I had been gearing up steadily for the 1850 tournament that was on the 13th. I had been tweaking the list for a month and was getting in regular games, at least one a week leading up to it. Usually, with preparation like this I set myself up to be in a great place for the tournament...not so much this time. I had an epic collapse from top to bottom. Anything that could go wrong did.
Painting: I had the list figured out for the most part 5 weeks in advance. In order to be ready I needed to have 10 models painted a week to compete for best painted. This is well within my ability to do on a normal basis, but sleeping schedules were a mess and work has been very mentally taxing over the past couple months. The Wednesday before the tournament I called it quits. I still had 10 models to paint nothing was based and the army was way too big for the display board that I had built way back and was planning to use. It just wasn't meant to be.
1850, not 1890: Lists were due a week before the event. That night I start double checking my point costs and realize I wasn't paying enough for the Assault marines squads. I had them down for the cost of a tactical instead. That's a difference of 40 points (20 off for each squad).
I had to make last minute untested cuts to the list and in retrospect I know that I cut out the wrong things. The key element of the list that made it work so well in all of the games I had play tested was the 10 Sternguard in a drop pod. So what did I cut...5 Sternguard out of the list.
What's the difference 5 guys make, you might ask? In this list it is everything. I have a foot slogging army that relies heavily on my opponent being completely distracted by at least a full turn on the Sternguard and for them to commit significant shooting to it. 5 guys is a nuisance, 10 is a threat. 5 Sternguard can put a dent into a squad for sure, but not enough to cause an opponent to commit to them. 10 is another story. With 10 Sternguard I can annihilate an entire squad, or split them and cripple two squads with ease. This gets your oponents attention. They need to move forward for an assault or commit more shots to take out this threat early. This distraction allowed for my 20 man Death Co. Squad to foot their way across the table with out getting shot up and has a chance of drawing my opponents troops closer to assault range if they try to assault the Sternguard. Since the Sternguard weren't the distraction I needed them to be my opponents were able to fall back as the DC moved forward and pick them off as they came across. This ended up happing in all 3 games. 500 points (DC and Libby) that is ineffective for three games...I don't need to spell out how that day went!
Considering the bad last minute change to the list, I played it out pretty well. I can see the first two games that I lost, going very differently if the list had not been butchered at the last minute. Here's a synopsis on how the games went.
Game 1 vs. Eldar
This was a mess, my perfectly formulated and practiced plan with the Sternguard didn't work out, because the 5 guys couldn't take out the guardian squad on an objective by itself on the far left in my opponents deployment zone. This forced me to commit 5 assault marines to try and finish them off and at least contest the objective. That never happened, the assault marines were too easy to pick off after the Sternguard were wiped out. Ideally, 10 Sternguard should have killed all troops and then started to push across the deployment zone into the main fore, with the assault squad able to swoop on to that far objective, in cover, and keep it with ease for the rest of the game. I then just planned on bogging down the middle of the board and trading the other objectives. Some high strength long range shooting and AP 2 shots would have also made a big difference in this game.
Game 2 vs. Grey Knights w/ Space Wolves allies
I ended up having the same issue with the drop pod in this game. It took entirely too long for me to kill an isolated group of SW troops, about 4 turns instead of 1-2. This was further complicated by the Spearhead deployment. The DC just had too far to walk and my opponent withdrew properly to keep them at bay the whole game. If I had another turn or two 7 and 8? I would have had the time to properly take out enough KP, but the slow walking infantry just can't get where they need to be in time. Given that two of the three the out of book deployments are long walks, I need to make some changes in range and mobility to accommodate this.
Game 3 vs. Salamanders
Me and Pat the Hat in last and second to last place...battle for Smokin Boots (award for last place). Pat and I had a really fun game. Neither of us had any particular blunders, but nothing genius either. It was a long day and we were more interested in having a fun game than a serious one, and we did. Most enjoyable moment for me was marking his Captain on a Bike for death, as one of the objectives and having him throw down with my librarian. He challenged my librarian and then rolled a bunch of one's and two's. I did the same, but go to re-roll (thanks Divination). I landed an unsaved wound and Pat was introduced to the force weapon! We ended up tying the primary objective as Pat's flyers chewed through my troops in a 7 round game. My theory on flyers for the day was to ignore them, but 6 rounds of shooting is more than anyone can handle.
On the plus side, I had three very pleasant opponents who I enjoyed hanging out with for the day. I also get to take a step back from furiously painting at top speed. Which is great since I got 2 commissions done and started on some tanks for Simon that are looking really good, more to come on those.
