In 2003 I took my Emperor’s Children Warband to the NZGT where they did very well picking up Best Painted, Best Army and First Overall. After a break of two years they returned to see how they would fare in the brave new “4th Edition” world.
The competition was 1850 points over five rounds (three on Saturday, two on Sunday).
The first surprise was the new venue. This was light years ahead of the venue the past five events have been held at. Light, airy, carpeted (great for the cloven-handed) and right in the centre of Auckland. A real find by the GW guys.
The second surprise looking at the tables was how much higher the painting standard was compared to previous years – seriously I think any one of ten armies could have won Players’ Choice. The lift in eye-candy and conversions was staggering.
Game 1 – Doug Bisley – Imperial Guard in Cleanse Variant
Great game that was close for the first few turns before the EC got on top. Doug’s army was heavy on vehicles (three Rus and two Hellhounds, 2 Sentinels) with conscripts and stormtroopers. The IG evaporated in the last two turns with all 106 models being destroyed.
Win 20 points
Game 2 – David Foster – Raven Guard in Commandos
Again a very good opponent (I was blessed all weekend). Two characters – Chaplain and Librarian plus various foot, jetpack squads, a Dread and three separate landspeeders. We both got our commandos off for a draw and so were playing for the various bonus points on offer. Over the course of the game I was able to grind David’s army down, earning 3 VPs for 1300+ point win but missed out on getting into his deployment zone by half an inch.
Draw 13 points
Game 3 – Craig Latta – Space Wolves in Crash and Burn (a Thunderhawk Down variant)
I looked at Craig’s list and sat stunned for about 10 minutes – a Space Wolf list without Scouts. Checked the sky outside as I am sure SW sans scouts is one of the Harbingers of the Apocalypse!
Craig took the first turn and opened up with a squad of Termies (3 assault cannons) at one of my squads – 5 “6”s later plus change and that squad was back in the box. Same thing next turn. I managed to get into contact with them following a consolidation roll after a won combat. Stopping them shooting made me feel a lot better.
The ship came down in the centre of the table and I was better positioned to claim it – my move and shoot mobility started to come to the fore. By Turn 5 I had reduced the number of potential scoring units to where it was heavily in my favour.
At this point it was hard for Craig to achieve much and he switched to VP denial. This strategy was both smart and successful as if he had pushed forward he was gifting me bonus points.
Win 17 points
At the end of Day One I was on 50 BPs out of 60. This placed me equal highest with Richard Dagger.
Game 4 – Richard Dagger with Space Marines in Seize and Defend
The mission involved holding your three objectives while denying your opponent his. I was greatly helped in the mission by the Escalation rule. While all my army was present, Richard had five units offtable. This meant I could concentrate my firepower on the units present reducing them before their support arrived.
Post-game Richard felt he was probably a little cautious with his reserves and that this hurt him. I tend to agree with this as I never really felt my objectives were under threat and therefore was at worst playing for a draw.
In the end due to some appalling rolls by his commander I was able to prolong the vital combats to reduce his squads below scoring and walk my units into where they could contest. While I secured a lot of points the outcome (draw or win) was in doubt until the last turn.
Win 20 points
Game 5 – Steve Davis with Tau in Save the Shrine
Last year this mission was a disaster – both from a balance point of view and for me personally. GW listened to feedback and undertook an extensive re-write. Essentially we both placed a shrine (6” by 6”) in our deployment quarter. The objective was to hold your own while denying the opponent his.
Steve was using a mechanised Tau army that was constructed post the release of IA3. He had 3 Hammerheads (two normal, one with Fusion Blaster), 6 squads of Fire Warriors all in Devilfish and 3 Tetras. So 11 scoring units – all moving between 12-24”.
I deployed forward but out of sight as did Steve (oh for a defiler). Given that he’d need to move into the open I gave him the first turn. He declined to move out and so over the next 3-4 turns I fed him units to give him something to shoot at as long as he stayed oh his side of the board. This worked well and over the six turns none of his vehicles left his quarter. As a result – with me holding three scoring units back in and around my shrine I was never in danger of losing it. I whittled down some of his vehicles, most notably the Fusion blast Hammerhead. However there was a cost, which amounted to around a third of my army. On his last turn Steve moved two units of fire warriors into his shrine, to cement a draw. However with last turn I had a final shake of the dice.
I moved a couple of units forward and with support of my others opened fire. One of the FW units was dropped below scoring but I failed to reduce the second below the level to stop it controlling the shrine. It had however lost over 25% so needed to test. Steve failed the first role but due to his Ethereal had a second chance to save it – the Gods were smiling on Slaanesh and he failed the re-roll. The FW deserted the shrine leaving me with the win.
Win 15 points
This left me on 85/100 points, 4 ahead of Alan Borthwick with Hagen Kerr a further 3 back.
When the awards were announced I won the Solarian Medal for Best General and had an eight point gap on Alan to claim First Overall (185 out of 210). I was extremely pleased, as this was my third NZGT in a row, an achievement of which I was extremely proud.
What made it extra special was my Sports score. I received 48 out of 50 which was the second highest score. To win games and maintain sports is not always easy but I was fortunate in that I had five excellent opponents. The Sports system was the same as that at KF (a checkbox system) and over the weekend I had no reason not to award by opponents maximum points.
Alan scored the highest in presentation (39/40) – well deserved- and I was happy to score the second highest with 38. The area I suffered was in balance (I scored the average). I do think this was in part due to the negative modifier from opponents “Was this army tougher than you thought”. When you are winning games I think it is hard not to suffer this minus.
Overall it was a great weekend. Certainly it was the best organised and run of the six NZGTs (I have been to the last five). This is a credit to the NZ GW team and their willingness to listen and take on board feedback. This coupled with the lift in the standard of armies made the event a great advertisement for the hobby.
Saturday, December 20, 2008
2005 UK GT Heat One - Emperor's Children
GW events around the world use different structures for their Grand Tournament scoring. During August 2005, I was lucky enough to coincide a UK holiday with the UK Grand Tournament Heat One. The event was held at Warhammer World at GW HQ in Nottingham….and what a venue! The gaming hall has as a backdrop, the castle that you see in White Dwarf battle reports and space for up to 150 gamers. Attached to the hall are a GW shop and Bugman’s Bar serving food and drinks through the day.
The UKGT attracts gamers from across Europe and speaking to Brian Aderson (GWUK’s Events Manager) has been shaped by the feedback that they have had from participants in previous events. As such, it is billed as a “gaming” rather than “hobby” event and that is reflected in how the tournament is scored.
FORMAT
First and foremost is Gameplay. Six games over the weekend scored on a scale of 0-20. The games use victory points as their sole determinant and the differential between opponents at the end of the game generates the score. Three levels of victory giving 20, 17 and 13 points, draw at 10 points and three scores for defeat 7, 3 and 0. There are no bonus points.
The missions are drawn from the book and played at Gamma or Omega level. This means all games have Infiltrate and Deep Strike in them. Rather than play each mission, a random roll for mission is made prior to the game.
Presentation is a simple checkbox system. There are five boxes to tick – “Three Colour Minimum”, “Based”, “WYSIWYG”, “Detailed” and “Theme”. “Detailed” refers to unit markings while “Theme” is the obligatory 200 words of fluff. The judges also mark two categories giving a mark out of 40.
Sportsmanship is handled very simply. Each participant starts with 20 marks. There are two possible game grades – “Good” or “Poor”. If you have three “Poor” games over the weekend you lose 5 points, four 10 points, five 15 points and should all six games be “Poor” then you lose all your points.
There is no Composition scoring.
The final category is the Quiz. A mix of twenty questions based on GW fluff, rules knowledge etc.
SO WHAT DOES THIS ALL MEAN?
Looking at the system it doesn’t seem too far from that used in Australasia….but in practice it is.
The “Sports” and “Painting” scoring were meant to be done in secret however the reality was that they were all done in front of your opponent. This led to an outcome whereby there were no “Poor Games” over the weekend (out of 300+ games) and so each participant retained their 20 points. I may be a little cynical but I think this outcome may have been influenced by the public nature of the scoring.
With painting, a checkbox system with clear minimum requirements meant that 98% of the participants received the top mark.
As a result of this system, Sports and Painting provided little differentiation. This meant that any variation between participants came from two categories – Gameplay and Quiz. Effectively Gameplay made up 6/7th of this variable score and the Quiz 1/7th.
The emphasis on Gameplay, combined with no Composition scoring result in a field of armies that are far “harder” than evident at most Australian competitions. I was aware of this when I put together my list, however my opponents viewed my army as softer than they would expect to face.
By way of illustration, there were 20 Eldar armies in the tournament. Between them they had 59 Wraithlords (I joked with my Iyanden opponent who was the only player to have two as to whether his fluff was “the other Craftworlds stole my Wraithlord). Marine squads were typically 5-6 strong to shoehorn in as many heavy weapons as possible while virtually every Havoc squad I saw had infiltrate (no to get forward but to deploy last.
This in itself is not a bad thing but I do believe that the lack of Composition scoring tended to restrict variety as players when for a pattern “efficient” army in each race.
I spent the tournament on the top tables winning four, drawing one and losing one game. My highlight was beating Simone di Tomasu, the UKGT Champ of the past two years in the second round. I felt that I got quite a good gauge of playing ability and believe that the top Australasian players such as David Millar, David Atkins, Alan Borthwick, Nathan Baney, Troy Forster and Hagen Kerr would be disputing the prizes if they tailored their armies to the environment.
By adopting open Sports scoring I believe it was relegated to the sidelines. I observed some tense and testy games but as I said none were recorded as “Poor Games”. The emphasis on Gameplay and de-emphasis on Sports also meant that the atmosphere was a little less relaxed. Opponents were prepared to dispute every 50/50 call whereas I see a less combative atmosphere in Australasian competitions.
The biggest disappointment was the presentation standard of the armies there. Certainly no more than 2-3 out of a field of over a hundred would be competitive for the “Best Painted” prize at an Australasian GT. Maybe I just saw a bad crop but there was nothing of the showcase standard that I had seen in White Dwarf in recent years. I am firmly of the belief that this is a reflection of the tickbox scheme used which fails to reward excellence in presentation.
The event itself was very well run with plenty of GW staff on hand to assist the participants. My only criticism of the organisation was the non-vetting of lists prior to the event. As a result we had the situation whereby a player was expelled in Round 5 and previous results amended to reflect an illegal list. I feel checking lists before the event rather than during it could solve a lot of potential problems.
Comparison with Australasia
First and foremost they are different types of event. One is aimed purely at the gamer (with minimal hobby hurdles) while the second is at the “hobbyist”. Certainly the UKGT reminded me of the “no holds barred” approach evident with a lot of historical gaming e.g. DBM. That doesn’t make it bad – just different.
I am a big fan of the Australasian system with its emphasis on all aspects of the hobby. In particular, I believe both Army Presentation and Sportsmanship should be recognised and use to differentiate players. This doesn’t mean that those that can’t paint should lose points but I do think extra effort should be rewarded. The inclusion of Sportsmanship goes without saying for me. Regardless of what some people think this is a hobby and I believe that you need a system that recognises both good and bad Sportsmanship. This to me was the biggest failing of the UK system.
Composition. I am really split on this. First and foremost I don’t believe that maths comp works. There are armies that are disadvantaged by rigorous adherence to percentages. I like Peer-based Comp but it relies on the premise that participants have a working knowledge of all codices and have a similar values system. In a lot of tournaments this may be a big presumption.
I believe that without Comp scoring of some kind, you would see a reduction in variety. Gamers are generally smart people and soon find units/weapons/structures that they believe are undercosted. Very soon you would find lists in each race gravitating to its most “efficient” iteration. Don’t believe it? I think 59 out of a potential 60 Wraithlords supports that view. With no requirement to take Wraithguard squads (a la Iyanden) why would you not put three into an Eldar army. Similar logic for Landspeeder Tornados.
To wrap this up, I think Australasia is well served by hobby events. Is there a place for the UK-like gamer events? I think so. However I think that there needs to be an understanding that they are different types of events and your army and perhaps style needs to be tailored accordingly.
Finally, I heartily recommend any gamer venturing to the UK to try and tie their visit to one of the UKGTs. Like Australia and New Zealand, I found the gamers friendly and good company. The opportunity to have a different gaming experience is one you should not miss.
The UKGT attracts gamers from across Europe and speaking to Brian Aderson (GWUK’s Events Manager) has been shaped by the feedback that they have had from participants in previous events. As such, it is billed as a “gaming” rather than “hobby” event and that is reflected in how the tournament is scored.
FORMAT
First and foremost is Gameplay. Six games over the weekend scored on a scale of 0-20. The games use victory points as their sole determinant and the differential between opponents at the end of the game generates the score. Three levels of victory giving 20, 17 and 13 points, draw at 10 points and three scores for defeat 7, 3 and 0. There are no bonus points.
The missions are drawn from the book and played at Gamma or Omega level. This means all games have Infiltrate and Deep Strike in them. Rather than play each mission, a random roll for mission is made prior to the game.
Presentation is a simple checkbox system. There are five boxes to tick – “Three Colour Minimum”, “Based”, “WYSIWYG”, “Detailed” and “Theme”. “Detailed” refers to unit markings while “Theme” is the obligatory 200 words of fluff. The judges also mark two categories giving a mark out of 40.
Sportsmanship is handled very simply. Each participant starts with 20 marks. There are two possible game grades – “Good” or “Poor”. If you have three “Poor” games over the weekend you lose 5 points, four 10 points, five 15 points and should all six games be “Poor” then you lose all your points.
There is no Composition scoring.
The final category is the Quiz. A mix of twenty questions based on GW fluff, rules knowledge etc.
SO WHAT DOES THIS ALL MEAN?
Looking at the system it doesn’t seem too far from that used in Australasia….but in practice it is.
The “Sports” and “Painting” scoring were meant to be done in secret however the reality was that they were all done in front of your opponent. This led to an outcome whereby there were no “Poor Games” over the weekend (out of 300+ games) and so each participant retained their 20 points. I may be a little cynical but I think this outcome may have been influenced by the public nature of the scoring.
With painting, a checkbox system with clear minimum requirements meant that 98% of the participants received the top mark.
As a result of this system, Sports and Painting provided little differentiation. This meant that any variation between participants came from two categories – Gameplay and Quiz. Effectively Gameplay made up 6/7th of this variable score and the Quiz 1/7th.
The emphasis on Gameplay, combined with no Composition scoring result in a field of armies that are far “harder” than evident at most Australian competitions. I was aware of this when I put together my list, however my opponents viewed my army as softer than they would expect to face.
By way of illustration, there were 20 Eldar armies in the tournament. Between them they had 59 Wraithlords (I joked with my Iyanden opponent who was the only player to have two as to whether his fluff was “the other Craftworlds stole my Wraithlord). Marine squads were typically 5-6 strong to shoehorn in as many heavy weapons as possible while virtually every Havoc squad I saw had infiltrate (no to get forward but to deploy last.
This in itself is not a bad thing but I do believe that the lack of Composition scoring tended to restrict variety as players when for a pattern “efficient” army in each race.
I spent the tournament on the top tables winning four, drawing one and losing one game. My highlight was beating Simone di Tomasu, the UKGT Champ of the past two years in the second round. I felt that I got quite a good gauge of playing ability and believe that the top Australasian players such as David Millar, David Atkins, Alan Borthwick, Nathan Baney, Troy Forster and Hagen Kerr would be disputing the prizes if they tailored their armies to the environment.
By adopting open Sports scoring I believe it was relegated to the sidelines. I observed some tense and testy games but as I said none were recorded as “Poor Games”. The emphasis on Gameplay and de-emphasis on Sports also meant that the atmosphere was a little less relaxed. Opponents were prepared to dispute every 50/50 call whereas I see a less combative atmosphere in Australasian competitions.
The biggest disappointment was the presentation standard of the armies there. Certainly no more than 2-3 out of a field of over a hundred would be competitive for the “Best Painted” prize at an Australasian GT. Maybe I just saw a bad crop but there was nothing of the showcase standard that I had seen in White Dwarf in recent years. I am firmly of the belief that this is a reflection of the tickbox scheme used which fails to reward excellence in presentation.
The event itself was very well run with plenty of GW staff on hand to assist the participants. My only criticism of the organisation was the non-vetting of lists prior to the event. As a result we had the situation whereby a player was expelled in Round 5 and previous results amended to reflect an illegal list. I feel checking lists before the event rather than during it could solve a lot of potential problems.
Comparison with Australasia
First and foremost they are different types of event. One is aimed purely at the gamer (with minimal hobby hurdles) while the second is at the “hobbyist”. Certainly the UKGT reminded me of the “no holds barred” approach evident with a lot of historical gaming e.g. DBM. That doesn’t make it bad – just different.
I am a big fan of the Australasian system with its emphasis on all aspects of the hobby. In particular, I believe both Army Presentation and Sportsmanship should be recognised and use to differentiate players. This doesn’t mean that those that can’t paint should lose points but I do think extra effort should be rewarded. The inclusion of Sportsmanship goes without saying for me. Regardless of what some people think this is a hobby and I believe that you need a system that recognises both good and bad Sportsmanship. This to me was the biggest failing of the UK system.
Composition. I am really split on this. First and foremost I don’t believe that maths comp works. There are armies that are disadvantaged by rigorous adherence to percentages. I like Peer-based Comp but it relies on the premise that participants have a working knowledge of all codices and have a similar values system. In a lot of tournaments this may be a big presumption.
I believe that without Comp scoring of some kind, you would see a reduction in variety. Gamers are generally smart people and soon find units/weapons/structures that they believe are undercosted. Very soon you would find lists in each race gravitating to its most “efficient” iteration. Don’t believe it? I think 59 out of a potential 60 Wraithlords supports that view. With no requirement to take Wraithguard squads (a la Iyanden) why would you not put three into an Eldar army. Similar logic for Landspeeder Tornados.
To wrap this up, I think Australasia is well served by hobby events. Is there a place for the UK-like gamer events? I think so. However I think that there needs to be an understanding that they are different types of events and your army and perhaps style needs to be tailored accordingly.
Finally, I heartily recommend any gamer venturing to the UK to try and tie their visit to one of the UKGTs. Like Australia and New Zealand, I found the gamers friendly and good company. The opportunity to have a different gaming experience is one you should not miss.
2004 New Zealand Nationals - Emperor's Children
The New Zealand National Wargaming Convention is the largest event on the NZ wargaming calendar and is held every Easter. The venue rotates on a three year cycle – South Island, Northern North Island and Lower/Central North Island. This year it was hosted by the Upper Hutt Wargaming Club, about 20 minutes from Wellington.
Usually I don’t attend the Nationals as the thought of Easter roads and long distances or Easter airports breaks me out in a cold sweat. However, this year with the venue so close I had no excuse not to attend….or that’s what I told the wife!
One of the Warlords, Peter Denne was umpiring and I was confident he would put together a good competition. Points’ value was 1500 plus 250-point sideboard played over eight rounds. I knew Peter would put together a good mix of VP and objective-based missions so the force I took would need to be flexible. In the end I decided to take along the Emperor’s Children, mainly because I had not finished painting my Death Guard. Maelstrom had been played at the same points value a month prior, and I took the same list.
The army is based on the splintered forces of the Emperor’s Children wandering the EoT in anarchic warbands. My premise is that such forces would travel light (so no heavy vehicles) and would be fitted out with their signature noise weapons in squads of their favoured number. Attracted by their rampage are Slaaneshi daemons, again in flocks of Slaanesh’s favoured number.
Composition is basically as follows:
1. Noise Lord Challis Drant with retinue of 5 Chosen Terminators
2. 6 Man Noise Marine Squad in rhino
3. 6 Man Noise Marine Squad
4. 12 Daemonette unit
5. 6 Daemonette unit
6. 6 Man Noise Havoc Squad
7. 6 Man Noise Havoc Squad
And a sideboard of:
8. 6 Man Noise Marine Squad
9. 6 Daemonette unit
So one HQ + Elite choice, six Troop choices and two Heavy Support choices.
Tournament
Hagen Kerr had ventured up from Christchurch with his Space Wolves. On the Friday morning he, Jack and myself trekked out to the venue. We were packed in tighter than battery hens. Eight tables were relocated to a bright sunny corridor, easing the constraints nicely.
Tournament scoring was as follows:
Gameplay (60%) – Win 15, Draw 10, Loss 6 with +/- Bonus Points (including +1 for achieving secondary objective)
Sports (20%) – marked out of 10 points each game
Theme/Comp (10%) – Peer marked out of 10 each game
Painting (10%) – 7 points were available from judges, up to 3 from Players’ Choice
Game 1 – Dazed and Confused – Peter Rundlett (Night Lords)
The game is a Cleanse variant with some special shooting/assault rules. Peter has a rep for taking pretty highly powered armies, however I didn’t think this was too bad – the major thing that stuck out was Obliterators that went a bit against his theme.
On the basis that it was a “quarters” game with random game length, I gave Peter the first turn and he obliged by wiping out 300 of my 1500 points (nice start). From there it was a fightback.
I made sure that I held the balance of quarters at the end of the 4th and 5th turns. However the crucial action of the match occurred during Turns 3 and 4. With me holding a quarters advantage, Peter was forced to come forward with a squad in a rhino. This squad disembarked and I was able to manoeuvre a squad to assault them. I then made the decision to shoot them before I assaulted. However, in so doing, I threw a “1” which made my troops confused. They had to then shoot the rhino and as a result assault it rather than the squad. This let Peter get them away and at the end of Turn 6 they were exactly at half strength (and so contested the quarter). The game ended a draw with me picking up two bonus points for Peter’s general and most expensive unit.
Score: 12-10 draw
Peter’s army: 7/10
Sports: 7/10 (essentially a good fun game)
Game 2 – Supply Ship – Jason Woods (Iron Hands)
Jason was up from Christchurch and was using an Iron Hands army. It had three dreadnaughts and a Venerable Dreadnaught. Also had an Iron Father with Servitors while all squads were led by a Veteran Sargent in Terminator Armour with bionics.
The mission was a variant of Thunderhawk Down utilising a Tau supply ship (template supplied). In the mission we started with our main army and the sideboard arrived as reserves.
I set up largely in the middle with Jason putting three Dreads and the Iron Father opposite. The ship came down at 46” (I had based my plan on 42”) in between our two forces.
The key battle was a “death blossom” of 24 daemonettes in front of three dreads and the Iron Father. While I couldn’t kill the Venerable Dread I got the rest and parked a lot of models on the objective.
Score: 19 – 3 win
Jason’s Army: 10/10
Sports: 9/10 (and my Best Sports Vote)
Some people had problems with Jason’s army (4 dreads). However I thought it was superbly themed and his use of Terminator sergeants in squads hampered his flexibility. I gave him my No. 2 Army vote but it should have been No. 1 after re-reading the Iron Hands IA article. Excellent army.
Game 3 – Meeting Engagement – Craig Stewart (Ultramarines)
Though a regular on the local tournament circuit, I had never played Craig before. He has a reputation as a very precise player.
Craig’s army was standard codex Ultramarines and include scouts, assault marines, bikes, landspeeder, a dreadnaught as well as rhino mounted squad. His general was a chaplain on a bike.
The game hang on the fact that I outshot Craig’s army forcing him to throw his units forward. A large battle occurred both inside and just outside my deployment zone into which we fed a succession of units. At the end I was able to break his strike units and score a pretty substantive VP win. It was a game where I felt I always had the upper hand but one bad phase could have turned it into something much closer.
Score: 16 – 5
Craig’s army: 9/10
Sports: 7/10
I was very surprised to see that Craig finished bottom in Sports. There was no evidence of what would have caused that from our game.
So the end of Day One and I have two wins and a draw…..I’m a contender
Game 4 – SNAFU – Chris Hall (World Eaters)
Well if ever a game is made for my army then this is probably it. We start with only our sideboard on the table. The rest come as reserves…. And it’s VPs.
Chris had what I regard as an excellent World Eaters army from fluff/comp viewpoint. He had 4 squads of Bezerkers in rhinos, two Dreads, a unit of eight Bloodletters and the Khornate Daemon Prince from hell (all 206 points of him).
Coming on piecemeal and needing to get across the table is a nightmare from Chris particularly when his bezerkers keep jumping out of rhinos. His one saving grace was I got no reserves Turn 2 and only one unit Turn 3.
The most notable points concerned the Bloodletters who wiped out squad “tethered goat” and then wore 51 daemonette attacks – 13 “6s” – yehaah Cowboy. No more Bloodletters!!!!!
The second was Daemon Prince flying across the table into the teeth of the EC Sonic Attack – 52 Sonic Blaster shots plus 12 Blastmaster shots failed to wound him (For those interested – statistically he is wounded 12 times, fails 4 of those but gets to re-roll them – so you only get a single wound. This is one disadvantage of all weaponry being AP4/5). I made him attack a rhino which he destroys, so I open up again. Same sonic attack – one wound this time (go the bell-curve). In the end I throw in a squad of daemonettes who do the business).
Fairly convincing win to the Emperor’s Children
Score: 17-4
Chris’ Army: 10/10 (and my Best Army Vote)
Sports: 9/10
Game 5 – Flank Attack – Shane Ronganui (Dark Angels)
We had to split our army into two equal contingents and half played the first three turns and the second part turned up in a non-deployment quarter on Turn 4 (randomised).
Shane’s army was very nicely composed and themed. He had Troop squads in rhinos, vindicator, scouts, assault marines, a dread, whirlwind from memory.
Given the nature of the scenario, I was very surprised when Shane took the first move. I had the best of the initial exchanges destroying the Demolisher on the vindicator and decimating his sniper scouts.
When Shane’s flank attack arrived he deployed them ready to attack my army next turn. He seemed genuinely surprised when mine turned up behind him (50/50 chance) and proceeded to shoot up his reinforcements. I was surprised that a player of Shane’s calibre hadn’t anticipated this and planned for it.
Unfortunately the rest of the game wasn’t very pleasant as Shane contested long and loud that he had been screwed by bad luck and that it was unfair. I didn’t rise to the bait but was very disappointed in Shane’s attitude given he had taken the first turn and was aware I could come on behind him.
In the end it was a very convincing win to the Emperor’s Children and I was glad to get away from the table.
Score: 19 – 3 win
Shane’s Army: 9/10
Sports: 5/10
Game Six – The Running and the Screaming – Jason Richards (Iron Warriors)
This is probably my favourite tournament mission and I was glad Peter included it. Essentially it is like Rescue except the counters are hostages, move around and have a statline.
Jason had a very hard Iron Warriors army. Four heavy support choices – Land Raider, Predator, Basilisk and six man Havoc Squad. He also has two Obliterators in single squads, a Lt with a Kai Gun and two Rhino Squads. With no sideboard the LR was missing.
Being the Emperor’s Children and not known for our charity I had a pretty simple plan. Kill four or the hostages and secure the fifth.
Well it almost worked Jason blew me off the table. Not helped by the fact that I forgot about the Basilisk’s minimum IDF range and for some reason thought it was AP2.
The game came down to me holding two counters to Jason’s one (already wounded). His army opened up on the Daemonettes holding the counter killing them and then the counter. If the game ended it was 1-1. We went into a 5th Turn and he dropped an Earthshaker shell on my unit killing the hostage (so now I’m down 1-0). Ihad a single blastmaster shot at his retreating squad, causing enough casualties for them to take a test. They just passed and we threw to see if there was a 6th Turn. Again I got my blastmaster shot and this time didn’t cause enough casualties for him to test. On to the next turn and Jason get behind cover ensuring no line of sight.
So a loss to the Emperor’s Children but this was the best and most enjoyable game of my tournament.
Score: 6 –16 loss
Jason’s Army: 7/10
Sports: 8/10
Game Seven – Seize and Retain – Jeff McLean (Dark Eldar)
I had played Jeff at the NZGT and had managed a narrow win so our armies had “history”. Jeff’s force this time was Raider-based (no Ravagers) with an Archon on jetbike and a squad of Reavers. Two of the raider squads were Wyches and he had two hamocueli as well.
Mission was random game length with the objective of having a squad closest to the counter.
I got choice of turn and let Jeff go first. He rushed his raiders forward through two narrow defiles. I opened up bringing down the first raiders. I then opened up on the raiders behind. This resulted in a discussion as to whether I could shoot them through the wrecks. I was aware that this discussion had come up at least two times previously in the tournament in relation to Jeff’s army. The ruling had been that you could shoot through as wrecks become “terrain”. Jack had suffered against Jeff when he had played him as it hadn’t been played this way.
The discussion then centred on “I wouldn’t have done it, if I had known…” , to which my reply was “I wouldn’t have deployed this way and given you first turn if I’d known you couldn’t”. The Umpire restated his previous ruling and the game carried on.
Jeff’s position was compounded by a hot streak of luck on my dice in the first three turns and he soon had no raiders.
Once we got to combat the dice swung his way and going into the later turns it was very close. In the end we had a squad each equidistant when the game ended and called it a draw.
I think I certainly had the best of the dice though Jeff felt that in the later game they had evened out.
Score: 12-10 draw
Jeff’s Army: 9/10
Sports: 6/10
This was probably the tightest fought game I had and was really enjoyable from that point of view. Jeff slipped a notch on my sports rating because I felt that we shouldn’t really have been having the discussion around wrecked raiders.
Game 8 – There Can Be Only One – Jason Issacs (Tyranids)
I’ve played Jason at the previous two tournaments and felt I had the wood on his army. He uses a relatively small nid army with leaping warriors (extended carapace), raveners, spinegaunts, three units of genestealers and two hormagaunt units. This is backed up by a Winged Hive Tyrant, a Venonfex and the Red Terror.
The mission was simple – kill the enemy general or break the enemy army. The game ends on the PHASE this occurs.
Jason split his force into three and tried to advance using any cover benefits. My tactics with nids are fairly simple – I use the “Clear and Present Danger” theory. This means I concentrate firepower on what can get me next turn and everything else can wait. To do this I’ll use “tethered goats” to distract or channel an attack. This worked very well in this game, one squad pulling about a third of Jason’s army to the side edge.
In the end I lost a squad and had Jason down to 25 models (he broke on 20) and two wounds on his Tyrant. I managed to get a shot on his spinegaunts (killing six) and broke his army. Reduced the Tyrant to a single wound.
Score: 16-4 win
Jason’s Army: 8/10
Sports: 8/10
So I finished on 116 BP so I thought I would be a place getter. In the end I took the “Butcher” (highest gameplay) as Jason Richards lost his last game. When the results were announced I had finished First, about 2.5% ahead of Grendel’s KoS.
Besides the Butcher, what I was really happy with were my Sportsmanship and Theme/Comp scores. I scored 8.15/10 average for Sports and 8.20/10 for Theme/Fluff. To do this while picking up Best Gameplay was something I was really proud of.
I’d also suggest that the above shows that you don’t necessarily have to be a power gamer to get good gameplay results. The theme and composition of my Emperor’s Children is entirely consistent with GW’s fluff and the background material available. Could my army be stronger –yep but only I think at the expense of theme/fluff.
The army does not use the normal chaos tools of mutation or spiky bitz. Aspiring Champs are not tooled up (and would probably be more effective if further tooled down!).
Warband of Challis Drant Summary
So the end of the Tournament Season and how have they gone?
I’ve played five tournaments and 30 games. They won 24, drew 4 and lost 2 games. Over that time they won the Melbourne and NZ GTs, ValleyCon, Maelstrom and the NZ Nationals. They picked up Player’s Choice and Best Gameplay in Melbourne, Best army and Best Painted at the NZGT, Best Painted and Best army at ValleyCon, Best Gameplay at both Maelstrom and the NZ Nationals.
It would be an understatement to say that I’m happy with the record
The guys here in Wellington know how badly they did when I built them (lost 6 out of first 9 games). What I did do was develop a set of tactics to make them effective and that only came from trial and error.
The list hasn’t really changed from Melbourne GT…it just I’ve got more familiar with their strengths and weaknesses.
Usually I don’t attend the Nationals as the thought of Easter roads and long distances or Easter airports breaks me out in a cold sweat. However, this year with the venue so close I had no excuse not to attend….or that’s what I told the wife!
One of the Warlords, Peter Denne was umpiring and I was confident he would put together a good competition. Points’ value was 1500 plus 250-point sideboard played over eight rounds. I knew Peter would put together a good mix of VP and objective-based missions so the force I took would need to be flexible. In the end I decided to take along the Emperor’s Children, mainly because I had not finished painting my Death Guard. Maelstrom had been played at the same points value a month prior, and I took the same list.
The army is based on the splintered forces of the Emperor’s Children wandering the EoT in anarchic warbands. My premise is that such forces would travel light (so no heavy vehicles) and would be fitted out with their signature noise weapons in squads of their favoured number. Attracted by their rampage are Slaaneshi daemons, again in flocks of Slaanesh’s favoured number.
Composition is basically as follows:
1. Noise Lord Challis Drant with retinue of 5 Chosen Terminators
2. 6 Man Noise Marine Squad in rhino
3. 6 Man Noise Marine Squad
4. 12 Daemonette unit
5. 6 Daemonette unit
6. 6 Man Noise Havoc Squad
7. 6 Man Noise Havoc Squad
And a sideboard of:
8. 6 Man Noise Marine Squad
9. 6 Daemonette unit
So one HQ + Elite choice, six Troop choices and two Heavy Support choices.
Tournament
Hagen Kerr had ventured up from Christchurch with his Space Wolves. On the Friday morning he, Jack and myself trekked out to the venue. We were packed in tighter than battery hens. Eight tables were relocated to a bright sunny corridor, easing the constraints nicely.
Tournament scoring was as follows:
Gameplay (60%) – Win 15, Draw 10, Loss 6 with +/- Bonus Points (including +1 for achieving secondary objective)
Sports (20%) – marked out of 10 points each game
Theme/Comp (10%) – Peer marked out of 10 each game
Painting (10%) – 7 points were available from judges, up to 3 from Players’ Choice
Game 1 – Dazed and Confused – Peter Rundlett (Night Lords)
The game is a Cleanse variant with some special shooting/assault rules. Peter has a rep for taking pretty highly powered armies, however I didn’t think this was too bad – the major thing that stuck out was Obliterators that went a bit against his theme.
On the basis that it was a “quarters” game with random game length, I gave Peter the first turn and he obliged by wiping out 300 of my 1500 points (nice start). From there it was a fightback.
I made sure that I held the balance of quarters at the end of the 4th and 5th turns. However the crucial action of the match occurred during Turns 3 and 4. With me holding a quarters advantage, Peter was forced to come forward with a squad in a rhino. This squad disembarked and I was able to manoeuvre a squad to assault them. I then made the decision to shoot them before I assaulted. However, in so doing, I threw a “1” which made my troops confused. They had to then shoot the rhino and as a result assault it rather than the squad. This let Peter get them away and at the end of Turn 6 they were exactly at half strength (and so contested the quarter). The game ended a draw with me picking up two bonus points for Peter’s general and most expensive unit.
Score: 12-10 draw
Peter’s army: 7/10
Sports: 7/10 (essentially a good fun game)
Game 2 – Supply Ship – Jason Woods (Iron Hands)
Jason was up from Christchurch and was using an Iron Hands army. It had three dreadnaughts and a Venerable Dreadnaught. Also had an Iron Father with Servitors while all squads were led by a Veteran Sargent in Terminator Armour with bionics.
The mission was a variant of Thunderhawk Down utilising a Tau supply ship (template supplied). In the mission we started with our main army and the sideboard arrived as reserves.
I set up largely in the middle with Jason putting three Dreads and the Iron Father opposite. The ship came down at 46” (I had based my plan on 42”) in between our two forces.
The key battle was a “death blossom” of 24 daemonettes in front of three dreads and the Iron Father. While I couldn’t kill the Venerable Dread I got the rest and parked a lot of models on the objective.
Score: 19 – 3 win
Jason’s Army: 10/10
Sports: 9/10 (and my Best Sports Vote)
Some people had problems with Jason’s army (4 dreads). However I thought it was superbly themed and his use of Terminator sergeants in squads hampered his flexibility. I gave him my No. 2 Army vote but it should have been No. 1 after re-reading the Iron Hands IA article. Excellent army.
Game 3 – Meeting Engagement – Craig Stewart (Ultramarines)
Though a regular on the local tournament circuit, I had never played Craig before. He has a reputation as a very precise player.
Craig’s army was standard codex Ultramarines and include scouts, assault marines, bikes, landspeeder, a dreadnaught as well as rhino mounted squad. His general was a chaplain on a bike.
The game hang on the fact that I outshot Craig’s army forcing him to throw his units forward. A large battle occurred both inside and just outside my deployment zone into which we fed a succession of units. At the end I was able to break his strike units and score a pretty substantive VP win. It was a game where I felt I always had the upper hand but one bad phase could have turned it into something much closer.
Score: 16 – 5
Craig’s army: 9/10
Sports: 7/10
I was very surprised to see that Craig finished bottom in Sports. There was no evidence of what would have caused that from our game.
So the end of Day One and I have two wins and a draw…..I’m a contender
Game 4 – SNAFU – Chris Hall (World Eaters)
Well if ever a game is made for my army then this is probably it. We start with only our sideboard on the table. The rest come as reserves…. And it’s VPs.
Chris had what I regard as an excellent World Eaters army from fluff/comp viewpoint. He had 4 squads of Bezerkers in rhinos, two Dreads, a unit of eight Bloodletters and the Khornate Daemon Prince from hell (all 206 points of him).
Coming on piecemeal and needing to get across the table is a nightmare from Chris particularly when his bezerkers keep jumping out of rhinos. His one saving grace was I got no reserves Turn 2 and only one unit Turn 3.
The most notable points concerned the Bloodletters who wiped out squad “tethered goat” and then wore 51 daemonette attacks – 13 “6s” – yehaah Cowboy. No more Bloodletters!!!!!
The second was Daemon Prince flying across the table into the teeth of the EC Sonic Attack – 52 Sonic Blaster shots plus 12 Blastmaster shots failed to wound him (For those interested – statistically he is wounded 12 times, fails 4 of those but gets to re-roll them – so you only get a single wound. This is one disadvantage of all weaponry being AP4/5). I made him attack a rhino which he destroys, so I open up again. Same sonic attack – one wound this time (go the bell-curve). In the end I throw in a squad of daemonettes who do the business).
Fairly convincing win to the Emperor’s Children
Score: 17-4
Chris’ Army: 10/10 (and my Best Army Vote)
Sports: 9/10
Game 5 – Flank Attack – Shane Ronganui (Dark Angels)
We had to split our army into two equal contingents and half played the first three turns and the second part turned up in a non-deployment quarter on Turn 4 (randomised).
Shane’s army was very nicely composed and themed. He had Troop squads in rhinos, vindicator, scouts, assault marines, a dread, whirlwind from memory.
Given the nature of the scenario, I was very surprised when Shane took the first move. I had the best of the initial exchanges destroying the Demolisher on the vindicator and decimating his sniper scouts.
When Shane’s flank attack arrived he deployed them ready to attack my army next turn. He seemed genuinely surprised when mine turned up behind him (50/50 chance) and proceeded to shoot up his reinforcements. I was surprised that a player of Shane’s calibre hadn’t anticipated this and planned for it.
Unfortunately the rest of the game wasn’t very pleasant as Shane contested long and loud that he had been screwed by bad luck and that it was unfair. I didn’t rise to the bait but was very disappointed in Shane’s attitude given he had taken the first turn and was aware I could come on behind him.
In the end it was a very convincing win to the Emperor’s Children and I was glad to get away from the table.
Score: 19 – 3 win
Shane’s Army: 9/10
Sports: 5/10
Game Six – The Running and the Screaming – Jason Richards (Iron Warriors)
This is probably my favourite tournament mission and I was glad Peter included it. Essentially it is like Rescue except the counters are hostages, move around and have a statline.
Jason had a very hard Iron Warriors army. Four heavy support choices – Land Raider, Predator, Basilisk and six man Havoc Squad. He also has two Obliterators in single squads, a Lt with a Kai Gun and two Rhino Squads. With no sideboard the LR was missing.
Being the Emperor’s Children and not known for our charity I had a pretty simple plan. Kill four or the hostages and secure the fifth.
Well it almost worked Jason blew me off the table. Not helped by the fact that I forgot about the Basilisk’s minimum IDF range and for some reason thought it was AP2.
The game came down to me holding two counters to Jason’s one (already wounded). His army opened up on the Daemonettes holding the counter killing them and then the counter. If the game ended it was 1-1. We went into a 5th Turn and he dropped an Earthshaker shell on my unit killing the hostage (so now I’m down 1-0). Ihad a single blastmaster shot at his retreating squad, causing enough casualties for them to take a test. They just passed and we threw to see if there was a 6th Turn. Again I got my blastmaster shot and this time didn’t cause enough casualties for him to test. On to the next turn and Jason get behind cover ensuring no line of sight.
So a loss to the Emperor’s Children but this was the best and most enjoyable game of my tournament.
Score: 6 –16 loss
Jason’s Army: 7/10
Sports: 8/10
Game Seven – Seize and Retain – Jeff McLean (Dark Eldar)
I had played Jeff at the NZGT and had managed a narrow win so our armies had “history”. Jeff’s force this time was Raider-based (no Ravagers) with an Archon on jetbike and a squad of Reavers. Two of the raider squads were Wyches and he had two hamocueli as well.
Mission was random game length with the objective of having a squad closest to the counter.
I got choice of turn and let Jeff go first. He rushed his raiders forward through two narrow defiles. I opened up bringing down the first raiders. I then opened up on the raiders behind. This resulted in a discussion as to whether I could shoot them through the wrecks. I was aware that this discussion had come up at least two times previously in the tournament in relation to Jeff’s army. The ruling had been that you could shoot through as wrecks become “terrain”. Jack had suffered against Jeff when he had played him as it hadn’t been played this way.
The discussion then centred on “I wouldn’t have done it, if I had known…” , to which my reply was “I wouldn’t have deployed this way and given you first turn if I’d known you couldn’t”. The Umpire restated his previous ruling and the game carried on.
Jeff’s position was compounded by a hot streak of luck on my dice in the first three turns and he soon had no raiders.
Once we got to combat the dice swung his way and going into the later turns it was very close. In the end we had a squad each equidistant when the game ended and called it a draw.
I think I certainly had the best of the dice though Jeff felt that in the later game they had evened out.
Score: 12-10 draw
Jeff’s Army: 9/10
Sports: 6/10
This was probably the tightest fought game I had and was really enjoyable from that point of view. Jeff slipped a notch on my sports rating because I felt that we shouldn’t really have been having the discussion around wrecked raiders.
Game 8 – There Can Be Only One – Jason Issacs (Tyranids)
I’ve played Jason at the previous two tournaments and felt I had the wood on his army. He uses a relatively small nid army with leaping warriors (extended carapace), raveners, spinegaunts, three units of genestealers and two hormagaunt units. This is backed up by a Winged Hive Tyrant, a Venonfex and the Red Terror.
The mission was simple – kill the enemy general or break the enemy army. The game ends on the PHASE this occurs.
Jason split his force into three and tried to advance using any cover benefits. My tactics with nids are fairly simple – I use the “Clear and Present Danger” theory. This means I concentrate firepower on what can get me next turn and everything else can wait. To do this I’ll use “tethered goats” to distract or channel an attack. This worked very well in this game, one squad pulling about a third of Jason’s army to the side edge.
In the end I lost a squad and had Jason down to 25 models (he broke on 20) and two wounds on his Tyrant. I managed to get a shot on his spinegaunts (killing six) and broke his army. Reduced the Tyrant to a single wound.
Score: 16-4 win
Jason’s Army: 8/10
Sports: 8/10
So I finished on 116 BP so I thought I would be a place getter. In the end I took the “Butcher” (highest gameplay) as Jason Richards lost his last game. When the results were announced I had finished First, about 2.5% ahead of Grendel’s KoS.
Besides the Butcher, what I was really happy with were my Sportsmanship and Theme/Comp scores. I scored 8.15/10 average for Sports and 8.20/10 for Theme/Fluff. To do this while picking up Best Gameplay was something I was really proud of.
I’d also suggest that the above shows that you don’t necessarily have to be a power gamer to get good gameplay results. The theme and composition of my Emperor’s Children is entirely consistent with GW’s fluff and the background material available. Could my army be stronger –yep but only I think at the expense of theme/fluff.
The army does not use the normal chaos tools of mutation or spiky bitz. Aspiring Champs are not tooled up (and would probably be more effective if further tooled down!).
Warband of Challis Drant Summary
So the end of the Tournament Season and how have they gone?
I’ve played five tournaments and 30 games. They won 24, drew 4 and lost 2 games. Over that time they won the Melbourne and NZ GTs, ValleyCon, Maelstrom and the NZ Nationals. They picked up Player’s Choice and Best Gameplay in Melbourne, Best army and Best Painted at the NZGT, Best Painted and Best army at ValleyCon, Best Gameplay at both Maelstrom and the NZ Nationals.
It would be an understatement to say that I’m happy with the record
The guys here in Wellington know how badly they did when I built them (lost 6 out of first 9 games). What I did do was develop a set of tactics to make them effective and that only came from trial and error.
The list hasn’t really changed from Melbourne GT…it just I’ve got more familiar with their strengths and weaknesses.
2003 Melbourne GT - Emperor's Children
Back in March Al Borthwick and myself came across for the Sydney GT and I found it really enjoyable. One of the best things being the pool of new opponents. That, and the organisation was much better than the two NZ GTs I've been to.
On the way back I thought about Melbourne and what I'd like to bring. Toss up between Iron Warriors and the Emperor's Children. In the end I felt that EC would be more pleasant to play against. I've always like the fluff of the EC and in particular the fall from the most loyal of the Corpse-god's followers to pond scum of excess. Even the other Chaos Legions hate them :-)
The army therefore had to be a warband...a splintered force of retrobates with she-devils in tow. And noise weapons - why do Children without the toys?. List I put together was:
Noise Lord in Terminator Armour with Dark Blade, Sonic Blaster, Daemonic Strength and Combat Drugs
Retinue of 5 Terminators, 4 with Storm Bolter, 1 with Blastmaster, Power Weapons + 1 Power Fist
6 Noise Marines 1x Blastmaster, 4x Sonic Blasters, Aspiring Champion with Bolt Pistol and Power Weapon
6 Noise Marines as above but Aspiring Champion had pair of Lightning Claws and +1 Strength - all in a Rhino
3 units each of 6 Daemonettes
2 units each of 6 Havocs, 4x Blastmaster, 2x Sonic Blasters (incl Aspiring Champion) – Tankhunter
49 Models with 5 troops, 2 Heavy Support, 1x HQ/Elite choices
My limitations were lack of access to "Divisional" weapons - no predator, no defiler, no land raider. Noise weapons everywhere (even where their use is not efficient). Limited transports.
Needed a bitz order to the UK to get the weapons, and a box of grey knight terminators - and then it was cut and burn. Most were converted then I spent the time up until a couple of weeks before painting. My painting style is pretty tradesmanlike but I decided on a good colour palette that allowed nice contrast. Left the Rhino to last to keep the motivation up.
Two weeks left me time for 9 games to determine how to the use the army properly...thanks to the other Warlords for putting me through a steep learning curve.
My results were mixed - a loss to Marines when I lost my icon bearers, a win against Iyanden (Wraithlords are a daemonettes best source of fun), a loss to Space Wolves, a loss to Tau, a loss to Deathwing, a win vs Deathwing, a win vs 13th Coy, a loss to DE and a loss to my 11 year old's Necrons so had an idea of what I didn't like!
Rethought my tactics and put together a plan from here on.
Arrived in Melb and promptly had a 5 hour liquid lunch with an old mate - followed by some more drinking then pre-reg. Bailed and went back to hotel.
Off to GT and feeling a little jaded.
Game 1 - vs Mike Smythe's Ulthwe - Pitched Battle
Great 8 Starcannons, 2 D-cannons, 3 Bright lance, 6 Fire Dragons, 3 Reapers and a Seer council.
The game all came down to who had the first turn. I did and got to inflict the hurt first. Mike's dice were crap and once the daemons started to arrive it was all over. A very relieved 18-8
Mike was a nice guy to play but as we discussed, whoever won the dice off to go first was always likely to win. I think Mike went on to have 3-4 wins and must have been ecstatic to see all the power armour around.
Game 2 - vs Adam Synandzky - Tau – Battle in the Eye of Terror
Night fight . Hmmm yes you can have the first turn Adam. Adam had shocking spotting dice and mine were good. Had learnt the lesson to target Crisis Suits first (thanks Al ) and then went out for the Hammerheads. Embarassing moment was having my elite Rhino bound noise marines being beaten up in close combat by a lesser number of pathfindesr - thank Slaanesh we are fearless Again I managed an 18-9 win
Game 3 - vs Leigh Tresidder - 13th Company – Eliminatus
Leigh is on the WargamerAU list as BadFang and was a great bloke to play. He had had two big wins and had a nice balanced SW force – 2 units of Wulfen, Wolves, 2 unit of Grey Slayers , Long Fangs and a Wolf Lord and Rune Priest plus hangers on with the gate. He had spent only two weeks painting his army and it was spectacular and on a beautiful display base.
Again I won the die for first turn and decided to go first. I managed to kill 12 (mostly Wulfen) on the first go. While that was a good start for Drant's boys, better was to follow. Leigh's Rune Priest failed the test for activating the gate. He rolled forward and hit my non-rhino troop squad with multiple (i think three) units. The icon bearer was left and down came the daemonettes.
Things got very bloody on both sides as I shot and hit with daemons and Leigh started ripping my boys apart. By turn five I had lost about two thirds of my army and I had killed all of Leigh's. 20-9 to Drant's merry band.
Leigh was a great guy to play and again it was one of those games where first go was critical. The Gate failing was crucial. From here Leigh went on to finish 3rd Overall.
So off to watch the All Blacks and back in the next morning to find that I'm lying second on BPs.
Game 4 - vs. Rick Mckay - Kult of Speed - Guerilla War
No my favourite mission - not least because it is a bugger to work out.
Rick had a beautiful and very balanced (30 for selection) KoS force. Units of Trukk Boys, Skar Boyz and Burna Boyz accompanied by Wartraks. We had an excellent talk before the game and then went at it like trollslayers for 5 turns. Rick's choppas ate my terminators and my noise weapons smashed his boys. At the end there was 50 points difference (in Rick's favour) and so it was a 14-14 draw.
Great opponent who played in theme and also talked about things prior to things developing into problems. By the end we had quite a crowd watching, as the game was swinging on a knife edge. I thought I had done enough to win but losing a squad of Havocs to hand to hand on last turn cost me a swing of 444 points. Fantastic game.
Thinking I'm in with a sniff. I'm pretty happy with my 5th round draw
Game 5 - vs. Bryan Yarrington - Iron Warriors - Pitched Battle
I had played Bryan in Sydney where he inflicted a loss in a game where I had a share of bad luck. I knew that it would be a good game against him as we get on well and he plays it straight.
5 Obliterators, Basilisk, Dreadnought, Infiltrating Havocs with Heavy Bolters - so a lot of firepower.
Again the first turn roll was crucial. My luck failed me this time and Bryan had a clear shot at my Havoc squads I had lined up opposite the Basilisk. The template covers four, scatters 2" to cover two and then he rolls "SNAKEEYES" ....Go Slaanesh - the Prince of Excess.
The noise weapons open up and the Basilisk and two obliterators are destroyed. My terminators fall to the combined shooting of the dread and the obliterators but noise marines destroy the Havocs (Bryan fails four out of 5 saves)
My daemons kill his lord then are monstered by the dreadnought. A rush of blood sends Drant in to take out the dreadnought - 5 strength 8 attacks hitting on 3's - Nada - and Drant is puree. Rest of the game is mopping up by us both but I have expensive squads left for a 19-11 win.
One of the highlights for me of the two GTs I've been has been playing Bryan. He is an excellent guy and the games are fun but tough.
So I finish on 89 points edging Rick (Downunder Ork) by one in gameplay. I pick up 30/30 for painting (overgenerous) and 28 for selection. Coupled with a solid 80 for Sportsmanship (thanks guys). This gives me 227 for 1st Overall.
The real surprise for me was picking up Player's Choice. I wouldn't have put my army in the Top 5 as there were excellent armies on show. I think conversions are critical in this category.
For me the best four armies on show were Rick's KoS, Leigh's 13th Company, Dan Stamford's Word Bearers and Ben Leong's Death Guard. In the end I went for Dan (his daemons were superb) and sought him out to tell him so. His painting was marked at 21 which was very harsh. To be honest any of the four would have been a deserving winner. I was humbled to receive it.
So great convention for the Legion.
My general thoughts were:
1. Surprised by lack of Eldar (both) and Necrons
2. Chaos out the wazzoo but only 2 defilers. Keen to know why...they rock. Have people not built them or is the model just too big?
3. Great to meet so many nice/friendly people from Ozgamers and Wargamer Au.
Thanks to all (especially Brian and co) for a great weekend.
On the way back I thought about Melbourne and what I'd like to bring. Toss up between Iron Warriors and the Emperor's Children. In the end I felt that EC would be more pleasant to play against. I've always like the fluff of the EC and in particular the fall from the most loyal of the Corpse-god's followers to pond scum of excess. Even the other Chaos Legions hate them :-)
The army therefore had to be a warband...a splintered force of retrobates with she-devils in tow. And noise weapons - why do Children without the toys?. List I put together was:
Noise Lord in Terminator Armour with Dark Blade, Sonic Blaster, Daemonic Strength and Combat Drugs
Retinue of 5 Terminators, 4 with Storm Bolter, 1 with Blastmaster, Power Weapons + 1 Power Fist
6 Noise Marines 1x Blastmaster, 4x Sonic Blasters, Aspiring Champion with Bolt Pistol and Power Weapon
6 Noise Marines as above but Aspiring Champion had pair of Lightning Claws and +1 Strength - all in a Rhino
3 units each of 6 Daemonettes
2 units each of 6 Havocs, 4x Blastmaster, 2x Sonic Blasters (incl Aspiring Champion) – Tankhunter
49 Models with 5 troops, 2 Heavy Support, 1x HQ/Elite choices
My limitations were lack of access to "Divisional" weapons - no predator, no defiler, no land raider. Noise weapons everywhere (even where their use is not efficient). Limited transports.
Needed a bitz order to the UK to get the weapons, and a box of grey knight terminators - and then it was cut and burn. Most were converted then I spent the time up until a couple of weeks before painting. My painting style is pretty tradesmanlike but I decided on a good colour palette that allowed nice contrast. Left the Rhino to last to keep the motivation up.
Two weeks left me time for 9 games to determine how to the use the army properly...thanks to the other Warlords for putting me through a steep learning curve.
My results were mixed - a loss to Marines when I lost my icon bearers, a win against Iyanden (Wraithlords are a daemonettes best source of fun), a loss to Space Wolves, a loss to Tau, a loss to Deathwing, a win vs Deathwing, a win vs 13th Coy, a loss to DE and a loss to my 11 year old's Necrons so had an idea of what I didn't like!
Rethought my tactics and put together a plan from here on.
Arrived in Melb and promptly had a 5 hour liquid lunch with an old mate - followed by some more drinking then pre-reg. Bailed and went back to hotel.
Off to GT and feeling a little jaded.
Game 1 - vs Mike Smythe's Ulthwe - Pitched Battle
Great 8 Starcannons, 2 D-cannons, 3 Bright lance, 6 Fire Dragons, 3 Reapers and a Seer council.
The game all came down to who had the first turn. I did and got to inflict the hurt first. Mike's dice were crap and once the daemons started to arrive it was all over. A very relieved 18-8
Mike was a nice guy to play but as we discussed, whoever won the dice off to go first was always likely to win. I think Mike went on to have 3-4 wins and must have been ecstatic to see all the power armour around.
Game 2 - vs Adam Synandzky - Tau – Battle in the Eye of Terror
Night fight . Hmmm yes you can have the first turn Adam. Adam had shocking spotting dice and mine were good. Had learnt the lesson to target Crisis Suits first (thanks Al ) and then went out for the Hammerheads. Embarassing moment was having my elite Rhino bound noise marines being beaten up in close combat by a lesser number of pathfindesr - thank Slaanesh we are fearless Again I managed an 18-9 win
Game 3 - vs Leigh Tresidder - 13th Company – Eliminatus
Leigh is on the WargamerAU list as BadFang and was a great bloke to play. He had had two big wins and had a nice balanced SW force – 2 units of Wulfen, Wolves, 2 unit of Grey Slayers , Long Fangs and a Wolf Lord and Rune Priest plus hangers on with the gate. He had spent only two weeks painting his army and it was spectacular and on a beautiful display base.
Again I won the die for first turn and decided to go first. I managed to kill 12 (mostly Wulfen) on the first go. While that was a good start for Drant's boys, better was to follow. Leigh's Rune Priest failed the test for activating the gate. He rolled forward and hit my non-rhino troop squad with multiple (i think three) units. The icon bearer was left and down came the daemonettes.
Things got very bloody on both sides as I shot and hit with daemons and Leigh started ripping my boys apart. By turn five I had lost about two thirds of my army and I had killed all of Leigh's. 20-9 to Drant's merry band.
Leigh was a great guy to play and again it was one of those games where first go was critical. The Gate failing was crucial. From here Leigh went on to finish 3rd Overall.
So off to watch the All Blacks and back in the next morning to find that I'm lying second on BPs.
Game 4 - vs. Rick Mckay - Kult of Speed - Guerilla War
No my favourite mission - not least because it is a bugger to work out.
Rick had a beautiful and very balanced (30 for selection) KoS force. Units of Trukk Boys, Skar Boyz and Burna Boyz accompanied by Wartraks. We had an excellent talk before the game and then went at it like trollslayers for 5 turns. Rick's choppas ate my terminators and my noise weapons smashed his boys. At the end there was 50 points difference (in Rick's favour) and so it was a 14-14 draw.
Great opponent who played in theme and also talked about things prior to things developing into problems. By the end we had quite a crowd watching, as the game was swinging on a knife edge. I thought I had done enough to win but losing a squad of Havocs to hand to hand on last turn cost me a swing of 444 points. Fantastic game.
Thinking I'm in with a sniff. I'm pretty happy with my 5th round draw
Game 5 - vs. Bryan Yarrington - Iron Warriors - Pitched Battle
I had played Bryan in Sydney where he inflicted a loss in a game where I had a share of bad luck. I knew that it would be a good game against him as we get on well and he plays it straight.
5 Obliterators, Basilisk, Dreadnought, Infiltrating Havocs with Heavy Bolters - so a lot of firepower.
Again the first turn roll was crucial. My luck failed me this time and Bryan had a clear shot at my Havoc squads I had lined up opposite the Basilisk. The template covers four, scatters 2" to cover two and then he rolls "SNAKEEYES" ....Go Slaanesh - the Prince of Excess.
The noise weapons open up and the Basilisk and two obliterators are destroyed. My terminators fall to the combined shooting of the dread and the obliterators but noise marines destroy the Havocs (Bryan fails four out of 5 saves)
My daemons kill his lord then are monstered by the dreadnought. A rush of blood sends Drant in to take out the dreadnought - 5 strength 8 attacks hitting on 3's - Nada - and Drant is puree. Rest of the game is mopping up by us both but I have expensive squads left for a 19-11 win.
One of the highlights for me of the two GTs I've been has been playing Bryan. He is an excellent guy and the games are fun but tough.
So I finish on 89 points edging Rick (Downunder Ork) by one in gameplay. I pick up 30/30 for painting (overgenerous) and 28 for selection. Coupled with a solid 80 for Sportsmanship (thanks guys). This gives me 227 for 1st Overall.
The real surprise for me was picking up Player's Choice. I wouldn't have put my army in the Top 5 as there were excellent armies on show. I think conversions are critical in this category.
For me the best four armies on show were Rick's KoS, Leigh's 13th Company, Dan Stamford's Word Bearers and Ben Leong's Death Guard. In the end I went for Dan (his daemons were superb) and sought him out to tell him so. His painting was marked at 21 which was very harsh. To be honest any of the four would have been a deserving winner. I was humbled to receive it.
So great convention for the Legion.
My general thoughts were:
1. Surprised by lack of Eldar (both) and Necrons
2. Chaos out the wazzoo but only 2 defilers. Keen to know why...they rock. Have people not built them or is the model just too big?
3. Great to meet so many nice/friendly people from Ozgamers and Wargamer Au.
Thanks to all (especially Brian and co) for a great weekend.
2003 New Zealand GT - Emperor's Children
Over the weekend of 13/14 September the NZGT "Fields of Blood" was held in Auckland. This year there were 53 entries in 40k including 7 from the Warlords. Usually we get up to 15 Warlords venturing north but this year numbers were down. However the contingent included the winners from the past three years (Al Borthwick, Peter Denne and Richard Dagger).
I took my Emperor's Children warband that had served me well in Melbourne. However, this tournament had a compulsory 250 point reserve force which had to comprise either troops in transport or Fast Attack. I tossed up between 6 Emperor’s Children bikers with little or no equipment or an additional troop squad of 6 in a Rhino. In the end I went for the latter. The theme was a variant on the "warband" theme - a 10th Millenia reunion of the Emperor's Children - Noise weapon mandatory, daemonette optional, prey provided.
My army was:
Noise Lord Drant in terminator armour with sonic blaster, combat drugs, dark blade and daemonic strength
Retinue of 5 chosen terminators with one blastmaster, 4 sonic blasters and one power fist
3 squads each of 6 daemonettes
6 man troop squad, aspiring champion with power weapon and bolt pistol, 4 sonic blasters and a blastmaster
6 man troop squad, aspiring champion with twin lightning claws, 4 sonic blasters and a blastmaster in the rhino "Pleasure"
2 6 man noise marine havoc squads – aspiring champion with sonic blaster, another sonic blaster, 4 blastmasters and the tank hunter skill
Sideboard:
6 man troop squad, aspiring champion with powerfist and bolt pistol, daemonic mutation, 4 sonic blasters and a blastmaster - all with furious charge
Flew up to Auckland on the Friday afternoon and caught up with the Warlords and shot down to pre-reg. The incentive was that you would get the missions pack early.
Over dinner Al, Michail and myself went thru them. Essentially they were all VP missions where an advantage of 250 points over your opponent got you 15 points, a deficit of 250 points got you 5 and in between was a draw and 10 points. On top of that you got up to 5 bonus points based on the mission. The exception was the second mission where you had to have control of the rescue counter to win.
So a weekend of killing...I was pretty happy with my army selection - shooty troops and no expensive vehicles coupled with damage dealing daemons. The other quirk was that strategy ratings used for deciding board edge and first turn - great if you are a space marine, eldar or necron (But kind of sucked if you were Orks, Bugs or Imperial Guard – Ed)
Game One - Jeff McLean (Dark Eldar)
As I remember I chose board edge but Jeff went first. His army was raider less, his theme being that the army had lost it raiders and then splintered in a very uncivil disagreement. So lots of warriors armed with dark eldar heavy weapons, a wych squad, 2 talos’, and a jetbike reserve. The game was very close, and resulted in a long range shooting duel. I was happy with this due to my superior armour save, toughness and, failing that, cover saves. The terminators shielded the havocs and took the brunt of the eldar fire while the troops dished out blastmaster death. The daemonettes disposed of the two talos and then I got lucky shooting up his jetbikes. In the final turns Jeff sent the wychs and the archon forward to fight my daemonettes and my lord. Combat drugs saved his butt... I managed to get enough damage done for a 16-6 win. Very close.
Game Two - vs. Darren Bufken (Daemonhunters)
Darren had a real Daemonhunters army. Inquisitor Lord with retinue, squads of stormtroopers, arbites in repressor, land raider and reserve of deep striking Grey Knight troops and termies. He went first and pushed forward and revealed two rescue counters...nada. I then jumped on one with my terminators and it was the important counter. From here it was a bit of a shoot out with my guys having a weight advantage. I immobilised the land raider but not before it popped two of my termies holding the counter. Drant decided it was a job for him. I played the havoc "1-2" on the arbites - popping the rhino then the second squad dropping four templates on them. In the end Darren got his lord into combat with my termies and my Lord had three very nervous rounds of combat holding the marker. My reserve and daemonettes saw off the Grey Knights.
Excellent and tense game from which I managed to pick up 19 points.
Game Three - vs. Patrick Cummanskey (Craftworld Eldar - Ulthwe-ish)
I hate Eldar. I hate their goofy special rules. I hate their Phoenix Lords
This was a particularly nasty tournament Eldar list. 3-4 5 man guardian squads with platforms or maximum numbers of flamers/fusion guns. 10 person Striking Scorpions, 10 person Howling Banshees, 3 Dark Reapers, 2 units, each of 1 Vyper, largish (7?) Seer Council, Wraithlord, and Baharroth, the Swooping Hawk Phoenix Lord. Sideboard was a unit of Swooping Hawks and 4 Jetbikes. First turn Baharroth swoops into combat - 17 power weapon attack at initiative 7 wipes out one squad and he consolidates into the havocs. The heavies open up wiping out most of the terminators. Holy shit, I think. From here it goes from bad to worse - by the end of Patrick's second turn I have around 10 models left on the board.
Then salvation. Down come the daemonettes. The remanants of one havoc squad open up on his Banshees and then I charge the end of his line with a daemon squad (so the exarch is in the kill zone but not in base to base). They kill them then move towards the guardians on the base line. Second squad hits and kills the wraith lord while a severly depleted squad guns down Baharroth (good riddance). Over a couple of turns Drant sees off 10 Scorpions by himself (go you good thing). The game is now looking far more even. I manage to knock out the Dark Reapers while Patrick sees off the daemonettes and kills my rhinos.
In the end we both have little left - Patrick marginally ahead. I score 14 points for the draw. Great game. Patrick was a nice guy to play but that list was pretty nasty. At the end of the weekend he wins a prize for lowest comp score.
Game Four - vs. Gareth Ackrill (Tyranids)
Gareth was using my Tyranid army with a list I drew up so I was pretty happy with the draw. Gareth is an excellent player but was on a hiding to nothing in this game - unless I played very poorly.
I shot the hormigaunts then the tyranid warriors while keeping my daemonettes in reserve. As Gareth pushed the tyranid monstrous creatures forward the daemons hit them with 18 attacks with talons. As I said there was little Gareth could do unless I had a brain fart. I picked up 20 points. The Emperor's Children were now on 69 points.
Game 5 - vs. Bruce Manning (Emperor's Children)
A very uncivil war. Bruce and I had quite similar armies. Where I had terminators he had two troop squads, while he had a predator and a defiler to my havocs. One of his daemon squads was on steeds.
Bruce got the first shot and placed the defiler template on a clustered squad outside rhino "Pleasure". This scattered causing no damage. The havocs then took down the hull down defiler while another blastmaster immobilised his rhino. From here there was a free for all with first one then the other getting the upper hand. I pulled the havoc "1-2" on his lord's rhino reducing the squad to 3. For their troubles both havocs wore the mounted daemonettes. The game came down to a battle in the centre where my lord fought his daemonettes while his lord and squad fought my sole terminator. His lord missed my terminator who killed the rest of the squad. The next turn daemonettes finished off his lord. All the while Drant held off his daemonettes.
In the end this game was very very close. Out came the calculators and we found I had won by 258 points. Bruce was a nice guy to play and in bragging terms we called it a "moral" draw. I was happy to take my 20 points which puts me ahead in battle points by 1. After the game we talked about the Emperor’s Children army...and I think Bruce has new respect for the havocs. I know I certainly now see where the 12" range of mounted daemons is useful for a reserve force.
Game Six - vs. Ben Ricketts (Valhallans)
This was an army I used to own. A Valhallan force built around three Demolishers. It was featured in White Dwarf (painted by Paul Goldstone) as a Stalingrad themed army. I sold it about a year ago. Ben had borrowed it from its new owner and added a reserve of 4 Lascannoned Sentinals. It spoiled the theme a bit but had been bloody effective (he was a point behind).
I was pretty happy with this draw as I felt I could take this army out. I was proved comprehensively wrong. While I got the first turn everything else pretty much went wrong.
First turn I got 5 damage roles on one demolisher but couldn't roll higher than a three. I did get the weapon of another though. Ben then opened up on my terminators with his multitude of heavy bolters, wounding five. Three ones later and I'm scraping terminator residue off the table.
Unfortunately for me my havocs are now spooked and can only stun Ben's demolishers from now on. One opens up its big gun hits my power armoured squad and scatters - onto Drant (who dies for the first time of the weekend). Great, it can't get any worse - yes it can. A squad of daemonettes hits a stationary demolisher - 4 times 6s...so I need a 4 to glance...no higher than three. Getting desperate I try again - only one six in eighteen dice, and again a three on the roll.
Ben plays the game excellently letting me feed myself into the meatgrinder. I try to go for bonus points but that fails as well. I end up with 5 and thoughts of glory fade. Well done Ben who was a good opponent to play and thoroughly deserved the 20 points. Ben wins the Butcher for best Gameplay score. So not a nice way to finish but I'm philosophical as I have been outplayed.
Onto the awards and I'm looking to improve on last year's 10th.
GW were great this year, awarding 1st, 2nd and 3rd in all categories and were very generous with their prizes.
I was lucky enough to pick up Best Army. I had thought I was in with a chance at Players' Choice but didn't place so I was surprised to win Best Army. I was then stunned to win Best Painted as I thought Al would win it with his spectacular Kult of Speed. If you haven't seen it, check it out in the window of Games Workshop. It is fantastic.
The Warlords do very well Al picking up Player’s Choice, 2nd in Best Painted and 3rd in Best Army. Richard Dagger collects 3rd in both Sportsmanship and Best Painted and 2nd in both Best Army and Player’s Choice.
When the Overall Prizes were announced there was a three way tie for Third between Craig Latta, Ben and Brent Helem. That leaves Al and I standing next to each other and realising that we are probably in the running. Al's name is called for 2nd and I am floored to win the Overall Prize.
I took my Emperor's Children warband that had served me well in Melbourne. However, this tournament had a compulsory 250 point reserve force which had to comprise either troops in transport or Fast Attack. I tossed up between 6 Emperor’s Children bikers with little or no equipment or an additional troop squad of 6 in a Rhino. In the end I went for the latter. The theme was a variant on the "warband" theme - a 10th Millenia reunion of the Emperor's Children - Noise weapon mandatory, daemonette optional, prey provided.
My army was:
Noise Lord Drant in terminator armour with sonic blaster, combat drugs, dark blade and daemonic strength
Retinue of 5 chosen terminators with one blastmaster, 4 sonic blasters and one power fist
3 squads each of 6 daemonettes
6 man troop squad, aspiring champion with power weapon and bolt pistol, 4 sonic blasters and a blastmaster
6 man troop squad, aspiring champion with twin lightning claws, 4 sonic blasters and a blastmaster in the rhino "Pleasure"
2 6 man noise marine havoc squads – aspiring champion with sonic blaster, another sonic blaster, 4 blastmasters and the tank hunter skill
Sideboard:
6 man troop squad, aspiring champion with powerfist and bolt pistol, daemonic mutation, 4 sonic blasters and a blastmaster - all with furious charge
Flew up to Auckland on the Friday afternoon and caught up with the Warlords and shot down to pre-reg. The incentive was that you would get the missions pack early.
Over dinner Al, Michail and myself went thru them. Essentially they were all VP missions where an advantage of 250 points over your opponent got you 15 points, a deficit of 250 points got you 5 and in between was a draw and 10 points. On top of that you got up to 5 bonus points based on the mission. The exception was the second mission where you had to have control of the rescue counter to win.
So a weekend of killing...I was pretty happy with my army selection - shooty troops and no expensive vehicles coupled with damage dealing daemons. The other quirk was that strategy ratings used for deciding board edge and first turn - great if you are a space marine, eldar or necron (But kind of sucked if you were Orks, Bugs or Imperial Guard – Ed)
Game One - Jeff McLean (Dark Eldar)
As I remember I chose board edge but Jeff went first. His army was raider less, his theme being that the army had lost it raiders and then splintered in a very uncivil disagreement. So lots of warriors armed with dark eldar heavy weapons, a wych squad, 2 talos’, and a jetbike reserve. The game was very close, and resulted in a long range shooting duel. I was happy with this due to my superior armour save, toughness and, failing that, cover saves. The terminators shielded the havocs and took the brunt of the eldar fire while the troops dished out blastmaster death. The daemonettes disposed of the two talos and then I got lucky shooting up his jetbikes. In the final turns Jeff sent the wychs and the archon forward to fight my daemonettes and my lord. Combat drugs saved his butt... I managed to get enough damage done for a 16-6 win. Very close.
Game Two - vs. Darren Bufken (Daemonhunters)
Darren had a real Daemonhunters army. Inquisitor Lord with retinue, squads of stormtroopers, arbites in repressor, land raider and reserve of deep striking Grey Knight troops and termies. He went first and pushed forward and revealed two rescue counters...nada. I then jumped on one with my terminators and it was the important counter. From here it was a bit of a shoot out with my guys having a weight advantage. I immobilised the land raider but not before it popped two of my termies holding the counter. Drant decided it was a job for him. I played the havoc "1-2" on the arbites - popping the rhino then the second squad dropping four templates on them. In the end Darren got his lord into combat with my termies and my Lord had three very nervous rounds of combat holding the marker. My reserve and daemonettes saw off the Grey Knights.
Excellent and tense game from which I managed to pick up 19 points.
Game Three - vs. Patrick Cummanskey (Craftworld Eldar - Ulthwe-ish)
I hate Eldar. I hate their goofy special rules. I hate their Phoenix Lords
This was a particularly nasty tournament Eldar list. 3-4 5 man guardian squads with platforms or maximum numbers of flamers/fusion guns. 10 person Striking Scorpions, 10 person Howling Banshees, 3 Dark Reapers, 2 units, each of 1 Vyper, largish (7?) Seer Council, Wraithlord, and Baharroth, the Swooping Hawk Phoenix Lord. Sideboard was a unit of Swooping Hawks and 4 Jetbikes. First turn Baharroth swoops into combat - 17 power weapon attack at initiative 7 wipes out one squad and he consolidates into the havocs. The heavies open up wiping out most of the terminators. Holy shit, I think. From here it goes from bad to worse - by the end of Patrick's second turn I have around 10 models left on the board.
Then salvation. Down come the daemonettes. The remanants of one havoc squad open up on his Banshees and then I charge the end of his line with a daemon squad (so the exarch is in the kill zone but not in base to base). They kill them then move towards the guardians on the base line. Second squad hits and kills the wraith lord while a severly depleted squad guns down Baharroth (good riddance). Over a couple of turns Drant sees off 10 Scorpions by himself (go you good thing). The game is now looking far more even. I manage to knock out the Dark Reapers while Patrick sees off the daemonettes and kills my rhinos.
In the end we both have little left - Patrick marginally ahead. I score 14 points for the draw. Great game. Patrick was a nice guy to play but that list was pretty nasty. At the end of the weekend he wins a prize for lowest comp score.
Game Four - vs. Gareth Ackrill (Tyranids)
Gareth was using my Tyranid army with a list I drew up so I was pretty happy with the draw. Gareth is an excellent player but was on a hiding to nothing in this game - unless I played very poorly.
I shot the hormigaunts then the tyranid warriors while keeping my daemonettes in reserve. As Gareth pushed the tyranid monstrous creatures forward the daemons hit them with 18 attacks with talons. As I said there was little Gareth could do unless I had a brain fart. I picked up 20 points. The Emperor's Children were now on 69 points.
Game 5 - vs. Bruce Manning (Emperor's Children)
A very uncivil war. Bruce and I had quite similar armies. Where I had terminators he had two troop squads, while he had a predator and a defiler to my havocs. One of his daemon squads was on steeds.
Bruce got the first shot and placed the defiler template on a clustered squad outside rhino "Pleasure". This scattered causing no damage. The havocs then took down the hull down defiler while another blastmaster immobilised his rhino. From here there was a free for all with first one then the other getting the upper hand. I pulled the havoc "1-2" on his lord's rhino reducing the squad to 3. For their troubles both havocs wore the mounted daemonettes. The game came down to a battle in the centre where my lord fought his daemonettes while his lord and squad fought my sole terminator. His lord missed my terminator who killed the rest of the squad. The next turn daemonettes finished off his lord. All the while Drant held off his daemonettes.
In the end this game was very very close. Out came the calculators and we found I had won by 258 points. Bruce was a nice guy to play and in bragging terms we called it a "moral" draw. I was happy to take my 20 points which puts me ahead in battle points by 1. After the game we talked about the Emperor’s Children army...and I think Bruce has new respect for the havocs. I know I certainly now see where the 12" range of mounted daemons is useful for a reserve force.
Game Six - vs. Ben Ricketts (Valhallans)
This was an army I used to own. A Valhallan force built around three Demolishers. It was featured in White Dwarf (painted by Paul Goldstone) as a Stalingrad themed army. I sold it about a year ago. Ben had borrowed it from its new owner and added a reserve of 4 Lascannoned Sentinals. It spoiled the theme a bit but had been bloody effective (he was a point behind).
I was pretty happy with this draw as I felt I could take this army out. I was proved comprehensively wrong. While I got the first turn everything else pretty much went wrong.
First turn I got 5 damage roles on one demolisher but couldn't roll higher than a three. I did get the weapon of another though. Ben then opened up on my terminators with his multitude of heavy bolters, wounding five. Three ones later and I'm scraping terminator residue off the table.
Unfortunately for me my havocs are now spooked and can only stun Ben's demolishers from now on. One opens up its big gun hits my power armoured squad and scatters - onto Drant (who dies for the first time of the weekend). Great, it can't get any worse - yes it can. A squad of daemonettes hits a stationary demolisher - 4 times 6s...so I need a 4 to glance...no higher than three. Getting desperate I try again - only one six in eighteen dice, and again a three on the roll.
Ben plays the game excellently letting me feed myself into the meatgrinder. I try to go for bonus points but that fails as well. I end up with 5 and thoughts of glory fade. Well done Ben who was a good opponent to play and thoroughly deserved the 20 points. Ben wins the Butcher for best Gameplay score. So not a nice way to finish but I'm philosophical as I have been outplayed.
Onto the awards and I'm looking to improve on last year's 10th.
GW were great this year, awarding 1st, 2nd and 3rd in all categories and were very generous with their prizes.
I was lucky enough to pick up Best Army. I had thought I was in with a chance at Players' Choice but didn't place so I was surprised to win Best Army. I was then stunned to win Best Painted as I thought Al would win it with his spectacular Kult of Speed. If you haven't seen it, check it out in the window of Games Workshop. It is fantastic.
The Warlords do very well Al picking up Player’s Choice, 2nd in Best Painted and 3rd in Best Army. Richard Dagger collects 3rd in both Sportsmanship and Best Painted and 2nd in both Best Army and Player’s Choice.
When the Overall Prizes were announced there was a three way tie for Third between Craig Latta, Ben and Brent Helem. That leaves Al and I standing next to each other and realising that we are probably in the running. Al's name is called for 2nd and I am floored to win the Overall Prize.
2005 Liber Animus - Death Guard
Last year I received an invite from Kane Tucker, a prominent Melbourne gamer to attend the inaugural Liber Animus event. It was held in March 2004 but being only a single day event, it was hard to justify the expense of a trip across the Tasman. However, I indicated to Kane that if it were expanded to two days, I’d love to be involved in future events. So I was very pleased to get an email extending an invitation to LAII.
Kane and his sidekick, Ratboy have set up Liber with a definite aim in mind. The intention was to attract the top echelon of 40k hobbyists from across Australasia to participate in a tournament. The emphasis was on participants’ all round hobby skills – Gameplay, Painting, Army Construction and Sportsmanship.
Warlords Richard Dagger, Hagen Kerr and myself travelled across Friday for the event. We had booked a motel in Ringwood with the other out-of-staters and assorted Victorians. Being both old and fragile I crashed out at around 11.30pm.
For the event I took my Death Guard army that won last year’s New Zealand Grand Tournament. As I do before any tournament I set myself some targets. Here they were to finish in the Top 10 Overall and to place in the top half for Sports.
Walking into the hall the first thing that struck me was the amount of terrain on the 20 tables. Each had 150-200% of the normal GT table. The terrain was also of an extremely high quality – certainly, as a whole, the best I have seen at a tournament.
As I do before any tournament I set myself some targets. Here they were to finish in the Top 10 Overall and to place in the top half for Sports.
Game 1 – Tony Perkins (Thousand Sons) – Behind Enemy Lines
The first round was a Grudge Match. Tony was a great guy when we met at last year’s Australian GT and what better to kick off the tournament than Nurgle versus Tzeentch.
Game involved getting scoring units into the two corners on your opponent’s side of the table. The key point in the game was my shooting of Tony’s Rhino – spilling out its contents for other units to target and blocking a defile between the terrain. This set off a chain of events which allowed me to dictate the game. Tony was forced to try and take his Land Raider through a forest and it was immobilised. This meant I could then focus on taking down his 9 Termies as they were the second biggest threat.
In the end I managed to get three scoring units into the scoring zones for the win.
Game 2 – Ramon Saheed (Dark Angels) – Storm or Hold
Up against the LA I “Bloodthirster” (Highest Battle Points). Ramon was using a borrowed (Mike Consto?) Dark Angels army. In it were two predators, a vindicator, an AC dread, two single AC landspeeders and a LC razorback. This was backed up by several Las/plas squads and some termies.
The mission gave you the choice to storm the enemy trenches or hold your own. I felt that Ramon had too much firepower for me to storm all his trenches so we both held. The key moment in the battle was probably the preliminary bombardment. My battle plan was built around a strike on one flank by my rhino squad, daemons and one squad of nurglings. Unfortunately the bombardment resulted in 3 of my marines dying and on the first turn the other four were vapourised when a vindicator shell deviated onto them.
Ramon was able to reduce two of my trenches to half on the last turn giving him the win.
Game 3 – Leigh Tresidder (Black Templar) – Spy
Leigh had an excellent BT army composed of four 14-15 man squads, two dreads, a whirlwind and two Crusaders.
Spy involved inserting your spy into an enemy unit and then getting him off your board edge.
The key game moment s were the death of the BT spy caught by a squad of pursuing Plaguemarines and the death of the Nurgle spy “Blowvius” (The Fly on the Wall). He was caught three inches from safety when he was charged and killed by 14 BT Marines, the Emperor’s Champ and the Marshall.
Another hard fought game that ended in a draw.
After three rounds of Liber I had had three very good games against excellent opponents. I didn’t feel I was playing as well as I could but that had to be put in context of the quality of the opposition.
The Battle of the Ditch II – Leigh Avery (Space Marine) – Take and Hold Omega
After three 2000 point games I was absolutely knackered and this game is a bit of a blur. At one stage I fell asleep at the table making an armour save. Leigh’s army was excellent, totally mechanised and strongly themed.
The Death Guard took a lot of damage early but managed to pull it back in the later turns. Managed to move some high scoring units into objective zone to hold centre.
Day 2
Game 4 – Dave Atkins (Iron Warriors) – Hero
Dave has been dominating the Vic circuit lately so I was keen to test myself against him. I had said to Kane earlier in the week that playing him would be a highlight. In this tournament he was using a new IW army, heavy as you would expect on Heavy Support. However, the army was extremely well constructed with backing from large infantry units rather than the standard small lasplas squads.
I was a bit uncomfortable with this mission. It has a high randomness quotient to it meaning that the game could be won or lost by series of factors outside your control. I personally think it crossed the boundary of balance for it to be a good tournament mission. That said, Dave and I experienced no adverse or positive effects. However it would have been a shame if we had.
For me the key points in this game were deployment and two combats. Dave had 4 HS choices – Pred, Basilisk (no indirect), a dread and a Vindicator. Of these the last one was the biggest threat. I felt Dave erred in placing this early (towards one flank) as it allowed me to cram the other flank. I’ll be interested to hear Dave’s thoughts but I think I would have placed it last of my HS choices. Its placement meant it had to redeploy to affect the battle as both heroes were on the other flank.
The first of the combats that impacted was one on the central hill. One of my 14 man squads had captured it to hinder Dave’s redeployment of armour. It was then stormed by a 17 man squad plus hero with another squad in fire support. My guys held and they received reinforcements next turn from the plaguebearers. However the 28 wounds of Nurglings I wanted to add to the mix failed their difficult terrain move and my squad and plaguebearers were cut down. This left Dave with a passage into my deployment zone.
The second combat was between my Hero, Lord and termies versus Dave’s Lord and termies. My guys had swept into them after killing an Obliterator. I was very hopeful of cutting them down. My Lord was matched versus Dave’s Lord and with the benefit of hitting on 3+ I did five wounds – uncharitably Dave made all five 5+ saves. I’m pretty sure I said “Goodness Gracious”. :? To add insult my lord was then wounded taking him down to a single wound. However it was critical as it allowed Dave to bring a new squad in to tie up my free termies and add wounds to outnumbering.
In the end we both managed to wound one another’s Hero but time ran out at the end of Turn 4. I think we were both happy with the drawn result. Certainly Dave played more aggressive than I thought he would and this contributed to an excellent game. :-D
Game 5 – Scott Pearce (Necrons) – Black Box
The mission was a variant of Thunderhawk Down – but being hit was far far worse. Scott’s army was again very well composed. I was a bit nervous re the two Lords but to be fair he only ran three Destroyers…so it balanced out.
The plane hit turn three. I had moved troops into the entanglement zone betting that while I would be “pinned” for a turn control of space was critical.
The key moment in the battle was the failure by the Necrons of two morale checks, one due to combat and one to shooting. Both fell back and one never recovered. By the end of the game I had the Necrons about 5-10 models from phasing out but crucially outnumbered them 4-1 in the objective zone.
One funny aside in the game was the part the Heavy Destroyers played. One made 3 WBB rolls meaning at the end of the game I was trying to kill it for the fourth time. Another had four shots at my Defiler failing to either hit or glance on the first three. Scott was pretty happy when he destroyed it on the last turn.
So I finished with two wins, two good draws and a good loss (battle points wise). I had had five very good and hard fought games. All my opponents were extremely pleasant to play….and all tested my army to the extreme. Before each game we spent five minutes going through terrain, die rolls etc and it was great that there were absolutely no problems as a result. I had three instances where we needed clarification of mission rules and these were all agreed amicably. This really made the tournie for me as there is always potential for dispute/regional variance when different groups meet. Certainly I never felt at any stage that there was anything “gamey” going on in any of my battles. Thanks Tony, Ramon, Leigh, David and Scott (and Leigh Avery). At the end we had to pick our best opponent of the weekend and this was definitely a difficult one – nice conundrum.
After the fourth round the Painting scores were posted and I was really pleased to see the Death Guard had caught the judges’ eye. There were some beautifully painted armies there, my two favourites being Troy’s Ultramarines (best army I’ve seen in the flesh – White Dwarf pictures didn’t do it justice) and Michael Boles’ Sisters (I want to know who you sold your soul to to paint that well).
Given Troy’s Painting and Battle scores I thought it would have to be very difficult for anyone to catch him. As we sat down for the prizes I was hopeful of making the cut in the “Harlequin” and perhaps breaking the Top 10.
Kane did a great job with the speeches, setting the right tone. The countdown from 40 mixed with the blister prizes was excellent.
I survived the cut to Top 10 (yay Target One achieved) and was extremely chuffed to pick up 3rd Place Best Army. Started to get nervous as the places counted down! To be called up as one of the Top 3 was certainly better than I assumed. Certainly was surprised to jump past Brodie to claim the coveted “Commissar” for 2nd Overall.
Well done to Troy on his win. I felt his Ultramarines were clearly the best army there and he backed it up with a great battle score and sports. A well deserved “Warmaster” and from my viewpoint I was extremely happy to finish second behind such a deserved winner. Also well done to Brodie, I thought his result was a fantastic effort.
When it came to actual results I finished 4 points behind Troy. Where I managed to make up some points was on Sports scoring where I was one of the eight who finished with the top mark of 65. This was extremely important for me as I was determined that my opponents would have a good time over the weekend and it looks like I achieved that. Thanks Tony, Ramon, Leigh, David and Scott, you were great opponents.
My army performed okay over the weekend. It was largely set up for New Zealand gaming conditions and I felt it was a little underpowered compared to those I faced (that may be a jaundiced view though) . It certainly lacked the “firepower/ability to hurt” when compared to a lot of armies at the event. The other thing was that it was constructed expecting to see at least a few missions with “Escalation”. What I didn’t realise is that escalation/reserve missions are very rarely played in Victoria. I spoke to quite a few guys about it and the general feeling was that if you buy something you shouldn’t be handicapped from using it. This also explained why missions with deep strike and infiltration are popular. I can see why people go vehicle/toy-heavy if you know that you will always use them. However I think that firstly it possibly unbalances the game to always allow everything and secondly it makes it less tactically challenging. I’d be interested in people’s thoughts on this.
Finally a few thank yous. Firstly, to Troy for his generosity in forgoing his prize. As a result my Chaos Battle Force was promoted to a Space Marine army. Thanks. I’m going to have two excited sons tonight . Secondly to Leigh Avery who gave us lifts to and from the venue . You were great Leigh…really appreciate it. Great to catch up with the SA guys as well as the Melbourne boys – you really made us feel welcome.
Thanks to the Thugs – Drew, Mark, Dan and especially Big Red. You got through a power of work and made the event run smoothly. And to Kane and Rat – thanks for inviting us over. You guys ran a fantastic event and really welcomed us in. I was a bit nervous before the event as I had really built it up to Hagen and Richard and I wanted them to enjoy their first jaunt to play in Melbourne. I can tell you that it greatly exceeded my already high expectations. I’d love to be invited back.
And cheers Hagen and Richard. You were great traveling companions. I had an excellent time in no small part due to you both.
Kane and his sidekick, Ratboy have set up Liber with a definite aim in mind. The intention was to attract the top echelon of 40k hobbyists from across Australasia to participate in a tournament. The emphasis was on participants’ all round hobby skills – Gameplay, Painting, Army Construction and Sportsmanship.
Warlords Richard Dagger, Hagen Kerr and myself travelled across Friday for the event. We had booked a motel in Ringwood with the other out-of-staters and assorted Victorians. Being both old and fragile I crashed out at around 11.30pm.
For the event I took my Death Guard army that won last year’s New Zealand Grand Tournament. As I do before any tournament I set myself some targets. Here they were to finish in the Top 10 Overall and to place in the top half for Sports.
Walking into the hall the first thing that struck me was the amount of terrain on the 20 tables. Each had 150-200% of the normal GT table. The terrain was also of an extremely high quality – certainly, as a whole, the best I have seen at a tournament.
As I do before any tournament I set myself some targets. Here they were to finish in the Top 10 Overall and to place in the top half for Sports.
Game 1 – Tony Perkins (Thousand Sons) – Behind Enemy Lines
The first round was a Grudge Match. Tony was a great guy when we met at last year’s Australian GT and what better to kick off the tournament than Nurgle versus Tzeentch.
Game involved getting scoring units into the two corners on your opponent’s side of the table. The key point in the game was my shooting of Tony’s Rhino – spilling out its contents for other units to target and blocking a defile between the terrain. This set off a chain of events which allowed me to dictate the game. Tony was forced to try and take his Land Raider through a forest and it was immobilised. This meant I could then focus on taking down his 9 Termies as they were the second biggest threat.
In the end I managed to get three scoring units into the scoring zones for the win.
Game 2 – Ramon Saheed (Dark Angels) – Storm or Hold
Up against the LA I “Bloodthirster” (Highest Battle Points). Ramon was using a borrowed (Mike Consto?) Dark Angels army. In it were two predators, a vindicator, an AC dread, two single AC landspeeders and a LC razorback. This was backed up by several Las/plas squads and some termies.
The mission gave you the choice to storm the enemy trenches or hold your own. I felt that Ramon had too much firepower for me to storm all his trenches so we both held. The key moment in the battle was probably the preliminary bombardment. My battle plan was built around a strike on one flank by my rhino squad, daemons and one squad of nurglings. Unfortunately the bombardment resulted in 3 of my marines dying and on the first turn the other four were vapourised when a vindicator shell deviated onto them.
Ramon was able to reduce two of my trenches to half on the last turn giving him the win.
Game 3 – Leigh Tresidder (Black Templar) – Spy
Leigh had an excellent BT army composed of four 14-15 man squads, two dreads, a whirlwind and two Crusaders.
Spy involved inserting your spy into an enemy unit and then getting him off your board edge.
The key game moment s were the death of the BT spy caught by a squad of pursuing Plaguemarines and the death of the Nurgle spy “Blowvius” (The Fly on the Wall). He was caught three inches from safety when he was charged and killed by 14 BT Marines, the Emperor’s Champ and the Marshall.
Another hard fought game that ended in a draw.
After three rounds of Liber I had had three very good games against excellent opponents. I didn’t feel I was playing as well as I could but that had to be put in context of the quality of the opposition.
The Battle of the Ditch II – Leigh Avery (Space Marine) – Take and Hold Omega
After three 2000 point games I was absolutely knackered and this game is a bit of a blur. At one stage I fell asleep at the table making an armour save. Leigh’s army was excellent, totally mechanised and strongly themed.
The Death Guard took a lot of damage early but managed to pull it back in the later turns. Managed to move some high scoring units into objective zone to hold centre.
Day 2
Game 4 – Dave Atkins (Iron Warriors) – Hero
Dave has been dominating the Vic circuit lately so I was keen to test myself against him. I had said to Kane earlier in the week that playing him would be a highlight. In this tournament he was using a new IW army, heavy as you would expect on Heavy Support. However, the army was extremely well constructed with backing from large infantry units rather than the standard small lasplas squads.
I was a bit uncomfortable with this mission. It has a high randomness quotient to it meaning that the game could be won or lost by series of factors outside your control. I personally think it crossed the boundary of balance for it to be a good tournament mission. That said, Dave and I experienced no adverse or positive effects. However it would have been a shame if we had.
For me the key points in this game were deployment and two combats. Dave had 4 HS choices – Pred, Basilisk (no indirect), a dread and a Vindicator. Of these the last one was the biggest threat. I felt Dave erred in placing this early (towards one flank) as it allowed me to cram the other flank. I’ll be interested to hear Dave’s thoughts but I think I would have placed it last of my HS choices. Its placement meant it had to redeploy to affect the battle as both heroes were on the other flank.
The first of the combats that impacted was one on the central hill. One of my 14 man squads had captured it to hinder Dave’s redeployment of armour. It was then stormed by a 17 man squad plus hero with another squad in fire support. My guys held and they received reinforcements next turn from the plaguebearers. However the 28 wounds of Nurglings I wanted to add to the mix failed their difficult terrain move and my squad and plaguebearers were cut down. This left Dave with a passage into my deployment zone.
The second combat was between my Hero, Lord and termies versus Dave’s Lord and termies. My guys had swept into them after killing an Obliterator. I was very hopeful of cutting them down. My Lord was matched versus Dave’s Lord and with the benefit of hitting on 3+ I did five wounds – uncharitably Dave made all five 5+ saves. I’m pretty sure I said “Goodness Gracious”. :? To add insult my lord was then wounded taking him down to a single wound. However it was critical as it allowed Dave to bring a new squad in to tie up my free termies and add wounds to outnumbering.
In the end we both managed to wound one another’s Hero but time ran out at the end of Turn 4. I think we were both happy with the drawn result. Certainly Dave played more aggressive than I thought he would and this contributed to an excellent game. :-D
Game 5 – Scott Pearce (Necrons) – Black Box
The mission was a variant of Thunderhawk Down – but being hit was far far worse. Scott’s army was again very well composed. I was a bit nervous re the two Lords but to be fair he only ran three Destroyers…so it balanced out.
The plane hit turn three. I had moved troops into the entanglement zone betting that while I would be “pinned” for a turn control of space was critical.
The key moment in the battle was the failure by the Necrons of two morale checks, one due to combat and one to shooting. Both fell back and one never recovered. By the end of the game I had the Necrons about 5-10 models from phasing out but crucially outnumbered them 4-1 in the objective zone.
One funny aside in the game was the part the Heavy Destroyers played. One made 3 WBB rolls meaning at the end of the game I was trying to kill it for the fourth time. Another had four shots at my Defiler failing to either hit or glance on the first three. Scott was pretty happy when he destroyed it on the last turn.
So I finished with two wins, two good draws and a good loss (battle points wise). I had had five very good and hard fought games. All my opponents were extremely pleasant to play….and all tested my army to the extreme. Before each game we spent five minutes going through terrain, die rolls etc and it was great that there were absolutely no problems as a result. I had three instances where we needed clarification of mission rules and these were all agreed amicably. This really made the tournie for me as there is always potential for dispute/regional variance when different groups meet. Certainly I never felt at any stage that there was anything “gamey” going on in any of my battles. Thanks Tony, Ramon, Leigh, David and Scott (and Leigh Avery). At the end we had to pick our best opponent of the weekend and this was definitely a difficult one – nice conundrum.
After the fourth round the Painting scores were posted and I was really pleased to see the Death Guard had caught the judges’ eye. There were some beautifully painted armies there, my two favourites being Troy’s Ultramarines (best army I’ve seen in the flesh – White Dwarf pictures didn’t do it justice) and Michael Boles’ Sisters (I want to know who you sold your soul to to paint that well).
Given Troy’s Painting and Battle scores I thought it would have to be very difficult for anyone to catch him. As we sat down for the prizes I was hopeful of making the cut in the “Harlequin” and perhaps breaking the Top 10.
Kane did a great job with the speeches, setting the right tone. The countdown from 40 mixed with the blister prizes was excellent.
I survived the cut to Top 10 (yay Target One achieved) and was extremely chuffed to pick up 3rd Place Best Army. Started to get nervous as the places counted down! To be called up as one of the Top 3 was certainly better than I assumed. Certainly was surprised to jump past Brodie to claim the coveted “Commissar” for 2nd Overall.
Well done to Troy on his win. I felt his Ultramarines were clearly the best army there and he backed it up with a great battle score and sports. A well deserved “Warmaster” and from my viewpoint I was extremely happy to finish second behind such a deserved winner. Also well done to Brodie, I thought his result was a fantastic effort.
When it came to actual results I finished 4 points behind Troy. Where I managed to make up some points was on Sports scoring where I was one of the eight who finished with the top mark of 65. This was extremely important for me as I was determined that my opponents would have a good time over the weekend and it looks like I achieved that. Thanks Tony, Ramon, Leigh, David and Scott, you were great opponents.
My army performed okay over the weekend. It was largely set up for New Zealand gaming conditions and I felt it was a little underpowered compared to those I faced (that may be a jaundiced view though) . It certainly lacked the “firepower/ability to hurt” when compared to a lot of armies at the event. The other thing was that it was constructed expecting to see at least a few missions with “Escalation”. What I didn’t realise is that escalation/reserve missions are very rarely played in Victoria. I spoke to quite a few guys about it and the general feeling was that if you buy something you shouldn’t be handicapped from using it. This also explained why missions with deep strike and infiltration are popular. I can see why people go vehicle/toy-heavy if you know that you will always use them. However I think that firstly it possibly unbalances the game to always allow everything and secondly it makes it less tactically challenging. I’d be interested in people’s thoughts on this.
Finally a few thank yous. Firstly, to Troy for his generosity in forgoing his prize. As a result my Chaos Battle Force was promoted to a Space Marine army. Thanks. I’m going to have two excited sons tonight . Secondly to Leigh Avery who gave us lifts to and from the venue . You were great Leigh…really appreciate it. Great to catch up with the SA guys as well as the Melbourne boys – you really made us feel welcome.
Thanks to the Thugs – Drew, Mark, Dan and especially Big Red. You got through a power of work and made the event run smoothly. And to Kane and Rat – thanks for inviting us over. You guys ran a fantastic event and really welcomed us in. I was a bit nervous before the event as I had really built it up to Hagen and Richard and I wanted them to enjoy their first jaunt to play in Melbourne. I can tell you that it greatly exceeded my already high expectations. I’d love to be invited back.
And cheers Hagen and Richard. You were great traveling companions. I had an excellent time in no small part due to you both.
2004 New Zealand GT - Death Guard
New Zealand Grand Tournament is held every September and is one of two Grand Tournaments in this part of the world. As always a group of Warlords ventured north to compete in the 40k tournament.
Arrived in Auckland Friday afternoon and after registering at GW a group of Warlords and other out of towners went out for a pre-tourney meal. I think we must all be getting old as it was a very quiet night.
The NZGT is six rounds over two days so is pretty intense. This year the missions from Komplete Fanatic were used with Dawn Engagement being played twice.
I took my Death Guard Legion “Legio Morbidius” that I’ve been painting over the past year. I already had a Death Guard army but in a labour of love I wanted to create a new incarnation. It had debuted three weeks ago at Call to Arms where I had been lucky enough to pick up Best Army and Players Choice. CTA had shown a couple of areas for improvement in the composition to provide greater flexibility so over the intervening time these changes were made.
The army (all have Mark of Nurgle):
Chaos Lord – Great Weapon, Daemon Armour, Daemon Stature, Daemon Aura, Daemonic Mutation, Great Weapon
Retinue – 6 Chosen Terminators, 2 Reaper Autocannons, two Power Fists, three Lightning Claws, Chaos Icon
14 man Plague Marine squad – two plasma guns, AC with Power Fist, Chaos Icon
7 man Plague Marine squad – melta gun, AC with Lightning Claws, Daemonic Strength in Rhino with Smoke and Extra Armour, Chaos Icon
7 Plague Bearers
7 Nurglings
Defiler with Mutated Hull
Predator with HB Sponsons, TL Lascannon, Extra Armour
So 45 models and 7 units.
Game One – Dawn Engagement – Doug Bisley (13th Company)
Doug had only recently started playing with the 13th Company. Previously he had used IG so I expect it was a real change. He had the normal 13th Coy toys with the exception of the Rune Priest – so no gate.
The key points in the battle were the Defiler destroying the 3 man Long Fang squad (leaving Doug with no long range anti-tank) and the Wulfen falling for the ‘tethered goat’ well away from the main action.
In the end I was able to score a fairly solid win. Doug is a great guy and we sat down after the game and discussed how he could strengthen his army to provide more flexibility. I wasn’t surprised when he went on to win Best Sport.
Best Unit - Defiler
19-7 win
Game Two – Commandos – Dave Millar (Daemonhunters)
Dave is an ex-pat New Zealander living in Melbourne and has a well-deserved reputation as a top-notch player. He was using a Daemonhunter army with a strong Grey Knight component and also two squads of Imperial Stormtroopers. His HQs were a Grand Master and an Inquisitor Lord.
I placed three commandos one side with the bulk of my army (I had the 14man squad as a blocking force). Dave split his more equally and had a 2:1 commando split.
The key points in the game were a defiler shot that covered 5 Grey Knights and 2 commandos scattering to no effect; Dave’s GM surviving a multitude of Inv. Saves to account for most of my Retinue plus the Lord before falling.
Both of us got two commandos off on the same turn and with little more to be achieved agreed a draw.
Dave is another excellent opponent and I was grateful to have the chance to lock horns. We both agreed the mission is broken as the Commandos with 5 PW attacks on the charge are just too powerful. GW should look at changing this stat line.
Best Unit – 14 man squad (but no-one stood out)
13-13 Draw
Game Three – Crash and Burn – Tim Roberts (Necrons)
This mission is the Thunderhawk Down variant and always a lot of fun. Tim had 4 units of ten warriors, a small squad of Pariahs, Lord on foot and heaps of Destroyers. There were two 4 Destroyer squads plus a single Heavy Destroyer.
My games with Tim are always very very hard. Tim is an extremely thoughtful player who knows how to use his army .Key to this mission is to retain flexibility until the ship comes down. The first few turns are a bit chess like as you try to inflict damage without sustaining too much.
I managed to knock over 10 necrons first turn (mainly due to the Defiler) however Tim made nine of 10 WBB rolls so it was all to naught. Prior to the TH crashing Tim destroyed my Nurglings.
When it came down it was just in front of my retinue and I was able to put a rhino in the gap blocking a huge swathe of LOS. Tim took the bait and blew it up….effectively marginalizing 3 of his 4 Necron squads and most of his Destroyers. I move most of my army up behind to jump on the objective if Tim came forward. He was forced to do this and through the objective went my two PM squads holding him up 3-4” away.
In the end I had held him away from it and was able to move enough on to claim.
Best Unit – 7 man squad
14-6 win
So end of Day One and I’ve two wins and a draw and sitting somewhere in the top half dozen – 6 points behind Dave Millar.
Game Four – Dawn Engagement – Jason Issac (Tyranids)
Jason is another Warlord and the two of us had played a couple of times recently. His army is a very tough Mutable Genus Tyranid with Winged HT, two squads of Leaping Warriors with Rending Claws, enhanced hormagaunts, genestealers, spinegaunts, a venom cannon toting Carnifex and the Red Terror. So very very quick.
Night fight first turn and Jason comes forward. Great. I’ve got one turn of shooting before it’s close combat for the rest of the game. Five night rolls and not one over 15”. Ouch.
From here the battle was a real arm wrestle. I managed to take what chances I had to get on top in a long hard fought game. We were starting to run into time constraints so agreed to finish on Turn 5. Jason was able to get his HT into my defiler and destroy it on this last turn which produced a swing of 580 points. This was enough to bring it back to a draw.
Another excellent game against a guy who is always a pleasure to play.
Best Unit – Nurglings (tied up squad of hormagaunts and spinegaunts)
Draw 14-13
Game Five – Seize and Defend – Craig Latta (Space Wolves)
Craig is another tournament regular that I hadn’t previously played. We had both been hoping that we would get a chance to battle. Last year he had finished 3rd at the GT with a Nurgle army so he had a strong knowledge of Death Guard.
Of the armies I fought I thought Craig’s was the best composed. He had two squads of Grey Hunters, one of Blood Claws, Ven Dread, Lord, single squad of 3 Attack Bikes, Predator, Vindicator and the ubiquitous Scouts.
This mission should be subtitled “Near or Far” as these are the two strategies. I had the choice and decided to play “Near” as I felt I was stronger in HtH.
The unit I was most scared of was the scouts – turning up late. In the end they arrived early and Craig had to commit them. The Primary Objectives were fought over by my 14 man squad, Plague Bearers and Retinue vs. Craig’s Grey Hunters and Blood Claws. I had Predator and Defiler in support while Craig had his Vindicator and Predator. In the end I was able to seize my objective while denying Craig his. I was helped by the defiler dispensing both infantry and then the Vindicator.
Really enjoyed playing Craig and hopefully we’ll meet again soon.
Best Unit – Defiler though all-round team effort.
Win 16-6
Game Six – Save the Shrine – Al Borthwick (Bad Moons Ork)
This was the game I had been looking forward to all tournament. For me, Al is a benchmark player; the guy that you grade yourself against. He had placed 2nd at the GT the previous three years after winning it in 2000.
The mission was not necessarily the one on which I wanted this confrontation to be decided as in playtesting our group had determined it to be heavily weighted in favour of the Defender. Al won the crucial roll and I split my army to attack the shrine.
What a letdown this game was to be. I had lost most of my army on the second turn to Al’s shooting and it ceased to be a contest. I did manage to get some Plaguebearers into the shrine where the killed Al’s warboss but the remnants of my force were easily shot away.
I don’t think there was much I could have done to turn the game and Al is too good a player to even give me a sniff.
Well done to Al…..I’m disappointed it wasn’t a contest but I hope I took it on the chin.
Best Unit – Plaguebearers
Loss 7-18
So three wins, two good draws and a pretty dismal loss. I was on a bit of a downer after the event because of the last game. It wasn’t the result rather the fact that had not been competitive. I also was suffering a little bit from the rush over the past fortnight to finish everything in time.
By my reckoning (I haven’t seen the results) I was still in the top eight for gameplay about 13-14 points behind the leader Darren Bufkin (Sisters of Battle)). We waited around for the hour or so for games to finish and results to be entered.
The GW staff went though LotR and Fantasy first with Fantasy being won by a Nurgle player (yay!!!). I got called up for Best Army and for Players’ Choice and was extremely humbled to win both of them. Al was second in both so it was nice from his pont of view to see the positions reversed for Best Painted. I knew that he really wanted to win that and deserved the prize after all the work he had put in on such a large (95 model) army.
Dave Millar got called up for 3rd Overall and then Al was called 2nd. I was a little dumbfounded when my name was called for 1st Overall as I had thought I was too far behind. It appears my soft scores got me over the line.
So shocked and again humbled. I appreciate the kind comments that came my way afterwards. I wasn’t particularly ebullient as I was still disappointed that the last game had been a no-contest (it did preserve my perfect record of losses in the last round of the four NZGTs I’ve been to). Looking back today I am extremely proud that I managed to back up last year’s win and also to pick up Players Choice and Best Army.
Thanks to all my opponents. I had six very good games over the course of the two days. The effort over the past month or so paid results but I’m not sure it’s something that I’ll go through again. I didn’t enjoy working to a deadline with this army (normally it motivates me). I’m not sure whether I’m just getting too old or whether it was because I had done a Death Guard army before. The other downer was that I was starting to feel the weight of expectation (mainly from myself) and this started to detract somewhat from the fun aspect.
Arrived in Auckland Friday afternoon and after registering at GW a group of Warlords and other out of towners went out for a pre-tourney meal. I think we must all be getting old as it was a very quiet night.
The NZGT is six rounds over two days so is pretty intense. This year the missions from Komplete Fanatic were used with Dawn Engagement being played twice.
I took my Death Guard Legion “Legio Morbidius” that I’ve been painting over the past year. I already had a Death Guard army but in a labour of love I wanted to create a new incarnation. It had debuted three weeks ago at Call to Arms where I had been lucky enough to pick up Best Army and Players Choice. CTA had shown a couple of areas for improvement in the composition to provide greater flexibility so over the intervening time these changes were made.
The army (all have Mark of Nurgle):
Chaos Lord – Great Weapon, Daemon Armour, Daemon Stature, Daemon Aura, Daemonic Mutation, Great Weapon
Retinue – 6 Chosen Terminators, 2 Reaper Autocannons, two Power Fists, three Lightning Claws, Chaos Icon
14 man Plague Marine squad – two plasma guns, AC with Power Fist, Chaos Icon
7 man Plague Marine squad – melta gun, AC with Lightning Claws, Daemonic Strength in Rhino with Smoke and Extra Armour, Chaos Icon
7 Plague Bearers
7 Nurglings
Defiler with Mutated Hull
Predator with HB Sponsons, TL Lascannon, Extra Armour
So 45 models and 7 units.
Game One – Dawn Engagement – Doug Bisley (13th Company)
Doug had only recently started playing with the 13th Company. Previously he had used IG so I expect it was a real change. He had the normal 13th Coy toys with the exception of the Rune Priest – so no gate.
The key points in the battle were the Defiler destroying the 3 man Long Fang squad (leaving Doug with no long range anti-tank) and the Wulfen falling for the ‘tethered goat’ well away from the main action.
In the end I was able to score a fairly solid win. Doug is a great guy and we sat down after the game and discussed how he could strengthen his army to provide more flexibility. I wasn’t surprised when he went on to win Best Sport.
Best Unit - Defiler
19-7 win
Game Two – Commandos – Dave Millar (Daemonhunters)
Dave is an ex-pat New Zealander living in Melbourne and has a well-deserved reputation as a top-notch player. He was using a Daemonhunter army with a strong Grey Knight component and also two squads of Imperial Stormtroopers. His HQs were a Grand Master and an Inquisitor Lord.
I placed three commandos one side with the bulk of my army (I had the 14man squad as a blocking force). Dave split his more equally and had a 2:1 commando split.
The key points in the game were a defiler shot that covered 5 Grey Knights and 2 commandos scattering to no effect; Dave’s GM surviving a multitude of Inv. Saves to account for most of my Retinue plus the Lord before falling.
Both of us got two commandos off on the same turn and with little more to be achieved agreed a draw.
Dave is another excellent opponent and I was grateful to have the chance to lock horns. We both agreed the mission is broken as the Commandos with 5 PW attacks on the charge are just too powerful. GW should look at changing this stat line.
Best Unit – 14 man squad (but no-one stood out)
13-13 Draw
Game Three – Crash and Burn – Tim Roberts (Necrons)
This mission is the Thunderhawk Down variant and always a lot of fun. Tim had 4 units of ten warriors, a small squad of Pariahs, Lord on foot and heaps of Destroyers. There were two 4 Destroyer squads plus a single Heavy Destroyer.
My games with Tim are always very very hard. Tim is an extremely thoughtful player who knows how to use his army .Key to this mission is to retain flexibility until the ship comes down. The first few turns are a bit chess like as you try to inflict damage without sustaining too much.
I managed to knock over 10 necrons first turn (mainly due to the Defiler) however Tim made nine of 10 WBB rolls so it was all to naught. Prior to the TH crashing Tim destroyed my Nurglings.
When it came down it was just in front of my retinue and I was able to put a rhino in the gap blocking a huge swathe of LOS. Tim took the bait and blew it up….effectively marginalizing 3 of his 4 Necron squads and most of his Destroyers. I move most of my army up behind to jump on the objective if Tim came forward. He was forced to do this and through the objective went my two PM squads holding him up 3-4” away.
In the end I had held him away from it and was able to move enough on to claim.
Best Unit – 7 man squad
14-6 win
So end of Day One and I’ve two wins and a draw and sitting somewhere in the top half dozen – 6 points behind Dave Millar.
Game Four – Dawn Engagement – Jason Issac (Tyranids)
Jason is another Warlord and the two of us had played a couple of times recently. His army is a very tough Mutable Genus Tyranid with Winged HT, two squads of Leaping Warriors with Rending Claws, enhanced hormagaunts, genestealers, spinegaunts, a venom cannon toting Carnifex and the Red Terror. So very very quick.
Night fight first turn and Jason comes forward. Great. I’ve got one turn of shooting before it’s close combat for the rest of the game. Five night rolls and not one over 15”. Ouch.
From here the battle was a real arm wrestle. I managed to take what chances I had to get on top in a long hard fought game. We were starting to run into time constraints so agreed to finish on Turn 5. Jason was able to get his HT into my defiler and destroy it on this last turn which produced a swing of 580 points. This was enough to bring it back to a draw.
Another excellent game against a guy who is always a pleasure to play.
Best Unit – Nurglings (tied up squad of hormagaunts and spinegaunts)
Draw 14-13
Game Five – Seize and Defend – Craig Latta (Space Wolves)
Craig is another tournament regular that I hadn’t previously played. We had both been hoping that we would get a chance to battle. Last year he had finished 3rd at the GT with a Nurgle army so he had a strong knowledge of Death Guard.
Of the armies I fought I thought Craig’s was the best composed. He had two squads of Grey Hunters, one of Blood Claws, Ven Dread, Lord, single squad of 3 Attack Bikes, Predator, Vindicator and the ubiquitous Scouts.
This mission should be subtitled “Near or Far” as these are the two strategies. I had the choice and decided to play “Near” as I felt I was stronger in HtH.
The unit I was most scared of was the scouts – turning up late. In the end they arrived early and Craig had to commit them. The Primary Objectives were fought over by my 14 man squad, Plague Bearers and Retinue vs. Craig’s Grey Hunters and Blood Claws. I had Predator and Defiler in support while Craig had his Vindicator and Predator. In the end I was able to seize my objective while denying Craig his. I was helped by the defiler dispensing both infantry and then the Vindicator.
Really enjoyed playing Craig and hopefully we’ll meet again soon.
Best Unit – Defiler though all-round team effort.
Win 16-6
Game Six – Save the Shrine – Al Borthwick (Bad Moons Ork)
This was the game I had been looking forward to all tournament. For me, Al is a benchmark player; the guy that you grade yourself against. He had placed 2nd at the GT the previous three years after winning it in 2000.
The mission was not necessarily the one on which I wanted this confrontation to be decided as in playtesting our group had determined it to be heavily weighted in favour of the Defender. Al won the crucial roll and I split my army to attack the shrine.
What a letdown this game was to be. I had lost most of my army on the second turn to Al’s shooting and it ceased to be a contest. I did manage to get some Plaguebearers into the shrine where the killed Al’s warboss but the remnants of my force were easily shot away.
I don’t think there was much I could have done to turn the game and Al is too good a player to even give me a sniff.
Well done to Al…..I’m disappointed it wasn’t a contest but I hope I took it on the chin.
Best Unit – Plaguebearers
Loss 7-18
So three wins, two good draws and a pretty dismal loss. I was on a bit of a downer after the event because of the last game. It wasn’t the result rather the fact that had not been competitive. I also was suffering a little bit from the rush over the past fortnight to finish everything in time.
By my reckoning (I haven’t seen the results) I was still in the top eight for gameplay about 13-14 points behind the leader Darren Bufkin (Sisters of Battle)). We waited around for the hour or so for games to finish and results to be entered.
The GW staff went though LotR and Fantasy first with Fantasy being won by a Nurgle player (yay!!!). I got called up for Best Army and for Players’ Choice and was extremely humbled to win both of them. Al was second in both so it was nice from his pont of view to see the positions reversed for Best Painted. I knew that he really wanted to win that and deserved the prize after all the work he had put in on such a large (95 model) army.
Dave Millar got called up for 3rd Overall and then Al was called 2nd. I was a little dumbfounded when my name was called for 1st Overall as I had thought I was too far behind. It appears my soft scores got me over the line.
So shocked and again humbled. I appreciate the kind comments that came my way afterwards. I wasn’t particularly ebullient as I was still disappointed that the last game had been a no-contest (it did preserve my perfect record of losses in the last round of the four NZGTs I’ve been to). Looking back today I am extremely proud that I managed to back up last year’s win and also to pick up Players Choice and Best Army.
Thanks to all my opponents. I had six very good games over the course of the two days. The effort over the past month or so paid results but I’m not sure it’s something that I’ll go through again. I didn’t enjoy working to a deadline with this army (normally it motivates me). I’m not sure whether I’m just getting too old or whether it was because I had done a Death Guard army before. The other downer was that I was starting to feel the weight of expectation (mainly from myself) and this started to detract somewhat from the fun aspect.
2003 Sydney GT - Death Guard
Last year a contingent of Warlords went to Games Workshop’s Grand Tournament in Sydney. By all accounts they had an excellent time so I thought that 2003 might be the year that I would venture offshore and try my luck. The family were keen to holiday for five days in Sydney, giving me the weekend to play with my “toy dollies”.
Here are my thoughts on what I encountered:
* The venue was Sydney Town Hall in the centre of the city. It was very well serviced by transport facilities but parking must have been tough. What was excellent was the proximity to a range of good quality food/drink outlets.
* Lighting was mixed, being far better the second day when they found the spotlights. Considerations such as this are important when part of the tournament includes assessment of painting.
* The tournament organisation was excellent. Pre-tournament pack was extensive and informative. There was an opportunity to register Friday night which certainly cut the queues Saturday morning. What really surprised me was how well the GW team kept the timetable on track (espacially after the disasters in this regard at last year’s GW Fields of Blood in Auckland…1.5 hours late). This was helped in no small way by the number of staff GW committed to the event (15-20 people).
* This all contributed to a relaxed atmosphere with no aggravation evident.
* The gamers were the mixed crowd that you see at NZ tournaments but the painting standard, in particular, for Fantasy armies was slightly higher.
The Warhammer 40k tournament was full to capacity with sixty gamers. The following left an impression:
* The demise of Templar (1), Space Wolves (2) and Blood Angel (2) armies, having been replaced by the Legions of Chaos. Vanilla Space Marines were still evident as were Dark Angels (5). The Chaos Codex being new may have contributed to some of this however I do think the drift to Chaos reflects a rebalancing of relative effectiveness.
* The number of Necron and Tau armies (5-6 each). One player even managed to fit two Monoliths into his 1500 points.
* A real range in Army Composition, from the excellent (Steel Legion – 7 Chimeras, Hellhound, Direct Fire Basilisk) to the incredibly “cheesy” (Space Marine Army with 6 mini/maxed Troop squads – lascannon and plasma gun). My first round Tyranid opponent manage to fill almost all the slots on his Force Organisation, half of them with single models. Of my five opponents all except the Tyranid had very balanced and well composed armies.
* From my point of view, it was a resounding success to publish the missions in the Player’s Pack. Essentially meant that 10-15 minutes wasn’t wasted trying to work out the mission, objectives etc. Really sped the games up. Also the missions chosen had all been extensively playtested either coming from the “Black Book” or having been used at numerous tournaments.
* At last year’s Fields of Blood you only scored points for what you killed….regardless of how phyrric such an achievement was. Sydney’s Gameplay points were based on achievement of the mission. This obviously rewards tactical play and certainly I find it more enjoyable.
* Terrain was GT terrain…..you know what that means, Spartan. Probably explains the heavy skew towards shooty over assault armies.
So how did I go?
I played 5 games for 3 wins, 1 draw and 1 loss. One of the wins could easily have been a loss, the loss a win and the draw was one model from a win. What it meant is I spent the weekend around Tables 3-6, avoiding the sharks and giant squid. Four of my opponents were great to play against (the loss to the Iron Warriors was certainly one of the most enjoyable games I’ve played), the fifth guy was incredibly slow which really spoilt the game. He was still deploying while Al Borthwick on the next table was on Turn 3.
When it came to prizegiving, I was hopeful to pick up “Player’s Choice” for most popular army or “Best Army” for combined painting and selection scores. While I did pick up a prize for “Best Conversion” for my Death Guard Defiler, I missed out on both awards I had hoped I was competitive in.
Al Borthwick finished clearly ahead in Gameplay but strangely GW didn’t offer the “Butcher” prize. I believe Al’s overall result suffered from having to spend the weekend at (or near) the Top Table for all five rounds.
I was amazed when my name was called out as finishing 2nd Overall on 216 points (76/100 in Gameplay, 80/100 in Sportsmanship, 30/30 for Painting and 30/30 for Army Selection). My total was the same as the winner but he beat me in both gameplay and sportsmanship so no grumbles here with him being first. I was absolutely stoked with the result as it far exceeded any expectations that I had! So a worthwhile trip from both the gaming and the family viewpoint.
Here are my thoughts on what I encountered:
* The venue was Sydney Town Hall in the centre of the city. It was very well serviced by transport facilities but parking must have been tough. What was excellent was the proximity to a range of good quality food/drink outlets.
* Lighting was mixed, being far better the second day when they found the spotlights. Considerations such as this are important when part of the tournament includes assessment of painting.
* The tournament organisation was excellent. Pre-tournament pack was extensive and informative. There was an opportunity to register Friday night which certainly cut the queues Saturday morning. What really surprised me was how well the GW team kept the timetable on track (espacially after the disasters in this regard at last year’s GW Fields of Blood in Auckland…1.5 hours late). This was helped in no small way by the number of staff GW committed to the event (15-20 people).
* This all contributed to a relaxed atmosphere with no aggravation evident.
* The gamers were the mixed crowd that you see at NZ tournaments but the painting standard, in particular, for Fantasy armies was slightly higher.
The Warhammer 40k tournament was full to capacity with sixty gamers. The following left an impression:
* The demise of Templar (1), Space Wolves (2) and Blood Angel (2) armies, having been replaced by the Legions of Chaos. Vanilla Space Marines were still evident as were Dark Angels (5). The Chaos Codex being new may have contributed to some of this however I do think the drift to Chaos reflects a rebalancing of relative effectiveness.
* The number of Necron and Tau armies (5-6 each). One player even managed to fit two Monoliths into his 1500 points.
* A real range in Army Composition, from the excellent (Steel Legion – 7 Chimeras, Hellhound, Direct Fire Basilisk) to the incredibly “cheesy” (Space Marine Army with 6 mini/maxed Troop squads – lascannon and plasma gun). My first round Tyranid opponent manage to fill almost all the slots on his Force Organisation, half of them with single models. Of my five opponents all except the Tyranid had very balanced and well composed armies.
* From my point of view, it was a resounding success to publish the missions in the Player’s Pack. Essentially meant that 10-15 minutes wasn’t wasted trying to work out the mission, objectives etc. Really sped the games up. Also the missions chosen had all been extensively playtested either coming from the “Black Book” or having been used at numerous tournaments.
* At last year’s Fields of Blood you only scored points for what you killed….regardless of how phyrric such an achievement was. Sydney’s Gameplay points were based on achievement of the mission. This obviously rewards tactical play and certainly I find it more enjoyable.
* Terrain was GT terrain…..you know what that means, Spartan. Probably explains the heavy skew towards shooty over assault armies.
So how did I go?
I played 5 games for 3 wins, 1 draw and 1 loss. One of the wins could easily have been a loss, the loss a win and the draw was one model from a win. What it meant is I spent the weekend around Tables 3-6, avoiding the sharks and giant squid. Four of my opponents were great to play against (the loss to the Iron Warriors was certainly one of the most enjoyable games I’ve played), the fifth guy was incredibly slow which really spoilt the game. He was still deploying while Al Borthwick on the next table was on Turn 3.
When it came to prizegiving, I was hopeful to pick up “Player’s Choice” for most popular army or “Best Army” for combined painting and selection scores. While I did pick up a prize for “Best Conversion” for my Death Guard Defiler, I missed out on both awards I had hoped I was competitive in.
Al Borthwick finished clearly ahead in Gameplay but strangely GW didn’t offer the “Butcher” prize. I believe Al’s overall result suffered from having to spend the weekend at (or near) the Top Table for all five rounds.
I was amazed when my name was called out as finishing 2nd Overall on 216 points (76/100 in Gameplay, 80/100 in Sportsmanship, 30/30 for Painting and 30/30 for Army Selection). My total was the same as the winner but he beat me in both gameplay and sportsmanship so no grumbles here with him being first. I was absolutely stoked with the result as it far exceeded any expectations that I had! So a worthwhile trip from both the gaming and the family viewpoint.
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