Cold Wars - 2017 - Part 1

Hello All,

This past weekend I attended Cold Wars, a wargaming convention in the US. As is my usual policy I played in one tournament and then had a day for playing random fun games and hanging out ect.. This time around I played in the Epic Armageddon tournament again, because it is fun, and it is not that popular anymore, so this is a good chance to get to play!

This time around I took a Space Marine (Ultramarines) army, using the Vanguard Miniatures line as I didn't have any of the now out of production GW models, and aren't to keen on hunting through E Bay.

My army list was something like this:

TACTICAL [325]
6 Tacticals, Rhinos, Captain

TACTICAL [275]
6 Tacticals, Rhinos

TERMINATOR [400]
4 Terminators, Captain

TERMINATOR [350]
4 Terminators

ASSAULT [175]
4 Assault Units

DEVASTATOR [350]
4 Devastators, 4 Razorback

PREDATOR [325]
4 Annihilator, Hunter

WHIRLWIND [300]
4 Whirlwinds

But I forgot to use the hunter AA tank.

Game 1: vs Eldar

Here is an early shot of the first game. I got a bit impatient and moved up my Predator tanks to take some shots at the Eldar tanks. But didn't accomplish to much as they had to double. This left them badly exposed so they lost half their number to return fire. Some Eldar bombers put a real hurt on one of my Tactical squads, while the other advanced into cover near the objective on the far right.

End of turn 1 you can see that both sides are mainly just advancing forward, but I am taking a bit of casualties.

On the second turn I launched the teleport attack with my Terminators, one unit on the Blitz objective, and one unit here assaulting a formation of Guardians, and support weapon platforms. I won this assault without loss and the Eldar were pushed back with heavy casualties. However most other things went poorly. Some Eldar warriors on Jet Bikes were able to cut through my back lines, and I ended up loosing allot of units in general.

Here is a shot towards the end of the game. I am in a bit of a bad position, the Eldar still have a number of strong formations, and most of mine are pretty damaged. In the end the Aspect Warriors around the clock tower would assault my Terminators with the help of the Jet Bikes and break them. I was able to hold on to the Eldar back objective, but didn't achieve anything else. The Eldar destroyed my most expensive unit and controlled the objectives on my side which gave them the Blitz, Take and hold, and Break Their Spirit Objectives.

Game 2: vs Tau

This game was played in a big swampy area, with rough ground and some forests, with a few scattered defenses. The first turn saw us mostly moving forward, the Tau being very conservative. A little bit of damage was done but nothing serious. But the Tau had a big advantage in activations due to having more units and were able to capitalize on this doing some good damage towards the end. An Orca assault ship landed allot of Tau Fire Warriors on the right flank and just crushed one of my Tactical formations.

On the second turn I brought down my Terminators again. I put on unit in the back near the Tau Blitz objective to assault their tanks, and a second unit to assault the huge formation of fire warriors. Sadly I lost initiative despite the big advantage the Marines have in strategy rating. The result of this was the my Terminators took a major beating and were broken by fire. But I was able to assault the tanks and destroy them, threatening the objective. One the left I was able to assault with my remaining tactical formation, and destroyed a Tau formation of Scout Battle suits, but lost most of my transports later to direct fire. My tanks moved forward and broke one of three recon skimmer formations, but a plane came in and finished off the last of my broken terminators giving the Tau the Break Their Spirit objective. But my Whirlwind artillery was able to kill off allot of the fire warriros with a bombardment weakening them a little bit.

On turn three I lost initiative again! So instead of my Terminators making a great assault they were surrounded and broken with fire, causing them to all die. Such is the risks of teleporting into the back field. I spent the rest of the turn trying to get some objectives, but all my stuff on the right flank was gone, so it was hard going. I got in some good hits, but wasn't able to secure any objectives. I had a change to contest with my devastators to draw out another turn, but they failed to activate. So the Tau were left in control of my blitz objective, giving them that and Break Their Spirit for the victory.

Game 3: vs Titan Legions

My final game was against a Titan Legion. There was only 4 players, so everyone was going to end up playing everyone. Here an early shot of turn one. Titans spread out everywhere, very scary. I put a tactical formation, and  my assault marines on the far right, and devistators, tanks, and more tacticals on the left. I was trying hard to be cautious with my Predators as the titans have mostly armored units and I thought I would need their Lascannon to have a change, so didn't want to loose them early. My hope was that by splitting up it would  be harder for the Titans to focus and destroy my formations one by one as happened allot with the Tau. The titans mainly moved up to the middle, and some shots were fired back and forth, but no huge amounts of damage.

The big unit of 5 knight titans was the Legions Break Their Spirit, so I was hoping to be able to kill them early on. So I double with my tanks to put a bit of fire on them. And of course some planes destroyed half of my Whirldwinds, wish I hadn't forgotten about that hunter!

The second turn I brought in all of my terminators to assault the big Titan unit. They had rallied off the blast marker but I thought it was worth a shot anyway. With the Space Marines Captain I was able to assault with both formations at once! In the end I lost but just barely and only lost a couple of terminator stands, but killed a titan or 2. I was then able to sustain fire with my tanks, killing more of them and breaking the formation.

Elsewhere shots were fired, but no major effects really. The Titans on the right were making a good attempt to fight of my Tactical and Assault marines backed up with some attack planes, but my guys held firm. I doubled forward with the Devastators to try and finish off that unit of Titans, but failed to get the last hit on the commander. The other Titans struck back and killed allot of them in return!

On the final turn, the Titan unit on the right assaulted my Tactical Formation, but with some very poor rolling, were somehow able to loose, and were all cut down in retreat! My Assault marines were then free to more forward and capture the Titans back field Blitz objective, while the tactical consolidated the forward. My tanks advanced and tried to finally bring down the Titan's command unit, but that last guy just wouldn't die. The Titans in the middle advanced and captured the objective in the middle by the clock tower, but just barely failed to take the other away from the tactical formation and the remaining terminators. This left me with Blitz and Take and Hold objectives, so I finally got a win!

Finally results put the Tau in first place, and everyone else tied for third! My prize was a 6mm ruined scenery piece which is pretty cool, so I will have to get that painted up for Cangames.

To round things off here are a few random shots of games I thought were cool or interesting as I walked around, but didn't get to play in. Can't do everything!

Lord of the Rings

Dunno what this is but nice buildings

Big Star Wars X-Wing game, with lots of big ships

1200 Zombies! The Dukes of Hazard were a playable faction hah

6mm Tank Battle, I think allot of the closer ones are M1 Abhrams but not sure

Crazy Cool Frostgrave table / Game

Magic Wizard Lighthouse, just they Harbour section would be a cool game!

That's all for now, more Cold Wars coverage in a day or 2.

Thanks;

Mike