Regimental Reporting: First Founding Doubles 22 After Action Report

 Welcome back to the Officers Mess! Yesterday I attended First Founding's Doubles 40K Tournament, and had a fantastic day out! My write up will be briefer than usual; I'm recovering post COVID, and my energy levels are low at the moment. Enthusiasm and copious cups of tea saw me through the day.

I had teamed up with Scott who brought a Genestealer Cult force to run alongside my Guard. The sneaky cultists provided plenty of movement, tricks and close combat to complement the straight forward nature of my heavy guns.

The event comprised three games; pairings were random for game 1, and then determined by comparing prior game results.

Game 1: Abandoned Sanctuaries

Our initial opponents were Josh and Will playing Double Marines; Salamanders and Dark Angels. So lots of Primaris bodies plus several bricks of Death Wing Terminators. 

Figuring we had the mobility and units to get around the board, and complete actions we picked Retrieve Nachmund Data, and Engage On All Fronts for secondaries, rounded out with No Prisoners. These would be our secondaries for all our games.

We learnt a lot from this game:

• Deathwing Terminators are ridiculously hard to kill. So we basically ignored them and focused on the Salamanders where possible!
• Deep Striking all your Genestealers within Auspex Scanner range of 5 Flamestorm Aggressors is really dumb. (Narratively I figure the Colonel was fine with seeing horrible aliens getting frazzled up).
• Custom Regiment Demolisher tanks are *really* good. Re-rolling number of shots when needed is excellent.

Despite our mistakes, and whilst we didn't fare well on the Mission Secondary (to hold the centre objective) we did well on the Primary and Secondaries to take the win.

Scott refers to the blip markers as biscuits. The Colonel was hoping for digestives to dunk in his tea.

Game 2: Conversion

The pairing for round 2 was announced with a snarling challenge from the Dark Master himself; Be'lakor the Greater Daemon was out to hunt Colonel Staysback, obviously in fear of the Colonel's vaunted reputation as one of the Imperium's greatest heroes.

So this time we were facing David and Alex, playing Disciples of Belakor and Ad Mech. This was a whole host of Daemons alongside some wonderfully bonkers Skaven based conversions. It was almost a shame to have to shoot the lovely ratty models, but we had no desire to suffer from Ad Mech guns, so shoot them we did.

We applied some lessons from the previous game, using the genestealer bombs much more effectively to cause mayhem, and controlling the centre. 

My favourite moment of the day: Belakor came looking for the Colonel but did not reach his target. The Daemon hit the guard forward position but was brought low by roar of cannon fire. Don't bring a sword to an artillery fight! Belakor retreated back to the Warp to plot his revenge upon the Colonel.

A second win for the Guard and their oddly shaped friends.

Don't show the Inquisition this photo!

Game 3: Tide of Conviction

The third game was against Ziad and Dave who were also playing Double Marines. This time the Death Wing terminator bricks were paired with a scary looking Blood Angels Primaris force with what felt like an awful lot of Blade Guards. The Deathwing were backed up by some Ravenwing characters which provided some great support.

Reapplying the strategy from Game 1 we decided to ignore the Death Wing as far as possible and concentrate on killing the Blood Angels.

High point here was Scott setting up multiple short-ish charges to finish off a single Blade Guard Veteran plus two Blood Angel Characters then failing them all, even with re-rolls and sneaky cult tricks. 

Those stealers needed an 8" charge with a 3d6 drop lowest roll. Whiffed it twice.

Whilst we fared well on secondaries (we were happy with our picks all game), and even killed a Death Wing unit to contribute to No Prisoners, our opponents fared better on the Primary and managed to squeak out a small win against us.

Thanks for the photo Ziad

So three great games, and Scott and I were very happy with our 2W 1L record. I'd played against all of my opponents in prior First Founding events and it's a testament to how popular and well loved these events are that people keep coming back for them.

I didn't manage to get any decent pictures of the other armies, but Billy (from Beard & Brush painting) very kindly sent me some shots of his Tome Keepers which won the best painted award. Billy has established a great narrative for his force and has fallen in love with the Tome Keeper lore which is evident through out his models. The Redemptor is amazing. 

In terms of standings, we came 9th out of 20 scoring 197/300 VP. The Colonel is very happy and proud of his shiny new medals.

How did I do against my predictions?

The Custodes and Grey Knights teams had a strong showing, taking 3rd and 4th spots.

The heretical combination of Chaos Knights and Death Guard also did well, coming 5th.

I was less successful in predicting the Double Necrons who took 14th place and the Wooden Spoon

And sod's law did strike; Drukhari/Ad Mech won the overall event with a perfect 300/300VP! Well done Marcus and Lyle!

Next event is Mayhem; currently I have no clue what I'll be taking but I'll be sure to let you all know what I settle on! Thanks for reading and if you are local I hope to see you at one of the future First Founding events.