Does Venerable win Blog Wars 2?

The last tournament of the year has been and gone for the Sons' and it was a blast.
22 players, 3 games with Primary/Secondary/VP's and missions that were straightforward adaptations of rulebook and a spearhead/cleanse mission (for those that remember 4ed) - basically just table quarters.
1750 points.
I drove 4 of us up to Mansfield (Atriedes, Bringer of Death and Kabalite) and we met, for the first time, our new blog author Bradimus Prime down there.
Quick side note: Nice to meet you Brad! Catch you at Caledonian!
Killswitch was there too practicing with Team England for the ETC.
So just Bully and Stargazer missing..

If nothing else, great team spirit and very well represented by the Sons'..

So, how did it go for me (Venerable Brother)? I won the tournament last time, so there was a bit of pressure to perform, plus I wanted to show off what my Necrons can do.

Game 1: Commissar Dave's Imperial Guard Praetorians

A wonderfully built and themed Zulu Guard! Loads of men on foot, couple of Vanquishers, a few melta vet sqauds and a CCS, with the nigh indestructable Commissar Yarrick..

Dave went first, deployed, I refused flanked to just hit one side at a time, with Night Fight from Solar Pulses, I was confident of surviving relatively intact.
I then seized.
As you can see from the pic, I basically pushed one flank whilst keeping the centre chimeras suppressed. This worked wonderfully, on the far left (out of pic), I had 2 warrior/Lance sqauds who just distracted the left flank of IG, blowing off the Vanquisher on that side and helping suppress the side armour Chimmies...
After 2 turns of night fight, I am ashamed to say that I had crushed one flank, disembarked the centre chimera's, bar one.
The rest of the game was spennt pushing into the centre and punishing the surviving left flank of the Guard.
Scarabs were my only loses in this KP game, and it ended 11 -  1 on KP's at the end of the game.
I gave up 143 points.
I didn't table however as I could not kill Yarrick and there was a 4 man PCS left.. incidentally, I put Yarrick down 3 times during the game and he got up every time.. denied 2 KPs just from Yarrick...

Was a great, fun game and it was fantastic to see the Praetorians up close. Scarabs were my men of the match here.. ate their way through both Vanquishers, some Vets and some other stuff.. wonderful.

Game 2: Atreides' Imperial Guard

This put me on top table facing off against fellow Son, Atriedes. This mission would be interesting. It was, essentially, Cleanse from 4e. With 5e Scoeing units able to claim quarters as well as your Special Character.
Andy's army was an Elysian list, all drop Guard.
Very interesting, very fluffy...meh competitive..but he knew that and embraced it.
It did have, with 9 demo charges and loads of melta and a smattering of plasma, have the potential to really wreck me though.
Andy won first and gave it to me, I deployed in deep strike defense mode, but over my first two turns of moving and running, I over extended myself (as you can see in the pic above), leaving a very small space for Andy to drop in.
No, it's not behind the ruins, as IF he didn't scatter off the board, he'd be out of range with his very short ranged weaponry, but to the lower right of the ruins, where there do exist very PRECISE spots for deep striking small units..
The game went so.. Andy got 45% ish of his army, dropped in, killed a few bits, then I killed all of that bar the CCS who were tied up in CC with Scarabs and contained.
Then Andy got waves of units in over the next several turns, which killed some stuff and then mostly died in return.
It was very close until the later stages of the game where I began to push into the other table quarters, contesting his home quarter, winning on Primary 3-0, secondary was won by ~1000points...but at least he wasn't tabled.
I really enjoyed the game, as I think did Andy..we rarely get to play and this was, mutually acknowledged, not on a level pegging..before the year is out mate..


Game 3: Gary Perceival's Deathwing

So, still on top table and playing Gary Perceival's Deathwing. Gary is a net celeb from 40KUK podcast and blog and a very good player. Ranked highly in UK and from my brief chat with him during game 1, knew his stuff. Was pretty confident going in as I am very familiar with Deathwing ( a nod to Bully here...), however a reputation is a reputation.
I knew I had to play a close game here and could not afford to lose. Dave Symcox (also from 40KUK) was hot on my heels and though I had a 2 point lead, this could go badly for me if the Deathwing were permitted to get in my face and just run through my lines.
I got first turn and chose to be the defender. This gave me 3/5 objectives and second turn. More objectives and the last say in the game? I'll always take that.
Gary went first and dropped a couple of DW units on my 'weaker' left side, pushing his on table units more towards this flank, whilst advancing his right hand unit.
Night fighting resulted in bugger all damage, except to Scarabs which, I believe, were targets of opportunity over fear..as they are pants vs Termies with Thunder Hammers..
Anyway, he moved up, I shot him whilst retreating slightly..
Rinse and repeat.
Game Ven.
Whilst simplistic, this is how it went.. lost 2 units of Warriors with Crypteks early, but by then had repositioned well. From here, I pushed advantages in volume of firepower and crap saves by Gary..although it was (imho) typical DW..lose alot of Termies in one turn, then very few for a couple of turns..then either win or lose as you've got no dudes left.
I found the Rapid Firing Immortals incredibly useful, as were the Annihilation Barges..wounding easily means lots of dice rolled, equals dead dudes.
Tight game till the end, where it really opened up in my favour.
Turn 5 it would have been a draw
Turn 6 it was tight but it was looking OK, Turn 7 it actually came down to me getting a couple of bits my way. I threw a huge amount at it and it eventually came good.

Whilst very tight on Primary (worth up to 5 tournament points), secondary was a solid enough victory for me, I lost 468 (ish) points to his 1500ish.

These results meant I was in a solid position to win, despite Dave Symcox winning his game too.. it just depended how convincingly he beat his Black Templars opponent (Von Muller from The War Room- top bloke)
In the end, I won by a single tournament point. Pretty happy though, netted 4500 odd VPs too from 3 game of 1750.

I won the second Blog Wars and my Necrons performed very well...more thoughts after the other boys have thrown up their stuff over the next few days..

Prize money well spent..

The prize money allowed me to grab a few bits that I'd never have normally bought.. A Dreadknight ( so I can try out a fun GK list I've wanted to run for months now) and  2 boxes of Lychguard for my Necrons, allowing me to build my Storm Lord list with a load of them and the new Scarab conversion idea from MBG..

Anyway, lastly a massive thank you to Alex from From the Fang for organising another quality tourney and I very much look forward to the next one.

Bring it on, King of Kings out.