Hello Hobby Zoners!

Greetings from the Intrawebs, apologies for the lack of recent updates but I have something for you all. 

Yesterday my local hobby club (First Founding Gaming) held their Annual Mayhem Warhammer 40K Tournament. We actually run two such events a year. Mayhem and Octoberfest, held during May and October. 

The events are hugely popular and bring together a diverse group of 40K Players. The format of late has been a single day/four game event and this was the first time running things in 8th Edition (at 1250 points). 

When tickets for our event were available they sold out very quickly and I missed out on picking them up. So it looked like I would attend to help out and maybe take some photos instead.

But at the 11th Hour David G. PM'd me on Whatsapp and asked me if I still wanted to play as someone had dropped out. I gladly said yes and prepared a very simple little 1250 points list for the day.** I thought about taking a DA Flyer then decided to take my favourite choice the Deredeo Relic Dreadnought and build my list around that.

So Game 1, I was matched up against an old friend Dave R. (both Him and his son Alex were both playing on the day). Dave was taking a Nurgle Daemon list with two Daemon Princes, three Nurgle Plague Crawlers and Cultists with some Nurglings.

The Plague Crawlers are indirect fire artillery really so they can shoot anywhere on the board within range without needing Line of Sight. This was most vexing as he rained down a huge amount of fire on my Deredeo and Land Raider (LR).

His Daemon Princes were using their Psychic Powers quite effectively throughout the whole game reducing wounds on my LR and my Deredeo.

I lost Company Veterans to weight of fire. My LR also took alot of damage but I managed to return fire over the course of several turns and removed from play two of his Plague Crawlers and a Daemon Prince before it was finally destroyed.

Dave did however play the Mission and scored most of the objectives and won the game. But for the Dark Angels it was a moral victory. The removal of a Daemon Prince and two Plague Crawlers was no mean feat but I failed to score the objectives dotted around the board. I lost but had a great time in so doing.

Game 2, I matched up against Matt with his Custodes list. It was solely comprised of ten Custodes Dawneagle Jetbikes (Vertus Praetors) with Shield Captains. They move so fast! and they have Hurricane Bolters and they are very efficient in close combat. 

(Custodes are like the elite of all the Imperial Space Marines, even above Grey Knights. They are the Emperors bodyguard and are based on Terra. They have access to rare technology not used by any other Space Marines.)

Anyways the battle was fought table end to end so we had a 24 inch deployment area. I placed my forces close to various objectives with the hope I would be able to reduce the enemies numbers as they advanced before they could get into close combat range. 

Well I really underestimated how fast they cover distance. By turn two they were almost in my deployment zone and with concentrated shooting I barely managed to kill two of them.

Once Matt close assaulted my Deredeo and Land Raider it was pretty much all over. I lost my Company Veterans to close combat and only the Deathwing remained on the table to then get killed by turn five I think. Again no survivors!

Matt was a great guy to play and honestly I did not mind having my force wiped out to the last man. He even apologised for bringing such a brutal list. Another loss for me and another fun game!

So I will post the Game 3 & 4 write up next. Stay tuned!

** My DA List
1 x Laindraider, 1 x Deredeo (Autocannon/Heavy Flamers/Missiles), 1 x Interrorgator Chaplain, 9 x DA Company Veterans, 5 x Deathwing (Plasma Cannon/Cyclone Missiles)