I'm Ready For My Close Up: Thousand Sons vs Primaris Ultramarines

I've spoken before about how I enjoy wargames on t'telly... well now I'm in one!

Let's play the music, light the lights and meet the muppets!

I was lucky enough to get a game with my favourite Warhammer YouTuber, Winters SEO. Winters is a veteran storyteller, using only a cameraphone and a skald's talent for narration to churn out endless battles in the 41st millennium.

The one omission on his channel was that it had never featured Thousand Sons. I duly put together 2,000pts from The Court of Miracles to face an all-Primaris force of Ultramaines.

My biggest concern (other than I would forget all my rules, or have my painting eviscerated by the kind folks on YouTube) was that the battle would be a damp squib - either I would have accidentally written a killer list, or I'd play so badly that it would end in a dull tabling. Apparently some battle reports have to end up on the cutting room floor because of this.

As fate would have it, the battle was a humdinger. A real nail-biting slugfest that had me gripped on the rewatch, despite being there first time around.

Without further ado, here it is:

The day itself was a treat, like a trip to mini-Warhammer World. Anyone who's seen the videos will know that Winters has top-notch scenery and armies, so it was a fantastic canvas to play on. Winters himself is true gentleman gamer, very generous in his play and very knowledgeable about the game.

It can be no easy task to film and narrate on the fly, plus playing your own army and proving your guest with cups of tea. It probably proved enough of a handicap that a novice like me could just about draw level (since all I had to do was drop dice at the required moment).

As an avid water of YouTube reports, it was great to see behind the curtain. The whole battle took around seven hours to complete - so even the whopping 2.5 hour report is the condensed version. I'm told it takes an hour of editing to get ten minutes of screen time, so whack on another fifteen hours right there, add in some set-up time and you've got a gargantuan investment of time and effort. So go over to YouTube and give it a like, just for that.

And so I remember, this was the force in play:

• Exalted Sorcerer on Disc of Tzeentch HQ (Warlord)
  Force Stave, Inferno bolt pistol, Frag & Krak Grenades,
  Death Hex, Warptime
  Warlord Trait: High Magister
  Relic: Helm of the Third Eye
• Daemon Prince with wings HQ
  2 x Malefic talons,
  Gaze of Fate, Treason of Tzeentch
  Relics of the Thousand Sons: Dark Matter Crystal
• Exalted Sorcerer HQ
  Force Stave, Inferno bolt pistol, Frag & Krak Grenades,
  Diabolic Strength, Prescience
• 5 x Rubric Marines Troop
  Force Stave, Inferno bolt pistol, 3 x Inferno Boltgun, 1x Warpflamer
  Glamour of Tzeentch
• 5 x Rubric Marines Troop
  Force Stave, Inferno bolt pistol, 4 x Inferno Boltgun, Temporal Manipulation
• 20 x Tzaangor Troop
  Icon of Flame, Brayhorn, Tzaangor blades
• 10 x Chaos Cultists Troop
  Shotgun, 9 x Autoguns
• 10 x Chaos Cultists Troop
  Brutal Assault Weapons, Autopistols
• Tzaangor Shaman Elite
  Force Stave, Weaver of Fates
• Helbrute Elite
  Twin Lascannon, Missile Launcher
• 5 x Scarab Occult Terminators Elite
  Force Stave, 4 x Inferno Combi-Bolter, 4 x Power Sword, 1 x Soulreaper Cannon, 1 x Hellfyre Missile Rack, Tzeentch’s Firestorm
• 3 x Tzaangor Enlightened Fast
  Fatecaster Greatbow
• 2 x Chaos Spawn Fast
  Hideous mutations
• Defiler Heavy
  Battle cannon, Twin Heavy Bolter, Defiler scourge, Defiler claws
• Mutalith Vortex Beast Heavy
  Enormous Claws, Betentacled Maw
• Heldrake Flyer
  Baleflamer, Heldrake claws

Points: 2000 | Level: 111 | Battle-forged + Battalion + Vanguard - Relic: 8 CPs