Horus Heresy - Hope's Folly Round-up

John GG and King Fluff here again bringing you the highlights from Tabletop Banter’s Hopes Folly event.

We both had a great time with Callum and Harry looking after us for the day. The atmosphere and hospitality was great and the laid back speed painting competition at lunchtime was a nice difference to the day.


John GG - My first time table top banter run event and I was really looking forward to it. Turned out to be a fantastic event with great tables and terrain and a very chill atmosphere.

The campaign/game intervention had an impact on the game but didn’t make it game breaking either. The narrative was simple with custom missions. A good exercise showing simplicity is sometimes best.

My first game was against fellow UB4H’er King Fluff. A good game ending, rightly, in a draw. Previous to this game I never really rated the Grav Flux Bombard but after seeing it destroy almost a full unit of bikes I’m beginning to rethink my position. AP2 with no cover saves allowed really really hurts. The game swung both ways a couple of times with both of us inflicting a lot of casualties on the other. Neither King Fluff nor I could gain the upper hand.




KF - My first game of the day was against fellow UB4Her John GG. In actual fact we were given the option to grudge match and I thought a game against John would be a nice way to slide into the weekend with a relaxing and enjoyable game.

We both had fast forces with an emphasis on dripped in reserves. We both had moderately sized units that were fairly elite. My planned MVP was the Leviathan, and I’d assumed John’s was his Aquisitor or his lightning. The game started with some posturing in both sides, the plasma bikes made short work of the castellax, the Praevian stood firm as the leviathan opened up on the squad, which was the finished off by the praevian. The Leviathan was seen off by multiple units targeting his rear armour. Blows we’re exchanged between scoring units, with John’s destroyers making short work of Terror Squads which were then in turn blooded by the Xiphon interceptor. Some artful maneuvering of John’s sisters of silence in their transport dropped them onto an objective at the end of the game leading to a 7 v 7 draw. Fast paced action with plenty of killing and a more than satisfactory result - a great start to the day.






After the first game was a delicious pizza lunch followed by some painting - we were tasked with painting up the objective model that would be being used for game 2. These were infantry models from Anvil Industries and were really nicely proportioned and cast. Both King Fluff and John GG undertook the task and completed their models by the end of the lunch break (what we would like to know is which is your favourite - left or right?)


John GG - Game 2 was against Ian Parker [who was only halfway through his bottle of rum at this point, thank God!] And his Sons of Horus. The builds some great lists this one had over 50 infantry all in rhinos. Two tactical squads, two veteran squads and a tactical support squad all with Volkite chargers. He also included a cheeky talon of three Cortus dreadnoughts with 4 plasma cannons between them!

The mission was to race to a beacon at the end of the table, we would be racing lengthways. I won the race to beacons but was then flooded by Marines. I lost 8-7 on victory points. Both tech-priests died. Mine took down plenty of traitors before eventually succumbing to his wounds. Ian left his house in the open and my lightning bombarded him to dust.



KF - I’ve know Michael for a while and he’s always been a great supporter of King Fluff events, a thoroughly nice guy and I was really pleased to be able to have a game with him at last.

Game 2's mission was a faced paced land grab where both armies are racing from one short edge to the other to hold an objective til the end of the game. This mission suited my force perfectly with fast paced units and drop pods able to close the distance quickly. Michaels army was an amazing collection of over 100 Ultramarines on foot. A truly stunning sight on the table. I tried to maximise my strengths and exploit the Ultramarines weaknesses by deploying the leviathan and praevian near his deployment lines. I made a beeline for his Heavy Support squad and their Xiphon killing Missile launchers. Once they were neutralised I then made to slow the marching marines down by engaging the leviathan in combat with the frontline squad of ultramarines. Whilst the Praevian and Leviathan were distracting the main body of the Ultramarines force the Xiphon was conducting strafing runs. The Terror Squads, Praetor and Techtarch (our special painted character from the lunch break) were all making their way into the scoring zone by the beacon.

By the end of the game the Ultramarines had made it to the null zone and had begun to destroy the Night Lords whilst the Leviathan continued to remove chunks of their infantry. The end of the game saw a 9 v 0 win to the Night Lords, purely based on the unengaged Night Lords being able to sit tight on the objective until the end of the game.



John GG - My third game was against James Williams and his mid-heresy World Eaters. A nicely put together army well painted with some great conversions. I was ambushing him and so he set up in the middle of the board. I was going to have a hard time taking out James’s heavy Armour as he brought a land raider be so Sicaran battle tank and a leviathan. I was scouting around the edges picking off his infantry awaiting my lightning to turn up. Which it did on turn two, I lined it up for an attack run on the leviathan only for the tournament organiser to tell us to stop playing we then had to swap one units as close as possible to the middle of the board with the table next to us of course that was my lightning. Sad face. In exchange I got a unit of 10 tactical Marines and a rhino. Obviously I wouldn’t be killing the leviathan this turn.

I spend the rest of the game running away from his tanks that did manage to kill all his infantry including his warlord. I managed to scrape a win 11-8.

A thoroughly enjoyable game made all the more challenging by the tournament intervention.




KF - Game 3 was a glorious slog fest - trading blows with an ambushing agile ultramarine army by Morgan Davies. Lots of assault marines and speeders. Our mission objective changed half way through the battle from simply holding the beacon to specialised kill points centred around characters. The Leviathan did lots of damage, chipping away at the tide of blue ceramtie. Half way through the game the beacons malfunctioned and swapped units closest to the beacon with the like from the adjacent table - I swapped a praevian (minus robots) for a full tac squad from an Iron Warriors army. The Iron Warriors squad held out and drew in the ultras elite units with HQs attached. Finally fled and got cut down leaving all the tasty targets in a template shaped group. Leviathan killed them all bar two assault marines. Misread mission and ended game turn 5 not turn 6; turn 5 victory to night Lords but as we missed a turn and the loyalists had far more effective units left I played a let for the Loyalist to win in lieu of a 6th turn as we’d started packing away.




It was a great day all in and made doubly so being able to attend as a united blog force. We are very much looking forward to attending the next Greetings from the Warp event alongside Tylar in the autumn.

What's been your favourite event? what kind of things do you enjoy at a gaming experience? let us know in the comments below.

KF & John GG

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