The 2nd Anvil of Heroes

Last week i had attended a small local tournament as practise for what i believe is the biggest, brightest and most importantly best singles tournament in Greece: The Anvil of Heroes. I had never ever used a Chaos army before last week, and so i really wasnt sure how the whole army was supposed to work, which propably led to me making some serious tactical mistakes in the anvil of heroes.

Before i go into the anvil i would like to make it clear that unlike the US and the UK and perhaps other EU countries, the Greek wargaming community is but a growing infant. A few years ago, no one even knew of what Warhammer or Warhammer40k is. Today our community has grown alot, in number as well as maturity. Where as a "Major tournament" in the US or the UK would consists of 100+ players in Greece a big tournamnet consists of 20+ players. But then again as most of us know its not the numbers alone that make up the tournament, its also the judges, the terrain, the atmosphere and last but not least, the amount of super duper competitive lists. And by these criteria one could say that "Anvil of Heroes" is the best and most competitive singles tournament currently held in Greece.




Having somewhat played 3 games in last weeks local tourny, i had a general idea of what unit can do what, and so i went with the following list:

Kharn
Typhus
20 x Zombies
20 x Zombies
7 x Plaguemarines
7 x Plaguemarines
2 x Rhinos (Plague marines chilled in there)
1 Helldrake with Baleflamer
1 Helldrake with Baleflamer
6 Havocs with 4 autocannons
2 x Obliterators with Mark of Nurgle
2 x Obliterators with Mark of Nurgle

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Games 1 vs Tyranids
Purge the Xenos with that Weird Triangle deployment
11-6 (or 8) Victory

My opponent was an expirienced player that i knew from previous tournaments and never having played tyranids before i was very skeptical about what i should do. Doubt was much of an enemy as his Swarmlord.

Swarmlord with bodyguards
3 x Hiveguard
2 x Hiveguard
2 x tervigon
2 x 10 gaunts
Trygon
Hivetyrant with wings and those 12 shots weapons
2 x Zoanthropes

I deployed everything as far back as i could, with the rhinos Hiding behind the 2 blobs of zombies. The obliterators and havocs were in some terrain between the 2 zombies blobs. Typhus joined the right zombie unit while kharn went to join the left. My plan was to just shoot things untill he got close, then shoot some more and hopefully do enough casualties to grind him out. He has so many psychic powers that i dont even remember half of them :P however the ones that he really counted on having like invisibility, he didnt get. He tried to seize but didnt, as so i began shooting with obliterators and havocs at his tervigons (it was nightfight and she was the only thing within 36 inches). I think i managed to wound her once. He moved everything up and ran in shooting phase. I believe he had reserved the 2 termagaunt squads as well as the trygon and flyrant. Turn 2 i kept on shooting at his tervigons and plasma canonoed his hiveguard as they were all bunched up. Thankfully both my drakes came in and where as i didnt manage to get any vector strikes this turn i managed to place both drakes in a way that when they did use their baleflamer they would get at least 4 models. Having so many T6 creatures was tough so i declared using Daemonforge and flamed everything to death. I ended up doing maximum wounds to the big hiveguard unit, the swarmlord and his guard, as well as the 2 tervigons. This combined with the havocs autocanons led me to kill his 3 man hiveguard squad and get First Blood. The seconds heldrake put a wound on the Swarmlord and his bodyguard as well as a wound on one of the Tervigons and a Hiveguard from the 2 man unit. The 2nd obliterator unit tried to kill the hiveguards but only managed to get a wound in, and leave him with a single hiveguard.
When his turn 2 came, he needed the Flyrant to come in to deal with my drakes, but he rolled and 1 for the flyrant and everything else came in. He deepstruck the trygon 6 inches away from Kharns zombie squad but scatered 10 inches back, where as everything else moved up. His Zoanthropes tried to Bring down a drake but failed, so did the hiveguard. My turn 3 i flew off the board with the drakes taking down a tervigon with my Vectorstrike and she killed a unit of gaunts that she had spawned. I shot at the Swarmlord and the trygon with all my shooting power but i think i only managed to get 1 or 2 wounds on each. His turn 3 came and he still didnt manage to get his Flyrant in, but other than that moved everything up and next tourn would be in assault range. I believe his gaunts actualy assaulted 2 of my obliterators and kept them tied up withis round. I disembarked all my plague marines and shoot all i had at the Swarmlord and the tervigon, combined with the draked arriving vector strikes and baleflamers they both were destroyed, the last hiveguard was also killed to a bunch of autocannon fire. His last tervigon assaulted my obliterators and where as she killed both of them, they managed to kill her AND the remaining few termagaunts that had assaulted them last turn. His turn 4 saw the flyrant come in and blow up my helldrake. He then tried to shoot my rhinos with his lances but only managed to stun it. Turn 5 i moved the typhus zombie squad to get linebreaker but by the end of the game they still hadnt reached it (damn slow and purposeful!). At this point i had realised that i was winning by alot of VP's and i really didnt want to playa gainst some sort of leafblower next turn so i decided to "be offensive"  i sent my HQ's out solo to fight the flyrant, he killed them, he then killed my hovering drake as well. By turn 6 i had won the game with a score of 11-6 (or 8) which meant that hopefully my second round opponent would not be demons or necrons.

Game 2 vs IG
5 Objectives , Hammer and Anvil
7-6 Victory

Command squad in rhino (plasmas)
6 Vets in Chimeras (4 with plasma 2 with melta)
2 Gryphons
2 Valkyries
Inquisitor
Grey Knights with canon in a rhino

Vasili is a good friend and i knew his list by heart, he plays mech IG. When i saw that he had put 2 of those heavy ordanance shooting tanks (S6 AP4) large blast thingamajigs i kinda freaked out. My zombies wd be useless against those things. i deployed everything on the table as far back as possible , while he deployed everything as far front as possible. My zombies went in reserve. He won the role to go first but i seized and wit obliterator fire managed to remove to hull points from one of those blast shooting tanks. Hemoved everything up but other than that couldnt reach me. Turn 2 saw one of my dragons come in and because he had placed all his chimeras in a wall of doom my baleflamer managed to flame all 3 of them. It was a really short round basicaly all i did was shoot obliterators, shoot autocanons and shoot obliterators and flame. The result was killing 3-4 chimeras, puting a bunch of hellpoints on other chimeras. He moved up what he could and got the 3 objectives (2 in his zone and 1 in the mid) his valkyrie immobilized my zooming heldrake so i had locked velocity but other than that nothing happened. Turn 3 everything came in but i moved them in such a way that they would still be out of range of the blasts of doom. My 2 rhinos moved up and started heading towards the middle objectived. My 1st obliteror squad blew off the gun from one of the blast shooting tanks. The locked velocity heldrake flew over yet another chimera and blew it open and flamed the weaponless husk of the gryphon destroying it. My 2nd drake flamed and kill a 10 man squad of vets that jst disembarked. He moved one of his 10 man vet squads back to hold his objective as well as his command squad who were still in a chimera. Turn 4 saw my immobilised drake leave the table and the "fresh" drake fly into his deplopyment zone, doing more damage and flamig more vets. The rhinos moved up again and were nowaround 12 inches from the middle objective and his "further" one. They were both held by him so i knew next turn id have to either conest or lose. He blew off a baleflamer from the dragon and after shooting a ton of plasma and melta killed it. His grey knight moved up and disembarked camping the mid objective. Turn 2 came and i had 2 things that i wanted to do. The 1st i disembarked both plague marines. The middle objective was contested and if i could kill enough grey knights propably even held. The second goal was to kill as many of his vets as possible that were holding his seconds "furthest objective". Both goals were achieved. With combined Havoc/oblit/bolter fire i managed to get rid of 3 grey knights, and all 8 vets. His turn 5 saw me suffer by failing most of my saves from plasmas and lascanons (FNP saves) reducing my 7 man plaguemarines to 3 man plaguemarines, while the middle objective plaguemarines squad saw only one loss. We rolled to see if we went on and we did!. The middle object was mine but if Vasili had one more turn hed be able to move/run his last and full vet squad to contest it, while i still had 2 grey knights and an inquisitor in front of my 6 plaguemarines. Not to mention that he still had a squad able to kill and hold his 2nd "furthest" objective. I shot all my weapons at the grey knights but htose bastards made all their cover saves and only lost 1 grey knight. I assaulted them and won combat  and consolodated back to the middle objective. My remaining 3 man squad got blown off the table on his turn 6 and ofcourse he contested the middle objective with his vet squad. We rolled for turn 7 but the game ended. I had won the game with a score of 7-6 , first blood was the game winner.

Id like to point out that both times that Typhus cast a psychic power (48 inch malediction) both times he blew his brains out.

Game 3 vs Space Marines
Relic, Dawn of War
4-1 Victory

Calgar
Librarian
10 Shooty termies with 2 CML
Scouts
Sternguard in a drop pod
2x10 man In rhinos
Aegies with quad gun

Surprisingly this was a very fast game, that the Heldrakes won by themselves. It was also an extremely fun game because my opponenet was very chill about it. Not to mention that hes a chaos player that decided to play marines and i am a marine player that decided to play chaos :) . I deployed everything in 1 blob as close to the middle as possible. He dployed the 2 Rhinos and the couts behind the aegis line. I played first and due to nightfight only put a wound on the quadgun and blow open a rhino. His turn 1 saw his drop pod come in with the sternguard and the liby. He tried to cast a psychic power but his librarians head exploded. He shen shot and kill 4 out of 6 havocs with his ap3 rounds. My rhinos moved up and dislodged both plague marines so that one of them was grabing the relic. Both drakes came in. the first drake killd the exposed squad from the blown up rhinos while the second only put 4 wounds on the vets. After some plasma fire from the oblits the vets were reduced to 2 vets an 1 libby. Typhus tried to cast a gets hot to the vets but his head blew up too....his turn 2 did not see marneus arrive with his termies. He dismbarked his last tactical squad from the rhinos and tried to shoot at my relic holding squad but didnt manage to. The quad gun glanced one of the drakes. And the Librarian and the vets finished off the havocs. Turn 3 saw me blow up his seconds rhino and flame all of the tacticals off the table while my second drake flamed all 5 scouts off the table. I also detroyed his drop pod. By turn 4 the only thing he had on the table was 2 vets and a librarian. Thankfully marneus arrived. He deepstruck on my left flank and shot and killed alot of zombies. His orbital bombardment killed Kharn :(.... He tried to kill my obliterators with his librarian and vets but failed to do so. My turn 5 saw his librarian and vets die and both my drakes flame his bunched up termie squad while i focused fire with everything else on the termies. I assaulted him with 2hat zombies i had left and Typhus. Typhus decided to unleash his detroyed hove but failed with his dice and did no wounds and killed only a few of his own zombies. Marneus raped him in close combat :P.... Zombies kept the termies locked in combat till turn 7 while the relic holding marines made their way in the opposite direction. Turn 7 he had 3 termies and marneus alive, he shot everything at the plaguemarines holding the relic but it was too late. Game ended with the score beeing 4-1 in my favor.

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The top 3 standings were as follows:

1. Blob IG list - Hector Stavrakakis
2. CSM - Alex Kostyuk (mememememe)
3. Tyranids (my 1st opponent) - Lawrence Kabanos

Closing thoughts:
An excelent tournament. Fair Judges. Good terrain. If there was one thing id have different is id increase the cap limit of players and increase the points to 1850 (from 1750). The list performed well, but in all the games the HQ's : Kharn and Typhus did absolutely nothing. It sure felt like i was playing without them. The helldrakes were the stars. Could propably drop Kharn and get another Helldrake. Cant wait for the next anvil.

Tournament Rating -  9 / 10

Pic Links: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=oa.536842266343516&type=1