Howdy, folks! I went to the Nova a couple weekends back, in order to compete in both the Open and Invitational. I took pictures in the order I played my games, which means that this report will actually be a bit convoluted, as the Invitational games were spread out around the Open games.
My list was kind of a hodge-podge thing, taking as many points of Tau Allies as I had in my Primary Grey Knights. I'll tell you more about it after the brea
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| Sorry, not even a display board! This is actually in Laramie, WY, playing one of my few test games before the Nova. |
With that preface, here's my list:
Grau! 1850 Points
Grey Knights (Primary)
Coteaz
9x Henchmen w/ 6x Bolters, 3x Plasma-Cannon Servitors
3x Henchmen
3x Henchmen
Nemesis Dreadknight w/ Heavy Incinerator
Nemesis Dreadknight w/ Heavy Incinerator
Nemesis Dreadknight w/ Heavy Incinerator
Storm Raven Gunship w/ Hurricane Bolters, Psybolt Ammunition
Tau (Allies)
Commander w/ 2x Missile Pods, Early Warning Override, Velocity Tracker, Command and Control Node, Multi-system Sensor Suite, Irridium Armor, Puretide Engram Chip (expensive!)
2x Command Bodyguard Suits w/ 1x TL Missile Pod, 1x Missile Pod (each)
10x Kroot w/ 1x Kroot Hound
10x Kroot w/ 1x Kroot Hound
Riptide w/ Ion Accelerator, TL Fusion Gun, Early Warning Override, Positional Relay
3x Broadsides w/ 1x Squad Leader, 3x Target Locks, 3x High-Yield Missile Pods, 3x Smart Missile Systems
List Thoughts:
Well, go find my article I posted before I went there. If I'm not lazy, maybe I'll link it here eventually. The key though, was to create mis-matches.
I actually had multiple opponents apologize in advance for (in a more polite way) the beating I was going to take. I must admit: it's a very unassuming list. Slow Dreadknights? Nick Nanavati even asked me once, "Who even takes that kind of list??"
With that in mind, it would appear that I was scheduled for 5 terrible beatings at the Invitational, as well as 8 losses at the Open. We shall see how I did, and whether or not Dreadknights walking around without teleporters are actually any good vs. the current Meta.
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| I couldn't even fit my display board into my bags, so instead I stole a drink tray from the hotel. |
The first game came on Thursday evening. It was an Invitational game, and I had some pretty raw nerves - Mike Brandt had said that this year's Invitational was the "most competitive" it had been yet, and I agreed. Lots of really skilled players who have won a GT (or more) of their own. I figured that well, someone has to go 0-5. May as well be me!
Game 1: Grau vs. James Watkins' Chaos Space Marines w/ Daemon Allies!
His bonafides:
James had won the 11th Company GT earlier this year.
His List:
Chaos Space Marines (Primary)
Khorne Lord w/ Juggernaut of Khorne, Axe of Blind Fury, Sigil of Corruption, Melta bomb
Nurgle Lord w/ Bike, Blace Mace, Melta bomb, Sigil of Corruption, Blight Grenades
10x Cultists
10x Cultists
Helldrake w/ Flamer
5x Spawn (unmarked, w/ Khorne Lord)
5x Spawn w/ Mark of Nurgle
Maulerfiend w/ Magma Cutter
Maulerfiend w/ Magma Cutter
Demon Allies
Nurgle Herald w/ Palanquin of Nurgle, Greater Reward, lesser Reward, Locus of Fecundity
10x Plaguebearers of Nurgle
5 or 6 Plague Drones w/ Plaguebringer, Greater Reward, Deaths Heads, Venom Stings
Soul Grinder w/ Mark of Slaanesh, Harvester Cannon
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| Sorry it's so blurry! |
The Mission:
Primary: 4 Corner Objectives (ignore center objective)
Secondary: Best of 3 in Killpoints, Linebreaker, Slay the Warlord
Tertiary: Table Quarters
**Big Guns Never Tire**
Deployment:
Hammer and Anvil
*I won the roll to go first, and gave my opponent first turn*
Pregame Thoughts:
Well.... I hadn't expected to play vs. a Chaos list first thing, due to the preponderance of Eldar/Tau out there. While Chaos gets a bad rep for no viable builds, I needed to be careful - he had a very quick, tough list. The Bike Lords joining the spawn were sure to hit hard, and honestly, I doubted I could kill everything of his through shooting.
The plan was this: to shoot at him as much as possible, then charge in with Dreadknights! Really, a simple plan, but how else to deal with his millions of close-combat threats?
Really, the plan was a bit deeper than this: I wanted to deploy in a way that he would not be able to mess with my Broadsides. The Broadsides + Commander are the money match up of this game - if I could protect them enough to deny my opponent even a turn of combat with them, they would pay dividends, and feel no real threat from any of his shooting. With this goal in mind, I wanted to position the Dreadknights so James' army would have to deal with them immediately before getting to them.
I also wanted to distract his left flank with Coteaz and the plasma cannons - it would then become a target priority conundrum: kill the ignore-cover plasma cannons, or kill the DKs first?
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| Here's our deployment. You can see he's on the very brink of his 24", while I had camped my DKs just slightly behind my own. Broadsides have the Commander with them, and the two Command Suits hid behind the hill with the Riptides. Coteaz is on the hill, buffing the bigger squad. 1 squad of Acolytes in regular reserve, 1 squad of Acolytes in the Raven. Both Kroot squads outflanking! Whew! |
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| Here's his deployment. Both squads of cultists in reserve. His spawn are on either end, with the Nurgle ones hiding in the bushes on the left there. Plaguebearers decided to deepstrike. |
He advanced? 12" moves, then Fleet rolls, and it was already my turn, as his shooting did next to no damage.
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| aaaand, he's already up in my grill. Chaos assault units are so fast! |
Coteaz had both Prescience and the Ignore Cover power he could cast on his squad, and I casted both (assume I always do unless otherwise stated). He had previously rolled some insta-death nonsense on his Nurgle Herald, as well as giving him AP2, which meant that I needed to get rid of that unit or be challenged and summarily destroyed by a Herald.
Otherwise, I would simply hide my DKs in cover, and challenge if his Spawn + Lord charged a DK.
Shooting was not as productive as I would have preferred - his Plague Drones rolled an enormous number of their 5+ invulnerable/5+ FNP, and were left with 3 models with a single wound left on each Drone (Herald was untouched), including his squad leader.
One highlight of the round was that one of my Plasma Cannon shots scattered off, hit a Mauler Fiend, Penetrated, and wrecked it! First Blood (doesn't do anything ever at the Nova)!!!
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| Well, I had killed a bunch of Nurgle Drones, but would it be enough? The rest of his army was largely unhurt. Note that my DK closest to us (with the sword) was to be a sacrificial lamb - his Khorne Lord on the Juggernaut would likely beat him up pretty bad. Basically, a 50/50 chance for me to win or die. |
He rolled for reserves, and got everything in: Plaguebearers, Helldrake, and both Cultist squads.
The Helldrake flew up the um, top? flank, and the Plaguebearers landed in the ruins near Coteaz' squad, while the Cultists ran up the middle toward the hill terrain.
Coteaz used his "I've been expecting you" rule, and the prescienced, cover-ignoring plasma cannon squad annihilated the Plaguebearers to a man.
In movement, the Khorne Spawn/Lord sprinted near the DK closest, and the Nurgle Lord broke off from his spawn to attack my DK with his Black Mace, while the Nurgle Spawn moved up with the remaining Mauler Fiend to charge in at Coteaz.
Plague Drones + Herald surprised me by moving backward slightly, more defensively than I had expected.
Shooting did very little, and he jumped into combat with me. The Spawn + Mauler Fiend combat crushed my poor Coteaz, as well as his Henchmen, who were able to kill a couple Spawn with their strikes back (Coteaz force weapons FTW). The Lords hopped into their respective Dreadknights.
Nurgle Lord had the Black Mace, which is AP4, and therefore caused only a single wound to the DK, who passed his Toughness test and promptly force-weaponed the T6 Lord. The other combat with the Khorne Lord (in a challenge!) was much closer, with James dealing 3 unsaved wounds to me before I insta-crushed him and stuck into combat.
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| So, Mauler Fiends + Spawn crushed Coteaz over there on the hill. One very injured DK is fighting a bunch of very scared Khorne Spawn. |
Grau Turn 2:
While I had wiped out two very potent characters, the hordes of Chaos were still threatening to overrun me. I would need to wipe out the Mauler Fiend on the hill, and do some intense damage to the Nurgle Spawn as well as support my hurt DK.
One squad of kroots are all that came on from Reserves.
One DK meandered toward the Mauler Fiend on the Hill, while the other unengaged DK walked over to help punch the Khorne Spawn.
Shooting went well - the Commander decided not to shoot, letting the Broadsides ignore cover. When the smoke cleared, I had annihilated the Nurgle Spawn. In addition, the Kroot who outflanked in the back shot up a Cultist squad, who ran off the board!
Combat went equally well - the DK vs. Mauler Fiend fight went as expected: Mauler got to strike first because of Terrain, and caused two wounds. In reprisal, the DK destroyed the sad Mauler.
In addition, the two DKs in combat with the Khorne Spawn crushed the poor hapless Spawn. I actually felt a little like a couple rancors had run into a pen of unsuspecting gamorreans.
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| Excellent Turn 2 for me. I have effectively killed all his combat threats if we don't count the limping Drones + Herald. His Soul Grinder went gulp as the DKs all turned around to eye him. |
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| A closer look at the carnage. Looks like I was previously wrong - the sword DK only had 2 wounds caused to him. Note the lack of Mauler Fiends and Spawn. Kinda eerie. |
James decided to keep playing. I wouldn't have blamed him if he had wanted to stop after that, but respected him for continuing to play. Great players keep playing until the end is inevitably there, and he still had a chance to win.
As such, he moved his Helldrake up into my DZ, and destroyed a couple wandering Henchmen who had also apparently come in from reserve. The Plague Drones + Herald ran into the top right quarter and stuck their tongues out at my DK nearby. Meanwhile, the Grinder drew a bead on my Kroots, then scattered off the mark entirely.
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| Cultists are huddled up on that hill, threatening an objective. |
Storm Raven came in, and some Kroots did as well, on the opposite side from where my other Kroots had come in.
Through a flurry of shooting, I managed to kill his Helldrake, Plague Drones, and Herald, as well as almost all of his remaining Cultists, who stood stalwart to the end!
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| The Raven came in and killed his Grinder, I believe. |
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| His remaining cultist, stopping me from tabling James! |
Game 1 Results: Win for the Grau!!
Post-game thoughts:
The game kind of boiled down to two events: my Dreadknight combats vs. the Chaos Lords. Had I lost both Dreadknights, the game would have quickly swung in favor of James. As it was, the Black Mace Lord had a very small chance of actually killing my DK, despite like 11 attacks when he charged.
I stand by my theory of DKs: they are point-for-point the best combat unit in the game, hands down. Sure, some units/models are better than them, but for 160 points, they really shine when presented with combat. The caveat to all this praise of course, is that sometimes it's rough to get them into combat.
As it was, James was fun to play, had a beautiful army, and would end up winning at least a couple games in the Invitational.
In the Nova format, there are only wins/losses, and as such, I was happy to advance to the Top 16 of the super-elite field that was the Invitational.
The next day would be a tough one: it would begin with an early Invitational game, followed by the first 3 rounds of the Open. Could I have two perfect days in a row? Who would I be paired against in my second Invitational game?
Nova Invitational Game 2: Grau vs. Brad Townsend's Dark Angels w/ IG Allies!
HULKSMASH!!
His Bonafides:
If you follow this hobby's "internet personalities," you undoubtedly know this guy as Hulksmash. He has his own blog which he hasn't posted on for forever, posts regularly at Dakka, and just generally makes a nuisance of himself at a bunch of GTs around the country. I think he qualified this year by winning something at the Indy Open, though he's a good enough player that I'm sure that's not the only big event he's won this year. Brad is also the Captain of the Adepticon Team Tournament team "And They Shall Know Fear," which has won the last two (ridiculously difficult) Team Tournaments there.
His List:
Dark Angels (Primary)
Librarian (goes in blob to give fearless)
Librarian (goes in blob to give fearless)
5x Tactical Marines w/ Meltagun, Combi-Melta // Drop Pod
5x Tactical Marines w/ Meltagun, Combi-Melta // Drop Pod
5x Assault Marines w/ 2x Flamers, Combi-Flamer // Drop Pod
5x Assault Marines w/ 2x Flamers, Combi-Flamer // Drop Pod
5x Assault Marines w/ 2x Flamers, Combi-Flamer // Drop Pod
Whirlwind
Whirlwind
Imperial Guard (Allies)
Company Command Squad w/ Vox Caster, 3x Grenade Launcher // Chimera
Infantry Platoon with:
Platoon Command Squad w/ Mortar
4x Infantry Squads w/ 4x Auto-Cannons, 4x Melta Bombs
Infantry Platoon with:
Platoon Command Squad w/ Mortar
4x Infantry Squads w/ 4x Auto-Cannons, 4x Melta Bombs
Leman Russ Executioner w/ 2x Plasma Cannon Sponsons
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| Dark Mechanicus (sp?) themed! Very cool, the drill things are actually his drop pods! |
The Mission:
The Relic = 2 Mission Points
4 Corner Objectives = 2 Mission Points (for controlling most)
Slay the Warlord = 1 Mission Point
Linebreaker = 1 Mission Point
*Whoever gets the most Mission Points wins the mission*
Deployment:
Vanguard Strike
**We rolled to see who went first, and I won the roll, giving Brad first turn**
Pregame Thoughts:
Ah man... this was going to be a tough one. He has a ton of units I need to worry about, all of which can do me a lot of damage. He failed to cast the 4++ invulnerable save power, which was a huge boon, but ... he had a lot for me to deal with still. He has a deceptively large amount of shooting, and a very flexible list. On top of that, Brad is a top-tier player who will give any given player a run for his/her money regardless of who they are.
On top of it all, I was playing against IG Blob squads in a Relic/objectives mission. If his blobs were able to get hold of the Relic, it would be hell to make them drop it.
The plan then was simple: shoot around 6" worth of guardsmen from each Blob each turn, so their efforts to advance would be futile. My Dreadknights needed to take advantage of their torrent flamers, and once again I would need to protect the Broadsides.
On a deeper level, I needed to make sure I would control my own backfield well, and ensure that I could hold the objectives I was near to. The Riptide's job was to play a supporting role, and contest/charge units in the top right quarter. The Kroot would appear where they saw fit via outflank (as they would just die easily to small-arms fire immediately anyway), and hopefully the DKs would survive more than one turn.
Sorry, no picture of the deployment. :-/
Hulksmash Turn 1:
He chose to deepstrike one squad of flamers and both squads of Tacticals (with 2x melta, remember). The flamers went for the easier target: Coteaz' henchmen, while the two melta squads dropped into my backfield to shoot either DKs or Broadsides.
His blobs began their slow advance forward...
My interceptor/I've been expecting you shots weren't too effective - I ended up killing a single melta gunner, as well as a smattering of random marines, mostly with the Riptide's large blast killing 3 of the far-left Tactical squad. Note that my Tau Commander shot his interceptor so he could let his unit use the Multi-Spectrum Sensor Suite in my turn.
His shooting wiped out about half of my Henchmen squad, and a full DK died remarkably quickly due some untimely 1's. However, my Broadsides and other MCs remained largely unscathed.
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| His Pods are in my backfield, and there are a ton of Marines to deal with, as well as even more Guard approaching, as well as even more in reserves! Lots of threats, like I said. Notice that his far left Tac squad is reduced to a single marine. |
Well, Coteaz and his squad were going to be useless this match anyways - plasma cannons don't do much to blobs, and Brad had already killed two of the cannon models with flamers anyways. As such, I casted Prescience on Coteaz and walked him toward Brad's centermost tactical squad with the aim of shooting/charging. The Riptide approached the Assault squad with a similar purpose, having already shot its blast in Brad's turn (interceptor). Dreadknights remained mostly where they were, already in range for their flamers.
Shooting tore a chunk out of the blobs, with the Broadsides doing most of the work. The Squad Leader precision-shotted three auto-cannons with his high-yield missile pods, and suddenly, the right-most blob didn't appear to be nearly so threatening. Torrent flamers killed a few more, though Brad had spread his troops out well enough that I only got about 3-4 each template.
The Command Suits shot at, and killed, the remaining Tactical marine threatening my Broadsides.
In combat, the Riptide killed a marine, and stuck in combat, while Coteaz and his squad killed a couple Tactical marines themselves, and survived the round.
Hulksmash Turn 2:
His pods failed to come in, and as such Brad advanced his blobs again, with (again) a ton of models.
Shooting this turn really didn't phase me much. The DKs made some disgusting Invulnerable saves, and it was on to combat!
Again, the Riptide killed an assault marine, and they fled, the Riptide unable to catch them. Coteaz swatted another Tactical marine, and again survived the round comfortably.
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| Will my reserves come in next round? I would love for my Raven to come in and help me out some. |
My reserves all came in, and I decided to outflank the Kroots into his far left corner to shoot guardsmen, while the Raven flew in to shoot guardsmen, and my squad of 3 acolytes ran into the terrain left of the Broadsides.
The goal this round was to destroy his entire right-side blob squad while causing some pain to his left side as well.
Shooting commenced, and I managed to kill all of his right-hand squad, to a man, though it took the efforts of two DKs, a Storm Raven w/ Hurricane Bolters, and the Broadsides. The Riptide fired, and managed to kill the Chimera as well. I also managed a fair number of damage with the Kroot, though not quite as much as I had been hoping for.
I also got lucky and killed both remaining Assault marines with my lone remaining Command Suit.
The Riptide scooted toward Brad's corner/tanks with his assault move, and Coteaz took a wound and whiffed his attacks, but stayed in combat with Stubborn 10 ld.
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| Lots more shooting in my army than you may have otherwise expected. That was a mind-numbing number of IG I killed this turn! |
His remaining pods came in, with one threatening the 3-man acolyte squad that had just come in, and the other threatening my Broadside squad.
Shooting at me did some damage to the Commander with flamers (a wound or two is all), and wiped out the 3-man squad. Kroots got bloodied pretty bad by Brad's remaining guardsmen, though I believe a couple of them survived the round. His Executioner tried to hurt the Riptide, though didn't do much (a wound or two tops)
In combat, Coteaz finally swatted the two remaining Tacticals and moved to hide himself, as he was worth a point (Warlord).
Grau Turn 3:
While the game looked to be in my favor at this point, I knew that I needed to keep putting pressure on Brad, or he would find a way to win. As such, the Riptide moved to the top left quarter, as did the Raven, while the two remaining DKs meandered toward the two remaining Assault squads. Coteaz tried to cast Prescience on him squad, and Perils'd! One remaining wound!
Shooting removed a bunch more of Brad's infantry models, though I don't really remember which ones. I believe I also removed his final Librarian, giving me slay the Warlord.
Combat saw the leftmost DK run in and hit all 5 times and wound all 5 times, wiping the Assault squad outright. The other DK killed.... 1 marine, and took a wound himself. HA. Riptide charged in and killed a Whirlwind.
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| I know it doesn't look like it, but there are actually still quite a few guardsmen in his corner, as well as two functional tanks. |
His shooting focused on the Riptide, bringing it down to 2 wounds remaining, and also wiped out the remaining Kroot. His Mortars + Whirlwind forced Coteaz to go to ground with his remaining Servitor, but still managed to kill the Servitor. One less scoring squad, damn!
At this point, it must be observed that I only had a single remaining scoring unit - the 3-man acolyte squad inside the Storm Raven, while he actually had about 3 scoring units, all of the 1-3 model persuasion, hiding in the wreckage of his corner. If he could kill my Riptide so I wouldn't contest his objective, he could force the game to get extremely interesting, as I was too out of position with the Storm Raven to actually claim the Relic.
Combat went weirdly again, with the DK again taking a wound, and only killing a single marine.
Grau Turn 4:
After some thought, I decided the Raven should fly off the board so I could claim an objective on Turn 5 rather than try to further butcher a couple bedraggled guardsmen. The Riptide moved into the cover, into contesting range, and prepared to charge a small squad on the edge of the board.
My shooting phase was short this phase, and I instead moved into combat, with the Riptide charging and killing two Guardsmen, while the Dreadknight finally decided he was worth something and killed the remaining three Assault marines.
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| At this point, the game turns are moving much more swiftly - we hadn't finished Turn 2 by the time they called the game was half over. My Broadsides killed a bunch of Drop Pods for fun in the remaining turns. |
He did what he could - shot at the Riptide and hoped for the best. He failed, and the turn moved to me.
Grau Turn 5:
This would be our final turn due to time, and as such I made it simple - Raven dropped off the Henchmen on an objective, Riptide charged his Whirlwind (no sense in letting Overwatch + combat potentially screw me out of a win if I got unlucky) and contested the objective (killing the whirlwind!) and the Broadsides genocided his Pods for fun.
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| And... that's game! |
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| There, see how many guys he had left? Lots more than it looks like from my other pictures! |
Results: Win for the Grau!!
Post-game Thoughts:
Whew! What a stressful start to the game! I wasn't sure we would get past Turn 3 the way we were going, but Brad kept trukkin, and we got in all 5 rounds. If you read this Brad, thanks for that - I hate games going only 3 or 4 turns, even if it gives me an advantage.
My shooting did a number on Brad's blob, though the DKs were less awesome in that regard than I had originally expected. Instead, the Broadsides + Storm Raven did the heavy lifting, killing off guardsmen in droves of hundreds... and thousands!
The DKs again did their work however, forcing my opponent to shoot at them, and in the end, killed the remaining marines threatening my deployment zone. Riptide did his bit as well, moving all the way across the board, butchering its way to contest an objective.
It should be added that Brad is a blast to play against - if you have the opportunity to get a game in with him, DO IT. Just because we all want to win at toy soldiers doesn't mean we need to be jerks :) Brad ended the Invitational with a 3-2 record.
And so, with my shiny 2-0 in the Invitational, I advanced into the Top 8, full of players like Nick Nanavati, Aaron Aleong, and Alan Bajramovic. Who would I play next?
As it was, the rest of the day would be devoted to the Open, playing my first 3 games of the tournament in the attempt to meet my goal: reach the Top Bracket (top 16) in a tournament of over 220 players!
Nova Open Game 1: Grau vs. Kevin Schack's Chaos Demons!!
His List:
Fateweaver (Warlord)
1x Tz Herald w/ Grimoire
~15x Pink Horrors
10x Plaguebearers
10x Plaguebearers
10x Daemonettes
9x Fiends of Slannesh
~15x Seekers of Slannesh
~15x Hounds of Khorne
Soul Grinder w/ Mark of Nurgle
The Mission:
Killpoints = 1 Mission Point/each
Linebreaker = 1 Mission Point
Slay the Warlord = 1 Mission Point
First Blood = 1 Mission Point
*whoever has the most Mission Points at the end of the game wins*
Deployment:
Dawn of War
**I won the roll to go first, and gave it to my opponent**
Pre-game Thoughts:
The biggest threat to my army was the Slannesh units, due to lots of rending attacks which would drag my MCs down quick. As such, I wanted to deploy away from the Seekers and Fiends, which my opponent deployed in the top left corner, and give myself a couple turns of shooting at them before I had to get stuck into combat.
The fact that his Grimoire was on the opposite side of the board from the unit I didn't want to have it (Seekers with a 2++ invulnerable save are a tough nut to crack!) was a relief, but I also needed to make sure the Grimoire disappeared as quickly as possible - could my Raven come in on Turn 2?
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| Note his Seekers on the left, next to the Fiends, with the Khorne Dogs in the center, while his Heralds floated around with the Horrors on the right. I put my bubble-wrap around my forces to force him to shoot at Kroot instead of my vital units, and put Coteaz + Plasma in the ruins to the left. |
Demons Turn 1:
The Hounds did their assault move 12" forward, then moved an additional 12" forward (aka "Up in my Grill immediately"), though he would be unable to charge me. The Grimoire went predictably on the Dogs, as well as his 4++ Invulnerable save, dragging them down into a 2++ multi-wound T4 unit. Tough nut to crack!
Fateweaver flew over to my right flank (you can't see him in the picture below) and the Seekers got a 6" run roll, giving them 24" movement for the phase (12" move, 6" run, 6" Slannesh ridiculousness), and the Fiends also provided pressure.
Simply put, he was pressuring me far more quickly than I had expected.
Shooting wiped out most of both Kroots Squads (one had a couple models left alive), as I had predicted. Not sure what I would have done if he hadn't actually, heh.
Mission Point Count:
Grau: 0
Demons: 2 (First Blood, Kroots)
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| Fast, fast army! |
I had a number of things to accomplish this turn:
1) Deal with the Hounds somehow
2) Shoot up the Seekers
3) Harrass Fateweaver enough that he's within sight of killing in another shooting phase.
As such, I moved a single DK over to threaten the dogs, while the others moved to flame the Fiends a little bit. Riptide and Command Suits shuffled deeper within the "pocket" of protection the DKs were providing, ready to shoot Seekers/Fiends.
Shooting helped me accomplish two of my goals: Broadsides w/ Commander providing Monster Hunter caused enough wounds to Fateweaver that he just died outright. Huh. Coteaz + bolter squad and the rest of my army shot at Seekers and Fiends, killing about half the Seekers and a couple Fiends as well.
Then, my lone DK charged his Hounds, did no wounds, took no wounds, and stayed in combat. Remember, T6 2+ save really defies the Hounds, as they only have 30 attacks, hitting on 4's (both WS5), then wounding on 6's, followed by my 2+ save.
Woot, all 3 objectives accomplished!
Mission Point Count:
Grau: 2 (Slay the Warlord, Fateweaver)
Demons: 2 (First Blood, Kroots)
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| You can see his Seekers have been pushed farther back, due to losses. The Hound combat looks almost comical. |
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| A closer look at his models - not as much damage as I had hoped, but still hopefully enough to keep the Seekers away for another turn. |
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| Lots of pictures this turn, apparently. |
Demons Turn 2:
His right flank effectively stopped, my opponent moved his left flank threateningly toward my Ruins with its juicy warlord + Henchmen, while the Soul Grinder struggled to move at all within the ruins.
Deepstriking Daemonettes landed on the left as well, making use of the Seekers' Teleport Homer.
Shooting was brief, with the Commander taking the brunt of the Horror's fury, and the Hounds taking the 2++ invulerable save again.
In combat, Coteaz and company shot down a Fiend with overwatch, but were locked into combat. Coteaz tanked most of the hits and the squad (with prescience) killed another couple fiends, making use of Coteaz' Force Weapon again. They ended up winning the combat, and more Fiends were removed. Madness! However, the rest of the Kroots were also swept into the combat, and died, yielding yet another kill point for my sloppiness.
Hounds vs. DK again showed no wounds caused by either. Wooo...
Mission Point Count:
Grau: 2 (Slay the Warlord, Fateweaver)
Demons: 3 (First Blood, Kroots, Kroots)
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| Just gotta protect the Broadsides! They're worth their weight in gold this mission! |
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| We are using our imaginations to pretend the Fiends are up on the various levels rather than risk his models. Some are still on the ground, however. Large round-based models are Seekers, FYI. |
Storm Raven arrived from reserves, and flew over to try and Perils his 2W Herald to death, taking away the Grimoire and 4++ invulnerable save power.
My goals this turn included such things as:
1) Kill more Seekers (9 Seekers still threw waaaay too many attacks for my own liking)
2) Support Coteaz vs. the Fiends
3) Kill a bunch of Horrors, including the Grimoire Herald.
As such, my DKs shifted slightly over to either flame the Seekers or charge the Fiends, while the rest of my army just hung out, ready to shoot some (cowardly Riptide + Command Suits shifted away farther from the combats.
Shooting immediately killed the Herald, and perils'd a few other Horrors as well. Other shooting from the Raven killed a bunch more Horrors. Broadsides opened up and killed 6 more Seekers, dropping that unit down to 3 left.
Then, the Dreadknights jumped into combat with the Seekers, and killed most of them, though a few remained. Coteaz' squad fared better than they should have, losing very few of their number.
Mission Point Count:
Grau: 3 (Slay the Warlord, Fateweaver, Herald of Tz)
Demons: 3 (First Blood, Kroots, Kroots)
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| Khorne Dogs vs. DK is still uneventful, heh. Shooting keeps pushing his assault units back. |
 |
| Raven is threatening his remaining Horrors, though the Grinder will have some shots at him next turn with Skyfire. |
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| Please don't expect this many pictures in later games, not sure why I got so picture-happy on this one! You can see the Seekers are hurt, and the Daemonettes are about to try and make my DK's life difficult. |
Kevin was in trouble - his assault units had largely been negated for various reasons, and he was rapidly losing models while most of mine remained untouched. Further, the Grimoire no longer existed, and as such the Hounds would be back to a 5++ save, potentially a 4++ if his other Herald was in range to cast its power.
The gods of Chaos answered his plea, however, by granting Kevin's forces +1 to their invulerable saves, which combined with his Herald, gave the Dogs a 3++. **facepalm**
He did what he could - moved over to cause more pressure on my units, hoping to take advantage of his boosted invulnerable saves, though he (wisely) moved his T3 Seekers away behind the hill to deny me a killpoint.
In combat, my DK managed to finally kill a Hound or two, and his leadership check killed another model. The Daemonettes failed their charge on the DK, and the Fiends lost a perilous number of models, though stayed in combat for one more round.
Grau: 3 (Slay the Warlord, Fateweaver, Herald of Tz)
Demons: 3 (First Blood, Kroots, Kroots)
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| Poor DK still looks rather beleagured there, while the Soul Grinder slowly approaches... |
I needed to keep applying pressure, and break his ability to fight back.
As such, the Riptide jumped over to attack the Khorne Hounds (mistake: Riptide is WS2, Hounds are WS5, lol) and the Raven went into hover mode to keep shooting at the Horrors.
The free DK advanced toward the Daemonettes to apply burnination to them.
In shooting, the Raven managed to wipe out the remaining Horrors + Herald, and the Broadsides managed to wipe out the entire Plaguebearer squad in the ruins you probably haven't noticed yet, using the Commander to ignore cover. Dreadknight managed to kill quite a few Daemonettes, and Command Suits killed a few more, essentially breaking the unit's usefulness.
In combat, the Riptide + DK Tagteam killed a few more hounds, and stayed stuck in, while Coteaz + DK finally wiped out the remaining Fiend squad and consolidated toward the remaining Seekers/Daemonettes.
Grau: 7 (Slay the Warlord, Fateweaver, Herald of Tz, Herald of Tz, Fiends, Horrors, Plaguebearers)
Demons: 3 (First Blood, Kroots, Kroots)
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| My army is actually mostly still intact - I felt a little bad at this point... |
I managed to kill the Soul-Grinder with the Broadsides, flame the Seekers with a DK, kill the Daemonettes with another, and eventually even just destroy the Dogs. He surrendered sometime around Turn 5.
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| Another turn, showing the Daemonettes attacking my DK, while the rest of his army is emaciated. |
Nova Open Game 1 Results: Win for the Grau!!
Post-game Thoughts:
Kevin was a great sport - he said he had seen my army at the Invitational the night before and identified it as his "hard-counter." While perhaps that has elements of truth, I think he could have caused me far more issues by simply using his Seekers the same way he had used his Hounds. By letting me tie his Hounds up all game with a single DK, he allowed me to shoot his other elements as I chose. The Seekers, with a 2++ save would have been far more difficult for me to shift, and would have butchered my poor DKs quickly.
In the end, the Raven was awesome, getting rid of the Grimoire and eventually finishing off the Horrors entirely, while the rest of my army did what it needed to do against a very fast, aggressive army.
Kevin ended the tournament with a 4-3 Record - better than most!
So, I was in the top um, 115? in the Open. I hoped desperately that I could keep the momentum up the rest of the day. Two more games to play...
Nova Open Game 2: Grau vs. Ryne's Daemons of Chaos with Chaos Marine Allies!
His List:
Demons of Chaos (Primary)
Fateweaver (Warlord)
~1x Herald of Tz.
10x Plaguebearers
~20x Horrors
~15x Khorne Hounds
Tz. Demon Prince w/ Grimoire, All the awesome
Chaos Space Marines (Allies)
Tz. Demopn Prince w/ Black Mace, Lvl. 3 Casting, All the awesome as well
10x Cultists
Helldrake of DOOOOOOOOM
The Mission:
Primary: 4 Corner Objectives (ignore center objective)
Secondary: Best of 3 in Killpoints, Linebreaker, Slay the Warlord
Tertiary: Table Quarters
**Big Guns Never Tire**
Deployment:
Hammer and Anvil
*He won the roll to go first, and decided to take first turn*
Pre-game Thoughts:
Wow, another demon player. I'd played against this type of list before, and knew that if I could take out either Fateweaver or the Grimoire Prince, I'd be in a good position. My goal was to down his princes as quickly as possible, while tying up the hounds in the same way I did in my last game - DK vs. Hounds forever!
I expected him to use the Grimoire on the Dogs to make them stupidly hard to kill, and that would mean that his princes could be taken down relatively easily. My goal was to keep the Broadsides + Commander shooting every single turn.
I was also nervous about the Black Mace Prince - he was going to kill one of my units, almost guaranteed, as I couldn't afford to shoot shots at him while Fatey + Grimoire were still alive. The key was to make sure that the unit he killed was not my Broadside unit. You'll see how I positioned my DKs to that effect.
Note that I actually deployed both Kroot squads on the table in order to force Ryne to take more grounding checks, rather than my normal outflanking shenanigans.
 |
| This is our deployment, after the dogs have already made their scout move. Remember, because he had first turn, he would be unable to charge immediately. |
Demons Turn 1:
Ryne Ran his Hounds up, and put the Grimoire on them, bumping the squad up to a 3++ save. Yikes. The Princes + Fatey all flew straight at my lines, and got ready to shoot at my stuff. Of note is that he left the Grimoire Prince behind the ruins - I asked if he forgot to move him, and he wanted to keep him back there. Probably wise, as I had a decent chance to take him down immediately.
Mostly, he shot some Kroot in the forest, and they fled. Not much damage to my lines other than that.
 |
| See how the Kroot in the ruins are screening Coteaz and his mostly-useless Plasma squad this turn? If they want to kill Coteaz, they'll need to kill the Kroot first. Extra turns of shooting/assault for me! |
Grau Turn 1:
As his Grimoire Prince was hidden, I decided to instead focus my firepower on Fateweaver himself. My movement mostly reflected that, as well as encasing the Broadsides with two DKs in cover, to force the Black Mace Prince away from charging the Broadsides. Other DK went over to fight some Hounds, setting up the sacrificial unit that the Black Mace Prince would most likely come over to kill, dropping him on the ground for my shooting attacks next turn.
In shooting, I managed to take 4 wounds off of Fateweaver, but he rolled well for the most part, and stayed alive. Doh!
The DK charged in and killed an indeterminable number of hounds, getting stuck into combat.
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| Wish I had killed Fatey, but I think I've positioned myself well enough to buy an extra turn. Just hope he dies next turn or I'm screwed! It will also be interesting to see where the big Horror unit comes in! |
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| So, Broadsides are protected from the Black Mace Prince, and the sacrificial DK is fighting Hounds in the open, waiting for the BM Prince to butcher him and therefore be on the ground. |
Horrors came on and barely avoided scattering off the table. The Mace Prince dropped down to Hover in anticipation of charging my bait DK, and the other Grimoire Prince jumped over to put more pressure on me. One of his princes casted Enfeeble on my embattled DK, dropping him to a dangerous T5.
Shooting commenced, and the result was that one squad of Kroot would start running, never to regroup, and a couple random wounds on the Broadside squad, due to some timely 5+ deny the witch rolls on my part.
In combat, the Mace Prince predictably used his Smash! attacks on my T5 DK, and killed him easily before he could swing. Hard to feel happy about losing a DK like that, even if it went according to my plan :-/
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| So you can see - the Princes are making sure my life will be difficult next turn. Lots of things I need to deal with here! Of note is that Fateweaver is actually behind the hill I'm castled on, out of sight. |
I had my work cut out for me: I needed to kill the Mace Prince, huge squad of Horrors, and Fateweaver this turn, as well as tie up the Hounds again.
My Raven came on, and I parked him in front of Fatey in hover mode, needing him to die. One DK moved over to threaten either the Hounds or the Mace Prince, depending on how shooting went, while the other shuffled enough to get the following shot at the Horrors:
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| I don't care who you are, that's awesome! |
Shooting went well - I managed to kill every single one of his Horrors, and Fateweaver. I also shot a bunch of plasma and missiles into the Mace Prince and he exploded in spectaclar fashion! One FMC to go!
In assault, the DK charged the dogs, killed a few, and stayed in combat.
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| Note that his remaining Prince is still alive, but I've basically ensured that he won't be able to charge my Broadsides. At this point, I don't mind too much if he kills them, as I'll be able to shoot him with other stuff anyway. Also, notice my Riptide scooting over to the left in an attempt to get Linebreaker eventually. |
His Helldrake came in, and went the full 36" forward, the better to roast some Kroot or Henchmen. Otherwise, his Grimoire Prince used the Grim on the Dogs again, and then turned around to threaten my Riptide on the left.
Not much shooting (Helldrake actually killed a Broadside randomly, despite AP3 vs. 2+ save/2W), and in combat I didn't manage to do much to the 3++ dogs, so we stuck in (again).
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| Can my combined forces kill his Prince/Drake next turn? |
I desperately needed to kill that Grimoire Prince - if I could manage that, I'd be able to win the game handily. Helldrake was a second priority.
The Raven jumped over to try and melta/assault cannon the Drake (or Prince, depending on how the rest of my shooting went) and I mostly just stayed in place, with the exception of my Riptide and topmost DK, who started running toward the Plaguebearers in that ruined building you probably never noticed.
Shooting did the right thing - I dropped the Prince, and caused two wounds (but no real results) to the Drake. He'd get another turn to cause some mayhem!
In combat, my DK killed a Hound, and they caused a couple back! We stayed locked in (duh).
Daemons Turn 4:
His Drake decided to try a deseration Vector Strike on my Raven and... it worked! He exploded it and killed all the guys inside! Woah!!
Otherwise, we just skipped straight to combat, where his Hounds without the Grimoire started to explode in depressing fashion.
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| Drake and Dogs and Cultists are the only ones still around, as well as some Plagues in the building. |
I needed to make sure I could get full points here, and moved my DK toward the Plagues, and also moved the Broadsides, despite the fact that they'd need to snap fire (they were going to snap-fire at the Drake anyways, may as well get better board position while they're at it!). Riptide decided to play it safe and just stick his tongue out at the Cultists rather than potentially losing combat to them.
Shooting went well - I killed the Drake and a few Plaguebearers, though the Riptide missed all of his shots at the Cultists.
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| He's down to around 14 models at this point. |
Ryne decided to make it awesome, and charged my Riptide with the Cultists. We stuck in combat for all remaining 6 player turns, with the Cultists just barely over half when it was done. The rest of my forces slowly and methodically wiped out the Plaguebearers.
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| Cultists hitting something in combat on 3's? What?? |
Nova Open Game 2 Results: Win for the Grau!!
Post-game Thoughts:
Ah man, this game could have gone badly indeed if I hadn't been able to kill the units I did when I needed to. As it was, tarpitting the Dogs in addition to baiting his Mace Prince helped me a bunch, due to the fact that it still allowed my DKs to protect the most important unit of the game: the Broadsides.
As it was, this game was a classic example of target priority. I took out the models I needed to in order to win, and tarpitted/ignored the rest. Ryne was a good player, and his list was nasty! He would go on to win his Bracket in the Open, and get some sweet prize support!
At this point I was 2-0 in the Open, and 2-0 in the Invitational. Still, I had one more game left for the day. And, I was exhausted. As you will see, mistakes happen when a tired mind tries to compete...
When we got our Round 3 pairings, Ryne said, "Oh man, you're paired up against my buddy Shaun! Good luck, he's impossible to beat!"
...yikes.
Nova Open Game 3: Grau vs. Shaun Reynold's Daemons of Chaos!
His List: (from memory)
Keeper of Secrets (Warlord) with lots of awesome
2x Tz Heralds w/ Grimoire, Divination Powers, Tz. Shooting Power, Discs
10x Plaguebearers
10x Pink Horrors
9x Screamers
Slannesh Demon Prince w/ all the awesome
Slannesh Demon Prince w/ all the awesome
Slannesh Demon Prince w/ all the awesome
The Mission:
The Relic = 2 Mission Points
4 Corner Objectives = 2 Mission Points (for controlling most)
Slay the Warlord = 1 Mission Point
Linebreaker = 1 Mission Point
*Whoever gets the most Mission Points wins the mission*
Deployment:
Vanguard Strike
**We rolled to see who went first, and I won the roll, giving Shaun first turn**
Pregame Thoughts:
Ah man, this mission looks familiar! That's because we played the exact same one as earlier in the day - the Invitational actually used the Open missions 2-6 for their own missions. Incidentally, that means that Game 4 of the Open and Game 3 of the Invitational were the same mission, back to back for those who played in both!
On to the game itself though. This was the first time I would face a Screamer star, though it wasn't as potent as many others I've seen - Fateweaver not being included being one primary reason for this. I had played against Slannesh lists often enough in the past to know that the Demon Princes were strong, but not quite as resiliant as their Tz. counterparts.
The key in this fight would be to contain the Screamers and try to Perils the Heralds out with the Raven when it showed up. Otherwise, get the Princes into combat with the DKs and shoot them up when possible.
It should be noted that he got a great set of rolls for his rewards - everyone had either a 3+ save (Keeper) or a 4+ FNP. He even got the 4++ power on a Herald and Iron Arm on two Demon Princes. Perhaps I should have been more attentive when he rolled rewards/powers :-/
Anyhow, the crux was again to keep the Broadsides alive long enough to help me kill his Princes. Once the Princes died, I could focus on the Screamers and Keeper. One thing in my favor: he had very few scoring units and no way to grow new ones other than a lucky roll on the Warp Storm table.
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| I wanted to be able to threaten as much of the board as possible, though I believe I should have placed two DKs over on the right rather than just one, as the Broadsides were more vital to my plans than Coteaz and Co. Notice I've placed Kroot as Bubblewrap to force him to shoot them. He left his troops in Deepstrike. |
Demons Turn 1:
He moved up to threten me? The Screamers decided to hang back and shoot with the Heralds for a turn, which I thought was a good, as the Screamers would still be in range to charge me next turn anyways.
His shooting didn't really do a whole lot, though it *did* take one wound off of my rightmost DK, which tipped the advantage in favor of that Demon Prince in combat.
It was also notable that he actually failed his Grimoire roll for the Screamers, bringing them down to a 4++ save.
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| Lots of Demons to try and kill this turn! How many can I bring down? The goal is 2! |
Grau Turn 1:
I really needed to kill at least one Prince this turn, and would love to kill a second one - I had the firepower necessary to kill two if supported by combat. The Princes, however, were mostly at T8 (his topmost DP didn't have Iron Arm) and would be tough nuts to crack. Conversely, the Screamers were vulnerable this turn, with a paltry 4++ save. Dare I shoot them up instead of going with my original plan?
Coteaz casted Prescience on a DK and left his squad in favor of assaulting a Demon Prince with his Grenades to make it strike at I1. My DK on the right, realizing that he would have a rough time killing a T8 Eternal Warrior DP even if I knocked it out of the sky, decided to position himself in a way that the DP wouldn't be able to swoop down and charge the Broadsides.
Shooting commenced, with Coteaz' squad knocking his closest DP out of the sky with bolter rounds, causing a wound in the process! It was then a question of what to shoot, and I eventually settled on the Broadsides + Riptide + Suits + Kroots shooting at the Screamers, while the Commander shot at the top-left DP, as it was only T5 and he had Skyfire.
The results were a couple wounds put on the top left DP and three dead screamers, after a stream of excellent rolling. Not really what I wanted from the shooting phase!
I charged two DKs and Coteaz into the DP close to them. My opponent was smart and challenged, and I accepted with the DK who had prescience cast on him. Because Coteaz made the DP I1, the DK (with re-rolls to hit and wound through Prescience + Hatred), killed his already-wounded DP easily, despite T8 and FNP.
We actually had a rules debate at that point, of whether or not FNP could be negated with a Force Weapon even if the Prince himself was an Eternal Warrior. Judge called, and I won the debate - should have kept the Judge around though... :-/
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| Coteaz and the two DKs all got 1's and 2's for their consolidate, putting Coteaz in peril of getting charged by the DP. I tried to position him in a way that forced the DP to charge through the hill in order to stay 1" away from the DK at least... |
With only a slightly slapped hand, Shaun successfully activated the Grimoire and advanced the Screamers, who would be largely unable to charge the Broadsides due to the Kroot screen. If he shot the Kroot and tried to multi-assault, he would very likely just kill all the Kroot and be unable to charge. In addition, the Kroot would also have a chance of running, further ruining his plans.
Really, Kroot are the most useful unit ever :)
Unable to fly his rightmost DP over to the Broadsides, he settled for the already-wounded DK to charge and kill. His other DP decided to try and murder my Henchmen, as troops would be
Shooting went alright for him - he managed to kill one of my Broadsides due to poor armor save rolls on my part, and caused another wound to my rightmost DK. He tried to use Puppetmaster on my DK to fry some Kroot (clever!) but I got the 5+ Deny roll I needed, and he was unable to even charge the Kroot bubblewrap, as his shots from the Screamers had been at the Broadsides.
In combat, the DK died a lonely death on the right side, and the Henchmen died a group death. Hooray for DPs on the ground where I can shoot/punch them!
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| Well, those ruins look like they'll be overrun shortly. Can I kill his remaining Princes before the Broadsides go under? |
Grau Turn 2:
I knew that if I couldn't kill his two Princes this turn, I would probably lose. If I could kill them, the Raven + disparate elements of my forces would be capable of winning. The plan was simple: let the Screamers butcher my forces in the corner, but make them take lots of turns to do so. If I could make them stay in that quarter the rest of the game, I had no doubt I could kill 10 Plaguebearers, 10 Horrors, and the Keeper with a Raven, DK, and Riptide.
So, I ran the Kroots away from the Broadsides, making it unlikely that he'd be able to charge both Kroot and Broadsides. I also backed the Riptide/Command Suits away from the area. DKs converged on the DP on the top of the hill. Raven, deciding to try and get the Grimoire out, targeted the Screamers.
Shooting went about as planned - EVERYTHING I had (still considerable) went into his rightmost DP who was on the ground and only T6, killing him. Three mindstrikes later (remember, 2 base missiles, 1 more for Power of the Machine Spirit), and the Grimoire Herald was somehow still alive - I'd scattered terribly! . The unit was still impossible to kill. *cue Judge being called to see if I could target specific models with Mindstrikes - I could, though it didn't matter at that point*
Coteaz + 2 DKs charged the DP on the hill. He challenged, the DK with Prescience on him accepted, and we both struck at I1. He got a lot of great rolls, and killed the DK (4 unsaved wounds, which is generally very hard for an unbuffed DP to do to a DK, but dice are dice!). However, the DK also annihilated the DP, as he was only T5, and didn't even need to force weapon him.
Coteaz consolidated toward his suddenly free top board edge in order to 1) preserve Warlord and 2) gain Linebreaker. DK got a good consolidate roll and got off the hill, making for the Relic.
Demons Turn 3:
As time was running short already, I didn't take pictures for a while. My bad!
One of his dead DPs had the power of coming back to life after he was dead, and flew onto the board with one wound remaining, and my Commander shot him down, as he would likely be dying this turn anyways! *cue Judge being called to see if he could cast Iron Arm the turn he came in from reserves - he couldn't*
His Horrors came on this turn, and dropped in the far right corner, trying to stay away from my guys holding objectives.
The Screamers went for the Broadsides, and killed them really really hard, but lost a few of their number from my overwatch + I2 hitting before I1 (no grenades for the Screamers).
The Keeper decided to stay in the middle to keep me away from getting the Relic with my Henchmen in the Raven.
Grau Turn 3:
The Raven pivoted, drawing a bead on the Keeper. Riptide, in one of my dumber moments, decided to help block the Screamers from charging my Command Suits (like... really?? Why would I do that?)
Kroots came in and I positioned them on the top left to take an objective Shaun was unlikely to get to. DK started shambling toward the Keeper, even running to get to her in time! Coteaz kept meandering toward his deployment zone.
The Raven shot its remaining Mindstrike at the Keeper, and unloaded a bunch of other shots on her. Shaun failed some saves, and after my Command Suits shot at her, she fell over, dead! Whew! Surprisingly, no combat to be had this turn!
**At this point in the game, he had half a screamer star, some plagues, and pink horrors. I had... a DK, Riptide, 2 squads of Kroot, Command Suits, and the Raven, as well as two very unassuming Henchmen squads, one of them in the Raven.
Demons Turn 4:
Plaguebearers came in and auto-landed on the Relic! Doh!
Screamers did the smart thing, multi-charged my Kroot + Riptide. I killed a few more, but Shaun was a good player, and focused on killing like 8 Kroot, largely ignoring the Riptide. I lost combat, and the Riptide was run down. This was my worst mistake of the tournament thus far - the Riptide had no reason to be that close to the Kroot. Very rookie mistake on my part. :-/
Horrors shot at my advancing DK, and failed to do anything.
Grau Turn 4:
I was unsure of whether or not we would get another round in - Shaun seemed pretty sure he didn't want to play another Turn, as he was under the impression he would win if that was the case. As such, his Turn 4 was played very carefully.
I should take the time to say right now though that though Turn 4 seemed to take forever, Shaun was not slowplaying me. It felt like it, but he made every effort to make sure we had a Turn 5. I don't want this to come across as an accusation of slow playing.
Anyways!
I knew I could win this turn if things went as planned, essentially only needing me to kill 2 plaguebearers.
The Raven jumped to the top of the hill, and some Henchmen came in on the bottom left side of the board, to get at the corner objective there.
DK moved in, and through some careful shot selection, I killed the Plaguebearer holding the Relic. This would become contentious eventually, but I *did* kill the only models touching the Relic at the time.
The Raven killed a bunch of Horrors, who went to ground. Could I kill them all by Turn 5?
The DK charged into the Plagues, and killed a few. He made a very low leadership roll, and stayed stuck in.
*had the game ended here, I would have won - 2 objectives to 1 and Warlord, giving me a 4-1 advantage (we both had linebreaker). Had he even still been holding the Relic, It would have been 4-3 in my advantage*
 |
| Very depleted Screamer star is mostly out of the picture aside from some turbo-boosting. Note that the Henchmen on the right are where they are because at the start of my turn I asked him point-blank if we would be playing another Turn or not - he hesitated, then said "yes." This is huge, as he later expressed that he thought he would win the game if we had ended on Turn 4. Though he was wrong, it shows that he was a stand-up guy :) |
This would be our final turn. As such, he dropped one Herald off in my deployment zone and turbo'ed his Screamers up to contest my objective in the top left. Horrors were denied on a 4+ by Coteaz.
In combat, I again killed a bunch of Plagues, who again rolled really low for leadership. Doh!
Grau Turn 5:
Raven stayed put, and drew a bead on the Horrors.
Shooting saw me kill the remaining Horrors, just barely!
In combat, the DK had only 2 Plagues to kill, but only managed to kill 1. The Plague rolled leadership, and passed it again!
Not wanting to tempt fate, the Kroot just gawked at the Screamers.
Game Ended.
This is when the contention on the Relic came into play. He argued that he had passed the Relic on before I shot at the models holding the Relic. Though he hadn't physically moved the token or told me, I figured it made some sense. I would have fought it far harder had I not killed all his Horrors, as it would have given him the win.
As it was, I had:
1 objective to his 0
Warlord
Linebreaker
He had:
Linebreaker
 |
| End of game overview. |
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| Top-left objective, contested! Coteaz is getting Linebreaker for me! Go Coteaz!! |
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| Middle/Top Right of the board. One Plaguebearer and the DK are fighting. Horrors are all dead! |
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| Herald, getting Shaun Linebreaker, and in the distance, my 12-point troop squad holding an objective. Shaun had asked why my previous opponents hadn't just killed them immediately when he first read my list. Now he sees why :) |
Results: Very close Win for the Grau!
Post-game Thoughts:
Man, this game came down to the wire! It would have gotten quite heated if I hadn't killed his Horrors off the objective. As it was, the game was very well-fought by Shaun, who managed to stay in the battle despite losing his big guys early on!
My Riptide dying wasn't necessary, and I think the game was very complicated by that fact. I also think Shaun made a slight mistake by charging my Henchmen with his DP on Turn 2 rather than charging Coteaz. Coteaz would have probably died, *maybe* killed the DP with him, but at least then Shaun would have had Slay the Warlord.
We had a lot of rules issues, but the Judges ruled in my favor for most of them, and Shaun was a good sport about it. I could tell he was surprised at how much mileage I got out of the DKs, though he butchered them easily enough.
A list with almost no points devoted to troops may look weak, but man! It gave him so much more aggression, which in the ended, he needed. I thought taking the Portal Glyph would have been a good choice, and still think so. But, different strokes I guess :)
This put me at 3-0 for the Open, and 2-0 for the Invitational. I'd had two days where I hadn't lost a single game (granted, Thursday was only one game), and I was only one game from being in the Top Bracket, in contention to win the whole thing.
As it was, I was currently in the Top 8 of the Invitational, and the Top 32 of the Open. Not too bad! I'd already met my goal for the Invitational (good showing, win at least one game, haha) and was a single game away from also meeting my goal for the Open (get into the Top Bracket).
While I had played lots of Demons/Chaos thus far, my fate would turn, getting me games against Eldar, Tau, and Necrons.
Additionally, starting on Day 3, I would only play against Invitational players for my remaining games, as many of them were in my eventual bracket.
As it was, I went with my friend Marc Tomlinson to some random Thai place that I liked and he was neutral about, then watched the original Scary Movie in the hotel room before sleeping. I would wake up in the morning, and shift to the Invitational again.
Would I win another Invitational game and get into the Top 4? Could I get into the Top Bracket in the Open? Day 3 would determine all these things, and more.
Nova Invitational Game 3: Grau vs. Aaron Aleong's Eldar w/ Tau Allies!
His Bonafides: Aaron is a great player! The first time I played him was two years before, in the Top Bracket of the Nova Open. We played a very intense Game 5, where I (barely!) squeaked out a win. That same year I believe he went 4-1 in the Invitational (only losing in the final round) and won Renn. Man. He's the Indy Open Tournament Organizer, and in this instance, it looks like he won the Midwest GT to qualify for the Invitational. He's also been on the Adepticon Team Tournament Team "They Shall Know Fear" who have won that ridiculously tough event two years in a row now.
He's placed in top brackets all over the place, and probably won a few of them. This is going to be a very tough game.
His List: (from memory)
Eldar (Primary):
Farseer w/ Jetbike (Took Guide, Doom, Prescience powers)
5x Dire Avengers // Wave Serpent w/ Shuri-Cannon
5x Dire Avengers // Wave Serpent w/ Shuri-Cannon
5x Dire Avengers // Wave Serpent w/ Shuri-Cannon, Holofield
5x Fire Dragons // Wave Serpent w/ Shuri-Cannon, Holofield
5x Warp Spiders
5x Warp Spiders
Tau (Allies):
Commander w/ PenChip, Irridium Armor, Command and Control Node, Multi-Spectrum Sensor Suite
10x Kroots w/ 1x Kroot Hound
Riptide w/ Ion Accelerator, Early Warning Override, Velocity Tracker
2x Broadsides w/ ~2 Missile Drones, High Yield Missiles, Smart Missile System, Early Warning Override
The Mission:
Primary: 5 Objectives (one center of table, other four center of each quarter)
Secondary: Table Quarters
Tertiary: Kill Points/Linebreaker/Warlord --> Who has achieved the most of these?
Deployment:
Vanguard Strike
*We rolled off for first turn and I won the roll, giving Aaron first turn*
*Pregame Thoughts*
Ah... hahaha. You may not believe this, but this would be the first time I had played against the new Eldar. Nobody in my area plays them, and thus I was left with a bunch of theory-hammer against one of the best players in the nation. Not my idea of fair (haha)!
I knew that the key was to cut his mobility down, and keep him from pressuring me too bad. I had last turn, and also knew that he would have trouble killing all 4 of my MCs - Aaron had a lot of shooting, but not a ton of low AP weapons. The key would be to keep him from the center until the late game, and kill as many of his serpents as possible.
In order to win in an objectives mission, I needed to put pressure on every objective I could. As such, I positioned my Broadsides so as to threaten 4 of them - they had the bottom left, and had range to the center, top left, and bottom right. I would run the DKs around to force Aaron to try and deal with them, and force him to stay back and shoot mostly ineffective shots at them.
Man, he had so many tools! I was a big fan of his list, but was unhappy that I would be playing against him as my first run vs. the new Eldar.
 |
| I outflanked both Kroots this turn - they would do me more good coming onto a board edge I wanted. Note the Riptide on the top left with the Positional Relay - I'd have the option to jump him up to the top board edge and move the Kroots on from there. Aaron decided to deepstrike one squad of Spiders and put his Bikes into regular reserves. |
Aaron shuffled his guys around, and put his Tau Commander and Farseer on Bike with his Riptide.
Then, he did something I hadn't forseen: he shot all his Broadside and Serpent shots into the Henchmen. Then, once Coteaz had shifted all the wounds away from him, Aaron shot the Riptide's S7 AP2 shots into Coteaz, with the Commander letting him reroll to hit and ignore cover. Coteaz went down like a chump.
Honestly, great idea by him - I would have nuked his Broadsides in the next turn if he hadn't!
The Spiders shot at a DK and didn't do anything. He then rolled his assault move away and only got double 1's!
Kill Point Count:
Grau: 0
Taudar: 2 (Coteaz, Henchmen)
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| Great move by Aaron to start the game. Note the Spiders out in the open there without a good assault move. |
Grau Turn 1:
My Broadsides were in range and barely had line of sight to one of his Serpents through the ruins, and so stayed where they were. The Riptide moved up behind the top left hill, and prepared to shoot at the enemy Broadsides. DKs got into position to shoot up the Spiders - I wasn't quite close enough to assault them.
Shooting didn't do much - I overheated the Riptide's big gun, and the Broadsides (despite ignoring cover) only knocked off a turret on the Wave Serpent and stunned it. However, I did manage to wipe out the Spiders to a man. Small victories, haha
Kill Point Count:
Grau: 1 (Spiders)
Taudar: 2 (Coteaz, Henchmen)
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| Man it would have been awesome if I could have killed that Serpent! The game might have been very different if I had... |
Aaron got his two squads of Bikes in from reserve, but the Spiders stayed in reserve.
He played coy with me, and hid most of his Serpents, keeping them out of range of the Broadsides, hiding his Bikes behind the bottom right hill. Man, those things could move!
His shooting took 3 wounds off of a DK, and the turn shifted to me.
Kill Point Count:
Grau: 1 (Spiders)
Taudar: 2 (Coteaz, Henchmen)
A squad of Kroot came in from Reserves, and I foolishly outflanked them onto Aaron's board edge, thinking to shoot rear armor with rapid fire. Aaron just intercepted with his Broadsides and killed them all. Wow, very dumb mistake on my part!
I decided to un-clump my DKs, as they were in prime position to be shot by his own Riptide's blast weapon. Some of the Broadsides moved further to the right to get range on his bottom Wave Serpent, and my Riptide stayed in the top left corner to protect from the Jetbikes trying to control it in the final turn.
My shooting managed to kill two Jetbikes who had strayed too close, and the Wave Serpent. My riptide again failed to do much - maybe he killed a Missile drone or something?
Bikes passed their Morale test, and it was back to Aaron!
Kill Point Count:
Grau: 2 (Spiders, Wave Serpent)
Taudar: 3 (Coteaz, Henchmen, Kroots)
 |
| So far, this game has been very tactical. He can't approach the middle so long as the DKs are there, and I can't get range on him. However, at this point I felt like I had a good table position, despite the terrible blunder I made with the Kroot. Man, what was I thinking? |
Taudar Turn 3:
His Spiders came in, and took a change by deepstriking behind my broadsides. They got a Hit though, and were in excellent position to shoot my guys. His Kroot also came in, and decided to be wiser than mine were.
Aaron moved his Serpents back to his board edge again in a little formation thing you'll see. His bikes moved away, behind the hill, and he set up to shoot at me!
I failed a lot of 2+ saves, and one Riptide died, while another took a couple wounds. The Spiders didn't manage to do anything too special, instead shooting at my Command Suits and only killing one of them and passed his Morale.
Kill Point Count:
Grau: 2 (Spiders, Wave Serpent)
Taudar: 4 (Coteaz, Henchmen, Kroots, DK)
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| See his Spiders there on the bottom left, hugging the building? Notice his Avengers huddling in the terrain there fearful :) |
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| Hey look, I took a picture of them! Spiders only killed one of the Suits. Woot! |
At this point, I was content with the way the game was going - he was having trouble killing my big guys, and was out of position to really hurt me much. Once he made his inevitable move, I would have a turn or two to react and shoot his guys down.
This turn I would not be in range of the majority of his army, and would therefore be more concerned with killing off his Spyders and maintaining my table position.
As such, I simply shot SMS's at the Spiders, as well as some other missiles and such. Aaron rolled well, and only lost three, but failed leadership and fled. Man, what an unproductive turn for me, haha!
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| In my next turn, my Kroot will arrive, as will the Raven. |
Aaron positioned his Serpents to make a move on Turn 5, as well as his Bikes.
Shooting predictably did very little, though I did an excellent job of failing more saves on DKs. Both remaining had roughly 2 remaining. His Spiders again didn't do much, as they could only snap-fire after rallying.
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| Well, I'm holding. Will I be able to pull off the upset? |
Grau Turn 4:
My reserves all came in - the Henchmen ran into the ruins into what I was *sure* a place he wouldn't be able to see them. The Kroots came in on the top board edge (positional relay from the Riptide) but only got 1" run. Raven, with its precious troops stayed out of range of his Broadsides, the troops it carried being far more valuable than risking a few shots.
Broadsides shot down the Fire Dragon Wave Serpent (finally!) and the Riptide had a clear shot at the Dragons after they disembarked, killing 4 of them. I also had Range and Line of Sight to his cowering Dire Avengers on the hill with one of my Broadsides, and killed the remaining 3. Sweet! The flamers from the DKs also claimed the lives of the two remaining Spiders, putting me ahead in kill points!
Kill Point Count:
Grau: 5 (Spiders, Wave Serpent, Wave Serpent, Dire Avengers, Spiders)
Taudar: 4 (Coteaz, Henchmen, Kroots, DK)
*final picture*
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| It will be a very close game at this point, though I actually think I have the advantage right now. Note the position of the Henchmen hugging the wall... |
This meant that we would probably draw primary (objectives), draw secondary (quarters), draw tertiary (he would have Warlord, I would likely have Killpoints) and go down to total battle points destroyed, where I wasn't actually sure where we stood.
The game looked to be a very close one indeed.
Taudar Turn 5:
Aaron moved his topmost Serpent downward toward the center objective, disembarked his Avengers, shot some shots at the DK in the middle, and ran (reroll fleet after shooting is so good!) on to the objective.
The three-man bike squad jetted over to the top left objective (48" is sooo fast!), and the single-man bike jetted over to contest my bottom-left objective, while more Dire Avengers climbed out of his Serpent, running to claim the bottom-right objective.
His shooting devastated me. He killed a couple Kroot, causing them to flee. He killed the single Henchman he could see, and caused them to run 11" off the board. Very poor positioning on my part. Finally, he killed my bottom-right DK after a flurry of failed saves.
Kill Point Count:
Grau: 5 (Spiders, Wave Serpent, Wave Serpent, Dire Avengers, Spiders)
Taudar: 6 (Coteaz, Henchmen, Kroots, DK, DK, Henchmen)
Grau Turn 5:
We were unsure if there was time for a Turn 6, though we decided to try for it (we would of course roll first).
I had my work cut out for me. Generally speaking, I couldn't actually win the game this turn, as my troops (who I thought were unseeable!) had run away, leaving me one objective shy. I would need to kill lots of his stuff this turn and hope for a Turn 6, where I thought I would be likely to win.
So, I moved my remaining DK to the ruins to contest the center objective. The remaining Command suit moved out to shoot the lone Bike in my Quarter, and the Riptide moved to contest/charge his bikes there. The Kroot rallied, but would be out of range to hold that objective. I dropped my own Henchmen behind the hill to the left, and turned the Raven to shoot at his topmost Serpent.
Shooting killed a single Bike on the top left objective, but they passed their leadership. Other shooting managed to kill his lone contesting Bike in the bottom left, and my Smart Missiles killed a couple Dire Avengers in the center ruins, but they passed leadership. Raven flew over and did a point or two on his topmost Serpent. Don't remember if I destroyed it or not though :-/
Riptide charged in and killed the remaining Bikes on the top left objective.
At this point, Aaron held two objectives (top right and bottom right), had a contested objective in the center, and I held 0 objectives.
I desperately needed the game to continue, after which I thought I had a good chance to win.
Kill Point Count:
Grau: 7 (Spiders, Wave Serpent, Wave Serpent, Dire Avengers, Spiders, Bikes, Bikes)
Taudar: 6 (Coteaz, Henchmen, Kroots, DK, DK, Henchmen)
We rolled and... the game would continue! I would be able to move my Kroot onto an objective, shoot his Avengers off the Bottom Right one, contest the center with my full-life Riptide, and win on battlepoints!
Directly after this, we heard an announcement of "don't start another turn."
I wanted to play another turn of course, and Aaron understandably didn't. We decided to dice it off.
We rolled and...
...the game ended there. After I had thought I'd get Turn 6. Ah damnit.
*I want to note right here that this was almost the exact situation we had been in in our most recent game - Aaron had wanted another turn when we were out of time, I didn't, and so we rolled off - giving him the final turn he wanted. Though it stung, I feel like we did the right thing. Still... to be so close to having that Turn 6 and then have it taken away! Ouch!
That being said, Aaron is a great player - he may have found a way to negate much of my plans on Turn 6. We'll never know, though that doesn't stop me from feeling like I could have won!
To add more salt in the wound, it turns out I would have won the tiebreaker, as we added up our total points killed and I edged him by about 100 points. :-/
Invitational Round 3 Results: Loss for the Grau!!
Post-game Thoughts:
Ah man... so close! Aaron was a great opponent as I expected, and it was a very good, very close game. As a sidenote, he would go on to win the Invitational, putting yet another feather in his hat. Such a close game!
I felt that my strategy was actually mostly sound, in spite of my poor handling of where Coteaz should have gone, as well as the Kroot. Who's to say how the game would have gone had I not made those two mistakes?
However, the one I am still kicking myself over is where I put my Henchmen he sniped off the objective in the back left quarter. It didn't have to happen, and I could have been more careful. Great play by Aaron for recognizing it, and an extremely costly one for myself.
Pretty intense game for the first Eldar I'd played against! I guess I'm just glad I gave him as close a game as it was!
As it was, the Open games were about to start, and I still had a chance to do well there! The first game would determine our brackets, and my goal going in was to get into the Top Bracket. If I could win the next game, I'd have achieved both of my goals this tournament.
Little did I know that my next opponent was also in the Invitational, and was also playing Eldar....
Nova Open Game 4: Grau vs. Mark Aksel's Eldar with Tau Allies!!
His List:
Eldar Ianden (or however you spell that) (Primary):
Eldrad
5x Spirit Seers
10x Wraithguard
5x Dire Avengers // Wave Serpent
5x Dire Avengers // Wave Serpent
5x Dire Avengers // Wave Serpent
3x Eldar Jetbikes w/ Cannon
3x Eldar Jetbikes w/ Cannon
Tau (Allies):
Tau Commander w/ 2x Drones, Fusion Blaster, Irridium Armor, PenChip, Hit and Run
10x Kroots
The Mission:
Primary: 5 Objectives (one center of table, other four center of each quarter)
Secondary: Table Quarters
Tertiary: Kill Points/Linebreaker/Warlord --> Who has achieved the most of these?
Deployment:
Vanguard Strike
*We rolled off for first turn and he won, electing to go first*
Pregame Thoughts:
This being only my second game against Eldar, I wasn't sure at all what to expect from his list. I quickly realized that the big Wraithstar would be unkillable if he got first turn, as he had both the power that gives him +1 to his save as well as Fortune with Eldrad. My only hope would be to charge in with all three DKs and kill most/all of them. I actually didn't quite get the Commander's place in there either.
My plan was to bait his Star over to mess around with my DKs, all the while actually planning on controlling the right side with outflanking Kroot, Storm Raven, Henchmen, and the Broadsides shooting down his Serpents.
Killing his Star, I realized, wouldn't actually be necessary for me to win. They weren't fast enough to actually give me a ton of trouble once they were committed to a place.
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| Here are our deployments. Note that this is before Eldrad decided to re-deploy his Wraiths to the far left corner of his deployment zone. All my models had made sure to be outside of the 29" (or whatever range they had once they ran) threat range, but his redployment threw me off big time! |
EldauTurn 1:
He failed one of his vital spells (Ld. 9 fail), and wouldn't be able to shoot at my models first turn with the Wraiths. So, I had that in my favor - otherwise, he had an excellent chance to kill one of my MCs right off the bat, which is never good!
His shooting didn't do much - mostly just tried to put wounds on MCs, and generally failed. Wraithguard advanced as far up as they could, and spread out, after having passed Fortune. There would be no living with them now.
Kill Point Count:
Me: 0
Eldau: 0
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| You can see that his topmost Serpent is trying to get to the objective over on the top left, where the Wraiths would easily screen me from accessing them. Also note that his bikes on the right are not in, but rather in reserve. |
Well, I needed to stay out of his threat bubble and draw the Wraiths over to my quarter. I also needed to stop that Wave Serpent with the Dire Avengers before they could hide behind the hill the whole game and ruin my gameplan.
So, I backed up my MCs, and shot lots of shots. I killed the Wave Serpent easily, though the Dire Avengers passed their leadership.
Kill Point Count:
Me: 1 (Wave Serpent)
Eldau: 0
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| See the Dire Avengers out of their ride. Let's see if I can keep it up - one Serpent/turn! |
His Wraiths advanced while his remaining Serpents backed up a bunch, against the table edge.
His Bikes all came in, and likewise stayed on the far right board edge.
Shooting was limited to two or three Wraiths shooting at a DK, who failed a save or two but was not insta-deathed.
Kill Point Count:
Me: 1 (Wave Serpent)
Eldau: 0
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| Now would be an excellent time for all my Kroots to arrive and shoot his Bikes! |
Grau Turn 2:
Both Kroot squads came on, as well as the Storm Raven. The Kroots came in on the right side (acute sense FTW) and the Raven went to challenge that side as well.
Meanwhile, sensing that my DK could get stuck in combat vs. the Wraiths for forever (he had removed his Tau Commander from the squad for some reason?, I moved a DK up to charge the Wraiths, and foolishly detached Coteaz as well, thinking that so long as the Wraiths were tied up forever, Coteaz was expendible as cannon fodder.
On the right side, the Kroots shot and killed one full squad of bikes. The Broadsides had shuffled around and some had to snap-fire at a Wave Serpent, but the bottom-most one died all the same. Storm Raven shot at and stunned the other one, bringing it down to 1 HP left, while the Kroot + Storm Raven Machine Spirit shot at and destroyed a full Avenger squad.
In combat, Coteaz charged first, and was shot down immediately. The DK made its 5" charge, and killed three Wraiths, who were fearless and stayed in combat. I expected that combat to take the rest of the game.
Kill Point Count:
Me: 4 (Wave Serpent, Wave Serpent, Dire Avengers, Bikes)
Eldau: 1 (Coteaz)
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| So, his Serpents are almost all dead, but still lots of stuff for me to deal with on the right side of the board. |
He started off by Jinxing my DK, bringing him down to a 3+ save, and told me he was going to challenge with Eldrad, who had an AP3 Force Weapon that wounded on 2's. Uh... whoops.
Jetbikes moved over to mess with some Kroots, and his Dire Avengers from both vehicles would annihilate my poor Kroot if he rolled well. He failed to get his own Kroots in from reserves.
Dire Avengers and Bikes did indeed take their toll on my Kroots, but only the bottom one fled with three members left - enough to rally on normal leadership!
In combat, Eldrad WTFPWN'ed my Hapless DK at I5, and the wraiths consolidated into the ruins in the center of the table.
Kill Point Count:
Me: 4 (Wave Serpent, Wave Serpent, Dire Avengers, Bikes)
Eldau: 2 (Coteaz, DK)
Grau Turn 3:
Seeing the opportunity presented, my Raven went into hover mode and decided to shoot a bunch of missiles at a couple of Seers clumped together with good powers. The DKs and Riptide maintained a healthy distance from the Wraiths, but skirted up to the top left quarter in order to stop his Kroot from outflanking there and holding that objective at the end of the game.
Broadsides shot and killed his final Serpent, while the Raven's POTMS shot its Assault Cannon at the Dire Avengers from the explosion, killing a couple and pinning them. The Kroots on the top hussled over to the building and shot some shots at the remaining Dire Avengers from the first Serpent explosion, killing most of them (they died shortly thereafter at the very least, so we'll say they're dead now).
Storm Raven got two hits with its mindstrikes and killed two Seers, one of which was the one who gave the Wraiths Battle Focus.
Keep in mind that he still had a squad of Kroot outflanking....
Kill Point Count:
Me: 8 (Wave Serpent, Wave Serpent, Dire Avengers, Bikes, Dire Avengers, Seer, Seer, Wave Serpent)
Eldau: 2 (Coteaz, DK)
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| Also keep in mind that the ruins on the bottom left has the big henchmen squad. Note that my bottom Kroot squad rallied and went away to hide from the bad men. |
Eldau Turn 4:
Sensing my weakness in my own table quarter, he advanced the Wraiths in that direction to try shooting my poor henchmen out of the building.
It worked to an extent, though there remained about 2 Henchmen in the building, who passed their leadership. Dire avengers shot and killed some of my top Kroots, after which his Bikes charged the Kroot and killed them.
Kill Point Count:
Me: 8 (Wave Serpent, Wave Serpent, Dire Avengers, Bikes, Dire Avengers, Seer, Seer, Wave Serpent)
Eldau: 3 (Coteaz, DK, Kroots)
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| He will be able to hold whichever objective he chooses - there's no real doubt of that happening now. But can he contest/hold the right side? Also note his Kroot on the left side - they had no idea my DKs were there with their flamers, did they? |
DKs moved over to flame some interloping Kroots, while the Raven moved over to shoot at his Bikes and prepared to grab the objective from the stubborn Avengers hanging out in the middle of the ruins.
My shooting removed his bikes entirely, but failed to shift the Avengers in the ruins, while the DKs entirely destroyed his Kroots.
Kill Point Count:
Me: 10 (Wave Serpent, Wave Serpent, Dire Avengers, Bikes, Dire Avengers, Seer, Seer, Wave Serpent, Bike, Kroots)
Eldau: 3 (Coteaz, DK, Kroots)
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| See how the Henchmen are holding the hill on the right, while the Riptide is scooting along the board edge to contest objective in Turn 5/6 as needed. |
Taudar Turn 5:
We decided this would be our last turn. As such, Mark split his big squad up, with the ICs going to charge the Henchmen in the bottom left and and the Wraiths clamping down hard on the center objective. Dire Avengers stayed where they were in the top right building.
Shooting removed my Tau Commander and two Broadsides (Commander could have contested the center objective if he stayed alive), but the remaining one was the squad leader and passed leadership :)
ICs went in and charged my Henchmen, who died.
Kill Point Count:
Me: 10 (Wave Serpent, Wave Serpent, Dire Avengers, Bikes, Dire Avengers, Seer, Seer, Wave Serpent, Bikes, Kroots)
Eldau: 5 (Coteaz, DK, Kroots, Henchmen, Tau Commander)
Grau Turn 5:
I didn't want to drag the game out, so I just moved the Raven over to drop off its henchmen in the top right objective and shot stuff at his Wraiths in the center to see if I could get some more battle points for the tiebreaker, which was what I felt it might go down to.
Primary:
He held one objective (center)
I held one objective (Bottom right)
Secondary:
He held two quarters (Bottom Left and Top Right)
I held two quarters (Top Left and Bottom Right)
Tertiary:
He had Slay the Warlord and Linebreaker
I had Killpoints and Linebreaker
Tiebreaker:
He had killed 857 of my points
I had killed 1034 of his points, not including my 50-point bonus for First Blood.
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| Wow, much closer than I anticipated! |
Nova Open Game 4 Results: Very narrow win for the Grau!!
Post-game thoughts:
Well, this game turned into an ass-clencher. His Wraiths were impossible to shift, and I think I made the right choice in just trying to occupy the space they were not in. That being said, his Dire Avengers had a great place to hide from my Raven, and he also had so many scoring units that I had a hard time accounting for all of them. To top it off, my Riptide failed his Nova charge to get his 4d6 assault jump, which (we rolled it just for fun) would have gotten the distance necessary to contest his center objective. Ah well.
I think the key to my win was that I was able to kill his Serpents reasonably quickly, which forced the game into a kind of 2-pronged game, each side devoid of support from the other. While my DKs cowered in fear of trying to get into combat with the Wraithguard (ironically), the Wraithguard could only be in one place, allowing my Raven to really do a lot of my heavy lifting.
If I had been wise, I would have had one of my DKs deepstrike, and he would have torn up the entire right flank on his own. Dire Avengers get what kind of save vs. my flamer? :)
I was also a bit ignorant, leading to errors I would not have normally made - his Jinxing my save to a 3+ was something I didn't even think about, as well as Eldrad's redeployment shenanigans.
The one thing I think he could have done better was to shoot up my Broadsides sooner. They would have died to a single volly from the Wraiths, and were kind of the whole reason I won the game, as they killed all his Serpents.
Anyways, at that point, I had met my second goal: get into the top bracket. That meant that in every major event I attended in the last year (Feast of Blades, Adepticon, Bugeater, and now Nova) I had made it into the top bracket every single time (top 8 or top 16, depending on the tournament). I would always prefer to be in the top bracket and lose every game to getting into a lower bracket and win the rest of the games - guess that's just me!
Looking at the rest of Bracket 1, I saw that nearly every person in that Bracket was also in the Invitational, with a few notable exceptions. I was glad to be in such elite company :)
Nova Open Game 5: Grau vs. Alex Harrison's Tau w/ Tau Allies!!
His List (put it all together - Crisis Suits are scoring)
Commander w/ Penchip, Irridium Armor, Drone Controller, Multi-spectrum Sensor Suite, Command and Control Node
Ethereal
10x Kroot w/ Kroot Hound
10x Kroot w/ Kroot Hound
10x Kroot w/ Kroot Hound
10x Kroot w/ Kroot Hound
3x Crisis Suits w/ 2x Missile Pods, Target Lock, 6x Marker Drones
Riptide w/ Ion Accelerator, Fusion Blaster. Early Warning Override, Velocity Tracker
Riptide w/ Heavy Burst Cannon, Fusion Blaster, Early Warning Override, Velocity Tracker
(one of the Riptides had the Earth Caste Pilot, and another had the awesome 4d6 Deny the Witch bubble - don't remember if that meant he had Velocity Trackers or not, sorry. Bad thing about writing these at work :-/)
~9x Sniper Drones w/ 3x Drone Controler characters (BS5 WTF?)
3x Broadsides w/ 6x Missile Drones, High Yield Missiles, Smart Missiles, Early Warning Override
Skyray
Skyray
Mission:
Mission Points: Whoever gets more points wins the game!
4 Corner Objectives = 2 Mission Points (not 2 each, 2 total if you have more than your opponent
1 Center Objective = 1 Mission Point
Slay the Warlord = 1 Mission Point
Linebreaker = 1 Mission Point
Deployment: Hammer and Anvil
*Alex won the roll to go first and decided to take first turn*
Pre-game Thoughts:
This would be my 4th game against the new Tau, and my very first against Tau + Farsight enclave. This would also be a rough one for me, as Alex had also won his first two games in the Invitational, and butchered his way through the Open on his way to this game. Further, he was from England, and insulted my accent right away! Alex is a member of England's ETC team (I believe he did the best on his team overall, actually?) and is quite a good player.
My thoughts were this: Yikes.
But seriously, he had a counter to most of my stuff. I figured it would take him a while to actually kill off my DKs, but otherwise, my Raven would get one turn of glory before being killed by his Skyrays, while my Kroot were trumped by his Kroot. Further, the volume of missiles and sniper shots were daunting.
I would need to apply pressure on Alex as quickly as possible, forcing him to shoot at my DKs for a couple turns while my shooting whittled down his own. The Plasma Cannons would be helpful this turn, and if Alex wanted to get linebreaker, he would need to face Coteaz' Misfortune in conjunction with the rest of the army's shooting.
I was realistic about this game: I would be hard-pressed to get Linebreaker, and we would almost certainly draw on the 4 objectives. The two variable objectives then were the center one (which he held the advantage to grab) and Slay the Warlord.
The thing is, killing his Warlord would be tough, though doable. His Kroot would almost certainly be needed to hold other objectives, and I was inclined to believe that the center objective would be held by Alex only with his huge Crisis Suit unit, probably with the Commander to soak up wounds while they poured on the firepower (I love that Crisis build, by the way - super mobile, very resilient, and can affect two different units with the BS5 Marker Drones and Missile Suits shooting at different targets).
So, the key was to whittle down his Crisis squad as best I could, killing the Commander and eventually stopping him from claiming the center objective. Coteaz would hide like a little girl, and I could potentially win, 1-0. At least, that was what I hoped for.
Tau/Tau Turn 1:
Alex wasted no time - his Riptides and suits advanced, as did his Sniper Drones.
Shooting was much more devastating than I had anticipated - Alex managed to kill two DKs after a flurry of absolutely horrible rolls on my part. As in, the Sniper Drones (who were within triple-tap range of me w/ Ethereal hiding nearby) killed one of them with like 10 wounds or something. He also wounded my Commander at least once.
He did his assault moves (snipers got a big jump, and he took advantage of it).
Not at all a good start. As in, I figured I had lost the game right there.
I must also note that I deployed poorly - there was no reason to have my DK within 30" of his Sniper Drones. That death was on me almost entirely. Very poor start.
Grau Turn 1:
I decided that I would still try to win - though Alex had shown that he didn't have much to fear from my poor MCs, he couldn't expect to have another round like that one. And really, I only needed to kill a squad of his in order to force the game into a very close one.
So, I advanced my remaining DK and Riptide, as well as a few of my Broadsides to be in range of his Sniper drones to take advantage of the fact that his Drone Controller characters were mostly in the front of the unit)
Shooting went alright, though the Plasma Cannons scattered far for all 6 rolls I made (Prescience for the fail). The Broadsides managed to kill all three of the Drone Controller characters in the Sniper unit, as well as several of his Drones.
Overall, I managed to criple his shooting a small bit, getting rid of three markerlights and some drones.
Really, not a great turn for me. His firepower was mostly undiminished. Could I possibly still win this fiasco of a game?
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| Ah, here's a picture finally! We had both decided to outflank our Kroots - you can see he's wondering where to put his own Kroot for his turn - Hint: he actually put them far in his backfield to ensure he could score. Notice how Coteaz is being a coward in the back there! |
Alex continued his plod toward the center, but decided to be a bit more cautious about it, as he didn't need to get too close to my lines.
His shooting killed my Tau Commander, though it didn't really accomplish more than that. Still, big blow to suffer for me, as now I would no longer ignore cover/have more shots.
This game was beginning to look rather grim...
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| His Kroot are all in and on his own side. Mine have yet to make an appearance, though it has become somewhat obvious where I need to put them if I am to win this game... |
My Raven came in, as did my Kroot squads and Henchmen. I decided to keep the Raven 36" away from his Broadsides, to avoid getting shot down immediately. Still, the Burst Cannon Riptide shot at hit, and did at least one Hull Point of damage.
The DK and Riptide both decided to begin advancing toward Alex, giving him more things to shoot if he wanted.
Shooting went better this turn - the Plasma Cannons did a couple wounds to front Riptide and also killed a few Marker Drones and even put two wounds on his Commander. The Raven (knowing this would be its final turn of life) also shot into the Crisis squad, killing a full Crisis suit and a few more drones as well.
My Riptide took a shot at the Broadsides and killed a few of the Drones instead.
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| You can see the dice on the Raven. I didn't have long to live anyways, as Alex had been saving his Skyray Missiles for it. You can see that the Suits have been whittled down a bit, and that the Riptide + DK are meandering upward. My own Kroots, knowing they were outmatched by Alex's own Kroot on each objective, came on my own sides to make sure I could hold my objectives. |
Alex decided to move forward, making sure he was in range to jump into Linebreaker when he needed it.
His shooting was a bit more sporadic, killing off my Raven and putting a couple wounds on the Riptide and DK. He also killed a Broadside.
My army was getting pulverized, but Alex would only have a couple more turns to shoot at me, and it wasn't looking like he would be able to kill everything of mine - he would really have to work hard to kill both my Riptide and DK to keep me from contesting the middle.
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| His topless Riptides are both moving forward to threaten my lines. His Broadsides are also on the move to threaten me some. Note that his Commander is actually attached to the Broadsides this turn. |
Grau Turn 3:
I knew that I would need to kill his Riptide approaching me, but the Broadsides were too big of a target. My Riptide and DK both shuffled over to mess with Alex's center, and hopefully finish off his Commander.
Shooting did a bit of damage to Alex. The Plasma Cannons targeted further back in the Broadside unit, hitting about 3 models, and doing enough wounds to kill most of his Drones, as well as his Commander. Whew! One of my goals had been accomplished!
Shooting also did a bit of damage to his closest Riptide, bringing it down to a managable 2 wounds remaining. Also, the Riptide + DK shot up his Crisis unit, killing it down to a single Suit and two Drones. Everyone passed their leadership though. Doh!
Tau/Tau Turn 4:
Alex did what he could, and targeted my Riptide, as he needed to make sure I wouldn't be able to sneak in and get Linebreaker or contest an objective on his side. After the smoke cleared, the Riptide had barely died, though the DK remained alive! He also killed another Broadside of mine. One remaining.
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| His closest Riptide has two wounds remaining. This was turning into a very close game indeed! Note that he positioned his Riptide to prevent Coteaz from casting Misfortune on him. Good move :-/ |
I advanced the DK and shot a single Marker Drone in the Crisis unit, killing it. Other shots went into his nearest Riptide, and Alex passed all his saves! Really a fail turn for me, as the game had been getting very close indeed.
However, I could win the game somewhat handily if he were to fail his Ld. 8 check on the Crisis Suits this turn. He rolled an "8" and passed.
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| Crisis Suit + Drone are the only ones remaining in that squad, hiding from my lone Broadside remaining. |
This would be our final turn, due to time constraints. As such, Alex jumped his Crisis Suits over to hold the objective, and shot everything at my DK, who died easily. Almost as an afterthought, he also shot and killed my final Broadside, as well as one of my Command Suits. Yikes.
One thing of note happened though: his Earth Caste Pilot failed both his rolls on the closest Riptide, bringing his Riptide down to a single wound! This would be a very close game indeed.
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| His close DK is currently within Linebreaker range, and also contesting my objective. His suit + drone are both in range of the center objective. I will need to shoot them both off of it if I'm to win. |
Well, I had my work cut out for me. If I killed his Riptide (with one wound remaining), I would hold two objectives while he held two. Neither of us would get Linebreaker. I had Slay the Warlord, and he would be holding the center objective with two fairly flimsy models.
I knew I couldn't win with tiebreakers - Alex had ravaged my army in a way no one else had done to this point in the tournament, and was far ahead in Battle Points. So, I needed to kill one wound off his Riptide, and kill an indeterminate number of wounds on his Suit squad.
I started by casting Misfortune on his Riptide, who failed his 4d6 Deny roll. I moved Coteaz + henchmen over to threaten his Riptide, thinking to desperation-charge him if needed rather than shoot Plasma. One Command Suit died to terrain, and I misplaced my other one, only giving him line of sight to the Riptide and not the Crisis squad.
The Kroot all managed to kill the Riptide, causing enough wounds that he (with Misfortune) failed a save and died!
This left me Coteaz' squad shooting plasma and long-range bolters at his Crisis unit.
I caused a total of 5 wounds and he went to ground for a 3+ cover save. I would hit the Suit first, forcing him to lose two wounds in order to take a check to flee.
He rolled and... passed all 5 saves.
Game over.
I then realized my folly - the Command Suit should have moved to have Line of Sight to his Crisis squad, but I had forgotten to. I wasn't going to try to 'take it back', but we did roll to see if it would have worked out.
He would have lost his Suit and the Drone would have fled, giving me the game.
HAHA how close is that? A single bad move away from coming back and winning!
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| The Riptide is actually dead. See how the suit sholud have moved higher up? One more level would have gotten me the win. heh... sad panda :( |
Nova Open Game 5 Results: Very narrow loss for the Grau!!
Post-game Thoughts:
Ah man, I will forever be kicking myself for that bad move at the end! It was so close, and we were kind of rushed, but that's no excuse for making such a bad decision!
Overall, I'm very proud of the way I played this game. I recognized that the only way to win the game was to force him to shoot at things he didn't want to shoot at, and killed the things I needed to kill. He passed a ton of leadership checks with his Crisis squad, and had he failed even one, I had a great chance to win the game.
In the end, it came down to a few dice, and that's the best kind of game. How glorious would my win have been if I had pulled it off?? Ah well...
At this point, I had been eliminated from both tournaments. My paint score was average, and I had drawn two games, giving me 20 fewer battle points than maximum - I wouldn't be able to win at Battle Points either.
But I decided to play my final game for the day, especially after I saw who I was matched with:
Nova Open Game 6: Grau vs. Werner Born's Necrons w/ Tau Allies!
His List: (from memory)
Necrons (Primary):
Necron Overlord w/ Catacomb Command Barge, Warscythe, Mindshackle Scarabs
5x Warriors // Nightscythe
5x Warriors // Nightscythe
5x Warriors // Nightscythe
5x Warriors // Nightscythe
Annihilation Barge
Annihilation Barge
Annihilation Barge
Tau (Allies):
Commander w/ all the awesome (don't make me type all that out again, please!)
10x Kroot w/ Hound
Riptide w/ Ion Accelerator
3x Broadsides w/ some Missile Drones
The Mission:
The Scouring (fast attack is scoring)
5x Objectives, with new placement (1 Objective placed in the center, then 2 Objectives placed 18" away on either end, along the center line, with 2 player-placed objectives)
Primary: Objectives
Secondary: Table Quarters
Tertiary: Slay the Warlord + Linebreaker + Kill Points (whoever gets more of these - winning Kill Points was only worth 1 toward this total)
Deployment: Dawn of War
*He won the roll to go first, and handed me first turn*
Pre-game Thoughts:
Well, as some of you may know, Werner was the guy who took me out of the Top Bracket at Adepticon, making a very close (and extremely fun) game go in his favor. So, I hoped to get revenge.
It is notable that though I hadn't won every game's dice roll for first turn, this was the first time I would actually be going first, a crazy feat in 9 total games thus far.
Werner had hidden his objective over in the far left corner, presumably so his Warriors could claim it easily if they got shot out of their ride, while I had placed mine in a similar location. My thoughts were this: his scoring was very mobile, but would also be forced to sit around on the objectives the rest of the game if he got them out right away. I guessed that Werner would wait to get his troops out until the end-ish of the game.
As such, I wanted to make sure he couldn't get his top-left placed objective, and put my Broadsides in a place that would threaten all 5 objectives.
Shooting his Fliers out of the air was Priority #1. If I could make them all fall down before getting their troops out, I could deny him every objective and just sit on a single objective to victory.
So, I put all three DKs on the left side to threaten his objective, while the Broadside sat in a swamp in the middle and Coteaz + Riptide hung out on the far right to discourage his Kroot from outflanking there, and also to give Werner something to chew on while I secured the left side.
Grau Turn 1:
The DKs moved up and ran toward his mostly empty objective side - he had castled up on the far right to avoid the DKs.
My shooting was a head-scratcher. The two Command Suits took aim at one of his AV13 Annihilation Barges (hereafter "ABs") and ... somehow glanced it to death despite his cover save? Then, my Broadsides with Tankhunter shot at another AB and caused zero damage. More shots, twinlinked Tankhunter does no damage while 8 shots killed one?
Probably came to about average, really.
Plasma Cannons + Riptide did a little damage to his Riptide/suits, but not much.
Kill Point Count:
Me: 1 (AB)
TauCrons: 0
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| Notice how Werner is castled up there behind his hill. His objective is on the far left side of the board, just behind the ruins, while mine is with Coteaz in the ruins on the bottom right. Werner had left his Command Barge in reserve and outflanked his Kroots. |
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| He had hidden the Broadsides well away from me. The AB on the left is dead, btw. |
He moved his ABs up, moved the Broadsides up, and attached his Commander to the Riptide.
Shooting commenced, and at the end, Coteaz + Henchmen were entirely destroyed. Yikes!
Kill Point Count:
Me: 1 (AB)
TauCrons: 2 (Coteaz, Henchmen)
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| The dude on the bottom by this text are actually dead Henchmen, ha. Will his castle serve him well? What reserves will come in for me? |
I only got a single unit of Kroot in from reserves, and decided to jump to the left, as there was no point pretending I could take the right-side objective.
I kept the Riptide behind the ruins, knowing that if Werner wanted to jump his Warriors onto an objective, he couldn't on that side so long as the Riptide was there.
DKs advanced on the left.
My shooting was actually much worse than the last turn - I caused two Glances on an AB. Haha, yikes!
Still, I did like my table position. The key was for only 2 or 3 of his Scythes to come in next turn!
Kill Point Count:
Me: 1 (AB)
TauCrons: 2 (Coteaz, Henchmen)
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| Notice that I didn't string my Kroot out along the board edge to control where Werner's Kroot came in. I wanted Werner to come on that edge, allowing me to deal with his Kroot with flamers rather than trying to Riptide them to death. |
TauCrons Turn 2:
Only two of his Scythes came on, as did his Kroots, who came on the left side. The Overlord also came on, flying into the center area.
I intercepted with my Commander, using Tank Hunter to destroy a Nightscythe! Woo!
His castle continued to shuffle forward and his ABs went to the far right flank.
His shooting downed one of my Broadsides, but mostly left the rest of my army alone, with his Kroot killing about half of my own Kroot squad, who passed their leadership.
Kill Point Count:
Me: 2 (AB, Nightscythe)
TauCrons: 2 (Coteaz, Henchmen)
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| Ironic that we are both overloaded on the "wrong" sides of the board - I can't hold my own placed objective, and am hopefully making sure he can't hold his. |
I wanted very much to kill his leftover Nightscythe, and also to kill his remaining Kroot. Otherwise, I was actually happy enough to lose my Broadsides to his Warscythe lord, as that would put him out of position to do much the rest of the game.
My other squad of Kroot had come in, as had my Raven. There was no good way to avoid his Broadsides, but I decided that because his Commander was with the Riptide anyway, I may as well just fly on and let them shoot at me.
My shooting eventually killed the other Nightscythe, and the Kroot on the left destroyed his Kroot squad. I also managed to bring down another AB, I believe. Memory is getting a bit foggy at this point...
Kill Point Count:
Me: 5 (AB, Nightscythe, Nightscythe, Kroot, AB)
TauCrons: 2 (Coteaz, Henchmen)
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| Final Picture! |
TauCrons Turn 3:
His remaining Nightscythes came in and threatened my Raven, while his Overlord zoomed over threatened my DKs, but didn't commit to anything - Mindshackle is only a 50/50 chance to kill a DK, after which, it would be game over for the Overlord.
I intercepted with the Commander, and took two HP off a Nightscythe, forcing Werner to Jink in the process.
His shooting didn't do much - I can't really remember now without more pictures. I believe he came close to killing my Raven but didn't quite manage it.
Rest of the Game:
I managed to kill his remaining Nightscythes in the next turn, virtually sealing the deal. His Warriors would have been unable to actually get to any objectives at that point, and my Raven still held troops, and was also scoring that mission anyways.
We gave it a good look-over, and as we were both really tired, just decided to call it, as there was very little he would have been able to do in his final 2 turns.
Nova Open Game 6 Results: Win for the Grau!!
Post-game Thoughts:
First, I have to say - it was nice to get a little revenge. Werner has been doing great in the tournament scene lately, and I was fortunate to get the win against him. He was again a great opponent, and I even voted for his awesome conversion model, for which he got an award (I think?) later.
As for game strategy, making sure he couldn't get to his own objective and making sure that I could get to at least one. basically won me the game. He had a chance to win - every great player leaves themselves at least one chance to win, and there were still wild cards - his Mindshackle Lord could have gotten lucky and killed all 3 DKs. His Necrons could have shot at long distance and killed all of my Kroot and his Broadsides might have been able to down my Raven and the guys inside.
Lots of ifs though. In the end, the game didn't mean a ton to either of us, as we had just finished our 9th game in about 48 hours, and just wanted to get some beer. In fact, I think this was the one game in which I drank while I played - Werner's friend came by and got us some beer. Awesome!
The Rest of the Tournament:
Despite the fact that I wasn't 'in it' for any awards, I actually played all 4 games on Day 4 as well. I won a few, lost a few, and in one game where I was matched against a guy with 3 Riptides + Wraithknight, we got silly and just had an enormous combat in the middle, which he won.
As these games weren't really worth much, and I didn't really take any pictures, I will just suffice to say that I had fun on Day 4, and that the Reports wouldn't likely mean much to anyone. Neil Gilstrap entirely destroyed me though, I know that for sure - poor play on my part just dismantled my army. Yikes!
Post-Tournament Thoughts:
I was pleased with my results overall. The Torrent of Fire app was awesome, and placed me highly in both tournaments:
4th in the Invitational and
8th in the Open
Really, for a guy who was concerned about losing all his games in the Invitational, I did very well for myself, with my only loss in that event coming from the eventual Champion (and Aaron wasn't even a dick to play against!)
Lots of apologies to me for my eventual tabling further seemed to make the event fun, as I rarely got tabled, and my opponents saying they thought I would lose were even more surprised when I won. Love doing that :)
Getting to play against the living legends of the game was fun too, and I showed myself that I could go toe-to-toe with them with an unconventional list. DKs are bad? Who says??
I loved getting to see my friends over on the East Coast, and even got to play my friend Bob Roda (Ordo Bob) in a game! Super awesome. Maybe someday I'll get off my ass and actually link to his site.
As it is, this thing has been delayed for far too long, and I'm not even going to proofread it.
Let me know what you think, and get excited: Feast of Blades is only weeks away, and I will hopefully be turning in my Army List soon (should I bring 26x Bikes + 3 TFCs + Broadsides or this list?).
Laters!
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