Sledgehammer 2017

A few pics from this weekends 9th Age Tournament. I haven't played 9th Age for a while and decided to give it a whirl, even painting up two new Gortachs to add to my Beastmen.

First game vs Alex's Dwarves. A major win for my Beastmen, with my two Gortachs (the big bull things) repeatedly stomping the poor stunties and doing a lot of damage. Dwarven great weapons eventually claimed one of them though.

Second game against Jesse's Bretonnians. I was outplayed here, getting myself into a real traffic jam, but after his knights killed my first Gortach they were in turn charged and run down by a big Wildhorn herd.

And even greater luck occurred, with my Razortusk managing to charge and run down a unit of Pegasus Knights. Here he is looking happy with himself.

With most of the Knights out of the way there was just the Peasants to deal with. This the Beastmen did, though not without some hard fights in places, including one of the Giants being killed.

Last game was my Beastmen against Mike's new Beastmen. A big moment of the game was when his Minotaurs chased my Ungors off the board, so I set up a welcome party for his return as below.  It was a bloody battle though,  with Mike's Minotaurs managing to kill a Razortusk Chariot, a Razortusk, and seriously injuring both Gortachs and the Giant before they went down.

My other Razortusk was again a star player, here running around in front of Mike's Longhorns slowing them down. 

Big Wildhorn battle on the left flank. My Wildhorn units roll and get primal fury, Mike's don't and his unit is run down. 

An overview.

A fun day out, and with three big victories my Beastmen carried the day. Sadly some players who are more regulars than myself were away with beer festival, wedding anniversary etc. Tournament will apparently be a bit earlier in the year next time so as to clash less with the local beerfest and other events.

BFG 1500: Craftworld Eldar vs Tau Escalating Engagement

An Escalating Engagement scenario for this next BFG game, which meant our squadrons would be arriving randomly to the fight!  We both start off with a group on board, which for the Tau was a Carrier and three Escorts, and for my Eldar the Void Dragon. Due to their speed advantage my Eldar are more likely to arrive (needing 3+ for each squadron, compared to 5+ for the Tau).

I close quickly on the carrier forcing it to brace for impact, damaging it, and delaying the launch of more ordnance. My Void Dragon takes two points of damage as the Tau respond.

My first Wraithship Squadron arrives and shoots down some Mantas that were trying to signal to the Tau reinforcements. (would have added +2 to their arrival chance roll).

My Void Dragon cripples the Carrier.

The Carrier disengages and more Tau Escorts arrive.

My Void Dragon and Wraithships advance on the Tau Escorts.

And blast half of them to pieces.

The Tau Escorts disengage to save themselves, as two more Tau carriers arrive.

The Eldar successfully disengage!

The Tau bombers arrive too late!

Victory points are 157.5 to the Eldar and 150 to the Tau! Eldar win by 7.5 points.

Conclusion

A fairly miserable victory admittedly, but still technically a victory! Taking advantage of the opportunity the Eldar ganged up on a Carrier group and its Escorts doing as much damage as possible and then disengaging.  A victory of 7.5 points out of 1500 is not something to be particularly admired - will need to achieve a more decisive victory than this in another game. Also I was lucky to have not taken a smidgen more damage with aggressive use of the Void Dragon early on, one more point of damage would have put the Tau clearly into the lead!

BFG 1500: Craftworld Eldar vs Tau rematch

A rerun of BFG with Eldar vs Tau again. Played a week after the previous game but only just got around to writing it up.

I swapped out one of my Cruisers for four Escorts, while Andrew also made some slight tweaks to his force.

Game Report

Here's the setup, with sun edge again that closest to camera. Cruiser Clash scenario again.

I take first turn this time. I'm "up sun" of the Tau carriers to ensure I get favourable movement with the solar wind, but it's a long way to get to the target with most of my fleet!

My Escorts move to an asteroid field and my other ships launch their fighters.

Tau launch their Bombers, while their Escorts close in on my main strike group.

I brace for impact as all the escorts fire on the Void Dragon, and it takes only one damage.

My fighters move towards the Carriers to intercept Ordnance.

I close in on the trailing Hero Cruiser with my Void Dragon and two Wraithships, doing much damage and crippling it. Three other Cruisers attack the main Carrier group and inflict some minor damage. My Escorts target the enemy bombers shooting down two waves.

Remaining Tau Torpedo Bombers fire Torpedoes.

One of my Cruisers is crippled and I lose an Escort too.

The crippled Tau Hero and a Defender disengage successfully, jumping away and leaving the battlefield. Tau Escorts chase after my Cruisers and Escorts, while their Carriers reload and launch again.

Checking turn arc of torpedoes with fancy horizontal laser thing... - a miss just!

All my Cruisers power toward the Carriers, and they come close to crippling one of them, despite the carriers bracing.

Tau unleash more torpedoes.

The barrage destroys a damaged Eldar Crusier and cripples one more, and two of my Escorts are also destroyed.

Tau then disengage successfully with all their ships!!

I'm left in possession of this sector of space, but I've taken significantly more damage than the Tau fleet. Tau score 337 victory points and me only about 285! Narrow win to the Tau.


Conclusion
Cleverly done by the Tau, inflicting some heavy damage with their bombers and withdrawing before I could respond in kind! If I had managed another point or two here or there against their capital ships the balance would have been in my favour. Once again bit of a piecemeal attack on my part with some Cruisers getting very far ahead of the main force. A better effort than last time though!