First off Friday was Conquest. Held at a rather imposing private school on the south side of the Yarra, we got 22 on the field and I managed to place 5th thanks to Control Point countback. Normally SoS is used for countback in Steamroller, but having faced both finalists as opponents I'm rrasonably sure I'd have got 5th anyway.
My first match was against Leigh Avery (aka Cmdr Roy) and an Ashlynn list. This shot was taken just before the turn where I snatched victory, flinging one of his jacks away from the flag with the Deathjack while Terminus tore the other to pieces. I love the flag based scenarios, they look good, play fast, aren't masdive control zones but do force you to do more than just run and stand at a point. From memory Leighs feat really nerfed me, but I managed to get a few Soul Tokens with my own.
The next battle was against the Blindwater Congregation of Dave. With a lot of undead on my side the Gators were slow, but the mission was Killbox so it wasn't a massive deal. In the end Terminus Came flying straight up into Barnabus' face with a ton of focus and souls, saving just enough to survive and bring Barny down once he'd spent all his fury. I think I ended with 5hp here, had one or two more Gatormen got that charge off it'd have been all over.
My phone was going flat so I have no action shots of this game, but luckily ol' buddy Purple Tallest, known as Damien to his friends and enemies, chose to batrep the game so some nice pics should come out soon. Staks' (aka Adrian) army caught my eye during the week on WargamerAU, and I was glad to get a chance to face it - although taking Terminus may not have been the wise choice. I'll admit, eDenny might not have been casting spells on those Exemplar Errants any better than Terminus, but she would have at least done it through Arc Nodes and not let two heavies charge her in the face. My second big flaw was chomping on the bait that made it appear Adrian was going for the flag - his Harbinger list was all about the assassination, and between the Avatar and Scourge of Heresy boy did he (and in a double entendre Terminus) get it.
Again in round 4 I had a failure of list selection, with eventual winner Alex McD's eDenny list swwoping across the field to beat me to the objective, and then feating before I got my turn 2 to ensure he got the 2 CP for victory. He had to clean out a bit of my stuff to do it, but it was a fast game, and again my other list might have done better.
In the final round we saw our first and only PG matchup for the day, with Matt Aslin plonking his Goreshade in front of me. It was a savage, blindingly fast battle, but in the end it came down to dice - some expectation rolls on Terminus let him survive on 3 hit points having taken a free strike from a Bane Thrall, a Scavenger, and no less than the Deathjack (hitting at effective P+S 20 thanks to Dark Shroud, swooping down on the Eldritch to punch him in the chops, sever his servants neck with the Doomsayer, and then chop the undead elf into pieces so small Nigella would turn them into some kind of sexy sounding food paste.
Fast forward to yesterday and Battle Bunker, in Northcote, and some Dystopian action was had! Delightful storeman Viv put on a great show of fantastic terrain, and even a discount that forced me at cannon point to buy a blister of Cruisers.
Here my Prussians face off against local Cam's Kingdom of Brittania. It was a fast game, and I think the only one that actually finished the three rounds within 2 hour time limit to begin with, and was a Crushing Victory for my forces at 615vp to 280. MVP this match was the Cruisers, taking out the KoB Battleship with a critical ammunition explosion in the econd activation of my first turn. I got lucky there, and it paid repeatedly for the rest of the match, knowing my ships were relatively safe withoit the big guns afloat.
Next up was another local, and shop employee, that I want to call Dave(?). Prussians on both sides rushed to defend objectives on their sides of the table and take the enemy - but again, a massively lucky critical roll of Sturginium Flare in turn one and my opponents Battleship was vaporised. This time it was my bombers, Hansel & Gretel, in a combined Tesla shot from RB1. As we were playjng the Xcam mission Epic Conflict this gave me two conditions completed for victory, having destroyed my opponents most expensive vessel and holding all 3 objectives of my own. I liked this mission, with the exception of the ease I won - holding the objectives you can deploy your forces near and auto-assault from turn1 to capture made it far too easy for a random shot to decide the battle.
With 8 players we only needed 3 rounds to gwmet a clear winner, so Mike and I faced off with our Prussian fleets in the Xcam Assassination scenario. Again, I like this scenario, but it didn't quite suit battleboxes - with a 6 turn limit, very close deployments, and no objectives bar VP it was a real slaughterfest and a tad boring. I tried to play to the VP bonus of killing a ship I'd secretly chosen beforehand (amusingly we both went for the Battleships) but ended up shot to pieces, my offensive over-extension of Frigates early on and the costly mistake of repeatedly forgetting to obscure my bombers piling on the damage to my game. Congratulations to Mike, he won the first Australian Dystopian Wars tournament I'm aware of, snagging himself a second faction with a KoB battle box while I grabbed another blister of those deadly Prussian Bombers for second place.
Nearly all the DW stuff yesterday was painted, so I took a lot of photos I'll upload ASAP. I should have a link to Damien's batreps soon too, it'l be interesting to see what he's quoted me on, and a great read I'm sure.
Whew, that was a post and a half!
