Welcome back to the slowest moving train wreck you guys have ever seen. Last week we went through the results for round one and it was… Well there sure were 4 games. This will week will be better, though! We have tablings, an upset no one saw coming, and someone may have gotten close to actually having fun. Let’s get into it.

The Set Up

Our mission for round 2 was No Man’s Land, a 5-objective mission with 3 of said objectives along the centerline in the titular no man’s land. The mission secondary tasks you with holding the center of the battlefield and it gives you a point for every battle round that’s past. These games promise to be WAY less passive, forcing players to go to the middle of the battlefield to duke it out. No more cowardly raising banners and hiding, if you wanna win you gotta come out and get it. I foresee no unintended consequences of this.

Game 1: Tyranids (Norman (That’s Me!)) vs Harlequins (Erik)

This game is potentially our biggest clash of the blunderdome. Tyranids and Harlequins both had some ridiculous datasheets with incredibly cheap points on release and were arguably the two most powerful books in 9th edition. Both armies are equally deadly and equally complete bullshit.

To start I selected Bring It Down, Domination and the Mission Secondary while Erik picked Deadly Performance, Domination, and the Mission Secondary. These secondaries require us to get in each other’s faces and really start punching and thats exactly what we do. I get the first turn and start swinging

Round one ends looking really great for Tyranids. I couldn’t quite get on the objectives I wanted to, but I was able to bomb a bunch of voidweavers using my harpy’s and end up blowing up 3. The clowns spread out onto the objectives and completely bounce off my army. The clowns really are on the back foot here. 

The issue is… There was a lot of clowns and a lot of cars full of them. As the game ground on I realized that I had under committed early out of fear of all the clown death and couldn’t work around not having Obsec while my opponent had a ton of protected Obsec. After turn 2 it becomes apparent that I was not going to be able to stop the Harlequins from scoring primary and he was gonna keep scoring.

I gotta admit, I thought I could go the distance with the crusher stampede but the clowns and their boats proved to be too much for me. It probably doesn’t help that I’m not super familiar with Tyranids and Erik is a fantastic player. All this means though is I get to terrorize whoever loses this next game.

Result: Harlequins Win, 99-43

Game 2 Drukhari (Dan) vs Admech (Pendulin)

As a wedding present to the newly married Dan, I once again made him write his section: 

I’m writing my thoughts about this Blunderdome game at a resort, hundreds of miles from where this game was played. I have a margarita in my hand and lounging by the pool on a perfect weather day. It’s about as close to paradise as I think I’ll ever experience in my life. 

I think I’m finally relaxed enough here to talk about my personal hell game that was Drukhari Vs Admech.

In retrospect, this game was pretty much the Drukhari worst-case scenario. The mission had two objectives out in the open that I couldn’t hold without getting blown off of them by Admech shooting. All of the Admech fliers meant that Pendulin could blast my ass to hell from turn 1 pretty easily, and the Skitarii could clean up the rest. To top it all off, I went second. Shit.

At this point, the only way I can really hope to win this game is to hope for Pendulin to whiff hard turn 1, or make major misplays. Not great!

The first turn does go alright for me, at least. Andrew doesn’t reserve any of his planes and I manage to use that to my advantage by positioning my raiders to ensure that his planes couldn’t have a place to land in my deployment. This works pretty well, I do manage to only get bombed once, but the shooting from the Stratoraptors manages to still kill 2 raiders and some Cronos. On my turn, I try to even things out by killing as many planes as possible, but my dice are cold and I only kill one and put another on 4 wounds left. I do make a big misplay here, I charged with some Cronos at a Fusilave when I should’ve just used never stationary to put them behind cover again. 

Local Blunderdome commissioner Norman remarks “That turn didn’t go the way you wanted, huh?”

My spirit begins to break, and it’s only turn 2.

Andrew does make a major misplay on his turn. He decides to put all his fliers into hover mode, so they can stay on my side of the board without flying off. His Vanguard pick up the Cronos I should’ve hidden, but the fliers kind of bounce on his turn as far as damage goes. And now, since they are all hovering, I can charge them.

On this turn, I need to go for broke. I charge everything I can with incubi, succubi, Drazhar, Archons, and wyches. I pick up three fliers and his block of 20 rangers. I consolidate a succubus and Incubi into a block of 20 vanguard and I consolidate the wyches and an archon into a tech priest. At the end of it all.

Right now, I think I can squeak a win out a win here, but on one condition: I need to win the roll offs to prevent the targets I’m engaged with from falling back. If I win these roll offs, even maybe just one, I can blunt the counterattack from Pendulin in his shooting, pick up one Vanguard block and the character in the fight phase, and then turn around and wipe the rest of his infantry that can hold objectives next turn. From there, I can win by shutting down his scoring and max out as much as I can.

Naturally, I lose both roll offs. Pendulin takes two steps back, uses abilities to let his vanguard block fall back and shoot, and picks up pretty much everything I have left. I concede at the start of my turn, it’s pretty late at night and my Hail Mary pass to win the game didn’t work. Pendulin is a great guy and a great opponent, but my Blunderdome dreams are shattered on the ground before me.

This Margarita is tasty though. I’ll drown my sorrows in that.

Result: Admech Win, 100-35 

Game 3: Iron Hands (Condit) vs Votann (Rocco)

Rocco wants to do this part and who am I to deny him his right to do my job for me.

It’s the losers bracket! Come one, come all! See the two idiots who couldn’t get past round 1 duke it out for the chance at 3rd place! (Commissioner Note: They’re competing for at best 5th place but bless their hearts don’t tell them that) Both lists claim to be EXTRA RESILIENT, but only one anvil can withstand the opponent’s hammers!

Half of the parties involved were excited for this game. That half may or may not have been the Votaan half. Who can say? Rocco took the mission secondary, While We Stand We Fight (because heck of ton land fortresses), and Bring It Down (dreadnoughts be like). Condit took Raise Banners, Oaths of Moment, and Stranglehold. This did not go well for him.

Game, set, match. I deploy my Votann pretty conservatively and don’t box my land fortresses in this time. Condit deploys his dreadnoughts pretty much in the middle of his deployment zone. I am able to actually use Uthar’s judgment token ability throughout the game! The game started in a way that made me pretty concerned for actually killing these hyper durable dreadnoughts and losing a Land fortress in the first turn. Those worries were quickly dashed as I began picking each dreadnought off with the pioneers adding judgment tokens each turn. The game got pretty dire for the Iron Hands pretty quickly, as I was able to push my Hearthkyn up to the objectives and hold the center. The Einhyr did a great job scoring the mission secondary for me as they refused to fold to the mass of dreadnought shooting and fists. I maxed out Bring It Down and nearly maxed on the mission secondary. All in all this game was brutal and I would not recommend doing this to anyone

.

Result: Votann Win, 94-36

Game 4: Orks (SoylentRobot) Vs Tau (TheNguemeister (Andrew)) 

Closing us out we have two of the shootiest armies ever to see the table in 9th edition going at it. These armies are very similar in a lot of ways. Both have access to brutal indirect fire, both have planes that will absolutely fuck up their opponent if they go first, both have units that get fucked up by the fact that they can’t forward deploy (kommandos and stealth suits). It promises to be an Interesting match. Orks take Engage on All Fronts, Assassinate, Get da Good Bitz while Tau take Domination, While we Stand We Fight, and Bring it Down.

Tau open up with the first turn and unleash a withering barrage of fire that blow up most of the ork air force and a few buggies and a boss on trike. The Orks respond with a barrage of their own, crippling a unit of crisis suits taking out some scoring units. Holy shit this is starting to look like a game with some actual back and forth.

Going into round 2, Tau continue to hammer on the orks, leaving just a plane and a buggie, but all is not los., Orks bring in a unit of 3 Megatrak Scrapjets which proceed to, along with their remaining Wazbom Blasta jet, destroy 2 of the Tau’s to the last targets. From there Tau proceed to just clean up, but for a bright second, there actual warhammer was being played.

Result: Tau Win, 54-27

We were so close. There was a bright shining moment where there was some decision making and tactics that almost impacted a game. Unfortunately Blunderdome won’t let us get our fun that easily. I’m gonna break kayfabe for a second here to tell you guys: This fucking sucks. These games are miserable, every army feels as though if they get the first turn, or have an optimal turn 1 at least, they will max out their score or table you. Next week marks the start of round 3 though, and we’ll get one last chance to actually have some fun in this thing.

Tune in next week for the exciting finale! In the meantime, if you have any questions or feedback, drop us a note in the comments below or email us at contact@goonhammer.com.