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Return
to Bray As you know from last week’s report, I’ve been participating in a tournament, The Battle for Bray. I will continue with my coverage of the event, both from my own point of view, and that of my alter-ego, Dracon El T’taes. After our swift success
against the Space Marines, I expected a stiffened resolve from the Imperial
forces, since we were pressing them hard.
On the third day, Strikeforce Rillishelwe Mor was ambushed by a force of
Ulthwe Eldar. Early losses of a few key
Raiders hampered our counterattack and their Seer Council swiftly beat back
what was left of our left flank. On the
right, the Banshee Wave Serpent touched down and they swept into our
squads. I bolstered the squads against
the banshees, nearly wiping them out before the Seer council caught up with
me. Even as I fought the Banshees, I
could feel a Farseer probing into my mind.
Then everything went black.
Later I found that my Warriors had fought on fiercely, wiping out the
Banshees and a large unit of Guardians, but to no avail. The first game was against Lee (the organizer) again. This time he took his Eldar. The mission was Assassins and the Imperial side was automatically the attacker. Dark Eldar generally don’t do well on defense, and with multiple Mind Wars, it didn’t look good for me. I decided that I’d do my best and go for victory points. That didn’t turn out so well. Going first, he quickly dropped several Raiders and got his Seer council and Banshees close. I lost another Raider on difficult ground, and quickly got chewed up. Rillishelwe Mor is about as resilient as any other Dark Eldar force, which means they crumple like tissue paper, so I had to do the best I could. While Dracon El T’taes was in combat with the Banshees, the Seer Council hit him with a Mind War. The Shadow field failed on the first try. Lee was a great opponent and made a lot of jokes and, once again, I had a really good time playing with him. At the end of the game, he commented on what a fun opponent I was and said that I really had the spirit of the game. He then asked me to become an Outrider for GW. This is a really big honor for me and I'm very happy about it. When we regrouped after
the Ulthwe ambush, we found ourselves at the edge of the Ecclesiarchy’s
holdings proper. The city had already
been ravaged by artillery and airstrikes, but the defenders were
well-entrenched and only a ground attack could root them out. We joined an Iron Warriors force that had
been shelling the area and moved in for the attack. We learned that there was a sub-basement in one of the central
buildings that housed part of a device that would set off a series of virus
bombs around the planet. We struck
quickly, but found yet another Ulthwe force and some Space Marines. These Marines had a LandRaider with “Adrienne’s
Mafia” painted on the side. I can only
assume that Adrienne was the name of the Librarian leading that force. We quickly came into contact with the enemy
and started a series of short, bloody fights.
The defenders had their backs to the wall and fought like wounded
animals. Ordinarily if I encountered
this sort of resistance, I would simply bypass the position and strike other
areas where the resistance was less.
Due to the possibility of virus bombs being unleashed, however, I had no
choice. All sides threw themselves into
the fray and it ended in a massive brawl over the activation site. When the dust finally settled, it was that
Mon-Keigh Librarian that stood atop the corpse of the Iron Warrior Lord and
shouted defiance. Fortunately, Chaos
forces had prevented the Imperials from activating the other sites, so the
planet was virus-free. This last game was a 4 player battle using the Cityfight rules and featuring the Carnage scenario. Adrienne is a player at Ludicrous games and, even though she plays marines, she’s a good person. The Eldar player, Sean, was also good fun. Very soft spoken and polite, he was also quite friendly and had a relaxed smile. His Eldar were also absolutely beautiful. From two feet away, I was thinking that he had actually glued on little costume gems for the Spiristones. (He swears by inks, I’ll have to get some tips from him.) About halfway through the battle, I noticed that his Wraithlord had a very thin line of white along the edge of it, not even a quarter of an inch wide. There were neatly spaced runes hand painted along the entire line. I was really impressed with his paintjob. Well, Concealed, Fortuned Guardians are really hard to wound, but I tried. Although I tore a hole in the front unit of Guardians, the Storm Guardians in back wiped me out. The Imperial side was desparate, so they were able to give one unit a special charge bonus, consisting of +1 Initiative and +1 attacks. That, combined with Enhance and the Cityfight rules allowing everyone within 6” of base contact to get their full attacks, meant that the unit had something like 60 S3 attacks at Initiative 6! My Warriors were swept away like leaves in a wind. I tried to disable the Wave Serpent that the Scorpions were in, to keep them from joining the battle in the middle. Roughly 6 Dark Lance Shots and 4 or 5 Blaster shots later, I’d managed to take out both the Twin Linked Star Cannon and the twin-linked Shuriken Catapults. Sigh. Oh well. The Scorpions swept in and wiped out the squad El T’taes was with, causing him to fall back and be crossfired. While I didn’t participate in the central battle, it swung both ways as the bulk of the Iron Warriors and about half of the Ulthwe force (including the Seer Council) and some of the Space Marine force vied for control. In the end, the Chaos Lord took out the Seer council, but fell to the Force Weapon of the Librarian. Again, I had a blast. Everyone at our table was more than just a good sport. They were all about having fun and making sure everyone had a good time. Well, I was surprised at
how well those weak fools of Ulthwe fought.
They have earned my respect now, and I will have to revise my strategy
for taking them on in the future. I
think that if I had coordinated my attacks better, I would have fared better,
but we’ll see. In any case, Chaos did
take the planet, and to the victor go the spoils. I was quite pleased with the return I got for entering into this
bargain. I expect I will be making a
few more raids in this area of the galaxy in the future. I had a great time at this tournament. Not only did I have an absolute blast, and get asked to become an Outrider, but I also ended up getting a tie for Best Sportsmanship (With Patric, the Marine Player from last Sunday, truly a great guy.) As my prize for Best Sportsmanship, I was awarded a blister of $10 or less. I chose a Terminator Chaplain, as the likely initial model of my upcoming army, Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Warband. If you enjoyed this, email me and let me know |