Hey folks!
You can read my other battle reports for this event here:
Round One
Round Two
Round Three
Round Four
Round Five
After Round 4 on Sunday, we broke for lunch. I know that I'll be staying on table 1 for the fifth game, but not sure who I'm going to end up against. There are several players who are high enough in points that I could end up against them, and I'm fervently praying that it won't be against Hulksmash. Out of the west coast
40k community, he's the only one I'd played before, and he consistently trounces on me, and he's at the
GT with the second lowest comp scoring army, bringing 19 missile launchers and a swarm of rhinos - I'm his dream army to fight against and it doesn't even really matter if he goes first or second. During the lunch break, out broke out the man-sized bottle of Captain Morgan and went to work (no picture of the bottle here). It was both a celebratory gesture of my success thus far, and a move to steel my nerves for the slaughter I was about to be humiliated with.
When I got back for round 5, I checked pairings and...NO HULKSMASH! WOOOOOT! I was paired up against David Fay! Pointwise, Andrew Davis (my 4th round opponent) and I were #1 and #2 for battle points, but you're not allowed to play the same person twice; so #3 ranked David Fay came to the fore with his chaos army; my third chaos army of the tournament no less! I'll admit, I was a bit inebriated at this point from my exertions with the Captain on the way to lunch, at lunch, and on the way back from lunch. You know the point where you've had enough straight liquor that it doesn't burn going down anymore? Yep. =) Seeing that I was not paired up against Hulksmash was reason enough for celebration, and I had some more. David shared a capful, but isn't much of a drinker.
As we talked about terrain and missions, he had apparently been doing some math about who was winning where, and what points were required to do what. He did some complicated addition in front of me (60+12 or something) to try illustrating where we sat for points - I was leading the pack by 12 battlepoints I think he said, and unless he soundly defeated me, I was going to take Best Overall. Something to that effect. *swig*
Purple People Eaters:
HQ: Lelith Hespirax + Wych Retinue + Raider
Troop1 - Troop6: Units of 5 Wyches, Succubus+Agonizer, Raider. Couple squads had blasters, couple raiders had horrorfexes. All wyches in the army had haywire grenades.
Elite 1 - Elite 3: Units of 5 Warriors, each with a Dark Lance, each with a raider. Two squads with a sybarite, one with a Nightmare Doll, one with a Crucible of Malediction.
Heavy 1 - Heavy 3: Three Ravagers, all with Disintegrators.
I brought a little bag of washers, and each washer was labeled twice on both sides in magic marker 1-6 so that I could denote my wych powers - I haven't thought of a better system yet. As you look through this and other of my battle reports from this tournament, that's what those washers are.
David Fay's Chaos Nurgles (also best painted I think?)
HQ: Daemon Prince, Mark of Nurgle, Warptime
HQ: Chaos Lord with Daemon Weapon, Plague Bringer, Combi-melta, on a Bike
Troop1: 6x Plague Marines (2x Melta Guns)+ 1 Plague Champion with Combi-Melta and Powerfist. All Marines have Blight Grenades.
Troop2: 6x Plague Marines (2x Flamers)+ 1 Plague Champion with Combi-Flamer and Powerfist. All Marines have Blight Grenades.
Troop3: 6x Plague Marines (2x Plasma Guns)+ 1 Plague Champion with Combi-Plasma and Powerfist. All Marines have Blight Grenades.
Troop4: 7x Plague Marines (2x Plasma Guns)
All four troop choices had a rhino with a twin-linked bolter and a combi-melta.
Elite1: Dreadnought with Heavy Flamer, twin-linked bolter, Dreadnought
CCW and crazed special rule.
Heavy1: Lascannon Predator
Heavy2: Defiler
Heavy3: Defiler
Mission 5 was modified annihilation, with spearhead deployment. You can find the full mission description on page 10 of the
Mission Packet.
Primary (12 points): Slaughter Style Killpoints: Whomever has the most
Secondary (2 points): For Each table quarter you control: You must have the most scoring units wholly in that table quarter at game end; non scoring units have no effect on this objective.
We rolled to go first and David won. Nightmare doll failed, and I think he had rolled a six, so I didn't want to waste my tournament reroll token. David chose to deploy and go first. I forgot to get a picture of his deployment, but you'll see it in a minute. I deployed opposite, using the building in my deployment zone as much as possible for cover, and using my empty warrior raiders as further screening:
Here's a picture of David's deployment zone as he starts moving. Prince behind rhinos, battlecannons on the defilers in the back, and he's starting to move up and smoke:
Vantage point from the rear:
Chaos Turn1:
David moves into position to shoot with his defilers, while the rest of his army closes distance and pops smoke / hides.
He opens fire! Between his predator and the defilers, he wrecks one raider, weapon destroys a second, and kills one warrior - I'd done *much* better with my cover saves so far this game, although the game started with his very first shot wrecking a raider. At least I made one cover save....which is more than I'd done any other game. =p Wyches spill out of their wrecked raider and pass their pinning test.
Dark Eldar Turn1:
My formation breaks apart and I move around to gain optimal firing positions. I move one raider up 12" to present a physical hindrance to his rhinos moving through, while the bulk of my forces shift to my left - my goal is to open up at least one rhino, and blast the plague marines inside with three ravagers.
Five Dark Lances and two blasters open fire and they all miss. &$*#( My ravagers again have nothing to shoot at in terms of infantry, so they come to the rescue as anti-tank, and between the three of them I get an immobilized result on one rhino and a stunned + weapon destroyed on the other.
On the other side of the board, a couple dark lances have no effect on his lascannon predator, but a luck shot kills the battlecannon on one of his defilers. My turn ends, and I've yet to kill anything....I celebrate my hateful dice with more drinking!
Chaos Turn2:
His dreadnought rolls a 1 and goes crazy!
It will have to shoot at the nearest target, and since he has a stunned rhino right there, it will pretty much have to be that. David is explaining this to me, but I'm sinking into giddy drunken-ness; I think he used extra small words and spoke slowly (I didn't know what crazed did). Eventually, I just roll the dice that he tells me to roll for crazed; I was having trouble coming to grips shooting one of his units for him.
Plague Marines boil out of the stunned rhino. The immobilized rhino combi-meltas (I think, might have been the guys inside) the raider blocking the path and explodes it (it was empty), while the plague marines outside weapon destroy and immobilize the wych raider behind it.
On the other side of the field, his lascannon predator wrecks another raider, spilling out wyches, while his battlecannon drops onto my warriors, who go to ground and make their saves.
He disembarked plague marines in some woods in his rear; he's fearful of my ravagers. His raging dreadnought opens up on his own rhino and immobilized and weapon destroys it; its now an empty husk (but not a killpoint yet!) His chaos bike lord assaults into my warriors in cover, who fail to wound him. In return, he rolls his attacks with his daemon weapon and takes a wound!
His plague marines on the left assault into the raider they immobilized and explode it. 3 wyches survive.
Combat ends.
Dark Eldar Turn2:
I shift around a bit to stage assaults - I jump a raider into the building in the middle to get a clear shot at his dreadnought and it immobilizes itself. Lelith and her retinue, along with the wyches from the immobilized raider head towards his rear plague marines. I finally crack open a rhino and explode it - the plague marines inside spill into the vehicle footprint and my ravagers go to work. The squad that assaulted my raider goes to ground for a 6+ cover save but disappears from the board anyway, and the squad in the exploded rhino footprint goes to ground for a 3+ cover save and he loses 5 of 7.
I also manage to stun his dreadnought, and I send my remaining wyches fleeting towards his two plague marines, hoping to finish them off for another killpoint. My shooting on the other side of the board does nothing. My disembarked wyches from the destroyed raider on the right charge into his bike lord, causing two wounds....and he fails them both!
On the left side, my exposed wyches fail their assault move and are left in the open, unable to get to the pinned plague marines. My warriors and wyches in the middle consolidate.
Lelith's squad and the second wych squad charge into the plague marines in the rear, and all die but one, who makes his armor and
FNP saves. Drats! Excuse the bluriness, I was coming to the end of the bottle here.
Also worth noting is a funny anecdote. During lunch, someone mentioned that my Wyches should have a safe word (BDSM) for when my opponents have had too much. At the beginning of the round, I told David that the safe phrase for the game was "I like penis." When round2 shooting opened up and I cracked open a rhino and my ravagers were preparing to fire...he says very quietly, "I like penis!" Already giddily drunk, I fell on the floor laughing, and he got my vote on the spot for favorite opponent.
Chaos Turn3:
His Daemon prince enters the fray. Those three wyches are fleeing; they must have assaulted into the prince and lost, or something; I don't remember why they were fleeing, but he moved parallel to them to give himself options and make them continue fleeing.
His remaining rhino (empty) tank shocked into my warriors and wyches in the middle, who failed leadership and fled the scene. They didn't flee far enough and would have to continue fleeing during my turn. :(
Rather than shooting, his defilers move up to engage Lelith and the other wych squad - wyches have a tremendous weakness against
MCs and even worse against walkers, and with them stuck in combat, I can't even shoot at them now.
His Lascannon predator might have shot at something....I don't know. David was chuckling at me, probably because I couldn't speak coherently anymore. But I was having a wicked fun time!!!
Dark Eldar Turn3:
My warriors and wych squad in the middle are still full strength, but flee because of the proximity of the rhino. Don't cringe at this picture, this was what I was actually seeing!
My wyches on the left flee off the table because of the
DP being so close. Lelith and the wyches are stuck in combat, and finish off the plague marine they're in with, but do nothing to the defilers....but at least they don't die. All three ravagers open up on his two remaining nurgle marines on the left side, and he passes every cover save. I try dark lancing them too; we're out of time here, and I whiff all the dark lances. I drop the rest of my dark lances into his weaponless immobilized rhino - trying to secure a killpoint before the game ends, but I whiff those too.
The game ends.
We tally up the score, and its 9-8 in favor of David; my two fleeing units in the middle count as destroyed because they were fleeing when the game ended...and I frustratingly couldn't finish off the weaponless empty rhino or the two plague marines in the crater next to it. ><
For secondary objectives, I control 3 table quarters to his one, and get 6 points to David's 14.
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Final Score: David ended up winning Best Overall; the top spots had a literal 1-4 point spread between painting, comp, sportsmanship and battle points. I won Best General, and my Golden Ticket to the Las Vegas
GW GT 2011.
I packed up in a drunken haze, shook hands with everyone, and Hulksmash and I took our wives to Medieval Times, where I screamed myself hoarse for the Green Knight!
Tournament Synopsis: It was smaller than I was expecting it to be when I signed up; there were apparently multiple events happening in the area the same weekend, which hurt attendance. I railed against a couple of the missions before the tournament over in the Socal Slaughter in Space thread; a couple missions were unbalanced, and folks more respectable than me have elaborated at length before and after about their problems. The things I fear the most (Razorback
SW span and heavily mechanized
IG) were in attendance, but I didn't have to face them - meaning that the lists ideally suited to beating on me never went head to head with me. Since reformulating my Dark Eldar with Hulksmash's help, I don't fear mech
IG or razorback spam as much as I used to - they're still deadly to an AV10 open-topped army, but I have a better than average chance of going first.
It was nice to win a tournament, or win best general at least - the soft scores have never appealed to me. I got max sportsmanship and player composition in every round, and gave the same in every round - they were all pleasurable, and having good games against good people made the weekend all that much more enjoyable. Winning with Dark Eldar was tasty icing on the cake!
If game5 had continued on....I'd like to think I would have edged in the win, but we'll never know. I've picked up flak for the game taking a while....but since my opponent won the game and won best overall, I can't imagine he'd complain. I only hurt myself there, and I have no regrets - David was a fantastic opponent, a lot of fun, and deserving of winning Best Overall.
Whoohoo Golden Ticket with Dark Eldar!!
It's even worse when they think it requires skill to play the current power lists. I remember when being original was fun. Hehe
Farseer Faenyin 
7,100 pts Yme-Loc Eldar(Apoc Included) / 5,700 pts (Non-Apoc) 
)
I have horrorfexes and disintegrator cannons to deal with horde armies, and haywire grenades and a prayer of going first against mech 
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3000
3000 
