The Greatest Crusade: Horus Heresy Event!

On Sunday I had the pleasure of attending a friendly Horus Heresy tournament: The Greatest Crusade at the Titans Wargaming Club in London! And friendly was the name of the game: games were shorted not due to scoring but due to narrative match ups and no one was bringing to much of a. Disgusting. List, not that you can bring such a thing in Horus Heresy...

As you might imagine, I took my Mechanicus, finally getting to use them in some full Horus Heresy game: now that I have I can tell you why Horus Heresy is that much more popular then 40k among much of the community these days. But I digress, my list:

My Mechanicus Force

HQ - Magos Dominus: For the HQ, I was more focussed on keeping him cheap. Having run more expensive Magi in the past, they never seem to beat Space Marines in combat and never pump out e eqivilent firepower of their Mechanicus counterparts. I simply mounted this guy on an Abeyant to give him some survivability, and gave him a few defensive upgrades.

Elite - Tech Priest Auxillia: With the free feel no pain upgrade, I kept this guy cheap and cheerful to: he was only there to provide extra an Cortex Controller to keep the Castellax under my command...

Troops - Adsecularis Covenant: cheap and cheerful, these guys helped fill my mandatory troops and provide some expendable bodies. The tech priest helped the, stay alive, but I don't think they killed anything all day...

Troops - Thallax Cohort: My other troops choice, and a fun little harassment unit. I still ink these guys are not worth the points, but they can perform their roll reasonably well.

Troops - Castellax: Here is the real bulk of my force: 4 separate Castellaxs. Two armed with enhanced targeting arrays, two with 2 Flamers replacing the rear bolters. These guys are tough to kill and can pour the firepower onto Legion Marines. With the Magos' Cybertheurgy buffs, they proved much, much better.

Fast Attack - Avenger Strike Fighter: With two Autocannons filling the other two hard points, tp the Avenger proved a good choice: able to mow down infantry, destroy tanks, hurt Knights and hunt flyers, it is an extremely versatile choice, and one I will be taking again.

Heavy Support - Krios Venator: This thing is nasty. On paper it looked like it would provide the ranged anti vehicle I was lacking: in game it proved much, much more. A 4 shot Lascannon with ordnance as it's main gun, it could kill any vehicle if it got the chance. And it did...

Lord of War - Mechanicum Queatoris Knight Errant: With my Thanatar unpainted, I decided to take his guy... And he proved so very, very useful...

Now with that done, onto the games....

Game 1 - Mechanicus vs. Emperor Children

Dawn of War - Onslaught

My Opponent's Army

My first game I was playing a new comer to Horus Heresy. With the event focused around encouraging more 30k at the club and in the area, painting and proxy rules for this one event were slightly relaxed. Taking the most advantage was my opponent this game, with various 40k marine models and two different color scheme altogether.

Deployment, as per the rules for the Onslaught mission, was strange but I managed to seize the initiative! Taking the first turn, all my firepower amounted to a single attack bike killed, and some hull points taken of a Sicarian. Still, it proved better then his first turn: he failed to do anything but take a wound off a Thallax. This continued for much of the early game, with his entire deployed force destroyed by turn 3: luckily for him, a Storm Eagle bearing 20 marines had arrive, and this squad included more then a few characters...

The Destruction by turn 2...

At the beginning of turn 4, I held both objectives and had destroyed half his force: but he managed to slowly claw it back, striking the mostly abandoned objective in my deployment, I had to rush my forces back. Unfortunately, they arrived piece meal, and the two Castellaxs, the Tech Thralls and the Thallax all got cut down, eventually, by the unit and the Praetor in it: fortunately they held out long enough for the Knight to arrive, at which point it was all over.

Sir Oberon comes to the rescue while a Castellax holds up the enemy

The Storm Eagle rushed to contest his own objective, and I failed to shoot it down repeatedly. In the end, I win because it went on to turn 7, and the knight was able to shake the tactical squad off my objective...

Game 2 - Mechanicus vs. Word Bearers
Hammer and Anvil - Shatter Strike

Unfortunately, I got few photos of this game. Still, it was a fun one: versus Word Bearers, which were using then new possessed Contemptor Dreadnought which he picked up at the Horus Heresy weekend.

With his army held in reserves mostly, I had only that Dread and a duel Assault Cannon one. The possessed dreadnought showed it's worth, it's special rules forcing my Thallax and the Adscularis Covenant to fall back on the first turn. They eventually rallied however, and soon a Dreadclaw had arrived. With little else to shoot, it was killed by one quick blast from the Knight's Thermal Cannon, disgorging it's occupants, Kor Phearon and all, right into my right flank. One hail of fire later, and the squad is reduced to just Kor Phearon and the nuncio vox. Unfortunately, the nuncio vox called down the Gal Vorbek. Kor Phearon joined them, cast endurance, and the grind began. Getting a round of shooting before charging them, it took 4 turns with all 4 Castellax, and for the last two the Knight (which was freshly back from stomping on the Dreadnoughts) to kill them all. Having lost all but one of the Castellax in the fight,

Meanwhile, a veteran squad outflanked in a rhino onto my flank, firing missile launchers out of the back hatch at my Magos, killing him. In return, a hail of firepower from me wiped them off the board.

With everything of the enemy but the lone nuncio vox, the game ended. The nuncio vox which was in my deployment zone: I had lost the game because of this one guy! Curses!

The accursed Nuncio Vox, saved from a gory end by the end of the game

Game 3 - Mechanicus and Salamanders vs. Night Lords and Death Guard
Dawn of War - Crusade

The final game of the day: a doubles game! This would be no easy task however: the Night Lords were led by Curze, and the Death Guard had friends: not one, but two Knights!

Conspiring with my ally, we made out plan. With two objectives close to each other on one flank, we focused our forces, as did our enemy (They did put a battle cannon armed Knight on the other flank, although he was alone over there). Fortunately, between my Knight, my allies Spartan and bad luck for our enemy, the Knight Errant attacking us (A seneschal with extra WS, BS and a 3+ invuln) was killed turn 3. With a huge Night Lords assault squad on the run, it came down to Curze and his raptors to survive and win the day. Then the showdown happened...

Vulkan Lives! The epic showdown...

Unfortunately for Curze and his raptors, the Firedrakes, my Castellax and Vulkan proved way to much for them. All the Night Lords were swept aside in one round of combat, Curze himself left broken and dead.

From there, the game was as good as won: Victory for the loyalists!

Conclusions
I loved the event, and loved seeing a variety of well painted armies! It was only a shame I didn't get more games, and am fervently looking forward to similar events in the future. Chris organised it extremely well, the spirit of fun over competitiveness in the entire day.