QuarterMaster (QM1)

Rob, Damo and I decided to go down to Brisbane to play in a brand new tournament called QuarterMaster, and so on Friday the 20th of February we piled into Rob's station wagon for the eight hour drive south. We arrived later on that afternoon to assist Rob Harvatt with setting up the terrain. He alone provided the whopping 26 tables of terrain used in the event and did a wonderful job. He also put up with Rob L. and I crashing on his couches over the weekend.

We got up early again for the first day of the event and headed down to the hall. People soon arrived and I got my first game of the weekend under way.

Thomas Holdsworth - Eldar
Pitched Battle, Kill Points, Night Fight for the first turn.
He deployed fairly centrally on the desert table that we were playing on. I chose to pull a refused flank to reduce the amount of tanks that could shoot at my forces and to lure him into the building where it would be hard for him to bring all of his skimmers to bear. The plan worked fairly well as my forces shot down whatever moved into the streets of the village whilst my Rangers did the majority of work removing his wraithlords and preventing him from flanking my forces. I ended up with a major victory and 18 battle points (out of 20).

Stephen Brown - Space Marines
Spearhead, Seize Ground (3 objectives)
The objectives ended up laid out roughly in a line diagonally across the table and we started off with one objective in each quarter and one fairly central objective on the jungle table. He deployed first placing a tactical squad, razorback and his two attack bikes in his quarter. I then deployed in the opposite quarter but won the roll off for deploying infiltrators and so placed my rangers overlooking the central objective and denied Stephen the opportunity to deploy them there. He instead reinforced his objective with them, with good lines of sight of the table.

The game finished with a draw as I blew away whatever came close and Lysander chewed through any units trying to make it for the middle objective. I grabbed 11 battle points from this game.

Daniel Breeze - Daemon Hunters
Pitched Battle, The Sky is Falling (modified Thunderhawk Down)
He deployed each of his Grey Knight squads on the flanks of his centrally deployed force with his Landraider and two Rhinos forming a convoy to push up into my half. I deployed opposite knowing that I had more flexibility to move off if the objective scattered far away. Turn 1 saw little damage to either side, but turn two his Grey Knights assaulted my Dire Avengers and the attached Farseer in a bunker. My Dire Avengers held and my Banshees charged into the fray in my following turn killing all bar the Grand Master. The following turn, my Banshees failed to do anything and ran away after losing two girls. They eventually ran off the table failing yet another one or two leadership checks. Turn 2 also saw the objective land right in the middle of Dan's deployment zone. I rushed forward with all of my army hoping to swamp him, straight into the teeth of his stormbolters with little to no cover to use. In the end I got a squad ontot the objective to contest it to his two units of Grey Knights (one of which was only the Justicar who had passed several armour saves). I achieved a minor loss with 8 battle points. It was a great game and I had a lot of fun playing against Dan's Knights.

That night I caught up with some mates that now live in Brisbane for dinner before retiring to bed.

Cameron Smith - Tyranids
Spearhead, Seize Ground (5 Objectives)
This battle turned out to be a war of attrition with very little area terrain cover on the table for us to hide our forces in. In the end we ran out of time on turn 4 with Cameron holding two, contesting a further two and me only holding one. I simply couldn't kill the bugs fast enough and Cameron certainly give me any easy opportunities to do so. Had the game gone for 6-7 turns, I would have stood a good chance of reducing his numbers enough to make it a draw or perhaps a minor win but there simply wasn't enough time. 7 Battle Points.

Michael Clarke - Imperial Guard
Dawn of War, Kill Points, Night from turn two onwards.
With Dawn of War deployment, there was very little on the table in the beginning. I foolishly proved that I had forgotten my lessons regarding Dawn of War and going second and deployed my Rangers, Dire Avengers and Farseer on the table. In Michael's first turn, he moved on and torched the Rangers with his Hellhound, killing four and making the last run. Well that was silly of me wasn't it. In my turn one, I advanced strongly down one flank, determined to destroy his Gryphons as soon as possible as the damage they could do against my forces especially with night fight in effect would be staggering. I managed to destroy one and immobilise the other in the furst turn and finish off the second in the second turn. I also blew up his Hellhound and prevented his DevilDog from shooting for the rest of the game until I finally killed it. The game swung back and forth bit but in the end, I seemed to make all of my night fight rolls as Michael continually flopped his for about the same ranges. Memorable moments include his Psycher Battle Squad only inflicted casualties on itself as it tried to cast its powers, and me charging into a big unit of guardsmen with my Banshees only to notice a few seconds later that it was filled with guys holding blue power swords that eventually crushed the Banshees. I had a great game against Michael who was a great sport even to such a crushing loss, 19 battle points to me.

We packed up the terrain and waited around for the awards to be handed out. Somehow during entering the results, there was a stuff up and the prizes and trophies went out to the wrong people. We didn't find out the error until after most people had left and so we went back to Rob H's not really knowing where we came. I knew I'd done okay but didn't expect to place anywhere so I was very surprised to find out in the end that I'd placed equal third (with the least battle points though) and had won Best Sportsman.

So thanks to all who were involved, I won't be able to come down to QM2 due to a wedding but hope to be there for QM3 maybe with the Sisters this time. Below are some of the armies that entered including Rob L's and Damo's.

Rob Logan's Space Marines
Damo's Deathwing
Aaron Filmer's Ultramarines

Eltnot.