Planetstrike Weekend - The Chaos Perspective

Well, Planetstrike Weekend has been and gone in a haze of tea, dice, curry, and blast templates! For me, the hobby is as much a comforting link to a more carefree past as it is enjoyable for its own reasons. First there is the build-up, chatting to each other about what you're aiming to get painted, what scenarios you want to play, and what lists you're going to try out. The day arrives, people rock up, the kettle goes on, armies are unpacked, and newly painted minis are passed around and looked at closely with a geeky eye. Once battle commences it's a blur of dice rolls interspersed with moments of insane bravery, valour, success and failure! It gets dark outside. Take-away is delivered and consumed.

I crashed out on the couch at 3am in a sleeping bag. In the morning, the sound of me making tea got Ollie up and about and we were playing again in no time. The second day passed as enjoyably as the first.

Ollie and his Space Wolves were ultimately victorious, winning each of the four Planetstrike games he played. My Chaos Marines lost three games and won a single victory against Simon's Blood Angels, who in turn lost three games and took a single victory against myself. Ollie is a very capable player, very capable indeed. You need to be well practised and have your wits about you to even draw against him. I would say playing Simon is more relaxed, as Ollie gets a kind of battle lust going after a win or two which can make it almost stressful to be around - but trying to beat Ollie is challenging and fun in its own right! Write this down - I will have my revenge! I myself am the kind of player who always turns up out of practice and makes stupid mistakes for the entire weekend. I just don't play often enough to work up any level of skill or familiarity.

We all achieved our painting pledges, but sadly our finished armies were put to shame with unpainted bastions and amateur scenery. I'm embarking on a terrain project now which will see all the Planetstrike scenery I need finished and painted, followed by some refurbishment on the modular board I built last year, and then a variety of other terrain pieces.

Here's a couple of shots from the only game I managed to win, the Forlorn Hope mission from Planetstrike:

In the top shot you can see my Chaos Terminators crashing against the Blood Angels' Aegis Defence lines, and Trunk'hi, my Chaos Sorcerer, finishing off the last member of a short-lived assault squad! Rattaur, his familiar, and true general of the Chaos invasion force, watches sinisterly from his vantage point on the Deathguard Rhino!

In the second shot you can just see a small (but very brave) team of marines trying to get to the (badly wounded) Daemon Prince and finish him off before he can plant the Banner of Nurgle on the Imperial Bastion. Alas, it was not to be, and Chaos won the day. This is actually the first game we used the Aegis Defence lines, clipping them off the sprue to make use of them. They changed the game entirely. Planetstrike is not the same without them. What a shame I didn't get to use them when trying to defend my bastions from the Space Wolves beforehand! Apologies for the unpainted scenery in these shots. We are already planning 'Planetstrike Weekend MkII', the focus of which will be painted scenery and revised army lists in light of what we learnt about Planetstrike by playing through the entire book!

So, having learnt how NOT to play Planetstrike, I've been revising my army lists, both for the Attacking and Defending roles. Rattaur, displeased with Trunk'hi's showing over the course of the campaign (despite impressive results in previous games), has relieved him of further Planetstrike duties. I started a conversion for his replacement in the loft last night, stay tuned for that! Rattaur stands in the shadows and whispers instructions to me as I work..

The next time you hear from me, I will be showing a painted Planetstrike setup. I'll go over my army list changes and show you the new additions and conversions after our next campaign weekend - wouldn't want the enemy snooping beforehand would I?

-scott