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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
Game Four
Game Five: You're reading it!

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 Five Opponent: David Light's Blood Angels
HQ: Librarian with Unleash Rage and Sanguine Sword

Troop1: 10x Death Company, 2x Power Weapons, 1x Power Fist, Chaplain Lemartes
Troop2: Death Company Dreadnought with Blood Talons and a Melta Gun
Troop3: Death Company Dreadnought with Blood Talons and a Melta Gun
Troop4: 10x Assault Marines with 2x Melta Guns, Power Fist and Jump Packs with a Razorback + Twin-Linked Assault Cannon
Troop5: 10x Assault Marines with 2x Melta Guns, Power Weapon, no Jump Packs with a Razorback + Twin-Linked Assault Cannon
Troop6: 5x Assault marines with a Powerfist, no Jump Packs

Elite1: 2x Sanguinary Priests with 2x Power Weapons

Heavy Support1: Storm Raven with Twin-Linked Multi-Melta, Twin-Linked Lascannon, Extra Armour
Heavy Support2: Storm Raven with Twin-Linked Multi-Melta, Twin-Linked Lascannon, Extra Armour



Remember the Alamo!!: This is it, this is the endgame in the Battle for Alamo Prime. The enemy has been forced back into a final desperate stand. Strike now and finish them! Alamo Prime is nearly ours!
Objective: Seize Ground (3 Objectives)
Deployment: Dawn of War
Special Rules: Rulebook Default
Duration: Random Game Length
Secondary Objective: Those in particular must die! For this objective you must choose four enemy units from among the following force selection categories: Elite, Fast Attack, Heavy Support. You must select at least one unit from each category, unless your opponent has no units in that category. For each of such units that you utterly destroy by any means, you receive a single objective point. This is the only scenario in which both players may earn secondary objective points.

"You will remembe this battle! Each minute! Each second! Until the day that you die! But that is for tomorrow, gentlemen. For today, Remember The Alamo!" -Sam Houston
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Battle Report Note:
Once upon a time, I played an MMO called Eve Online where I was a famous carebear, most noted for writing/singing/performing parodies. I did a couple for 40k, but they never found an audience (Dice Dice Baby, Vanilla Ice Style), and I just ran across a link for one that I thought I would put up for you to get into the mood for my last battle report.




I actually wanted to make a parody FOR my battle report, or as a supplemental as the same song but with appropriate lyrics, but it would take me probably all of tonight to write it, I have a tournament tomorrow for my Necrons to beat face in, so wouldn't get anything done tomorrow, and would have to try recording it on Sunday - all of which would hinder a battle report being written for my fifth game...by which point I'd probably be getting flamed hardcore for not having written it. So...have a beer. Listen to a funny song for which you probably won't get the jokes (unless you've ever played Eve Online) and picture a 40k Variant to the tune of "And if I get banned from Dakka, I know why...."


Pre-Game Tactical Assessment:
So...table #1 for game 5. Back from lunch, and pairings go up. I'm on top of the heap. In fact, I have such a commanding lead on battlepoints, that if I tie this game, and anyone else gets a full 20 points, I'll still end up with more Battle Points than anyone else. I never play for the tie, I go for the throat - but its comforting to know that I have a safety net. I went to dinner last night with my opponent's first round matchup, and he seeks me out to let me know that David is playing Blood Angels. We wander around the tables looking for his army so that I can see what's in it, but its nowhere to be found. He rummages out David's army list and passes it to me. Hrm...no Mephiston, no ridiculous las/plas razorback spam with 3-6 predators backing it up. Two Stormravens, two razorbacks. o.O Four vehicles!?! Four vehicles don't scare me. The two dreadnoughts kick it up to six, but he only has four vehicles with long ranged firepower...I'm starting to feel confident.

Here's a shot of the table. We roll off for objective placement and I win, getting to place two to his one. Those are my two in the center foreground and his in the rear left. We talk about terrain and come up with the following: The long junkpile on the right is 4+ area terrain for infantry, BLOS where applicable. The circular thing in the middle left is area terrain 4+ with the tower being impassable. The radio tower thingy to the right is area terrain 4+, BLOS where applicable. The hill to the rear right is TLOS. So is the hill to the rear left, and the trenches over on the left are 4+ cover for infantry inside. The Star Wars shield generator thingy in the middle - he wants area terrain 4+ for infantry, with the disks impassable, which I accept.


SLAAAAAVES!


And his objective token.


We roll for deployment option and I win - I choose the side I'm on (and taking pictures from). I choose to go in full DoW reserves. David starts deploying units, and puts a razorback in the middle of the board, and another to my right behind the junk pile. I note that its Dawn of War, and that he only gets two troop units and an HQ option for deployment, and he takes them back off.

Dashofpepper comments: Now that I think about it in context, I wonder if he did that on purpose to see if I would think he'd put units over there. When they announced the start, David still wasn't at our table. He said later (on Dakka) that they had an early start, and that he didn't miss the official game start time. When he did arrive at the table, he made a big deal about being drunk, having to pee repeatedly, being loud and boisterous. I took it at face value at the time. In the Alamo GT thread in tournament discussion he wrote:

Foreigner wrote:I was not remotely as intoxicated as you or anyone else may have thought. I tend to play up perceived weaknesses on purpose both to disarm the opponent and because its somewhat entertaining. I also enjoying playing the idiot. I think I pull it off fairly well

Given that I like to drink while playing sometimes and I'm still dangerous, I didn't remotely consider the possibility that him drinking would give me an advantage. Anyway, it's a tangential note; I just wonder if he intentionally illegally deployed with the intent of trying to make me think he was broadcasting his future intentions.

I don't remember if he tried to seize or not; if he attempted, he didn't get it.

For the secondary targets, he nominates my beast unit, the smaller trueborn unit, and two of my three ravagers. I nominate both of his storm ravens and both of his sanguinary priests.

Dashofpepper Turn One:
My army moves flat-out onto an empty table. Between nightfight and 4+ cover saves I should escape relatively unscathed. *SHOULD* being the key word. My beast unit....I don't actually know what to do with it, so I move it on by the central objective. From a tactical perspective, a lot of thought actually goes into what goes where on the table. Two ravagers on the left flank with the ability to move 12" left or right to get shots anywhere on the table...the third ravager center right with the ability to cover the middle of the table and the right flank in case he *does* bring units in behind that pile of junk. Two trueborn in the middle because there are two objectives in the middle, with the third on the right to offset the anti-tank power on my left flank, with venoms equally spread amongst all of it. Strong killzones to the front, with the ability to bring 2/3 of my firepower to bear left or right.


My beasts run 3", and I pass the turn over to David.


Enemy Turn One:
David moves on the board. Both death company dreadnoughts are in the stormravens. Death Company is in one stormraven, with a 10 man tactical squad (no jump packs) and a sanguinary priest in the other storm raven. The 5 man squad is in a razorback with a sanguinary priest. The other tactical squad with jump packs combat squads and jumps on 12". I didn't take a picture of his movement, so I'll describe it the best I can. You'll see it in an upcoming picture anyway. Both storm ravens move onto the board flat out - the one with death company rolling 24" up the board just on the other side of the tower by my leftmost Ravager. Both razorbacks come on the field 12" in the center, behind the Star Wars shield thingy. The one on my far right has the 5 man tactical squad in it. His combat squadded unit jumps five guys onto his objective, and the other five trail behind his other storm raven.

On to shooting!

The razorback that is empty shoots first; he goes for my venom that has the small trueborn unit in it since its a bonus objective point for him. Nightfight gives him 30" of range. He's well within 24" range. Four shots, twin-linked. He gets four hits. 4+ to glance, 5+ to penetrate. 4 Penetrates. I fail four cover saves. He explodes my venom. Three trueborn inside getting wounded on a 4+. He causes 3 wounds. I fail three armour saves. Boom. First salvo of the game and I've lost two units. What's worse...this will go on to characterize almost the entire game. My last game was pretty ridiculous for dice rolling; this game is straight up off the chain. While I was out to lunch, my dice got stoned and David's ODed on speed. I kid you not.


The stormraven closest to my left ravager uses PotMS to shoot at my ravager with his twin-linked lascannon. He gets the shot, I fail my cover save, and...he explodes my ravager. The furthest Storm Raven doesn't have LOS to anything that Nightfight could help him with, and the other razorback fails nightfight. The ravager with the green die on it is the one that isn't a target for his secondary objective points.


Dashofpepper Turn Two:
I prep my alpha-strike. I've lost a trueborn unit and a ravager, but I've got two ravagers left, a raider lance, 8 more blasters between my trueborn, and 5 blasters spread out amongst my warrior units. That's 20 shots, 3+ to hit, and either 3+ to glance (razorbacks), or 4+ to glance (Storm Ravens)

I move into position for shooting - my beasts are still confused about where to go. They can't hurt the storm raven because of the AV12 in the rear.


Post movement as I'm getting ready to shoot: There's a ravager out of sight to the left that's going to shoot at one of the two storm ravens depending on what happens elsewhere. All the venoms on the left move 6" so that I don't have to disembark to shoot - but they'll all be within 18" of that closest storm raven. Both ravagers are lined up to have shots at either storm raven depending on what my close range anti-tank does. My trueborn on the far right move up 6" to line up blasters against the closest razorback. Two of my warrior venoms move up and disembark warriors. I know he has assault marines in the right razorback, so I disembark one warrior unit as a screening unit, with the second unit behind with the blaster in the lead having a clear shot between two warriors in the other squad to shoot at his razorback.


Four games down, and I haven't gotten to use my haywire grenades yet. 6+ to hit, but damn it, I need to put them to work.


I open fire! Miserably. My four trueborn on the far right shoot at the razorback with the assault marines in it and get four misses. My two disembarked warrior squads shoot at the same razorback. One misses. The second one hits, glances, and stuns it.

Onto midfield! My other unit of four trueborn shoot at his central stormraven. I get 3 of 4 hits, one penetrate and one glance. He saves them both. Three warrior blasters from three separate venoms shoot at it - one gets a penetrate and he saves. One misses. One gets a glance and he saves. On to my ravagers. The furthest one shoots at his furthest storm raven; Two penetrates and a glance! He saves both penetrates, and the glance gets through....shaken. The other ravager shoots at the central ravager. One glance and one penetrate - he saves both.

Alright...I've still got splinter cannons. Five venoms have LOS and range to his combat squadded assault marines. The furthest one shoots at his nearest assault marines - I roll about average and get 4 wounds out of 12 shots, and he fails one save - but is within 6" of his storm raven with the priest in it. Or at least...the head of the nearest model is within 6" of the tail of the storm raven. I'm not sure if it is supposed to be measured from the base or not...but I don't bring it up; he's got another 5 guys from the other half of the combat squad in range too, so my other four venoms unload on them. 48 shots. Somewhere between 10-15 wounds. Not a single failed 3+ armour save.

Well. That was ineffective. My wyches are in a bad situation, but they get a 3" run roll and start to split around the base of the storm raven next to them. They assault in on 2D6 and get 5" - not quite enough to get all the way around.


Terrible...terrible shooting phase.

On to assault!

Haywire grenades get thrown...I get 3-4 hits! They all glance, but one of them gets a six to immobilize it - and since it went flat out, its wrecked. This spawned a 40 minute rules discussion, which I'll cover at the end of the battle report. Lemartes and 3 Death company get out on one side - the dreadnought gets out on the other side.


We had a 30-40 minute pause in our game here because of a rules dispute. Wyches have mostly surrounded and assaulted a storm raven and wrecked it. They didn't get a run far enough to COMPLETELY surround it, and left a 3" or so gap on one side of the base. Thus begins the rule dispute on disembarking. It went like this:

David: Alright, I'm going to get out 6 guys, and the other 4 and the dreadnought are destroyed.
Dash: I'm pretty sure that if the entire unit can't get out, then the unit is destroyed?
David and Dash consult rulebook.
David: No, it specifically says models that can't get out are destroyed.
Justin: But on the column next to it, it talks about the unit disembarkation.
David: But the model rule is more specific.
Justin: Hrm...alright. But you should still be able to emergency disembark, yeah? All 10 guys get out without 2" of the hull?
David: No, because that would put me within 1" of you.
Justin: <I'm actually arguing for his benefit here, I know> My models are 1", your models are 1", which means that 2" out from the hull puts you precisely 1" away from me.
David: No, I'd still be within 1".
Justin: Dude, its just addition. Its a mathematical certainty that you can get out.
David: Then my dreadnought can get out over here! <Puts dread on the other side of wyches>
Justin: Uh...no, you can't move through my models to disembark your own.
David: Yes I can, it says ANYWHERE within 2" of the hull, it doesn't say I can't move through you.
Justin: So they magically teleport to the other side? You can't get there without going through me and moving within 1" of my models.
David: It doesn't say that I can't.

Meanwhile, the judges are looking at the rulebook...and we're 40 minutes into repeating the same things over and over...and they haven't ruled one way or the other. Finally, I'm freaking out even more about the time and our game not finishing and say, "Alright...look - lets just do it your way so we can get on with the game." Judges say, "So you're good here?" I say, "Yeah, we're fine."

This is the ONE tournament that I didn't bring the GW FAQ with me. And in big bold text in the main rulebook FAQ, it says that disembarking models must follow the rules for normal model movement, and can't move through enemy models to disembark.

The end result was him getting a dreadnought out that he shouldn't have been able to, and 30-40 minutes of our game wasted. Yes...it was partly my fault. I was incorrect about the unit being destroyed part, and arguing for an incorrect ruling. It happens. The judges weighed in on that and got it settled right after they got involved.

It was also partly his fault. He should have KNOWN that you can't move through enemy units. My bad for not having the FAQ with me, but all it did was clarify the obvious so that people couldn't try doing it. I wanted to clear the air and have a good rest of the game, so I apologized for being a douche and nitpicking about the rules.

The reason that this conversation took 40 minutes....well, I attributed it to him being drunk, but he's later said that he was faking the drunkenness. >< Basically, I don't shout over people. I would start to explain my position, and he would interrupt me with his. I'd hear him out and try to rebuttal...and he's talk over me again. When the judges got involved, he talked over them too - like talking loudly enough and saying it over enough would convince them and us. I couldn't get in a word edgewise, the judges couldn't get in a word edgewise...we just sat there listening to him. I literally spent half an hour thinking he would let me explain my position, or trying to explain it to the judges and getting interrupted. I finally gave up because I figured he was too drunk to realize he was being obnoxious. >< On a positive note, the John is planning on implementing a rule in all following Alamo GTs because of this incident where one player speaks their piece, and the other player is not allowed to speak. Then the other player speaks their piece and the first player is not allowed to speak. Then the judges decide.

Moving on...

Enemy Turn Two:

The tactical squad + sanguinary priest from the stunned razorback disembarks and moves forward 6" into assault range of my leading warrior unit.


The assault marines that were hanging behind the now wrecked storm raven jump up 12" while the dreadnought pivots towards my haemonculi raider. His death company repositions itself a bit for a charge into the wyches - I'm not sure if he's planning on throwing his dreadnought at my wyches or the death company or both.


Here's his death company movement.


The other storm raven moves 12" over towards my beasts and drops his assault marines in front of them.


The dreadnought from that storm raven disembarked before it moved out - the dreadnought then moves 6" up to my ravager.


Onto shooting!

The dreadnought by my ravager shoots at my ravager and misses. *phew*
The 5 man assault squad that jumped up near my wych raider shoot at it and miss.
The dreadnought shoots at the wych raider with his melta and penetrates...and rolls a 1. Open-topped and AP1; I lose the dark lance.
The stunned razorback pops smoke (during movement).
The unstunned razorback explodes another troop venom on my right flank...causes 5 wounds to the warriors inside...who predictably fail 5 armour saves and are wiped.

His remaining storm raven shoots at the second ravager on his bonus objective list and explodes it after my flicker fields continue to...flicker...fail...

Onto assaults!

The death company assault into my wyches. I manage to not get any wounds past his armour saves (and Feel No Pain) and then fail all my invulnerable saves, lose initiative, and get wiped out.


His five man assault marine squad with the sanguinary priest in tow prove to be tougher than my five warriors in close combat, and I die without inflicting any wounds. I took this shot during my turn - the other squad is alive, they just hopped back into their transport.


His dreadnought assaults my ravager - needing 6+ to hit and getting one. I fail my flickerfield save and he penetrates to weapon destroy my front lance.

His other dreadnought and assault marines pile into my wych ravager and kill it; the haemonculi gets out and passes his leadership test.


His 10 man assault squad assaults into the Baron and beast unit - I get in a couple wounds with rending razorwings - enough to count towards my ability to pass leadership after he gets done with me. The Baron takes one wound....makes one Shadowfield save...and fails it. However, he's attached to the Beasts, so he can't hit and run out of combat.


Dashofpepper Turn Three:
Alright, lets see. I'm down a trueborn squad and their venom. Another troop squad and a venom. Two ravager. My wyches and their raider. A good chunk of my beasts and my Baron's shadowfield. And thus far...I've shaken a stormraven that got to PotMS fire anyway, and stunned an assault cannon razorback for a turn, and wrecked a stormraven that cost him half of his death company. Not a very good alpha-strike.

Same picture, different discussion points. One of my venoms from behind the shield generator jumps up on top and passes a dangerous terrain test. The base represents where the model is; it was kind of wobbly up there. The warriors that the now dead warriors were screening jump back into their venom.


My ravager on the left jumps 12" over the dreadnought that just assaulted it so that it can shoot at its rear armour. On the right, I circle up to pour death and dismay into his tactical marines and his razorbacks.

With the assault marines on the right having a priest, splinter cannons would be wasted, so I target the assault marines camping on his objective in the backfield. It takes EVERY splinter cannon in my army to kill those 5 marines.


My four trueborn in the venom to the right shoot at the unsmoked razorback...and miss four more times. 0/8 shots hitting on a 3+. You guys are awesome.
The four trueborn in the middle shoot at his stormraven. 0/4 hits. Seriously?
My warriors on the right (and one venom who I figured was out of range of the assault marines on the far right) rapid fire into the 5 marines and priest. 16 rapid fire splinter rifles, two blasters, and 12 shots from a splinter cannon later, I've caused no wounds.
Since my wych squad is dead, my haemonculi figures that the shattershard is his best bet to take down Lemartes and Death company. I lay down the template, smack them all, and...they all pass toughness tests.
My remaining ravager pumps two shots into the rear of his dreadnought at point blank range and misses with both.

What...the farting feth. Seriously. David's dice REFUSE to let him down, and mine aren't even to the hung-over stage of their lethargy.

We move on to assaults - which is the beasts and his assault marines. I smack a couple more down with rending (I've been trying to protect my razorwings) in exchange for losing all my beastmasters and khymerae...can't make an invul save (or a flickerfail save to save (haha!) my life. My beasts stick around.


Enemy Turn Three:
On the right flank, he decided to try ramming his razorback down the throat of my trueborn venom...and immobilizes himself on the wreckage of the dead venom.


The dreadnought in midfield brings its bulk to bear on my itsy bitsy haemonculi, while his assault squad jumps forward to get into my midfield and towards my rear objective. There's only four of them. I didn't even kill the other one, he failed a dangerous terrain test in...the first turn I think.


On the far left, his other dreadnought shuffles around to face my last ravager again.


Death company moves up to support his tactical marines against my beasts, and on the right, his death company walk forward to the nearest venom (from the now dead warrior squad) and shoot it out of the sky.

Shooting!

On the left his dreadnought fires his melta at my ravager. And misses again.
In midfield his tactical marines fire bolt pistols at my venom but fail to glance. Death company is readying a charge so doesn't shoot, and the dreadnought is about to assault my haemonculi and doesn't shoot. On the right his immobilized razorback moved too far to shoot, and the other razorback shoots at my trueborn venom, scores a glance and a pen..and HOLY SMOKES! My first flickerfield save of the game. I make them both!

His storm raven explodes another troop venom, but this time he doesn't do any wounds to the squad inside. They pass their pinning check.

Onto assaults.

Alright guys. Your help REALLY wasn't needed here. But his death company joins the assault on my beasts and finishes wiping them.


His tactical squad in midfield assaults the venom they were eyeballing with krak grenades and miraculously whiff.


The assault marines on the right can't charge because they shot too well.


The dreadnought on the far left assaults my ravager, but gets no 6s this time.

The dreadnought in midfield assaults into my haemonculi, who pwns the dreadnought with his STR10 C'Tan Doomsword. But the sword slipped at the last minute and cut off his hand and he wasn't quick enough to dodge the blood talons. Or at least that's the story that he's telling his friends over some Soul Nectar at the Coven Bar right now to explain how he got shipped back in pieces.


Dashofpepper Turn Four:
Taking a beating here. Nuff said.

My ravager on the far left plays hopscotch again and jumps over the dreadnought to take a couple more shots at his rear armour.


I've given up shooting at his damned Storm Raven with blasters - I need to take down troop choices at this point to stand any chance of pulling out victory. In midfield, two of my warrior units move 12" over towards his corner objective and disgorge troops to rapid fire into the assault squad that tore up my beasts. Its kind of suicidal, but I've put them on opposite ends of their venoms so that the death company can't multi-charge and hit them both. That sanguinary priest is in 6" of his other assault squad too, so there's no point shooting at them until I can take down that squad with the priest in it.


On the right side, my trueborn venom retreats 6" to line up splinter cannons with the midfield assault marines and the assault marines on the right.

I have one venom flat out 24" to get within 3" of his backfield objective.

On to shooting!

So...order of fire plays a big part in what I shoot and when. He has 4 tactical marines and a priest - the priest is also covering down FnP on another unit. I have three warrior squads with splinter rifles and a blaster each, three venoms with dual splinter cannons each, and one trueborn unit of 4 blasters. I'm hoping that my shooting goes well with the splinter weaponry so that I can save blasters for the storm raven with my trueborn - if I were to pop those first, they'd obviously kill everything BUT the priest. I rapid fire both squads into him, then two venoms...and kill two marines. With my two blaster shots. >< He's left with the priest is left with one tactical marine. I've got a squad in midfield aimed at his other unit, the trueborn venom and the trueborn. The way he's been rolling saves....I don't feel like I have much of a choice, so I drop four trueborn blaster shots into his assault marine and priest to kill them both.

The priest dying deprives the other assault squad of Feel No Pain, so I drop the trueborn venom and the other warrior squad into them, killing three out of four. On the right, my trueborn drop four blasters into the other assault squad with the priest...and he makes four cover saves.

My ravager on the far left drops two more dark lances into the back of his dreadnought and...misses twice more. $%@!@


We're drawing quite a crowd at this point - most of the games are over. I start going through my verbal monologue (out loud) of what's fired where to make sure I've done everything; sweeping left to right. I note that his lone remaining assault marine in midfield will need leadership, and he rolls it and fails - falling back 3D6.


I continue sweeping to the right and get to my trueborn venom on the right...which hasn't fired yet.

We pause to discuss. My choice of target for the venom would be his lone assault marine (who happens to be toting a melta-gun) that's already fallen back. He fell back out of LOS of my venom. David says that I can't shoot at it because he already fell back. I tell him that we should have done leadership at the end of the shooting phase. He tells me that I was ok with him taking leadership. I tell him yes, but it was still out of order - this is the point where my fourth round opponent yells "STOP $$#@ CHEATING!" and I say, "NO SPECTATOR COMMENTS!"

The point of taking leadership at the end of the shooting phase is to prevent the attacking player from gaining an advantage. If you do enough casualties to a unit to make them have to check leadership, you could have them take leadership immeidately and see if they fall back or not - a tactical advantage to the rest of your firepower. David insists that I can't shoot at him since he's already fallen back....we're running out of time, and definitely do *NOT* have time for another lengthy rules dispute, so I move on; I shoot at the only other viable target, the assault marines with the priest next to me, who predictably take no wounds. This one *did* peeve me a bit. Doing something out of order should NEVER gain an advantage. I don't mind people running during the move phase to save time as long as it doesn't give an unfair advantage (like making extra room for the unit behind to move into the gap, or on from reserves or something). I didn't expect his marine to fail leadership; marines never do, so I didn't mind him taking it at the time so that I wouldn't forget about it later.

At this point, we're ticking down to the last few minutes of time. We tell the TO that we need more time; we're on Table #1, we had a late start, a 40 minute mid-game interruption for a rules dispute, and we're still on turn four. He tells us that we can have 20 more minutes.

Enemy Turn Four:
The lone tactical marine auto-regroups, consolidates 3" to my left, then jumps 12" towards the venom that went flat out.


His dreadnought moves up 6" towards my trueborn venom.


His storm raven moves flat out onto the midfield objective to contest it - my warriors are sitting in their wreckage on it.

On the right side, his assault marines 2D6 forwards and open up on my trueborn venom with a melta and bolt pistols, getting a shaken and weapon destroyed result.


On the left flank, he pops a melta at my warrior venom, which fails its flickerfield save and wrecks it. My warriors get out and pass pinning. To pre-empt more discussion from the same 50 people about venoms that have been voicing their disapproval in all the other threads - The venoms were approved by the TO. Deal with it. If I *had* the actual venom - which still isn't released - while it is shorter than a 3rd edition raider, the wings on it create a wider profile. Instead of getting out in a straight line, I would have just gotten out clumped 2" on the outside of the left wing. Still out of assault range.


His dreadnought moves up to my warriors and assaults them. Nom nom nom nom. They disappear in a red mist of blood talons.


On the far left flank, his dreadnought was getting dizzy turning around and turning around. He got a hit this time, and the melta penetrated through my flickerfield to explode my last ravager.

On the far right, his assault marines don't attempt to assault my trueborn venom - he's probably hoping to get up to the midfield objective and take it.

In midfield, Death company jumps one of my disembarked warrior squads and kills it.

Dashofpepper Turn Five:

They gave us 20 minutes in the last turn - we're the only game still going on, and I'm not sure how much time we have left - I didn't try taking any pictures because those take time. In fact, my games would all go faster if I didn't take pictures, but then there would be no battle reports.

On the far left, my warriors move around the wrecked venom to deliver a blaster to the face of the assault marine, killing him and retaking the objective.

In midfield, my last two venoms over on that side move 12" up between the dreadnought and my warriors on his backfield objective so that he can't physically get there with his dreadnought.

My last troop venom in midfield behind the storm raven moves over onto the objective while the trueborn venom moves up a few inches so that it can shoot into the back of the dreadnought that killed my other warriors. My blasters finally do something and I explode it.

On the right, my trueborn venom is shaken and weapon destroyed - I move closer to the storm raven, disembark and whiff again.

All venoms that can fire into Lemartes and the deathcompany. Lemartes takes a wound and one death company goes down.


I'm expecting this to be the last turn; we've got...minutes left out of our extra time. My turn ends with me holding two objectives for the moment.

Enemy Turn Five:
His midfield razorback that isn't immobilized passes a dangerous terrain check and moves 18" flat out to get within 3" of the backfield objective that my warriors are on.

His sanguinary priest and last assault unit get a 4" move towards my objective in midfield - putting him about 5-6" away from it. He jumps his stormraven off the objective I'm holding and goes to land on the other one to be able to contest it.
Lemartes and the death company move towards his backfield objective to help deal with the two venoms I'm trying to block his access with.

On to shooting. His dreadnought meltas a venom and I make a flickerfield save.
His assault marines on the right need to roll a 2+ to get within range of my last objective to contest it too and...he rolls a 1. Suddenly he can't contest the objective.

On the far left, his dreadnought and lemartes + death company remnants assault into their respective venoms; the dreadnought wrecks his; the other is unscathed.

Time gets called.

The back left objective is contested, the middle left objective is contested, and I own the center rear objective and win 1-0.

Post Game Tactical Assessment:
David literally handed me the game at the end. His death company could have contested the the objective that his storm raven jumped onto, and he could have left his storm raven where it was risk free of the results of his assault marine rolls. That would have ended in a tie - the advantage still would have swung to me given my huge lead on battle points for the tournament results. I was shocked when he moved his storm raven off. After the game, he said that he thought they were giving us time for a sixth turn, which is why he moved the Stormraven off the objective - our 20 minute extension came in the middle of turn four, so I wasn't sure about that.

David said that he was sure he could get a draw at worst, or a win if we went to six turns. I had two trueborn units left....if I could take down his unit of three assault marines and a priest (now in the open) with a trueborn unit...possibly finally kill the storm raven...I'm not so sure that he could have gotten it. I offered to continue to six turns anyway for peace of mind (it wouldn't count for the tournament since we already turned in our scorecards) but he declined. I would have liked to have seen what happened.

Aside from that....everything that could go wrong did go wrong. Even stuff that shouldn't have happened ruleswise went wrong. I pretty much failed with my shooting 90% of the game, most of which was when it counted - when I had units alive to shoot. The dreadnought that should have died in the stormraven wreck went on to kill a raider, haemonculi, and a warrior squad, and absorb fire that I could have been directing at...probably a storm raven. Not being able to shoot at a falling back tactical marine with a melta-gun cost me another venom and the ability to physically block the objective over there from his razorback moving flat out onto it.

My beasts rolled badly, the baron whiffed everything and failed his first shadowfield save, my wyches did nothing in close combat....my ravagers all died without killing anything, my trueborn were too drunk to hit anything....I took massive casualties across the board the entire game.

To be honest, winning in the face of that adversity was a glorious moment. We didn't get a sixth turn to see where it could have gone, although I offered - this game makes me think of the threads on Dakka about luck vs. skill. The dice were against me, and his were with him.

We talked after the game - he wasn't hostile, for which I was grateful, but he told me that he considered it a bad game and gave me a bad game vote for not getting through six turns.

Sportsmanship at the Alamo works as a multiplier; the third bad game vote cost me -16 points. 16 points the value for winning a game.

The tournament ended with me winning Best Overall. In longstanding tradition, I inquired of the TO who came in dead last and gave them my loot, minus the plaque - which would have been tacky. I've collected a lot of loot over the last two years since I've started 40k, and don't care about prize support anymore - I play for the challenge.

And boy, was this a challenging game.

Monday morning following the GT, the TO sent out an e-mail noting that he tabulated scores incorrectly - and that I shouldn't have won Best Overall. Eh. *shrugs* I was the only player to go 5-0. No hurt feelings on my end. I *did* do some serious soul-searching on the way back from the Alamo. Three bad game votes are nothing to toss aside. I called Hulksmash, called Mike Brandt...called some other 40k friends from around the country to talk to them about it.

Ultimately, I've never had sportsmanship issues at an event before. Were these justified? Eh...I don't think so. I've told the story, been honest about it, you the reader will be the judge of it as you always are. Some of you will think that my opponents were being petty. Some of you will think that its no ones' business but those who gave them. Some of you will think (and avidly post) about what a rotten bastard you think I am. I probably can probably even scribble down 90% of your names before you even show up in this thread.

Outliers happen. If I start developing a trend of bad sportsmanship, I'll have to think about it - but folks who meet me generally like me, and I get along with folks just fine during almost every game. I'll admit that I've never had such a hostile interaction with anyone like I did with Chris before; he and Kingsley were glaring daggers at me when I left and whispering to their friends; it was a bit uncomfortable.

I've got nothing against David though. He gave me a bad game vote. I might not agree, but he wasn't a douche about it, and I respect his ability on the table, and his attitude. And as I said earlier, I don't hold grudges.

Anyway, that's a wrap! Dark Eldar prevail 5-0.

Plenty of GK players there, but none did well enough to have to get beaten down by me. Several Mech IG players there as well, but again - none did well enough to face me. I did see several Space Wolf armies; one was completely drop-pod oriented, another was standard longfang/razorspam - I was *really* hoping to draw them in a match; I have a personal grudge against all space wolf players.

And at the end of it all, I had fun. I got to meet some cool new folks, I made some friends, I got to put some faces to some internet names; I even met two internet celebrities (Goatboy and Darkwynn). The Alamo was a cool event, John was a great dude to meet - while terrain was a bit...less...than I might have hoped for, I heard something about someone's vehicle with a truck full of terrain breaking down being the reason for that, but that there was supposed to be more terrain. I think he said that there would be a lot more next year too.

I had intended on bringing my Necrons, but they didn't get finished in time; next year I'll have to bring my NEW Necrons, which will undoubtedly be such overpowered Matt Ward cheese that they make Blood Angel players feel like Suit-less Tau armies.

Thanks for reading!

Thanks for the read.

I feel your pain about getting undeserved bad sports scores. At the recent astro in winnipeg, one opponent gave me 0/5 for army sportsmanship. Sure, I tabled him in about 3 turns, but I don't think it was a fair assessment.

Another player gave me a 1 in player sportsmanship because I called him on a couple BS moves, such as stealing my dice (...) and knocking models over, then replacing them in a tactically advantageous position.

Sometimes you have a bad game and there is nothing you can do. Others don't like getting beat down and give you a bad sports score as a result. I've definitely noticed a trend: the better I do in Battle points the worse I do in sportsmanship. The worse I do in battlepoints the better I do in sportsmanship. I'm really beginning to see why so many people don't like sports scoring.

edit: spelling.

In all honesty dude, I have no problem with who you are and enjoy the way you play.

Here is the thing, if I go to watch the Dukes of Hazzard, I am going to expect car chases, bad acting, hot chicks, and general jackassness. Now if I am going to a tournament and draw you in the tournament, am I going to expect an easy, lets hug and make cupcakes type of game? Hell no!

Nice to see you writing up the battle reports. Can't wait to see the next tournament.

Brother Ramses wrote:

Nice to see you writing up the battle reports. Can't wait to see the next tournament.

That would be this weekend. My Necrons shall dominate!

Dash, man, melt those dice down and use them as objective holders. They need to learn their place!

Great come back though! I can't wait to see what your crons do this weekend (If you're doing bat reps for them).

I will be doing batreps.

I would have been cross if I thought I'd have time for another turn that never came, as well, even if I had misheard about it. Although I would have tried to give the judges a bad game mark instead. As it stand, it seemed like bad judging. That "amendment" to their judging should have been how they played it to begin with. But I'm a stern judge.

Dash wrote:
We pause to discuss. My choice of target for the venom would be his lone assault marine (who happens to be toting a melta-gun) that's already fallen back. He fell back out of LOS of my venom. David says that I can't shoot at it because he already fell back. I tell him that we should have done leadership at the end of the shooting phase. He tells me that I was ok with him taking leadership. I tell him yes

Incidentally, he jedi mind tricked you fair and square here. You told him it was ok that he took his leadership then. He should have made you stop shooting after that too since it meant your shooting phase was over. You yourself recommend these kind of tactics in your DE strategy guide.

I watched this game and it looked pretty insane.

grats on the win.

@ Dash
The truth is always grey from the eyes of spectators and side seat drivers. You went, had fun, and conquered, so don't sweat it. If you feel any conviction, then continue to meditate, if nothing is found, then move on until something like this possibly happens again. Some did not like the outcome, but they will get over it. You are always welcomed back to Texas to compete.
If there is any lesson to be learned, it is that you could possibly smile the whole time like a politician as you table victims. LOL.

Great report and insight... Manic

Dash, I'd just like to say that half the reason I registered was to be able to say that your battle reports have been very influential on my learning of the game. Your explanations of the reasonings behind your actions as you describe them is very enlightening, as well as your analysis of opponent actions and intent. I enjoyed reading your reasoning throughout this entire set of reports, thanks for putting so much work into these.

Love it dash, I've read all your reports so far and will continue to read whatever you put up here on Dakka.

I was going to go to the Alamo GT with some friends just to watch you play but I had to go out of town for that weekend.

Anyway, know that a lot of us here love your stuff so keep posting!

the only thing that i am wondering about was how Rage on all of his Death Company stuff was played.


There was some discussion on Dakka Dakka about Dread rage, and (some people think) that dreads only have a 45 degree arc for LOS, not 360" like infantry do.

If that was the case, then the dread would not be able to turn around and face your ravager those two times, but would have instead moved forward if it could see another unit.


How did rage factor into the movement of the Death Company? Did you ever consider leading them away from the battle with a single venom? That is a tactic that you always hear in tactics threads, but I have never seen in used in a battle report.


Great battle report.

It makes me think that If I was in America I would go too your tournaments and lose and get the money

Anyway Good game, I hate drunk behaviour affecting a game, drink after the game and during if you wish but not enough too get drunk.

Unless I've missed a rule, the big Stormraven headache could have easily been resolved.

You stated you got a wrecked result (with some help from him going Flat Out) on the Stromraven. The picture shows the model was removed and just the base remained. Why was the model not placed where it had been wrecked, like any other vehicle? If that had been done, it would have take small amount of time to line up where your wyches would have been, but due to the size of the Stormraven, he would have easily been able to place the models down as per the rules.

Sarigar wrote:Unless I've missed a rule, the big Stormraven headache could have easily been resolved.

You stated you got a wrecked result (with some help from him going Flat Out) on the Stromraven. The picture shows the model was removed and just the base remained. Why was the model not placed where it had been wrecked, like any other vehicle? If that had been done, it would have take small amount of time to line up where your wyches would have been, but due to the size of the Stormraven, he would have easily been able to place the models down as per the rules.

I would agree, don't know why he kept the base and not the model, no offence but it's not like the paint might scratch because even if it does it's no real let down.

How do you feel now about that beast unit in the list? They seemed pretty lost in this game, and in the other battle reports I had noted that you were on the lookout for enemy units that weren't in transports just so your splinter weapons had something to shoot at. Well, isn't your beast unit allowing the same thing for your opponent? I'm guessing that if you could put the Baron in a venom then you wouldn't need the beast unit at all.

The unique nature of splinter weaponry means that two mechanized Dark Eldar lists have absolutely no targets at the start with all those 12-shot venoms, whereas other armies are quite happy to shoot at venoms and raiders with their small arms fire.

Sarigar wrote:Unless I've missed a rule, the big Stormraven headache could have easily been resolved.

You stated you got a wrecked result (with some help from him going Flat Out) on the Stromraven. The picture shows the model was removed and just the base remained. Why was the model not placed where it had been wrecked, like any other vehicle? If that had been done, it would have take small amount of time to line up where your wyches would have been, but due to the size of the Stormraven, he would have easily been able to place the models down as per the rules.

The storm raven entry explicitly requires the owning player to disembark using the base of the model, not the Hull. The Valkyrie / Vendetta requires the same now per the FAQ I think.

Wow.

Dash, you deserve serious praise for winning that game. Your dice were utterly horrendous, to the point of statistical anomaly. I don't think I have ever heard of anyone rolling so badly.

I hate to imagine how well you would do if you rolled average, let alone were a little lucky.

But seriously, thanks for an excellent read. Your dice have my sympathy.

Oaka wrote:How do you feel now about that beast unit in the list? They seemed pretty lost in this game, and in the other battle reports I had noted that you were on the lookout for enemy units that weren't in transports just so your splinter weapons had something to shoot at. Well, isn't your beast unit allowing the same thing for your opponent? I'm guessing that if you could put the Baron in a venom then you wouldn't need the beast unit at all.

The unique nature of splinter weaponry means that two mechanized Dark Eldar lists have absolutely no targets at the start with all those 12-shot venoms, whereas other armies are quite happy to shoot at venoms and raiders with their small arms fire.

The Baron is jump infantry, so he can't embark in a vehicle. He needs an escort unit on foot, and he pairs well with the beasts in terms of force multiplication. The beasts are anti-assault units, with the occasional midfield mayhem unit - by the time they cross the field, my lances and blasters should have units on the ground. They can also discourage people from trying to assault my disembarked trueborn, or a counter-assault unit.

People generally never shoot at them because they have 3+ cover - and shooting at the beasts with anything with long enough range to hurt them is also a weapon that could be used to explode a venom, raider, or possibly a ravager. They mostly go unmolested outside of assault.

Nice battle report. Good luck with your 'Crons.

Dashofpepper wrote:

Brother Ramses wrote:

Nice to see you writing up the battle reports. Can't wait to see the next tournament.

That would be this weekend. My Necrons shall dominate!

Which form? Spyder's web? Wraith wing?

Do you still feel that the Beasts have a place in your Wych Cult list? It would seem that you have ample assault capable units in that list.

Scourges, hellions or bikers would seem to be the only other choices for his to go with. Of those three I would pick scourge...I guess.

Dashofpepper wrote:The tactical squad + sanguinary priest from the stunned razorback disembarks and moves forward 6" into assault range of my leading warrior unit.

His five man assault marine squad with the sanguinary priest in tow prove to be tougher than my five warriors in close combat, and I die without inflicting any wounds. I took this shot during my turn - the other squad is alive, they just hopped back into their transport.

I'm kind of new to the rules, but I thought razorbacks weren't assault vehicles. Or is that just for moving the vehicle and then jumping out and assaulting?

You can assault out of a vehicle provided it has not moved before you disembarked.

So as you clarified, it is only for moving and jumping out.

I'm afraid I can only say one thing here.

Holy feth, you're Curzon Dax?! O____o

(Also, I enjoyed reading the BR. You write them very well.)

Dashofpepper wrote:
Pre-Game Tactical Assessment:
So...table #1 for game 5. Back from lunch, and pairings go up. I'm on top of the heap. In fact, I have such a commanding lead on battlepoints, that if I tie this game, and anyone else gets a full 20 points, I'll still end up with more Battle Points than anyone else. I never play for the tie, I go for the throat - but its comforting to know that I have a safety net. I went to dinner last night with my opponent's first round matchup, and he seeks me out to let me know that David is playing Blood Angels. We wander around the tables looking for his army so that I can see what's in it, but its nowhere to be found. He rummages out David's army list and passes it to me. Hrm...no Mephiston, no ridiculous las/plas razorback spam with 3-6 predators backing it up. Two Stormravens, two razorbacks. o.O Four vehicles!?! Four vehicles don't scare me. The two dreadnoughts kick it up to six, but he only has four vehicles with long ranged firepower...I'm starting to feel confident.


We roll for deployment option and I win - I choose the side I'm on (and taking pictures from). I choose to go in full DoW reserves. David starts deploying units, and puts a razorback in the middle of the board, and another to my right behind the junk pile. I note that its Dawn of War, and that he only gets two troop units and an HQ option for deployment, and he takes them back off.

[u]Dashofpepper comments: Now that I think about it in context, I wonder if he did that on purpose to see if I would think he'd put units over there. When they announced the start, David still wasn't at our table. He said later (on Dakka) that they had an early start, and that he didn't miss the official game start time. When he did arrive at the table, he made a big deal about being drunk, having to pee repeatedly, being loud and boisterous. I took it at face value at the time. In the Alamo GT thread in tournament discussion he wrote:

Foreigner wrote:I was not remotely as intoxicated as you or anyone else may have thought. I tend to play up perceived weaknesses on purpose both to disarm the opponent and because its somewhat entertaining. I also enjoying playing the idiot. I think I pull it off fairly well

Given that I like to drink while playing sometimes and I'm still dangerous, I didn't remotely consider the possibility that him drinking would give me an advantage. Anyway, it's a tangential note; I just wonder if he intentionally illegally deployed with the intent of trying to make me think he was broadcasting his future intentions.

I don't remember if he tried to seize or not; if he attempted, he didn't get it.

For the secondary targets, he nominates my beast unit, the smaller trueborn unit, and two of my three ravagers. I nominate both of his storm ravens and both of his sanguinary priests.




Haywire grenades get thrown...I get 3-4 hits! They all glance, but one of them gets a six to immobilize it - and since it went flat out, its wrecked. This spawned a 40 minute rules discussion, which I'll cover at the end of the battle report. Lemartes and 3 Death company get out on one side - the dreadnought gets out on the other side.


We had a 30-40 minute pause in our game here because of a rules dispute. Wyches have mostly surrounded and assaulted a storm raven and wrecked it. They didn't get a run far enough to COMPLETELY surround it, and left a 3" or so gap on one side of the base. Thus begins the rule dispute on disembarking. It went like this:

David: Alright, I'm going to get out 6 guys, and the other 4 and the dreadnought are destroyed.
Dash: I'm pretty sure that if the entire unit can't get out, then the unit is destroyed?
David and Dash consult rulebook.
David: No, it specifically says models that can't get out are destroyed.
Justin: But on the column next to it, it talks about the unit disembarkation.
David: But the model rule is more specific.
Justin: Hrm...alright. But you should still be able to emergency disembark, yeah? All 10 guys get out without 2" of the hull?
David: No, because that would put me within 1" of you.
Justin: <I'm actually arguing for his benefit here, I know> My models are 1", your models are 1", which means that 2" out from the hull puts you precisely 1" away from me.
David: No, I'd still be within 1".
Justin: Dude, its just addition. Its a mathematical certainty that you can get out.
David: Then my dreadnought can get out over here! <Puts dread on the other side of wyches>
Justin: Uh...no, you can't move through my models to disembark your own.
David: Yes I can, it says ANYWHERE within 2" of the hull, it doesn't say I can't move through you.
Justin: So they magically teleport to the other side? You can't get there without going through me and moving within 1" of my models.
David: It doesn't say that I can't.

Meanwhile, the judges are looking at the rulebook...and we're 40 minutes into repeating the same things over and over...and they haven't ruled one way or the other. Finally, I'm freaking out even more about the time and our game not finishing and say, "Alright...look - lets just do it your way so we can get on with the game." Judges say, "So you're good here?" I say, "Yeah, we're fine."

This is the ONE tournament that I didn't bring the GW FAQ with me. And in big bold text in the main rulebook FAQ, it says that disembarking models must follow the rules for normal model movement, and can't move through enemy models to disembark.

The end result was him getting a dreadnought out that he shouldn't have been able to, and 30-40 minutes of our game wasted. Yes...it was partly my fault. I was incorrect about the unit being destroyed part, and arguing for an incorrect ruling. It happens. The judges weighed in on that and got it settled right after they got involved.

It was also partly his fault. He should have KNOWN that you can't move through enemy units. My bad for not having the FAQ with me, but all it did was clarify the obvious so that people couldn't try doing it. I wanted to clear the air and have a good rest of the game, so I apologized for being a douche and nitpicking about the rules.

The reason that this conversation took 40 minutes....well, I attributed it to him being drunk, but he's later said that he was faking the drunkenness. >< Basically, I don't shout over people. I would start to explain my position, and he would interrupt me with his. I'd hear him out and try to rebuttal...and he's talk over me again. When the judges got involved, he talked over them too - like talking loudly enough and saying it over enough would convince them and us. I couldn't get in a word edgewise, the judges couldn't get in a word edgewise...we just sat there listening to him. I literally spent half an hour thinking he would let me explain my position, or trying to explain it to the judges and getting interrupted. I finally gave up because I figured he was too drunk to realize he was being obnoxious. >< On a positive note, the John is planning on implementing a rule in all following Alamo GTs because of this incident where one player speaks their piece, and the other player is not allowed to speak. Then the other player speaks their piece and the first player is not allowed to speak. Then the judges decide.


At this point, we're ticking down to the last few minutes of time. We tell the TO that we need more time; we're on Table #1, we had a late start, a 40 minute mid-game interruption for a rules dispute, and we're still on turn four. He tells us that we can have 20 more minutes.


They gave us 20 minutes in the last turn - we're the only game still going on, and I'm not sure how much time we have left - I didn't try taking any pictures because those take time. In fact, my games would all go faster if I didn't take pictures, but then there would be no battle reports.


I've got nothing against David though. He gave me a bad game vote. I might not agree, but he wasn't a douche about it, and I respect his ability on the table, and his attitude. And as I said earlier, I don't hold grudges.

In response to a few things (not negatively but clarifications from my side)

1) I was not trying to deploy 3 (4) units for dawn of war. My second razorback has a priest in it (AND REQUIRES SAID PRIEST TO WORK). I wanted to deploy 2 empty razorbacks and walk the assault squad with priest on to my objective as the game progressed. Your getting on me about deploying wrong pushed me mentally off the fence as to whether I should deploy at all, so I chose not to place the razorbacks.

2) I was at the hall at 12:04 for a 12:30 game (cause I had to wait for noon to buy a drink from the vendor). We started by 12:30. I was quite well on time.

3) When disembarking the storm raven, you kept trying to convince both me and the judge that my entire unit was destroyed because a part of it was incapable of getting out of the wreck. Which is incorrect. We both know the 40k rules judges there were both not overly well versed in the 40k rules, and prone to having tables "dice off" for any rule they didn't know. The "whole unit destroyed" in this case was incorrect. After I thought I conclusively proved that I was able to get out part of the unit, and the rest would die, you continued to insist the entire unit was dead. Since this was wrong and taking time, I started cutting you off when you said it. I couldn't have the judge (who didn't know the rule) deciding to kill the whole unit incorrectly.

3b) After failing to convince anyone that every model is dead because some of them die, you switched to trying to force the unit to emergency disembark. Your argument for this was their ability to get out anywhere within 2 " of the base, thus allowing them to slip out through your models and take up positions anywhere around the base. Firstly, they were already capable of disembarking anywhere withing 2" of the base, Secondly, you were the first to propose to idea of disembarking right past your models. You even spent 5 minutes trying to explain the math to me where the 1" base your models were on allowed a 1" gap beyond your models in which to disembark and still be within 2" of the vehicle. I didn't really understand your argument here, because you had gone from "some models can't disembark and therefore everyone dies" to "everyone has to get out and is completely ok, see, 1" + 1" = 2". This even led the judge to rule, and then force me, to disembark the dreadnaught.

4) When we asked the TO for more time, my understanding of it was that we would have time to play to completion, not a slight bump in time. The tourney schedule had our game ending at 3:00, and with the 20 minutes you say we were given, we were still stopped around 3:10. So, 1 part my bad on assuming we'd get to play 5+ turns (6 to 7 in our case) as opposed to merely 1 more turn. But I won't take much blame for the game not ending. As I've said earlier, I was on time, my bathroom breaks (2) were neither excessive or long (in 1 case coming during your turn 1 move, returning to you still moving).

5) As to the promised explanation for the bad game vote (I didn't want to get off topic in other threads, but some other people did it anyway). I bad game voted you for a combination of things, but the primary was pace of play. I feel I correctly played the storm raven wreck immediately upon it occurring. The significant delay to the game stemmed from your attempt to kill an entire unit who was not by the rules dead. This eventually changed into a second attempt to withhold a unit that posed a threat to your army. By trying the emergency disembark argument, you wanted to get them stuck in for an extra round so they both couldn't hurt you, but also serve as a shield to a counter assault by other units into your witches.

5b) The other time issue I had was your shooting phases. Not the length of them (as I can't complain that your army had alot of shooting) but rather the way in which you played them. You had a tendency to hop around the board shooting units in a seemingly random order (and not just trying to get tanks open to then shoot guys) but rather in such a way that it led to multiple attempts to shoot twice with a unit in the same phase.

5c) I also think that you and I just happen to have a personality clash. You rubbed me the wrong way several times throughout the game. I don't know if it was intentional, but the way you come across with some of your comments and how you go about the game seems to really get to people.



In an unrelated response to another poster about the death company: In most turns Dash would have had to completely abandon huge sections of the board that were of importance to try and leash my death company. I was able to get them out of their vehicles in the middle of a ton of targets, there in giving myself a few rage outs. While I have to move towards the nearest enemy unit, I can assault anyone. Especially if I shoot that unit first (forcing me to assault only them).

This in fact was why the death company did not contest the central objective in turn 5. The closest enemy unit was in the opposite direction. They did however kill 2 warrior squads and 2 venoms over turn 4-5. And were in position to get into contest or destroy range of my back objective.

Also, the assault squad in central position to either contest the middle objective, or take it (troop choice, gonna win an assault against 5 warriors) was still fully intact with all 5 squad members and the priest.

In response to the leadership / fallback / jump pack marine. While you were talking your way through your shooting phase, and trying to determine whether you had fired everything, you got through your list of units, and finished your sentence with "And this unit takes a leadership test".

This came across as the end of a paragraph of verbalization, and came across as a command to take the test, you were done shooting. So I took the test, and fell back. In a previous game of yours, an opponent did a similar thing, and you did not allow them to back track to redo or undo something that had already happened. If it is of any importance, I let you backtrack and shoot a venom, but not at this unit. And when you did fire the venom, you missed or failed to wound with several shots, and I made the 2 armor saves you caused. So even if you had shot the jump pack guy, nothing would have changed.

how can the death company embark in the storm raven with Lemartes? Jump infantry aren't allowed in vehicles.

Nachsville wrote:how can the death company embark in the storm raven with Lemartes? Jump infantry aren't allowed in vehicles.

Storm Ravens are special. They take JI. And have special rules for deploying them too, IIRC.

Dash - do you still feel strongly that your notoriously bad dice rolling can be attributed to the chessex dice? Now that you have some experience with the Koplow dice, do you feel that your rolls have changed at all? My impression from reading your reports is that the Koplow dice can still fail just as misserably as the chessex dice. I'm just not sure if it's a matter of bad timing or frequency.

Dashofpepper wrote:
Ultimately, I've never had sportsmanship issues at an event before. Were these justified? Eh...I don't think so. I've told the story, been honest about it, you the reader will be the judge of it as you always are. Some of you will think that my opponents were being petty. Some of you will think that its no ones' business but those who gave them. Some of you will think (and avidly post) about what a rotten bastard you think I am. I probably can probably even scribble down 90% of your names before you even show up in this thread.

Outliers happen. If I start developing a trend of bad sportsmanship, I'll have to think about it - but folks who meet me generally like me, and I get along with folks just fine during almost every game. I'll admit that I've never had such a hostile interaction with anyone like I did with Chris before; he and Kingsley were glaring daggers at me when I left and whispering to their friends; it was a bit uncomfortable.

Happens. Years back I got the second highest sports score at one tournment, then basemnet at the next. Same army, same play style, same personality. It just happens.