Genghis Con Warhammer 40k GT Report (with pictures!)

Well, it's been over a week since the fact, and I'm finally getting around to the daunting task of posting up five battle reports in a single post.  Hopefully you guys like it- it's going to be a pain in the ass :)

Genghis Con has traditionally been *the* big tournament in Colorado, and though there are other tournaments who are seeking to take their place (Feast of Blades and Horustooth Heresy), as of right now, this is the big one.  The prize support has almost always been lacking, but to win Genghis or Tacticon (the other big tournament, held 6 months from each other by the DGA) has always been a rather prestigious affair.


My history with Tacticon/Genghis has been mostly good- of late, my last Genghis (2010) I got 2nd overall, and at Tacticon (2010) I got Best Overall.  With over 60 participants on average, I'm pretty happy with these results.  But there's always been a single blight on the tournament:  it's only been 3 games.  With 60+ people, you have to massacre all 3 games in order to win.  Even a 'major win' can screw you out of the 'W'.

This year they did something new- they made it 5 games.  This way, even someone who drew or lost a game would have a chance to win a prize.  I think this was a great way to structure the event, and I think that people mostly really liked it.  I certainly enjoyed myself :)

So, let's get on with the report.  There were 70 people there this year, a record turnout!  Now, Colorado is home to some very competitive players in the country.  My own club (Fort Collins Warparty) has a ton of really solid players, and who could discount the Wrecking Crew in the more southern part of the state?  Steve (Black Blow Fly) even flew out from (Georgia?) for this event.  Pretty exciting, and a 'who's who' sort of event, with the best players from all over attending.

I panicked and at the last minute decided to bring a 'modified' Wolfstar list to the tournament, since the Runespam list I had been taking just didn't have the punch I wanted from it.

Here's the 1850 List:

Wolf Lord w/ Thunderwolf Mount, Saga of the Bear, Thunder Hammer, Storm Shield, Wolf Tail Talisman, Wolf Tooth Necklace, Runic Armor

Wolf Lord w/ Thunderwolf Mount, Saga of Majesty, Wolf Claw, Storm Shield, Runic Armor

Rune Priest w/ Jaws and Murderous Hurricane

4x Wolf Guard w/ 4x Power Fist, 4x Combi-melta
5x Wolf Scouts w/ Melta Gun (Wolf Guard)

8x Grey Hunters w/ Melta Gun, Wolf Standard, Rhino (Wolf Guard)
8x Grey Hunters w/ Melta Gun, Wolf Standard, Rhino (Wolf Guard)
5x Grey Hunters w/ Melta Gun, Wolf Standard, Rhino (Wolf Guard)

4x Thunderwolf Cavalry w/ 2x Storm Shields, 1x Thunder Hammer (one with both)

5x Longfangs w/ 4x Missile Launchers
5x Longfangs w/ 4x Missile Launchers

So, slightly different than what you've seen in the past, with less Grey Hunters and Longfangs in exchange for the Wolf Scouts.  Looking back, not my favorite choice.  Still, not terrible.  You'll have to wait to see how they did :)

Game 1:  Wolfstar vs. Necrons!!

Heh, I actually had a post in the works I forgot about a while ago mentioning necrons.  Namely, I almost lost to them a while ago, in the first time I played against them in over two years.  Looking across the table from me was the same player who had nearly beat me.  Necrons are widely thought to be terrible, but this guy is a seriously good player, and a really nice guy on top of it.


Here's his list (I somehow lost my folder of army lists/names of opponents after the event so everything is from memory):

Necron Lord w/ Veil of Darkness (the thing that lets you deepstrike your squad everywhere around the board) and the Nightfight for a turn item

10x Immortals

10x Warriors
10x Warriors

5x Destroyers
5x Destroyers
Tomb Spyder (fast attack?  heavy?  elite?  no real clue lol)

Monolith
Monolith

So, lots of quality shooting.  Phase out sort of bones him :(  The worst thing for me though:  it was kill points.  My army is generally very good at kill points with only 13 at 1850.  His however, dialed in at 8.  8 kill points.  Sheesh.  Gotta table him if I want to win this.  Luckily, he had phase out.

It was spearhead, and I won first turn, and elected to go first.

Here's his deployment.  Of note is that the Destroyers are in different locations.  He kept his warriors/tomb spyder in regular reserve.

My deployment.  I wanted at least one rhino getting cover if he seized.  The other two rhinos are planned to advance quickly, and have one cover the 'unclaimed' side of his board, so his warriors don't have anywhere safe and easy to reserve onto.

An overview of the deployments.  Lol, I got picture-happy with this one.  Note that I 'special outflanked' my Scouts.  Seems obvious enough in this scenario.

Wolfstar Turn 1:

I advanced.  No real shooting, though I did pop smoke on most of my stuff.
 

Think I killed a couple of destroyers or immortals with missile fire too.  Nothing big.

 Necron Turn 1:

His guys shuffled around a little bit.  One monolith jumped onto the big piece of area terrain, passing it's dangerous roll.

In shooting, he caused one or two wounds to my wolfstar, and maybe killed a longfang or two with destroyers.  Not really enough to do a ton to me.  Remember that the AP of the monolith template weapon is AP3, and my wolf lords could take their 2+ regular saves against it.  Kind of nasty (for him).
 

So, he shifted around some.  I wanted my scouts to come on and kill those destroyers on the right edge there.

Wolfstar Turn 2:

Scouts didn't come in :(

I advanced more.  I'd get a charge with my wolfstar somewhere, but I wasn't sure where I wanted to hit first.  I moved my rhinos up and disembarked the guys, ready to rapid-fire his destroyers off the board if I could.   

Here's the epic shot before the plunge.  Hopefully I can break his back this turn before his Monolith shenanigans can really hose me.

Shooting went amazingly.  I was able to drop the entire squad of 5 destroyers, and kill a few immortals on top of that.  Very pleased with the shooting phase.

I chose to assault a single Monolith that wasn't in terrain, to guarantee a charge and get up in the middle.  They ended up shaking/stunning/weapon destroying/immobilizing the thing.  No wrecked results though :-p

So, it's a cluster right now.  Happy to have killed those destroyers though!  Huge, huge turn for me.

Necrons Turn 2:

A squad of warriors came in, as did the tomb Spyder.  The un-immobilized monolith tank-shocked my Wolfstar, and then immobilized itself for moving on terrain.  Woot!  The Lord + Immortals Veiled back behind some terrain, away from the game essentially.  His WBB rolls haven't really gone his way this game, only passing a couple thus far.

Shooting didn't go his way at all, I'm afraid.  I think he killed about 4 Grey Hunters, and that's about it.

Notice the Lord/Immortals are on the bottom right, behind the area terrain.

Wolfstar Turn 3:

Wolf scouts came in and got a '2', which let them in right next to his warrior squad who had just come in.

Movement, I split my Majesty lord off, and moved him toward the Tomb Spyder, intent on charging it.  The 4-man grey hunter squad got into their rhino and zoomed off toward the destroyers on the area terrain.  Wolfstar shuffled around to get the charge on both immobilized Liths.

In shooting, I killed 4 of the 5 destroyers, who would get their WBB rolls next turn.

Next was combat, and I got all the charges I wanted.  The Scouts killed 2 or 3 warriors, lost 1 in return, and the warriors stuck around.  The majesty lord MEGAWHIFFED on the spyder, who also megawhiffed.  The wolfstar did better though, and killed both monoliths.  First time I've ever killed a monolith in 5th edition besides Phase Out. :-p

Oh yeah, I moved the other 'full' squad of Grey Hunters into their rhino, closer to his board edge, anticipating his other squad of warriors coming in.

Necron Turn 3:

3 of his 4 WBB rolls for the destroyers worked out for him.  I was glad- his dice had been treating him terribly this whole game.  The final warrior squad walked onto the center of his edge.  You'll see them in the picture.  The Lord + Immortals moved 2 inches in difficult terrain, to shoot at my Longfangs.

Shooting didn't really do much.  I think he immobilized my rhino approaching his destroyers.

In combat, the warriors drew with the scouts.  The Majesty Lord again mega-whiffed, and took a wound from the spyder, but passed leadership.

Keep in mind that his phase number is at 10, and that he has most of that in his immortals + Lord.  This means that I need to kill everything besides his immortals in order to phase him out.  So, it's vital that I kill his destroyers.  Vital (if I wanted the 'full points' for a massacre)

Wolfstar turn 4:

I split guys off toward all of his remaining models.  Wolfstar off toward his destroyers, Bear Lord to help the ailing Majesty Lord/scouts, and then two Grey Hunter squads to charge his newly arrived warriors.

Shooting didn't do much.  I didn't really shoot at all, actually.

I got the assault rolls I needed, and killed his Spyder, all his destroyers, the warriors in combat with the scouts, but in the central combat against the warriors vs. grey hunters, I killed 7, he killed 1, giving him a 4 on leadership to stick.  He rolled:

Heh, guess we go to turn 5.

Last picture of the game, apparently.

Necrons Turn 4:

He was a single model away from Phase Out.  His immortals deepstruck behind a rhino of mine, and wrecked it.  Kill point for him :)

In combat, the Grey Hunters killed his remaining warriors, and in the next turn, he phased.

Full points (54/54) for me :)

This guy is a great player, and had a great attitude.  He took his loss in stride, and I think ended up with a 3-1 record (maybe I'm just making that up?) for the rest of the tournament.  He played his army as well as any Necron player could, but the codex was just too limited.  I dread the new one, when it comes out though, heh.

So, lots of people got full points this round.  I got matched up with someone you may or may not recognize from my own FLGS:  Eric and his Broadside spam Tau.

Game 2:  Wolfstar vs. Broadside spam Tau

Eric is a great player, and has actually gone 1-1 against my Wolfstar with this particular list.

Here's the list (sorry man, lost the list as mentioned above, feel free to correct me in comments):

Shas'o w/ Shield Drones, other cool weapons

Shas'el w/ Shield Drones, other cool weapons

2x Crisis Suits w/ Auto-cannonesq guns

10x Kroot w/ 8x Hounds
10x Kroot w/ 8x Hounds
6x Fire Warriors
12x Fire Warriors

8x Pathfinders w/ Devilfish
8x Pathfinders w/ Devilfish

3x Broadsides w/ Shield Drones, 3x Plasma Rifles
3x Broadsides w/ Shield Drones, +1BS wargear

For those of you to whom it isn't readily apparent, the Wolfstar is very vulnerable to S10 AP1/2.  Eric has 6 shots every turn against me, with amazing BS.  If I don't make my 3+ invulnerable saves, he insta-deaths my wolves.  The Bear lord helps a little bit, since he's immune to Insta-death, but if I fail a couple key saves right away, I'm basically screwed.

To make things worse, he's the best Tau player I've played against.  Like, ever.  He has an incredible win record given the inherent limitations of his army, and is never someone I want to face in a tournament setting.  

The mission was bases, and I (very luckily) got first turn.  Normally I want to go 2nd in objectives, but against his army, I needed to close the distance as quickly as possible.  Here's the deployment:

Keep in mind that I had no idea where he was going to place his base, so I had to be spread out.  I wanted my own objective as far in the center as possible, to avoid Kroot outflanking shenanigans.

And now you see a true Tau castle.  The blue thing in the corner is his objective.  Freakin' ridiculous, lol.  He kept a Kroot Squad in reserve, as well as both Devilfish.

 So, he tried to sieze and... failed.  WHEW.  Huge huge roll there.  Can't say how relieved I was to see this.

Wolfstar Turn 1:

I advanced, as per obvious.  There was a complication though, right away.  My Jaws rhino moved up it's full 12", and disembarked the Runepriest the full 2 1/2" he could, close as he could be to a Broadside team leader.  He asked me to measure how close I was from the board edge, and somehow I was about 1-2 inches farther forward than I could have possibly in (i.e. 24-26" onto the table).

I'm still not sure how this happened.  If you've ever played against me, you'd know I'm as precise as possible with all my movements and deployments, and the only explanation I can think of is that I deployed guys on the right 12" up, and then they slowly tapered upward as I deployed to the left and I never noticed.  My wolfstar was about 1" farther up than it could have been as well, so I'm guessing that was the case.

Needless to say, I felt terrible.  I still feel bad.  Eric is a friend, and knows I wouldn't try to cheat, but I think he was pissed.  Entirely understandable.  Lesson learned:  always measure as exactly on your deployment as possible, before and after you deploy all your models.  I know I did the rest of the tournament, checking, double-checking, and triple-checking.  Same in my Fantasy tournament on Sunday.

So, I quickly corrected my deployment, and the Rune Priest was still within 24" of his teamleader.

Shooting happened, and I was able to snipe his team leader of the Plasma Broadside team with Jaws.  This killed his shield drones as well, so would force a leadership check.  Missiles ended up killing two shield drones in the Shas'el squad (who was attached to the other two crisis suits) and forced two leaderships.

He failed both.  One on Ld. 9, the other on Ld. 8.  They both ran off the board.  He told me then that was game.  But we kept playing.

See the gaps?  That's where they were.

My (corrected) movement/end of turn position.

Tau Turn 1:

He was smarting, with the loss of half of his S10 and 3 suits, including an HQ.  But Eric refused to give up.  Gotta give him credit.

His shooting wasn't the best however.  I think he ended up killing a single Wolf w/ shield.

Notice the gap in the wolfstar, lol.

Wolfstar Turn 2:

I moved up as much as I could again, putting the Runepriest in the rhino and only moving it up 6".  The scouts came in, and moved close to his Kroot squad which also held his Shas'o.

Shooting wasn't as productive, killing a few random pathfinders and Kroot with frag grenades.  My Jaws attempt on his other team leader resulted in a passed test for the I2 suit.  Impressive!

Assault went... amazing.  My scouts jumped into combat with the Kroot for lack of better options.  They lost three of their number, and killed four of the Kroot.  His commander had Ld. 10, so needed a 9 to draw combat.  He rolled, and got:

....and then his commander + huge Kroot squad ran off the table.

 Lucky of me for sure....

End of the turn.  Somehow I'm doing way better than I should be at this point.

Tau Turn 2:

His Kroot came onto the table, and got ready to maul my poor scouts, though his devilfish remained in reserve.

Shooting went a little better for him, and he killed both of my rhinos advancing.

The I5 Kroot hounds rolled my poor scouts up in combat.  Too easy.
 

So, my mobility is much more limited, but my Wolfstar is still mostly intact.

Wolfstar Turn 3:

More advancing from me.  The Majesty Lord split off from the rest of the star, trying to engage the Kroot.  The rest of the Wolfstar got a good roll for terrain though, and would get into range of his other stuff.

Shooting sniped his other team leader with Jaws, and a couple other random fire warriors/pathfinders with frag grenades.

Assault went my way for sure, killing a Pathfinder squad + full Kroot squad with minimal damage to myself.
 

I'm in position to assault everything of his.

Here's the Star after they consolidated.

 Tau Turn 3:


Both devilfish came on to the table, one of them tank-shocking the Star, who passed their test.

He just shot afterward.  The fire warriors let loose, but I made most of my saves.  At this point, I'm trying to kill off my Bear Lord to get him the +10 bonus points for the scenario, and he takes a wound or two.

No real combat.

Not a very good picture, sorry.  Of note is the devilfish in the middle, who might contest my objective.  He certainly has the time...

Wolfstar Turn 4:

I needed to kill his stuff this turn.  Shooting failed to do much to his central devilfish.

Assaulting killed... everything but his fire warriors.  Note that I had split off my Bear Lord to assault his gun drones seperately.

Last picture!

Rest of the Game:

He shot my Bear Lord, and at the end of turn 5 or 6 he finally killed him!  I was able to keep hold of both objectives, and got 52/54 total points.

Always a tough game against Eric.  Seriously, he's a great player.  I hated to face off against someone from my LGS, especially a guy whose army has the potential to rock mine super hard.  I got some good dice rolls, and the game went entirely my way as a result.

Thanks for the game Eric!  ...afterwards, me and him and a few other friends went to the bar, and drank some local brews.  I was going to buy his beer, when Richard (my friend, and also contributor 'Big Santa' on this blog) decided to pay for all of us.  So, I still owe you one Eric!

So... that ended the first day.  I had 106/108 possible points (2 of them unattainable if you got a massacre) and was positioned to play at the top table at the start of Day 2.  Hard to sleep when you've got that looming!  Still, can't complain even a little bit!

Game 3:  Wolfstar vs. Looted Angels (Blood Angels)

Man, I'm so bad at names!  I forgot this dude's name (as well as everyone else) but he's Doomgrin from the Wrecking Crew.  This was probably my favorite game of the tournament (though they were all good, mind you).

I guess I wasn't surprised at all to find that the Wrecking Crew has one of its members on the top table.  This army was seriously something else.  Really really cooly converted Orks that were counts-as Blood Angels, and professionally painted by Kenny Boucher of the Wrecking Crew (I should point out that my opponent converted everything himself- Kenny only painted it).  Here's a quick picture I took:

I really wish this picture was better.  It certainly doesn't do his list justice.  Seriously, I'm not sure I've ever been as impressed with an army as I was with this one.  K, I'll stop my orgasm now, lol.

 So, here's his list (from memory, again):

Mephiston

Sanguinor

2x Sanguinary Priests w/ Jump Packs, Power Weapons

10x Assault Marines w/ 2x Melta, Power Fist
10x Assault Marines w/ 2x Melta, Power Fist (super sergeant from Sanguinor)
5x Assault Marines w/ Melta, Power Weapon, Rhino
5x Assault Marines w/ Melta, Power Weapon, Rhino
5x Assault Marines w/ Melta, Power Weapon, Rhino

Vindicator

So, super fast, super aggressive, and everything he has hits really hard.  And looks really cool while doing it :-p

The mission was Pitched Battle with Victory Points (read:  not kill points)

He won the roll to go first, and took it.  Here are our deployments: 

Note that I actually 'normal' deployed my scouts.  They weren't going to outflank anywhere I needed them, since the rest of his army would be coming to me.  Rune Priest is in the middle Rhino, and the smaller Grey Hunter squad is in the right one.

Looted Angels Turn 1:

He moved up.  His vindicator shot, hit a single thunderwolf, and my Bear Lord failed his 3++, taking a wound (immune to insta-death, FTW!)

Tell ya what- Blood Angels are scary for the sheer fact that they're so stinkin' fast.  Turn one, he was in my grill.  FNP coverage on everyone- pretty scary.  Also note that his 'super sergeant' was in the assault squad on the left.

 Wolfstar Turn 1:


 I moved up slightly with my two leftmost rhinos, to get within 6" of his own rhinos, to melta them.  Scouts moved up.  The Wolfstar shuffled around, and moved up a little, to try and bait the charge from Mephiston but not get charged by the assault squad nearby.

Shooting went well, with the scouts exploding one of his rhinos, and the Longfangs immobilizing another.  My Rune Priest cast Hurricane on the leftmost squad, hoping to snipe a few of the 'characters' in the squad (mostly I hoped the Priest would die, lol).

So, he's up close.  My longfangs you can't really see on the left are barely within charge range of his assault squad.  At least he's got the Murderous Hurricane on them, so both jumping and assaulting are going to cause dangerous tests.

Oh yeah, this was a great idea!  It's just a cardboard cutout the size of a rhino, so that you have something to mark an explosion that isn't a huge obnoxious crater.  I think I might steal this idea.

 Looted Angels Turn 2:


He moved the 'super squad' on the left up to get ready to assault the Long Fangs, and failed zero of his dangerous terrain rolls.  Dangit!.  His smaller squads from the middle got out of their rides, and moved up toward my own.  Sanguinor was on the left, and moved up as well, to provide his 6" aura of Win.  Meph tried for his jump power, but the Rune Priest blocked it.  His other rhino on my right moved up and popped smoke.

In shooting, he did the same to me as I did to him- he wrecked a rhino (in the middle) and immobilized the one on the left.  Don't think he did much else.  Vindicator failed to do much.

In assault, his 'super squad' failed like 2 or 3 Dangerous rolls, including the one on his priest.  Money.  He ended up winning assault, though the Fangs killed a few guys, and passed their leadership.  He assaulted the immobilized rhino with the Sanguinor, and wrecked it, pinning the guys inside.  His small assault squad in the middle assaulted my Scouts, and the combat was (I think) a push.  One of his other small squads assaulted the Rune Priests squad, and all died.

So, note that one of the Long Fang squads remains uncharged.  Also note that they have zero targets that make any sense to shoot.

Wolfstar Turn 2:

Well, the Angels were upon me.  If I didn't make this turn count, he would easily overrun me. I needed a single turn of awesomesauce.

So, I started with my Longfangs moving up, ready to assault the 'super squad', who had been whittled down to three guys, including the 'super sergeant'.  The Wolfstar moved up as well, ready to assault the small rhino squad on the right who had disembarked.  The Rune Priest's squad moved up through his rhino crater to get the assault on the other assault squad, disallowing the advantage of Furious Charge.

-Note that I completely ignored Sanguinor/Mephiston, since the goal was to remove essentially everything else-

Shooting didn't do much-  my remaining Grey Hunter squad in their rhino ended up immobilizing his rhino on the right.

Assault went well enough- the Long Fangs charged into his super squad, and killed the sergeant (who already had a wound on him) and another guy, but the remaining two stayed locked in.  The wolfstar assaulted his immobilized rhino on the right, and the small squad who had disembarked from it.  The Grey Hunters drew combat against the Assault Squad, but my fist was able to consolidate into his Priest, so next turn he could bring the pain.  The scouts killed all of their remaining small assault squad they were fighting against, proving how much better fists on sergeants are than power weapons :)

What a cluster.  Meph and Sang are gonna have to do something quick.

Looted Angels Turn 3:

He quickly realized that if he let my Wolfstar run around at will, they'd simply kill everything of his, turn by turn.  So, he moved Meph and Sang up to them, ready to assault.

No real shooting, everything was locked in combat.

In assault, my Long Fangs killed another guy, but stayed locked in.  The Grey Hunters drew combat again, but I was able to snipe out his Priest with my fist.  The advantage was mine, since I had a Rune Priest :-p

The Wolfstar/Sang/Meph battle was epic.  Meph put everything onto my Bear Lord, who barely survived with a single wound left, and in turn hit Meph 5 times (out of 6- since he always hits on a 3+), and killed him outright.  The Sanguinor killed a couple of my wolves single-handedly, and took only a single wound.  He lost by 1, and took a wound for No Retreat.  Woot :)

I forgot to mention- our most expensive unit was worth double VP.  That would be the Sang for him, and the Bear Lord for me, each weighing in at 275 points.

Wolfstar Turn 3:

Well, I had a whole other Grey Hunter squad who were finally unpinned, who rushed to help with the combat in the middle.  The Grey Hunters in the rhino moved up, disembarked, and prepared to melta his Vindicator.  The scouts decided they wanted to get some from the Sanguinor for funsies.

Shooting immobilized/weapon destroyed the Vindicator.

In combat, the Sang failed to kill my Bear Lord, and I barely took his final wound off him.  Whew!  The Grey Hunters all went in and fought the final assault squad, who lost lots of people, but stayed locked in.  The original longfang squad finally died to a man, but I was able to kill the rest of his assault squad on the right in return.

We decided to call it there.

Heh, Wolfstar beat the 'Bloodstar' that was Meph + Sang.  Brutal game.

I ended up with 50/54 points, and stayed at the 'top' of the rankings.  It was looking like I'd either play a Dark Angel guy with 5 Termie Squads + some random bikers, or a Battle Wagon Ghaz army I didn't particularly want to face.

First, I wanted to take the time to show you a picture of a cool Salamanders army I saw.  Star Wars Themed, there was an emperor model, Vader Model, and the termies all had lightsabers.  Probably my favorite army besides the Orks.  Also professionally painted by Kenny Boucher, and also a Wrecking Crew army.  Very cool though, agreed?

Nice... I just wish the vehicles looked like actual Star Wars vehicles.

Game 4:  Wolfstar vs. Ghaz Battlewagons

Andy plays this list, and is 'from' my LGS.  He doesn't really play there, except in tournaments.  I don't really think he plays casual games at a game store.  Anyways, we've had lots of games in tournaments, a few where he beat me, a few where I beat him.  Always very interesting games.

Here's his list:

Ghaz
KFF Mek

18x Boyz w/ PK Nob
18x Boyz w/ PK Nob
12x Boyz w/ PK Nob, Trukk w/ Boarding Planks
12x Boyz w/ PK Nob, Trukk w/ Boarding Planks
4x Mega Nobs with 2x Burnas, Battlewagon w/ Deffrolla, Boarding Planks

15x Kommandos w/ Snikrot

Battlewagon w/ Deffrolla, Boarding Planks
Battlewagon w/ Deffrolla, Boarding Planks
3x Killa Kanz (are these actually elites?  not really sure that it matters, lol)

This mission was multiple objectives, with a ton of objectives (6) that we took turns placing.

It was Dawn of War, and he won the roll, choosing to go first, for some reason.  I gladly accepted it.

So, here's where our guys are after turn 1's moving onto the board.  There's a longfang squad on the far right, hoping to get killed by his Kommandos, and be out of the rest of the game.  Ghaz in in the far left Wagon.  Note the scouts in the back, hanging out, since I expected him to charge forward madly.  How wrong I was :)

 Orks Turn 2:


Andy moved up slightly, and kind of just stopped.  Shooting didn't do much to me- he had a few Big Shootas, but that was about it.

So, timid Orks.  Or maybe just smart orks.

 Wolfstar Turn 2:


I stayed roughly where I was. I put a rhino in front of my Wolfstar, hoping to keep Ghaz from getting him + his whole squad into the star if he chose to charge them.


In shooting, I killed a trukk, and a few Orks inside it with krak missiles.  They went to ground.  I made the mistake of shooting with my Longfangs on the right first, instead of the ones on the left who could only really see that single trukk.

So, get ready for a somewhat standoffish game.

 Orks Turn 3:


The Kommandos came in this turn, and went up behind the fangs I was hoping he'd target.  Nothing else moved.


In combat, the Kommandos lost, but were fearless.  My longfangs stood little to zero chance against what was left.

heh... Orks who don't charge headlong into me?  What next?

 Wolfstar Turn 3:


I decided I wanted something to happen other than staring at each other.  So, I moved a rhino up, disembarked my guys next to his Ghaz Wagon, and got ready to shoot melta.

Let me explain my reasoning in sending them in alone:  I figured that he was going to have to charge into me with someone, since his shooting was insufficient.  If it was Ghaz's squad, they'd win, but I could counter-charge with my Wolfstar, and deny Ghaz his +2 attacks.  If it was a wagon of Boyz, I'd be able to win that combat in a single turn (as is usually the case), and then be able to run around with a fist and melta gun in his ranks.  I was .... unprepared for what was to happen in his turn.  lol.

In shooting, I double-whiffed with the meltas.  Dangit.  I killed a couple more Trukk boyz who went to ground again with missile fire.

You can't see the squad, since Andy's hand is in the way.  Oh yeah, forgot to mention the Kommandos killed my Longfangs.

Ork Turn 4:

So, he did something very risky.  He stayed in his wagons, and shot at me.  A couple flamer templates combined with some super sniping orks, killed every single one of my Grey Hunters, and wrecked the rhino.  Seriously... I failed way too many saves.  We had both figured he'd kill 3 or 4 guys and that would be that.  Instead, all of them died a sad, sad death.  All for nothing.
Otherwise, he did nothing.

See, told you it was a somewhat boring game.

 Wolfstar Turn 4:


I moved up some with my Wolfstar, hoping to bait a charge.  At this point, I hoped Ghaz would charge soon, so we could duke it out, and go from there.  If he stayed in one place forever, I'd win since I had the final turn.  The scouts and smaller Grey Hunter squad moved toward the leftmost objectives to control/contest the stuff there.


Shooting failed to kill any of his Trukk Boyz.  He's down to like, 7 of them.

Note:  I should have charged in with just my Bear Lord, to kill Ghaz's Wagon.  That would have sacrificed my Bear Lord, but also would have ensured that Ghaz would be unable to charge the rest of the game.  I didn't, and you'll see the consequences.

booooriiiiing.  lol, and somehow we took the full 2 hours.

 Ork Turn 5:


He finally decided it was time to charge in.  Ghaz got out with his squad, ready to kill my Wolfstar.  His trukkboyz up on the top left moved up to try and pop my rhino with boarding planks.  His 7-man trukk boyz spread out to claim two objectives.  Another Wagon full of boyz moved up to help support Ghaz, but didn't disembark.  In the process, somewhere along the way they immobilized my rhino next to the Wolfstar.


In combat, he was able to get the charge off with the help of the Waaaagh!  The wolfstar met Nobstar!  Ghaz killed my entire 'regular' wolfstar (due to horrible failed saves on my part with both shields failing their single saves).  My Majesty Lord mega-whiffed against his nobz, only killing one and injuring another.  The nobs swung, got 9 hits (out of 12 rolls), 7 wounds on the Majesty Lord.  I failed 3/7 of them, and just like that my Bear Lord was the only one remaining.  His hits on Ghaz did zero, because of his 2++ invulnerable save.

Somehow, I passed leadership.  Yikes.  Not a good turn to fail so many saves.

Wolfstar Turn 5:

Well, I had to shift my focus to try and salvage as many points as possible.  There were objectives I could claim, and contest everywhere.  I figured I could get a draw easy enough, if I played my cards right.  A draw + killing Ghaz for the extra +10 for killing an enemy's HQ.

So, I moved my rhino on the left, disembarking my guys first, in front of his trukk (who had whiffed with it's boarding planks last turn).  The grey hunters readied to shoot melta at the trukk.  The other grey hunters got out of their rhino, and for some reason decided to rapid-fire the Kommandos.  I'm not sure what sort of Crazy Pills I was taking- I really should have shot at the full Battlewagon of boyz right next to them, then charged it.  Ah well.  The scouts moved up to engage the remaining Nobz.

In shooting, I killed a few kommandos.  I also managed to kill his trukk on the left.

In combat, the grey hunters charged into his Trukk Boyz squad, and EPIC FAILED, killing like 3 Boyz, for a push.  Yikes.  The scouts managed to wipe out the rest of the nobs, and the Bear Lord somehow barely stayed alive despite Ghaz' efforts to kill him.  I won combat by a couple, and Ghaz actually took a single wound from Fearless.

Big old fail that my Grey Hunters in the middle there didn't try to kill his Wagon who was sitting there ready to be melta'd.  Wow, I seriously don't know what I was thinking with that one.  That could honestly have been game-winning.  Ah well.  Mistakes happen.  Gotta learn from them.

 Ork Turn 6:


He got out the orks in his other wagons- one who had snuck around to the left, to wipe out my poor failing Grey Hunters who couldn't even kill more than 3 orks- and one who was right under my nose.

He charged, killing all my scouts, and all of my Grey Hunters on the left.  My Bear Lord and Ghaz killed each other.  At least I'd get the +10 bonus points if I lost.

The board looked grim- he literally held 4 of the 6 possible objectives this turn, and was really close to the 5th (it was in question).

I have... some grey hunters and a rhino in the upper left still alive.  I also have some Long Fangs, who should have also shot at his Wagon's side armor last turn.  I'm seriously dumb sometimes.

Wolfstar Turn 6:

So, the first thing:  I moved my rhino in the upper left up, ramming his wagon, nobody hurting each other, and I contest one objective.  Then, I split off my Rune priest, and get ready to Jaws an ork off of his objective.  The Grey Hunters move up, ready to assault (and annihilate) his Orks off of the middle objective, holding one to his (soon to be) one objective, drawing.

So, I try the Jaws.  It goes off.  He needs a 2 or less, or the game is virtually guaranteed to be a draw.  He rolled a 1.  FML.  Gosh, huge roll.  Still, I had a chance.  I sent missiles over to the depleted squad, who made all their cover saves.  Damn.

Instead of charging his Wagon Boyz with my Grey Hunters (since he was guaranteed to get the win regardless), I saw a +2 modifier on the sheet that I could get if I killed more vehicles than my opponent, and tried popping his Battlewagon as I should have done the turn before.  I succeeded, and that was game.

Loss for the Wolves, though it was close- the draw hinged on him failing his Initiative check.  There were lots of failed saves taken by myself, but that's just how it goes.  Andy played the game extremely well, and deserves full credit for beating me.  No excuses by me- it was close, and hopefully next time (feast of blades?) I'll get the W.  Or at least the D, lol.

I did manage to squeak 24/54 points though, instead of nothing.

Game 5:  Wolfstar vs. Space Wolves!  Yay!

This dude was one of those that I played a few weeks back in the Team Tournament.  He was the chaos player in the final game of that tournament, though he had (obviously) switched to Wolves for Genghis.  He remembered well the power of the Wolfstar, though his list was built to help combat that very thing.

Here's his list:

Rune Priest w/ Murderous Hurricane, Living Lightning
Rune Priest w/ Some other random power, Living Lightning

4x Wolf Guard w/ 4x Combi-melta, 4x Power Pist

9x Grey Hunters w/ Power Weapon, Wolf Standard, Rhino
9x Grey Hunters w/ Power Weapon, Wolf Standard, Rhino
8x Grey Hunters w/ Power Weapon, Wolf Standard, Rhino
8x Grey Hunters w/ Power Weapon, Wolf Standard, Rhino

6x Long Fangs w/ 2x Las Cannons, 3x Missile Launchers
6x Long Fangs w/ 2x Las Cannons, 3x Missile Launchers
6x Long Fangs w/ 2x Las Cannons, 3x Missile Launchers, HB Razorback

Land Speeder w/ HF/MM
Land Speeder w/ HF/MM

So, lots of stuff that was awesomesauce against my Wolfstar.  Seriously, this list gave me questions on how I could win.  Reeling from my previous loss, I wasn't sure how to proceed.

The mission was a weird one:  have the most non-embarked kill points within 6" of the center of the table.  Usually I'd relish this mission, since the Wolfstar is great at holding the center, but he had so much shooting (and you'll see how the board screwed me), that it was going to be difficult to accomplish my task.

So, I think he won first turn, and took it.  Fine enough with me.  Here's our deployment (table quarters):

I had my Longfangs on a cube thing in the back, and a rhino hiding out.  His Long Fangs were on the big cube things there.  Seriously, this board/mission/list was designed to mess my Wolfstar up something fierce.  /sigh

Wolves Turn 1:

He shot at me, and I failed a lot of saves on the Wolfstar.  I also lost 3 of my longfangs from a squad, and they ran, but not off the board.  Not a good start.

Um, I have no clue why this picture is sideways, but also have to clue how to change that.  He moved around a little bit.  Heh...

 Wolfstar Turn 1:


My only real hope was to be super aggressive.  He could outshoot me, and once my wolfstar took another round of shooting, I'd be ready to just lay down and lose the game.  So, I moved the Wolfstar directly toward his rhinos.  The Rune Priest's rhino also moved up the full 12", and disembarked next to one of his speeders.

Shooting allowed me to immobilize one of his rhinos with my long fangs, and killed his speeder with the meltas of the Grey Hunters.  Woot.

In assault, the wolfstar assaulted his immobilized rhino, and wrecked it.  He took a pinning check and...

Best roll ever!!  Huge that he failed his pinning check.

 I also shuffled my rhinos around a little, to help support next turn.

 Wolves Turn 2:


Well, he was forced to deal with the Wolfstar.  He drove around them, disembarked, and got ready to shoot everything at them.  Lots and lots of shooting.  Seriously intimidating.


And shoot he did.  The wolfstar somehow weathered the storm, with a grand total of three wounds remaining on two lords and the hammer.

Still, not the greatest of news:  I had to deal with 40 Grey Hunters next turn.

Well, get ready for the epic final charge.  heh.

 Wolfstar Turn 2:


It's not uncommon with my army to have a turn 2 where everything is entirely decided.  This would be that.  It was all or nothing.  My scouts came in from the back, and I hoped that would be enough to turn the tide.


My two other Grey Hunter squads drove up, and disembarked.  The wolfstar shuffled around some.  Missiles got their frag grenades ready.  And the Rune Priest Grey Hunters moved up, ready to assault his previously-pinned squad.

In shooting, I was able to first missile launcher, then rapid-fire/melta down one squad to two models.  I was also able to get another squad down to 5 models including his Rune Priest.  Everyone else remained unscathed.

And so I charged.  The Grey Hunters went in, the scouts went in, and the Wolfstar went in, all one glorious ridiculous combat.

Majesty Lord went first, and killed off the remaining 4 models from one squad (Rune priest was the 5th who I ignored).  He swung next, and killed all my scouts besides the sergeant, and a few Grey Hunters, as well as my Majesty Lord and Hammer Thunderwolf.  My Bearlord couldn't strike because he wasn't in base with anyone.  Poor placement by me.

My strikes back were potent though, and the fists accounted for 5 more guys, the scouts/grey hunters a few more.  In the end, I won combat by 7, and all his guys ran, and I failed to catch him.  Every single model ran off the board the next turn.

He was left with 2 Grey Hunters in the squad I didn't charge.

Seriously.

Epic.

We just kind of sat there staring for a while.  To my opponent's credit, he took it very well.  Great guy, seriously.  I'm glad I didn't have to pick who my favorite opponent was this tournament, all five were (seriously, genuinely) class acts.  I've never had that happen to me at a GT, but I'm glad it happened this time :)

This was before dice were rolled in combat.

This was the remaining models left alive for both of us.

Rest of the Game:

We played another turn, and I lost a few models.  But victory was basically clinched for me once I had killed 36 Grey Hunters + 2 Rune Priests in a single turn with a depleted Wolfstar.  We called it after turn 3.

In his defense, he played it right.  He shot at my Wolfstar, and then shot at it more.  The wolfstar is intentionally designed to be ridiculously hard to kill, and it proved to be so this game.  Even though I failed a lot of saves, it only takes a few models remaining to really overwhelm in combat.

Once I had failed a lot of saves on Turn 1, I knew it needed to be all or nothing.  The game was over by turn 2 because he recognized that it was seriously all or nothing as well.  Fortunately for me, it went in my favor.

So, I got 54/54 for my final mission.  My final tally was:  54, 52, 50, 24, 54.  I thought I had a pretty good shot at Best General, though Andy had won his final game as well, so I figured he would get Best Overall.

They announced prizes, and ... they didn't call my name for anything.  This blog's own Big Santa got called up for Best General.   

Enter the (psudo)drama

So, I was happy for my friend Big Santa, and a little disappointed for myself, but I wanted to see how close I had come.  When I looked though, I saw that they hadn't entered my round 4 results.  If they had, I would have gotten Best General, by about 12 points.  Apparently what happened was in game 4, they had transposed my score with Andy's.  I'm not sure if I also got Andy's opponent or what, but when they realized that he wasn't at the 'top table', they switched our scores again, only leaving my score un-re-entered.

Anyways, I won't go into the details further.  Tony Scott (the TO) was excellent, and handled it all very well, though it took around a week to finally straighten everything out.  In the end, Big Santa didn't want the trophies (though I tried to make him keep them at first) since he hadn't 'earned them' or something, and gave them to me.  I feel more bad for him, since he was called up, and since found out he didn't win.

So, nobody in the state besides my club really knows that I got Best General at this event, but at least you do, internets.  Here are some cool pictures of the 'prize support' Genghis Con offers for having paid $35 to get in:

Two trophies!!

This thing was actually made by Doomgrin from the Wrecking Crew, my 3rd round opponent.  By far the coolest trophy I've won thus far.

Lol, always funny to get two trophies for the same event.

So to finally put an end to this monster:

Andy ended up winning the whole thing.  The one game I lost was to the eventual tournament champion.  All of my opponents were excellent, and I'd gladly play any of them again.  The event was well-run, despite the hiccup at the end there.

So my 'constructive criticism' for this event would be: get a little better prize support and for the love of pete make this a Vegas Qualifier.  I would have qualified three times by now if this 60+ person event had been one. :-p  Not sure what the difficulty is- the Fantasy event with 25-30 people is a qualifier.  I'm guessing it's not in the current 40k TO's hands though or it would be...

Otherwise, it was a great event.  5 game GT is MUCH MUCH MUCH better than 3 games for 60+ people.

Any questions from anyone?  Feel free to chime in :)