40k Throne of Skulls January 2014

Right, well I singularly failed to do battle reports for Throne of Skulls - and in all honesty I dont think I could now! So instead, I'll just do a quick photo dump of the pictures I did manage to take!

Game 1 was verses Orks! I know there were Mega Orks, Ard Boyz a Bomba of some description oh yes, and a Stompa!

Said Stompa got very close... and then died to an overwatching Lascannon IIRC, second Stompa kill of the weekend and a win for the Guard!

Game 2 saw me up against the Space Marine force of Ash Turner in which he had a Wall of Martyrs Firestorm battery with a Devastator Squad inside and a pair of Thunderfires.... it hurt. I did manage to destroy the fortification eventually, but it was far too little too late.

Game 3 and I played Mark Burstal's Necrons. I've played Mark a couple of times before, he builds hard lists, and he uses them well, but he's a great opponent! At the start of the game things looked very positive for the Guard, I took down most of his Destroyers and all the Wraiths, but his Necron Destroyer Lord just would'nt die, and assisted by Immortals his badly depleted army was able to hammer mine to submission - I just ran out of troops in the end!

No pictures of either of these games, not a reflection of my losing them I have to say, they were both pretty intense but enjoyably so!

Game 4! Whats that coming over the hill...?

More Orks, another Stompa! This time it was Toby from Hackney Area Tabletop Enthustiasts, or HATE. Toby is an absolutely awesome opponent, I played him at the previous Throne of Skulls with his Traitor Guard, and we really wanted to play again, so when another Exeter player was drawn against him who was'nt too keen on facing a Stompa we agreed to do the old switchahro! And yes, its a Dreadmob! Mega Dreads to the right of the picture, plus a load of Kanz and Dreadz besides!

It makes a Guardsman feel very small - but were the Praetorians daunted? Hell no!

The red coats could have been mistaken for Deathkorps the way Squad after Squad advanced, buying time for the rest of the line as Imperial Weapons got red hot. Aided by some sneaky flying from the navy stalling the Stompa's advance the Praetorians brought down their third Stompa of the weekend! Aided by one Mega Dred destroying the other with a stray shot! Orky accuracy eh? The Praetorians were able to force a draw despite losing the objective and taking a right hammering, I believe it was the only time Toby's Stompa bought it all weekend, and the only game he did'nt win - he won best Ork!

The final game of the weekend was against Aodhan with his Eldar, Aodhan was just too cautious with his Wraithknight, admittedly I had a fearsome number of guns behind my defence line, but his whole army hit me piece meal and I dealt with these in short order it with very few loses until the monster, almost his last unit, moved in. I'm pretty much convinced if everything had struck at once I'd have had a much less successful time of it, a fun opponent though and another great game!

And so came the end of my Throne of Skulls, well almost! I picked up two wins, two loses and a draw over the weekend, and did'nt expect anything off the back of that, while my army was and still is in a state of flux with alot of mixed basing etc so no painting nominations. However, I was left pretty stunned to get called up alongside Dan Fortnum (another HATE player) and Jes Bickham (the current Editor of White Dwarf) to jointly recieve the coveted Emperor's Laurels award for favourite opponents - the three of us each picking up 4 out of 5 favourite opponents from our games over the weekend. I have picked up a few certificates since I've been going to the event, mostly Best Army nominations, but this is without doubt the one I'm proudest of!

I ever sneaked a mention in White Dwarf 10 in Jes' Event Report!

 And yeah, three stompas in three games! Ha! Revenge for the 24th Foot!