HUBCON 2017 Battle Report

10 Sept 2017

HUBCON is an annual event in Hattiesburg, MS. The focus is on historical minature games, but I saw RPGs and board games being played. A few vendors were there and had some sweet deals, didn’t pick up anything but I know some of the others did.

A special shout out to the Wayward Kraken, a gaming pub out of Biloxi, MS who brought some of their staff to serve food. Man do they have some really good wings!

We had 8 players attend all from the GCWA. Ian Thornton (3-0) won the event with his Necrons, Mike Sanchez (2-1) came in second with his Guard army, and Shawn Lowery (2-1) came in third with CSM – Iron Warriors. Also Shawn Lowery got best-painted award for his army!

Ian’s list is solid, and with so few Necron players in the area*, can just donkey punch you if your not ready. Warriors are tough and with reanimation protocol, you have to focus kill units one at a time, or they will just come back. The FW Pylon… it is stupid good. At 475 points it is in my opinion an auto include for any Necron list. He also runs some destroyers and some beat stick HQs.

* Just want to note that I have been told by a local that Necrons are no good, and sold off his stuff for pennies on the dollar. Just makes me giggle when a player thinks he knows what he is talking about, and we all know that he doesn’t.

Round 1: Minor Victory against Scott Combs (Imperial Knights)

Round 2: Major Victory against Warboss Hinkle (Death Guard)

Round 3: Major Victory against Shawn Lowery (CSM – Iron Warriors)

Mike’s Guard list is really good, and is the current top Meta faction. His list is well rounded with his artillery being 3 Manticores with Sergeant Harker letting them re-roll hits of 1. Another mean piece to his list that I have not seen is the FW Vulture Gunship. At 160 points it packs a huge punch. Taking the Twin Punisher Gatling Cannon (24” Range Heavy 40 S5 0AP) he has daka for hordes.

Round 1: Minor Victory against William Scott (Dark Angels)

Round 2: Minor Loss against Shawn Lowrey (CSM – Iron Hands)

Round 3: Major Victory against Jarl Clem (Space Wolves)

Shawn’s list… I don’t know much about it, and sorry about that but didn’t get to see it in action that much while playing my own games. The main piece that I did see was that he ran a Daemon Prince with the Iron Warriors relic that gave it a 2+ Armor Save. That Prince also took the Mark or Nurgle, which made him even more resilient.  I also saw a bunch of cultist running around his table.

Round 1: Major Victory against Cami Brown (Eldar)

Round 2: Minor Victory against Mike Sanchez (Guard)

Round 3: Major Lost against Ian Thornton (Necrons)

Now lets talk about my matches.

I decided to play Space Wolves (My first event with them in 8th edition). I went with 6 quad mortars backed up with a wolf lord and wolf guard battle leader. Some Grey hunters, scouts, Logan, Arjac, and jump pack wolf guard with combi-plasma guns. Overall I came in 6th out of 8 so not so great but lessons learned.

First round was against Warboss Hinkle and his Death Guard. We finished on the 5th turn at the time limit with Hinkle getting a Minor Victory. I believe we were evenly matched, but he had the board control. 1 more inch (story of my life) for my charge and I would have possibly contested the objective and have been a tie. This match my quad mortars did some work. Bloat drones took them to the face. To bad they were still able to go around and kill basically all of my troops. My deep strike wolf guard did ok, but nothing special. Highlight was Ajac and Logan tag teaming Typhus and taking him out.

Second round was against William Scott who was playing a fully Dark Angels list. Young guy who is not a competitive player. I was able to just control all parts of the board and beat him. He did give me a scare with some terminators coming down on me, but the plasma AP-3 was just to much for them. Tabled, Major Victory

Last round I paired with Mike Sanchez and his Guard army. Going into it I was expecting to loose hands down, and that is exactly what happened. He went first and went about destroying about half of my army. My deep striking wolf guard could not do much with a conscript bubble around what they needed to kill. They got a dreadnought and a Chimera or two but nothing that could tilt the game back in my favor.  The only thing going for me was that after my quad mortars were put back in my bag, the two man crew units cause him some problems because I had 6 of them running around.  Just due to mission, if the game had finished on turn 5 we would have tied, but since it did not, I conceded cause he would have been able to kill my left overs and move his units on more objectives.

Overall it was a good event because I got to spend the day with great guys and throw some dice. Space Wolves definitely need a Codex, but I think with some work and practice I can make them competitive.

Jarl Clem