Tanksgiving Report Part 2: The Battle
This is the second of a two-part report on the Tanksgiving armor mega-battle as it unfolded at my local Battle Bunker. The first part can be found here if you missed it. Part 1 dealt with the models that were brought to the game while this follow-up report will focus on the highlights of the battle itself.
First, as players brought all manner of vehicles, sides were determined mostly by a rough attempt to have an even number of vehicles on both sides. Concerns over which 40K army models were associated with were largely set aside for the day. Which side had the first turn? That was decided by a “waaggh”, which went to team 2 on the opposite side of the table from me. Here’s a shot of the forces arrayed in line of battle at the start of the game:
The sole objective of the game for each individual player was to destroy as many enemy models as possible. Each player kept a tally of their kill record for the game. Destroying vehicles took some effort and very little was lost early on, although I did lose a Brass Scorpion all in one go on turn 1. Sadly it did not apocalyptically explode. In fact, destroying vehicles outright was for the most part rather difficult. With all the super-heavies and their structure points, combined with armor 14 values on a lot of the regular and super-heavy vehicles, it was quite difficult to destroy anything quickly! By the time you roll to hit, roll to penetrate and roll on the damage table there’s a lot that can go wrong, so destroying vehicles outright requires a lot of dice and some cooperation from the law of averages too. When my team, team 1, got its first turn, we decided to improve our chances by rushing forward with Brass Scorpions, Land Speeders and Dreadnoughts to try and blast apart or rip apart vehicles at close range. Note the Slaaneshi Subjugator in the upper left corner of the photo below. These super-heavy walkers are fast and have a lot of attacks, so they usually take out some serious armor before being blasted apart. Tanksgiving was no exception.
Notice the empty space in front of the Brass Scorpions in the photo below. Moments earlier, that space had been occupied by Marneus Calgar’s Land Raider and the Land Raider Ares, but Brass Scorpions in close combat are highly effective like any monstrous or gargantuan creature against even armor 14. Behind the destroyed Land Raiders, still more Land Raiders and a Baneblade! Because the table was so crowded, destroyed vehicles were removed from the game table rather than left as wrecks to facilitate game play and the placement of more models from reserve.
An enormous battle line of tanks from team 2 rumbles forward:
Eventually, the store staff jumped in with a few surprises of their own, like massive Ork rocks:
and the Necron super-heavy orb dubbed by some the “disco ball of death”:
A desert scheme Tallarn Baneblade makes its way across the battlefield while the Necron super orb blasts away indiscriminately in all directions. The Necron “disco ball of death” did seem to have an affinity for firing at Brass Scorpions more than other models. I think this had more to do with the GW staff referee wanting to see as many Apocalyptic explosions as possible than it did any Necron schemes of conquest. Sadly, there were few such explosions in the game even with the 50% chance of one when a Khorne super-heavy is destroyed. The Chaos gods are a fickle lot.
Fortunately, the Ork rocks were fairly inaccurate in their landing, the largest of them missing the game table entirely. The Necron super orb was quite destructive however, firing ten shots per turn and when it lost its shields and five structure points it went up in a huge explosion like when a Titan explodes, taking out and damaging super-heavies and smaller vehicles and dreadnoughts alike.
At one point, I charged a Brass Scorpion with only one structure point left at the Brass Scorpion of a friend. His also only had one structure point left. Each achieved one penetrating hit, but his rolling was a bit better than mine so it was my Scorpion that was destroyed, while his was left merely immobilized.
Meanwhile, Hellblade Chaos fighters streak by overhead:
In the end, certificates were awarded to the person with the most kills, the most models in the game and the most models lost. Winners of the most kills and most lost categories also got a draw from a prize bin of wrapped boxes. The most kills player, who had about twelve or thirteen kills, was the owner of the Land Speeders and desert-themed Brass Scorpions shown in these Tanksgiving reports. He picked a rather large box from the prize bin which turned out to be a Tau megaforce. The winner of most vehicles brought to the game, eighteen, and most vehicles lost, seventeen, was the same person, the owner of the Land Raider Ares and other vehicles shown closely in my Tanksgiving Report Part 1. He ended up with a Necron Monolith as a prize.
Most importantly and pardon the pun, Tanksgiving was a blast! Everyone seemed to have a great time. Thanks again to the store staff and all the players for a really fun game. Now I know what I want to do next, I want to get some more Baneblades painted before the next big game!
