The group-wide Brookhammer Cup tournament has returned! And this past weekend, we got the first round of games all wrapped up. The second game of Saturday’s games featured Max’s Imperium force taking on Alejandro’s Imperium force. Who will win the love of the Emperor? Read on to find out!

Game Setup

Points:
Each player has a maximum of 2,000pts.
They’ll use that list for the remainder of the tournament.

Matched Play Mission: 
Frontline Warfare (From Chapter Approved 2017 – replacing First Blood with First Strike)

Deployment: 
Hammer & Anvil was the layout on a 6×4 table. Max won the roll off and picked his end of the board.

Armies

Max’s Imperium
Cadian Supreme Command Detachment
Knight Commander Pask in a Command Battle Tank, (2) Tank Commanders in Command Executioner Tanks, Astropath, Arkurian Pattern Shadowsword

Death Watch Patrol Detachment
Watch Master, a squad of 8 Veterans, Primaris Apothecary, a squad of 5 Hellblasters with Plasma, Relic Leviathan Dreadnought, Drop Pod

Alejandro’s Imperium
House Terryn Super-Heavy Aux Detachment
Knight Castellan

Ultramarines Super-Heavy Aux Detachment
Roboute Guilliman

Ultramarines Patrol Detachment
Captain in Gravis Armor, Primaris Lieutenant, (2) squads of five Intercessors, Primaris Ancient, Redemptor Dreadnought, a unit of 3 Inceptors, a unit of 5 Hellblasters with Plasma

Turn 01 Highlights

• The roll-off to see who goes first was SUPER critical for both armies this game. Max had a +1 to his roll. Max rolled a 6!
• Max wanted to try to chip off a few wounds on the Knight Castellan before using the Shadow Sword. One of the Executioner Tanks took 4w off it with its plasma turret, unlocking the Cadian strategem Overlapping Fields of Fire!
• The Shadow Sword couldn’t wait any long. Shooting it’s main cannon at the Castellan, it did a wopping 28w. Alejandro’s dice went cold on him on the saves and the Knight went down (but thankfully for the rest of his force, didn’t blow up).
• In Alejandro’s first round of shooting, his Plasma Hellblasters took 10w off the second Executioner (which is Max’s Warlord)

Turn 02 Highlights

• To kick off the second round, Max brought in reinforcements! A drop pod housing a veteran squad, apothecary and a watch master! BUT! Alejandro wasn’t going to let him land freely, firing off both an Auspex Scan and Rapid Fire strategems to fire at the incoming units. After the dust was settled, 3 veterans with stormshields were vaporized.
• The Shadow Sword turned its sights to the slowly approaching Redemptor Dreadnought, its main cannon doing 36 damage to the walker, turning it to metallic dust.
• The Plasma Executioner that took some wounds in the first turn retaliated against the Hellblasters, killing the squad. But before they were laid to rest, the Astartes Banner on the nearby Ancient let them shoot again, bringing the tank down to just one wound remaining.
• The Veterans shot their frag cannons at the Intercessor squad holding the back objective, killing four of the five man squad. The final Intercessor failed to wound the Veterans in return.
• Guilliman tried to take the final wound off of Max’s Executioner to snag Slay the Warlord, but failed.

Turn 03 Highlights

• The Deathwatch Leviathan Dreadnought deep strikes in, but all it’s shooting fails to do any damage to Guilliman.
• One of the Primaris Lieutenants was turned to dust by the second Executioner tank.
• General Pask turns his cannons to take on the Primarch. 40 shots at the Ultramarines leader, doing 15w, but only one of them makes their way through his armor.
• The Deathwatch Apothecary resurrected 2 of the previously fallen Veterans, who then took out the remaining Intercessor in the Ultramarines deployment zone.
• Guilliman takes the final wound off the Executioner tank, securing Slay the Warlord for Alejandro’s Ultramarines. After that, the Primarch decided to assault the Leviathan Dreadnought, which resulted in 9 damage on the Dread and 3 damage onto the Primarch himself.
• The Captain turned its sights onto the remaining Executioner tank, charging it and dealing 10 damage onto it in close combat!

Turn 04 Highlights

• The Leviathan decided to fall back out of combat, leaving Guilliman exposed! The Shadow Sword turned its turret, lining it up with its next victim… Guilliman. The volcano cannon does its job and kills the Primarch. Before he fell, he shot again (thanks to the nearby Astartes Banner), doing four more damage to the nearby Leviathan. But his armor failed him and he didn’t resurrect to continue fighting which secured Max’s Deathwatch a Slay the Warlord point.
• The Executioner Tank also fell back, leaving the Ultramarines Captain exposed to Pask’s fury, landing 23 wounds on the Captain, killing him.
• The only unit left for the Ultramarines was the Astartes Bannerman, who would not give up. He charged the Leviathan Dreadnought, taking 4 wounds of damage on the overwatch but had 1 more left to fight on. BUT he failed the charge. Max, feeling pity and wanting to see what happened used his Painted Reroll (house rule) to have Alejandro re-roll the charge — and he makes it into close combat. The Bannerman fails to wound. The remaining Ultramarine goes down, tries to shoot one last time but fails to do any damage to the walker.

Misc Highlights & More Photos

• Both players knew whom ever had the first turn would likely take the game.
• Max took home the Most Killed badge, ridding the table of all the Ultramarines
• Max also had the hottest dice this game.
• Points Lost (fully dead units)
  • Max – 197 pts
  • Alejandro – 2000 pts.

Final Score

After four rounds of crazy shooting and fierce combat, the scores were:
Max: 9 VP, Slay the Warlord, First Strike and Linebreaker
Alejandro: Slay the Warlord

(We’ll get a winner photo added soon!)

Today, the Ultramarines were not in the Emperors favor and the Deathwatch led Imperium force instead took home a major victory today. They move on to face the winner of the giant robot battle, while the Ultramarines will face the loser of that same game.