Caledonian Revolution 2017- Best Army and Armies on Display

There were some great armies present at Caledonian Revolution this year. First up, you can see some of the armies that were nominated for Best Army at the event. 

Caledonian Revolution 2017- Deathwatch Army Review

As is customary for each of the tournaments that I attend, I will take a look at the army I selected for the event, identify which units worked well and which units struggled, and try to learn some lessons from my games at Caledonian Revolution 2017. 

First off, I won two games and lost three games at the event, gaining a final listing of around 66th out of 100. This is easily my worst result at any of the tournaments that I have attended in recent years. It is a little disappointing, but is mitigated slightly by the fact that 8th edition was only 2 weeks old when I attended, so I had little time for fully playtesting the army and going up against a range of armies to see how the Deathwatch performed against them. This was more than made up for by getting a nomination for Best Painted Army at the event (see, I told you I was going to keep mentioning it!). 

Now that the excuses are out of the way, let's take a look at the army that I took to the event. My army consisted of:

Battalion Detachment

Watch Master- Guardian Spear 

Watch Captain- Jump Pack, Xenophase Blade, Bolt Pistol
Kill Team 1- Sergeant with Power Sword, Black Shield with Power Sword, 3 Veterans, 2 Frag Cannons, Vanguard Veteran with Pair Lightning Claws, Deathwatch Biker with Teleport Homer
Kill Team 2- 5 Veterans with 2 Frag Cannons and 2 Shotguns
Kill Team 3- 5 Veterans with Meltagun, 3 Combi-meltas
Kill Team 4- 5 Veterans with 5 Stalker Pattern Boltguns
Kill Team 5- 5 Veterans, Terminator with Power Fist, Storm Bolter and Cyclone Missile Launcher
Rhino- Storm Bolter
Rhino- Storm Bolter
5 Vanguard Veterans- 2 pairs Lightning Claws, 2 Heavy Thunder Hammers
4 Bikers- Teleport Homer, Power Axe, Power Maul, 2 Power Swords
4 Bikers- Teleport Homer, Power Maul, 3 Power Swords
Corvus Blackstar- Twin Assault Cannon, 2 Stormstrike Missiles, Hurricane Bolter, Auspex Array

When I built the army, I thought it would function as quite a nice, generic, take all comers list. With the little playtesting that I did, I had to add the Meltagun squad, as I had a serious lack of anti-armour firepower in the force.

I will now break down each unit and see what worked well on them.

Caledonian Revolution 2017: Game 5- Deathwatch vs Tyranids

The final game of Caledonian Revolution 2017 saw my Deathwatch take on Craig's Tyranids.

Game 5 featured the Scouring as the Eternal War mission, with Cleanse and Capture as the maelstrom mission (three cards per turn). The deployment zone was Vanguard Strike. I had yet to play a horde army with my Deathwatch yet, so would be interested to see if I had the firepower to take them out before they could reach me.

My army consisted of:

Battalion Detachment

Watch Master- Guardian Spear (W)

Watch Captain- Jump Pack, Xenophase Blade, Bolt Pistol (W)
Kill Team 1- Sergeant with Power Sword, Black Shield with Power Sword, 3 Veterans, 2 Frag Cannons, Vanguard Veteran with Pair Lightning Claws, Deathwatch Biker with Teleport Homer (KT1)
Kill Team 2- 5 Veterans with 2 Frag Cannons and 2 Shotguns (KT2)
Kill Team 3- 5 Veterans with Meltagun, 3 Combi-meltas (KT3)
Kill Team 4- 5 Veterans with 5 Stalker Pattern Boltguns (KT4)
Kill Team 5- 5 Veterans, Terminator with Power Fist, Storm Bolter and Cyclone Missile Launcher (KT5)
Rhino- Storm Bolter (R1)
Rhino- Storm Bolter (R2)
5 Vanguard Veterans- 2 pairs Lightning Claws, 2 Heavy Thunder Hammers (VV)
4 Bikers- Teleport Homer, Power Axe, Power Maul, 2 Power Swords (DB1)
4 Bikers- Teleport Homer, Power Maul, 3 Power Swords (DB2)
Corvus Blackstar- Twin Assault Cannon, 2 Stormstrike Missiles, Hurricane Bolter, Auspex Array (CB)

6 Command Points

My warlord was the Watch Master, who took the Legendary Fighter warlord trait.

Caledonian Revolution 2017: Game 4- Deathwatch vs Eldar

The first game of day 2 of Caledonian Revolution 2017 saw my Deathwatch take on Jonathan's Craftword Eldar army. 

Game 4 used the Relic as the Eternal War mission, with Spoils of War as the maelstrom mission (3 cards per turn, you can steal your opponent's "Secure Objective X" cards). In a modification to the Relic, you scored 8 points for holding the Relic at the end of the game or 4 points if you controlled it (had the most models within 3") and no-one held it. The deployment map was Hammer and Anvil. 

My army consisted of:

Battalion Detachment

Watch Master- Guardian Spear (W)

Watch Captain- Jump Pack, Xenophase Blade, Bolt Pistol (W)
Kill Team 1- Sergeant with Power Sword, Black Shield with Power Sword, 3 Veterans, 2 Frag Cannons, Vanguard Veteran with Pair Lightning Claws, Deathwatch Biker with Teleport Homer (KT1)
Kill Team 2- 5 Veterans with 2 Frag Cannons and 2 Shotguns (KT2)
Kill Team 3- 5 Veterans with Meltagun, 3 Combi-meltas (KT3)
Kill Team 4- 5 Veterans with 5 Stalker Pattern Boltguns (KT4)
Kill Team 5- 5 Veterans, Terminator with Power Fist, Storm Bolter and Cyclone Missile Launcher (KT5)
Rhino- Storm Bolter (R1)
Rhino- Storm Bolter (R2)
5 Vanguard Veterans- 2 pairs Lightning Claws, 2 Heavy Thunder Hammers (VV)
4 Bikers- Teleport Homer, Power Axe, Power Maul, 2 Power Swords (DB1)
4 Bikers- Teleport Homer, Power Maul, 3 Power Swords (DB2)
Corvus Blackstar- Twin Assault Cannon, 2 Stormstrike Missiles, Hurricane Bolter, Auspex Array (CB)

6 Command Points

My warlord was the Watch Master, who took the Legendary Fighter warlord trait.

Caledonian Revolution 2017: Game 3- Deathwatch vs Space Wolves

The final game of day 1 of Caledonian Revolution saw my Deathwatch take on Joel's Space Wolves. 

Game 3 featured Secure and Control as the Eternal War mission (one main objective each) and Deadlock as the Maelstrom mission (6 cards, decreasing each turn). The deployment map was Search and Destroy. 

My army consisted of:

Battalion Detachment

Watch Master- Guardian Spear (W)

Watch Captain- Jump Pack, Xenophase Blade, Bolt Pistol (W)
Kill Team 1- Sergeant with Power Sword, Black Shield with Power Sword, 3 Veterans, 2 Frag Cannons, Vanguard Veteran with Pair Lightning Claws, Deathwatch Biker with Teleport Homer (KT1)
Kill Team 2- 5 Veterans with 2 Frag Cannons and 2 Shotguns (KT2)
Kill Team 3- 5 Veterans with Meltagun, 3 Combi-meltas (KT3)
Kill Team 4- 5 Veterans with 5 Stalker Pattern Boltguns (KT4)
Kill Team 5- 5 Veterans, Terminator with Power Fist, Storm Bolter and Cyclone Missile Launcher (KT5)
Rhino- Storm Bolter (R1)
Rhino- Storm Bolter (R2)
5 Vanguard Veterans- 2 pairs Lightning Claws, 2 Heavy Thunder Hammers (VV)
4 Bikers- Teleport Homer, Power Axe, Power Maul, 2 Power Swords (DB1)
4 Bikers- Teleport Homer, Power Maul, 3 Power Swords (DB2)
Corvus Blackstar- Twin Assault Cannon, 2 Stormstrike Missiles, Hurricane Bolter, Auspex Array (CB)

6 Command Points

My Warlord was the Watch Master, who had the Legendary Fighter warlord trait.

Caledonian Revolution 2017: Game 1- Deathwatch vs Ynnari

Welcome to my first battle report from the recent Caledonian Revolution 2017 tournament. The weekend features five games of 8th edition 40k, with 2000 pts armies. 

The basic rules for the tournament were:

• 2000 pts, battle forged armies
• No more than 3 Detachments
• No duplicate detachments
• No Forgeworld

I decided that I would be taking my Deathwatch army. I had been having fun with the army towards the end of 7th edition and had made a real effort to get them painted to a higher standard than my previous forces. 

Each of the five games were to ETC standards, meaning that each mission would be a mixture of Eternal War objectives, Maelstrom points and Kill Points, as well as bonus points for First Blood, Slay the Warlord and Linebreaker. 

The first mission was Retrieval Mission (4 objectives), with Contact Lost for the maelstrom mission (one card for each objective held). The deployment zone was Spearhead Assault. 

My first opponent of the day was Tess and his Ynnari army. I had previously played Tess at Blog Wars X in a really fun game. I hoped that this would be another fun encounter. 

My army consisted of:

Battalion Detachment

Watch Master- Guardian Spear (W)

Watch Captain- Jump Pack, Xenophase Blade, Bolt Pistol (W)
Kill Team 1- Sergeant with Power Sword, Black Shield with Power Sword, 3 Veterans, 2 Frag Cannons, Vanguard Veteran with Pair Lightning Claws, Deathwatch Biker with Teleport Homer (KT1)
Kill Team 2- 5 Veterans with 2 Frag Cannons and 2 Shotguns (KT2)
Kill Team 3- 5 Veterans with Meltagun, 3 Combi-meltas (KT3)
Kill Team 4- 5 Veterans with 5 Stalker Pattern Boltguns (KT4)
Kill Team 5- 5 Veterans, Terminator with Power Fist, Storm Bolter and Cyclone Missile Launcher (KT5)
Rhino- Storm Bolter (R1)
Rhino- Storm Bolter (R2)
5 Vanguard Veterans- 2 pairs Lightning Claws, 2 Heavy Thunder Hammers (VV)
4 Bikers- Teleport Homer, Power Axe, Power Maul, 2 Power Swords (DB1)
4 Bikers- Teleport Homer, Power Maul, 3 Power Swords (DB2)
Corvus Blackstar- Twin Assault Cannon, 2 Stormstrike Missiles, Hurricane Bolter, Auspex Array (CB)

6 Command Points

I figured I had a good mix of units to take on most threats in an opponent's army. I added some potent anti-tank firepower after my first few games had showed a serious problem taking on vehicles. 

Caledonian Revolution- Best Painted Army Nomination

This weekend, I attended Caledonian Revolution at Element games in Stockport. It was a great weekend, as I got to meet up with some friends from previous events and play some great games of 8th edition. I will be writing up my battle reports from the tournament and hope to have them ready for next week. 

Today though, I wanted to share with you some other awesome news. My Deathwatch army was nominated for Best Painted Army at the event. Needless to say, I was thrilled to be nominated, especially after all the effort that I have put into the Deathwatch army, and really trying to improve my painting skills with the force. Sadly, I did not place in the top three, but when I post the photos of all the nominated armies, I can understand why. There were some fantastic armies on display at the event. (Sorry for the shoddy photographs below, the tables around the armies was really busy and I didn't have long to try and get photos).