Last year I received an invite from Kane Tucker, a prominent Melbourne gamer to attend the inaugural Liber Animus event. It was held in March 2004 but being only a single day event, it was hard to justify the expense of a trip across the Tasman. However, I indicated to Kane that if it were expanded to two days, I’d love to be involved in future events. So I was very pleased to get an email extending an invitation to LAII.

Kane and his sidekick, Ratboy have set up Liber with a definite aim in mind. The intention was to attract the top echelon of 40k hobbyists from across Australasia to participate in a tournament. The emphasis was on participants’ all round hobby skills – Gameplay, Painting, Army Construction and Sportsmanship.

Warlords Richard Dagger, Hagen Kerr and myself travelled across Friday for the event. We had booked a motel in Ringwood with the other out-of-staters and assorted Victorians. Being both old and fragile I crashed out at around 11.30pm.

For the event I took my Death Guard army that won last year’s New Zealand Grand Tournament. As I do before any tournament I set myself some targets. Here they were to finish in the Top 10 Overall and to place in the top half for Sports.

Walking into the hall the first thing that struck me was the amount of terrain on the 20 tables. Each had 150-200% of the normal GT table. The terrain was also of an extremely high quality – certainly, as a whole, the best I have seen at a tournament.

As I do before any tournament I set myself some targets. Here they were to finish in the Top 10 Overall and to place in the top half for Sports.

Game 1 – Tony Perkins (Thousand Sons) – Behind Enemy Lines
The first round was a Grudge Match. Tony was a great guy when we met at last year’s Australian GT and what better to kick off the tournament than Nurgle versus Tzeentch.

Game involved getting scoring units into the two corners on your opponent’s side of the table. The key point in the game was my shooting of Tony’s Rhino – spilling out its contents for other units to target and blocking a defile between the terrain. This set off a chain of events which allowed me to dictate the game. Tony was forced to try and take his Land Raider through a forest and it was immobilised. This meant I could then focus on taking down his 9 Termies as they were the second biggest threat.

In the end I managed to get three scoring units into the scoring zones for the win.

Game 2 – Ramon Saheed (Dark Angels) – Storm or Hold
Up against the LA I “Bloodthirster” (Highest Battle Points). Ramon was using a borrowed (Mike Consto?) Dark Angels army. In it were two predators, a vindicator, an AC dread, two single AC landspeeders and a LC razorback. This was backed up by several Las/plas squads and some termies.

The mission gave you the choice to storm the enemy trenches or hold your own. I felt that Ramon had too much firepower for me to storm all his trenches so we both held. The key moment in the battle was probably the preliminary bombardment. My battle plan was built around a strike on one flank by my rhino squad, daemons and one squad of nurglings. Unfortunately the bombardment resulted in 3 of my marines dying and on the first turn the other four were vapourised when a vindicator shell deviated onto them.

Ramon was able to reduce two of my trenches to half on the last turn giving him the win.

Game 3 – Leigh Tresidder (Black Templar) – Spy
Leigh had an excellent BT army composed of four 14-15 man squads, two dreads, a whirlwind and two Crusaders.

Spy involved inserting your spy into an enemy unit and then getting him off your board edge.

The key game moment s were the death of the BT spy caught by a squad of pursuing Plaguemarines and the death of the Nurgle spy “Blowvius” (The Fly on the Wall). He was caught three inches from safety when he was charged and killed by 14 BT Marines, the Emperor’s Champ and the Marshall.

Another hard fought game that ended in a draw.

After three rounds of Liber I had had three very good games against excellent opponents. I didn’t feel I was playing as well as I could but that had to be put in context of the quality of the opposition.

The Battle of the Ditch II – Leigh Avery (Space Marine) – Take and Hold Omega
After three 2000 point games I was absolutely knackered and this game is a bit of a blur. At one stage I fell asleep at the table making an armour save. Leigh’s army was excellent, totally mechanised and strongly themed.

The Death Guard took a lot of damage early but managed to pull it back in the later turns. Managed to move some high scoring units into objective zone to hold centre.

Day 2

Game 4 – Dave Atkins (Iron Warriors) – Hero
Dave has been dominating the Vic circuit lately so I was keen to test myself against him. I had said to Kane earlier in the week that playing him would be a highlight. In this tournament he was using a new IW army, heavy as you would expect on Heavy Support. However, the army was extremely well constructed with backing from large infantry units rather than the standard small lasplas squads.

I was a bit uncomfortable with this mission. It has a high randomness quotient to it meaning that the game could be won or lost by series of factors outside your control. I personally think it crossed the boundary of balance for it to be a good tournament mission. That said, Dave and I experienced no adverse or positive effects. However it would have been a shame if we had.

For me the key points in this game were deployment and two combats. Dave had 4 HS choices – Pred, Basilisk (no indirect), a dread and a Vindicator. Of these the last one was the biggest threat. I felt Dave erred in placing this early (towards one flank) as it allowed me to cram the other flank. I’ll be interested to hear Dave’s thoughts but I think I would have placed it last of my HS choices. Its placement meant it had to redeploy to affect the battle as both heroes were on the other flank.

The first of the combats that impacted was one on the central hill. One of my 14 man squads had captured it to hinder Dave’s redeployment of armour. It was then stormed by a 17 man squad plus hero with another squad in fire support. My guys held and they received reinforcements next turn from the plaguebearers. However the 28 wounds of Nurglings I wanted to add to the mix failed their difficult terrain move and my squad and plaguebearers were cut down. This left Dave with a passage into my deployment zone.

The second combat was between my Hero, Lord and termies versus Dave’s Lord and termies. My guys had swept into them after killing an Obliterator. I was very hopeful of cutting them down. My Lord was matched versus Dave’s Lord and with the benefit of hitting on 3+ I did five wounds – uncharitably Dave made all five 5+ saves. I’m pretty sure I said “Goodness Gracious”. To add insult my lord was then wounded taking him down to a single wound. However it was critical as it allowed Dave to bring a new squad in to tie up my free termies and add wounds to outnumbering.

In the end we both managed to wound one another’s Hero but time ran out at the end of Turn 4. I think we were both happy with the drawn result. Certainly Dave played more aggressive than I thought he would and this contributed to an excellent game.

Game 5 – Scott Pearce (Necrons) – Black Box
The mission was a variant of Thunderhawk Down – but being hit was far far worse. Scott’s army was again very well composed. I was a bit nervous re the two Lords but to be fair he only ran three Destroyers…so it balanced out.

The plane hit turn three. I had moved troops into the entanglement zone betting that while I would be “pinned” for a turn control of space was critical.

The key moment in the battle was the failure by the Necrons of two morale checks, one due to combat and one to shooting. Both fell back and one never recovered. By the end of the game I had the Necrons about 5-10 models from phasing out but crucially outnumbered them 4-1 in the objective zone.

One funny aside in the game was the part the Heavy Destroyers played. One made 3 WBB rolls meaning at the end of the game I was trying to kill it for the fourth time. Another had four shots at my Defiler failing to either hit or glance on the first three. Scott was pretty happy when he destroyed it on the last turn.

So I finished with two wins, two good draws and a good loss (battle points wise). I had had five very good and hard fought games. All my opponents were extremely pleasant to play….and all tested my army to the extreme. Before each game we spent five minutes going through terrain, die rolls etc and it was great that there were absolutely no problems as a result. I had three instances where we needed clarification of mission rules and these were all agreed amicably. This really made the tournie for me as there is always potential for dispute/regional variance when different groups meet. Certainly I never felt at any stage that there was anything “gamey” going on in any of my battles. Thanks Tony, Ramon, Leigh, David and Scott (and Leigh Avery). At the end we had to pick our best opponent of the weekend and this was definitely a difficult one – nice conundrum.

After the fourth round the Painting scores were posted and I was really pleased to see the Death Guard had caught the judges’ eye. There were some beautifully painted armies there, my two favourites being Troy’s Ultramarines (best army I’ve seen in the flesh – White Dwarf pictures didn’t do it justice) and Michael Boles’ Sisters (I want to know who you sold your soul to to paint that well).

Given Troy’s Painting and Battle scores I thought it would have to be very difficult for anyone to catch him. As we sat down for the prizes I was hopeful of making the cut in the “Harlequin” and perhaps breaking the Top 10.

Kane did a great job with the speeches, setting the right tone. The countdown from 40 mixed with the blister prizes was excellent.

I survived the cut to Top 10 (yay Target One achieved) and was extremely chuffed to pick up 3rd Place Best Army. Started to get nervous as the places counted down! To be called up as one of the Top 3 was certainly better than I assumed. Certainly was surprised to jump past Brodie to claim the coveted “Commissar” for 2nd Overall.

Well done to Troy on his win. I felt his Ultramarines were clearly the best army there and he backed it up with a great battle score and sports. A well deserved “Warmaster” and from my viewpoint I was extremely happy to finish second behind such a deserved winner. Also well done to Brodie, I thought his result was a fantastic effort.

When it came to actual results I finished 4 points behind Troy. Where I managed to make up some points was on Sports scoring where I was one of the eight who finished with the top mark of 65. This was extremely important for me as I was determined that my opponents would have a good time over the weekend and it looks like I achieved that. Thanks Tony, Ramon, Leigh, David and Scott, you were great opponents.

My army performed okay over the weekend. It was largely set up for New Zealand gaming conditions and I felt it was a little underpowered compared to those I faced (that may be a jaundiced view though) . It certainly lacked the “firepower/ability to hurt” when compared to a lot of armies at the event. The other thing was that it was constructed expecting to see at least a few missions with “Escalation”. What I didn’t realise is that escalation/reserve missions are very rarely played in Victoria. I spoke to quite a few guys about it and the general feeling was that if you buy something you shouldn’t be handicapped from using it. This also explained why missions with deep strike and infiltration are popular. I can see why people go vehicle/toy-heavy if you know that you will always use them. However I think that firstly it possibly unbalances the game to always allow everything and secondly it makes it less tactically challenging. I’d be interested in people’s thoughts on this.

Finally a few thank yous. Firstly, to Troy for his generosity in forgoing his prize. As a result my Chaos Battle Force was promoted to a Space Marine army. Thanks. I’m going to have two excited sons tonight . Secondly to Leigh Avery who gave us lifts to and from the venue . You were great Leigh…really appreciate it. Great to catch up with the SA guys as well as the Melbourne boys – you really made us feel welcome.

Thanks to the Thugs – Drew, Mark, Dan and especially Big Red. You got through a power of work and made the event run smoothly. And to Kane and Rat – thanks for inviting us over. You guys ran a fantastic event and really welcomed us in. I was a bit nervous before the event as I had really built it up to Hagen and Richard and I wanted them to enjoy their first jaunt to play in Melbourne. I can tell you that it greatly exceeded my already high expectations. I’d love to be invited back.

And cheers Hagen and Richard. You were great traveling companions. I had an excellent time in no small part due to you both.

Ghetti’s Liber V Tourney Report

Friday night pre-Liber V was spent finishing of my avatar and some bases, cleaning the house and Ben$quig and Dan dropped round for a beer and chat. Got to bed later than I would have liked, but meh, that’s fairly much standard on the night before a tourney anyways…

What I took…

“The Wrath of Prince Yriel”

HQ –
Yriel
Avatar

TROOPS -
2 x 10 Dire Avengers with Exarch, twin cats and Blade Storm
1 x 9 Dire Avengers with Exarch, blade and shimmershield and Defend
1 x 10 Wraithguard with spiritseer, singing spear and Conceal

ELITES -
1 x 5 Wraithguard with warlock and Conceal mounted in Wave Serpent with TL EMLs

HEAVY SUPPORT -
1 x 5 Dark Reapers with Exarch, EML and Fast Shot
1 x Wraithlord with EML & BL
1 x Wraithlord with SC & SL

Game #1: Thunderhawk Down mission
Opponent: Richard Dagger
Army: Tau Farsight Army: Commander and Bodyguard, Hammerhead, 2 Broadsides, Stealth Suits and tons of Fire Warriors… oh, and bothersome pathfinders!

This was a game 4 years in the making. Ever since Dagger came across for LA2, I was keen as to have a game with him. Wasn’t able to work out a good time to game the past few years, I was always tied up with TO stuff, so my grudge match for LA5 was with Mr. Dagger. Was looking forward to it immensely.

So, the game was 15″ deployment from one another, meaning my DAs were fairly much in range from turn 1. Richard was forced to set up close due to the mission and the terrain. I was able to pick my quarter, grabbed one that suited me best but Dagger got first turn. His pathfinders light up my wraithguard and he punished them with almost every gun he had. The tough sods only lost 5 guys, I was pretty chuffed with that actually, as it meant my DAs where safe for the time being. I pushed forward with the DAs, Avatar and WLs, wary of the fact all his guns could wound my big fellas. Shuriken discs flew and fire warriors dropped. Yriel and the waveserpent WG sqd scooted down the flank and shot a few of those pesky pathfinders. Most importantly, I was able to tag his hammerhead… que big sigh of relief.
There were still lots of fire warriors able to pump shots out and the big WG squad disappeared, his commander and bodyguards plasma weapons made sure of it. Daggers stealth suits dropped down behind my lines and started hassling the dark reapers. I’d have to deal with them some how, so sent a unit of DAs after them, another unit held firm while another moved forward with the WLs. The big fellas started playing with his firewarriors. Yriel sprang through his army and went after the broadsides. The small WG chased off his pathfinders.

It all went a bit pear-shaped for Dagger at this point. Yriel free the WLs from having to waste time wading through fire warriors, then jumped on his commander and bodyguard. Meanwhile, the Avatar advanced through the crowd of diminished FWs and joined him… Tau HQ eliminated. The stealth suit DA mini-war was amusing. First lot of DA got mauled by burst cannon shots and were struggling in combat, so another unit of DAs came to their rescue and tipped the balance.

Last turn I was able to kill the two remaining pathfinders, cowering near the table edge.

A onesided game unfortunately, but Dagger was super nice to play, baring the mounting casualties with a smile.

Result: Win – 20
Best on Ground (BoG): Yriel, definitely, carving up the broadsides, then clearing out 2 fire warriors squads before taking on his commander and bodyguard (granted, with help from the Avatar).
Most Memorable Moment (MMM): Markerlight city on my poor defenseless wraithguard… nearly the entire army was hitting them on 2s! I reckon the poor dead dudes had been blinded.

Game #2: Ummm, no-mans-land recon type mission
Opponent: Ben ‘Neopoleon’ Llewellyn
Army: Imperial Guard: Lots of guardsmen, 3 units of storm troopers, bassie, demolisher, 2 Dire Avenger toasters (Hellhounds), ogryns, sentinels with lascannons.

I’ve played Ben a few times now, but the last time was at my place, the usualy beers and bullsh!t talk… this was no different. This was bound to be a cracker of a game, because without fail our games seem to always come down to the wire. Got a lot of respect for Benny too, plays his guard very well, knows what they can do and what they can’t do. Definitely a thinker. This game though, was looking to be a very one sided affair.

We had to get scoring units in to our opponents corners, fairly much a 15″ x 15′ square area in each corner next to the enemies deployment zone. I knew Ben wasn’t going to come after me, he’d be aiming to thump 5 kinds of sh!t out of me before racing forward with his vehicles to win the game.

Guess what, that’s exactly what he did! My DAs suffered massive casualties from his gun line and hellhounds… I focused on pushing my WLs and big WG sqd up one flank. This scared his big tanks away but he met my advance with sentenils, strom troopers and ogryns. The rest of my army disappeared pretty quickly, but I was able to knock out his tanks, which was a small releif. The WLs fell next and my big WG squad got thumped by the ogryns.

I was copping a serious mauling. But, on the last turn Ben had to get his now depleted ogryns in to the no-mans land to claim the win… I had one model in my entire army left… the small WGs wave serpent ;]. I had to kill one ogryn to bring the unit under half strength and hence claim a draw. He shoots, he hits, he kills!!! Ben was robbed of a win, but I was stoked! Another close game with Mr. Llewellyn, that came down to quite literally the last dice roll.

Result: Draw – 11
BoG: Wave serpent… the plucky skimmer gave me the draw causing casaulty… no one else did anything that mattered.
MMM: Other than the game deciding last dice roll… watching my war god fail saves and die to mass lasguns was rather funny, if rather sad too.

Game #3: Placings flags on objectives mission
Opponent: Antony ‘Lord Akkrand’ Marshall
Army: Eldar: Eldrad, autarch on bike, guardians, 2 lots of avengers, rangers, pathfinders, jetbikes, small harlequin mob, wraithlord, fire dragons, warp spiders, vibro cannons… oh, and unkillable falcon.

After about 6 years of playing in tournaments, I had never played one of the Marshall brothers. Finally I got to play one, and a fellow eldar player as well. Eldar vs Eldar is always a messy game, so this was going to be fun. Antony had a nice mix of lots of differing units from the codex which was refreshign to see. But he had Eldrad too, and that is one dude I seriously feared.

We had to place flags on 6 objectives around the table, but the unit couldn’t do anything whilst placing a flag, which was going to prove tricky. I got to pick the quarter again I grabbed the one with the nice wide clump of trees right in front of me. The plan was to horde behind the trees and then jump out and shoot the bejesus out of him.

It kinda worked. Got first turn so starting clearing out the rangers and pthfinders from the objectives on my flanks, moved the big WG squad out in to the open and massed the DAs ready for the ‘big push’. Yriel and the small WG sqd scooted out on my left flank and annoyed the pathfinders ensconced in a bunker.
Antony threw everything at the WG squad, which were doomed and guided against. 5 of the lads fell, which was cool with me, that was their lot in life/death. Eldrad moved forward with the DAs and guardians, with the jetbikes and autarch prowling around behind them.

The big push was due, and we came out blazing, mincing his guardians and DAs. The Avatar moved with them to keep them in the game. WLs walked in to the trees and lent their firepower as well. Yriel cleared the pathfinders from the bunker and then hid himself ready to jump forward when things got ugly on the front line. Eldrad was all alone but the ballsy little fella ran straight at one of my WLs, psyking himself up with fortune on the way in. The warp spiders dropped down behind my reapers and did little while his falcon with dragons in it worked its way behind me lines. Eldrad didn’t do anything against my WL and then his autarch hit my big WG sqd with jetbikes in tow. A unit of DAs which had bladestormed previously assaulted Eldrad, along with the Avatar… it was time to teach grandpa a lesson. Yriel took on his autarch but didn’t do anything. I think the Avatar caused a wound on the venerable Eldrad before the Dire Avengers called “Stacks on Grandpa” and Eldrad fell under the mass of blue armoured aspect warriors. Woot! Eldrad is one potent special character, felt good breaking his hip and taking him out of the game. After this Antony’s harlies charged my Avatar, bounced and ran… then got filleted by the ‘Grandpa killers’ next turn. The warpies got hammered by the reapers but assaulted them, then died, eventually. Another unit of DAs got toasted by some fire dragons before they got slammed by Mr Grumpy Avatar. For the life of me I couldn’t down his falcon, it was hugely frustrating, because even though it couldn’t shoot it could keep bouncing around placing flags. However, by this time I thought I’d done enough to secure a win. His WL charged my small WG sqd, did bugger all, my baby WLs caused a wound back, respect, then Yriel jumped in and cut the big fella down.

Lo and behold, it ended up we had the same amount of flags! But wait, I had more scoring units, Iyanden for teh win!1!!1!

Result: Win 17
BoG: The Dire Avenger unit that took out Eldrad… nailing him definitely helped my cause a heap.
MMM: Yet again, I got a warm fuzzy feeling when Eldrad bit the dust, but most memorable was Yriel taking down the WL… granted, he was already wounded… but thematically it would have rocked.

Battle of the Ditch Game: Recon Alpha
Opponent: Jack ‘Little Horus’ Dunn
Army: Eldar (Karandras Scorpion Cult): Karandras, Autarch, 3 mobs of scorpions, 2 mobs of storm guardians, jetbikes, unkillable falcon… all the foot stuff was in waveserpents.

Great, another eldar player for BotD. The Aussies had lost the previous 4 years, no pressure to perform then ;] Playing Jack was bound to be cool. I’ve watched him play and his army I knew was very well themed, painted well and very balanced. We rolled up Recon Alpha, so his highly mobile force had to get in to my deployment zone whilst my scoring unit superior army had to plod across the table to get to his. Interesting, to say the least. He had to do something to either slow me down or kill me off, which risked his own scoring units.

So, yet again, a plan had been developed. Advance in a big block whilst trying to take a few skimmers down on the way through.

It generally worked pretty well. Jack was forced to attempt to kill off a few of my squads, but that bogged him down. I was able to get 2 units of WG and 2 WLs in to his zone, whilst Jack got his unkillabel falcon plus 2 units of scorpions over the line. A tight one, and mega enjoyable. Thanks for the game Jack!

Result: Win!
BoG: Whatever took the pulse laser off the falcon… after 2 games of shooting at falcons, it was the best result I’d had… man, are they annoying! Just wondering how many I should have in my army now…
MMM: Avatar… giving Karandras a seeing-to.

Day 1 Summary: Well, ferk me, my list had surprised me a tad. Was stoked with every game, I’d play some great players with nice, balanced armies in some close, tense (in a good way) games. What more could I ask for? More of the same would be super… was fearing running up against a true ‘Iyanden Slayer’ army, but was mega happy with day one.

Game #4: Another objective mission
Opponent: Pete Dunn
Army: Space Marines: Chappo and cmd sqd, Librarian and termie cmd sqd, 4 tac squads, 3 dreads of which one was venerable. All in drop pods.

One word: Awesome. Another guy I’d wanted to play for a very long time. We’d conversed at length about lists and what we should take and how they would fair against each other and now we would get to test all that theory out for real. Was a big fan of the drop pod list he had taken, a ‘pure’ drop pod list. Well painted and well constructed list. It matched up well against my guys and would come down to how much Pete got on the table early and how much he could hurt me in the first few turns.

Escalation meant my big fellas came on late and the foot troops advanced close to the centre of the board in a huddle, the DAs decidely coy with no Avatar to bolster their bravery. Pete got all his dreads and 3 tac squads in the 2nd turn and through everything at the big wraithguard sqd. Ouch. 9 dead WG… more due to my inability to roll anything above 2… *sigh* this was not going well. My waevserpent WG came on with the avatar, WLs had obviously slept in. Punished 2 of his tac squads with reapers and DAs and the now massively depleted big WG sqd went ven dread hunting. One shot from a wraithcannon was all that was needed… boom, bye bye ven dread. Yriel speared another dread and took his fist off so he assautled, immobilising him.

Another tac squad came down but still no sign of his HQ cmd sqds, thank shmirgen. A DA squad got mauled but otherwise not much happened. Other than the most humbling showing for Prince Yriel… took the dreadies other arm off and stunned him again… then the now armless and immobilised dread with his 1 attack headed butted Yriel… you guessed it, he failed his 3+ save and died *sigh*.

My WLs came on ready to defend my objective and the small WG squad nuked another dready. Not much else was happening. Then Pete’s command sqds came down next to my objective and wounded a WL to reduce him to non-scoring status whilst also cutting in to my reapers to make them non-scoring. The tide was turning.

In return, I shot up his chaplains cmd sqd a bit and took down a termie from his Librarians cmd sqd. WLs assaulted termies and Librarian, Avatar assaulted chappo’s cmd sqd with hidden PF. Avatar mauled ‘em but they were fearless. The WLs, with all 6 attacks, missed everything, but so did the termies in return *phew*.
My hero helped the Avatar kill off the chappo and cmd sqd, whilst the WLs finally killed something and the librarian and remaining termie ran.

Oddly enough, Pete’s hero missed all the drop pods and had to run on from the back of his deployment board.

End result after checking scoring units on objectives…. a draw.
Awesome game and no mistake, enjoyed every minute of it.

Result: Draw 12
BoG: Big wraithguard squad, took a pounding but lived long enough to nuke his venerable dreadnought with one shot, woot!
MMM: 2 Wraithlords vs 3 terminators… a comedy of errors, from both sides… made things very interesting indeed.

Game #5: Secret Objectives mission
Opponent: Mike ‘Consto’ Constantinou
Army: Ravenwing (fairly much): Master in speeder, chaplain, dread with PC, err lotsa bikes, soem dudes on foot, small assault squad, tornadoes, and a whirlwind.

Nervously read the next round draw and was delighted to see whom my opponent was, Mike Consto, awesome.

We’ve played once previously, a very long time ago, but I knew Mike was a consumate player and sport so was massively relaxed for this game. The match up was very bad for me from a army list POV. Lots of fast speeders with ACs and HBs… not much fun for my WLs and DAs. The whirlwind was goign to hurt to. I wasn’t overly concerned about the bikes… but my WG were a tad worried about the plasma weaponry. Either way, it was going to be an upp hill struggle, especially with minimal terrain to work with.
So, my secret mission was to claim table quarters… can’t remember what Mike’s was… Mike, can you remind me if you read this?

Anywho, I’m a big fan of hidden set up as it allows you to use decoys. With Mike’s combat squads and the like from his Biker squads he had like 24 tokens to place… bloody hell! Anyways, the general plan was to focus on holding 2 quarters and hopefully contesting one for a win. Granted, not knowing Mike’s objective meant it could still be a draw. Bulk of the army deployed in the right of middle and the anti-tank WL i bravely put on his own on the left flank to draw Mike’s units across.

Grabbed first turn and tried to take down my biggest threats, tornadoes. Nuked one and killed some Bikes. Big WG squad moved in to the centre to deny the central objective. Then I started getting hammered for a few turns. The ACs and HBs punished my DAs and WG… whenever I could I tag another speeder. Mike’s assault sqd and chappo assaulted my big WG squad and spent the rest fo the game trying to roll 6′s to wound. Avatar and Yriel worked they way across in to Mike’s deployment zone, cut down all opposition and killed the bloody whirlwind!

On the left flank Mike got greedy and tried to kill of my AT WL with his Master of the Ravenwing speeder. Didn’t kill him and the WL took the chance, ran forward and charged, got a 6 and ripped the uber-speeder from the sky, woot!

It’s worth mentioning, for the first 4 turns, my luck with dice was deplorable, Mike will attest to that I’m sure. But it improved marginally in the last few turns.

Anywho, I was pretty happy as I had fairly achieved what I had planned to do, I held 2 quarters and Mike had one. I can’t remember what Mike’s mission was but it hadn’t happened so had pulled off a win, with full points which surprised the hell out of me.

Result: Win 20
BoG: Avatar… he held the army together for as long as was necessary and then went speeder hunting. Chopped up some marines, nuked the whirlwind and sat down for a rest in Constos deployment zone.
MMM: Wraithlord with BL and EML… did bugger all until the 2nd last turn, then punched that pesky master out of the sky, booyah!

Game #6: Gods of War… VPs essentially
Opponent: Chris ‘Zero’ Appleby
Army: Tyranids: Shooty Tyrant, Shooty Carni, 2 screamer killers, stealers, 2 small choppy warrior mobs, 3 termagent mobs, 2 hormi mobs, Zoans, Ravenors.

Now, I’ll admit, I was thinking it’s about time I hit a Iyanden killer list… and yes, I was. But the player I was matched up with couldn’t have been a better last round opponent! Zero is one of the SA lads that came last year, whom I caught up with again at Terracon and will do so again in about a week or so time. Another top player, wicked.

I was concerned about the list, I hand’t played against nids with my list previously (hell, hadn’t playtested my army at all!) and the barbed stranglers and mass little bugs had me worried. But the mission was custom made to make Zero’s game difficult. Escalation seriously hurts Nids, especially since he had to get across the board and start reaping VPs from me.

Unfortunately, this was a game were I held most the aces and just had to play carefully to win it. I didn’t want to be an absolute twat and hide behind all the buildings all game, plus I was pretty sure what Zero had on the board could still reach me so wanted to maim them before his big bugs came on. The terrain was pretty conjested but I was able to get some good firing lines for my Reapers, this was a game I reckon they would do well in. Zero came at me from behind a large building down the right flank. The DAs moved forward and starting mauling the termagents and soon the WLs added their support. Zero got in a few shots with his termagents on my big WG squad, which I failed the saves for (3+ saves should be easy to roll, right?) and so he through as many termagents at the line as he could. The little fellas bounced and disappeared and then it was just a game of me shooting anything that reared its ugly head. The reapers kept the big bugs honest when they did arrive and there were no more combats as nothign could get close enough to me. My small WG sqd zoomed across the board to grab and extra point.

Zero had shocking reserve rolls and a mission which didn’t suit his army, but was a great guy to play with a few beers

Result: Win 18 (I think?)
BoG: Dark Reapers, killed a screamer killer in one turn, ripped apart a fair chunk of stealers and seriously maimed the tyrant… top job boys.
MMM: Charge of the last termagents… the little buggers swarmed over the big WG unit… and bounced, badly.

Results for Ghetti
3rd Bloodthirster (Most Battle Points): Iyanden for 3rd place most BPs just seems wrong, but I’ll take it! It was one of those weekends were I had (generally) the right armies on the right missions. Still, was really surprised with how well the army worked.
2nd Saint (Best Sport): This would have to be the coolest result in my eyes, thanks guys, every game was heaps of fun and played in the spirit of Liber, which was awesome!
4th Overall: Hey hey! What a surprise, really looking forward to see my comp and painting scores.

Summary: What a weekend! I was happy just to rock up and play some games of 40-hammers, drink beers and chat to everyone. Ended up with 7 awesome games, lots of beer and heaps of fun. Well done to the Golden D6, I’m pretty sure they produced a Liber V I would most definitely be proud of, great stuff. To everyone that attended, massive congrates, it’s you guys bringing the right attitude which defines the Spirit of Liber Animus. And finally to Pete ‘Horus’ Dunn, after 2 second placings as Commissar he’s been able to bag top placing. Awesome effort!

And it’s coming for all of you!

What the hell are you doing reading this crap? Shouldn’t you be getting your army painted?!

I was just reminiscing on a few Libers ago when we were at the Ringwood motel, and a few of us from SA stealthily performed a commando attack (read: pissed farts with electrical tape and beer) on the NZ vehicle, aptly decorating it the Spaz Wagon

LiberIII highlight:
Buddha: “What is all this about ‘and drank the milk of parrots’ stuff, Stu ?”

He’s coming for you!