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Hey folks! You can find my battle reports for the other games in the GT here:
Game One
Game Two
Game Three: You're reading it!
Game Four
Game Five

This weekend I made the eight hour drive to San Antonio, TX for the Alamo GT. I had originally planned on taking my Necron Wraith Wing, but my wife does the painting around here, and she was under the weather for the last two weeks and didn't get a lot of painting done, so we didn't get the Monoliths done. I don't mind going to RTTs or FLGS tournaments with unpainted models, but not traveling long distances for a Grand Tournament. Worse...I sent in the wrong Dark Eldar list! I wych cult and my kabal are both labeled "2,000 DE.xls" in different places on my desktop, and I didn't realize until I printed out my lists Friday when I was leaving work that I had sent in my Kabal "Darklight Storm." And what I had sent was a modified version of my usual Darklight Storm that I had never actually used before; I made it to playtest a slight tweak in wargear for units.

Darklight Storm
HQ: Baron Sathonyx
HQ: Haemonculi with Shattershard, Crucible of Malediction, and Animus Vitae

Troop1: 5x Warriors with 1x Blaster // Venom with Dual Splinter Cannons
Troop2: 5x Warriors with 1x Blaster // Venom with Dual Splinter Cannons
Troop3: 5x Warriors with 1x Blaster // Venom with Dual Splinter Cannons
Troop4: 5x Warriors with 1x Blaster // Venom with Dual Splinter Cannons
Troop5: 5x Warriors with 1x Blaster // Venom with Dual Splinter Cannons
Troop6: 9x Wyches with Haywire Grenades // Raider with Flickerfield and Torment Grenade Launcher

Elite1: 4x Trueborn with 4x Blasters // Venom with Dual Splinter Cannons
Elite2: 4x Trueborn with 4x Blasters // Venom with Dual Splinter Cannons
Elite3: 3x Trueborn with 3x Blasters // Venom with Dual Splinter Cannons

Fast Attack1: 3x Beastmasters, 4x Razorwing Flocks, 5x Khymerae

Heavy Support1: Ravager with 3x Dark Lances and Flickerfield
Heavy Support2: Ravager with 3x Dark Lances and Flickerfield
Heavy Support3: Ravager with 3x Dark Lances and Flickerfield

1,996 points

List Analysis
-Baron Sathonyx is actually the core of this army for his +1 to go first ability. Dark Eldar are most potent during an alpha-strike, and anything they can do to help get that alpha-strike is worth doing.
-The beast unit itself is a decent unit, but primarily exists to give the Baron a unit to hang with. The Baron is jump infantry, so can't embark on a raider or venom, and I don't want him floating around by himself getting sniped down. It works out rather well since beasts don't have grenades and couldn't use their nifty I6 and I5 if they had to assault through cover. The only decent saves in the unit are the 4++ on the Khymerae, but those are important to save for close combat power weapons. That makes the Baron's +1 cover save a perfect match for beasts! The only downside to the unit combination is their mismatched movement and assault speeds. The Baron can move 12" and assault 6", and the beasts can move 6" and assault 12". They're both fleet, but together they can only move 6" and assault 6". I've found after practice and testing that I can pretty accurately judge when to leave the Baron attached, and when to separate him so that I can get a 12" charge on the beasts.
-Each warrior venom has dual purposes. The venoms are potent anti-infantry, while the unit inside can add its own potent anti-infantry with 8 poison shots rapid-firing at 12" with a STR8 AP2 shot getting a terminator killer shot in there, or serving as a potential anti-tank addition.
-Flickerfields on Everything! Nightshields are pretty useless against almost everything that shoots at tanks, but a 5+ invulnerable save works in both close combat and ranged combat; and theoretically giving me 1/3 more vehicles! Every melta against a ravager that pings off my flickerfield is a little personal victory.
-The wyches in this army primarily exist to make this a TAC army. Lances don't work against Monoliths or Blessed Hull, so haywire grenades fill the gap against things which I don't have the ability to kill. They're a decent assault unit, but have no Agonizer. My opponents keep being surprised at that fact - but at the end of the day, I don't have 25 points to spare for it.
-The Haemonculi is there to pass a pain token on to the wyches unless the wyches get a for their drug and start with one - in which case he couldn't pass the pain token over, so he instead starts with a Trueborn unit. Don't ask about the Animus Vitae; it doesn't do anything to help him, and is only there because this wasn't a tested variant of my Darklight Storm.
Game Three Opponent: Kingsley Coppinger's Mantis Warriors
HQ: Sicarius
HQ: Librarian with Terminator Armour, Gate of Infinity, Null Zone

Troop1: 10x Tactical Marines with a Power Fist, Combi-melta, melta gun, lascannon in a Razorback with a twin-linked assault cannon
Troop2: 10x Tactical Marines with a Power Fist, Melta gun, lascannon in a Razorback with a lascannon and twin-linked plasma gun
Troop3: 10x Tactical Marines with a Power Fist, melta gun, multi-melta in a Rhino
Troop4: 5x Scouts with shotguns and a combi-melta

Fast Attack1: Land Speeder Storm with a multi-melta

Elite1: 5x Assault Terminators with 3x Thunderhammer/Stormshields and 2x Lightning Claws
Elite2: 5x Terminators with 1x Heavy Flamer and 1x Chain Fist

Heavy Support1: 5x Devastators with 3 Missile Launchers and a Multi-Melta
Heavy Support2: 5x Devastators with 3 Missile Launchers and a Multi-Melta



KILL THEM... KILL THEM ALL!!: The enemy's forward post destroyed, it is now time to root out his main column. Now is the time to break the back of the enemy's forces on Alamo Prime. Your forces advance through the pre-dawn darkness with one goal, and one goal only... KILL THEM ALL!!!!
Objective: Annihilation
Deployment: Dawn of War
Special Rules: Rulebook Default, Night Fight Turn 1 (Dawn of War)
Duration: 6 Turns
Secondary Objective: LEAVE NONE TO TELL THE TALE! Reduce all enemy units to half strength or below. In cases of units that start the game as a single model (Independent Characters, Monstrous Creatures, etc.), they are at half strength if they have suffered more than half the number of Wounds on their profile. In case of vehicles, they are at half strength if they are suffering from the effects of any Damaged result. If both players satisfy the objective, neither receives the objective points.

"We're gonna need a lot more men." - Davy Crockett
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Pre-Game Tactical Assessment:

Kingsley and I are both at maximum points, which is a curiosity to me; I wouldn't expect to see a Vanilla Marine list like across from me during game three of a GT. So I've got mixed feelings - this isn't an army that I expect to cause me any problems, but he's also sitting at the top of the rankings with me, so I can't dismiss the game off-hand. His devastator squads are on foot, and we're playing Dawn of War, so they're going to have to foot it onto the board. They can't fire all those nasty missiles when they move, so they're less of a threat than they otherwise might be. On top of that, he's only got two razorbacks and one lascannon between them...I've got the advantage on ranged firepower from the start, and those devastators can't split fire like longfangs. In the end, I'm confident about the game, but wary because he's at maximum battle points.

We roll for deployment and I win! I elect to deploy and go first, and declare that everything is in Dawn of War reserves. Kingsley chooses not to combat squad his marines since we're using killpoints, and deploys Sicarius and two tactical marine squads both in cover.




Kingsley attempts to seize and fails, Sicarius lets him reroll and he tries again and fails.

Dashofpepper Turn One:
All my vehicles roll onto the board 12" while the beasts move on 6". I've centered my movement onto the board around the middle of the board where he's deployed. All my vehicles have Night Vision, so I have a decent chance of getting some shots in, but I'm not expecting any particularly good results.


Much shooting later (and nightfight rerolls where needed) I've taken down six of ten tactical marines in the closest unit; he passes leadership; my beasts run forward a few inches.


Here's a shot of of the table as he's starting to deploy - I think my beasts ran 3-4".


Kingsley Turn One:
His razorbacks move on along with his devastators and other tactical squad. His scouts and landspeeder storm are in reserve outflanking. His librarian and assault terminators move onto the table and he declares that his shooty terminators are deep-striking. I'm a little confused by the picture because the razorbacks tried firing at me (and didn't make Nightfight) but they look to be 8-9" on the table, which even a 6" move with a side armour to the front followed by a pivot wouldn't get. I'm guessing that the tactical marines got a 6" run because of their positioning. His rhino is empty and stays in reserve as well. One of his devastator squads is in the middle of all those tactical marines and the other devastator squad moves up on top of a hill to the far left. We have a short discussion on that - when we discussed terrain at the beginning of the game, we declared the hills to be TLOS terrain, and difficult to get on top of; they're 3" tall. He moved his devastators up behind it it, then put them on top with his run move, which I questioned. He said that he didn't remember us calling the hill terrain...I let it go because while he was putting himself in optimal firing position against me, he was also exposing his unit to get fired ON by me, and I'd get to shoot him before he shoots me.


His shooting phase doesn't range me with anything during nightfight, and we move to my turn.

Dashofpepper Turn Two:
I move up 12" and start mass disembarking. A 6" move with my venoms wouldn't be enough to put me in rapid fire range with my troops, so I decide to risk exposing myself for a full on alpha-strike. My wych raider moves up 12" and disembarks my wyches; the haemonculi stays inside but gives the pain token to the wyches for Feel No Pain. My beasts make their best time into the cover behind the buildings, and my warriors and trueborn line up for shooting. I have three venoms on the left to shoot at the devastators on the hill that you can't see in this picture along with triple lances from a ravager; I plan on dumping the other two into the two razorbacks, and have lined them up to be able to shoot at either depending on what happens. Two trueborn units on the left are also intended to shoot at his razorbacks, with the third deploying out the vehicle hidden behind the building into cover. I've lined them up so that they should be able to get a clear shot at his devastators - with three in the open and two behind one of his tactical marine units.


Here's a close shot of the front of the combat zone. Four tactical marines and Sicarius to the front; I intend to dump the wyches into them. I expect to get counter-assaulted by his assault terminators, and Null Zone is going to make it painful, but I'm happy to trade killpoints - taking down a lascannon and a melta (and multimelta) in a tactical squad in exchange for my wyches is protection for my vehicles, and I think its a fair trade. You can also see my trueborn on the right looking at his devastators ominously.


And...here's the right side of the combat zone. Two warrior squads ready to rapid fire, venom splinter cannons for backup, and the trueborn blasters looking to beat up some devastators.


Ravager on the left open up on his razorback and scores a shaken and immobilized result.


The other ravager shoots at the other razorback and whiffs - I lined it up for a pretty good shot, but he claimed cover from the leafless tree in the middle and his terminators. From the positioning of my ravager, he had a librarian terminator covering the left tread, and the scraggly tree....eh.....I let him have cover anyway because I didn't think it would make much of a difference. My trueborn followed up with blasters and got a weapon destroyed result through.


I leave the tactical marines and the terminators alone and focus on the devastators. Triple venoms on the left and a ravager take down the five on the left. Getting cover on his devastators on the right from my trueborn comes up...and I give him the benefit on this one too since I've got plenty of other shooting to make sure they go down. Between the trueborn and the splinter cannons, those five go down too. The two units of warriors on the right rapid fire + blaster into the tactical marines in cover on the right and kill two of them.


I assault into his tactical squad + Sicarius with my wyches and lose three wyches in exchange for doing one wound to Sicarius and taking down three of the four tactical marines. He passes leadership and we stay locked in combat.


Kingsley Turn Two:
His Landspeeder Storm and the scouts inside show up on my left flank by my ravagers. His shaken/immobilized rhino smokes, and his terminators move up to loom menacingly around my wyches. Null Zone goes off again, and my wyches mystically start dodging slower!


His weapon destroyed razorback moves around the terrain and smokes, while his unmolested tactical squad moves up between my trueborn and towards my warrior units. I suspect a multi-assault is en route.


The landspeeder storm on the left moved in 12" to get within multi-melta doubletap range on my ravagers. We have another chat at this point; he attempted to fire the scouts combi-melta and shotguns at my ravager after moving his landspeeder 12". I explained that passengers can't fire after the vehicle moves cruising speed. He moves his landspeeder back 6" and starts to deploy his scouts...and I stopped him - while I had given him the advantage on wiggle room for everything thus far, he'd already been shooting his tactical marines in cover at me, and going back to the movement phase...back to his reserve deployment actually to redo a move...I would let it pass in a friendly game, but not in a GT. The speeder's multi-melta fired at my ravager and misses.


Assaults! His terminators pile into my wyches, and his tactical squad on my right multi-charges my trueborn and both warrior squads. *sigh* Again, I've got an uncomfortable feeling here because the assault rules..and his assault range on 2D6 don't let him hit all three units...he's got to take a bit of extra movement to get the warriors on the far right...but as before, I let him have it anyway; in the interest of getting a good sportsmanship score I've been letting stuff pass. While I'll lose four units this turn...I still expect the game to end with me tabling him, and I'll get the win anyway. In the terminator assault, I put two mandatory wyches into Sicarius and the other four into his lone remaining tactical marine. I couldn't seriously damage the terminators anyway, and if I'm going to lose my wyches to power weapons and null zone, I want to make sure that the remaining tactical marine dies and I get the killpoint. The marines dies, followed by my wyches and the terminators consolidate.


The combat on the right....my trueborn get wiped, the far right warriors and middle warriors live, but both fail combat and attempt to run. The middle warrior unit gets away and runs 11", while the warrior unit on the right is caught and wiped.


Dashofpepper Turn Three:

I do a bit of shifting to get lanes of fire cleared. My fleeing warriors regroup! My wych raider moves 6" over to the side of the terminators, and I start my shooting phase with my haemonculi's shattershard.


Skipping ahead to shooting for a moment (because of the order of my pictures) I'm targeting Sicarius by himself as my target so that I can specifically smack three terminators and the librarian. Any roll of 5+ removes each model from the table! Sicarius lives. Damn. His librarian lives. Double damn. Of the three terminators, he loses one stormshield terminator.

Baron Sathonyx separated from the beasts; I want to make sure that they get into assault with the tactical marines. I had a vague idea of assaulting his weaponless razorback with the Baron, but I don't think he'll be in range.


His two vehicles are smoked, so I decide to focus on his other units. Ravager on the left turns around and explodes his Landspeeder Storm. The scouts pile out, and evaporate under splinter cannon fire.

In the middle of the table, dark lances, splinter cannons, and blasters open up on his terminators. Sicarius goes down, his librarian takes a wound, and another terminator drops. I score a weapon destroyed on the las/plas razorback and take the lascannon out.


More splinter cannon fire, and the rest of the terminators go down, leaving the librarian alone, and my beasts assault into his tactical marines! I take several wounds on razorwings, lose a beastmaster, and take down seven of his tactical marines in return. His powerfist bounces off of khymerae invulnerable saves.


My Baron had assaulted into this combat as well since he only ran 1" and couldn't reach the razorback; several of those tactical marines swung into the baron did one wound to him...and he failed his shadowfield save. >< The baron uses hit and run to get out of combat before he dies.



I'm a bit hazy at this point; I only have one picture left.



I believe he failed to get his rhino out of reserve and the deep-striking terminators - assaulted the librarian and terminator into the beast unit and lost them both and then conceded.

I end the game with 20/20 possible points.

Post-Game Tactical Analysis:
The further the game progressed, the more sullen Kingsley got - I understand getting frustrated with losing, and see it a lot - thus the increasing focus on trying to joke, inject humour, buy him beer, be friendly...avoiding rules or arguments by defaulting to his advantage. The game ends and he tells me that he's giving me a bad game vote - while I was fine to play against, my army is unfun to play against because he basically spent the game making saves and dying. We talk about it briefly - I think a sportsmanship score here, and don't agree on him giving me a bad game vote based on army composition. Doubly frustrating because I put *so much* effort into being nice and trying to make him have a good game. He's quite clear on the fact that I failed at it. *sigh* You can't please everyone.

At any rate, I'm 3-0 at the end of the first day, and everyone breaks for dinner! My second round opponent and his Mechdar playing Dad go out to dinner with my wife and I to chat and talk about Dakka, work, and the tournament thus far.

To be blunt, his list is bad (read: fluffy and not min-maxed ). I'm glad to see someone else suffered the same fate as my Necrons against your list. Again, lackluster terrain!

@Kingsley:

Wow. No offense, but I'm surprised you made it this far. What armies did you played against to make it to round 3 against Dash? You must've had some good rolls prior.

It's frustrating when you go up against a list that will just own you, especially if the player you played against was as good as the OP. Hoped it didn't discourage you too much.


@Dash:

Great batreps so far. What type of vanilla marine army gives your DE the most problems? Shooty-MSU?

Your response to him chipmunking you should have been along the lines of, "I'm going to mark you down as I didn't have fun since all your list was capable of was rolling saves, etc."

That is a craptastic move on his part. Nothing like sour grapes.

In responce to the sportmanship scores...
I dont get why people expect to have a fun "game" at a tourney, as opposed to a fun game! If you get me...

You can get along with each other like the best of buds, laugh, joke, give advice afterwards, point out where each went wrong, go for a pint and eventually end up staying in contact. That would be an example of perfect sportsmanship IMO and result in a good game! overall.

But where i fail to see the point, is when bad scores are given to people who do most/all of the above, but just happen to have a superior list / tactics and crush the opponent during the "game". It's a tournement... isn't that kind of the point? You can be friendly all you want and get on really well for a good game! But the overall aim of the "game" would be to minimise you own casualties, wipe out the enemy if possible, all while following the letter of the rules. (some leeway can be given in certain areas of course)

sportmanship =/= playing a sub-par game so the opponent gets free kills.

If your opponent made an effort to intereact, make you laugh, helped you out, followed the rules according and was generally a pleasure to be around (or at least, not a chore to be around) then they have been a good sportman. How bad they crush your army should have no impact on this.

To further the point, Dash did the actual definition of sporting. He purposely handicapped the game so his opponent would get slight advantages so his opponent would feel good about it. That is the definition of sporting.

Oh joys of sportsmanship scores. I have no idea how the sports system worked for this tournament but in all my tournament so far this year any time you (not that I did myself) wanted to give someone a bad score (as in less than 3 out of 5) then the TO would come over and demand to know the reasoning. This pretty much single-handedly removes chipmunking/using the Sports score for something other that what its supposed to be for (in this case his own personal Comp score, which is either already accounted for by the judges or has no place at all if its a no comp event).

Its always hard to work out where to draw the line as far as letting things go though. In most cases I am like Dash and generally let stuff like possibly dodgy cover saves go because its simply not worth slowing the game down, but major jump backs/redos like the Scouts disembarking would be a no-no. The problem is that for the guy on the other end this can seem like you are being inconsistent with the rules, which doesn't reflect well on you. Ideally in a tournament I would make it clear with my opponent at the start of the game where I was going to draw the line and stick to if even if I lost the game because of it (because changing you mind when the game is on the line is just a dick move which you deserve to be hit for sports for). Obviously when you get to the last couple of rounds of a tournament and are in with an opportunity to place then you toughen up a bit, but as long as you make it clear to your opponent they are rarely going to have a problem with it.

I can't say I have much sympathy for him though, he took a static sub-optimal nilla Marine list and just walked into the face of a Dark Eldar firepower list and as you would expect got crushed. The terrain still makes me sad though.

Hi I was the subject of this battle report. Please take what Dash says about me with a huge grain of salt. He remembers with great detail all the times I "messed up" or "cheated" but fails to mention all his Raiders moving 15" onto the board first turn, him trying to tell me Beasts have grenades, trying to use some speacial weapon on his Witch Serg when he didn't even take a Serg and as far as the disagreement about the hill... he was trying to tell me it was Impassible (WTF?) oh except for Skimmers and Jump Infantry, yeah that one better not have turned into an argument.

I'll also note that I too was going for a friendly game so although there were no arguments, it was because I let a lot the questionable things he did go as well. His next two Battle Reports will be full of long drawn out arguments, so reader please do not think that he was the model of player perfection that he paints himself to be.

As far as the Chipmunking his Sportsmanship score, this is not the place for a flame war about how one person should not give a bad game for whatever reason. I'll simply say this, at the end of the game I thought to myself, 'his army was MinMaxed to the extreme, he used advantagus modeling to gain extra inches with his movement, and he told me my army wasn't good enough to play him. hmmm this guy was completely uninteresting or fun to play against nor would I ever seek out a game with him again. Bad game vote.'

What a sore looser. This is why I dislike having sportsmanship scores in tourneys, you can be the nicest guy in the world, but if you beat the wrong person then your score can suffer for no reason other than them being a bad looser.

If you don't have a sportsmanship score then just call over the TO if the opponent is being an ass-hat, and if you're a pleasure to play against then you come away with a friend instead! Then the tournament itself just comes down to what a tournament should be about, winning.

With two sides to the story, it adds a bit more perspective.

daKing wrote:Hi I was the subject of this battle report. Please take what Dash says about me with a huge grain of salt. He remembers with great detail all the times I "messed up" or "cheated" but fails to mention all his Raiders moving 15" onto the board first turn, him trying to tell me Beasts have grenades, trying to use some speacial weapon on his Witch Serg when he didn't even take a Serg and as far as the disagreement about the hill... he was trying to tell me it was Impassible (WTF?) oh except for Skimmers and Jump Infantry, yeah that one better not have turned into an argument.

More specifically:

A vehicle that moves 12" and then pivots....has still moved 12". Not 15". There's a giant thread about it in YMDC where you can go read about it here: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/369233.page

And as I said then...and again now, Baron Sathonyx gives offensive and defensive grenades to the unit he's with. Which was the beasts -which I told you at the beginning. The beasts didn't get them on the charge against your tactical marines, and you got your attacks. I appreciate you reminding me.

I mentioned at the beginning that this was a different iteration of what I usually run - my wyches didn't have a hydra gauntlet, and my Haemonculi has never had an Animus Vitae before, nor has the raider has a Torment Grenade Launcher. The animus vitae isn't even legal on the haemonculi because he already had two pieces of wargear, and you definitely weren't taking leadership at -1 due to the torment grenade launcher. I noted at the time that I was glad that you caught it; no harm came from it - nor did you suffer the negative affects of what *was* there, because I forgot that it was there.

Ah..the hill. A 3.5" - 4" tall hill with cliff-like sheer sides. No slopes, just a sheer facing up to a flat plateau. Infantry models can get to higher levels of buildings because we presume that there are ladders and stairs that let them do so. No such luck on a CLIFF. When we talked about terrain before the game, I suggested we call it impassable and BLOS where applicable in regard to true line of sight. This was before we rolled for sides. You were agreeable. You were agreeable until you were on that side, and it suddenly needed to become not impassable, and not even difficult terrain. Not even a 2D6 to scale a sheer cliff, just some infantry moseying up to the top of it (not treating it as a multi-level terrain piece either).

Like everything else that I didn't agree with - I let you have it - because I didn't think it would make a difference.

The entire game, the only thing I didn't let go your way was you trying to back out of the shooting phase back into reserve deployment to change where your scouts and their landspeeder storm went. I absolutely gave you cover where there was none, I absolutely let you multi and triple charge and take extra inches to make it happen so that you'd get at least a pyrrhic victory out of the game - I'm perfectly fine with you moving on and freely rotating to get an inch or two of extra movement...since the rules are pretty clear on it - and you even went so far as to move on 6" sideways, then rotate back to front to gain another 4-5" of movement. Look at the pictures. Your 6" moving razorbacks are 8-9" onto the table.

I pretty much let you have free reign to do anything you wanted the whole game, legal or not. All in the interest of getting a good sportsmanship score. And....you chipmunked me. I appreciate you *TELLING* me that you were chipmunking me at least, I really do. Not particularly upset that two of my other opponents did, but in our game I was the definition of a good sport.

On the other hand, like I mentioned - as the game progressed and you removed models....you were increasingly sullen. Not bothering to stand up anymore, carelessly flipping dice, muttering angrily, stormclouds hovering over your head...I fething AUDITIONED for the leading role in trying to cheer you up. You told me that I am supposed to make you have a good game. I *TRIED* to make you have a good game. Everything in my power. Of course it is upsetting when your best effort isn't good enough. Especially when you're making a best effort for something that only needs to be an effort if your opponent is not mature enough to be analytical an emotional state.

I don't understand. Someone who comes to rob my house can be as nice to me as possible, joke with me, buy me a beer, but at the end of the day he robbed my house. Why would I be mad at him?

I want to say there are older rules of 40k that say something along the lines of this. The game is a social contract between you and your opponent. You have as much responsibility to bring fun to it as they do. This was about army list design, not socializing. (I would say joking with someone in a hopeless situation is doing the opposite. It pisses me off to no end and smacks of patronizing your opponent, but to each his own) The designers were asked how they could make the rules so imbalanced and their response was that no one would take those imbalancing combinations because it would be an unfun game.

This might be going back to 3rd edition-ish. My memory is hazy. The point is some older players, maybe who started at this time, remember this and still hold to it. It is how they play the game. I also remember older tourneys had a composition catagory, player judged, which had among other thing "was your opponents army over the top?". That was a place to try and get to the edict the old designers had placed on not taking certain combinations.

This is all years in the past and it's foggy to me, but I'm sure it was there and some people might still be playing by those old rules and they feel it is the way things should be run. I strongly remember in early 3rd edition having to make army lists that were powerful, yet had hidden power my opponent would not be able to see in order to avoid those composition questions.

It was third edition Darth. Partially 4th but the idea of comp and masked power where huge then. It was a super poor move way back when to bring a hardcore army that was obvious. But times have changed and the old guard need to change with them. Just my opinion of course

If he didn't enjoy he didn't enjoy. That's the issue with the sportsmanship. A better way is giving ONE of your opponents a positive mark and maybe one a negative. Out of all the games.

Also from your pictures... even with 3" turn those raiders are about 18 inches forward not 15"

Definitely a case where the TO should place all the rules for terrain for each table; it should not be left to the players as this is an example of what happens.

Judging from the picture of your first movement phase, it seems clear you measured 12" from the edge of the board, place your 'Venom's sideways at the 12" mark, then pivot them at the end of their movement to face forward, gleaming an additional distance for weapon ranges and/or assault ranges. I won't get into a debate regarding the legality of it as I believe it to be a bit of a gray area; I can see it going both ways. However, when this tactic is compounded with having a larger model proxying and having both weapons at the very front of the model and it being night fight first turn, those extra inches could become important. By not firing one vehicle, that is 12 shots lost, which is not to be taken lightly.

With areas of contentious rules, not abiding by the least advantageous interpretation is likely what cost you the tournament. By your own links to the rules question, it clearly demonstrates it is an area of contention, so it should not be a surprise you could run into players who don't agree with your interpretation. In this case, it appears your Sportsmanship scores took you out of the top 3, but you did earn the most Battle Points. Folks may rail against this kind of scoring format, but with so many events being held, players can pick and choose the type of event they wish to enter. If one doesn't like sportsmanship scoring, then don't enter that particular tourney. Dash has not (that I remember reading) complained about the scoring, so I definitely commend him on that. But, I do recommend taking another look at tourney preparation and reflect on what to do regarding contentious rules in a venue with Sportsmanship. A good rule of thumb is default to the least advantageous interpretation and make your gameplan from that mindset. It always sucks on either side of the table when a gray area crops up midgame. It's difficult to discuss every little nuance before the game begins, but it will go a long way if folks try to be a bit flexible if/when something crops up midgame. Folks can always wait for a TO, but it takes time and may not go your way. In this case, I can't say if the extra few inches pivoting provided for weapon ranges was critical or not, but it could have been which could definitely diminish the fun of a game for the person not prepared for it.

The problem with scoring sportsmanship is that individuals often struggle to apply a uniform standard to sportsmanship. Some thing army list should matter, some thing it is about being agreeable and chatting while others get upset with rules 'exploits.' If there was a comp score at this tournament then sportsmanship should in no way shape or form be scored against army list.

We all have lost horribly in games before, the writing was on the wall for this one, there is no way that SM could have won this without some extremely bad tactical mistakes.

Also, if you do not want to roll saves play something without a save, don't play terminators. By definition terminators roll a TON of saves!

I generally agree with the premise that moving a vehicle on sideways and pivoting is a gray area in the rules and probably against their 'spirit.'

That said, I also think it is ridiculous to take back moves that happened in the previous phase. I also always let my opponent call cover - just like calling your opponents shots in tennis.

Edit: Good report in terms of clarity and the pictures thought Dash, I am glad you are writing them again.

@King - Had the scorecard been broken down into:

Was the player good or bad to play against?
Was the player's army good or bad to play against?

Do you think you'd have rated Dash as a good opponent, but his list as bad to play against (i.e. too powerful)?

I play regular Marines as well and I know how brutal some of the newer Codexes can be. Glad to see you did as well as you did though to start off 2-0. How'd you finish?

This is stupid.
Dash shouldn't have to cater to a player because that player went to a COMPETITIVE event and then got his panties in a twist when he lost.
Dash getting extra movement by pivoting at the beginning is perfectly legal.
I'm not sure that the venom modeling is ok. Raiders as venoms is a HUGE stretch. I may be a little upset about such modeling as well.
I'll refrain from using bad words but Kingsley is a little girl. It is pretty hard for me to even understand the logic of giving DoP a bad score, especially if what Dash says is true. If Kingsley wasn't having fun he should have conceded.

Playing against a competitive army in a tournament??? Why I never!!! Docking the sportsmanship score is lame.

Thanks for the battlereports, they are nice and easy to read with the illustrative pictures.

@Phototoxin: I promise you that my tape measure is more accurate than your ability to eyeball a picture and guess range. When I measure, I place the tape measure on the table with the distance I plan on moving extended, then move the model. After the model is precisely in position, I pick the tape measure back up. I have *never* had an opponent question my movement because it is phenomenally precise.

@Sarigar: Yes, that is correct. With 36" guns and him deploying units, nothing was ever in close contention for range. I have no assault units in those genome, so there's no particular benefit to pivoting. I do it because I always have and because it is legal. My opponent did the same. It is nothing strange.

@all: I never attribute maliciousness to easy mistakes. I expect the same in return. If an opponent tells me that I have already fired a vehicle....even if I know for sure that I have not...I give them the benefit of doubt and don't fire it...but I start marking what has fired. I always fire in the same order. Rapid-fire first to prevent killing models that would give me range to fire, then short range anti-tank, then long range anti-tank, then splinter cannons. On top of that I either go left to right, or I split the board in half and do one half followed by the other half. If I get to the next sequence of shooting and my opponent says that I already fired something...I can either argue till' I am blue in the face or let them have it. Sucks, but I can't think of another way.

Sometimes I forget to disembark stuff, sometimes (rarely) I forget to make an assault...in a tournament I never ask to go back to fix it. I don't think Kingsley was being malicious, just used to playstyle different than a GT brings.

And to the 3rd edition comment...Kingsley is pretty young, but I don't know when he started playing. I started 40k after 5th edition.

So you gave him a bad score because he brought a list prepared for a tournament, and you brought a list for beer and pretzel gaming?

That simply does not seem fair to the OP. If this was not a competitive event then I would see the validity of your argument. The simple fact is that it is a tournament. Did you give bad scores to other lists that you deemed "over the top"? Or did you simply have a bad taste in your mouth from being tabled?

It appears that he gave you cover saves, terrain advantage etc. The only time in which he didn't comply was letting you go back to a previous phase for your scouts.

So I ask again how was this a bad game? You came to a GT, what type of lists were you expecting?

One thing I really don't understand is that this is a competition. While tournaments can be fun, it is also an event where there are prizes for the winners and/or bragging rights. How can you not expect someone to bring in a "hard" optimized list? Not everyone plays it just for fun. Some play to win (and winning is "fun" for them). While I respect that someone would bring a non-optimized "fluffy" list to a tournament and do as well as they did thus far, as you beat more players, you're eventually going to run into the newer, better, more highly-optimized armies. And you expect that it is their responsibility to make it "fun" for you?

I'm sorry, but if you take a mouse to fight against a cat (and one that knows to to kill mice), you can be sure that you're going to lose and lose badly. The only "fun" to be had out of this is how well you can take the beating and still stand right back up.

Dashofpepper wrote:HQ: Haemonculi with Shattershard, Crucible of Malediction, and Animus Vitae

Typo? Aren't you only allowed two pieces of arcane wargear?

Going based on your opponent's statement in this thread:


he used advantagus modeling to gain extra inches with his movement


And your statement in this thread:

A vehicle that moves 12" and then pivots....has still moved 12". Not 15". There's a giant thread about it in YMDC where you can go read about it here: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/369233.page


This appears you both were not on the same page regarding the pivot and whether it garners extra movement or not as well as having questionable modelling. This was my point about losing sportsmanship points; accepting the least advantageous interpretation.

Ultimately, it's your time, money and effort utilized to go to these events. 3 out of 5 opponents apparently did not enjoy their gaming experience with you, which appears to have cost you the overall tournament winner. If you are ok with this, that is really all that matters.

On the flip side, folks knew going into the event that there were sportsmanship scores. Can't really complain (and Dash has not) if a score takes a hit. If folks really don't like that kind of scoring, then don't attend the event; this is nothing new.

realgenius wrote:

Dashofpepper wrote:HQ: Haemonculi with Shattershard, Crucible of Malediction, and Animus Vitae

Typo? Aren't you only allowed two pieces of arcane wargear?

Umm. That's kind of important.


That being said, thanks for the report Dash. I know that there is some bad blood here, but I would have liked to see a more neutral account. Every BR/GT turning into a dramafest makes me a sad panda.

I wasn't there, so I'm not sure what happened, but it is concerning to see 3 bad opponent votes out of 5. You should putting a tape recorder or video camera on the table at the start of your game, Dash. Then we would know once and for all.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Sarigar wrote:And your statement in this thread:

A vehicle that moves 12" and then pivots....has still moved 12". Not 15". There's a giant thread about it in YMDC where you can go read about it here: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/369233.page


This appears you both were not on the same page regarding the pivot and whether it garners extra movement or not as well as having questionable modelling. This was my point about losing sportsmanship points; accepting the least advantageous interpretation.

You know, based on this thread, I'm going to ask on this point when I play against anyone and I have vehicles on the table. Should keep things more friendly at tourneys. Maybe that would be a good way to go, Dash? If you know the sore spots for your opponents, deflect them by asking/coming to an agreement before the game starts.

That was discussed before actually (the Animus) in the other thread, it was an error on his part which hopefully did not turn any games. Luckily, so far it doesn't have seemed to have mattered.

I agree, maybe a reality television show centered around Dash. I bet we could get someone to flip a table for the season finale...

Edit: The real gamers of..well I do not know where you live so lets call it...Austin

Sarigar wrote:
This appears you both were not on the same page regarding the pivot and whether it garners extra movement or not as well as having questionable modelling. This was my point about losing sportsmanship points; accepting the least advantageous interpretation.

If my opponent is also moving and pivoting for the same extra movement, then I presume it isn't affecting my sportsmanship. Unless it *was* malicious.

canthatenuff wrote:
I'm not sure that the venom modeling is ok. Raiders as venoms is a HUGE stretch. I may be a little upset about such modeling as well.

Thats my biggest problem here. When I read report one, and saw all the venoms in the list, then looked at the pictures that saw all raiders.....yeah thats a bit much to actually accept, and i can accept more then a bit. Those raiders are longer then venoms.

But beyond that, the rest is between dash and the other player. I wasnt there, so its he said/she said.

carmachu wrote:

canthatenuff wrote:
I'm not sure that the venom modeling is ok. Raiders as venoms is a HUGE stretch. I may be a little upset about such modeling as well.

Thats my biggest problem here. When I read report one, and saw all the venoms in the list, then looked at the pictures that saw all raiders.....yeah thats a bit much to actually accept, and i can accept more then a bit. Those raiders are longer then venoms.

Yes - those venoms are bigger than the new venoms that are up for pre-order. My bigger venoms come with quite a few disadvantages, and the potential for a couple of advantages depending on what is inside them.