Hump Day Heroes - Adepticon XII Battlefleet Gothic Championships - Part 1 (of 3)

Last weekend was Adepticon (as so many of you listeners should probably know), and I played in the Battlefleet Gothic tournament, among other events. BFG is my jam; my favoritest game evarzzz. I usually don't get to play more than three games a year (at Adepticon! ha), but I do have a couple clubmates who play, and we get in a game from time to time.

This year the terrain was gorgeous; Ernesto Salas, one of the main men who will be taking the reins on running the event from henceforth, spent his time making some kick-ass looking, and more important, completely functional, terrain. Asteroid fields, gas clouds, planets with rings (even one with a spinning moon!), all on airbrushed mats. Honestly, it was a dream, playing on those boards, and I can't wait for next year to see them again.

My Ultramarines fleet from the past two years has done me proud, going 6-0 and earning two Best Overall plaques, so it was time for them to rest as I introduced something new to the playing field. This year I brought Chaos. The Word Bearers fleet has been languishing in stasis, so I gave them all a new paint job...the day before the event, heh. The rules are:

- 1500 points for the primary fleet
- +250 points for an allied fleet, and you can use some of your primary fleet points if you want

There were additional rules for allies, including who can take what, which you can view here.

So this my list:

Chaos Gothic sector list
Hades-class Heavy Cruiser - Warmaster Ld 8
Hades-class Heavy Cruiser
Devastation-class Cruiser
Devastation-class Cruiser
Slaughter-class Cruiser
Slaughter-class Cruiser
Slaughter-class Cruiser
Slaughter-class Cruiser

Ork Clanz list (allies)
Terror Ship - boarding torpedoes
2 Savage Attack Ships

I made use of Brigade Models' Eurofed line for the escorts, which I originally bought two years ago to match the larger ship, which is from the Star Wars Titanium Diecast line (though I bought it when it came out, for like $6, not that nonsensical price). Caught some flack by other players for them "not being proper ships", but hey, when the game is no longer supported and models are no longer available, I'm going with theme (Republic pirates or something :P )


Game 1 vs Chaos (Andrew Raatz)

Chaos Gothic sector list
Desolator-class Battleship - Warmaster Ld 9, Mark of Nurgle
Repulsive-class Grand Cruiser - Chaos Lord Ld 8, Mark of Nurgle
Devastation-class Cruiser
Devastation-class Cruiser
Murder-class Cruiser
Murder-class Cruiser

Chaos allies
6 Infidel-class Raiders

Scenario 1: Brace for Impact! There's an interesting twist: D3 Asteroids enter the battlefield from a designated short table edge at the start of every game turn, flinging 30cm across the table. If they strike an asteroid field, an additional D3 asteroids are generated...this could result in a nasty chain reaction that fills the table. Luckily, that didn't really happen to us. Still, it directed us to deploy on the other half, to stay as far away as possible.

Deployment

He took the first turn and advanced. For my part, I failed my first Ld test and merely drifted foward into range, loosing a few shots.

Turn 2 was where it really went down. Ships lock on and crossed the T...the squadron of Slaughters combined their Firepower into an absolutely brutal 56, numbering 39+ dice. On top of that, 8 lances piled on the hurt. Combined with the guns of the Hades, I hulked (i.e. destroyed) the Desolator and a Murder. Not a bad turn 2!

Then it really devolved into a close-range slug-fest. Every year Andrew and I play, and every year our games turn into a cluster@#$% in the middle, and it's awesome every time. To be fair, he always also manages to have bad dice occur (fail to brace, or only make 25% of brace saves), and this year was no exception. His damage control teams just didn't have the right stuff. I'll let the rest of the pictures tell the story.

Tight quarters. Aooooooga! Aooooooga!

The final VP total had me ahead by almost 1000, so that was a hefty victory for the Word Bearers!

I learned (as not only was this my first game since last year, it was also my first games with the fleet) that I will likely both outgun and have more tonnage than any of my opponents. Going second will give me the advantage of being in range first, and with the insane amount of gun batteries at my command, means I get the alpha strike that they'll never recover from. Stay tuned for game two, where I take on the Tau Protection Fleet!