Horus Heresy Event - The Alkoss Resurgence, April 30th 2016

The event for which I had been feverishly painting up the Thousand Sons was this past weekend and I snapped a number of pics (though as per the usual, only about half of them were actually in focus and viable). The event was held at Gryphon Games in Fort Collins, Colorado just an hour up north from where I live, which was a double shocker - 1) I didn't know the game shop existed, and 2) I was starting to become convinced I was the only person doing Heresy stuff in the whole dang state. I was glad to be disabused of both notions! The event was a casual narrative type event which is my preferred state of gaming, and the players were asked to bring 1000, 2000 and/or 2500 point lists and the various game sized would be determined by the players, with prizes being awarded for best painted force, most loyal loyalist and most traitorous traitor. The group was relatively evenly split between the forces of the Emperor and the Warmaster, and we got stuck in straight away!

  

My first battle was against a terrifying Blood Angels assault company-themed list, with two massive jump pack assault squads, backed up by a couple tactical squads. The jump troops rushed forwards and put paid to my Land Raiders with no delay (both squads being loaded up on melta bombs) but the Thousand Sons terminators made a great showing and managed to slaughter the assault marines over the remaining several turns. When the dust settled the Loyalists squeaked out a win 7VP to 5VP. Brutal game!

Once the first game was done, everyone laid out their forces for judging of the best painted army, then we all took a break for some rather pizza and beer at a nearby restaurant.

Blood Angels army #1

Blood Angels army #2

Alpha Legion

Death Guard

Dark Angels

Sons of Horus

Once we got back, we totted up the results of the first game, and then decided to do a couple team games with the Death Guard player and myself facing off against the Blood Angels.

Unfortunately I didn't get many good pictures of that game, but it too was a bloodbath. Luckily it was in the Traitor's favor, and the Blood Angels were hammered into paste under the boots of the traitors!

On the other table the other four folks opted for a Zone Mortalis game and it was utter mayhem!

The final game of the day saw my Thousand Sons take on what appeared to be a very small force of Dark Angels. I should have sensed that they had some tricks up their sleeves but the Tiscan's overconfidence is always their downfall!

 

The Thousand Sons drove into the teeth of the Dark Angels positions sensing an easy victory...

...Only to be ravaged by their mastery of Plasma weaponry. Turns out the reason the army was small was because they were armed almost to a man with absolutely vicious short-ranged weapons that essentially washed the Thousand Sons off the table once they got within 12". Sneaky and underhanded, as is appropriate for the Dark Angels!

So as the dust settled on the event, the Thousand Sons went 1 and 2, which is 33% better than I expected them to fare! Had an excellent time with some great opponents, and there was much enjoyment all around. I was honored with the Best Painted award which provided a nice chunk of store credit at the game shop, and made a few new friends for future Heresy goodness! Good times!

It has been snowy and unpleasant for the last week so while the Orks for the NOVA Open Charitable Foundation raffle are ready to get started, it's been too cold and wet to primer anything. However, it typical Colorado fashion it's scheduled to be pushing 70F over the next couple days so expect to see a mess of greenskin posts soon!