Ninjabread

Curis got some Epic Squats. And then we all went out for curry. Those sentences are not the wrong way round.

Yes, the 2011 Epic UK Championship season has officially started with Full Scale Assault this weekend gone. Manchester’s gaming collective Flame On swamped it with their finest tactical brains. And Curis.

Left-to-right: Curis, Bob (3rd place), Si and Mike (Best Army – Judges’ Choice)

Si’s Shadow Scorpions

It was a time of extreme experimental lists. Si took his Shadow Scorpions Marine force (as Black Templars) and mounted everything in a Battle Barge. Battle Barges are only able to turn up on from the third turn onwards (at the end of which you determine victory conditions). It’s very last minute. It also gives his opponents two turns to manoeuvre however they so please to prepare for the scary orbital drop.

Simon adopting his extremely coy and lovable expression. We chalk this one up to sleep deprivation.

It’s also a very risky tactic as if the opponent has a strategy rating of 5 (one flavour of Eldar, all loyalist Marines) and a spacecraft of their own then all they have to do is win the strategy roll for picking spacecraft arrival turns to force the Shadow Scorpion Battle Barge to arrive turn 4 and thus not at all. Instant win. Luckily this didn’t happen. Si says:

I’d also like to tell you all that on the drive down we stopped to allow Si to place a serious orbital bombardment on some hedges. We’ve never seen him eat any food so what we was actually throwing up is anyone’s guess.

Bob’s Black Templars

But speaking of instant wins, Bob (also playing Black Templars) managed to win his second game without deploying a single model. Bob takes an incredibly aggressive “balls-on-the-road” Black Templar army that orbitally drops in turn one. Classically the mohawked man anticipates where his opponent will deploy his most expensive formation and focusses all his fury at it until it is dead. Aware of this extreme tactic Rug, his Imperial Guard adversary, clumped every formation together in a tight huddle so his most most expensive formation couldn’t get picked on without most of its friends being on hand.

Unfortunately, unbeknown to Rug, Bob had already plotted his Strike Cruiser’s Orbital bombardment at the exact co-ordinates as Rug’s big clump of Imperial Guard.

Before the Deathwind Drop Pods had landed and the army had deployed there was so much devastation Bob and Rug decided to call it a 5-0 perfect victory there and then. A game over in a single shot. A single shot from a model that wasn’t even on the table. Or anywhere, as Bob doesn’t actually own one.

Bob romped to 3rd place in the Epic UK Championship,

Curis’ Warlord Marines

Curis took a mighty Warlord Titan, the most expensive model available to an Imperial player. These are seldom seen at 3,000 points as they eat up so many points you’re left with a massive activation disadvantge. People out-activate you then run rings around the lumbering Warlord with its 15cm move.

Curis, smirking at his opponent. In his sleep-deprived state little did he realise his opponent had walked off some twenty-minutes earlier.

To compensate for this Curis made every other formation as cheap as possible – Scouts, Speeders, Thunderhawks, Thunderbolts and Assault Marines. This meant sourcing sixty Assault Marines (special thanks to Evil & Chaos) which come 9pm Friday night were still on their sprues. However, at 5am they looked like this.

And Mike and other things

Mike Mee had also left his painting last minute, and sickeningly won Judge’s Choice for Best Army. Congratulations Mike.

Special thanks to the chap who took all these photos.

The ever-avuncular Mephiston also gifted Curis with a collection of Epic Squats, swelling the ranks of his Golgothans with a second Land Train, Colossus and swathes of Gyrocopters. Look out for them.

Here’re Mephiston’s Blue and Orange Space Marines. Blue and Orange.

The day was finished off by the suitably epic prog blasting of The Octopus, which Curis has now learnt all the words to and performed them at maximum volume to keep Flame On awake for the entire journey back. Brief pauses were made to critique each other’s Grassman impersonations.

The next event is Into the Breach in March. What to take?