Sultan Pepper: 4 Battles of 40k in 4 Minutes

 Let's try some short-form battle reports!

(and not just because I didn't take enough notes)

For most of this year, my hobby has been about racing towards one deadline or another, be it Hobbypocalypse, Weekend at Burnie's or The Silver Cage campaign. 

This has left me with almost no time for 'regular' games of 40k. But where there's a will, and a willing conspirator, there's always a chance to sneak in some extra games.

The next four battles were all fought against star of Deployment Zone and YouTube, Sultan, who was good enough to give me some games after all the proper filming and admin were done. Consequently, I was a bit knackered and didn't fully record the battles as I usually do, but it would be a crime not to share such cracking images from some great games.

Tzeentch Daemons vs Black Templars

This battle was fought after a day of Hobbypocalypse filming, and we were both bringing every model we had - after some last-minute painting to get out armies to 2,000pts.

A big shout out to b1llyb0b for providing the venue and filling his table with gorgeous Gothic scenery (home field advantage for the Black Templars).

My army was basically every Tzeentch Daemon I own, and had paid all the extra reinforcement points so I could  try my hand at 'splitting' Pink Horrors to Blues and Brimstones.

Sultan had brought his Black Templar list from our previous clash, reinforced with more Sworn Brethren, a Gladiator tank and a Chaplain on Bike.

We were trying out the Tempest of War deck for the first time, and deployed in Hammer-and-Anvil style along the short edges of the board. That deployment, plus the narrow streets, was likely to favour the elite punch of the Templars, rather than my daemonic swarms.

In the first turn, I made a grab for the central objectives, which may not have been wise, as they were neither robust enough or numerous enough to survive the Templar's counterattacks.

With the centre firmly in Imperium hands, the battle quickly devolved into a push along the flanks. On the left, my Exalted Flamers and Screamers faced down a squad of Sword Brethren, while the Giant Chaos Spawn led a bigger push of the rest of the army along the right. 

The Black Templars advanced forward as one, supported by the considerable firepower of their tanks.

The five wave of daemons was swept away, and even an ambitious surge by the Screamers against the Gladiator (my best shot at anti-armour) failed against its 5++ invulnerable save.

Meanwhile, a lone unit of Assault Intercessors had fought their way into my deployment zone. The Daemon Prince (that pink pussycat) tore them up, but not fast enough to stop them scoring more Tempest of War points and putting Sultan into the lead.

I still had my big swarm of Pink Horrors (whatever had been plinked off by small-arms fire had been brought back when Reality Blinked) so these surged forward with the Lord of Change.

I'd spent a lot of points and upgrades to make the Lord of Change as durable as possible, so it was quite a shock when the Gladiator tank took off half its wounds in one volley! (serve me right for giving myself a 3++ invulnerable save and then rolling a load of 2s).

As the Black Templars prepare for the charge, we discovered an interesting thing about the splitting mechanic - as more Pink Horrors were killed from small-arms, I could add Blue Horrors in the path of the encroaching unit, making their intended charges a lot more difficult, or even impossible.

We reached the stage where Sultan had to stop shooting the Horrors because it was messing up his charge phase too much!

Speaking of the charge phase, we could delay no longer, and everything went into the daemons. As Horrors were slain and split all over the place, my daemon characters tried to turn the tide of battle.

The Changeling failed miserable to mimic The Emperor's Champion's powers and got thrown back into the Warp; the Daemon Prince ripped into a unit of Crusaders, but was defeated by a Bladeguard counterattack.

The Lord of Change, having previously failed so many of his saves, had now become unkillable. Clinging onto his last couple of wounds, he fought both Emperor's Champion and Biker Chaplain in single combat - and turned both of them into Chaos Spawn!

It was scant consolation (well, not quite so scant - I was cackling madly), since the Black Templars had swept the rest of the field and scored more than enough VPs to secure victory - great game!

The Scourged vs White Scars

This battle was fought in the wake of a double-filming with Winters SEO, who provided the table for Sultan and myself to play an after-hours game.

It was only 1,000pts (to spare my remaining brain cells) and I brought a very armour-heavy army of The Scourged (using Thousand Sons rules, Cult of Prophecy, so I got to use a 9th Codex, but still in-keeping with the army's theme).

Sultan brought along his freshly-painted White Scars (which I had a hand in encouraging, so I was glad to get the inaugural battle). Lots of bikes, lots of speed and a lack of lightning-clawed Veterans in a Rhino.

We were playing Tempest of War, and with a Hammer-and-Anvil deployment some relatively clear lines of fire, I was able to park on the objectives and blaze away at the charging astartes.

Special commendation to the Vindicator, who is often lauded as rubbish, who played a blinder and took out a Storm Speeder and an Outrider squad.

Special condemnation to the Daemon Prince, who flew out to grab a central objective, but failed to even deal with an Outrider squad before getting squashed. (Daemon Princes were a staple of my 8th Edition armies - is it me, or are they just not what they used to be nowadays?)

The game came to a swift conclusion when the Biker Chaplain barrelled into the Rubrics, but left one alive and swiftly learned the consequences of running headlong into a nest of Smites.

The last-ditch attempt at turning the game came from the Vanguard Veterans disembarking and charging into my Exalted Sorcerer. Not famed for their combat prowess, the Sorcerer shocked everyone when he not only survived the attack on a single wound, but swung back and killed every member of the Vanguard squad (five attacks: every one hit, every one wounded, Sultan failed every 4+ save and I rolled two wounds for every D3 damage - talk about riding your luck!)

With that, I was ahead on the VPs and, with just a Rhino left to contest the field, Sultan conceded.

The Scourged vs White Scars (for real this time)

... and then we had a rerack!

Deciding that we needed a bit more line-of-sight blocking terrain, we summoned Winters SEO as our personal terrain caddy and had him reset the board.

Playing Dawn of War deployment along the long edges, I had to break up my gunline into two halves, while the White Scars were free to race wherever they wanted. This allowed them to rack up a lot of early VPs on objectives and left me chasing (literally!) the game.

My early turns weren't that productive (I think I shouldn't have been so coy in placing my Helbrutes, and had them run forward onto objectives), and the Daemon Prince made heavy weather about taking down the Storm Speeder.

The real deciding moment came from the humble White Scars Rhino, who parked itself in front of my left flank and then, after taking mortal wounds, lascannons and inferno rounds - followed by a charge from the Rubrics - just refused to die!

With an indestructible tank blocking my advance (and killing it was also one of my objective cards), there was no way back for me. Sultan rolled up both flanks and, when we worked out that he'd maxed out his points for Tempest of War - a perfect victory!

White Scars vs T'au

I'd stayed over in Swindon to film the campaign, and while Winters considered 6am a little early to recommence filming, Sultan was more than happy to oblige - and he had begun work on his very own hobby den for the venue!

This time, I got command of the White Scars, facing the fearsome 'SunStrike' T'au (a Commander, two units of Battlesuits, some Fire Warriors and Riptide).

The table was a little tight, so manoeuvre wasn't much of an option for the White Scars. The T'au also got the first turn, so I knew I was in trouble. Half my army fell to the opening volleys, and the Chaplain launched himself into a powered-up glory charge into the T'au Commander.

I'd forgotten how tough Commander Sunstrike is in melee (who would ever write that about a T'au!) and my Chaplain was ignominiously bonked off his bike. 

What remained of my army tried to salvage its pride by charging the Riptide - most of it died to Overwatch, and the surviving Veterans clawed at its hull with their lightning claws to little effect.

So a pretty decisive win for T'au, but great fun to play and I did enjoy running out the White Scars!

Thus ends the whistlestop battle reports - thanks to Sultan for being a great opponent. Look forward to the next one!