Wednesday, May 20, 2015

Gaming Weekend

Last weekend I hosted a gaming weekend at my place. We've expanded a bit since our early gaming weekends, and this time I had three tables set up, with the possibility of setting up a fourth, though we never had more than six people playing at a time. I was a terrible blogger and failed to take any pictures except for one of my Vaul's Wrath Battery proxies for the weekend:


The action started Friday night with Ron and I playing a NOVA mission with a thrown together Eldar list vs. Ron's Lictorshame with Deathleaper's Assassin Brood. Ron seized and then I inexplicably stuck with my first turn plan of gunning upfield, which saw me vulnerable to Ron's turn 2 reserves, which obliterated my fire base, meaning it was downhill from there.

Meanwhile, Chandler and Will faced off with Dark Eldar vs. Space Wolves. Weight of fire carried the day against Chandler's small, elite force. Chris arrived a bit later and took on Ron with somewhat similar results to mine with his Harlequins and Knight, though I think he did a bit better than I did. I ended the night with a game of Armada against Chandler.

On Saturday, the day started with Chandler and Ron facing off in Ron's third NOVA game, which saw another Tyranid victory. Meanwhile, I walked Chris and Will through a game of Armada. Rick and Elle came over and Elle and Will played Dark Eldar against Chandler and Chris's Space Wolf and Harlequin alliance.


Meanwhile, I played Rick in a 1,500 point Maelstrom game with my Necrons in a Decurion against a CSM/Daemon army. Rick rolled some of the worst dice I've ever seen; having his Chaos Lord and CC retinue pinned when I blew up their ride, then Be'lakor blowing up to a 1 on Perils turn 1 trying to cast Invisibility, which I then denied. Rick didn't successfully cast a power until turn 4, summoning a unit of plaguebearers which I summarily shot to pieces while slowly whittling down the main unit of Plaguebearers and Herald with 2 units of Warriors and some Praetorians.

After a brief break in the action for dinner (meatball subs prepared by my wonderful wife) Chris and I set up for a NOVA-style game. Chris opted to play against Eldar rather than my Necrons or Tyranids (having played both recently), so I kept things simple and ran the same list I used against Ron, which used a Guardian Battlehost with a Dire Avenger Shrine in Wave Serpents and Aspect Host.

The game was close fought overall, but the turning point was the bottom of the second turn when my War Walkers outflanked next to the Knight, battle focused out of his shield, and took him down to one hull point, which the Warp Spiders were able to strip off. The spiders died in the ensuing explosion, but well worth the sacrifice. Swooping Hawks dropped in and their large blast bullseyed the Warlord's Troupe which had just destroyed Vypers in combat and were clumped a bit as a result. The Dire Avengers used their special formation ability to mow down most of the skyweavers. The war walkers died in my turn three to assault from the surviving troupe, but without hit and run, were unable to cover the distance from the board edge to any sort of cover or my units and were blasted off the table turn 4 by a Wave Serpent and the remaining Warp Spider unit.

Will and Chandler had a rematch from the night before and Chris and I rolled up a "true" game of Armada, using 180 point forces complete with commanders and upgrades. Chris took control of my Imperials while I tried out the Rebels. Luke Skywalker was my MVP, putting somewhere in the realm of 4 Hull Points on the Star destroyer, but in the end Chris won, having destroyed 2 X-Wing squadrons and winning the mission for 15 bonus points compared to my 2 Tie Squadron kills. After the game we debated what we played wrong (obscured was one thing we messed up) and if we were misreading the damage rules because despite literally ramming into each other, we were unable to destroy a ship on either side.

At the end of the weekend, we'd all gotten in 3+ games of 40k and some runs through Armada. Chandler ordered the starter set as well, so we should be able to get some full 300 point games here soon, and meanwhile I have the Wave I Imperials sitting in my shopping cart, though so far I've held off on ordering them.

I know I had a blast, and Ron is already talking about our next weekend. whenever that will be.

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