So way back in 2013 when my FLG group was in it’s early phases, the two seasoned players in the group dreamed up a big game where 3 of us green horns would face off against both of them. They called it “The Special K Challenge” (I don’t remember why) and it was slated to be a massive battle. 4,000 points per side including Super-Heavies and epic clashes of massive hordes of bodies. The timing never panned out so we shelved the battle for an undetermined later date.
Fast forward to June 2014, I was still eager to play the big battle and thought we could at least to a 2v2 game sometime in July. After brief discussion, boom, the battle was vamped up to 5K per player (3K standard, 2K for LoW detachment) and going to take place on Jul 3rd. Josh R, Zack and I started a separate private Facebook group to work out strategy and talk about lists.. but we had no idea what we were up against. We thought “They’ll be 100% defensive and field a Baneblade or two…” no big deal right? Yea.. we were wrong.
On game day, I was the first to arrive at Josh S’ house only to be greeted with what looked like a Reaver Battle Titan. I couldn’t tell at first because it wasn’t painted and still in the construction phase but for a homebrew kit-bash titan, it was impressive to say the least. It was at this point, that while our strategy of mopping the floor with them was out the window, our main strategy of focusing on the Super-Heavies first was still in-play, just the task was much more complex.
Once everyone arrived, we headed down to the basement where the table, a 5×7 beasty, is located. This being Josh S’ home turf, we let them choose how they wanted to set up/deploy out of respect.. which they chose to deploy / go first. Nik was rocking a kit-bashed Reaver titan, which wasn’t as scarey as the giant Reaver, but it was enough to make it our #2 objective.
We deployed in a very scattered fashion, with the Stompa on the far left flank directly across from the Warhound and Zack’s Fellblade in the middle of the table. Josh R’s Thunderhawk was coming from reserves along with all our fliers and units that we simply couldn’t fit on the table.
No matter what turn we had, Zack’s strategy was to drop pod 3 units of Marines behind the Reaver and melta bomb it to kingdom come. If this failed, the Fellblade and Stompa were there to finish the job. Not too bad, but there were two Super-Heavies on the table and I was counting on Zack’s drop pod crew to take down the Reaver so I could focus on the Warhound and have the Thunderhawk come in as a clean-up crew next turn.
When the game kicked off, we knew that we were going to take a beating that first round. We had a single chance to turn the tide though. Steal the initiative! We let Josh R roll for us and sure enough, we stole the initiative! We were taken aback but accepted the gift that the dice gods bestowed upon us and started our move.
Zack dropped (I think) 5 pods behind their lines, 3 near the Reaver, 1 near a command squad and 1 near a Bastion. The bastion pod contained his assault terminators, the command squad pod contained his shooty terminators. They couldn’t do much upon arrival but the 3 pods that landed near the Reaver. they were a different story. I don’t recall the exact chapter they were from or what rule it was, but they could assault the turn they arrived from deep strike which was the edge we were counting on to take down that Reaver.
The problem was that with the 4 void shield and 18 hull points, that Reaver was a beast, soaking up basically 15K points worth of fire! Almost everything that could do anything to the Reaver shot at it. Zack’s Marines landed right behind the Reaver, ready to unleash 30 melta bombs… but we had to do something about those 4 void shields to make sure each one of those melta shots counted. My 20 Lootas unleashed a lucky 60 strength 7 shots, taking out the void shields. Zack’s melta bombs took it from 18 hull points down to 3. Eventually the Stompa finished the job with 3 Supa-Rokkits shots. What a massive pain, but wow that thing soaked up alot of fire.
The Stompa pinged at the Warhound, taking out its void shields and removed a few hull points. The only close combat was a unit of ‘Ard Boyz in a Trukk assaulted a squad of Cultists, wiping them out.
At the bottom of turn one, Nik and Josh unleashed hell! Nearly everything that could reach fired at the Stompa. I failed every single invulnerable roll that my KFF gave my Stompa any protection and eventually he succumbed to the massive volume of fire. The titanic explosion killed every occupant but the Meganobs. Elsewhere random pie-plates were dropped and shooting at random units continued. It was at the end of this round that we had been playing for 5+ hours and needed to call it quits. It was getting late and we under estimated the amount of time it would take to actually play such a large game.
In conclusion.. even though we only played a single round, it was one hell of a round. In the future we will play much smaller point games in a place with a little better ventilation (5 dudes in a basement does not yield good-smelling results.. just saying). Big thanks to Josh S for hosting and letting us stink up his basement.