Conflict Bristol 2008

Well thats Conflict Bristol over for another year, for those not familiar with the UK Conflict circuit these events are 1000pt, one day, three game regional tournaments. As with the past five years or so the event was great, the people friendly and relaxed, a great atmosphere and some great games. The event was'nt quite as well organised as it has been in previous years and terrain was a bit lacking, my understanding being that this seems to lie with the Cribbs Causeway Manager who I'm told was organising it this year, but despite that it was none the less really enjoyable.

I fielded a variation of a fairly successful 1000pt list that I've used for a couple of years now for games of this size.

DOCTURINES
Iron Discipline, Close Order Drill, Roughriders

HQ
Junior Officer inc. Iron Discipline
Command Section inc. Veteran with Company Standard, Autocannon @71pts
Fire Support Squad inc. 3 Heavy Bolters @80pts
Fire Support Squad inc. 3 Heavy Bolters @80pts

TROOPS

Infantry Platoon
Junior Officer inc. Iron Discipline
Command Section inc. Autocannon @60pts
Infantry Squad inc. Lascannon, Plasma Gun @95pts
Infantry Squad inc. Lascannon, Plasma Gun @95pts

Infantry Platoon
Junior Officer inc. Iron Discipline
Command Section inc. Autocannon @60pts
Infantry Squad inc. Lascannon, Plasma Gun @95pts
Infantry Squad inc. Lascannon, Plasma Gun @95pts

FAST ATTACK

Roughrider Squadron inc. Veteran Sergeant, 4 Roughriders, Hunting Lances @61pts

Roughrider Squadron inc. 5 Roughriders @40pts

HEAVY SUPPORT

Leman Russ inc. 3 Heavy Bolters, Heavy Stubber, Searchlight @168pts

Total = 1000pts



My first game was against a custom marine chapter, his army included a chaplain with jump pack, three tactical squads one in a rhino, a largish assault squad and a pair of landspeeder tornado's. My opponent really had the worst of it from the off, terrain was very poor giving him little cover against my firepower and when I got first turn and nailed a pair of landspeeders things just kept going down hill. The Roughriders got in an ideal charge on the assault squad once it was weakend by a turns shooting killing off the chaplain, though they did'nt quite wipe out the squad leaving a Veteran Sergeant with powerfist who proceded to finish off the Roughriders before being left in the open and finished by shooting. His tactical squads tried to get to grips with my line but were gradually cut down for fairly small return loses - I dont think I lost any other complete squads, he did manage to keep some marines alive however with clever use of the rhino as mobile cover.

The second game was against Eldar with an Avatar, two small jetbike squadrons, two Falcons with Fire Dragon squads mounted and a Fireprism. The terrain was much more substancial this time, with a hill bisecting his deployment zone. This gave me real trouble as the gam progressed as his grav tanks jumped from one side to the other preventing me from pinning him down while the jetbikes held back. Loses for both sides were fairly small in the end for me a couple of infantry squads and the roughriders which charged the avatar unsuccessfully - though in doing so buying me time to pull back a little and finish it off with shooting. Did'nt matter how much I chuck at the grav tanks though I just could'nt bring them down though I did manage a number of shaken results and knocked off a couple of weapons which no doubt helped minimise my loses. In the end though he cleared me from one loot counter and contested the other I had held with speeding just bikes and the weaponless Fireprism. He then held two, plus one which I had held, though with some last luck shooting I finally managed to down one of the Falcons and reduce the Fire Dragon Squad it had been carrying below half strength denying him the objective. Still it was a clear victory to the Eldar with a margin of about 500pts (the two objectives he held).

My final game was Imperial Fists, a Terminator Chaplain, Terminator Squad, two Tactical Squads, a Devastator Squad and three Landspeeder Tornado's, one of which along with the Terminators were held in reserve to deep strike. Terrain was again reasonable however my greater weight of firepower quite quickly dealt with the Tactical Squads and Devatators so that they were'nt a major threat. The Tornado's made their presense felt, using their Assault cannons to affects against one Roughrider Squad and immobilsing and knocking the battle cannon from my Russ, however my Autocannons took revenge knocking two of them out, the last one not arriving until turn 5 and having little affact on the game in the end. The Terminators deep struck on my weaker right flank and proceaded to mop up the infantry there while I realligned my line and pulled a couple of squads back towards my left, by the end of the game I'd lost a platoon, a heavy bolter squad, the laspistol & close combat weapon roughriders and had my tank damaged with a couple of other squads reduced below half strength, however he was left with only a stunned speeder and the terminators - they were almost my undoing however as a seek and destroy mission they earned him a very useful 250VP bonus for being an active scoring unit resulting in only a solid victory for me.

Three fun games with great opponents which would of by itself left me happy for a weekends gaming finishing in 26th place out of 48 gamers, but just to top the weekend off the Praetorians picked up their first award, gaining Best 40k Army at the event.

Lets just say I'm well chuffed!