Battle for Salvation Doubles November 22, 2008

On November 22, 2008, Fritz from Way of Saim Hann and Jawaballs teamed up to enter the Battle for Salvation 40 Doubles Tournament. We had been planning for months to do just that, but our plans were crushed just one week earlier at the Grand Tournament doubles. We arrived there with hopes of glory and loot only to be beaten badly in all 3 of our games. So we made changes, adjusted our list and rearranged our goals. We decided that we wanted to take Best Painted for sure, so set up our list to go for it. I played my Blood Angels and decided to put all of my very best painted models in the army, with little regard to army composition. I dropped all of my jump packs and remodeled my Assault, Death Company and Honor Guard squads. I dropped the Baal and took the Vindicator and I put in the Rhino. Two of my nicest models. I also went with my Attack Bike and Land Speeder. I dropped Dante and went with just Corbulo. Fritz went with his usual makeup, but went all jet bikes, seer council, vypers and prism cannon.

I our opinion, our army was weak and we were going to play for fun. We would face a lot of Ork Nob Bikers, cheezed out storm shield biker marines, and chaos lashes. Our pretty little army could stand little chance... could it???

Game 1:
BA and SH vs Orks and Daemons

This army scared us from the start. We were looking at two full boy squads with missles, big shooters and every thing else, a full squad of lootas, and a 6 or 7 man Nob Biker squad with Painboy and Warboss. The Daemons had two big walky thingies that look like mutated crabs, a huge daemon bitch, and several squads of deep striking daemons who had ap3 flamers! Gulp...

Our plan? Make them take the fight to us. We deployed our forces defensivly. We set up the Vindicator in cover where it had fireing solutions over 3 of the objecvtives, plus the far enemy edge. We put my tac squad right on an objective and the Vindicator was contesting one. We went first, and our first round of shots hurt. The vindicator lined up an ork boy squad that was not in cover, and killed 6. Then the vypers and my tacticals shot up the Lootas, killing all but 1! The orks took a beating! But we knew more were coming, lots more. On their turn, a gutsy Daemon player would deep strike right into the heart of our forces. He landed a squad of the mean bitches right next to my Vindicator. He landed his two mutated defilers as well, one landed close to us, and the other landed on top of a large ruined building. (this would turn out to be its salvation because it made cover saves against no less then 6 melta shots.) The big crabs fired and killed a few of my Tacticals with AP weapons, but that was all. The Daemons had no assault for turn 1 ended.

Turn two opened up with us pumping more shots into the orks, I landed another solid shot with the Vindicator killing 5 more, and we put the rest of our shots on the daemon squad trying to kill it. They had a homing beacon. After all of our shooting, one lived... :( The daemons were going to land in our midst. The Seer Council would assault one of the crabs and kill it. My Furioso advanced slowly through craters, right for the remaining lootas and nearby boys.

On their turn, they came down with some pain. A daemon squad with ap3 flamers dropped right on top of my honor guard, and torched 4 of them. Corbs and the power fist lived. The ork nob squad came on from reserves as well as another boy squad. ALl of their forces were in. Their remaining crab was having a tough time getting off the top floor of the building. But it was keeping it alive thanks to cover saves...my attack bike and speeder were unloading on it.

Turn three would see my Furioso get in range to cook the last of the lootas with his flamer. My death company, corbulo, and assault squad on foot would come in and wipe out all of the daemons in our line. The Vindicator would land it third straight shot, this time right on the ork nob squad, killing 3 of them including the warboss and painboy! You cant ask for more then that from a tank that is usually popped in turn 1. The Seer Council, flank around to line up the orks.

On the enemy turn, they popped my Furioso with a lucky missle shot, and advanced their remaining nobs to assault my Vindicator, popping its two guns. They would claim an objective with daemons and try to hunker down and hold.

Turn four would see us change gears. We were now going to attempt to prep for a turn 5 end. A bike squad was put in place to claim an objective, the seer council finished off the nobs. The speeder would ignore the crab an fire on the daemons to little effect. Corbs would lead the death company, power fist, and assault squad all up to climb into the rhino that was sitting in cover on an ojective, thus securing it. The enemy would forget that troops were inside on turn 5...

The orks advanced to make a run for an objective, and the other boy squad would try to hold the one they had. The daemons hunkered down in cover to keep theirs and the crab would finally make it down to the ground floor.

Turn Five would prove to be the last round. The Seer council shot up then assaulted the first ork boy squad, killing them all and rooting them out of an objective. The orks were left with just one boy squad. We sent a guardian biker squad to claim an objective, moved the speeder to contest against the daemons and dug in. At the end of our turn, we held 3, and contested 2. They held none and were in contest for one.

On theier turn, the orks would assault the guardian bikers and kill them to the last. They claimed the objective. Fritz should have moved his Prism tank up onto the objective as well, brain fart. But that would be all they could muster. The crab got out of the building, but failed to beat my speeder off their objective. The end of turn 5 would leave us in control of 2, contesting 2 and them in control of 1 and contesting 1. I would take the honor of rolling the die to end the game on turn 5... the result??? a single pip. a one. victory.

We scored 11 of 13 battle points in a game that we expected none. This would prove to be the trend of the day for us...

Next opponent: A space marine army made up of Pedro Cantor with terminators riding in a Prometheus tank, and Black Templars with their own Land Raider and lots of foot sloggers. We would be hard pressed to score any points in this game.

More to come...