I am writing this post two days after returning home from the UK for this event. Generally, I write my text in Word and spend considerable time editing, but this getting jammed right into the blog box stream of consciousness style. Strap in because my it’s about to get real Jeremy up in here!

Note: My summaries of games are a bit different to how many other people write them. You won’t get end of game scores and dice rolls from me. I am more a vibes guy! [Insert sunglasses emoji guy]

As you might imagine from the title and the previous post (which shot to number one!), I traveled to the UK this past weekend to play in an event at the Heresy Hammer HQ! This was the first official Heresy Hammer event in their lovely new space. Rob Medwell ran the event, and he did not disappoint!

Being up front, this was my first singles Heresy event, and it was a great way to get started! I have played doubles the previous two years at Adepticon. I have always been more of a casual player, but 30k events are different than 40k tournaments. So, that being said, I don’t have other events to compare this one to; however, as a discerning gamer, I do know what I am looking for. I know if I am having a good time or not, and I know good people when I meet them. Both boxes fully checked! If you know me, I am getting out my drum and once again beating it…I am first and foremost a hobbyist. I play games to build community and inspire me.

Well ahead of time, Rob sent out a video with the narrative for the event and the basic objective for each mission. To be fair, I did not tailor my list to this event. The only thing I painted specifically for this event, was a few nuncio voxes I added to units. The only thing new for 3rd edition, is two new Land Speeders to bring me to two squads of two. My Land Speeders have been a staple in my army for years, and having four is truly double the fun!

My best pals have already seen many of these pictures, so I think the pictures do justice to the HHHQ! It is an amazing space, and it is fully owned by Heresy Hammer. It is just always fully set up. There are seven tables, so the event was meant to accommodate 16 people with 12 playing a singles game and 4 playing a doubles each round. Each table is high so you don’t have to spend two days hunched over. The space is new, clean, stylish, and the light is great. Each table has a cohesive theme with amazing terrain, much of which is unique 3d printed sets. It is certainly the best terrain I have seen for an event. Period.

I should say that 4 people did not show up the day of the event, with only 1 contacting Rob. We got started a bit late waiting for people, which wasn’t a problem really. The problem is that Heresy Hammer events sell out within minutes. So, life does happen, but that is 4 other people that did not get to play in the first ever Heresy Hammer HQ event. I think that is a bit sad.

Game 1

My first game was against an amazing guy named Jamie and his Mechanicum. The pictures speak for themselves, but his army was so cool. His paint scheme was proper Heresy and his Archmagos was one of my favorite single models from the entire event. The aim of the mission was to capture and hold the Governor of Kirokon. I went second in all my games, but in this game the Governor took a lucky scatter towards me. I was on him turn 1, and it was back-and-forth the entire game! Luckily, I have a bit more experience playing against/with Mechanicum than most Space Marine players. I still don’t know what everything is/does, but neither do most 3rd edition Mechanicum players so far. lolz This was a great game. It was the only game I won all weekend, and it was a close one.

Game 2

For the second round, I was selected to play in the doubles mission. It was really the perfect situation because I got to play against Rob and his Alpha Legion. If you know Heresy, you have seen his Alpha Legion online. I can tell you that in person, his are the best Alpha Legion I have ever seen. They are jaw dropping. His partner was Ian, who was celebrating his birthday with his Sons of Horus. And my partner was his brother Neil, with is Dark Angels.

Neil’s Dark Angels were great, and you will definitely see that in the Armies on Parade section. However, I have to say that Ian’s Sons of Horus were so good! His blue-green is that exact shade that I associate with beach towns. It makes me think of the ocean. If I ever get back around to painting Sons of Horus, I think I am going to have to shift from my mint green to what Ian has done here. It’s one of those things where you try for one thing and end up with something else. It’s fine but it isn’t what you really wanted. Ian hit the nail on the head with this!

As for the mission, it was relatively simple. There were 10 Alpha Legion operatives on the board. If you capture one, you interrogate him. You roll 2d6. On anything but a doubles, you get 2VP. On a doubles, you get only 1VP and execute the operative! Well, over 4 turns, the Loyalists executed 6 operatives! You expect that from the Dark Angels, but the White Scars were equally ruthless!

I don’t think I have ever laughed so much or dropped so much Fucksphex in a game of Heresy! It was wild! We lost this game but the points were such that if we had not perhaps executed all the operatives we captured, the points situation might have been different. This is the most fun I have ever had playing Heresy, and I really hope to play this mission again with friends.

I should also mention that Ian and Neil have a show called the Duelling Cages Podcast. It is a unique Horus Heresy, mostly lore focused. The content is great and it is professionally done. Check it out!

Saturday Night

Saturday night, we ate at an Indian restaurant a stone’s throw from the HHHQ. I had scouted out the location the previous evening and incidentally ate at the same restaurant. However, I love Indian and it was great, so I wasn’t bothered to eat it two nights in a row. It was also really fun to just sit around for a couple hours, unwind, and get to know people! I cannot say enough how friendly everyone was. There are not too many places that I would travel solo where I didn’t know anyone. I had a good feeling about this event, and the people were everything I could have hoped for! I really want to go back again…

Armies on Parade

Another reason I chose this event was that I expected the standard of painting to be extremely high. I was not disappointed!

I took notes to try to keep track of as many people as I could. Especially with an intimate event like this, I wish there were a sign-in sheet with everyone’s socials that we could share. I gave out some stickers (until I misplaced them). When talking to people, most of us followed each other already. However, it can be difficult tying names and faces to Instagram handles and other content. I have made contact with a bunch of people since the event, but if I haven’t yet, please reach out!

Sunday morning, we all voted on best army. I will tell you the winners here so you don’t have to jump from the end back to these photos.

Alex won best Traitor Army with his World Eaters. In my opinion, it is the blue that really makes any World Eater army and his is great! He also had an interesting army composition, but more on that later!

For the Loyalists, Chris won with his Militia. This army is wild! You can check out his Instagram, but it is something else in the flesh! Everything is lovingly converted and has a Mechanicum vibe. I have many friends that have wanted to do a cyborg Militia army and this is the prototype. The paint scheme gives steampunk vibes, especially his Milita Thunderbolt/Archeocopter. That was my single favorite model from the event. The canopy draws your eye, and it doesn’t even look like miniature painting anymore. It is truly a piece of art.

Pete also won an Organizer’s Choice award for his Iron Warriors. His are probably the best hazard stripes I have ever seen. I am also not really sure how he did his silver, but it almost seems NMM. Not to take anything away from anyone, but Pete was the last one to get his army set up. Most of us had already set up our armies the evening before, but Pete ended up setting his army up while we were all voting. I have no idea what happened.

I would also like to take a moment to mention Cerri’s White Scars. This is another army many of us have seen on various interwebzcontent. His White Scars really are that good. Check out that Saturnine! I do believe he runs his Scars as Traitors, but we didn’t get a White Scars grudge match, sadly! That would have been cool! Anyway, I think we were both Loyalists for this event anyway.

There are also a couple more photos of Rob’s Alpha Legion in this group. He did not officially display the army, but I did get some pics anyway.

I did also pick up some great ideas/tips for my future army display. I thought I was doing well with my display board but check Billy’s Space Wolves towards the end. It’s giving me ideas for Adepticon!

Game 3

My third game was against Alex and his World Eaters! I knew that on the evening before so had a look at his army with all his big robots. This is the most unique World Eaters army I have ever seen. However, everything had a cohesive theme that made sense.

This game was an absolute bloodbath! There is a new special rule in 3rd edition that allows you to declare a Counterstrike going into the last turn. That means you score double points in the final turn, but you must have half the points (or less) that your opponent has going into the final turn. That is where Turns 1 and 2 were trending, and I had a passing thought to sandbag the 3rd turn and try to make up ground in the 4th. However, my pride wouldn’t let me. And I was able to claw back enough points in the 3rd and final turn to take the L with my head held high.

The huge model is a Kytan. Turn 1 I was able to knock off half of his wounds, but then he just Battlesmithed him back to full health. Fool me once! So, I largely tried to ignore it for the rest of the game, but he had a bunch of those models I didn’t really have an answer for. I cannot say enough about how cool this army is, and Alex is a lovely guy as well.

Game 4

In my final game, I was matched back up with Ian! Our doubles lists were only 1350 points, so we were able to whip out the whole shebang for this one! This mission was all about killing the other person’s units. There were several ways to earn bonus points. My army isn’t terribly killy, so I focused more on keeping my valuable units alive and picking my targets. This tactic kept the game largely within a point or so for the first three turns. However, Ian overwhelmed me on the final turn!

Nevertheless, this made it four out of four for amazing games! Considering I played Ian twice on the weekend and both games were a blast; it would be obvious to say that Ian was my favorite opponent. He also told me about his podcast at this point, which gave me new (good) Heresy content to blast into my earholes! Thanks, my dude!

My MVP(s)

I mentioned them before, but my Land Speeders were fire! I used them in two small games before the event, which allowed me to make mistakes and finetune how I used them. For years, I had two with the classic 1st edition Multi-Melta/Grav Gun loadout. In 3rd edition, I am running two squads, each with one of those and one with a Multi-Melta, 2 Hunter-Killer Missiles, and an Augury Scanner. This makes them a nuisance to all kinds of infantry, light vehicles, and even to walkers. They aren’t terribly survivable, the true definition of a glass cannon. However, I did find that your opponent really must think about taking them out. A round of shooting from a Tactical Squad might kill one of them. And with the White Scars advanced reaction, if something gets close to them I can blast away 16” super quick! So, your opponent must really concentrate on eliminating these things or they will wreak havoc!

To say they earned their points is a gross understatement! They were also very fun to play with, and I’d like to think my opponents found them interesting as well. It is definitely one unit I talked quite a bit about.

Getting Put out to Pasture

No photo here. Reference my last post. My Stormseer Oyuun Besud did not impress me at all. He had the Paragon of Battle Prime Advantage, but his psychic attack and force staff (you cannot change this weapon) are both AP4 with no actual way to improve that. He just really did not hold his own. And his psychic ability to slingshot units across the board wasn’t terribly useful in most of these games either. As someone that has run Thousand Sons in this edition, psychic powers are great, but the Stormseer build is just disappointing. Even if he doesn’t get put out to pasture, I don’t think the army is going to center so much around this guy. In last edition, he seemed almost impossible to kill, hence his nickname “The Rock of Chogoris.” However, he now doesn’t do much and he just dies way too easily. So, maybe he just gets a demotion…

Wrap-up

Tony (Salamanders) was voted best sport for the Loyalists. I don’t have who got it for the Traitors in my notes. The only prizes were given for painting and sportsmanship, which I appreciate. The Loyalists narrowly won, so even though I lost 3 out of 4 games, keeping my games close contributed to our overall victory. Huzzah! I do have to admit playing as a Loyalist felt a bit dirty after playing as a Traitor in previous events. Oh well!

On Sunday, we finished and were out the door before 4pm. I must admit that after those two days, I was exhausted. I got back to the hotel and dropped all my stuff and then went out looking for food. I can get overloaded after such intense experiences, so having a quiet Sunday evening to reflect on everything was nice. This event was a wonderful experience, and travel and food were also awesome.

I know I mentioned it before, but I cannot wait to travel back to the UK and see my new Heresy friends. I don’t think these guys truly understand what they have there. If you are not from the UK and you love Heresy, you have to play Heresy there! I don’t feel the pull to Warhammer World that many fans do, largely because I only care about Heresy. Playing Heresy in the UK has been a bucket list item for years. Other than waiting in the airport, the overall travel time is about the same as traveling to an event in Germany. Anyway, I do hope that this will lead to more adventures in the future!

Conclusion

Well, that wraps up my event overview for the Scouring of Kirokon! Thanks to Rob and everyone else that made it so amazing. If you are reading this and you were there and not linked here, please shoot me a message! I am happy to go back and revise this.

In the meantime, you can check me out Instagram or Facebook!