Greetings! This is a little bit later than I had intended, but hey, it’s only been two weeks, right? Anyway, back on 3 April, I played in the Battlefleet Gothic tournament at Adepticon. This event has been something I’ve wanted to do for many years now, so as you can imagine I was extremely excited to be participating! For those of you that read my event report on the Firestorm Armada tournament, the format of this post is going to be very similar. First, I’m going to discuss the format for the event, then I will refresh you all on the fleet list I used, and then I will go through each round. Let’s get to it, shall we?

Format

The tournament went for three rounds, starting at a bright and early 8 AM on Sunday morning, and finishing up a bit after 4:30 PM that afternoon. Each round was two hours long, with a few breaks mixed in. Each of the three rounds had a specific mission, with table terrain that was placed by the organizers. The event was being held in what was called the Utopia ball rooms, which were smaller rooms upstairs from the main gaming hall. On the downside, this put the event out of the main stream of traffic for the con, but on the plus side it meant that the noise level was much lower than it otherwise would have been.

My List

I posted previously on the list I took, as well as some of the background for the ships that were a part of the list. The event was played at 1750 points, with 1500 points being from your main faction, and 250 points being from an allied faction. I decided to go with everyone’s favorite Chocolate and Peanut Butter combo from the 40k universe; Space Marines and Imperial Navy. Since these two forces were “battle brothers,” or close allies, I was able to pick a special ability for the Space Marines. I chose “Expert Pilots,” which gave my Thunderhawks a 2+ resiliency check on top of their normal 4+, meaning that each one could survive up to 3 engagements with enemy ordnance per ordnance phase. This was especially important, I felt, since I was fairly ordnance light with the rest of the list. Anyway, here is what I was running:

Main IN Force

Total Fleet Cost: 1470

1 Retribution, 345 pts
1 Admiral (Ld 9), 100 pts = (base cost 100 + 1 Re-rolls)

1 Mars, 285 pts = (base cost 270 + Targeting Matrix 15)

1 Gothic, 180 pts

1 Tyrant, 200pts = (base cost 185 + 45cm Weapon Batteries 10+Power Ram 5)

5 Cobra, 150 pts = 5 * 30

6 Sword, 210 pts = 6 * 35

SM Allied Flotilla

Total Fleet Cost: 280

1 Strike Cruiser, 145 pts

3 Gladius, 135 pts = 3 * 45

Combined Force Cost = 1750 Points

Round 1

During the first round, I faced fellow Geek Nation Tour member Jon, who was running a Grey Knights SM fleet complete with a Retribution-class venerable battle barge. His fleet included no less than 6 of the old Forge World strike cruisers, and they were all painted to a very nice standard! This mission was pretty straight forward; standard victory conditions for the primary objective, with secondary objectives for the allied portion of your fleet drawing first blood and surviving the round. The only wrinkle was that there were asteroids flying through the board, from one short edge to the other. These were represented by small markers, and if they struck one of your ships you could take D6 hits!

My fleet prepares to engage the Grey Nights, already down a Cruiser.

As it turned out though, the asteroids were pretty much a non-issue. Most of the action took place in the center of the board, which was well sheltered by asteroid fields that deflected the ones flying through. Jon won the initiative, and on turn 2 used the planet in the middle of the table to his advantage by using its gravity well to allow him to maneuver even though he was on Lock On special orders. He had taken the bombardment cannon upgrade for three of his strike cruisers, which meant they were pumping out a fearsome strength 24 shot as a squadron! This destroyed or crippled two of my cruisers in quick succession, while his barge and other cruisers worked over my battleship. By turn 4, I chose to disengage the rest of my fleet, as I had been severely mauled for relatively little gain. A win for Jon!

Round 2

For the second round, I faced Andrew and his Corsair Eldar. Interestingly, his list included a lot of cruisers and only 5 escorts, somewhat unusual for Eldar in my experience. The second mission had an interesting twist; there was an object on the board in the center of the table that represented some kind of unknown anomaly.Ships that had line of sight to that anomaly suffered a negative leadership modifier, which got worse the closer your ship got to it. The main objective was the same as before, standard Victory points, while secondary objectives included the allied fleet surviving, the allied fleet drawing first blood, and having your Flagship out of line of sight the entire game.

As expected, my IN got horribly out-maneuvered by the Eldar!

I knew I would be in for a tough fight facing the Eldar, and I was correct! Austin won initiative this game as well, which didn’t help. My best success came on Turn 1, when I managed to kill Andrew’s Eclipse-class cruiser between my Swords and the Retribution. However, the legendary speed and maneuverability of the Eldar meant that I could hardly score a hit for the next three turns. I got a few in, and nearly destroyed another cruiser, but there were simply too many asteroid fields on the table for me to really get in position for some good attacks. Andrew also had some good luck on his side; he managed to use his light cruisers to reduce my poor Gothic to a wreck from full health in a single turn! This was a solid win for the Eldar.

Round 3

The final round, I was matched up with Drew (by and by, there were 3 or 4 Andrews playing in the event, including me!), who was running a gorgeously converted Slaneshi Chaos fleet that would go on to get the Best Painted award. Tentacles everywhere! The last scenario was perhaps the most extreme; there was a Neutron Star in the center of the board, which drew all ships on the table towards it each turn. The distance depended on the size of the ship; escorts moved 3d6 cm, cruisers moved 2D6, and battleships moved 1D6. Any models touching the start were immediately destroyed! On top of that, there was a mysterious wreck on the table that the two players were in a race to salvage. The first one to successfully do so got extra battle points.

Drew won initiative, and the impact of the neutron star’s pull was felt immediately as some of his ships were drawn into asteroids! However, the star also pulled some of his ships forward, and between that and his All Ahead Full orders, he was able to salvage the wreck before I had a chance to respond. To me, that seems something of a weakness to the scenario; essentially, the way it is set up, this secondary objective is almost an auto-achieve for the player that wins initiative. I think it might be better if both players could attempt to salvage the wreck, but I digress. For the rest of the game, Drew and I fought it out on the left side of the board, trying to stay away from the star as best we could. My greatest success was getting off a Nova Cannon shot that hit for 6 points of damage, crippling one of the Chaos fleet’s Devastation-class cruisers. That was the only time my Nova Cannon did anything the whole day, but it was awesome! In the end, we wound up almost equal in terms of Victory Points, though Drew did better with the secondary objectives. A narrow win for Drew!

Overall Thoughts

The modeling done for this event was far in excess of what I saw at the Firestorm Armada event. Some fleets, such as the Tau and the Ork fleets, were partially or even completely scratch-built! Not only did everyone came to play with awesome fleets, they were great sports as well. It was for that reason that I was greatly honored to have been voted Best Sportsman by the players there:

Best Sportsman! Hooray!

If I recall correctly, there were around a dozen players in the event, which was great to see! I had no idea how  many might actually be playing, given how long BFG has been out of print. I felt the scenarios were ok; they were fun, and relatively easy to understand, though some of the secondary objectives (Salvage the Mysterious Hulk, I’m looking at you) could use some work to make them more balanced.

Conclusion

This was a great event! The entire day’s affairs were efficiently and competently run, and we all had a lot of fun. I’m already looking forward to throwing down again next year! Make sure to check out the gallery below for more pictures of the awesome fleets that were present. Until next time!