Renegade: End of the Road

Gunum here, presenting the second and final of our Renegade Recap! After a small* (read long) delay after back-to-back releases this past Thanksgiving weekend requiring review writing, I was finally able to sit down and go through my killer GT experience. I want to thank everyone for being so patient while I complete this write up! Let’s get into it.

Naramyth and I took the Road to Renegade Friday night down to exotic Plymouth MN, a suburb of Minneapolis for the 7th Renegade Open. We have attended every Renegade Open there has been, so it’s a bit of a pilgrimage to head down there the weekend before Turkey Day. Last year I piloted some Tyranids to a 2-1 record in a 6 round tourney.

Now I realize, that isn’t what you would call shocking or even “Good”. But you didn’t see the amount of alcohol I had consumed the night before.

I was so hungover that I had drunk myself out of the tournament. Readers, I’ll always be honest with you, so believe me when I say I some regrets with that performance. So this year, I was going to set a goal. That goal was to take it all! By taking it all, I mean go 4-2.

Furthermore, I had made a bunch of fun predictions for how some people would do at the event, so the least I could do was put forward my best attempt to beat out Cyle.  We went to the event, had a blast, and spoiler: A Warhog won. The Top Hog for the Event (Click here to find out who!).

The List:
Chase's Unbreakable Angels - Click to Expand

 

You’ll see some familiar faces here, the Land Raider Achilles is still rocking it out, the Plasma-cutioner making a glorious return, taking the place of the Plasma Inceptors I had been running before as I wanted something with turn one threat and the ability to put out some damage that would be reminiscent of the Inceptors. Also, whats a Dark Angels army without a plasma cannon?!

Going into this I didn’t think asking for 4-2 was that lofty of a goal. With my playstyle, mixed with the durability and damage output of my units, I felt that it was a very reasonable number to go for. With the right red-hot matchups, I might even get to the dizzying heights of a 5-1!

 

Chase’s Round 1 – Astra Militarum

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Plasma Gun and a Dream

Pregame Decisions:

Looking at his list, I saw outflanking tanks, I saw a bunch of bodies, and I saw a huge deep strike threat. One of my teammates has used Scions to pretty devastating effects. Their chapter tactic of exploding sixes has been pretty money when you’re looking at the damage that mass plasma guns can put out. With the number of bodies plus the number of tanks he had, I had to go with Butchers Bill, Reaper, and Big Game Hunter.

The Game

I lost the roll-off and chose to go first, deploying wide along my deployment zone, my SE corner of the board on my objective, as well as a Magic Box-esc L blocker. Inside of that L I had placed both of my units of scouts to make sure I held my objective without an issue. I also had to keep in mind all of the reserves he had kept off the table: A Tallarn Tank Commander and all of his Tempestus Scion units. I deployed aggressively with my Phobos Captain against the L to prevent units from deep striking within 12″ and control the middle of the table. With the map and his only scoring units being guardsmen, I figured having alone Leviathan to cover the middle would be enough.

His deployment was pretty straightforward, He put two units of Guardsmen in his brown woods area and deployed the rest of his army in a big blob behind his line of sight blocker. He didn’t quite have enough space to put all three of his Tank Commanders behind the blocker as well, so instead, he put it a bit out in the open.

My turn one was pretty straight forward. I didn’t have a lot of shooting targets so I decided to just delete the things I could see. My center Leviathan couldn’t see much of anything, so I pushed him up, running the mini-gunboat and grabbing the middle objective. My shooting was using Weapons of the Dark Age on my Plasma-cutioner. Using Target Priority I pointed at his exposed Tank Commander it ceased to exist. My Achilles put its line-of-site shots downtown, hitting the mortar team and killing two. My Eliminators also reached deep, hitting into the side of the Basilisk and putting a couple of wounds on it. My other Leviathan and the Multi-meltas of the Land Raider put all of their firepower into the Ogryn, tearing down 4 of the 9.

My turn two was like my first turn. The Leviathan that was now holding the middle began to destroy guardsmen. The firebase on the left tore down what was left of the Ogryns. And that was the turn.

Then his turn two began and reader, I did have a slight fear of God in my system at this moment. I had left a large open space in the back of my deployment zone and he was ready to take advantage.

His counter punch was lackluster but it was enough that I’d feel it. He put every plasma gun and the cannon from his outflanking tank into my Leviathan, killing it. That was his turn. Once again, not very exciting but it was a big kill for him. Other than that my army was unscathed.

My turn three was killing his tank commander with my Executioner, it exploded and did enough damage to his smaller Scion units for me to just annihilate what was leftover with my Executioner. Once that happened, he was out of kill options. He did his best to hold me off but he literally couldn’t have changed anything. He just didn’t have the tools that he needed to be able to finish me off at all.

Final Score: 35-7

Postgame Thoughts:

There wasn’t much else I could have done differently, my list hits like a bullet storm and either you can stand up to it or you can’t. Johnny was a great opponent who had a well-painted army. Considering that he was only about, 15 -16 years old and I was impressed with his calls and while we were playing as he tried to LOS my shooting the best he could. I don’t know how he did through the rest of the event, but I like to think he’s out there somewhere…. outflanking his tanks into somebody’s dreams.

 

Round 2 – Imperium Gunline

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Robots and Friends - click to expand

Pregame Decisions:

For this game all I could think about was range. Except for the Hunter-killer missiles, the Eliminators sniper rifles, and the Thunderfire on the face of my Land Raider, I had nothing to threaten the incredibly long reach of his army. With this in mind, I knew this matchup was going to be 100% dependent on the map type. My secondaries wouldn’t matter if I couldn’t -get- to him. So, I ended up picking Recon, Big Game Hunter, and Butchers Bill. He had so much LOS shooting that I couldn’t take engineers and I figured, well, I gotta shoot at him and my guns are only 24″. Might as well get recon while I’m in the area.

The Game

We rolled off for maps. He won. With my breath caught in my throat, I watched as he rolled…

This was by far my worst map he could have rolled. He picked the side with the most terrain, we both had Large square Ruin L blockers at the point of our deployment zones. So I was not only unable to deploy right on the line to push up, I was at about the 20″ line of my deployment zone. I had a -lot- of ground to cover.

Not only that, but he had so many more drops then me he was able to use his little guys as dummy drops to force my big drops out. He counter-deployed accordingly, putting all of his Tank Commanders on his deployment edge, his LoS guns right next to them and his Knight on the Southern line outside of the maximum range of my Leviathan Dreds.

We had an objective in the middle, one in my SE deployment area and the last in his deployment zone in the NW.

We roll off to go first, I get it with the +1 and all I can think about is how I won’t get a single kill on the first turn, so I decided to go first to cover as much ground as I could. He chooses not to seize. At that point, I knew three things were very apparent.

• He wanted to go Second.
• This was the right call.
• I’m going to get shot so much.
• Again, oh god please not like this.

My turn went about as expected. He had made a slight mistake in his deployment and left the front of his Manticore poking out of terrain piece, allowing me to get some pot-shots at it with my HK Missiles. Those shots put only 6 total wounds on the tank, not enough.  I had deployed some scouts right in the middle of the table to try to set up a charge and kill a thing in the first turn, so, I moved them up to hug the wall to get into position to threaten his infantry units who would be trying to grab the middle of the table. My Land Raider ran up the table and popped its smoked and that was my powerful shooting phase. My snipers were mid-table and doing their potshots against whatever they could, but they just didn’t do enough damage.

I ended up charging in with my scouts who were able to kill a unit of guardsmen after swinging twice, as well as getting a perfect Tri-point off so that they were safe from any insane shooting. That was it. I moved up, killed a dude, and started to prey.

His turn one was uh…

Well…..

It went about how I expected.

He put all of his cannons downtown onto one of my Levithan’s and brought it down to 3 wounds left. His Imperial Knight put all of his guns into my Plasma-cutioner, instantly deleting it with all of his Krast shooting. He made sure all of his units were pulled back, then using one of his Admech tanks he charged into the ongoing combat with my scouts to try and protect himself from being shot. On top of this, his Knight had moved up and charged into my Southern snipers and killed all of them in CC

My turn two, I moved up again, racing up the table all of 8 inches with my healthy Leviathan, moving a whole 3″ with my smoking almost dead Leviathan. What I was able to do, since his Knight had moved up to kill my poor recon units, was light it up with the HK Missiles and my Storm-cannon arrays. He failed a good 10 saves and took a -ton- of damage. My Land-raider was able to shoot at it with the rest of its guns and finish the job.

I felt good at this point, knight dead and I was only down the Executioner? That was about on par. His turn though…

Not…Not like this…

His shooting was just… Excellent. My saves? Terrible. He finished off the almost dead Leviathan with his LoS shooting. His Tanks tore downtown and smoked my last Leviathan and he left combat with my scouts. That was it. And he didn’t need much more.

The final turn was me, driving my Land Raider up his gullet, putting all of its shots into a Disintegrator, disintegrating it with my multi-meltas. Then doing nothing. He put every gun he had left into my Achilles and that was it, that was the game. I was out of stuff to kill his stuff with and I surrendered on top of 4.

Final Score: 12 – 33

One loss down and it was much earlier then I wanted. My bonus points!

Postgame Thoughts:

I had a lot of fun in this game to be honest, even if it was a bit short. I tried everything I could to LoS any major shooting he did have, but I think if I would have gone back. My opponent was -very- smart and was doing his best to work his way out of all of my ranges. I would have chosen to go second to try and hide as much as I could from his shooting and to invite his units to move up. If I could have protected my Executioner a bit better maybe I would have had a chance, but when it came right down to it I just didn’t have the range to get the mission done.

 

Round 3 – Aeldari Craftworld / Ynari

Planes, Ghosts, and Automo-tanks - Click to expand

Pregame Decisions:

Alright. Coming off a tough loss, I was ready to play against anything that couldn’t out range me again. That was such a tough time I was sure my next game had to be easier. Right?

Right?

Oh. Eldar.

THIS WILL BE FINE!

Going into this game I recognized something very familiar. He has three planes. I play against a teammate of mine who uses these all the time! I have a very good game plan for dealing with these if he will take the bait. It’s not often I can be tricky with Dark Angels, but conveniently we have just the map and just the deployment to do it. With two big L Blockers in the middle, no matter what is going on I think I’ll be sitting okay.

This is the mission where we roll off and the lower number is the person who ends up going first. I rolled high, he rolled low. I rolled for a map and got Quarters and picked the side with the stronger corner for my game plan. I pick Old School, Recon, and Big Game Hunter.

The Game

He deployed all around his L blocker. Taking the first turn and set up so that he was in a giant castle. His tank hiding behind the building and his dark reapers lined up to shoot anything that would enter the NE or SW quadrants. I deployed very conservatively, with a little bit of showmanship. Our L blockers were lined up as such that from what I can see from his deployment area, I can make it so he can only see one of my units and when I counter deploy, I set up so that one unit, is my Land Raider Achilles. It’s my tankiest unit, it’s got an invul to fight hold out against those Lance weapons, and most importantly, it’ll be the bait to pull in the Wraithfighter and friends. I start all of my characters in their respective rides and deploy my snipers on the edges. I put a squad of scouts in the NE to hide behind a hill and the rest of them on a hill in the SW so they can have a great line of sight onto his battle pile.

His turn one was…. –evil laughter- JUST AS PLANNED! He rushed his planes around the edges of the map, throwing his hemlock deep into my lines to line up shots onto my Land Raider. He also lines up his Exarchs and his Fire Prisms as well. His Dark Reaper looks over at my castle of scouts and sees some easy kills, just being able to only see the arm of a single CC scout.

Those darn knives!

His magic phase was buffing his Fire Prism, and Jinking my Land Raider, AS PLANNED!

Moved into the shooting phase, he popped his link fire and used his planes first, shooting them all at my Land Raider and getting it to 10 wounds taken. It could have been much worse. He then followed up his Hemlock, but this instead he decided to shoot at my executioner, only rolling a 3 for its shots and dealing only 4 total damage. His Dark reapers looked at my exposed knife scouts and deleted them. Finally, his tanks lined up and deleted what was left of my Land Raider. I knew something was gonna die. I knew it was going to be at -1 save. So I had figured, my Land raider was the best choice. Especially since it was the last thing killed in my last game, I just knew this was going to be the thing to die.

My turn. Time to Spring the trap. Code: Levithan’s kill everything begins. My movement face is getting all of my heroes out of their protective metal boxes making sure I get all of my re-rolls. I then scoot my Executioner up, just far enough to see the tank that had finished off my Land Raider. My magic phase is just smite-ing and doing a little damage to his Wraith fighter. My shooting phase was…

it was glorious.

My Levithan’s had not moved and I was able to line up a set of Storm Cannons into the Wriathfighter, the other pair on an Exarch. My first shots are declaring my sneaky Leviathan would be lighting up the Hemlock and putting its HK’s into the furthest Exarch. Once its shooting was done, the wraith fighter was gone and the exarch had taken 7 damage from the HKs. Honestly, the extra damage went a bit further than I expected. Not only that, the BS 2+ on the Leviathans mixed with the, definitely broken, Dark Angel chapter tactic of rerolling ones was able to put the heat out. What I was most surprised by, is that I continually forgot that his planes were not Alatioc so I kept expecting to hit on 4s, but since I was hitting on three’s the firepower was so great coming off my Dreads. Needless to say, my last dread deleted the other exarch and finished off the final aircraft with its HKs. Flawless trap.

Finally, the Executioner overcharged with my favorite combo, Weapons of the Dark Age and Target Priority and deleted his Fire Prism that was looking at me. My turn was a brutal counter punch to him just killing my single Land Raider. The points were going well and it was only turn one!

Then, I ran into the issue I seem to always run into range. His turn two is using his Fire Prisms to delete my Executioner and charge into my Southern Dread, losing guys in overwatch. His wyches then tried to tie up my dread, to only be heroically intervened by all of my Characters at once, who tore apart the T3 Wyches and freed their champion.

My next turn was pretty straight forward, poking my Leviathans around the corner to pick up a squad of Dark Reapers who had gotten a bit far out. Then I started to run my characters right up the middle to start locking down objectives. The interesting thing here was that my bonus point objective was right on the edge of his deployment zone, with a small part of it just inside of an L blocker and started to rack up bonus points.

The rest of this game was pretty straight forward. His tanks would point at levitation and kill it. I would hide from his dark reapers and locking down bonus points. When it was all said and done, my opponent just didn’t move out of his castle soon enough. Because of these bonus points, I was able to steal the game, even though we were both on our last legs with our models.

Score: 28-24

Postgame Thoughts:

We traded haymakers. He gave me his planes for free, essentially, and I was able to use my board presence and the terrain to hide well enough. When it was all said and done, he just didn’t move in time to push me off of objectives and I took it.

Okay. 2-1. We’re on course for that JUICY 4-2 score, man. I’m ready. We end the night at our pal’s place for a Thanksgiving thing and I have a bit too many drinks in preparation for day two. (I have to make it to day two this year.) Also, while we were waiting for the new pairings during dinner, they finally went up and I got to see who I was playing.

Mike Smith. A local player who is on The Lords of War team. I always saw him all the time at events, but have never played him. He was playing three Chaos Dual Thermal Cannon Knights. It would be a challenge. I didn’t exactly have the right tools to deal with these guys, but I was ready to face the challenge. I was ready to rock.

Day 2. Let’s get it.

 

Round 4 – Chaos Knights

Mikes Ghoooost Knights

 

Pregame Decisions:

Okay. So. I had taken the time to look into his list the morning of. So you know, with those 20 minutes of thinking about it how very prepared I was. All I could think about was those big melta cannon arms and my second game. The range, mixed with heavy firepower guns was just something I was already having flashbacks about. I decided, as is par against Knight players, to take King Slayer, Titan Slayer and Old School. The way I saw it, I would have to deal with the Knights one way or another and my snipers should be able to lock down my turn one kill, if not the Warlord as well.  Honestly, this was going to come down to map again, and as long as I could avoid long deployment I might have a chance.

The Game

We rolled off. I rolled low and he got to pick his side and began deployment. This was the back and forth deployment and we both had very low drops, so I was able to match up against his drops without feeling too outranged. Though, I was dropping I was noticing a very familiar thing happening. He was measuring ranges, bending his measure around our big L blockers in the middle. This started to feel… too familiar…..

Not again…..

I deploy my Eliminators to look into his battle pile to be able to pick up the targets I need to get. I take a lesson from my last game, putting my Land Raider right in the middle again to try and tank as much Melta shots as I can. I got low, tried to get all of my Executioner to have cover and at least have a save if those knights started to light me up. We rolled off to see who got first, I win the roll and after taking a moment to think about it, decide to go first.

I was honestly, feeling pretty confidant. If I could just tier one of the knights, and maybe kill some of his psychic support, I should be fine.

Okay! Let’s get into it. I start my moving phase by pushing my scouts up the middle to try and secure a bonus point.  As I line up my shooting, I realize, that once again I am just not in range to do anything but fire H-K rockets and also the heavy guns from my Achilles. I run up my sniper scouts to try and move a block his knights from advancing and kicking the crap out of me.

Magic phase, made my LR -1 to be hit.  Okay. Plans going good.

 

Shooting phase. My eliminators kill his Changecaster, the other Eliminators shoot at his warlord and only get a single wound onto them. Here we go, time for the real shooting. I launch all my rockets off my Leviathans at the closest knight, he rotates his shields hitting with all of them, wounding with 5 of them. He saves all but one and I only do 4 damage. Okay, that’s fine, out of range with our Storm Cannons, not like this, we’re still fine. I fire off my Land Raider, giving it +1 to hit against the knight. I fire, hitting every shot, wounding with 2 of the melta’s and 2 of the primary gun. He saves all of them.

Okay. Okay. This is fine still. I have a 4-inch charge to make with my scouts in the left side L blocker to hold the 4th objectives. 5 Scouts should be able to kill off at a minimum of 5 brims on the charge? Right?

I roll for my charge, roll a 1 and a 1. I command point one of them and roll -another- 1…Not like this…

Well.

I’m going to make this as painless for you, as it was equally painful for me.

I didn’t tier a knight. I didn’t kill a knight. My stuff died bad, really fast. I was essentially there for Mike to shoot at and try out his model’s guns.  I really tried to hide, but when it came right down to it he marched his knights up and just deleted me.

Postgame Thoughts:

Sometimes. You just lose. My secondaries don’t matter when you’re essentially tabled on 3. I tried to hold on, hiding where I could but everything I had that could kill anything he had was dead on 3. Then I just played it out, letting him kick my characters to death. Big oof.

Score: 8 – 35

There it is. My second loss. I can not… No, I will not lose another game. 

 

Round 5 – Crimson Fists

Axel's Red Roses

Pregame Decisions:

So. From one local player to another local player. Axel is another Lord of War from Minnesota and I felt my Hog pride on the line. Axel was another guy whom I saw at events all of the time and I was excited to play. He came up to me, and he was in a state I’d love to be in, excited. All smiles and handshakes and hugs. He asks me for a selfie with him 3 different times and finally gets a judge standing by to get me in it. This is the kind of game you want to play in at a Warhammer tournament. Two players who wanted to play, then running into them near the end of the event. Before we go into the pre-game, check out his bois.

Pretty good looking Fellows! I enjoyed checking out his army a lot and I was ready to go.

So, Space Marine Battle Pile. Brigade. Sounds like… Butchers Bill. Bricks of 10 guys? Some Dreadnaughts? Looks like Marked for Death. Finally, Old school. I knew I was gonna be able to kill some guys here, and Leviathans are made for this. Axel picks Big Game Hunter, Recon, and Head Hunter. His calls made sense, I have a bunch of Chars, he needs to kill my tanks and he’s going to use his tanks and his eliminators to take up space.

The Game

So this game was already seeming slightly familiar to me. He’s got a bunch of guns and he’s also playing fists. As long as I don’t give him free vehicles to shoot, I think I might have a shot. We roll off for side selection, and this is the kind of selection I want to lose to make him go first. And that’s exactly what happens, we roll off and I get the choice of who gets to deploy first and I pass it right over to him. He starts to deploy his whole army as such:

Okay, so this was going to be a game of deployment, without a doubt. The amount of shooting his list can put out his Bananas. I knew that going into it. If I allowed him to shoot me, without making him move or I won’t be able to hold out against the number of bullets. Once he was fully placed, he had his snipers pointing at where he thought my battle pile would be, but the poor guy. I don’t know if it as the booze, or if it was just the map, but he didn’t take the time to look at what my deployment zone would be. Behold. Winning the game on deployment.

 

Spoiler Alert – I didn’t choose to seize.

He declares proudly. “I’m killing this land raider this turn.” I say, “Go for it bud.”

He puts his snipers into my psyker, kills him. Puts the guns that can’t see my tanks into my front squad of Sniper Scouts, kills them. He had moved all of his Suppressors to be able to see the Land Raider, as well as his Dreadnaughts. But nothing else could see it. Also, since he wasn’t Iron Hands, he was going to suffer from the -1 to hit from Heavy Weapons. He fires every gun he has at my Land Raider and when its all said and done…

It was still alive. It had taken 14 wounds out of its 19. The suppressors were not a joke, doing 3 dmg flat to each wound it was able to get in on me and to be fair, it was a lot of shots. But my tank did its job and lived. He finishes his turn by charging his Infilitrators through the LOS blocker and engages my Levithans in CC, which was a misplay on my part putting them so close to the wall.

Achilles Life Total – 5 wounds left

My turn one comes around, I fall out of combat with my Levi’s, spending 2 cp so I can have one still shoot. My Techmarine jumps out and fixes the tank 3 wounds. I also scoot my tanks over just a bit so I can start melting some Infilitrators.

I start my shooting phase with my favorite pocket ability, Orbital Bombardment. He was in such a pile still, how couldn’t I do it!? So my space gun drops a great shot down into his pile. By great shot, I mean I put 1 wound on each of his characters, and 3 on one of his dreadnaughts.  Then, I bring out old faithful – Weapons of the Dark Age and blast his dreadnaught into little pieces. By little pieces, I mean…. his dreadnaught exploded. Right in the middle of his battle pile.

He loses his Warlord. He loses his Librarian. He loses his Chaplin. I didn’t know his dreads blew up 6″ for d6 mortal wounds. It was vicious. He lost suppressors, he lost marines, he lost his entire supports system rolling 5’s or 6’s for all of his characters. The only one who escaped the explosion was Pedro. Who I am sure was terrified.

His turn two was… lackluster to say the least. He killed nothing, again, trying to kill my Land Raider with any gun he could. He had run up some marines to try and pull off some kind of stratagem, which he had misread and was unable to use. Again, the alcohol or the shock of losing his armies core was affecting his play. He killed nothing.

Achilles Life Total – 9 wounds left

When it was all said and done, I lost none of my big tanks. The Leviathans slaughtered the marine forces as anything that was ever able to threaten them, died to the hail of gunfire coming off of them. Finally, my executioner ever charged its plasma cannon and made sure to kill Pedro Last, as my army killed the entirety of his army.

The game was over on 2. Tabled on 4.

Achilles Life Total – 10 wounds left and lives. Mission complete. 

Final Score: 35 – 7

Postgame Thoughts:

This game man. Warhammer. Its tough mistress sometimes. I had a blast, but once his Invictor blew up, that was it. He was just not ready to recover from that, mentally or on the table. He tried to fight back, but two Leviathans that are in the range of your entire army, the entire game? Its a brutal amount of shooting and sometimes you just get shot off the table, as I experienced more than enough times myself.

Axel man. It was blast playing you and I hope we get more of a drag-out game next time.

 

Round 6 – Ultramarines

The Stream Ultras - Highlander-ish Ultras - Click to Expand

Pregame Decisions:

My final game was against a gentleman who had played two of my teammates already; his list may seem pretty familiar to readers as Cyle played him on the stream table day one. He had just come off the greatest game of his life vs my Grey Knight teammate, Mark Weiss. So I felt like there was going to be high bar this game for me to provide a good time.  Looking at his army I was like… Okay. Butchers Bill makes sense. After talking to my teammate, he was aggressive with Bobby, so I picked King Slayer to discourage that forward presence. Finally, I picked up Engineers picking my Sniper Scouts and an Eliminator squad. His choices were Big Game hunter, Old School, and Head Hunter.

The Game

So this game I was feeling confident. When I was looking at this match up it reminded me a lot of my last game. Lots of Marines, lots of 2W models. Also, his Leviathan had the same disadvantages as mine did, range. The difference here was the terrain deployment. As you can see from the map below, we had some interesting deployment options. This was back-and-forth deployment, and I deployed very conservatively. I hid everything I could from his easily moveable battle pile, making sure to puy my Leviathans on the Northside of the map, right next to each other. I’ve learned my lesson and my Executioner no longer starts the game in a place where it is easily seen, so it starts on the point of my deployment zone. I put my engineers both on the same objective, in cover hidden a little bit by the legs of the Sky Sheild. All my characters along the wall of the L block. I made sure my Snipers could see into his battle pile so I could poke at Cassius or even Tiggy if I was feeling brave enough.

He deployed pretty predictably, just everything all jammed together. The interesting choice on his part was to put nothing on the bottom objective, and just light coverage from his Eliminators on the top objective. Straight forward, I figured he was just trying to keep his guys from getting shot by my heavy guns, which made sense. We roll off, he gets the first turn. I pick up one of his dice on my side of the table and do to him the dirtiest thing I could, Seize the Initiative with his dice. That big SIX. Let’s go. This man was standing in my way to 4 -2. I wasn’t gonna take it easy

I wanted to go second here but uh… It was the last game. You gotta seize.

Turn 1: 

So with the first turn and with both of our armies being hidden, my options were pretty limited. I moved up my Land raider as far as I could, being able to see just the very edge of his Leviathan. I popped my Executioner over the wall and Lined up some shots on some Intercessors, one guy also just out a little too far. On the top, my regular scouts just held the objective, the two Leviathans had -nothing- to shoot at so they ended up running and popping smoke. I move all my chars over the wall making my little battle pile of guys, flanked by the Executioner and just behind the Achilles. In my magic phase, I fail all my spells. Cool.

When we go into shooting, it’s pretty straight forward. My Achilles puts about 10 wounds onto his Leviathan. My Executioner killed the intercessors who were poking out. My Snipers put some rounds into Cassius and only ended up doing a single mortal wound. So. Did I kill something? Yes. Good enough!

His turn was poking his head around the corner with his dreads. Moving his battle pile deeper into his L so it can all shoot at my Eliminators. Bobby G runs to move closer to his bois and he then runs his Thunder Fire, then his Tech marine, to get closer to the Leviathan that had moved to try and fix it. Which he does, for 1 wound. Womp.

When his shooting begins, he dumps every heavy shot into my Executioner, which rightfully explodes. So, I had used my re-roll all ready to try and stop it from dying in the first place, Like a Fool, and it procedes to just ravage what I have. My Librarian dies, my LT dies, and my captain takes 3 wounds. So that was fine.
TheChirurgeon’s Note: You fool. Have you learned nothing from my mistakes? Always save the re-roll for your explodes roll. Never re-roll saves.

So, not the best start.

Turn 2: 

Okay, we still go the Land Raider. We still go to the Leviathans. I’ve done more with less! I push up my Achilles to be able to try and finish off the Leviathan’s, then walk my big bois up the top of the table to finally be able to start shooting things. By things, I mean his Executioners and hunter-killers downtown at his Whirlwind. And I do JUST THAT! No magic phase, so we go to shooting and I do just that! Kinda! My Achilles does kill the Leviathan through all the multi-melta shots. My two Levis put all of their rockets into his Whirlwind and just don’t… get there… Thanks to being up against a piece of terrain, his cover save stops all but 5 damage getting through. One set of main guns was not in range of the snipers, so they did end up living but he pulled the models on his objective. And that was it. Still no butchers bill, one engineer.

His turn was moving over a bit more to be able to see my Achilles with his dread and pretty much his whole army, my Levis safe from the fire again. He lights up my Achilles, killing it and what’s left of my Eliminator squad. But… I start to notice something… He’s getting Kill more, I’m getting hold more. He’s getting BGH but none of his Recon. I’m probably never going to get a single point of King Slayer, and I need to start scoring BB right now.

Turn 3: Okay. All I have left is my two Leviathans at the 30-inch line of his deployment half. And everything else is dying or hiding. I move everything I have that is Infantry out of LoS and I park my Leviathans so they have a 24″ range right down the center of the table, and have the range to point at his closest objective. My shooting phase is killing Bobby G’s body Guards and the last Eliminator, no one is one an objective for him anymore. The plan here is even though I’m very much on my back foot, the only real threats he has left is his own Dreadnought and Bobby G. As long as he isn’t aggressive with Bobby, once again to deny my points, I think I can sneak this out.

His turn, he moves all of his guys up to the wall of his L blocker, scooting his dread around the corner to be able to see mine. He shoots his Whirlwind back into my engineers and kills 3 out of 5 scouts. That’s it. He kills nothing, and out of hesitance to get shot at by my Leviathans, he holds nothing. Zero-point turn. 

That was HUGE.

Turn 4: My Leviathans scoot over, shooting at exposed Infiltrators who had to run to get a couple of models over the wall, same with some Aggressors. I kill one of the units, and he moves back to hold an objective with his Ancient, pushing the second squad of infiltrators and the second squad of Aggressors into the middle. His whirlwind shoots downtown and kills my scouts, his dreadnought puts 11 wounds on one of my Leviathans. He’s still holding Bobby G in his lines. Pfew. Okay. Engineers point scored, no Butchers bill. Still okay…

Turn 5: My Leviathans don’t move, I put the unhurt one into more intercessors who were screening and moving up to my little gun base, killing them. The mortally wounded Leviathan killing all but one Aggressor and all but two infiltrators in the middle. His turn, he kills my Leviathan, mortally wounded the other. Bobby g, still just hanging back. I’m locking down kill more, locking down hold more. He just hasn’t moved to the objective among the towers.

Turn 6:  My last Leviathan kills both of the remaining units in the enter. Then dies gloriously to his shooting.

Dear readers.  I realize those last turns feel a bit rushed, but let me tell you. The blood was pumping in my ears. I saw the path to victory and I was laser-focused on arriving there. Those last turns went so fast for me as I just… HELD ON with two Leviathans. I think the great Melee my opponent had been in the game prior just made him so gun shy of being aggressive with Bobby G, it gave my Gun base the chance to be able to win the game. Not only that, but the durability of my Levithans being able to stand up to his heavy gun allowed me the chance to just SCORE POINTS. ITC is about Scoring Points. And He had a zero score? Lets… Let’s count these up…..

Postgame Thoughts:

25 – 23.

I didn’t get a single point of King Slayer. I got two points of Butchers Bill, and I maxed out engineers. He got 3 Points of Old School, 3 points of Recon, 3 points of head Hunter. But with his zero-point turn, and my collection of 3/4 point turns to his 2 or 3 point turns. I just … I got there.

Final Score: 25 – 22. 

Wrap Up

4 – 2 BABEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

-Airhorns of your choice-

I was thrilled. I was ecstatic. I persevered and championed my cause. I had some amazing games, I had some just -terrible- things happen. It was a 40k GT and I feel I made up for my last performance.

-Huge sigh of relief- 

OH CRAP! Not only that but ITC points! 4-2 means I have a stronghold of 2nd place in Dark Angels. The first place is just one LVO away!!!!

I stepped away from that table a pile of nerves I was so excited and so happy with my performance I couldn’t have thought of something that would have made it better… Oh, Ryan Olson, my Team Mate won the entire thing? I GUESS THAT’S FINE. Of the top 20, we had 4 placings there as a team. The Renegade Team had run a hell of an event and moving back to regular ITC missions was a huge thing. I can not wait for next year and another shot at trying to take this event for my own.

As always if you have any feedback, questions, or comments. Or if you want to point out how I’m not Dark Angels, but also am very much Dark Angels, feel free to drop us a note in the comments below or email us at contact@goonhammer.com.

Good Game.