Last weekend I went to my first RAFWA (Royal Air Force Wargaming Association) event. It was a 3 day event at a hotel from Friday night to Sunday. There was all sorts of games being played including aerial combat, boats, historical, sci-fi, rpg and other things too.
Mmm tasty trophies
I was taking part in the 40k tournament. 5 games over the 3 days. The first game was a combat patrol mission to decide who would go against who in the first proper game. The proper games were 1750 points, 2 objective missions and 2 annihilation missions. I used my Necron scarab farm army.
Imotekh, cryptek with chronometron, 7 warriors all in a ghost ark.
7 warriors in a ghost ark.
Overlord with warscythe in a command barge.
6 wraiths with whip coils.
11 scarabs in 2 squads.
9 canoptek spyders in 3 squads.
Canoptek Goodness
The first game I played was against Dark Angels. It was a 400 point combat patrol mission with victory points (not kp). I won this game using some warriors and 6 wraiths with whip coils. Wraiths are still awesome!
The 2nd game (1750) I played was against Dark Eldar. We had a dawn of war annihilation mission. I decided to go 2nd and keep my entire army off table. The Dark Eldar came right up close to my board edge on turn 1, big mistake. 1st thing I did was bring on my command barge, 24 inches and sweep attack over his transport holding a bunch of incubi. The transport died, yay. Then I brought on the rest of my army. By the first turn assault phase I had my 6 wraiths in combat with one wych squad, 6 tomb spyders in combat with his incubi and his other wych squad had been decimated by gauss fire. In the 2nd turn he charged his archon into combat with my spyders, prompty failed to wound them and failed all but one of his 2+ inv saves, getting instant squished in the process. The rest of the game pretty much carried on like this except for his flyer which refused to die even with a whole necron army trying to kill it for 2 turns.
3rd game was against Dark Angels. I didn't know anyone still played DA and I got to play against 2 at this event! His army had 3 squads of termys as troops and some other shooty stuff. First couple of turns I took a pummelling from his shooting. Then the termys came down and I thought it was game over. But I still had a formidable amount of scarabs being built. I'd built of a squad of 30+ scarab bases and they'd pretty much taken the entire right half of the table by themselves, this was the area with no termys though. From the middle to the left half of the table 2 squads of termys held 2 objectives and there was a squad between them. Somehow my scarabs in the space of 3 turns managed to wipe through these 3 squads. Eventually I was contesting the far left objective with about 10 bases of scarabs and one terminator. There were no other Dark Angels left alive and I held one objective with about 4 warriors and Imotekh. Victory!
4th game was a particularly laboured and painful exercise. It was a game against a guard mech army. So far every opponent he'd played against got really pissed off with him and I was no exception. I nearly scraped a draw. It was a game of 2 objectives, one in each deployment zone. I had managed to destroy his troops controlling his one and nearly contested the one in my zone but he had a chimera with a vet squad in it. Sometimes I have fun loosing and sometimes I don't enjoy winning. This was definitely a game I did not enjoy at all. I'm not going to make any accusations about things being done wrong on here.
Instant killing power weapons...... oh crap....
I love command barges now!
5th game was a kill point game against Grey Knights being played by a GW manager. I lost this game entirely but I had fun doing it and that's what matters in a game. He didn't use any vehicles, it was mostly terminators. His army was the best painted army I played against too which made it better. I did manage to do some strange things in this game. Imotekh single handedly beat a squad of terminators in combat, bear in mind he doesn't have a power weapon. My scarabs managed to remove the armour save from his boss character before they died, he then got shot by gauss and died.
Whats that coming over the hill? Is it a Grey Knight, is it a Grey Kniiiiight?
It was a great event. We had dinner provided and other things to keep us occupied in the evenings. My gf had a bit too much to drink and we went to a very bizarre chinese restaurant where the waiter didn't know what soy sauce was or what green tea looked like. In the tournament I came 3rd somehow and got a nice trophy, the annoying guard army came first and the Grey Knights I lost to came 2nd. I did manage to claim 2nd in 2 painting categories as well but I didn't get a trophy for that :( I found that canoptek scarabs and spyders aren't as good in a tournament as I thought they'd be, too many people know how to kill them quickly for my liking.
I look forward to the next RAFWA event in October.