My second game is my recent run of games was fought using my Militarum Tempestus and was fought against the dreaded Harlequins. We fought Maelstrom games 5, which I cant remember the name of but its the one where you don't show your cards. I like this game, as you are always left to second guess your opponents cards and left trying to figure out the best way to stop them.
My oppositions army is a very nice army, well painted and with a good theme. All the models are based around a circus, with jesters, clowns and mimes all being represented.
Clowns, not looking very funny if you ask me!
Mimes, and a random Mantic blokes on the right! Used to proxy some of the characters, Death Jesters and Shadow seers I think, but I cant remember which was for which.
The warlord traits we each received were relatively good, My opposition gained the ability to mirror jump once per game, so I nice 24" movement if he wished, a good get out of jail free card that one. Mine gave me the ability to re-roll reserve rolls or deep strike and only scatter 6", very useful when your DS'ing half your army!
The board, with my units set up in the building at the bottom.
The sum total of my deployment, a command squad and two squads of troopers,
A close up of the command squad (at the rear) and the rifle squad (at the front)
The enemy deployment.
Turn 1 - cards drawn were 14/24/61 (obj 4, obj 4, kingslayer)
This turn nothing happened, really, nothing, I moved one squad forward, and he moved forward. With both of us having 18" range weapons, we were both out of range.
Turn 2 and I retained all my cards, so, 14/24/61 (obj 4, ojb 4, kingslayer). Using my warlord trait I also inserted the remainder of my ground forces, acting very aggressively, placing all my units behind the enemy, and trying to do maximum damage to their transports and fast moving bike units. While this generally worked out well, as I destroyed 2 of the 3 large vehicles with melta, one bad scatter, 5" straignt towards an enemy unit if I remember correctly, resulted in the death of 8 of 10 troopers!
Said incident can be seen above and below. Next to the green skimmer there was a black one, which went boom big time, with a 4" blast, taking out the attacking unit and all the special weapons. Below you can see the two remaining members, the vox caster and rifleman. Somehow they survived, passed their leadership test and held objective 4 for me!
As you can see, the return fire was brutal though. From 2 ten man squads and a 5 man command, I was down to just 2 men and a 4 man command by the end of turn 2! Not a great start, but the units on the other side of the table faired a lot better!
At the end of my turn though I had scored cards 14 and 24 (obj 4 and obj 4) thanks to the two brave warriors, I chose to discard 61 (kingslayer) though, as this was going to be pretty hard to achieve. I also managed to get First blood for killing the skimmer that cost me so many live, no such thing as an easy point!
Turn 3 and the air support finally showed up! roaring on where the Valkyrie and Vendetta.
For this turn I also got some new cards, 23/26/34 (obj 3, obj 6, obj 4), a nice easy set, just take a few objectives! One was a straight up point as I already had obj 4 from last turn, bonus! This turn I continued with the plan, focusing on the skimmers where possible, trying to kill of the mobility. From memory, this worked out quite well, I'm pretty sure that by the end of the turn they were down to just one of the gun boat skimmer things and a skyreaper thing. However, this turn we made a mistake, as an enemy deathjester deep struck in and then proceeded to assault my warlord and his unit, resulting in the death of my warlord.
The sound of jet engines! The planes had a bit of a job flying through the buildings, there wasn't a lot of room to manoeuvre, as you'll see in the next few turns!
The death of the warlord, at the bottom right of the ruin and the other fight between jet bike and rifle squad at the other end. If I had been able to get the squads in to support each other, I might have done a little better, but as it was both squads were doomed.
At the end of my turn I ahd scored - 26/34 (obj 6, obj 4), and lost my warlord in the process!
Turn 4 and I drew cards 11/23/45 (obj 1, obj 3, supremacy), and had a good chance at getting a few points.
This turn saw a lot of mopping up by my opposition. I had been unable the past few turns to kill of the last of the Quinsy troops, something I didn't manage to achieve this turn either. However, my opponent managed to wipe out prettymuch all my ground troops.
Things get a little congested in the middle!
A cheeky maneuver, the valkyrie is hovering and claiming the objective. Placed on the top floor it meant the hull was less the three inches away and skimmers can claim!
The last of the command squad is eliminated
The last stand! The last of my ground troops engaging the enemy. The death jesters were the bane ofmy life by this point. The squad below had survived two previous turns of being forced to run for the edge of the board, surviving the last turn by inches (the Grey line at the bottom is the actual edge, an inch away)
At the end of the turn I Scored - 23 and 45(2) ( obj 3, supremacy for 2)
Turn five was a quick turn, I drew cacar 11/21/42 (obj 1 x2, behind enemy lines) buthad only 2 flyers!
Not a great deal I could do, so I went for it, both flyers went in to hover and blasted down the table, boosting and forgoing firing to grab the points. With the objective again on top of the building the valkyrie grab it and the vendetta went for the end zone. As a result I last the valkyrie to grenade and haywire attacks, but the vendetta survived and prevented a tabling!
As a result of these antics I scored all my cards, 11/21/42 (obj 1 x2, behind enemy lines)
So, when all 2as said and done, what were the scores? I had scored 12 in total, 10 for my cards plus first blood and line breaker, lucky to have behind enemy line in my last hand, effectively getting me double points! As for the quins? They scored 7, 6 from cards and slay the warlord. He might have had line breaker as well, but I think we kinda lost interest in that end of the table in his last turn as they couldn't do anything to the two skimmers. This probably would have put him on 8 points, but from talking to my opponent it appears the cards weren't with him and he got a lot of do X cards rather than objective cards.
Either way, another good win for the forces of the imperium!