The Invasion of Lannar IV

Date: 07th – 09th September 2018

Venue:  Warhammer World, Nottingham

Link: https://warhammerworld.games-workshop.com/horus-heresy-campaign-weekend-the-invasion-of-lannar-iv/

This looks to be WHW’s only HH event this year and certainly one I wasn’t going to miss.  Tickets sold out insanely quickly; I got mine but I was on buying duty for my friends and didn’t get theirs.  Fortunately our standard SOP was initiated and it became every man for himself.  They all got sorted in the second wave so now there’s a decent sized group of us (3 x traitor and 2 x loyalist) going up.

The event is billed ‘narrative,’ with the awards as follows:

  • Victors of Lannar IV – for each member of the winning faction. Chaplain – for the Loyalist player with the most Favourite Game votes, with the best gaming results as a secondary sorter.
  • Dark Apostle – for the Traitor player with the most Favourite Game votes, with the best gaming results as a secondary sorter.
  • Hero of Legend – as voted by you for the winner of the Hero category in the Legends painting competition.
  • Company of Legend – as voted by you for the winner of the Company category in the Legends painting competition.
  • Icon of Legend – as voted by you for the winner of the Icon category in the Legends painting competition.
  • Best Scout Force – as voted by you for the best looking scout force.
  • Best Army – as voted by you from the selection of nominees for the best looking army.

Right off the bat I’ve got my eye on the single miniature painting comp with Fulgrim (Hero of Legend)

I’ve been to a couple of campaign or narrative events at WHW before and I find them to be more fun than ToS events because of the lack of cut throat WAAC elements but it’s fair to say that people are definitely there to win their games.  The event is fairly expensive and with all the extras it comes to a pretty pricey weekend so I guess most people want to walk away thinking they had a good time (and that generally doesn’t mean getting their pants pulled down for three days).

So what’s the weekend schedule?

Friday night – Flexible 4,000 points game.

This Flexible 4,000 points system is interesting.  4,000 points (which is bigger than any 1:1 game I’ve played before) is the minimum size but the players’ pack encourages bigger games.  Reading between the lines this system is to allow all those Titan owners the opportunity to use all their toys.  I have ~7,000 points of EC but given how the force org slots work ~5,000 points is my playable limit.  My intention here is to take 4,000 points and let my opponent take whatever they want.  I’m looking forward to this game a lot.

Saturday

2 x 2,500 AoD games

2 x 1,000 Scout force games

The AoD games are self-explanatory.  I’ll post my list up for these (and all the games) when Tom’s finished his series of ‘how to write a 30K list,’ articles (you can find those here)

The 1,000 Scout force games are slightly different.  To fit the narrative these are smaller games (obviously) and completely the opposite of the 4K+ games – there’s quite a tight restriction:

  • No Primarchs, Praetors or unique (named) characters.
  • No Lords of War, Super-heavies, Gargantuan or Flying Gargantuan creatures.
  • No vehicles with a combined armour value of more than 33.
  • No units with a toughness value of 8 or more.
  • No flyers or flying monstrous creatures.
  • No fortifications.

There’s also a specific painting competition for this force.

This is cute but I can’t go too far through this article without raising a flag around the timings.  Off the back of a 4,000 points game the night before, 4 games in a day is a lot of games.  I know two of these are 1,000 points but 2 x 1,000 points isn’t the same as 1 x 2,000 points game – it takes much longer.  Now, obviously, we’re there to play games but my instinctive response is that this will be a long, tiring day of gaming in a noisy venue.  Still excited though.

Sunday

1 x 1,000 points game

1 x Flexible 4,000 points game.

So, a lot of gaming (seven games over two days and one evening), a painting comp I’ve got my eye on and a decent sized group of my mates going.  Should be good fun.

What about the logistics?

Ok so I’ve been to a number of these before and here’s how I’m doing this one:

  1.   I’m taking time off work over the week before and after the event so I’ll be able to go up on the Friday at my leisure (my UK base is in Surrey, about a 3 hour drive to Nottingham).  I’m taking a friend with me and with all of our cases and us (and the fact that my UK car is a little city runabout) I’ll be hiring a car.  For reference, WHW is not in a convenient location, whatever anyone tells you, unless you are driving.  It’s not an easy walk from the station and you can get a tram but I wouldn’t know where to start with that.  Car hire for Friday – Monday is GBP260
  2.  There are several very handy hotels for WHW (Holiday Inn, Premier Inn etc).  I always stay at the Castle Marina Premier Inn.  It’s good value, close to WHW and has several restaurants close by.  Friday and Saturday night comes in at GBP170
  3.  Food.   As a major city, there are lots of places to eat in Notts – WHW itself has Bugmans which is good for the time you’re there but once you leave there’s a whole city of food before you.

So, it’s a >GBP600 weekend (with event ticket, food and petrol) before you get into spending at WHW itself (I’m planning on picking up Adeptus Titanicus and, possibly, Kill Team while I’m there).

What’s next?  I’ll be sharing my lists with you, going over what I’m taking up with me and then I’ll be there and sending back some images and blog reports from the event itself.

Let me know what you think!