Masters 2012 Report Pt 4 (the finale!)

Right, better get on into it then!

In the build up to the final round, Daniel Hayden looked to be pulling a big upset and was in the process of destroying Pascal in Kill points. This was setting things up nicely for an epic finale, as this would have put me 16-17 points ahead of him, meaning if he could produce a big win against me he would slap me down and walk away with the whole thing. 

Clearly Dan's Flyrants were about to gift him the tournament...

Alas Daniel did what Daniel does best, and threw it all away at the most crucial moment, drawing to Pascal 6-7. This meant that mathematically, I could have spent the next 2 hours punching Daniel in the balls for a max sports hit, then gotten tabled, and would still be winning the event. However, that did not make the event a dead rubber, and we both went into the round hungry for a win; Daniel aiming to secure second place and prove a point, while I'm a colossal jerk and wasn't going to let anyone get a win against me if I could help it.

Onto round 7 then... Battle of the pregnant flying dinosaurs in space!

Any caption at this point would be redundant really.

 Round 7: Daniel Hayden
Mission: Purge The Alien
Deployment: Dawn of War

This was set up to be the round of the event. Dan had what I felt was
the most competitive list, and the best chance of winning going into
the tournament. Right up until the final dice roll of his round 6
game, it looked like this round would decide the event. Unfortunately
for Dave, an earlier draw against Haydn and now a draw against Pascal
meant he would be scrapping it out for 2nd.

Dan had 2 flyrants with 2 powers, 3 tervigons with 3 powers and all
the usual upgrades, 3 squads of gaunts to make them scoring and 4 hive
guard.

It's a dance party with psychic powers for music!

Dan won the roll for first turn, and gave it to me. Having looked at
how his army worked, it seemed like he would be hinging his gameplan
on enfeebling wraiths, and shooting them with the flyrants. Giving me
first turn was an effort to bring me inside enfeebles 24inch range at
the start of the game. Especially as every single MC in his army
rolled enfeeble, and 2 of them rolled Iron Arm as well!

I deployed as if I intended to push everything right down his throat,
and Dan deployed to match it, with gaunts and tervigons up front to
punish any t3 wraiths foolish enough to assault them. His flyrants
deployed at the rear to be outside of any t1 nastyness.


Turn 1 - me: I immediately moved my wraiths backwards and to one side,
turning my central deployment into a refused flank, and forcing him to
now come to me wading through 4+ turns of shooting before he would
reach me in piecemeal. My annihilation barges moved into range of the
iron arm tervigon, and once the whole army had shot, it was dead.

Turn 1 – Dan: Dan was now forced to come in, or risk continuously
bleeding killpoints. 2 tervigons spawned, with one having a wee
accident and clamming up. One flyrant iron-armed to t9, but did not
fully commit in pushing forward. The other had endurance cast on it
and pushed centrally.

Hive guard pen’d an annihilation barge, so the flyrant then blew up
its now AV11.

That jerk Flyrant did this to my poor vehicle.

Turn 2 – Me: Both flyers came in. Meanwhile the wraiths continued to
move backwards and sideways to be out of range of any enfeebling
rather than the 1 flyrant who was now target alpha. The first flyer
shot at him, doing 2 wounds, and grounding him, which did a 3rd wound.
Everything else then shot him, and did nothing, until the cheeky gun
on the bottom of the command barge took his final wound.

The warrior squads from reserve shot up a depleted termagant squad
that had suffered from the first ones death, and wiped it out.

Turn 2 – Dan: Dan pushed the second flyrant up into the same spot, and
a tervigon assaulted the command barge. Gaunts advanced up my right
flank, which was totally empty now, so were making the hard hike over
to me. Hive guard managed to pen the command barge, so the flyrant
again blew it up with his devourers. The tervigon charged him, but
promptly failed his mindshackle scarab test and was reduced to 4
wounds. A horde of gaunts were also in this assault, but a challenge
was protecting the lord from their attacks.

Turn 3 – Me: I pushed a wraith squad into these gaunts, while
everything else shot the other flyrant to death. As this turn I would
now have too big a lead, I pushed both other wraith units forward to
keep pressure on, knowning I would lose 1 but mop up the rest of the
game in the process. In the combat, the wraiths wiped the gaunts out,
but after passing his mindshackle test the tervigon hulk-smashed my
lord to death for only 2 more wounds in return.

Lest we forget....

Turn 3 - Dan: The last free tervigon enfeebles the nearest wraith
squad, spits out its last unit of gaunts with the last getting trapped
until an emergency C-Section can be performed, shoots the wraiths with
2 units of gaunts helping, before 1 unit and the tervigon make it into
assault. A couple of gaunts are killed, and a wound is pulled off the
tervigon, but the wraiths are reduced to just 1 wound.
In the other combat, the wraiths finished the tervigon that had killed
the lord, who got a big consolidate.

Turn 4 - Me: One unit of hiveguard are shot to death, and 9/10 gaunts
are killed in another unit, while the wraith unit that had killed a
tervigon multi assault another gaunt unit's remnants and the last of
the hive guard, wiping both out.
The fresh wraith squad assaults the gaunts who are locked with a
single wounded wraith and tervigon, wiping out the gaunts while the
tervigon suffers another wound dropping to 4.

Turn 4 - Dan: Dan now has a wounded tervigon in combat, a single gaunt
who has gone to ground, and a 9 man unit of gaunts pushing for my
deployment zone for linebreaker, successfully passing their
instinctive behavior roll in the process, so the turn is fairly quick.
The wraiths strip another 2 wounds for no loss.

Turn 5 - Me: The wraiths who beat up the hive guard breakdance in Dans
deployment zone, the 2 flyers force a moral check on the gaunts
closing in on my deployment zone, causing them to run, and the
tervigon is finished off along with the solo gaunt.

Turn 5 - Dan: Dan passes the rally check and heads back into my
deployment zone for line breaker, and the game finishes at 12-4 kill
points.

Win - 15
First Blood - 1, Tervigon
Line Breaker - 1, A Wraith unit
Slay The Warlord - 1-1, Flyrant, Necron Overlord

Dan had played fantastically to get to this point, and had 2nd place
locked in very tightly. In another mission where pulling back like I
did would mean giving the entire board control over to him, the game I
felt would have been a lot closer. Unfortunately as it stood, the game
was able to play out extremely one sided due to my significantly
better mobility, range, and decision to not just shovel units into
hungry open tyranid mouths.

I must say it was fantastic to see his tyranid list do so well all
weekend long, both in terms of further game development and variety,
and in terms of Dans development as a player. Dan has always had a
wealth of potential, just lacking enough polish to pull through some
of the higher pressure situations. With every event he seems to get
better and better, and seems to have improved greatly since the ATC
experience, which was the main aim in bringing him in the first place.
I look forward to seeing him stomp sucka's over the next tournament
season.

So, that was it! The masters for another year. When the dust had settled, the 2 people I brought with me to the ATC rounded out 2nd and 3rd places - which felt vindicating, and after a year of being separated from my precious I was able to reclaim the trophy and take out first place.

Awww yeahh!

I must admit going into the game I had had basically zero time to prepare, so felt pretty down on my chances, hoping on a few theories and a basic understanding from reading the book a few times without getting to put any of it into practice. As such, I had already resigned myself to finishing a little lower in the pecking order; staying competitive throughout the weekend actually came as quite a surprise for me!

Over the weekend I'll see if I can get some pics of my army up, as it's changed a fair bit since the last time I posted.
Until then!

New Tyranid and Space Wolves Pictures

FULL PAGE SPREAD

TERVIGON



FLYRANT

SWARMLORD

THUNDERWOLF CAVALRY

FENRISIAN WOLVES

Nothing particularly starling in terms of new imagery. But I guess it plugs some holes.

OTT 2012 - Round 3, 1011011010101 (smash the alien)

Round 3

Opponent: Daniel Heyden – Tyranids

Mission: 5 objectives worth 0, each time a unit dies that objective gains 1 point of value. Dawn of War deployment.

Points Value: 1500

Daniel had:

2 Tyranid primes with some random close combat weapons that didn’t really come up so I didn’t pay much attention, 2 x 2 Hive Guard, 10 Ymgarl Genestealers, 2xTervigons, 2x10 Gaunts, and a unit of 2 carnifex with quad devourers.

I had:

2 Lords with Mind Shackle Scarabs and Warscythes on command barges, 2x4 heralds of destruction each unit with a solar pulse, 4x5 Necron Warriors, 5 Wraiths with 1 whipcoil, 5 Scarabs, 3 Annihilation Barges.

The table we got was… interesting to say the least. I won the roll for first turn and set up 2 warrior squads in such a way that I could completely fill the only 2 pieces of area terrain on the table in my first turn. I then announced that the rest of my stuff would walk on turn 1. This forced Daniel to not hibernate his Ymgarls, and walk them on like normal.

At this point, we then had a discussion about how mind numbingly stupid this mission was. If Daniel was to just run across the table to come get me, I could sit there softening units until they got close, then finish them to make the objectives close to me have value, and comfortably win. If he sat on his deployment zone, I could not afford to come to him and claim those objectives, so if I killed ANYTHING, I lose. This meant that the best result Daniel was likely to get would be a draw, by not moving.

At the same time, we worked out that one of my objectives was in terrain. As such, I could turbo boost my 2 lords in their barges in and out of terrain next to that objective all game long. If he sat there holding out for a draw, I would have a minimum of 10, and a maximum of 14 chances to roll a single 1. If I did, that objective would be worth 2 points, and I would win the game.

That’s right… by telling my lord to fly his plane into a building, I would win the game.

WHO WROTE THIS FUCKING MISSION, OSAMA BIN LADEN?!

It was at this point Daniel and I discussed how retarded that sounded, and instead had a good ole bash up in the middle of the table. This was far more entertaining, and nowhere near as douchey.

In my turn 1, everything moved on fairly centrally, and pushed up to a position where I could get ready to leap on targets as they came into the middle, while the warriors I had deployed front and centre moved backwards.

In Dans turn 1, not much happened, he had moved on with a fairly refused flank, keeping things together as a massive blob progressing forward. During this game not many termagants were born before pooping out, but I have no recollection as to when this happened : (

In my turn 2 I pushed both lords up and out to my right, to get ready to try drag a gaunt unit into a far corner objective, hopefully leading to Dan trying to split his army. The wraiths remained with the bulk of the army ready to perform a counter attack role, and the great softening of the super unit that was the 2 primes and carnifex began, killing 1 carnifex and stripping 2 wounds off each prime. A tyrant guard was killed, but the other was left so as to not give a point to one of the objectives down his end yet.

In Dan’s turn 2 I made it nightfight. His army pushed up a little further however, getting ready for an action position, and his shooting actually did okay. The intact unit of hive guard fired at the wraiths, but they passed their invulnerable saves. The lone hive guard shot my command barge out of the sky, while the carnifex shot dead all but the crypteks from a warrior squad, only 1 of which got back up. Both Dan’s tervigons tried to give feel no pain to his supersquad, and both rolled double 6 perils!

In my turn 3 the lord who fell out of the sky partnered up with a warrior squad that had advanced up a flank, and I pulled these back so they could only just reach a gaunt squad in assault, thus the gaunts counter charge move would tractor beam them much closer to the objective I wanted them to die at.

2 annihilation barges fired up big time and elimited 9/10 ymgarl, which was perfect as I didn’t want to wipe the unit out. Meanwhile the wraiths jumped forward to assault what would be left of the super unit, which after the dust cleared was just a carnifex on 2 wounds – they promptly ate him and their positioning put these points on the centre objective. The lightning arcs had also inadvertently taken 2 more wounds off one of the tervigons, meaning one that I had not yet shot at was only on 3 wounds left! My lord had pushed up to start making inroads here, but was still one more turn away.

My scarabs had moved up to form somewhat of a block so that if anything wanted to get past, they had to form a roadblock in the middle of the table and generate more points there.

In Dans turn 3 I made it nightfight again. Everything moved to fight the wraiths, and my last annihilation barge was killed. BOOO! The wraiths did amicably and gave as good as they got, tying combat and forming a tar pit. They were also close enough to contest the objective by Dans deployment zone that was now worth a couple of points with the wraiths killing the last stealer, along with one of the supersquad primes having been closer here previously.

A squad of gaunts went and engaged my scarabs to have a war of tying each other up.

In my turn 4 my lord went and charged the wounded tervigon, who promptly freaked out and scratched her own head off to get the mindshackle scarabs out, dealing 3 wounds to herself. With that the gaunt unit I had tractored earlier was released and they moved forward with their consolidate closer to the wraith tarpit fight.

The wraith tarpit fight itself had little damage on either side, causing 1 or 2 to the tervigon, and killing 1 hiveguard but suffering little back in return. Another squad of warriors went and helped the scarabs out of a jam, whittling the gaunts they were engaged with to just a few, while by now any other gaunt squads had politely been electrocuted to death.

In Dans turn 4 his gaunts were wiped out, and the wraith tarpit continued to grind away.

In my turn 5 one lord went and assaulted the remaining tervigon, while the other assaulted one of the hive guard units. This combat finished up with tabling Dan, but not before my lord helped another tervigon scratch herself to death doing 2 of her remaining 3 wounds…. MINDSHACKLEEEEEEEE!

This game finished up 20-1, but could have been a lot closer without a few ridiculous aspects, such as virtually no area terrain for the Ymgarls to hide in, the double double6 perils (lololol 1 in 1296 chance!) and the stealers being stripped out so efficiently. Either way, I think we can both say we decided to make a game out of it and have a biffo in the middle of the table rather than cowering in our respective corners while he tries to perils 6 times in a row with both MC’s while I try to roll a 1 on any of 14 dice. Dan is always a great guy to play and afterwards I offered him half my footlong.

Game 4 to come later on tonight hopefully!