Going into this game I had 20pts, so a draw and a close loss. This meant that I was down the tables a little bit, just below the halfway mark of 30pts really. In fact my mate that I lost my first game to then lost 30-0 to a Screamer Council Tzeentch list and was playing on the table next to me.
Despite my lower position, I was still in for a tough ride. I was playing against a Scottish ETC player, who was actually a really nice guy, the game was really competitive and it was clear that we both wanted the win, especially after our poor starts, which had a charm in and of itself as we were both pushing as hard as we could.
He was running Chaos Space Marines with Necron allies, I won't go too much into the list. Mainly it had 3 Heldrakes, 3 squads of Obliterators, an Annihilation Barge, 2 Night Scythes, a Royal Court of 2 with Haywire Staffs and some scoring chaff.
The Mission is Kill Points, the Deployment, Hammer and Anvil.
He got the first turn, and knowing that I couldn't outrange him, I elected to try to use the terrain to get into his deployment zone as quickly as possible to get underneath the Heldrakes and restrict their movement if they wanted the shots as much as possible, plus going back to get my Aegis unit would be out of their way. In addition I could charge in knock out his Obliterators and Cultists and then just shoot at flyers. The Bloodthirster did get the Helfire Gaze as one of his Gifts however, so he was ideally supposed to be flying around knocking flyers out of the sky.
There was a bit of an issue however, before the game started we had to call over a ref. According to the Gun Emplacement rules, a model can fire a Quad Gun instead of firing its normal weapon. His argument was that because Bloodletters do not have a normal shooting weapon they cannot exchange it for the Quad Gun. My argument was that it was absurd that a model has to be capable of dropping a shooting weapon, even if it doesn't have one, to fire a Gun Emplacement, and that any model with a Ballistic Skill has the Skill to fire a Ballistic Weapon. However, the ETC rules it that you can't fire the Quad Gun, and I was happy to follow this in the end to give him a bit of practice for the ETC that was as close to the thing as possible (the only limiting factor being my limited ability).
I do sieze the initiative however, and I begin to make a break for cover. First shot of the game however, 2 obliterators fire at my Land Raider in cover with my Axe of Blind Fury in it. Both hit, both penetrate (6s), I fail both my cover saves and my Land Raider explodes. This is huge, not only because of First Blood and a Kill Point but also because now my squad has nowhere to hide from the Heldrakes. I try to minimise the amount of damage that can be caused and stack towards his lines. The Heldrakes come on and burn all but 2 of the squad.
However, I even the score, I have too much for my opponent to deal with. My Spawn make a charge into a squad of Cultists, and run them off the board along with his Warlord. Bam 3-2. In addition, my Lord and the remainder of his squad make a 9" charge through cover into a squad of Obliterators and kill them too.
Essentially, we spend the game beating 7 shades of crap out of each other. A Heldrake goes down to the Bloodthirster who also knocks the Baleflamer off another and causes 3 wounds to Obliterators with a Vector Strike. I mess up the remainder of his Cultists and chase the Necron Lord and his squad away. Whilst he comes back and burns my Cultists who run off the board whilst a squad of Necron Warriors disembarks and with the help of a Drake removes the Bloodletters.
The game ends turn 5, and we have drawn 7-7 on Kill Points, so it comes down to secondaries, he has First Blood and Linebreaker, I have Linebreaker and Slay the Warlord, so it comes down to a 4+ save on my Lord as the last Obliterator fires a Lascannon into him. He fails it and I lose the game on secondaries 10-9.
To be honest though, I was really pleased with this game, it proved to me that I can compete with the best, as I was on the back foot from the beginning this game and a very close game was still had. I was a bit disappointed about the Bloodletters, as that really cost me the game due to the fact that they don't run off the board and they get a save against Heldrakes. But fair play to my opponent, the ref ruled his way.
I have sent an FAQ in now though.
So, after day 1 I have 25pts for 2 losses on secondaries and a draw, with a win on Primary objectives. I'm really learning a lot about my list though, and hopefully day 2 should be a bit better. Although as it turns out, if I was hoping for an easier day (which would have been odd as I enjoy tough games), my hopes were to be shattered.
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