Reflections on Alamo con 2013

Last weekend I was in San Antonio spending the weekend playing 5 games of Warhammer 40K. The local painter I'd hired to finish my army had done an amazing job, with every unit fully painted and based! He even had time to finish off the Nurgle Daemon Prince and 2 Spawn, which weren't part of my list, but could show up if one of my Champions won a challenge.

Game 1

My first game was a classic match-up of Ultramarines vs. my minions of Chaos. The Objectives were laid out on the table with 2 each in both our deployment zones and 1 in the middle of the board. My opponent went first and his Vindicator put a huge whole in my Cultists with his heavy-weapon carrying Space Marines pinging my Predator tanks. I responded with one Predator blowing up a Rhino, netting me First Blood, and pinging the Vindicator while marching my Plague Marines towards the middle Objective. My opponent's drop-pod, carrying his Warlord, landed near one of my smaller units of Cultists, with plans of clearing them off the Objective. In response I sent my Nurgle Bikes, with my Warlord and the Maulerfiend to cement my hold on the Objective. My Heldrakes came in and roasted many Space Marines as well as putting some more holes in the Vindicator. The Maulerfiend and Bikes were able to slay his Warlord and the Plague Marines were able to keep from being pushed off the middle Objective, despite taking major losses. In the end, the Chaos army took the day!

Game 2

This was a Chaos Space Marine vs. Chaos Space Marine match. Black Maces were present in both armies, with my Biker Chaos Lord carrying one and a Nurgle Daemon Prince carrying a cheap knock-off. My opponent's army was lead by Ahriman, and he had an impressive number of Cultists following him. He marched his Maulerfiend into cover after using Psychic abilities to further shroud it and confuse any fire that would be coming its way. Some of his Cultists advanced along my flank to push out a small group of Cultists I had camped in Area Terrain on an Objective. My opponent's Obliterators made good on their name and Lascannoned a Power Fist off my Maulerfiend. It was destroyed shortly after in Close Combat with Ahriman's Maulerfiend. Both my opponent's Heldrakes came in on Turn 2, and like me he was running 1 Baleflamer and 1 Autocannon Heldrake. Only my Autocannon Heldrake came in for me, with the Baleflamer not entering the scene until Turn 4. My opponent successfully used his Psychic powers to cause my Plague Marines and Cultists to hurt themselves, turn after turn. I got my Bikes into Close Combat with the Maulerfiend, not realizing it would still get Invisibility in Close Combat. After my Warlord was killed it was a foregone conclusion I would not be able to turn the tide. Time was called and my opponent's army carried the day.

Game 3

My Chaos army was facing off against a Grey Knights army. Now, I was in a really bad mood before this game started as when I was transporting my large display board holding 117 gorgeous models, an inebriated player jumped out of his chair without realizing I was behind him. He knocked over my display board and my 2 Heldrakes shattered into multiple pieces. I spent the first 15 minutes of Game 3 gluing together the Heldrakes as best I could. While the Autocannon Heldrake was salvaged 100%, the Baleflamer Heldrake is now missing his tail and part of one of his rear claws. Having just gotten these freshly painted models back, I was not happy.

Now onto the game. This was a difficult match-up for me as my opponent had a ton of heavy support that was just decimating everything that charged up the field. There was a lack of ruins and area terrain on my side of the board and all I could do was push forward and remove models off the board. Once again my Baleflamer Heldrake did not enter the field until Turn 4, which meant a considerable amount of Troop removal was denied to me for the majority of the game. In the end, while I had removed many of my opponent's models from the board, he was clearly ahead in a Kill Point game. Time was called and all I had left were both Heldrakes, and 1 Unit of Cultists.

Stay tuned for my next post in which I'll go over the last 2 games of Alamo con. Plus pictures of how the army I took looks!