Game 1: Troy - Space Wolves
This game was every bit as difficult as I feared it would be. The entire army is drop pod, with a ton of plasma and preferred enemy. I was at a huge disadvantage since the drop pods negate my scouting and maneuverability. I deployed devastators to my far left. The Centurions with the Librarian were center, and the tactical squad was split, but both in their rhino. Sternguard were in the pod with the scouts and all of the bikes set to outflank.
I gave him first turn so that he would have most of his pods on the board before my bikes came on. I was hoping to play hit and run and use outflanking to start off far enough away from his troops. Troy got first blood without an issue blasting off the librarian and the centurions when he came on. I countered with the drop pod on turn 1 by putting them in range to do some damage to 1 squad, but too far away from the rest to take much return fire. I had enough on the board that when the other pods came in on turn 2 I could weather the storm until my bikes showed up. This proved to be the case since only 1 of his pods came on. This made surviving the turn great, but again it allowed for him to place the other two pods after my bikes came on.
My turn two only one bike squad did not come on. Scouts and the troop bikes came in on opposite sides, which was great as it gave me access to the two objectives in his deployment zone. I recovered pretty well and took out several squads. In the end the two pods that came in on turn 4 made the difference for him since I couldn’t out maneuver and failed a critical hit and run to win back an objective. Though it still would have only mitigated the the loss as Troy got all 3 of the extra VP.
Given my expectations going into this match I was satisfied that I executed my plan well and made a good fight out of it. Solution to this matchup would have been to ally in Coteaz and stick him with the Centurions.
Game 2: Simon - Sisters w/Inquisition
Usually, it is a disappointment to play good friends at a GT that I have played against so many times before, but with Simon moving around so much lately, it has been a long time since we hung out and even longer since we had a match, so no complaints this time. This game was two objectives and a relic. Simone used his servo skulls to negate my scout move and I deployed a little further back than I normally would since his landraider with DCA could scout forward. The details of the game are a little blurry, but we basically slugged it out in the middle of the board, constantly denying each other access to the relic. At the end of turn 5 Simon was able to get on his objective and grab the relic with his two remaining troops (I had none left at this point). Game ended on 5. I was desperate for turn 6 since I was sure to take out both of the troops he had left. 3 sisters against the 3 devastator centurions and 3 henchmen against the chapter master on the bike. Another tough loss! Simon outclasses me in experience and tactics, so I still felt satisfied playing a close game against him.
Game 3: Mark - Chaos Marines w/ Demons
I went from playing to well seasoned veteran GT players to a gentleman that has 0 helldrakes in his chaos list and introduced himself as the guy without helldrakes in his list. It was that kind of game and I almost felt bad about it. He had a huge unit of the demon hounds that I wiped out before his turn 1. Also, immobilized his land raider in his deployment zone early on. The rest of the game was like that. He was a really cool guy and I liked the idea for his army, it’s just too bad the non-helldrake parts of that book just do not hold up. I was able to get to the objectives (scoring during the game) early and hold mine and the center for most of the game and then got across and wracked it up last 2 turns. Also, did well with the kill points. Ended up with max points.
Game 4: Lucas - Orcs
Orks! I struggle against orks generally...I know that sounds like I am a noob, but I tend to make really bad decisions against any list with deathstar units. This guys was running two super nob squads with bosses, one on bikes, the other in a wagon. CRAP! I let him go first and tried bating his bikes with a squad of my bikes and because I wanted last turn to hop on objectives at the end of the game. I tried using the Chapter Master’s Orbital Bombardment to take out bikes first turn, but got a terrible scatter. Sternguard were supposed to end up in his backfield behind the boyz and next to the grots...but 11” scatter put me right at midfield instead.
Lucas wasn’t aggressive, which I found odd for an orc player. He was content to move a turn instead of charging in blindly to be in a better position next turn. He lucked out that it took all of my shooting to take down the wagon so that it was stuck midfield. I didn’t have much left once it was down and since everything was shooting at it, I couldn’t charge anything first turn.
The orcs pummeled the bike squads pretty hard, while I countered with the tactical squad on the foot nobs, meanwhile the chapter master went after the bike nobz. I had the warlord trait that gets extra VP for Warlord on Warlord take out and was gunning for it! First round he accepts with the pain boy. Then on his turn boyz join the assault and he challenges me with the nob from that group. I accepted with the Apothecary and took him out. I then had to hit and run out to escape the mass of attacks that were coming from the rest of the boyz once they caught up. I jumped one way, he consolidated the other and put the boyz between us.
By this point I had just the apothecary, chapter master, scouts and sternguard on the table, but that was enough. The scouts picked up a relic, the sternguard shot up all the remaining grots and boys, and the chapter master assaulted one squad of nobs then the other to to table the orcs.
Game 5: Brad - Imperial Guard w/ Inquisition
Saved the best game for last. Not because I won (actually I got tabled), but easily the most fun I had all weekend. 2 full blobs of guard with lascannons. Inquisitor in one and coteaz in the other. This was rounded out with a couple heavy weapon teams, command squad, a chimera and 3 Vendetta’s.
He fills up his deployment zone which is great in Hammer and Anvil, since I’ll get in plenty of close range shots first turn. He only has one servo skull so I just scout around it. He fails to seize twice and I go. Sternguard end up within 12” of the Coteaz blob and I no longer have Sternguard….this pretty much was the difference in the game. I’m confident considering how close it was that if I had not messed this up it would have gone differently.
I shoot up one of the blobs and take a few guys off, really not much to talk of for my first turn. Nothing really for the Centurions or devastators to take out, but I leave them back anyway because of the vendettas. Also, the chapter master makes about 20 armor saves, 5 invulnerable saves and 4 FnP saves after all the shooting he still has 3 out of 4 wounds left.
On turn two all of my shooting goes into the Cotez blob, getting it to about half strength. I then assault the other blob with the Chapter Master with the Ravenwing Command squad. I win by a few, he’s stubborn of course...but rolls an 11 and I sweep 40+ models off the table. Brutal stuff here! He returns with the psyker battle squads, who rip into the bikes squads, bringing both down from 5 to 2.
Turn 3 both bike squads take out both psyker battle squads. Chapter Master assaults the command squad and locks up with the astropath…Vendetta’s come in and take out the rhino, a centurion, and the librarian. Things continue to swing his way.
We end up goign 7 turns with things being really close on 5 and 6. By the end of 7 though the flyers are uncontested and end up barely tabling me, it was a close thing. I only ended up taking off 160 out of his 170 models. It was defeat, but a glorious and entertaining one!
My take on the event as a whole was, as expected, a great time. I played 5 great players with 5 different armies and went against precisely 0 riptides. Apparently, there are non-Tau players out there still.
Painting was interesting. I did not remember that some of the scoring was based off of other players picking which army was their favorite and submitting a vote...if I had, I would have remembered to leave it setup earlier and not just long enough for the paint judge to look at it. I also wasn’t thrilled with my score. It was quite high, but there were many subpar armies with very high scores as well. Didn’t quite feel that the gap between mine and some very average armies got was right. Lots of armies that were very cool seemed to do as well despite lacking highlights, fine details, free hand work, or any kind of blending. I’m a painting snob so whatever. Mine was not the best and the one that I thought was, took home first. So I was happy that worked out the way it did.
For the doubles tournament I can recall only the last game. We bribed the judge to allow us to deploy in the same zone as our opponents. We then paid tokens to re-roll seize the initiative. Our opponents bribed the judge to use their tokens to make us re-roll any successful seize the initiative rolls. We had a lot more tokens and still seized. For some reason 10 orbital bombardments then took place...some of them D strength. We shot and charged and tabled our opponents on the top of round one...it was stupid and awesome. Also, Gundam John and I got like half the stuff from the raffle, it was legendary. We were proud to improve on our second place finish last year, by winning it all, but there was so much Whiskey that I don’t clearly recall much of it and I’m sure much of what I am recalling is inaccurate.
