Epic Armageddon war gaming: EEC 2019

My third EEC tournament and once again a great event with great games, drinks and people! This year I brought a Dark Angels air assault list. I usually play my marines more ground based, but I wanted to try something else this time.

EpicUK :: Dark Angels
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TACTICAL [475] - 6 Tactical units plus Transport, Supreme Commander, Hunter
DEATHWING [400] - 4 Deathwing Terminator units, Captain
DEATHWING [400] - 4 Deathwing Terminator units, Chaplain
DEVASTATOR [250] - 4 Devastator Units plus Transport
SCOUT [175] - 4 Scouts plus Transport, Razorback LAS
SCOUT [175] - 4 Scouts plus Transport, Razorback LAS
SCOUT [150] - 4 Scouts plus Transport
SPACESHIP [200] - Strike Cruiser
LANDING CRAFT [350] - 1 Landing Craft
THUNDERHAWK [200] - 1 Thunderhawk gunship
NEPHILIM [225] - 2 Nephilim Fighters

Game 1, Scotland – Andy

NetEA :: Codex Astartes

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ASSAULT [175] - 4 Assault Units

BIKE [200] - 5 Bike Unit

DEVASTATOR [275] - 4 Devastators, Razorback

LAND SPEEDER [210] - 4 Landspeeder, Landspeeder Typhoon

SCOUT [150] - 4 Scouts

THUNDERBOLT SQUADRON [175] - 2 Thunderbolt Fighters

REAVER [650] - 1 Reaver Class Titan

Very interesting Codex Marine list with lots of Land Speeders, Scouts and a Reaver. This is definitely a build I will try some time. A lot of fun playing against, and playing with I imagine (if you have decent dice).

I plotted my Spaceship and Devastator drop on the right hand side of the table in between my T&H objectives. I put my Terminator Chaplain in my Landing Craft and garrisoned my Terminator Captain. Andy had placed his T&H objectives tight together on my left flank, close to the center line.

Deployment. Land Speeders and Scouts everywhere...

I dropped early turn one as a lot of his Land Speeders and Scouts was in the target area. I played aggressively throughout the turn, breaking a lot of his small formations. By the end of the turn I air assaulted and broke the Reaver, and recycled my Terminators in my empty Thunderhawk to finish it off in turn 2.

My offensive continued in turn two, where I won the initiative and Andy failed his first activation (danger of not paying through the roof for a Supreme Commander). I killed the Reaver and continued hunting his small formations. Somewhere at this point I lost focus on the objectives…

Turn three and I continued hunting formations, when I should have focused on securing the victory. In the end Andy rallied enough formation to contest my objectives and I was too far away to shift his formations. Andy did a comeback in turn three and four, much thanks to his Bikes that broke several of my formations, and I never managed to get a second objective. The game ended with a winning draw for my Dark Angels.

It was a great game but I was slightly disappointed with the outcome, since it felt like I let the win slip through my fingers. Andy was a pleasure to play even thou his dice were not cooperating throughout most of the game.

Game 2, Germany – Carsten

IRON WARRIORS COMPANY [390] - 6 Chaos Space Marines and 2 Havocs, 4 Chaos Rhino, Warsmith (Supreme Commander)

DEFILER ASSAULT PACK [275] - 4 Defilers

VINDICATOR COMPANY [250] - 6 Chaos Vindicators

ARMOURED COMPANY [300] - 3 Chaos Predator, Chaos Land Raider, 2 Chaos Hunters

ARMOURED COMPANY [275] - 4 Chaos Predator, 2 Chaos Hunters

ARTILLERY BATTERY [275] - 4 Chaos Basilisks

CHOSEN [145] - 4 Chaos Space Marine Chosen units, 2 Chaos Rhino

SIEGELORD TITAN [800]

Iron Warriors with a huge Siege Lord. I had no idea how to tackle the titan, and decided to try to avoid it. I put my Terminators in one air transport each and Devastators in the Spaceship. My plan was to take out his Armored Companies with my air assaults to get rid of his four hunters ASAP. I played corners to maximize my chances of hurting him with my Space formations.

Turn one, and I brought in the Spaceship as it would hit three of his formations with the bombs, and bring the Devastators into a very nice position. The bombs killed one Hunter, and spread some blastmarkers. The Devastators put BMs on the nearby Chosen with the deathwind and sustained on the Vindicators, killing 5 out of 6 vehicles. Carsten played cautiously, putting his retinue and one Armored Company on overwatch. I decided to take my chances with his AA and overwatch fire and brought in the Landing Craft with Terminators to clear out the first of his Armored Companies. The reinforced armor withstood most of the AA and overwatch from both the retinue and armored company (I lost a single Terminator) and the armored company was wiped out. Meanwhile I moved Scouts forward to bog down the Siegelord who, without the support of other formations, could do little else than to assault those pesky speed bumps in front of him. My other Terminator formation assaulted and killed the remaining Armored Company without taking any losses.

At this point Carsten was focused on defending his Blitz and to push his titan over to my side of the table to deny Defend the Flag and They Shall Not Pass. His Siege Lord managed to consolidate over to my side of the table, contesting one of my DtF objectives, in the end of turn three. Meanwhile I had ganged up on his Blitzguard Retinue with most of my remaining forces, and I wiped it out in an air assault. 2-0 with Blitz and T&H in turn three.

A great game, against a very beautiful army. Almost a shame to kill things so that they would have to be removed from the table. I was surprised by Carsten choosing this matchup (as he was the German champion), but maybe it was because we gave him a choice between playing me or the World Eaters list which might have been even worse :)

Game 3, England North – Tim

I never played Vanaheim, and when reading the stat lines of all those vehicles you get a bit scared. And it does not help that the list was played by the most experienced player on the Epic UK scene with an impressive win ratio of 50%. I decided to go for it and to hurt him before he could shoot me to pieces.

I put my Devs in the Landing Craft, Terminator Chaplain in the Thunderhawk and teleported my Terminator Captain next to his Storm Troopers that were garrisoned close to the center line. I plotted the Spacecraft bombs where I thought at least one of his retinues would hide late turn one, but when the deployment was finished it turned out they would hit both a Vulture and all of the Storm Trooper transports, which made me activate the Spaceship immediately. The bombs did not do much damage, but they prepped the Storm Troopers for an assault where they were wiped out by my Terminators.

I kept pushing forward, retaining to place BMs and assault formations within reach. My Scouts assaulted and broke the Sentinel screen, but only managed to kill two of them. Tim put his BTS HQ on overwatch just in time when I was thinking of sending in my air assaults. This made me go for the Blitzguard Company instead. I sent in the Devastators to shoot the vehicles, with disappointingly little effect, and retained to finish the job with Terminators. They wiped out the company with little damage in return.

Start of the game, after my Terminators cleared out the Storm Troopers from the ruins

Tim had a lot of air assets left, and one Air Cavalry Company. Together they managed to kill both the Thunderhawk and the Landing Craft, which was a lot more damage than I had expected. Earlier in the turn a formation of Vultures had made short work of my lone Hunter (and all the other vehicles in my BTS), and now my Nephilims got intercepted which left me very exposed to his four formations of deadly fighters.

In turn two I started by clearing the Sentinel screen between my Terminators and the company in front of them. I then decided to go for the nearby Vultures instead of the Company since my Terminators would not get into CC. This was a disastrous move for several reasons. The Vultures were prepped with BMs and I had units from three formations in support so I sent in a Scout formation. It turned out the Scouts could not hit anything, nor could they make any armor saves when the Vultures hit all of their attacks in return. Even the support, including Devs and Terminators failed to kill anything (maybe one?) and the combat went to a second round. Great! Right? No, because this time the dice were even worse and I ended up losing the combat, breaking the Scouts and spreading BMs on the three supporting formations.

Looking back I should have sustained fire with the Terminators on the Company to limit the amount of firepower coming their way. Instead the Terminators were wiped out by the about 100 Heavy Bolter shots that an Air Cavalry Company can muster. By the end of turn two I marched my Terminator Captain to avenge his fallen brothers, and to grab the Blitz. Tim did the same with his HQ towards my Blitz where my BTS was trying to put up some kind of defense.

In turn three I lost initiative, which was not a great start of the turn. In the end Tim took my Blitz, but failed to wipe my BTS, and I took his. But since all of my Scout formations had underperformed throughout the game (failing to wipe a unit of Sentinels with BMs, losing the Vulture assault, only removing 2 out of 4 BMs with a marshal) Tim had formations available to contest. And since I had lost all of my air transports, and the remaining Scouts were breaking left and right from fighter attacks, I was not able to contest objectives on my side. With some lucky dice, I might have been able to keep the momentum throughout turn two and three, despite the mistakes that I made. But in the end I lost 2-0 (Blitz and T&H) in turn three.

Scouts trying to defend an objective from three Vultures

A very enjoyable game, despite me again letting a good position from turn one slip away. I am glad that I at least made Tim work hard for the victory.

Game 4, Colonials – Mathew

NetEA :: 13TH BLACK CRUSADE BLACK LEGION

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RETINUE [425] - 8 Chaos Space Marines, (Tzeentch), Chaos Warlord (Supreme Commander), Obliterator, Daemonic Pact

RETINUE [340] - 8 Chaos Space Marines, Chaos Lord, (Tzeentch), 4 Rhino, Daemonic Pact

CHAOS TERMINATORS [580] - (Chaos Undivided), 4 Chaos Terminator, 2 Obliterator, Daemon Prince, 6 Dreadclaw Drop Pod, Daemonic Pact, Chaos Champion

CHOSEN [170] - 4 Chaos Space Marine Scouts, (Tzeentch), 2 Rhino, Daemonic Pact

HELL BLADES [200] - 3 Hell Blade Fighters, (Chaos Undivided)

HELL TALONS [225] - 2 Hell Talon Bombers, (Chaos Undivided)

DEVASTATION CLASS CRUISER [150] - (Chaos Undivided)

DAEMON POOL [170] - (Chaos Undivided), 8 Lesser Daemon, Greater Daemon

A Black Legion list with a pretty nasty Terminator drop.

I put the Devastators in the Spaceship and one formation of Terminators in each air transport. Mathew garrisoned his Warlord Retinue on my right flank and put the rest of his army behind it, trying (and succeeding) to avoid my barrage.

I started by hitting his Warlord retinue with Devastator death wind, and retained with my Chaplain to go kill him. This is where my dice started failing me. I lost a Terminator in the combat (expected) but my Landing Craft took a critical hit, taking out two more stands. My surviving Chaplain got hacked down in combat resolution. The Warlord Retinue broke from its casualties and Mathew moved up a mechanized retinue to take its place. I decided to go for that one as well and moved up my Tacticals in support. I sent in the Captain to break them, but again my dice was letting me down. After two rounds of combat (with Tacticals and Devastators in support) my Terminators lost the assault despite only losing one stand and a DC on the Thunderhawk. Both Air Transports and one Terminator formation dead and one broken.

I managed to fight back decently despite the disastrous first turn. I caught his remaining full Retinue in a clipping assault with my Scouts and I started running towards his Blitz. His two bombers and fighter wing was again a big issue, harassing my Scouts, as I lost my Hunter early on. I at least managed to take out one bomber from each formation before the Hell Blades shot down my last fighter in turn two.

In turn three my Terminators caught and killed the Warlord Retinue which might have been a mistake as it took them out of reach of the nearby T&H objective. I had to spend a lot of effort to break a Retinue that had managed to rally, summon daemons and contest the Blitz. Fortunately doing so I could also grab a T&H objective. At this point I made a gamble that his Terminators (that was still in space) would land on my Blitz. As I knew I had nothing that could even hope to defend it against that drop, and my formations were badly needed elsewhere, I left my Blitz unguarded. When Mathew marched a formation of Chosen across the board to grab it I started getting a bad feeling. At this point there was not many activations left in the game, and despite awful dice it was looking decent with me controlling his Blitz and both T&H objectives.

This is where it all fell apart, and where Mathew outsmarted me. It started by me breaking my lone rallied Scout Rhino, holding the DtF objective on my left flank, trying to marshal it, and Mathew breaking my formation holding the T&H objective on the right flank with Hell Talons. He then dropped the Terminators on his own table half. They summoned daemons and marched to string out to both contest my only remaining T&H and to grab one of his T&H (the one the broken Rhino left undefended). What looked like a 2-1 victory turned into a 1-2 loss with the final activation of the game.

Hats off to Mathew for traveling all the way from Australia. We have played online a few times and it was a pleasure to be able to meet and play him in person (despite him stealing my victory!).

Game 5, Barbarians – Gerry

NetEA :: Legio Gryphonicus

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WARLORD TITAN [925] - 2 Support Missile, 2 Plasma Cannon, Legate

REAVER TITAN [700] - Support Missile, Close Combat Weapon, Melta Cannon

WARHOUND TITAN [275] - Inferno Gun, Plasma Blastgun

SKITARII DEMI-CENTURY [250] - 2 Secutor, 8 Hypaspists

THUNDERBOLT SQUADRON [150] - 2 Thunderbolts

This turned out to be a fairly quick game. Gerry had the courtesy to move both his battle titans towards me, leaving his Blitz defended by the infantry block. My air assaults killed two Warhounds in turn one while my Devastators (in Rhinos this time) started making their way towards the Blitz together with some Scouts. As I had a decent activation advantage I did not have to commit my air assaults before his battle titans had activated, otherwise my air transports would have gotten blown up by death strike missiles. The Tacticals spent their game hunting the third Warhoud that was broken and damaged from an intermingled assault in turn one. By turn three my Devastators and Scouts caught the blitz guard in a crossfire and grabbed Blitz while my once again airborne Terminators contested the T&H his battle titans were holding. 2-0 in third with Blitz and T&H.

I was glad to get a win in this game as it could have gotten ugly if I would have been forced to deal with one of his battle titans.

Finally…

A big thank you to Dan, John and everyone else that made this event possible and to all my opponents for five enjoyable games of Epic. Also a big thank you to Alex who saved team Sweden, jumping in as a substitute, when one of our players had to drop out.