The Aureus Expand: My First 40k Tournament

Eight armies gathered for the fight over one sector of Konor. The Aureus were keen to make a name for themselves and get vengeance against the Imperium. Six of these armies were Forces of the Imperium, one was Eldar and the other the Canis Aureus. 

The tournament was three games per army, the warlord with the most victory points winning the tournament. The points requirement for each force was 750 and each army had to be battleforged.

Canis Aureus
x1 Chaos Lord (Fenerus) with combi-bolter and powersword
x1 Spawn
x5 Chaos Marines
x4 Havocs with x 4 Autocannons
x9 Khorne Berserkers (Sgt with power fist)
x1 Rhino with x2 combi-bolters
x1 Hellbrute with combi-bolter, fist and multimelta

The boys without their Lord

My first game of the tournament was the one that I dreaded the most.  It was against a veteran Imperial Guard player and a rules buff at that. In my first few months of playing I faced this army in a small 500 point game as was crushed mercilessly, almost putting me out of the hobby. It sapped my fun out of the game and was just nasty.

Now, despite having vowed to never face this opponent again, it was time to try and get my revenge. A few weeks before the tournament I had told Ed about my fears of facing 50 man conscript squads in such a small game.  He advised me to go with the Berserkers in the rhino. 

The first turn of the game I managed go first and took out the heavy weapon las cannon team. I advanced my rhino up to the conscript wall. In the Guards first turn I lost my marine unit and the rhino took a beating. As turn two began I deployed the Berserkers and their two attacks made them devastating. They piled out of the rhino and managed to wipe out 38 conscripts in a round. The rhino managed to pin in the basilisk making it useless for the remainder of the game.

Come the end of turn six the guard only had two models on the battlefield, ending the game at a score of 9-3. Revenge was sweet.

My second game was against an infantry heavy Eldar list. MY good pal David got first turn and rolled pretty badly, allowing me to steam in and hit hard. The hellbrute tore through his first squad like a mallet through butter and the beserkers piled into the nearby building, wiping out another squad.

By turn three it was over, a 10-0 victory. Savage and efficient the Jackals came out on top. Quite literally as F.G. Bio (My Warlord) ascended the tower and killed the rangers hiding above.

The third game was a battle on the harshest battleground. One trench in an open wasteland.  It was against Darren who I had spent the last few weeks playing intro games against. With some skills up his sleeve and some borrowed miniatures, he had worked his way up to the final. We both had 19 victory points and the other contenders were behind us by a long shot. With a firm handshake the game began.

His Salamanders (Dragon Force) hit hard.  The mighty intercessor marines punching my marines armour and tearing the flesh beneath many of them fell in the first round.

The "Relic" in the middle of the open battlefield.

My havocs held their ground and punched back pulling down a few intercessors, while the khorne troop and the spawn tore into combat against the thick masses of tactical marines.  After a couple of successful rounds all of the tactical marines had died, but Vulcan He'stan carried on swinging. Killing most of the khorne beserkers and saving every wound with his 3 up invulnerable save.

Again my Aureus managed to win a large 9-0, enabling me to take the top spot. Sadly Darren came 3rd due to my win but claimed a prize along with David who claimed best sportsman.

My army won best painted and due to my overall win I walked away with £25 in vouchers and a certificate.  

From left to right (Front row) Darren, Me and David

My First Game of 8th

Over the course of my visit to Warhammer Fest I managed to play 8th Edition. Since I have played three smaller games using the rules leak and data profiles.  Now with the core rules and indexes myself and Ed managed to play a 50 Power level game of Tyranids vs Chaos Marines. My first proper game!

The combatants approach

Cracking my new mat out for another game my Aureus fought for the first time in a while.  

With the new movement rules the tyranid fleet came in rapidly and by turn two I had suffered heavy casualties.  My sorcerer held his own against a Hive tyrant though and beat away the genestealers thanks to his new 4 wounds!

The tunnel also opened behind my lines...

The Maulerfiend did exceptionally well. No longer a vehicle he was not hindered by the onslaught of attacks by the tyranids, taking out a carnifex, a character and a horde of termagants before the Hive Tyrant came to finish him off.

Locked in eternal combat, the maulerfiend wrestles the hive fleets finest!

Overall the game finished 7-3 in the tyranids favour.  I managed to sneak out of combat to claim some objectives even though I was rendered almost extinct early on.  The game ended on turn  due to my forces being wiped out.  Even so at no point did the game seem like a dead certain victory, with only the weakened hive tyrant and three warriors on the board it was a close game.

I look forward to many more games this weekend!

Corrupted Canis Aureus vs Orks!

New blood is a great thing to have in 40k.  The more opponents I can get the greater I enjoy the game. Having different people to face off against keeps the game interesting and fresh, especially if people use different forces. This is why I was thrilled to see that my pal Richard had finally been coerced into the hobby by Ed and myself.  

It was a small 500pt game that lasted until turn 5 and also my first game playing as Chaos Marines!

It was only a matter of time until I delved into Chaos. with such heretical marines it was an inevitability. I started work on these obliterators and a mauler last week and also purchased a maulerfiend off of a friend.  

Playing against Richard was great. He had learnt his codex and we had a great game.  Sadly his charge rolls didn't go too well and my flamers and lone obliterator made swift work of his ork lines.  Faustus sucked himself into the warp once again. that now makes a grand total of six times.

The game ended 7-4 to the Aureus. Another victory to the hunted chapter. 

After our game we played Tanks, a game I had bought Richard for Christmas.  He got his sweet revenge, swiftly tabling my German tanks. I managed to take out one British tank but suffered a crippling defeat.  A simple but very entertaining game to end the night.

Battle Scribe!

Making army lists has always been time consuming.  For the year I have been playing chopping, changing and switching around points can be a total pain in the backside.  I love it but I also hate it.  Buying the official Space Wolf codex for my Aureus saved me a lot of time.  But the Force Requisition manager is not without fault and it often crashes or lags out when you need it most.


Battle Scribe fixes these issues.  While it isn't a codex it does posses all of the information and options for every army list, including supplements and data slates that have been released separately.  Meaning that now making a Chaos Space Marine, Genestealer Cult or Deathwatch army list has become far easier.

Once again a big thank you to Jack for getting me to buy the app on the iOS store.

Now making my lists for this weeks games is easy!

You can select units and then customise them fully, without complication or hassle and you can always see the running points total.  now there is no need to buy every hard copy of a codex that I own in digital format too.

But if 40k isn't your thing or you play other miniatures games as well, never fear as Battle Scribe supports most of those too.  For such a tiny price it is a must have to any tabletop war gamer.