Uprising – the Tournament - Objective Secured

I had a great time on Saturday playing at an event hosted by a couple of friends of mine who ran the event under Beyond Games and Hobby – Uprising. The tables looked fantastic – clearly the guys have put in the hard yards to get their first event looking as awesome as it did! If you want to check out some of the awesome photos from the day you can find a small selection of them below – taken by HC Media Productions as well as the full album HERE (used with permission). This is my game wrap up from the days play using my Ulthwe. 28 players in attendance and my list is definitely on the soft side of things as competitive lists go.

Craftworld: Ulthwe

Battalion

HQ – Asurmen

HQ – Spirit Seer

Troops – 10 Dire Avengers inc Exarch with Dire Sword

Troops – 5 Rangers

Elites – 10 Howling Banshees inc Exarch with Executioner

Heavy Support – 5 Dark Reapers inc Exarch

Heavy – Falcon Grav Tank, Star Cannon, Shuriken Cannon (Reapers ride here)

Flyer – Crimson Hunter

Dedicated Transport – Wave Serpent, Twin Shuriken Cannon, Shuriken Cannon (Avengers Ride here)

Dedicated Transport – Wave Serpent, Twin Scatter Laser, Shuriken Cannon (Banshees/Seer/Asurmen ride here)

Pts – 1500

CP – 6

I think most would agree it’s not the most competitive list in the world! What’s interesting is I went 4/0/0 on the day and was the only player undefeated!

Game 1 – Admech

The mission was retrieval (4 objectives) with dawn of war deployment. He was running 2 neutron laser and 1 Icarus Dune Crawlers, a Dragoon with lance, 2 Battle Robots with many guns, 10 rangers with snipers, 10 and 5 vanguard with plasma, a dominus, 2 tech priests, a data smith and 2×5 infiltrators. The forgeworld rule allowed him to get back his last wound on a 6. I get to go first as he has WAY more drop than me. I kill off the unit of rangers for first blood but that’s about it. I have moved into position with the tanks as a bulwark against most of his guns. The plan is to get a massive multi charge if I can with the banshees. His first turn sees him kill off my rangers with a unit of infiltrators and put a couple of wounds on the serpents but nothing scary. Time to strike! I disembark everything and go to work. The reapers kill the infiltrators easily (and T3 would see them kill the second unit after they deploy in his T2). The avengers kill the vanguard unit of 10 while the serpents kill the unit of 5. The closest unit is now the dominus and so I pop shields and nuke him dead. Asurmen charges and kills the dragoon with ease. Most telling though is the banshee charge. I manage to get a massive 14” charge and tag all 3 dune crawlers, the tech priests, data smiths and battle bots. While I don’t kill any and they don’t hurt me (protect from the seer helped!) I have managed to tie up his entire gun line in a single stroke. The way I charged meant I also essentially made sure he could not fall back – he was to densely packed! T3 I managed to get asurmen into combat and the killing began in earnest. I threw all the avengers in as well reasoning that more dice works. The tanks moved out to grab all 4 objectives and in my haste I made the rookie mistake of forgetting to move the hunter so it died! Combat saw the banshee exarch execute the datasmith while asurmen chewed up a tech priest and the banshees killed the second again for no losses. T4 its still combat and asurmen hits a dune crawler hard. So hard it exploded. That explosion killed a second crawler who had been damaged over the protracted combat by the dire swords and banshees. It exploded and killed a battle bot… who exploded… The dust cleared and it was catastrophic! The remaining dune crawler was half dead (and was all dead come turn 5 when asurmen finished it) Asurmen was on 3 wounds, only 3 banshees remained in combat with the second battle robot and I had 2 and 6 avengers left respectively. Turn 5 I killed off the last crawler (thankfully it didn’t explode!) and the exarch for the banshees in a truly wonderful display managed 3 hits and wounds to kill the last robot for the max win and a tabled enemy.

Game 2 – Orks

Corner deployment and big guns. Ok, Orks should be ok right? Wrong! A giant Squiggoth greeted me at the table along with 3×24 boys units, 10 tank busters, 9 lootas, a weird boy, a big mek with KFF and a burna bomma. The lootas and tank busters plus the big mek embark the squig but as I deployed the first unit I got the +1 and first turn. My snipers managed 2 wounds on the weird boy but not enough to stop the inevitable jump power. The squiggoth took a pounding but its no slouch… 35 wounds dropped to 19 by the time I stopped shooting. I got off lightly in reply with 8 wounds on the hunter and a failed cast of the jump. Turn 2 I manage a paltry 4 wounds on the squiggoth and I know I will have to screen it next turn – I am out of board to fall back to so something has to get between it and my army. He jumps a unit in his turn 2 and catches and kills the rangers (who put another wound on the weird boy before they died). The unit that jumped managed a half dozen wounds on a serpent while the reapers are reduced to a single model by the guns on the squiggoth and the burna bomma. Turn 3 I disembark everyone and cross my fingers. I position myself so the bomma cant fly over my infantry which spares me the mortal wounds. I kill off most of the boys in my deployment zone with avenger fire and charge the remains with banshees… who then survive the charge and kill half the banshees! Meanwhile I pour fire into the Squiggoth – its down to 2 wounds when the smoke clears and all that stands between it and me is Asurmen. Asurmen charges… 5 hits, wounding on 5’s he manages 3 6’s and a 5 for a total of 7d3 damage! The squiggoth goes down but only 2 lootas die in its collapse. At this point the game is winding down. The hunter sneaks a kill on the weird boy after a gap is left which allows me to place it and then target him as the closest. I hold 2 objectives and the Orks have 2. All he has is sluggas after I kill the lootas and tank busters with shuriken while Asurmen gets the Big Meks head. My opponent chooses to act like an Ork and charges one of the boys squads towards me in his T4 and takes out Asurmen and all but the exarch of the banshees. I shoot down the bomma T5 and pour all my guns into the now very close mob of boys. They go down hard. His T5 he passes as he knows now I have won with 2 objectives to 1. We roll for T6 and I hustle a grav tank towards the 3^rd objective. I need T7 to get there… which of course we don’t get. I win but its closer than the table shows.

Game 3 – Death Guard

Kill points, Vanguard deployment. I haven’t played against the new deathguard and this army was gorgeous to look at – at least as far as the deathguard go! Typhus, a Lord of contagion, 5 terminators with melta, 3 death shroud, a big unit of pox walkers, 2×5 deathguard with a blight launcher each, 2 blight drones with nasty flamers and a nasty man with an even nastier flamer! The lord and both terminator units would deep strike. I again go first and pour fire out to end a unit of deathguard for first blood and take out a few pox walkers along with the snipers putting 1 wound on the flamer man. His resilient rolls were on fire though and that’s all I manage. The terminators all roll up 9” from the front of my army while the rest of his forces race up behind them. One of my serpents takes battering from melta but its still alive when he is finished. I disembark my avengers and banshees plus characters and its on. I shoot everything into the terminators and manage a meagre 2 dead and 1 wounded when the dust clears. Horrified I throw the banshees in to both the terminators and 1 to tag the death shroud who then get charged by Asurmen. Asurmen is again on fire and kills the whole unit before they swing – I am loving mortal wounds! The banshees inflict a single unsaved wound to kill the wounded terminator and loose several in response. He uses one drone to kill all but 1 of my rangers (who get lucky they only take 4 hits) while the other drone reduced the wave serpent damaged earlier to a single wound remaining. Asurmen falls in his turn to the lord of contagion as I manage to fluff my saves. The banshees also all die in his turn of combat. Turn 3 I pop shields and kill the remaining terminators and the weight of fire I have kills both drones and half kills the lord. The Crimson Hunter has done another sneaky and managed to get closer to the fancy flamer guy and nukes him into particles. I also kill a bunch of pox walkers as the buff spells are on the lord at this point. With little let the DG advance and the pox walkers get a bunch of buff spells cast on them and they surround the lord and typhus – they will charge next turn. T4 I again start shooting – killing all but 5 pox walkers. The lord is to far away for a charge and my opponent knows it. T4 he retreats the remains of the pox walkers and the 2 characters but its not far enough. I kill the remains on the pox walkers in T5 as well as the lord of contagion but in my movement I have made it hard to get an angle on Typhus. The hunter shoots him relentlessly for T5, 6 and 7 but he annoyingly refuses to die… A major win for me.

Game 4 vs Astra Militarum

Spearhead deployment, Scouring. 3 Basilisks, Pask in a Russ dripping in Plasma, a second standard Russ, Creed, 2 primus psykers, 1 platoon commander, 3×10 infantry squads, a squad of mortars, a devil dog and a pair of hellhounds. This did not look great… Until it was. I went first and raced forward. I saw my rangers do something they have never done before – kill a character. I manage 5 hits and wounds including 2 mortals and kill a psyker dead for first blood! I then killed the devil dog and front hell hound with what amounted to mostly shuriken cannon fire while the hunter and reapers managed to reduce a basilisk to 1 wound. I lost the hunter in his turn 1 to a huge volley of fire and 3 of the rangers to the small arms but otherwise I was unharmed. Time to hit it. I disembark the banshees for another nice long multicharge and manage to get a hellhound, 2 squads and creed on the charge but fall short of a basilisk. My shooting takes out a basilisk though as well as the mortars and a bunch of infantry. My charge sees few kills but its locked up the hell hound and that’s the most important thing. I lose the banshees in his T2 when everything falls back and Pask opens up on them. I also lose 3 reapers to basilisk fire (love Lightning reflexes!). A wound here and there to the tanks but largely I am still ok. Plan B is now in effect. Asurmen charges a squad of guard as well as the remaining psyker and I charge the serpents and falcon into the tanks on the table after shooting at extreme close range. Apart from Pask I have tied up his entire tank line now. Over the next couple of turns Asurmen and my spirit seer finish the infantry infront of them as well as the psyker, platoon commander a basilisk and half kill a Russ. The infantry (except creed curse my luck!) all die to over whelming fire and my falcon nukes the hell hound it charges after the enemy falls back. It also finishes a basilisk before pask draws a bead on it. The game ends T6 and I hold the major, minor and one normal objective to his single normal objective. I also realise I still have 20 avengers I have yet to deploy from their tanks! Major win.

So – 4 wins from 4 games. I don’t win overall as another player who went 3/0/1 had 2 more total battle points then me but undefeated is enough.

I was really pleasantly surprised at how well the army performed – Asurmen, the Banshees and the Falcon all doing work each game. I would prefer a Bright lance on the falcon but the starcannon performed admirably. Reapers are just good but 5 feels like its to hit and miss – they had moments of brilliance but they were balanced with turns of nothing.

The boys (Jake and Matt) at Beyond Games and Hobby did an awesome job on the day – a great way to kick things off for them, especially as it’s the first event they have run!