Post by WestRider on Jun 26, 2011 12:19:18 GMT -5
OK, this is going to be kind of sketchy, because I didn't take notes, but I think there's still some worthwhile stuff in here.
Saturday morning, I woke up, thought to myself "I think I'll go win a 40K Tournament", packed up my Nids (sorry, IGMB), and headed over to Seattle Wargaming Center.
Lately, I've been mostly running variations on a more or less standard DeathStar List. I think I've finally got it tweaked to where I like it at 2K:
Tyrant, TL Devs, Old Adversary, Armoured Shell, Regenerate
3 Guards, Lash Whips
Tyranid Prime, 2x Boneswords, Regenerate
2x3 Hive Guard
2 Venomthropes
2xTärvigon, AG, TS, Catalyst
10+11 Gaunts
2xT-Fex, Rupture Cannon
It's got weaknesses: Not much firepower against Heavy Infantry, and not a whole lot of mobility, but when I ball all that up and send it rumbling across the table, not much can stand in the way.
Game 1 was against Imperial Fists, an old buddy of mine who I used to play regularly back in 2nd and 3rd, but hadn't seen in years. His list was something like:
Lysander
Librarian
10 Terminators, 2 Cyclones
Dread with Multi-Melta
3 Tactical Squads in Rhinos (I think they were all ML/Flamer, one or two had PowerFists)
Devastator Squad with Missile Launchers
Dakka Predator
Vindicator
Thunderfire Cannon
...wow. Didn't notice until just now that he had 4 Heavy Support Choices. No one said a word about it yesterday.
Mission was Capture and Control, Dawn of War. He put his Objective in a building near the middle of the board, about 12" from his board edge. I put mine way over on my left, about 18" up, in another building. I won the roll-off and chose to go second.
He deployed two Tactical Squads on foot, one across the middle with Lysander, the other over on his left for some reason. I strung my two Gaunt Broods out as far up as I could get, with the Tyranid Prime hanging around for Synapse.
First Turn, nothing much happened. He rolled everything on except the Terminators, who were Deep Striking, I rolled on everything I had. One Tärv and a Hive Guard Brood swung left around my Objective, everything else clumped up in the center. Night Fight shut down all shooting.
Turn 2, he moved up with most stuff, plinked away a few Gaunts, and dumped a ton of fire into my DeathStar to no real effect. That pretty much sums up his shooting for the whole game, really. I shuffled up a little (mistake!) and opened up, Immobilizing and Stunning the Predator, Wrecking the Vindicator, and blowing the arms off the Dread. I also dropped Paroxysm on the Tactical Squad nearest me (including Lysander, but they were just out of Assault Range.
Turn 3, his Terminators came in, Deep Striking over about 15" from my Objective after their Scatter. They shot up my Hive Guard a little, while he pulled back the Tac Squad suffering from Paroxysm. I spawned some Gaunts and ran them right up in front of the Termies to keep them from getting more than 1" of Movement per Turn toward my Objective, and continued my mistake of not advancing aggressively enough toward his Objective. Finished off his Vehicles in Shooting, for all practical purposes.
Turn 4, Lysander ran over to the Termies, who finished off those Hive Guard. I realized I needed to get into gear, and finally(!) started rushing forward, Paroxysming and assaulting a Tac Squad in front of his Objective Building. Unfortunately, I couldn't get the Prime into Combat, his Sergeant managed to make 5 Saves, and because of Lysander, he was Stubborn, and passed the Morale Test, holding me in place. I also Assaulted the Termies with the Gaunts that had been blocking them, but screwed up my prep and didn't pull them as far out of position as I'd meant to. The Gaunts died horribly and the Termies got a good consolidation roll.
Turn 5, because of that one Sergeant holding me up, his DeathStar Assaulted my DeathStar. This Combat was basically everything that happened for the rest of the Game, and was just a slugfest. When we rolled and ended the Game, nothing was left except Lysander (with 1 Wound left), one regular Termy, my Prime, and a single Tyrant Guard.)
We ended up demonstrating why everyone calls Capture and Control the Draw Mission.
The big mistake I made was not going hell-for-leather for his Objective from the word go. If I'd pushed ahead faster, I would have gotten that Assault on Turn 3 instead of 4, and been able to take Lysander down while he was still with the Tactical Squad. Then I probably could have handled the Termies, one way or another, and gotten the DeathStar firmly planted on his Objective by Turn 5.
I got stuck in habit, since really aggressive armies are more common around here, and I tend to be a counter-puncher anyhow, and I didn't adapt quickly enough to the fact that I was playing against another defensive List and I was the one who really needed to take the offensive to win that Game.
Game 2 was my first ever Game against Grey Knights. He had what seemed like kind of a weird hybrid list:
Coteaz
Librarian with Sanctuary, Shrouding, Might of Titan
10 Purifiers with Halberds, one Hammer
Psyfleman Dread
2x10 Henchmen, each with 5 Assassins and 5 Crusaders. One Squad had a Rhino.
10 Henchmen, more varied, but with a Jokaero, 2 Heavy Bolter Servitors, and a Multi-Melta Servitor
5 Terminators with 3 Halberds, 2 Hammers, 1 Psycannon
Storm Raven with Assault Cannon, MultiMelta, Hurricane Bolters
10 man Purgation Squad with 4 Psycannon
DreadKnight with Heavy Incinerator
The Mission was Seize Ground, Pitched Battle, with 5 Objectives. Pretty much my favorite setup. There was one Objective near the center, and the other four were close to the middle of each Board Quarter, but a bit in toward the middle of the Board. He won the Roll-off and took First Turn.
From my left, he had: Henchmen in Rhino, Dread, Purgation Squad, Henchmen on foot, Coteaz and shooty Henchmen (on an Objective), and the Librarian and Purifiers together in the ChibiHawk. The DreadKnight and Terminators were in Reserve to Deep Strike. I clumped up as usual, with a Tärvigon, Hive Guard, Gaunts, and a T-Fex in a building on my left, covering one Objective, the other T-Fex, DeathStar, and Venomthropes just to their right behind the other Gaunts, and the other Tärv and Hive Guard Brood on my right flank, pretty much in the middle of the board.
Turn one, the ChibiHawk zoomed over toward my side of the board, everything he had moved up a bit, and the Psyfleman took a Wound off a Hive Guard. Other shooting did basically nothing. My turn, I shuffled around a bit and spawned Gaunts to get a screen on my right flank, where the ChibiHawk was headed. Dumped most of my Firepower into it, to no real effect (stupid 3+ Cover Save from Shrouding+Flat Out), but my other Hive Guard Brood popped the Psyfleman.
Turn 2, the Henchmen in the Rhino hopped out to Assault the Gaunts on my left, and the ChibiHawk moved up and disgorged its contents. It also unloaded on the DeathStar, but did only a single Wound, from the Perils I had to take from the one MindStrike Missile that was actually on target. The Purifiers decided to shoot my Gaunt Screen to hopefully kill a few and open up an Assault Route to the stuff behind, but shot too well and wiped out the Brood, leaving them sitting there. The Assassins kind of whiffed, and my Counter-Attack+Poison Gaunts did a fair bit of damage to the Squad, but got wiped out in the end by some good Rolls from the Crusaders and No Retreat.
I spawned more Gaunts, but the Tärv on the left ran out. Moved the DeathStar and other Tärv up toward the Purifiers. Shot them up pretty well, but didn't manage to get Paroxysm off because of The Aegis. Charged in, took some lumps from Sanctuary, but managed to stop Hammerhand from the Librarian and put a Wound on him with SitW. SitW also shut down the Purifiers' Force Weapons, and took out their Justicar. The Librarian made his work, though, and for some idiotic reason, I'd forgotten I could assign the Wound to a Tyrant Guard even though he was BtB with my Tyrant, so bye-bye Tyrant. Everything was I1 for one reason or another, though, so he took the Libby with him, and the Gaunts, Tyrant Guard, and Prime finished the Squad. On the other hand Tyrant Guard now go on a Blind Rampage, which I'd never had happen before.
Oh, the other Gaunts I'd Spawned assaulted the Henchmen and got most of them, but they passed their Morale Test.
Turn 3: Somewhat shaken by the loss of his Purifiers, my Opponent played it safe this Turn. His Terminators came in, and he brought them in over by an unclaimed Objective away from all the action. He shifted the ChibiHawk over 7" to lure the Raging Tyrant Guard away, and managed to gun down my Tärv that hadn't run out of Gaunts yet. His central Henchmen Squad moved up to Assault the Gaunts that had finished off the Purifiers. They finished them off, but were down to 3 Crusaders and a single Assassin, while my other Gaunts finished off the other Henchmen Brood and consolidated onto the Objective on my left. I think it was also about now that my Tärv and T-Fex ripped apart the Rhino that was trying to Contest that Objective as well.
The Tyrant Guard, in their Blind Rampage, went leaping over to the Storm Raven and, in a glorious bound, tore it from the sky! Go S6 Rending! I spread some more shooting around and he whiffed a bunch of Saves, so I dropped most of the Purgation Squad (only the Justicar and 3 Psycannon left), and a couple of Termies. In another first, my Venomthropes ran up and Tentacled the remaining Crusaders and Assassin to death.
Turn 4: Since I'd just wiped the Henchmen who were holding one Objective, and was about to move my Tärv onto another, he moved his Purgation Squad up and Assaulted it, to try and hold me back. I think we traded one Wound each way, and SitW kept his Force Weapon from activating. In a huge game-changer, his DreadKnight Deep Struck in next to the Gaunts holding my Objective, but scattered on top of them and died!
On my Turn, the Prime Regenerated the two Wounds he'd taken and then he and the Rampaging(!) Tyrant Guard just managed to reach and kill the last two Terminators, and got a good Consolidation Roll. This took us down to one Objective each, and with nothing left on the table for him but the Coteaz Squad and the last couple of Purgation dudes.
Turn 5 went really quickly. Coteaz and co. bounced a bunch of firepower off the Rampaging(!) Tyrant Guard. The fact that the Prime had regenerated the Turn before kept me from losing any Models. His Purgation Squad Justicar finally managed to get his Force Weapon turned on and fried my Tärv, but then got eaten by the T-Fex.
However, this meant that now nearly my entire Army was running on Instinctive Behaviour, since my only remaining Synapse was the Tyranid Prime, way the hell over on the other end of the Board. Everything made it's Ld Checks except for the single Gaunt that I'd been trying to get on the center Objective. He ran 1" into a Ruin instead
Looked like it was going to be a Draw, with my other Gaunt Brood holding one Objective and Coteaz's Unit on another.
But the Tyrant Guard got a 6 on their Difficult Terrain Roll, Rampaged right on over there, and killed them all. Coteaz managed to avoid the Prime and took only regular hits, but rolled Snake-Eyes on his Armour Saves, while the Prime and other Guard killed all but two of the Henchmen, who fled, but were cut down.
GKs Tabled! Victory for the Nids! I thought I'd had my army more or less gutted in the process, but when I added it all up, I still had over half of it on the Table, Points-wise.
Other than my Wound Allocation screwup (which I didn't even realize until this morning), I think I pretty much nailed this one. He was playing an aggressive Army, so I was able to do well by moving up slowly in a sort of mobile castle, taking whatever he dished out, and then hitting back. I think the death of the Tyrant might have actually made my victory even more extreme, because I wouldn't have gotten as aggressive as Rage forced me to be. I probably would have just pushed up the middle and ended up at 2-3 Objectives to 1 instead of hunting down Coteaz.
Game 3: At this point, 1 Win and 1 Draw actually put me at the head of the pack, which meant it was time to face my nemesis list: In almost 14 years of playing 40K, I have never managed to beat Space Wolves. My dice go totally $#!& and I start making stupid mistakes and everything just goes wrong. Anyhow: he had something like this:
Rune Priest on a Bike. No Jaws!
Wolf Priest on a Bike
Wolf Scouts with a Melta
MultiMelta Dread in a Pod
4 Squads of Troops. I can't remember the breakdown between Hunters and Blood Claws. Meltas and stuff in each Squad, Wolf Guard all around, Arjac Rockfist in one of them. 3 had Rhinos, 1 had a Drop Pod
Big pack of Bikes with a MultiMelta Attack Bike and a PowerFist
Land Speeder with MultiMelta
Long Fangs with 3 Missile Launchers, a Heavy Bolter for some reason, and the usual Terminator Wolf Guard with Cyclone.
Mission was, by elimination, Spearhead and Annihilation, one of my least favorite combos. I got to choose the Table, and picked one with a huge hill covered in Ruins in the center. He won the roll-off and went first.
I was getting pretty tired by this point, and don't really remember most of the details. Basically, he Deployed mostly on foot in an attempt to deny Kill Points for his Transports, while I castled up in the center, with a huge hill covered in Ruins blocking off one of my flanks, and plenty of Difficult Terrain blocking the front. The Difficult Terrain caused his forces to hit kind of piecemeal, and by Turn 3, I was up a couple of KPs because I nailed his Rhino, Dread, and it's Drop Pod easily, and not much had hit my lines.
As my Tyrant ran over and ate Arjac's Squad (the first to hit my lines), he decided to try to pull back and whittle some things down in medium-range Firefights, which are kind of a weakness of my list.
This ended up backfiring for him, as my Tyrant ran around the central hill and was able to catch up with the pack that was running back over it, and my T-Fexen moved up far enough that they could start plinking away at the Speeder, Drop Pod, and Rhinos that he had hidden in his backfield. The Long Fangs got sidelined by the huge hill in the middle, and basically only got one Turn of fire before they decided to try to run from the DeathStar. He conceded in the middle of Turn 4, after we measured and found that the DeathStar would definitely be able to Assault the Long Fangs given the Massacre Move I'd rolled after eating the pack on the hill. My first ever victory over Space Wolves!
All he'd managed to kill was my Venomthropes, Gaunt Broods, and a single Tärv, while I'd dropped a Dread, a Rhino, a Drop Pod, two Grey Hunter Packs, and something else, I think the Speeder, and was about to take out the Long Fangs as well.
A lot of his stuff just got sidelined. He chose to hang back and shoot at range with the Bikes for some reason, the Long Fangs were stuck behind the hill, the Wolf Scouts came on back in his Corner because there was nothing they could really do on my side except run up, take one Melta shot, and then eat all the firepower from both T-Fexen.
2-0-1 was enough to take Best General, yet another first for me. I've taken Best Overall several times, but that's usually been by leaning pretty hard on my Sportsmanship and Painting Scores. This was the first time I've won just on my Game Results. Not to say my Sports and Painting aren't still good: the last two Tournaments I was in, I took home Favourite Opponent in one and Best Painted in the other.
Overall lessons:
- I need to work more on gauging what my Opponent's trying to do and adjusting my Playstyle accordingly. My default only works against aggressive Armies.
- DeathStars are a bad choice for many forces, because they provide a lynchpin, an obvious central point for your Opponent to focus on, rather than spreading Target Priority around evenly. They can work for Nids though, because Nids tend to rely on a lynchpin strategy anyhow, and we've got the tools to make an incredibly resilient DeathStar that provides substantial buffs to the Army around it. The amount of punishment that Unit took in the first two Games was unbelievable. In the last Game, it didn't take as much, but it was still a fair amount of firepower, plus going toe-to-toe with Arjac Rockfist in a supporting Squad. Ended the Game down one Guard, but otherwise undamaged.
- Venomthropes really are pretty much the perfect unit for my playstyle. If you charge my screens, you get torn up by the Spore Cloud and then Counter-Charged. If you don't, I get to just walk wherever I want to go. And the 'Thropes are key in making that a Devil's Decision. They let me grind forward, doing damage with shooting, and then finish in Assault after I've whittled things down.
- What I really need to work on is getting more aggressive with that whole formation, while maintaining the formation. When I do get more aggressive, I tend to break apart my own combos because I'm not watching my spacing, and so at this point I can only get away with that once I've already more or less broken my Opponent's Army.
Saturday morning, I woke up, thought to myself "I think I'll go win a 40K Tournament", packed up my Nids (sorry, IGMB), and headed over to Seattle Wargaming Center.
Lately, I've been mostly running variations on a more or less standard DeathStar List. I think I've finally got it tweaked to where I like it at 2K:
Tyrant, TL Devs, Old Adversary, Armoured Shell, Regenerate
3 Guards, Lash Whips
Tyranid Prime, 2x Boneswords, Regenerate
2x3 Hive Guard
2 Venomthropes
2xTärvigon, AG, TS, Catalyst
10+11 Gaunts
2xT-Fex, Rupture Cannon
It's got weaknesses: Not much firepower against Heavy Infantry, and not a whole lot of mobility, but when I ball all that up and send it rumbling across the table, not much can stand in the way.
Game 1 was against Imperial Fists, an old buddy of mine who I used to play regularly back in 2nd and 3rd, but hadn't seen in years. His list was something like:
Lysander
Librarian
10 Terminators, 2 Cyclones
Dread with Multi-Melta
3 Tactical Squads in Rhinos (I think they were all ML/Flamer, one or two had PowerFists)
Devastator Squad with Missile Launchers
Dakka Predator
Vindicator
Thunderfire Cannon
...wow. Didn't notice until just now that he had 4 Heavy Support Choices. No one said a word about it yesterday.
Mission was Capture and Control, Dawn of War. He put his Objective in a building near the middle of the board, about 12" from his board edge. I put mine way over on my left, about 18" up, in another building. I won the roll-off and chose to go second.
He deployed two Tactical Squads on foot, one across the middle with Lysander, the other over on his left for some reason. I strung my two Gaunt Broods out as far up as I could get, with the Tyranid Prime hanging around for Synapse.
First Turn, nothing much happened. He rolled everything on except the Terminators, who were Deep Striking, I rolled on everything I had. One Tärv and a Hive Guard Brood swung left around my Objective, everything else clumped up in the center. Night Fight shut down all shooting.
Turn 2, he moved up with most stuff, plinked away a few Gaunts, and dumped a ton of fire into my DeathStar to no real effect. That pretty much sums up his shooting for the whole game, really. I shuffled up a little (mistake!) and opened up, Immobilizing and Stunning the Predator, Wrecking the Vindicator, and blowing the arms off the Dread. I also dropped Paroxysm on the Tactical Squad nearest me (including Lysander, but they were just out of Assault Range.
Turn 3, his Terminators came in, Deep Striking over about 15" from my Objective after their Scatter. They shot up my Hive Guard a little, while he pulled back the Tac Squad suffering from Paroxysm. I spawned some Gaunts and ran them right up in front of the Termies to keep them from getting more than 1" of Movement per Turn toward my Objective, and continued my mistake of not advancing aggressively enough toward his Objective. Finished off his Vehicles in Shooting, for all practical purposes.
Turn 4, Lysander ran over to the Termies, who finished off those Hive Guard. I realized I needed to get into gear, and finally(!) started rushing forward, Paroxysming and assaulting a Tac Squad in front of his Objective Building. Unfortunately, I couldn't get the Prime into Combat, his Sergeant managed to make 5 Saves, and because of Lysander, he was Stubborn, and passed the Morale Test, holding me in place. I also Assaulted the Termies with the Gaunts that had been blocking them, but screwed up my prep and didn't pull them as far out of position as I'd meant to. The Gaunts died horribly and the Termies got a good consolidation roll.
Turn 5, because of that one Sergeant holding me up, his DeathStar Assaulted my DeathStar. This Combat was basically everything that happened for the rest of the Game, and was just a slugfest. When we rolled and ended the Game, nothing was left except Lysander (with 1 Wound left), one regular Termy, my Prime, and a single Tyrant Guard.)
We ended up demonstrating why everyone calls Capture and Control the Draw Mission.
The big mistake I made was not going hell-for-leather for his Objective from the word go. If I'd pushed ahead faster, I would have gotten that Assault on Turn 3 instead of 4, and been able to take Lysander down while he was still with the Tactical Squad. Then I probably could have handled the Termies, one way or another, and gotten the DeathStar firmly planted on his Objective by Turn 5.
I got stuck in habit, since really aggressive armies are more common around here, and I tend to be a counter-puncher anyhow, and I didn't adapt quickly enough to the fact that I was playing against another defensive List and I was the one who really needed to take the offensive to win that Game.
Game 2 was my first ever Game against Grey Knights. He had what seemed like kind of a weird hybrid list:
Coteaz
Librarian with Sanctuary, Shrouding, Might of Titan
10 Purifiers with Halberds, one Hammer
Psyfleman Dread
2x10 Henchmen, each with 5 Assassins and 5 Crusaders. One Squad had a Rhino.
10 Henchmen, more varied, but with a Jokaero, 2 Heavy Bolter Servitors, and a Multi-Melta Servitor
5 Terminators with 3 Halberds, 2 Hammers, 1 Psycannon
Storm Raven with Assault Cannon, MultiMelta, Hurricane Bolters
10 man Purgation Squad with 4 Psycannon
DreadKnight with Heavy Incinerator
The Mission was Seize Ground, Pitched Battle, with 5 Objectives. Pretty much my favorite setup. There was one Objective near the center, and the other four were close to the middle of each Board Quarter, but a bit in toward the middle of the Board. He won the Roll-off and took First Turn.
From my left, he had: Henchmen in Rhino, Dread, Purgation Squad, Henchmen on foot, Coteaz and shooty Henchmen (on an Objective), and the Librarian and Purifiers together in the ChibiHawk. The DreadKnight and Terminators were in Reserve to Deep Strike. I clumped up as usual, with a Tärvigon, Hive Guard, Gaunts, and a T-Fex in a building on my left, covering one Objective, the other T-Fex, DeathStar, and Venomthropes just to their right behind the other Gaunts, and the other Tärv and Hive Guard Brood on my right flank, pretty much in the middle of the board.
Turn one, the ChibiHawk zoomed over toward my side of the board, everything he had moved up a bit, and the Psyfleman took a Wound off a Hive Guard. Other shooting did basically nothing. My turn, I shuffled around a bit and spawned Gaunts to get a screen on my right flank, where the ChibiHawk was headed. Dumped most of my Firepower into it, to no real effect (stupid 3+ Cover Save from Shrouding+Flat Out), but my other Hive Guard Brood popped the Psyfleman.
Turn 2, the Henchmen in the Rhino hopped out to Assault the Gaunts on my left, and the ChibiHawk moved up and disgorged its contents. It also unloaded on the DeathStar, but did only a single Wound, from the Perils I had to take from the one MindStrike Missile that was actually on target. The Purifiers decided to shoot my Gaunt Screen to hopefully kill a few and open up an Assault Route to the stuff behind, but shot too well and wiped out the Brood, leaving them sitting there. The Assassins kind of whiffed, and my Counter-Attack+Poison Gaunts did a fair bit of damage to the Squad, but got wiped out in the end by some good Rolls from the Crusaders and No Retreat.
I spawned more Gaunts, but the Tärv on the left ran out. Moved the DeathStar and other Tärv up toward the Purifiers. Shot them up pretty well, but didn't manage to get Paroxysm off because of The Aegis. Charged in, took some lumps from Sanctuary, but managed to stop Hammerhand from the Librarian and put a Wound on him with SitW. SitW also shut down the Purifiers' Force Weapons, and took out their Justicar. The Librarian made his work, though, and for some idiotic reason, I'd forgotten I could assign the Wound to a Tyrant Guard even though he was BtB with my Tyrant, so bye-bye Tyrant. Everything was I1 for one reason or another, though, so he took the Libby with him, and the Gaunts, Tyrant Guard, and Prime finished the Squad. On the other hand Tyrant Guard now go on a Blind Rampage, which I'd never had happen before.
Oh, the other Gaunts I'd Spawned assaulted the Henchmen and got most of them, but they passed their Morale Test.
Turn 3: Somewhat shaken by the loss of his Purifiers, my Opponent played it safe this Turn. His Terminators came in, and he brought them in over by an unclaimed Objective away from all the action. He shifted the ChibiHawk over 7" to lure the Raging Tyrant Guard away, and managed to gun down my Tärv that hadn't run out of Gaunts yet. His central Henchmen Squad moved up to Assault the Gaunts that had finished off the Purifiers. They finished them off, but were down to 3 Crusaders and a single Assassin, while my other Gaunts finished off the other Henchmen Brood and consolidated onto the Objective on my left. I think it was also about now that my Tärv and T-Fex ripped apart the Rhino that was trying to Contest that Objective as well.
The Tyrant Guard, in their Blind Rampage, went leaping over to the Storm Raven and, in a glorious bound, tore it from the sky! Go S6 Rending! I spread some more shooting around and he whiffed a bunch of Saves, so I dropped most of the Purgation Squad (only the Justicar and 3 Psycannon left), and a couple of Termies. In another first, my Venomthropes ran up and Tentacled the remaining Crusaders and Assassin to death.
Turn 4: Since I'd just wiped the Henchmen who were holding one Objective, and was about to move my Tärv onto another, he moved his Purgation Squad up and Assaulted it, to try and hold me back. I think we traded one Wound each way, and SitW kept his Force Weapon from activating. In a huge game-changer, his DreadKnight Deep Struck in next to the Gaunts holding my Objective, but scattered on top of them and died!
On my Turn, the Prime Regenerated the two Wounds he'd taken and then he and the Rampaging(!) Tyrant Guard just managed to reach and kill the last two Terminators, and got a good Consolidation Roll. This took us down to one Objective each, and with nothing left on the table for him but the Coteaz Squad and the last couple of Purgation dudes.
Turn 5 went really quickly. Coteaz and co. bounced a bunch of firepower off the Rampaging(!) Tyrant Guard. The fact that the Prime had regenerated the Turn before kept me from losing any Models. His Purgation Squad Justicar finally managed to get his Force Weapon turned on and fried my Tärv, but then got eaten by the T-Fex.
However, this meant that now nearly my entire Army was running on Instinctive Behaviour, since my only remaining Synapse was the Tyranid Prime, way the hell over on the other end of the Board. Everything made it's Ld Checks except for the single Gaunt that I'd been trying to get on the center Objective. He ran 1" into a Ruin instead
Looked like it was going to be a Draw, with my other Gaunt Brood holding one Objective and Coteaz's Unit on another.But the Tyrant Guard got a 6 on their Difficult Terrain Roll, Rampaged right on over there, and killed them all. Coteaz managed to avoid the Prime and took only regular hits, but rolled Snake-Eyes on his Armour Saves, while the Prime and other Guard killed all but two of the Henchmen, who fled, but were cut down.
GKs Tabled! Victory for the Nids! I thought I'd had my army more or less gutted in the process, but when I added it all up, I still had over half of it on the Table, Points-wise.
Other than my Wound Allocation screwup (which I didn't even realize until this morning), I think I pretty much nailed this one. He was playing an aggressive Army, so I was able to do well by moving up slowly in a sort of mobile castle, taking whatever he dished out, and then hitting back. I think the death of the Tyrant might have actually made my victory even more extreme, because I wouldn't have gotten as aggressive as Rage forced me to be. I probably would have just pushed up the middle and ended up at 2-3 Objectives to 1 instead of hunting down Coteaz.
Game 3: At this point, 1 Win and 1 Draw actually put me at the head of the pack, which meant it was time to face my nemesis list: In almost 14 years of playing 40K, I have never managed to beat Space Wolves. My dice go totally $#!& and I start making stupid mistakes and everything just goes wrong. Anyhow: he had something like this:
Rune Priest on a Bike. No Jaws!
Wolf Priest on a Bike
Wolf Scouts with a Melta
MultiMelta Dread in a Pod
4 Squads of Troops. I can't remember the breakdown between Hunters and Blood Claws. Meltas and stuff in each Squad, Wolf Guard all around, Arjac Rockfist in one of them. 3 had Rhinos, 1 had a Drop Pod
Big pack of Bikes with a MultiMelta Attack Bike and a PowerFist
Land Speeder with MultiMelta
Long Fangs with 3 Missile Launchers, a Heavy Bolter for some reason, and the usual Terminator Wolf Guard with Cyclone.
Mission was, by elimination, Spearhead and Annihilation, one of my least favorite combos. I got to choose the Table, and picked one with a huge hill covered in Ruins in the center. He won the roll-off and went first.
I was getting pretty tired by this point, and don't really remember most of the details. Basically, he Deployed mostly on foot in an attempt to deny Kill Points for his Transports, while I castled up in the center, with a huge hill covered in Ruins blocking off one of my flanks, and plenty of Difficult Terrain blocking the front. The Difficult Terrain caused his forces to hit kind of piecemeal, and by Turn 3, I was up a couple of KPs because I nailed his Rhino, Dread, and it's Drop Pod easily, and not much had hit my lines.
As my Tyrant ran over and ate Arjac's Squad (the first to hit my lines), he decided to try to pull back and whittle some things down in medium-range Firefights, which are kind of a weakness of my list.
This ended up backfiring for him, as my Tyrant ran around the central hill and was able to catch up with the pack that was running back over it, and my T-Fexen moved up far enough that they could start plinking away at the Speeder, Drop Pod, and Rhinos that he had hidden in his backfield. The Long Fangs got sidelined by the huge hill in the middle, and basically only got one Turn of fire before they decided to try to run from the DeathStar. He conceded in the middle of Turn 4, after we measured and found that the DeathStar would definitely be able to Assault the Long Fangs given the Massacre Move I'd rolled after eating the pack on the hill. My first ever victory over Space Wolves!
All he'd managed to kill was my Venomthropes, Gaunt Broods, and a single Tärv, while I'd dropped a Dread, a Rhino, a Drop Pod, two Grey Hunter Packs, and something else, I think the Speeder, and was about to take out the Long Fangs as well.
A lot of his stuff just got sidelined. He chose to hang back and shoot at range with the Bikes for some reason, the Long Fangs were stuck behind the hill, the Wolf Scouts came on back in his Corner because there was nothing they could really do on my side except run up, take one Melta shot, and then eat all the firepower from both T-Fexen.
2-0-1 was enough to take Best General, yet another first for me. I've taken Best Overall several times, but that's usually been by leaning pretty hard on my Sportsmanship and Painting Scores. This was the first time I've won just on my Game Results. Not to say my Sports and Painting aren't still good: the last two Tournaments I was in, I took home Favourite Opponent in one and Best Painted in the other.
Overall lessons:
- I need to work more on gauging what my Opponent's trying to do and adjusting my Playstyle accordingly. My default only works against aggressive Armies.
- DeathStars are a bad choice for many forces, because they provide a lynchpin, an obvious central point for your Opponent to focus on, rather than spreading Target Priority around evenly. They can work for Nids though, because Nids tend to rely on a lynchpin strategy anyhow, and we've got the tools to make an incredibly resilient DeathStar that provides substantial buffs to the Army around it. The amount of punishment that Unit took in the first two Games was unbelievable. In the last Game, it didn't take as much, but it was still a fair amount of firepower, plus going toe-to-toe with Arjac Rockfist in a supporting Squad. Ended the Game down one Guard, but otherwise undamaged.
- Venomthropes really are pretty much the perfect unit for my playstyle. If you charge my screens, you get torn up by the Spore Cloud and then Counter-Charged. If you don't, I get to just walk wherever I want to go. And the 'Thropes are key in making that a Devil's Decision. They let me grind forward, doing damage with shooting, and then finish in Assault after I've whittled things down.
- What I really need to work on is getting more aggressive with that whole formation, while maintaining the formation. When I do get more aggressive, I tend to break apart my own combos because I'm not watching my spacing, and so at this point I can only get away with that once I've already more or less broken my Opponent's Army.
I bet the GK player was annoyed his dreadknight was killed by landing on GAUNTS ;D
