Tournament Report - Blood Oath 40k Doubles Tournament

On 8th November, myself and three others from the Exeter Inquisition jumped in the car at the unholy hour of 8am (well it was a Sunday), and headed for the Blood Oath Doubles Tournament which was being hosted by The Dice & Dagger Club, which are based in Stratton which is just outside Bude.

It was only a small event, doubles format with 6 teams taking part, each player had 750pts standard force org for 1500pt armies per side and played three objective based missions.

My list was as follows,

Command HQ
inc. Company Standard, Autocannon

Infantry Platoon
Command Section inc. Autocannon
Infantry Squad inc. Lascannon & Plasma Gun
Infantry Squad inc. Lascannon & Plasma Gun
Infantry Squad inc. Autocannon & Flamer

Veteran Squad inc. 3x Meltaguns

Valkyrie inc. Rocket Pods

Leman Russ inc. Hull Heavy Bolter & Sponson Heavy Bolters

I paired up with James, aka lomo, who was fielding Tau for the event, his list included (note this is'nt quite complete, I'm not up on my Tau!).

Shas'ui inc. Twin-Linked Fusion Blaster, Shield Generator

Crisis Suit Team inc. 2 Suits with Plasma & Missile Pods, Drone Controlers and 2 Shield Drones

6 Fire Warriors
Devilfish inc. SMS, Disruption Pods

Kroot Squad inc. 10 Kroot(?), 5 Kroot Hounds

Hammerhead inc. Railgun, SMS, Multi-tracker, Disruption Pods

Game 1 -

The first game was played against a Chaos Space Marine & Necron alliance, the Necrons included a couple of Warrior Squads, a Lord and... a Monolith, while the Chaos Marines included a Chaos Lord, a couple of CSM Squads in Rhino's with Havoc Launchers and a Vindicator.

The Mission used four objectives, which were then numbered 1-4, each player rolled a dice to select one of the objectives which that team then had to hold, on a 5 or 6 you could choose which objective. Both sides ended up needing to secure one in our objective zone, and also one in their own deployment zone, which were corner edges.



Our opponents had first turn and swept forwards - apart from the Monolith and one squad of Necron Warriors, the later were positioned to hold their objective, the former failed a difficult terrain test in a position where we were out of it's range, I dont think we fired a shot at it the whole game.

It was probably as well though, as our shooting was truely terrible for the first few turns, the Possessed Vindicator soaked up most of our shots - when they hit - with no benefit to us, while the Rhino's were at best Stunned, and mostly shaken. It was'nt until our reserves arrived - and they got close - that things started to really swing our way. The Veterans arrived and immobilised the Chaos Lords Rhino, they got out and butchered the Guardsmen, but the Tau Crisis Suits and Devilfish, supported by the Valkyrie whittled them down, the survivors including the Lord then assaulted the Kroot and after a couple of rounds of combat were wiped out leaving us in control of one of our objectives. On the other side Guardsmen were being cut down quickly, but the Leman Russ scored a bullseye at close range cutting the larger CSM squad down y over half, with the remaining Guard guns reducing the squad to just it's Flamer, this chap then proceaded to finish off all but two of a merged Guard Squad before assaulting them, killing a Heavy Weapons Team before being cut down by a Sergeant.



With only the Necron Troops choices left, one of which was hunkered down covering one of their own objectives, one of which was now alone and rather exposed the game ended, meanwhile one of our objectives was safely controlled, the other was very bloodied but still also ours ensuring a win.

Game 2 -

Game two saw us playing a Marine list with Pedro Cantor and an Eldar list, the Marines included a small Assault Squad, a couple of Tactical Squads one in a Rhino, Pedro and a Dreadnought, while the Eldar included a Holofielded Falcon, a Farseer, two units of three Jetbikes, a unit of Dire Avengers, one of Striking Scorpians and one of Fire Dragons.

The mission was to secure ANY two of four objectives with table quarter deployment zones. Both sides deployed almost in full, with the Kroot and Striking Scorpians both electing to outflank.



We however had first turn and immeadiately put the Valkyrie's scout move to good use, turbo-boosting into a position from which the Veterans could disembark on turn one to have a crack at the Falcon. This it did, destroying it easily, and though in return we lost both (though killing most of the Fire Dragons in the process as the Valkyrie exploaded) we thought it was a worthwhile sacrifice. The Rhino quickly followed along with one Jet Bike unit, the other being forced to hide, in stripping them of their mobility it was now a long ranged gunbattle with the Tau moving along the board edge to secure a second objective (the guard deployed on one objective) and eventually to deny a third. We had the ranged firepower and bodies to do this, while they did'nt. The Striking Scorpians did cause some hurt in almost wiping out the Crisis suits, but the Kroot's timely arrival countered this and finished them off.



To me this was probably one of the scariest pairs with so much mobility they could have run rings around us, I really think if we'd not be fortunate enough to deal with this early in the game we'd have had a difficult time with them on any mission.



Game 3 -

The final game saw us playing against another Praetorian army, this time paired with Blood Angels, the Blood Angels were not numerous with two Assault Squads and a large Death Company with a Chaplain, while the Guard included a Command HQ, Heavy Weapons Squad, two small Platoons mostly mounted with three Chimera, a Hydra and a Griffon.

The mission was quite different from the others, both sides had two objectives, the mission was to destroy your opponents, to do this an Infantry unit had to move into contact with them in the movement phase and remain there until the end of the assault phase with a pitched battle deployment.



They had first turn, but we took a gamble moving the Valkyrie with it's Veterans just short of one of their objectives, which was somewhat exposed (in all the missions each objective was placed by then scattered D6") with it's Scout move. Their army was fairly well spread across their edge, with a Chimera wall advancing on one flank behind which the Death Company advanced, another Assault Squad and mobile unit was on the other side which advanced with the Guard HQ, Hydra, and a couple more Squads in the center, we played refused flank meanwhile being able to cover both our objectives sufficiently from this deployment. Despite most of the armies firepower being directed at the Valkyrie it's survived with only a shaken result and the loss of a Multilaser.

In our turn the Veterans deployed and moved onto one of their objectives destroying it during the turn, meanwhile we set about hamming the advancing Guard and Marines, despite the Chimera wall we were able to get a few shots at the Death Company, crucially including the Leman Russ cutting the squad down to just the Chaplain and a couple of Death Company, the Crisis suits then placed themselves in such a way using their Jetpack move that the Death Company could reach them, but not the objective (for the greater good an all!).

The Veterans were duely cut down, as were the Crisis suits, but unable to reach the objective the remaining Death Company and Chaplain were quickly finished off in our shooting phase, meanwhile one of the Guard squads was similarly dispatched. The Chimera and remaining Guard Squad were then set upon by the Kroot.



The only remaining threat to our objectives now was a deep striking Assault Marine Squad hidden in a blind spot, this of course is when the Griffon came into play, pinning one of my own squads in place for a couple of turns where they were just able to assault, however the Guardsmen held on just long enough, leaving the Marines exposed in our turn. It still almost went very very wrong, what remained of our entire army shot at them, but still a couple remained, it took the Leman Russ to make a second bullseye at very short range (as in an inch from the end of the barrel) to finish them off.



With one objective destroyed to none we won our third game placing us first overal, I also picked up best army which is always a welcome bonus! The other Exeter Inquisition team faired well also finishing up second.

Unfortunately we had to leave shortly after the results were announced from what was an excellently run tournament, and though with lots of back slapping there was a sense of guilt we as the visitors were leaving with all the prizes so quickly when they had a club evening to which we were invited to attend. I think we all agreed we'd be back up there sometime soon for one of their regular meetings though and I can only recommend if your ever in the area with an army you do the same, the Dice & Dagger Club are a great bunch of guys!