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Warhammer Club

You may be forgiven for feeling that, given the pomp and circumstance of last week’s award ceremony and the excitement of Mr Beeley visiting the club, that the students would need a week off to recover from their travails; however you would be gravely mistaken as this Tuesday we launched our new summer event: a Warhammer Doubles tournament! 

The rules were tweaked after learning from our last tournament, the biggest being that games would now be played in doubles format, each general bringing their own 500pts list and then sharing command with their partner over a 3-round battle. Lists cannot be changed during the course of the tournament so it will be very interesting to see how well the various armies can work together when paired up! For the first game, students were allowed to choose their partners however pairings would be randomised thereafter. Unfortunately, one of the players did not turn up so poor Mr Ashfield had to run half a marathon between game tables, directing the forces of Chaos on one, and the Welly Spare Marines on the other! 

 Game 1: Joe Stockley (Tyranids) and Mr Brownbill (Tyranids)  

vs  

Luka Taylor (Death Korps of Krieg) and Mr Ashfield (World Eaters) 

Luke Taylor and Mr Ashfield certainly had an uphill battle in this matchup, as the combined Tyranid hordes would be able to share all of their abilities across the entire force, making them very dangerous. Fortunately Luka had spent some time planning to take along multi meltas and the giant Gatekeeper cannon to destroy the tough Tyranid Hive Tyrants, and some of his heaviest artillery pieces to blow great chunks out of the smaller horde units. The Tyranid forces consisted of a good, balanced list of TWO Hive Tyrants, warriors, and lots of tiny hormogaunts and termagaunts. 

The entire game only lasted for a single round, given the number of dice that both teams had to roll it was already 5 o’clock after one each of the heavily deliberated movement, psychic, shooting, and then combat phases! The Tyranid forces moved forwards, covering the no-man’s land as quickly as possible, ready for a charge in their next turn. The powers of the blood god, Khorne, must have been strong as the usually devastating Tyranid psychic phase was a mere fizzle this time around, although Kharn the Betrayer still suffered a browbeating from Mr Brownbill’s Hive Tyrant. Mr Ashfield charged his World Eaters towards the slavering aliens, leaving the crucial shooting phase to the responsible hands of Luka Taylor… who proceeded to miss with almost every single heavy calibre shell that left his barrels! Tragedy! A single melta shot made it on target to one of the Hive Tyrants, which managed to blow one of its eyelashes off. The dice gods were obviously unimpressed with such a blasphemous alliance of forces and left them to settle the battle in close combat instead. 

By the end of the round both armies had inflicted significant casualties on the other, but not enough to gain any meaningful ground, so the result was a draw with two Victory points scored each and an extra one for fully painted armies. 

 Game 2: Colum Parker (Space Marines) and Mr Ashfield (Welly Marines)  

vs  

Jasper Welton (Astra Militarum) and Mr Crabbe (Drukhari) 

Game 2 saw a combined space marine gun line commanded by Colum Parker and Mr Ashfield facing off against an unlikely union between Jasper’s Astra Militarum (very shooty) and Mr Crabbe’s sneaky Drukhari (very sneaky). The Space Marines won the roll for first turn, although there were only limited opportunities to take advantage of this as most of the enemies were only just in range of their bolters. Colum charged his Redemptor Dreadnought forwards on the left flank in order to bring his deadly multi-melta into range, however it only succeeded in burning a wing mirror off one of Jasper’s transport tanks. The speedy space marine bikers surged forwards, guns blazing, and managed to shoot one of the Drukhari Scourges out of the sky… however when the fusillade died down there were an awful lot of lasguns and battle cannons taking aim in return… 

Mr Crabbe started off his turn by moving his fleet Dark Eldar halfway across the battlefield in a single sprint, ready to charge the space marine bikers later that turn. Jasper gunned his transport forwards and activated a stratagem that would still allow it to fire with all its weapons in the shooting phase, a real power move! Both generals identified Colum’s huge dreadnought as the most immediate threat and quickly dispatched it with a 1-2 combo from the winged Scourges and Leman Russ Gatekeeper cannon. Colum did seem mildly perturbed by the sheer weight of fire this turn but rallied magnificently to make a number of excellent armour saving throws for the rest of the Space Marine infantry – the fight was not over yet! 

In the fight phase Mr Crabbe’s squad of Wyches leapt gracefully into the vulnerable biker squad and cut them all down without a single blow landed in return. The odds were looking ever worse for the Space Marines… 

In the second round the Space Marine morale was boosted by the arrival of a squad of hulking Terminators, teleported in from an orbiting battle barge. Unfortunately, Jasper had prepared for this and already spread his units across his deployment zone in an effective screen, so the Terminators were forced to arrive near the right flank instead, where they would remain until the end of the battle; too far away to make it into combat. The Space Marine infantry charged towards the Drukhari insurgence and, bolters blazing, managed to retake one of their home objectives. Unfortunately this was not enough and, in their last turn, the Drukhari had more than enough targets around them to have their wicked fun, slaying more infantry and the last of the Space Marine captains. 

By the end of the second battle round the scores were 8-6 to Mr Crabbe and Jasper, including an extra victory point for Colum and the Welly Marines having a fully painted army. 

All scores were halved because a teacher was playing on the team so the final rankings after the first week are as follows: 

 

A last point of order is to mention Joe’s progress in painting up his prize from winning the 40K tournament last week. We think it’s a cracking.

Mr Ashfield