Bro-Con 2011

So I wanted to do a review of my weekend in Limerick in July at Bro-Con and here it is:

Bro-Con was a 1750pt, 2 Day, Warhammer 40k, Ranking tournament held from the 15th to the 17th of July in University of Limerick. It was run by Mr. Jay "Square Base" McKeown.

Despite being 3 hours from Skibbereen there was going to be a large SWG contingent at Bro-Con, 5 in all. Caolán and Tadhg bringing Blood Angels, Chris with Chaos Marines and Cian and myself bringing Space Wolves. This was my first tournament using my bought for 150euro on the internet Space Wolf army and I was intrigued as to how it would go.

Space Wolves: Good at everything

My list was:
Rune Priest w/ tempest wrath & jaws + chooser of the slain
Rune Priest w/ murderous hurricane& stormcaller + chooser of the slain + wolf tooth necklace + melta bombs
2 x 5 scouts w/meltagun
4 wolf guard - (2 x combi melta + wolf claw + melta bombs) & (2 x combi melta + powerfist)
2 x 8 grey hunters w/ melta + mark of the wulfen + wolf standard + rhino w/dozer blades
2 x 5 grey hunters w/flamer
6 long fangs w/ 2 lascannon + 3 missile launcher
6 long fangs w/ 2 lascannon + 3 missile launcher w/ las plas razorback w/dozerblades
6 long fangs w/ 5 missile launcher w/ las plas razorback w/dozerblades

Seeing as I was leaving from Cork, I threw Caolán, Ivan "Nudie" Sheehan and Dave "He'll get a proper nickname in inverted commas when he's older" Coleman into my car an off we took towards Limerick.

There are some people who maintain that on arrival to Limerick I consumed too much alcohol, made a fool of myself and was asked to leave the student bar in UL, twice. These people.... are completely correct. Now I can make excuses about how the vodka I drank was possessed by a demon(I'm sure at least Caolán can back me up on this) but I'm just going to move on to the next morning.

Rachmaninoff Vodka: Seems legit

So I awoke Saturday morning reasonably refreshed, must have had something to do with my earlier than intended bed time, and struck off to UL with the lads. After various handshakes and apologies it all kicked off and it was on to game 1.

Game 1 vs Norn Iron Etc Captain & Northern Waster Jonny "Bitz Box Guard" Fisher
So straight out the gate I'm put up against the army my Necron's despised. It was basically an auto lose. But hey, I didn't bring my Necrons this time. I brought retarded Space Wolves. We were playing multi objective Dawn of War. I won first turn. Then something I'm not at all used to happened. He reserved, everything.

Now a man I mentioned in a previous article, Alan, can tell you. I don't really understand how this works. We were playing on the Sunday morning of Skibbcon when it took 10 minutes of explaining to show that after my 1st turn came his 1st turn. He was adamant after my 1st turn came my 2nd turn. I was mightily confused. But I digress. Jonny was playing:

Command squad
Psyker battle squad
3 x Vendettas 2 w/ guys
2 x 2 Hydras
1 Manticore
1 Big blob squad with Autocannon
More chimeras full of guys

We both had a lot of guns

So he reserved everything. I used the extra turns to better position my Long Fangs. We shot at each other. We shot at each other. We shot at each other. We shot at each other some more. I moved stuff up to take objectives. We were told to play no more turns due to time. At the end of my turn 6 I had 3 objectives and Jonny had none. Unfortunately for me things swung in his favour when I failed some crucial saves at 3 different points of the map and the game ended in a Draw 11 - 9 to him.








Game 2 vs Warhead's Brian "You should Google his moniker" McKensie
You'd think after a losing draw my next game would be much easier. Ha! Nope. I get the play the eventual 3rd place finisher Brian "BristolScale7" and his purifier spam. The game was Spearhead/Killpoints and thankfully, like all spam armies, Brian's army was kill point heavy. It consisted of(best as I can recall):

Crowe(makes purifiers scoring)
3 x purifiers squads in S6 razorbacks
3 x purifier squads in rhinos
3 x psybolt dreads

Grey Knight Dreadnought with both weapons destroyed

He won the roll off and chose to go first. Putting me in a corner with little terrain. I decided to reserve everything except Long fangs, who I would use to out range the Grey knights. Also I placed the rune priests in the small squads to facilitate easy hiding.

Long story short, my guns shot at his before he was in range. Then my guy guys came in from all sides and Brian couldn't roll a 6 to rend to save his life. If there is anything I can relate to it's not being able to roll sixes when you need them(stupid Gauss weapons).

Game was a 15 - 5 win to me.


Game 3 vs DGG's Ciaran "My toys are nicer than yours" Bolger
This guy. This guy makes me feel bad for my lack-lustre hobbying. What can I say about him? Well his toys are fantastic. I had heard stories about his Ork truck that transforms into Optimus Prime before seeing it at Warpcon. True to form he arrive with Grey Knights modelled out of Orks. Absolutely beautiful. Also, out of the 3 games that day he had managed to be put up against 3 members of SkibbWargamers. Lucky guy, eh?

He was playing:
Draigo
10 Paladins w/ ALL THE UPGRADES
10 Terminatros  w/ ALL THE UPGRADES
Stormraven
Vindicare

Draigo is a grandmaster so he gave everyone re roll ones to wound.

Paladins... damn. Looks like I have to spam him with solid shot missiles and hope he fails some 2+ armour saves. Game was Pitched battle 1 objective each.

This game was amazing fun. Ciaran is a great guy to play. His army, outside of looking fantastic is just plain cool. 23 models. Each one a complete badass. When your grenade carrying, psycannon wielding, psychic terminators are the weakest unit in your army..... well. The game went to turn 7 with one unit hold an objective and me throwing EVERY other thing in my army at his meat grinders of troops. It came down to a scout squad, down to two models and one paladin on a wound punching each other on my objective.Class.

15 - 5 win to me.

End of Day 1

Thanks to some negotiations made by our PRO Caolán, I was allowed back into the student bar after some apologising to staff. We set up here for the night. We had some food. Drank some beers and hung out with some good people. The craic was had and after the auction Dan "True Story" Ahern now owns ALL of the things. All of them.

Then this.

Game 4 vs WAC's Mike "That's not Blick, it's really dark blue" Foreman
1st game of the next day and it was another Grey Knights army. Strange how I played 3 of them over the weekend and none of them alike. This army was commanded by Mike Foreman, WAC's token Sud Afrikan.

Mike was nice enough to agree to a photograph before the game

I had played him when he was using Grey Knights before, but that list was terminator heavy. His list for Brocon was:

Coteaz
Grandmaster
5 man Strike Squad w/ Psycannon in S6 razorback
Jokaros and Multi-melta Servitors in a chimera for coteaz
A badass henchmen warband w/ Death Cult Assassins, Banishers, Crusaders, Mystic and extra wounds. All in a Land Raider Redeemer with the Grandmaster to benefit from his Rad Grenades and Hammerhand.
2 (scoring thanks to the Grand Master) Psybolt Dreads
5(scoring thanks to the Grand Master) Paladins

Game was pitched battle 3 objectives. He went first and killed a razorback. In my turn I drove a rhino forward and smoked while my Long Fangs killed all the mech except the Chimera. All of his shooting was ineffective against the rhino which was a turning point of the game as the henchmen could not assault the contents. They charged and killed the rhino and I lost 3 Grey Hunters by being unable to disembark. All of my guns shot the warband and they died. Leaving the Grandmaster on his lonesome to get lascannoned.

After that the Paladins dropped, they took two casualties and ran away. It was not Mike's game.

It ended 18 - 2 to me.


Game 5 vs Warhead's Alec "Next venom, same target" Cornelius
This game started pretty badly. I was playing Venom spam, the bane of Long Fangs. On Dawn of war, the bane of Long Fangs. Going second, again the bane of walking Long Fangs. Anyways, it was game 5 and I was on table 3. Playing an old foe of mine. Not that we'd ever played 40k against each other, it's just we engaged in a heated game of "Red or Black" at SkibbCon 2.0 and he took me to school. Time to get even.

Our battle at SkibbCon was so epic, it spawned a gameshow

Alec's list was:
The Baron
A homunculus
8 x venoms w/ dual splinter cannon 3 w/ 4 trueborn + 4 blasters and 5 with some variation of troop with blasters
Big squad of hellions
3 x ravagers

There was no LOS blocking terrain on the board, it was all forests, yay. He deployed the BAron and the Hellions. Everything is rolling on 1st turn.
I deployed a rhino w/ 9 guys and a rune priest(the one with tempest wrath.) on the left side of my board. Everything coming on first turn except the scouts who where OBELing, the 2 min squads(one with rune priest/stormcaller)

His turn everything boosts on except the ravagers which try and blow up my rhino. Too far away to see with night fighting.
My turn I drive on my razorbacks full of Long Fangs on the left hand corner of the table creating a box that the long fangs got out into. Thus negating LOS. My rhino cast tempest wrath and drove a little forward and right to block more LOS. My other rhino came on from the board edge about half way between both short table sides. Everything popped smoke.

His shooting managed to explode one of the razorbacks leaving LOS to one of the squads and killing the pack leader. Being the only squad they could see all 8 venoms shot at that squad. I could not believe it when they only took one casualty. Alec was looking quite exasperated until the Long fang squad thought how unfair they were being, failed their moral test and ran off the board. Way to survive guys!

With the initial turn over with I was able to unleash missile and lascannon hell on his venoms. While scouts killed ravagers and my squads got into the middle to multi assault the contents of  dead venoms, and venoms themselves. I killed an exorbitant amount of killpoints and the game ended a 15 - 5 win to me.

So with 4 wins - 1 draw - 0 losses - I ended up in fourth place. Just a point shy of Brian McKensie in third place. I had a thoroughly enjoyable convention. I want to thank Jay, for a great event and all of my opponents for the great games. Also my congratulations go out to Caolán becuase his place at Bro-Con earned him the "Best Blood Angels" General Badge.

Now I have to wait until NWG before my next convention and I think it's about time the old reliable, broken, glance on a 6 Necrons made a return. Because playing with Space Wolves, it's like cheating.

Until next time: WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEW

- Eoin