I attended the Semi at 3 Geeks in Bangor, Maine. It was a pretty good crowd. 18-20 players, some from as far away as White Plains, NY, Cape
Cod, and so forth. I came up from Manchester,
NH, which meant about 4.5
hrs of driving. Thankfully I have a friend in Portland who was attending, so we drove up Friday afternoon, he took the wheel from Portland to Bangor, and we got in a practice game Friday evening.
Friday night’s practice game was pretty tough. My friend was playing
IG infantry horde, and it’s just a brutal, brutal list. We played Mission 1, which is his only tough mission of the 3, and I managed to get the win. He concluded that movement trays were an absolute necessity for his 50+ man guard units, and they really did help him play very quickly. We both had hopes of representing well for our tournament team, Cold Steel Mercenaries.
3 Geeks is a nice store, with nice guys. They had plenty of space, but unfortunately were a bit short on terrain. It’s nothing that a few hours with 2” insulation foam and a hot wire couldn’t fix, but for some reason they haven’t invested the effort yet. Probably because they usually don’t need to fill this many tables at once.
The armies I can remember were:
4
SM (mostly mech, but one infantry horde w 20 terms + vindis & speeders for support)
4
CSM w/double lash or lash+ abaddon (mostly mech, lots of oblits but also some
LRs & defilers mixed in)
3 Eldar (mech & mixed)
2
IG (one tank & valk heavy, the other a 250+ model infantry horde with a few chimeras)
2 Tau
1? Ork (might have been another; the one I know of was a pretty standard mixed list)
1 Tyranid (mostly monsters, 2 walking tyrants w/full guard squads, 4 x stealers, 2x 23 or 24 termagaunts, acid biovores)
I brought
DP + sorc + Greater daemon double lash chaos, big squad of termies, 6 oblits,
LR, several squads of
CSMs in Rhinos (except for the one in the Raider). I usually use no cult troops, but threw in a small squad of noise marines as an extra scoring unit. My usual squad of 8 lesser daemons as well.
Round 1
I got a lucky draw against the infantry horde Marines. This actually could have been a challenging game if he had more terrain and played more defensively, such as setting up defense in depth using the vindis and termies to limit my access to his Troops, and maybe gotten a couple of lucky first turn transport pops with his speeders. Alas for him I got first turn, immediately immobilized one vindi, stunned/weap destroyed the other, and started killing speeders. He blew two casting rolls to Libby Gate his termies into my lines, and I gradually pulled him apart with lash, oblits, and assaults here and there, as he advanced somewhat futilely towards me. I could never quite finish off the vindis, but between the three speeders, 2 of the 6 ten man
tac squads, the two full termie squads + librarian, I got 17
KPs. He killed my prince (bad saves), a rhino, a squad of oblits and my terminators (bad saves, again). 17/6kps = massacre, got 2 bonus points. Got about 1875vps, giving up about 870.
My opponent was very pleasant but clearly has not played in a lot of tournaments. Out of 2.5
hrs I would estimate my turns took at most a total of 45min. And we got finished just under the buzzer. He did have a lot of infantry models to move, but he wasted a great deal of time during this game. Still, it did seem to be simply an issue of insufficient practice/experience, not deliberate slow playing.
Round 2
Up against marines again, but this time clearly a very experienced and confident tournament player. He was a pleasant guy, very positive and high-energy, also documenting the game with the video function on his camera. He ran, roughly: Shrike w/10 assault termies, Null Zone libby in landraider w/5 man assault termies, 10 tacs w/las, flamer in rhino, 10 tacs w/las, melta in rhino, 5 tacs in twin-las razor, 3 squads of 3
LS Typhoons- two with missiles &
HB, one squad w/
HB & multimeltas. This was a very tight game. My opponent played a solid, aggressive style, pushing me on the back foot and keeping me from making much forward progress for the first few turns. I had a couple of points of luck- one, generally good armor saves (except right at the end), and two, he never stopped my Lash in three castings with the hood in range. I had some bad luck too, including my landraider immobilizing itself on dead speeders in my own DZ, and failing all my armor saves to lose a small three man squad holding one of the objectives at the end. Overall the dice were pretty even. This battle was all over the table, and I gradually ground it out, pounding the termies and speeders, and barely reaching any of his scoring units at the end. I had second move, so I was able to kill the last speeder contesting the only objective on my side of the table, lash one of his ten man squads off the objective my three man squad almost held, and kill everything he had around the other objective on his side. Though sadly I needed to Run about 4” with a
tac squad to hold that objective, and rolled a 1. So I won 1 objective to 0, though inches and a single save away from getting all three. I did have more
KPs as well, so got the massacre. This time only +1,
IIRC. Got about 2200vps, giving up around 1000.
Overall this was a very tight, exciting game. My only disappointment was that my opponent, despite clearly being a very experienced and skilled player, repeatedly engaged in dubious claims about the rules. We had ~10 different disputes that were solved with easy reference to the rulebook or the
FAQ, virtually all of which he had wrong. He attempted things like claiming a cover save against Lash, telling me that my Greater Daemon had to Deep Strike, and insisting that the
FAQ entry re: a new unit assaulting into an existing combat had reversed how the rule works (as opposed to just adding a third bullet point expanding it). I could not say for sure that he was genuinely attempting to cheat, but the sheer volume of dubious claims made for a fairly sad and disappointing impression. In fairness, on turns 1 & 2 we both forgot that my possessed landraider was only BS3, and he was gentlemanly about my moronic error.
We were on table 2 for this game, and could hear some unpleasantness from table 1 (the players seemingly could not agree on anything, and only got in 2-3 turns), but did finally hear that it came out a massacre as well. So I knew that the winner was probably ahead of me on points, as we both had had two massacres, but he must have had more bonus points.
Round 3
This was against the tyranid player. He seemed a very nice guy, though clearly more in it for the gaming than the modeling. His army had very little painted, and one of his carnifexes was actually just spare bits from a carnifex (claw, fun, tail, head) with a bit of green stuff on a base. About an inch or so tall. We discussed it briefly and easily agreed that it would count as the size of one of the real carnifexes for purposes of
LOS. This was a tough mission against his army. I did get second turn, as I wanted, but he rapidly advanced almost his entire army to sit on the center objective, which was also well-screened by a thick wood, for plenty of 4+ cover. He Outflanked with his four 8 man stealer squads, planning to get into my back shooting units where possible (wound up killing my Daemon Prince but nothing else), and otherwise to hold quadrants for the secondary objective. He had squads of 23 and 24 termagaunts for objective-holding, and the monstrous creatures to provide the punch. Instead of the traditional Dakkafexes he used three 113pt fexes with Barbed Stranglers, so they had pie plates and longer range. He had a T7 5W carni with strangler and deathspitter as well. He used three acid biovores hiding in the back to bombard my Rhinos and attempt to kill any squads that left themselves exposed. His two walking tyrants with full guard had twin-linked devourers and Psychic Scream. He also had three zoanthropes with warp blast and psychic scream. This game largely came down to me lashing stuff where I needed to, and concentrating fire on the big bugs, as I knew I could clear the little ones with minimal assault power (and a little light shooting for the stealers). My opponent did not seem to be stalling, but the game did proceed slowly, and we only got in five turns within the time allotted, with no time to even roll Random Game Length.
At the end of the game he had his biovores in the back, one carnifex guarding them, a squad and a half of stealers running away from me to hold quadrants, and a carnifex and zoanthrope sitting on the objective. I lashed the zoanthrope off, as the Carni was in combat with one of my
CSM squads. I failed to roll the 5 or 6 I needed to assault the carni with a full squad of oblits. Failed to roll the 4 or 5 I needed to get a second
CSM squad with Fist onto him. And failed to roll the 5+ I needed to get my greater daemon onto him. This last was my fault, as if I had simply Run my Lesser Daemons a single inch, they would have been able to get out of the way and give my
GD a 4” path to reach the carni. And I did roll a 4 for the
GD’s diff terrain. So I needed to play better there. Anyway, I still had most of my army, and was in three of the four quadrants with scoring units. I picked up the Minor, holding three quadrants to his 1. If I had played a bit better, or managed to get a sixth turn, I would probably have had the massacre.
VPs (not that they mattered in this round) were 1804 to around 700.
I was biting my nails a bit, as two Eldar players were on table 2, and one of them eked out his third Major win. So battle points would be fairly close.
At the end I had enough points to clinch the win, with the Eldar player in 2nd, and my third round Tyranid opponent taking 3rd. Orks were 4th, and my friend’s horde
IG were 5th, thanks to his 3rd round opponent playing utter stallhammer. If my friend’s 3rd round opponent had played at a normal pace and not deliberately stalled, the horde
IG would have gotten a Massacre and taken 2nd. It is very sad what some people will resort to. Being a good competitive player is sometimes also about losing with grace. The best competitors also display good sportsmanship.
Random note: I always enjoy reporting how my Lesser Daemons do, as they’re widely panned. I chose not to bring the two squads of 18 I brought in the local qualifier, as I was concerned that too much Difficult Terrain would spell their doom. I needn’t have worried, as it turned out, with the light terrain at 3 Geeks. My 8 girl squad did very nicely. In game 1 they came in too early and had to hide in the corner, but they did that just fine.
In game 2 they joined forces with the Greater Daemon to beat down the remnants of the 10 man assault Termie squad and finish off Shrike (they actually did the final wound). In game 3 they assaulted and eventually destroyed one of the Gaunt squads, in the process dealing two wounds to a Hive Tyrant (who counter-assaulted) due to No Retreat. Good times.
So far I have enjoyed my first experience with the ‘ard Boyz, but have to say that overall it is not quite as much fun as regular tournaments. Playing with heavy prize support, but no painting or sportsmanship, seems to invite and encourage the worst elements of the competitive side of our hobby. And I miss seeing more fully and nicely painted armies, though there were at least 2-3 at this event. I’m on the fence about going to Chicago. If I’m going to encounter behavior like my friend’s 3rd game, it’s a waste of time and money. But
OTOH, I may well encounter some of the great players who DO display sportsmanship. Guys like 40kenthus, PlayerA, Clay Williams, and the like. Games against folks like that are amazing. Games like the one I had in round 2 (rules questions aside) are awesome games. And may be worth the risk.
