Since I haven't gotten much of a response from the Vassal games, or much feedback, I am going to post just the write ups for these two, which was already completed. In the future I'll try to get more pictures so I do not need to supplement with Vassal, which takes quite a while.
Game 4 – Space Wolves
I arrived at the venue after having a few beers and a good nights sleep at my Sister in Laws place. I saw my opponent was Space Wolves and I was pretty stoked overall because I think they are a good matchup for me.
We rolled for first turn and tied with 1’s, and on the reroll I got another 1. Bjorn’s reroll had been thwarted..sort of? He took the board edge which offered significant cover with the small forest in place and would make it difficult for me to use all my transports to their fullest. The
DT in the center would also slow me down a bit. The mission was:
Primary – Kill Points (23/10/0)
Primary – Victory Points (22/10/0)
There was no Secondary Tertiary.
Tactical Bonuses
Choose a secret mission, +2 if you succeed, +1 of you thwart your opponents
Deployment – Interesting deployment along diagonals again. A line was drawn between two points on the board edge, the first point is 18” in from the left hand side board edge to a point 18” from your opponenets long edge on the right hand side.
Space Wolves
HQ
Bjorn the Fellhanded – Plasma Cannon
Elite
Venerable Dreadnought – Assault Cannon, Heavy Flamer, Extra Armor, Wolf Tail Talisman
Dreadnoght – Twin Linked Lascannon, Missile Launcher, Extra Armor
Troop
10x Grey Hunters – 2x Plasmagun, Power Weapon in Rhino
10x Grey Hunters – 2x Meltagun, Power Fist in Rhino w/ Extra Armor
10 Blood Claws – Power Fist, Flamer
Fast Attack
Land Speeder Squadron – Multimelta
Land Speeder Squadron – Mulimelta
Heavy Support
Vindicator – Extra Armor, Siege Shield
Whirlwind
I deploy to avoid his
LR as long as possible weighting my deployment to the right with the Exorcists centrally located in case he tries to move around the right hand side. I set up the normal screening, and use Flamers for it since he has so many dreads I need those Meltas. I try to seize the initiative and I roll a 1.
Turn 1
He moves everything up and hides the speeders behind the forest. In shooting he manages to Explode my front Rhino with his Land Raider Lascannons and inflicts 7 wounds on the models inside. I then roll six 1’s for my saves and a 2, which toasts all the ‘normal’ sisters. I fail my pinning check with the squad on
ld. 10 He Plasma Cannons them and hits for 3 more wounds, which I fail 1 cover save which reduced me to 2 models in the squad. His Vindicator then stuns my Flamer Rhino on the right with a hit on the center. With that he passes the turn.
SW - 1
SoB - 0
I move up my Immolators and Rhinos and pop smoke, being sure to keep far enough back from him to avoid being in Melta range. I begin shooting and one Exorcist takes down the Rifleman dread and the other does nothing to the Vindicator (the only target it could see with the forest). I pass the turn to him.
SW - 1
SoB - 1
Turn 2
He shuffles his Land Speeders to the right and stays put with his Vindicator. His dreads move up and he is out of Melta range and his Plasma Cannon bounces off a Rhino. His Vindicator stuns my flamer Rhino again while I manage some smoke saves with the Immolator. The Land Raider then Penetrates and wrecks one of my Exorcists. His Whirlwind shoots at my pinned sisters, inflicts a wound and the single sister left fails another
ld 10 pinning check! (Since the Superior is dead I cannot unpin the squad with Light of the Emperor)
SW - 2
SoB - 1
I shuffle around my units again and move up the
SoB Melta squad to take down his dreadnought. They miss both melta shots on 1’s, I then move up and Disembark my Celestians and they miss with another pair of 1’s on the Vindicator. The Exorcist manages to take down the Melta, Heavy Flamer dread but that leave Bjorn unscathed. In spite of my rolling I am tied on Kill Points right now but mine are a lot easier to achieve.
SW - 2
SoB - 2
Turn 3
He moves up 6” more with his
LR and fires lascannons at my Immolators and but my luck is starting to rub off and he misses one while I save the other. His Grey Hunters squad moves up 6” in his Rhino and he pops my tank with an Explodes. I hope he kills some because Bjorn is close, but he fails to wound any. I pass my pinning and Bjorn scatters his Plasma cannon right off the
SoB squad. I need him to roll a 4 or less to save the squad but he gets a 5” and we are stuck in. I let him kill some off and plan to bring in my
JP Canoness on the next turn. takes some shots at my Celestians, but I have made them invulnerable and save them all. His speeders also fire but are unable to hurt the tank.
SW - 3
SoB - 2
I move my flamers up in preparation for breaking open his melta squads transport and disembark them. I then immobilize my Immolator going over the edge of the bridge and I am out of Melta range of anything. The other Immolator moves forward and I roll another melta 1 to hit his Rhino. My exorcists rolls 1 missile and misses his Rhino and now my
SoB squad is high and dry. I charge into Bjorn with my Canoness and score 3 pens, but he saves 2 of them and I roll a 1 on the damage chart. I lose some more
SoB but they are in Spirit of the Martyr range now. The Immolator on the right moves to block the Grey hunters from taking down my now speeder hunting celestians. I move up, take a pair of shots and manage to his with both and immobilize the speeder and weapon destroy it. I assault it for the extra movement to get near the other speeder and on the off chance I can pull off Hand of the Emperor (I cannot). Finally, the last
SoB from the squad decimated Turn 1 runs to hide behind the woods in the back.
SW - 3
SoB - 2
Turn 4
The Land Raider comes up and disembarks the squad of Blood Claws. They and the plasma Grey Hunters charge and annihilate my flamer squad in combat consolidating back towards my Immolator. His Vindicator runs away along with his Whirlwind to save some killpoints and the operation speeder kills one Celestian. In combat with Bjorn I manage a glance and 2 pens, but all but the pen is saved which Immobilizes Bjorn. The melta squad moves toward my Immolator and blows it up. In retrospect that was a cheap kill point to give up but I needed them out of their transport and away from me.
SW - 5
SoB - 2
I move another flamer squad into position for next turn and pull back an empty Rhino to try and save my lone
SoB survivor. I disembark a Melta squad and manage to wreck the Land Raider while keeping them as far back as possible to avoid the blood claws. I also manage to off the speeders with combined Exorcist and Melta fire netting me 2 more Kill Points. Bjorn offs a random
SoB but I still fail to roll anything better than a 1 or 2 on the damage chart.
SW - 5
SoB - 5
Turn 5
His blood claws move to assault my Celestian squad but fall short and accidentally line themselves up for a Heavy Flamer next turn. He Vindicates my celestians on the right, leaving 2 of them and then bolters the remaining with his melta marines. The other wolves charge into the Bjorn combat and I he takes out the rest of the Melta
SoB squad with Bjorn;s help. Unfortuntately, his Whirlwind rolls a hit on my lone
SoB and takes her wound, netting him a
KP right before she was about to jump into a Rhino!
SW - 8
SoB - 5
This may be the last turn and I know I need t make something happen. I move up my flamer squad through terrain and line up a
DG shot on his Melta Grey Hunters, I kill the majority of them and they break and flee. I use my Immolators to Flame down his Blood Claws and they break and flee as well. My Exorcists tries to take a Rhino, but only succeeds in Immobilizing it my Celestian and Canoness pile into the Grey Hunter squad in Bjorns combat to try and break them. Invulnerable saves go all around and I direct all my Eviscerators at the Grey Hunters. I win by a wide margin and break them as well, but since I am tied with Bjorn I cannot pursue (a good thing since they were within 6” of my
SoB when I piled in. I think I might be in good shape because I now have 8 Eviscerator strikes going into Bjorn next turn.
SW - 8
SoB - 8
I roll to see what happens and the game ends. We start to total Kill Points and we are tied, I add victory points and I am winning by 625 (650 is the margin for a Victory) so we draw – he had a whirlwind, a vindicator, an immobilized Bjorn and immobilized Rhino at the end of the game. My ‘secret’ objective is to control the center, and I have the closest unit to the center but it is outside of 3” which we agree is needed to control it. His is control the center as well, so we both get +1 for denying the opponent. What a close game, and with my generally bad luck I am proud to have pulled off a tie but the might have beens were a little haunting. Scored – 20 Points
Score: 101 Points
Game 5 - Necrons
I look at the standings and I have 101 points, which puts me 1 ahead of a friend I came with. We are hoping to not end up paired together, but in doing so they accidently pair me with my previous round opponent! We speak to the judges and my friend and I swap opponents but I end up at the same table as last time. I win the dice roll on this one and choose the table corner my opponent had last time for this spearhead game.
Mission 5: Heroes Glory
Primary: Objective Markers – Each player places 2 objective markers. The first downed
HQ becomes the third objective. 3 Points for controlling your objective, 5 points for the fallen hero objective, 7 points for controlling your opponents objective. If you win objective score another 5 points (max score 20).
Secodary: Victory Points – Score 650 more points than their opponenets (15/7/0)
Tertiary: (Recover the Body) – To secure the tertiary objective you must be in control of the fallen heroes body (10/5/0)
Tactical Bonuses:
+2 if your hero sought glory and died first
+1 if your opponent has no
HQ’s at the end of the game
Necrons
HQ
Lord – Destroyer Body, WarScythe, Phase Shifter, Resurrection Orb
Lord – Staff of Light, Resurrection Orb
Elite
5x Immortals
Troops
11x Warriors
11x Warriors
10x Warriors
Fast Attack
4x Destroyers
5x Destroyers
Heavy Support
3x Heavy Destroyers
2x Heavy Destroyers
I know I am going to lose a few transports in difficult terrain and my opponent is playing a ton of destroyers. I want to pen him in to reduce his mobility and force him into his corner of the board. I place my objective in area terrain in the center of my deployment zone and whoever gets immobilized get to run back and get it. I then deploy with my Exorcists a little over what I think maximum range will be because his destroyers only shoot 36”. I stack up some Rhinos and Immolators to get cover saves and plan to send half my army around the trees on the left, half on the right while keeping some central to tie the noose around his neck.
My opponent reserves all his warriors and Immortals and deploys only destroyers. He then attempts to seize and fails.
Turn 1
I move up my Exorcists into range and go 12” forward with everything I can. I immobilize the melta sisters in the river, so they know what they will be doing next turn while the rest are mishap free. The front vehicle pop some smoke and the Exorcists begin shooting. I roll well for my missiles but he has cover the forest and I only knock down 2 Destroyers while putting a wound on his Lord.
The 2 Destroyers get up and he slides his units out to take some pot shots. He immobilizes my Immolator on the bridge and smoke saves the remainder of the significant damage, but he stuns the one on the other bridge.
Turn 2
I move up again with troops, crossing the river with an Immolator, disembarking from the Immolator to get into the river but only roll 1’s for my terrain. My run isn’t much better and I am on the edge of the water. The other
SoB Rhino moves up and pops smoke on the bridge on the left. On the right side I do the Rhino shuffle again and continue to advance forward. The Exorcists shoot again, knocking down 2 destroyers and putting a second wound on the Lord. I use the opening in his lines to knock down both Heavy Destroyers in the 2 man unit.
One Heavy and 1 normal destroyer get back up and no reserves come in. He moves to the edge of the board and detaches the lord to take down the Celestians. Shooting is once again ineffective, although he does Stun a Rhino on the bridge and my lead Immolator. He attempts to assault my Celestians through cover, but fails his terrain test and invulnerable save, putting down his Lord on my side of the board. He needs to make his
WBB or it will be very difficult for him to capture that objective.
Turn 3
The stunned Rhinos stay put but a Flamer Rhino moves up and pos smoke from across the trees. Repair attempts on the Melta Rhino continue to fail and the Celestians try to wade through the river, but it must be really dangerous because they only move 1”. The Flamers on the bridge move up and unload in front of the Destroyers, with
DG they eat the entire squad and it is wiped. The Exorcists fire again at the other remaining destroyers and manage to knock down a few.
He gets 1 unit of warriors who walk onto his objective. His Lord stands back up and scoots over towards my Rhino, hoping to assault the contents if he blows it. I am unsure if he is going to go for the Canoness nearby as well. He blows the Rhino through smoke and immobilizes my other Canoness’s ride. In combat he kills 3
SoB, but they have the Hand of the Emperor and they put him down again!
Turn 4
The Jump Canoness moves forward and I shoot at the two Heavy Destroyers nearby with the
SoB squad that took down the Lord. I only fire assault weapons hoping to get into combat and kill them off the next turn after avoiding the Gauss Flayers. I disembark my Celestian Canoness and move into the woods to get ready to assault some warriors. The Rhino on the bridge moves up and I load back into my rhino on the left and move into a covered position. Exorcists take down the rest of the normal destroyers. In assault I succeed in staying locked in.
The rest of his army comes in near his objective to attempt to hold it. His warriors assault into the
SoB squad with the Heavy Destroyers and stay tied up while he rapid fires a squad into the Canoness. With great rolling he inflicts 18 wounds on 22 shots and she goes down in spite of her 2+ save. The rest of the shooting diminishes my other Canoness squad who survive the onslaught.
Turn 5
I move in for
DG flamers again on the right and put down 7 Necons and they make their break check. I charge the Canoness into the combat and take down the Destroyers but I am still locked with the warriors and we push combat. I move my other
SoB squad to take the objective and the celestians from the Immolator circle it to prevent any shenanigans. Exorcist fire sees a few warriors go down, but not enough for a break check as he is in cover.
Three warriors stand back up and he moves up with his Lord but is out of assault range and takes some pot shots at my other Celestian unit but that is it. His warriors assault my
SoB but the positioning of my vehicles prevents him from getting more than 3 or 4 models in combat. I use Hand of the Emperor, but he makes all his saves. The Canoness cuts down a few more warriors but they hold.
We roll to see if another turn happens and…it is a 1 the game and tournament is over.
This was a great game against a really fun opponent. I was a bit worried at the number of Destroyers he had on the field, but the Exorcists really caused him to be mindful of cover and I was able to trap him in his deployment zone to get my shorter range weapons into range. I think if the game had gone on a turn or two I would have had a great chance to take down more of his army, secondary was 650 or more Victory Points and I was only ahead by about 500. Taking down that Canoness in shooting was key for him, since she was the
VP difference and if she had gotten into a squad of warriors there is a good chance she would have run them off the board. It was my mistake for not simply taking down the Heavy Destroyers with her and then moving the other Canoness to hit the Lord and his Immortals on the following turn.
Score – 30 points
Regardless, I finished with 131 Battle points, not bad given I was beaten so bad in the first round and I learned a ton. The tournament terrain was incredible and I would recommend it to anyone. The comp system I liked since I saw a lot of different armies there and if you look at the results there is no correlation whatsoever between battle points and composition score. My only regret is being unable to finish painting put me pretty low in that category (tied for last actually) which is more a statement of my incomplete models than a statement of my skill as a painter I believe (or at least I hope!). Hopefully next year I will have a fully painted, themed army ready to go. I am looking to use my Slaanesh Daemons I think, if there was an event where playing a compy list would be great, then Da Boyz is it.
