Just a quick note to say thanks to Steve et al for organising and running another great event.

Had three enjoyable games against Jon H, Tim and Kyuss.

Great to meet Jon H, who's Warhounds obliging tripped over their own feet to bump into each other doing more damage to themselves than I managed!
Hope to see you at another event in the future mate.

A bloodthirsty game against Tim in which I managed to kill one (one!) model, and that was a robot...

Special thanks to Kyuss to for rushing through our final game as I had to make a sharp getaway from the midlands - apologies and thanks in equal measure mate.

Looking forward to finding out who won etc!

Cheers
Reedar

Thanks to everybody who came along and also thanks to Expo (for hosting us) and Exodus Wars for sponsoring the prizes. Personally thanks to Mintroll and Consul Avenging Angel for two very hard fought games.

Full results to come tonight or tomorrow (family function today) but provisionally the top 5 were
1 RIchardL Steel Legion
2 Dptdexys Dark Angels
3 Steve54 Black Legion
4 Tiny-Tim AMTL
5 Mintroll Orks
Most Sporting player Mintroll
Best Armies Consul Avenging Angel (Dark Eldar) and Reedar (Orks).
I'll be contacting all the prizes winners this week about their prizes

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NetEA NetERC Human Lists Chair
NetEA Chaos + Black Legion Champion

Thanks to Steve for his usual smooth running of the event, and to Mintroll, Jon H and Reedar for 3 enjoyable games

Personally I found the Expo as a whole to be loud, cramped, hot and noisy, the scrum for the bar and restuarant meant a good number of us missed lunch too.... I have to say I prefer the events at a local club where it's much more relaxed and you can actually hear what your opponent is saying.....

on to the report

Game 1 - Mintroll (Orks)

I've faced Simon previously where I managed to sneak a 3-0 win thanks mostly to his dice betraying him utterly.... there was a lot at stake in this game, as I'm currently undefeated by any Simon, I had to at least hold him to a draw

He had lots of vehicles, including a pair of battlefortresses loaded with orks, 2 bike formations, a couple of zzap brigages and a couple of gunforts with oddboys accompanied by lots of flakkwagons, he also had a landa with the standard loadout, and two flights of planes

This game started out quite cagey with me trying to hide from his zzaps and cut his activations down, the tactic worked quite well as his zzaps couldn't hit the back of a barn door for the most part, and his landa mob were defeated by a warhound when they engaged it, with his landa exploding in the process... I managed to grab hold of and retain the activation advantage, but some really smart moves by Simon on T3 and 4 meant I couldn't quite grab the 3-0 win that seemed so simple.... I had to settle for a winning draw after the countback put me about 8-900 points in front

Game 2 - Jon H (Codex Marines)

Like game 1, this was a very thoughtful and strategic affair, quite unlike previous marine vs marine games I've played which are normally really speedy! Jon had a similar list to mine, but with one less thunderhawk and a pair of warhounds as his BTS

I pushed forward and managed to cripple his devs with landraiders and hunter, my terminators then engaged his warhounds with the tacticals in support, but he managed to avoid losing a single hound, despite them taking a bit of damage, in a repeat of game 1, his air-assaulting terminators subsequently bounced off my warhound, I saw a chance to wipe them out, and engaged them in a firefight with my terminators, hoping the +3 advantage of blast markers and outnumbering would mean all I needed to do was win and they'd be wiped out.... however his three hits, took out the thunderhawk and a stand of terminators , leaving us with a straight roll-off, which I won, but it was something of a phyrric victory....

We were getting pushed for time and in T3 I saw a way to win, after Jon said he was done, I grabbed all the objectives and broke everything in my half to claim a 2-1 victory, after informing Steve of the result Jon remembered his scouts hadn't moved, I didn't want to be 'that' guy and win from my opponent making a mistake, so I let him activate them, they moved into my half, denying me the win, so the game ended in a straight draw.... bit frustrating as if I'd remembered the scouts, I would have played completely differently with my last 4 activations and tried to win it another way, I could have clipped them with my thunderhawk with terminators in support, or strung my landspeeders out to stop them getting into my half.... ah well such is life!

Game 3 - Reedar (Orks)

I've lost to these orks twice before and find playing them a real struggle as they just seem to have so many formations! As we set up, Darren informed me he needed to leave early, so I tried to play as quickly as possible, leading to a very different game to the brain-aching 1+2! I won initiative and put my tbolts on CAP, Darren bought his planes on to try and take out my flak, I decided to CAP him, reasoning that if my hunter was still around, his landa would be coming in with a blast marker and would be deep striking into my deployment zone, I scored two hits and he decided to Jink... huzzah! there was some positioning and a bit of shooting, I sent my preds and a warhound out wide to threaten the flanks of the orks, and he focused on blasting my BTS to smithereens.... if I hadn't used them so foolishly I would have had a better chance in the game.... I used terminators to try and hammer the deep-striking ork formations with mixed success, one thunderhawk taking a point of damage from a flakkwagon, with some big assaults and engagements we had battered each other by T3, my preds and warhound managed to take out his stompamob, giving me BTS, but his air assault finished off my tacticals in return, with my terminators in a damaged thawk left, I tried to engage his big mob guarding his blitz, hoping to reduce it to a 2-1 loss, but the thawk was shot down by flakkwagons on approach which left us at 3-1 to darren, at 90 minutes it is one of the fastest games I've ever played, and perhaps with a little more time to think it might have been closer, but after the effort and deep thought earlier in the day it was a welcome change!

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Just some guy

My hobby/painting threads

Army Forge List Co-ordinator

I'll re-iterate a thanks to Steve for running everything.

As for the Expo, as a boardgamer I quite like being able to sneak off to the show - combines two trips into one 'pass'. However, this year it did feel a lot busier than last year.
Personally, I am happy to keep going to Expo for a one or two day event. We'll invest in pizza next time.


Game 1 Vs Simon (SM)
[In a last minute change to the order I avoided played Steve "The Witch"... or so I thought]
With marine armies there are three things I hate: scouts, warhounds and speeders. So luckily for me Simon had bought all three.

Turn one, an ork landa with warband(+2 extra boyz and grots) bounced off a warhound and over the rest of turn one were slowly wiped out. After that, it got a bit cagey... needed to try keep some activations for later in the game. My Zzaps had one redeeming moment - turning a landed thunderhawk into dust, which I think really helped with the resulting draw. Simon's other Thunderhawk would not die... a single flak wagon got a point of damage; so when it had to fly out over EIGHT flak wagons... I thought it too was a goner; nope.
My BTS was a warband with nob in a battlefortress(with powerfields) and a flak - perhaps a little bit too weak as a bts, Simon easily killed it meaning I was trailing 1-0 on goals. With some careful moves I squeezed a fourth turn, and then it was wing and a pray moment. The turning point was managing to break Simon's terminators within spitting distance of my Blitz.

Finished 1[BTS]-0 on Turn 4, with Simon claiming the winning draw - he keeps his undefeated by a Simon title... for now.

Game 2 Vs Mike (Yme-Loc)
Always good to play against Mike's Ulani.... wait a minute, they're Eldar! Lots of AA cover (Fire prisms, Revanents, and two lots of firestorms)... how daring was my landa assault - did I feel lucky?
On the setup it was clear Mike and I didn't really need a full 180cm, I think we happily played on half the width.
I was quite afraid of the pair of scorpions... they would be doom to my fortresses. However, on turn one they failed to activate (breath).
Again, it was a very cagey turn one. I managed to get Mike to use a few activations without being able to shot anything, and slowly chipped away at his air cover. My final act was to air assault into the wood with both TaH objectives at either end,breaking a few formations in the process.
Revanents were Mike's BTS, and I quickly gave up any chance to get them. Mike on the other hand quickly went after my BTS and it died under fire from the Revanents.
In turn three, I'd managed to chip away at Mike's activation count and was happily flying my two lots of fighta-bommers to pick off more activations, I think Mike had 4 on turn 3.

Finished 2[DtF,TaH]-1[BTS] on Turn 3, with the two scorpions and revanents pretty much untouched.

Game 3 Vs Steve (Black Legion)
Wait a minute... against Steve - I demand a recount!
Steve announced he would be bringing the space craft in on turn 2. Now we all know Steve is a witch, so he knows where I'm going to be.
Turn one I had a lot more activations and managed to air assault on to Steve's Blitz. Everything else was getting into place.

Turn two, the terminators teleport next to my BTS... with a retinue ready in FF range, that looks bad. Then the better news... Steve's orbital barrage it right on top of one of my Gunfortresses - as in dead centre he gets two MW shots. WITCH! Also covers most of the bike screen. The game swings into Steve's favour. Thankfully, I manage to win the iniative roll and get a zzap to sustain fire at the newly arrived terminators, combined with a cross fire (extra BM only) and their one teleport BM they break.

Turn 3 was a lot of tip toeing around, a zzap squad managed to destroy a decimator. My BTS was broken and ran away. My other Battlefortress mob, as their activation, spread between my Blitz and an objective, denying Steve the win. Special mention to my fighta-bommers that managed to shot down Steve's bommers.
Steve promised me his obliterators would be useless... and they mostly were, except for the two 6's and resulting kills on one of the FB squads.

Turn 4, there wasn't much left. The 3FBs and 1FB had been picking off Steve's small formations and removing transports limiting their mobility - including killing his scouts, I hate scouts. In the end it was 1[Blitz]-1[TnH], Steve had one formation of raptors within striking distance of my blitz or bts... either would give him a 1-2 win. He summoned deamons and went for the BtS, trapping my boys inside. Alas, despite winning the fortress survived and ran away.

Finished 1[TnH]-1[Blitz] on Turn 4, with a winning victory going to Steve.


Overall thoughts on my list: the powerfields on the battlefortress are quite good. Not sure about one of them being my BTS, meant I had to be a bit careful with it. The formation needs a screen to stop teleporting/air-assaults trapping them inside. The army needed the zzaps to give it some MW/TK - if nothing else people are scared of them... even though they hardly ever hit.
Two losing draws and a win, not too shabby for the powerfields.


Thanks to everyone for a good (if hungry) day.

Full result on Epic UK site in the next few days
Provisionally
1 RichardL Steel Legion
2 Dptdexys Dark Angels (1 pt behind)
3 Steve54 Black Legion
4 Tiny-Tim AMTL (1pt behind 3rd)
5 Reedar (Orks) 1pt behind 4th)
6 Mintroll Orks
7 Kyrt Biel Tan
8 Jon H SM
9 MikeT Yme-Loc
10 Kyussinchains SM
11 Consul Avenging Angel Dark Eldar
12 Mr.Gonzo DKOK
13 Alansa SM
14 TC Blakc Legion

Most Sporting player Mintroll
Best Armies Consul Avenging Angel and Reedar

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NetEA NetERC Human Lists Chair
NetEA Chaos + Black Legion Champion

Any pics??

Why did I throw away so many formations in suicidal assaults trying to beat Tims AMTL, which probably cost me 2 points from the Tie Breaker score .

You only threw one away

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www.epic-uk.co.uk - home of the UK Epic tournament scene
NetEA NetERC Xenos Lists Chair
NetEA Ork + Feral Ork + Speed Freak Champion

There was a scout formation assault on the Warlord hoping for support (believe a lone rhino ran away), T/Hawk + SC Termies clipping assault on the Assault Reaver and a lone T/hawk assault.
Resulting in the loss of both T/hawks, scouts and 2 stands of Termies (meaning 225 points toward T/B) total of 700 points.
Hindsight's a wonderful thing .

Those weren't thrown away, you were going for the win

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www.epic-uk.co.uk - home of the UK Epic tournament scene
NetEA NetERC Xenos Lists Chair
NetEA Ork + Feral Ork + Speed Freak Champion

Thanks to Steve for organising another fun tournament, and of course to all my opponents. It's true, it was noisier than last year which seemed purely down to location. I was one of the lucky ones who got some lunch though Definitely a good idea to call Mr Domino next time. All told I probably preferred the 2 day event last year - evening drinks in the hotel bar and there was a bit some time to see the rest of the show. But 2 days is of course harder to get away for.

This time around I took a Biel Tan list with 2 storm serpents, wraithgate, 2 aspect formations and a guardian formation in the webway, a guardian formation on foot, scorpion, falcons, fire prisms and phoenix bombers.

My first game saw me drawn against Richard, as was the case in my last tournament back at Full Scale Assault. It hadn't gone well that time so I was not exactly thrilled at the prospect. This time Richard had brought Steel Legion, the highlights being a tank coy BTS, reg HQ, mechanised infantry coy, deathstrikes, 2 shadowswords and manticores. I looked across the board at the deathstrikes and shadowswords and wondered if I'd be able to bring all my formations in anywhere useful before the storm serpents were toasted. But this turned out to be a strange game. I critted not one but both of his shadowswords, each after a single point of damage. His tank coy went from full strength to slag in a single assault (albeit over 2 rounds) after failing a silly number of saves. However they scored a lot of hits back and I too failed most of my saves, so the net result was a BTS trade after the sole remaining Autarch was picked off by a blast marker. My phoenix bombers kept failing to activate, making me remember why I don't normally use them - 300 points is still 300 points doing nothing at all if (when) they fail. Them failing also cost me my falcons, stuck out in the open. But I wasn't the only one to be failing activations - the hydra crews were clearly too comfortable hanging around at the back.

By turn 3, having got onto the table and won their engagements my assault formations were sitting pretty in cover near 5 objectives, and the writing looked to be on the wall. However, being on foot, they weren't going anywhere and Richard had a mech inf coy camped in buildings in my half. After the phoenix finally came in on the third turn to attack them, lost a bomber to a hydra, rolled 20 dice and only placed a single BM, I knew I wouldn't be able to stop them contesting at the end of the turn. That meant I had to clear the broken rough riders screening the blitz. This proved harder than it should have been when a storm serpent engaged them and promptly lost (I think this might have been another crit). In the end though I was able to do the job with a scorpion, moving onto the blitz with a move-shoot-move. This turned the VCs from 1-1 to 3-1 in my favour: BTS, Blitz, TnH vs BTS.

Sadly I now had to face the Dark Angels of dptdexys on table 1. I felt throughout this game like I had to be very careful about when to use certain activations, and overall was reactive rather than able to dictate the play. Turn 1 saw the spaceship arrive, whittling down some guardians and breaking a SHT in exchange for the podding devs (I think I expended an assault fm on them though which was probably a mistake). I actually remember very little about the game, other than the phoenix once again failing to do much of anything and the Avatar being a liability (I lost strategy and he died to a crit). I guess I was just coasting along with one eye on the terminators in thunderhawk. When turn 3 came around I finally realised they were heading for the blitz and after losing strategy in turn 3 saw my fast formations broken, I couldn't hope to contest either this or a grab on the far side marine TnH objective. The only other goal I could possibly get was Blitz, but this meant breaking two formations guarding it and preventing a third from scooting over. The plan for this was to break a weakened one with the scorpion (I think only needed a BM), retain with warp spiders to engage some scouts (needed some luck), and then I'd have two formations on it. However the scorpion failed its activation and I forgot to use my re-roll. Whilst it still broke one formation, being unable to retain allowed some more marines to occupy the blitz first. Thus the game ended 2-1 to dptdexys (Blitz, TnH vs TnH).

The draw for game 3 pitted me against my regular opponent Jon, but Florian and Alan kindly agreed to swap and so I faced off against Florian's Star Wars themed Krieg. I had never played Krieg before, but I found them to be an intriguing army that was not what I expected. Usually Biel Tan can use their assault formations as hammers to neutralise the enemy's scary formations, but this is not the case when you're facing infantry in gorgons with ~27 dice, and 5's too. He had 3 of those formations. I wasn't sure exactly how to go about this, so I tried to focus on taking down these formations one at a time, along with the fast warhounds (he had 3) leaving the remaining slow ones unable to contest enough objectives. This started well enough, with a reasonable amount of damage done from my shooting including 2 damage on a gorgon both going critical (immobilised and then destroyed). A Warhound died to warp spiders, but they were decimated in return by mortar fire. Unfortunately the krieg armour started to do its job; I failed to place enough blast markers on the badly shot up infantry coy to break it, and a warhound also totally refused to die despite losing multiple assaults. That meant I was unable to use those assault formations for other duties. The infantry coy rallied and I was still stuck with dealing with both it and the warhound in turn 2. Meanwhile, the other two infantry coys were edging towards the objectives. Unfortunately we ran far short of time so we called it a flat draw.

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Yes, I hope to get them up this afternoon or tomorrow. I did try saying hi while taking the photos but I think people were too engrossed in their games both times I came round.

On Saturday night I was gaming with some of the organisers and volunteer leaders and it sounds like it had already hit last year's attendee total by that point, so yes it was busier and louder than last year!

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NetEA Death Guard Army Champion

I spotted you walking past, I tried saying hi, but then was distracted by my opponent and when I looked again you'd moved on! sorry about that! thanks for getting pics, really good of you

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Just some guy

My hobby/painting threads

Army Forge List Co-ordinator

Also from me big props to Steve54 for organising and running a smooth and very entertaining event!

Didn't do as good this time but still had a blast!
What i took away from my three rounds was that i have to practise speeding up my game, as both round 2 and 3 ended in a time-out draw.

Furthermore, in contrast to kyussinchains i found the UK Games Expo a fantastic setting for the tournament!

And what a professional event the expo was! It really showed how 'big' the gaming community in the UK is and got people out of their dusty back rooms. The tournament hall really brought memories of my pro TCG times back.
Though, i am able to understand it can be distracting for one not used to it.

Will be back next year for sure and try to stay Sunday as well to fully experience UK Games Expo!

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Here you go.



















The Thunderhawk and Titan photos got quite a bit of attention on Twitter.

Bigger versions in the gallery (http://wargamingtrader.com/gallery/2014 ... tournament), not had time to upload any other photos from the Expo yet...

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The Wargaming Trader
NetEA Death Guard Army Champion