game against Craig against Sam's Grey Knight army that he was building for his Escalation against fellow host Matt.

I'd learnt from my previous game that although the Heroes Path formation doesn't allow the three models to join units, they looked to work best when played around each other as opposed to working alone. I also decided to take the Harlequin psychic discipline to see how that would fair.

This game was a real eye opener for me, as everything really went to plan, despite a hairy moment where my Wave Serpents were both wrecked in quick succession. The Fire Prism continues to stake a claim as my vote for best unit in the Codex as it's variable firing modes proved to be the right tool regardless of the job, managing to drop a whole squad of Grey Knight Terminators in one round of shooting. The Hemlock is continuing it's upward path of favour as the D-Scythes started to hit units and cause a few kills, along with the ever useful Psychic Shriek collecting a few more bodies.

The Dire Avengers, in squads of 5, proved useful once the Serpents had been wrecked, as they could keep using Battle Focus to take a few shots and retreat to cover turn after turn, however, I do need to learn the joys of firing priority as a few times I would shoot with one unit to leave another out of range. Sam unfortunately came up against the problem of assaulting D-Scythe wielding Wraithguard as their overwatch instant killed a Dreadknight by distorting it from existence. These models are quite expensive to put in a unit, but their ability to pretty much prevent you from getting into close combat is invaluable.

Finally, the Harlequins. They were sent up against a Purifier squad and the synergy that all three models have really helped to cut through the squad. The Death Jester got a kill in the first turn, but the high leadership of the Grey Knights meant they wouldn't be running off the table any time soon, but once the Solitaire managed to get in, the tables turned. It's very helpful to remember that he has Furious Charge, as attacking at Strength 4 gave me the opportunity to win the combat. If I was against weaker units, the Solitaires strength at running down units would have come into play, but not against marines. After a few turns of fighting, the Shadowseer managed to join the combat to ensure that the Purifiers fell, after this, the Solitaire used a Blitz on turn 4 to dive across the table to engage the single remaining unit and drop it to give me a total victory after that turn as Sam sadly had no forces left.

After lunch we headed into the second game, where we decided to play one big 2v2 game. Myself and Matt faced off against Craig and Sam in a fluff breaking Dark Angel and Eldar versus Necrons and Grey Knights match. This time, we played a Maelstrom game with a few adjustments. We each had our own warlord and our own set of objective cards each, these changes made more sense as we were pretty much ignoring the ally rules for the sake of a good game.

On paper, an army that has two Imperial Knights and two Wraithknights must seem pretty broken, but sadly, our side lacked the volume of fire to really dent the opposition who came at us with numbers. It's a lesson that I'll have to take away with me this time, but it didn't affect the game too greatly.

After scoring a few early objectives I found myself stuck in the mud again. My sword wielding Wraithknight failed miserably to take out two Tomb Blades an ended up in combat with the Overlord armed with a dreaded Voidreaper. I should have been able to instant kill him, but my poor dice rolls, coupled with Craig making his 5+ reanimation every single time put pay to that plan.

At the back of the field, a shunting Dreadknight and deep striking Terminator squad kept my Wraithguard busy. My poor rolling continued as most of my army just failed to hit, let alone wound most of the enemies sitting around and threatening our deployment zone.

By the end of turn three we had to call the game as it was approaching closing time and at that point we had enough points to claim a victory, however, I am under no illusion that if the game was allowed to play to it's conclusion, we had have lost due to the weight of numbers.

Overall, it was a fun day of gaming, and I would like to thank Sam for sharing that day with us. I can't wait for the next time we can thrown down the dice again.