Event Report - PAW Day 1

Just home from the first day of the PAW tournament, only two 40k Games in today with a further three to follow tommorrow using the Praetorian Imperial Guard list I posted previously.

Game 1 - Pitched Battle - Sieze Ground - 5 Objectives

vs. Eldar inc. Eldrad, Avatar, 3x Dire Avengers, 1x Banshee's, 1x Fire Dragons, 1x Striking Scorpians, 2x War Walkers, Wraith Lord.

Gaining first turn I elected to deploy almost in full, leaving a single Roughrightleft flank, with the Valkyie and Veterans and the Demolisher edging towards the left flank. The majority of the Eldar army deployed in the center in cover behind a bunker which blocked some line of site for my firebase, while Eldar, the Scorpians, Fire Dragons, Avatar and Wraithlord deployed to my left. This saw me holding two objectives to his one.

My initial salvo's were quite disappointing and the War Walkers took everything I coukd throw at them thanks to cover, however I did slowly begin to whittle down the central Dire Avengers and Banshee's sustaining little in the way of casulaties in return.

I then switched to targetting the Fire Dragons and Scorpians before they became a threat, the former were wiped out, the later reduced too just a handful of models. AT this point the Valkyrie was immobilised leaving it badly placed for shooting though helpfully for the Veterans too later disembark on the central objective. I used the demolisher to bait the Scorpians and Eldrad out of cover and into charge range og a newly arrived unit of Roughriders, they finished off the Scorpians leaving Eldrad - who chased them off in return. All the while a running gun battle ensued between the Dire Avengers and my advancing Infantry in the center which thanks to my numbers and the Command Squads timely arrival with Flamers I was able to win denying him the ability to hold more then one objective. The Avatar was finally brought down by weight of fire, but Eldrad nearly caused trouble in attempting to pull a unit off one of my deployment zone objectives with an assault, luckily he was just out of range as it ended up. So with troops on three objectives and only a single suriving Avenger on his the game ended is a solid vcitory.

Result - Win - Three Objectives to One Objective

Game 2 - Spearhead - Capture & Control

vs. Khorne Daemons inc. Herald on Bloodcrusher, 2x Bloodcrusher units, 3x Bloodletter units, 2x Soulgrinders

Again winning first turn I elected to play a full refused flank with Russ and Demolisher anchoring my flanks and a skirmish screen of a couple of squads to intercept any early assaulters - one Roughrider unit again went in reserve. In turn one two units of Bloodletters, one of the Bloodcrusher units with the Herald and a Soulgrinder arrived. One unit of Bloodletters dropped on his base, the rest arrived in threatening positions the Soulgrinder on my right the rest on my left. The Veterans promptly zipped up in the Valkyrie and blew the first Soulgrinder up, the rest of my firepower targetted the Bloodcrushers but only bringing 3 down leaving the Herald and two more, the Roughrider unit arrived from reserve this turn, but failed to bring down the remaining normal one though causing two welcome wounds on the Herald, they were wiped out in return. With no further demonic reinforcement the Bloodcrushers charged one of the skirmish units which was wiped out, but left them exposed while the Bloodletters advanced. In my turn I was able to finish off the Bloodcrushers, though again it took far more firepower then I'd expected leaving me unabel to quite finish off the Bloodletters who were in an excellent position to assault my stationary Leman Russ.

Reinforced by everything bar the remaining Soulgrinder this they did, but in an astonishing turn of luck managed to knock the battle cannon off and stun or shake it 7 times! At this point I finished off the first Bloodletter unit and let rip on the Bloodcrushers, but again failed badly bringing only half of them down, they were then able to assault and wipe out the Veterans who I had disembarked again to bring their meltaguns to bare - though I think this was still the right thing to do this decision to disemark may have cost me as it turned out. I was able to annilate the newly arrived Bloodcrushers and embarked a fresh infantry squad to take the fight to the daemon players objective, though I was now a turn behind where I would of liked in this respect - embarking them also opened up a corridor to my objective down which the last remaining Bloodcrusher charged, contesting my objective on turn 5 as the last Soulgrinder arrived right next to the battlecannonless Leman Russ annilating my Lascannon Heavy Weapons Squad.

Luckily the game went on, the Bloodcrusher finally went down to the last few shots I was able to muster into it, while the Soulgrinder proved inpervious, it was not in a position with which to contest my objective, there were still a good 6 or 7 Guard Squads in the way so it set about trying to bring them down, luckily my cover saves were good and it failed to do much harm in this or the following last turn. My Valkyrie and it's new squad made it too his objective in the last turn and managed to kill all but a few of the Bloodletters, but with no futher turns there was nothing I could do to finally shift them resulting in a draw.

I can't help but get the feeling had I not disembarked the Veterans and instead made a move for his objective then I would have been able to hold both objectives at the end of the game. Though looking back I still strangely think I made the right choice, getting the Bloodcrushers was more important as they could and but for one dice roll have won the game for my opponent in turn 5 as it turned out.

Result - Draw - One Objective each.

No pictures I'm afraid, forgot to get it out in the moment, though I'm hoping some will have been taken, I infact know some have as I had the pleasure of chatting to Aldramelech of BoLS and the Exmouth Imperials briefly and a few others who mentioned they follow the blog (hello!) - I missed out on the army photographing today also as the others were keen to head home and to be honest I'm pretty knacked (and hungry - that's probably something to do with the roast potatoes in the over though...nice smells!).