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
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.

Dashofpepper wrote:

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.

I'm just going off of what both parties claim. I can't tell from the report he did the same movement/pivot. I'll concede that chipmunking has occurred in various tourneys, but to have 3 out of 5 games with low scores appears to be more than chipmunking and I'm trying to provide some insight regarding receiving multiple low scores. He apparently told you he was giving you a low score. If you felt it was simply to be malicious, you could have brought it up with the TO. But, I can see it's going to be everyone else's fault and obviously nothing to do with you, so be it.

Sarigar, that's not what I'm saying. =p

I was just telling you that pivoting doesn't make sense for a low sportsmanship score here.

There is a lot to respond to here but instead of writing a wall of text like dash (which I honestly did not read all of) I will touch on some of the direct questions.

@Wolf 11

Q1) Was the player's army good or bad to play against?
Q2) Was the player good or bad to play against?

A1) The list was Min Maxxed with 16 Splinter cannons on vehicles and 19 or so blasters in those vehicles coupled with the Longer Venoms to gain extra movment... yeah, bad army to play against.

A2) It has been a few days now since the game. IIRC when we were just talking durring the game he was friendly and polite but when we were rolling dice he made every close movement or cover save an issue (which was very frustrtating when he also blocked the path to get to his side of the table with his army tray).

At the time if I had been given these two choices I might have said okay to this one, however since reading all the negative things he's said about me I am certainly glad to have dinged him. Dash is not the type of player I would ever enjoy playing against.

@calypso2ts
" also think it is ridiculous to take back moves that happened in the previous phase."

Agreed, in this case I declared 'shooting phase' and the first thing I wanted to shoot was the passangers inside the storm. When he reminded me I couldn't I asked to disembark since I hadn't acturally done any shooting yet. He said no and I said okay. I don't even know why he mentioned it in his report besides to make me out to be a bad player...?

canthatenuff wrote:
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.

There are two sides to this discussion and if you want to blindly except everything one person says as truth and disreguard the other side's point of view then you are certainly welcome to do so with all the internet rage at your disposal. I would just like to add that the next two players he faced also gave him bad sports scores so it wasn't just me who didn't like him.

The Kingsley Guy already stated his main reason for his negative score. If he play my mechvets and get tabled I doubt ill get a positive score from him either, I will gladly return the favor and give him a big fat zero for sportsmanship. He has been blackballed.

SonsofVulkan wrote:The Kingsley Guy already stated his main reason for his negative score. If he play my mechvets and get tabled I doubt ill get a positive score from him either, I will gladly return the favor and give him a big fat zero for sportsmanship. He has been blackballed.

Ever hear the phrase 'Two wrongs don't make a right?'.

Retaliating against someone's perceived potential action based on an internet discussion is probably not the best course.

Just saying.

SonsofVulkan wrote:The Kingsley Guy already stated his main reason for his negative score. If he play my mechvets and get tabled I doubt ill get a positive score from him either, I will gladly return the favor and give him a big fat zero for sportsmanship. He has been blackballed.

Mech guard are one of my armies but I don't play them anymore because everytime I took them to a tournament (win or lose) I knew my opponenet wasn't having any fun. REally took the taste of victory out of my mounth. Dash clearly doesn't care about whether or not his opponenet enjoys the game (if anything he would rather they didn't because that would mean he was winning).

I think some people have the wrong expectation of games in tournaments. When I went to my first tournament back in 3rd ed, I brought a crap marine list filled with units I thought were cool, and got my ass handed to me. People were friendly about it, but still.

Did I throw my bottle out the pram? Of course not. I came back for the next one with the most vicious list I could come up with (5 units of terminators with 2 Assault cannons each + Lysander, a Librarian and some scouts to fill min requirements. Remember, this was the era of broken rending) and ended up coming 5th overall (annihilated by pre-nerf mass starcannon eldar army in the last round) and got a best painted army award to boot.

In a tournament, I expect a person to be two things:

1. Friendly off the table.
2. A vicious bastard on the table.

Purposefully handicapping yourself isn't sporting. Making jokes about it and being polite is. I've had my fair share of games where the opponent has walked all over me, and some games where I've cleaned them off the board. Most important thing in both situations for both players is to remain in high spirits and go with it. Yes, you've just been massacred. Don't sulk, it's just a game. Yes you're murdering me, don't gloat.

Also, rule-lawyering isn't unsporting unless you're a git about it. Have a problem with what I'm doing? Lets talk about it. Is the ruling ambiguous? Lets consult neighbouring tables for insight and finally a TO if that doesn't help. Whatever the TO says, you go with, no matter how badly it screws you. If you can't adequately argue a contentious ruling with page references and reasoning, you don't deserve to get to use it. 'But that's how I've always played it' isn't good enough, so consider that you just might actually be wrong. 40k is a complex game, you're bound to be wrong about some things.

SonsofVulkan wrote:The Kingsley Guy already stated his main reason for his negative score. If he play my mechvets and get tabled I doubt ill get a positive score from him either, I will gladly return the favor and give him a big fat zero for sportsmanship. He has been blackballed.

Mech guard are one of my armies but I don't play them anymore because everytime I took them to a tournament (win or lose) I knew my opponenet wasn't having any fun. REally took the taste of victory out of my mounth. Dash clearly doesn't care about whether or not his opponenet enjoys the game (if anything he would rather they didn't because that would mean he was winning).

Besides, him having 3/5 bad games only ment he got Best General instead of Best Overal. Which is fitting I think.

daKing wrote:

SonsofVulkan wrote:The Kingsley Guy already stated his main reason for his negative score. If he play my mechvets and get tabled I doubt ill get a positive score from him either, I will gladly return the favor and give him a big fat zero for sportsmanship. He has been blackballed.

Mech guard are one of my armies but I don't play them anymore because everytime I took them to a tournament (win or lose) I knew my opponenet wasn't having any fun. REally took the taste of victory out of my mounth. Dash clearly doesn't care about whether or not his opponenet enjoys the game (if anything he would rather they didn't because that would mean he was winning).

That's where you and I don't see eye to eye. Plenty of people can lose a game without being a bad sport about it. The games I lose are the ones I value the most - because they spur me on to think about why I lost, what I could have changed - and they make people think about new tactics.

Don't presume that because you can't lose without having a bad game that this applies to other people. If I didn't care about your attitude, I wouldn't have tried so hard to break through your sullen/angry front.

Dash.. when you use shifty tactics like the modeling and the pivoting you are going to inspire harsh feelings.

Sad thing is that you are probably good enough to win without doing that crap but seem to prefer to continue to tarnish your rep.

This is nothing I haven't said to you face to face but when are you gonna get it, bro?

daKing wrote:
There are two sides to this discussion and if you want to blindly except everything one person says as truth and disreguard the other side's point of view then you are certainly welcome to do so with all the internet rage at your disposal. I would just like to add that the next two players he faced also gave him bad sports scores so it wasn't just me who didn't like him.

Of course you also ignore the first two players who gave him good sports scores. SO maybe it wasnt him that had the problem.

carmachu wrote:

daKing wrote:
There are two sides to this discussion and if you want to blindly except everything one person says as truth and disreguard the other side's point of view then you are certainly welcome to do so with all the internet rage at your disposal. I would just like to add that the next two players he faced also gave him bad sports scores so it wasn't just me who didn't like him.

Of course you also ignore the first two players who gave him good sports scores. SO maybe it wasnt him that had the problem.

Those bad game votes will become quite explained in my next two battle reports. It isn't quite as cut and dry as all that. I don't put much stock in a bad game vote from the buddy of the guy who just bad gamed me who runs around the room screaming that I cheated him (despite him being ruled against), tells anyone who will listen that I cheated him, hostile spectates a game he's not in to remind everyone that I'm a cheater, and feels the need to catcall and boo during the award ceremony.

My biggest mistake was *NOT* docking him with a bad game vote.

daKing wrote:
Besides, him having 3/5 bad games only ment he got Best General instead of Best Overal. Which is fitting I think.

Unless, of coruse, folks decided they didnt want him to have overall and tanked him the rest of the way on purpose for that result.

I personaly would have been very irritated at being so badly beaten but, if dash was as polite as he said and bought the guy a beer after, that would have been enough for me to say that he was a good guy overall. Like it has been said People cant be expected to take weaker armies to tournaments. It kind of defeats the idea of trying to win. Im going dash +1.

Dashofpepper wrote:

Those bad game votes will become quite explained in my next two battle reports. It isn't quite as cut and dry as all that. I don't put much stock in a bad game vote from the buddy of the guy who just bad gamed me who runs around the room screaming that I cheated him (despite him being ruled against), tells anyone who will listen that I cheated him, hostile spectates a game he's not in to remind everyone that I'm a cheater, and feels the need to catcall and boo during the award ceremony.

My biggest mistake was *NOT* docking him with a bad game vote.

Wow thats pretty bad. Before this post I was thinking this was sounding like a couple torunments of old I attended years ago. The first one I got second higest sports scores. The next, club vs club torunment, I got zero'ed sports with the highest battle scores. Same army, same style, same way of dealing with the opponents. SOme times it wont matter what you do.

Calm down. Take a deep breath.

Kudos to Dash for tactically using his optimized list to the max and pummeling his opponent.

Applaud daKing for using a non-optimized list so well.

As far as tournament play and sportsmanship. I hate to tell you but when you score a 20 out of 20 and pummel your opponent you do run the risk of - having embarassed your opponent- making him very critical of each and every move, inflection, look or action that you take.

It is always the risk of a best-general style army that is going to go 5 an 0 in a tourney that you are going to get "screwed" on the sportsmanship score.

As a general rule, I find that I too feel guilty when playing my DE, so far in 6 games it is 5 games won versus 1 loss.
The 5 wins were crushing defeats basically tabling my opponent by turn 3. Now put that in a competitive tourney setting and voila! you are going to get dinged on sportsmanship either for optimized list, being hopeless to play against or some intended or unintended slight caused by your stance, your response or even your general "happy"attitude. My one loss? Vs daemon with a heavy slaanesh theme - invulnerable saves and speed <sigh>

blood angel wrote:Dash.. when you use shifty tactics like the modeling and the pivoting you are going to inspire harsh feelings.

Sad thing is that you are probably good enough to win without doing that crap but seem to prefer to continue to tarnish your rep.

This is nothing I haven't said to you face to face but when are you gonna get it, bro?

To be fair to Dash, there is no way of him having the official Venom model yet, so people can't complain that he uses a "count's as". If he continued using the same models a few months after the Venom kit is on sale, then complaints about using an inappropriately sized model might be reasonable, but at the moment there isn't an official replacement.

The whole pivot thing is perfectly legal, if people don't like it, it's not really his fault. If you didn't like the fact that beast can assault 12", it doesn't change the fact that it's allowed by the rules...this is exactly the same with pivoting a vehicle before or after you measure to move it, the rules say you can do it, so you can do it.

Dashofpepper wrote:my army is unfun to play against because he basically spent the game making saves and dying.

A competitive list at a GT? Dash, how could you?!

Seriously, though, that list is pretty terrible. Not sure how you guys were tied on BP at game 3....

I mean, vanilla marines have good lists, but this isn't one of them. By a long shot.

Dashofpepper wrote:

carmachu wrote:

daKing wrote:
There are two sides to this discussion and if you want to blindly except everything one person says as truth and disreguard the other side's point of view then you are certainly welcome to do so with all the internet rage at your disposal. I would just like to add that the next two players he faced also gave him bad sports scores so it wasn't just me who didn't like him.

Of course you also ignore the first two players who gave him good sports scores. SO maybe it wasnt him that had the problem.

Those bad game votes will become quite explained in my next two battle reports. It isn't quite as cut and dry as all that. I don't put much stock in a bad game vote from the buddy of the guy who just bad gamed me who runs around the room screaming that I cheated him (despite him being ruled against), tells anyone who will listen that I cheated him, hostile spectates a game he's not in to remind everyone that I'm a cheater, and feels the need to catcall and boo during the award ceremony.

My biggest mistake was *NOT* docking him with a bad game vote.

No spoilers!!!

Great reports as usual Dash, I'm looking forward to the rest!

I find it quite hilarious when people go into a strop because they've lost. Especially when the do it via inter-web nerd rage.

People who fall into this catagory, instead of whining about the other person cheating or having a power-list please remember:

1. This is a game. You're in it to win it. It's all well and good being nice to someone and courteous when pointing out something wrong, however, you can't expect a player to go easy on you in a competitive enviroment.

2. Instead of being furious as to why you lost, sit and think to yourself "What could I have done better?" this game has a learning curve which can hit some people pretty hard.

MA.

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.

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.'

You'd be one of the first on this board to say anything like that about Dash so I'm not inclined to believe you on that regard. Nearly everybody else that plays him, including other strong online personalities tends to be won over by the end of the game.

And its not like dash had a history of bad sportsmanship ratings. Kingsley your rating/reasonings(illogical it seems) had nothing to do with the next 2 guys Dash played. His game 4 opponent was friends with the final opponent, dash already got blackballed and had a target on his back and them sharing strats to beat dash. And to be honest, I'd probably do the samething, its just the nature of the beast.

And I dont like those raider-venoms either, legal as they were but it really can leave a bad taste with your opponent. Hopefully dash use his necrons instead until the actual venoms are released.

Gorechild wrote:
To be fair to Dash, there is no way of him having the official Venom model yet, so people can't complain that he uses a "count's as". If he continued using the same models a few months after the Venom kit is on sale, then complaints about using an inappropriately sized model might be reasonable, but at the moment there isn't an official replacement.

While I wouldnt dock his sports score yet for having raiders as venoms(6 months after the release with the same models, yes), yes we can complain. Its not like he did a tone of work on them. From what I see, he ripped off the point stuff ion the back. Thats it. Thats not quite good enough.

And while there isnt an offical one, much like other folks that have to make do, there could have been more effort or if not, just play raiders fora while longer.

Again, wouldnt dock him for it yet, but no matter what claims of disadvanatage they might have, there will be clear advantages.

SonsofVulkan wrote:And its not like dash had a history of bad sportsmanship ratings. Kingsley your rating/reasonings(illogical it seems) had nothing to do with the next 2 guys Dash played. His game 4 opponent was friends with dash's final opponent, dash already got blackballed and had a target on his back and them sharing strats to beat dash. And to be honest, I'd probably do the samething, its just the nature of the beast.

And I dont like those raider-venoms either, hopefully dash use his necrons instead until the actual venoms are released.

Not quite - My game 4 opponent was actually buddies with Kingsley here, my game #3 opponent. Kingsley briefed my fourth round opponent on how I play, what to do, what to target, etc - should have been no surprises there.

Gorechild wrote:

blood angel wrote:Dash.. when you use shifty tactics like the modeling and the pivoting you are going to inspire harsh feelings.

Sad thing is that you are probably good enough to win without doing that crap but seem to prefer to continue to tarnish your rep.

This is nothing I haven't said to you face to face but when are you gonna get it, bro?

To be fair to Dash, there is no way of him having the official Venom model yet, so people can't complain that he uses a "count's as". If he continued using the same models a few months after the Venom kit is on sale, then complaints about using an inappropriately sized model might be reasonable, but at the moment there isn't an official replacement.

The whole pivot thing is perfectly legal, if people don't like it, it's not really his fault. If you didn't like the fact that beast can assault 12", it doesn't change the fact that it's allowed by the rules...this is exactly the same with pivoting a vehicle before or after you measure to move it, the rules say you can do it, so you can do it.

Your 'head in the sand mentality' is fine for one off games but it is NOT going to win a major tournament on a regular basis.

What you describe as 'perfectly legal' is a huge grey area that a lot of people do NOT consider perfectly legal.

As far as the 'counts as' argument goes there is a commonly accepted size for conversions out there and a full size raider is not one of them. Gaining extra inches for assault armies is HUGE HUGE HUGE and if it appears that someone is going out of there way to abuse 'counts as rules' or taking what many consider as a liberal interpretation of how movement works then you, as a player, have to expect resentment.

On a side note: I know with the old codex for DE one of my greatest fears was mass heavy bolter lists (or I presume eldar warwalker/vyper lists with S6 ROF killiness)
Thankfully the meta of the game has changed and now the single shot missile launcher is king. I do wonder how a DE army would fare against 18+ heavy bolters pouring out 50+ S5 shots every turn.

carmachu wrote:

daKing wrote:
There are two sides to this discussion and if you want to blindly except everything one person says as truth and disreguard the other side's point of view then you are certainly welcome to do so with all the internet rage at your disposal. I would just like to add that the next two players he faced also gave him bad sports scores so it wasn't just me who didn't like him.

Of course you also ignore the first two players who gave him good sports scores. SO maybe it wasnt him that had the problem.

Hey first time poster. I've gone to the Alamo Fantasy tournament every year they've had it, and last years first 40k one. I've known the TO's for many many years. The way you score sportsmanship in their tournaments is not a good game vote or a bad game vote, you're given the option to give a bad game vote after the game and at the end of the tournament you then give out your best game vote. So just because he didn't get a bad game vote in the first 2 games doesn't mean he was given good sports scores.

Alamo IndyGT wrote:
After each game the players will have one question on the score sheet which asks, "Did your opponent's behavior and/or army selection honestly make this a bad game for you?" If someone receives a yes then they will have to give back some of those points given on credit.

At the end of the tournament everyone shall vote for their best opponent. The question will read, "I certify that ______ provided me with the best game of the weekend. His attitude and army selection were outstanding." As with bad game votes, the value of each best game vote goes up dramatically the more of them you get:

Read the Batrep. Payed close attention to the lists prior to the Batrep and thought to myself the DE should table the marine list. Really was no reason to read the Batrep. This match was won during the list writing process.

SonsofVulkan wrote:And its not like dash had a history of bad sportsmanship ratings. Kingsley your rating/reasonings(illogical it seems) had nothing to do with the next 2 guys Dash played. His game 4 opponent was friends with dash's final opponent, dash already got blackballed and had a target on his back and them sharing strats to beat dash. And to be honest, I'd probably do the samething, its just the nature of the beast.

And I dont like those raider-venoms either, hopefully dash use his necrons instead until the actual venoms are released.

I'm headed to Dallas June 10-12 for the Railhead Rumble GT. If my Necrons are finished being painted by then, I'll bring them - I wanted to bring them to the Alamo. Otherwise it would have to be these DE again; I already asked about the conversions.

Wargamescon is July 7-10. I pre-ordered my venoms from two different places because of where I have credit at - my nearest FLGS is 2.5 hours away, and there's two of them 2.5 hours away from me in opposite directions. I head to each store once a month for a tournament - the third and fourth weekend of each month. The plan right now: I've asked the store that I'd be at the fourth weekend of the month (a week and a half(?) before wargamescon) to ship me my Venoms - I'll pay for them when I'm there Memorial Day weekend. That will give me two weeks to get them assembled and painted if they get to me with no issues, and then I'll pick up the other half of them the third weekend of the month at the other store, which gives me another two and a half weeks to get the other half sorted out before Wargamescon.

daKing wrote:There is a lot to respond to here but instead of writing a wall of text like dash (which I honestly did not read all of) I will touch on some of the direct questions.

@Wolf 11

Q1) Was the player's army good or bad to play against?
Q2) Was the player good or bad to play against?

A1) The list was Min Maxxed with 16 Splinter cannons on vehicles and 19 or so blasters in those vehicles coupled with the Longer Venoms to gain extra movment... yeah, bad army to play against.

A2) It has been a few days now since the game. IIRC when we were just talking durring the game he was friendly and polite but when we were rolling dice he made every close movement or cover save an issue (which was very frustrtating when he also blocked the path to get to his side of the table with his army tray).

At the time if I had been given these two choices I might have said okay to this one, however since reading all the negative things he's said about me I am certainly glad to have dinged him. Dash is not the type of player I would ever enjoy playing against.

@calypso2ts
" also think it is ridiculous to take back moves that happened in the previous phase."

Agreed, in this case I declared 'shooting phase' and the first thing I wanted to shoot was the passangers inside the storm. When he reminded me I couldn't I asked to disembark since I hadn't acturally done any shooting yet. He said no and I said okay. I don't even know why he mentioned it in his report besides to make me out to be a bad player...?

canthatenuff wrote:
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.

There are two sides to this discussion and if you want to blindly except everything one person says as truth and disreguard the other side's point of view then you are certainly welcome to do so with all the internet rage at your disposal. I would just like to add that the next two players he faced also gave him bad sports scores so it wasn't just me who didn't like him.

I dont blindly ACCEPT everything he says as truth. You gave him a bad score because he beat you BADLY, he shouldn't have to apologize for being a better and more intelligent player. Maybe you ought to quit going to tournaments. Sore loser.

BIG POINT: I mentioned my disapproval for raiders as venoms, but this isn't necessarily advantageous to Dash. Venoms are smaller thus easier to hide, this is very important. He also would gain almost no movement from having a smaller model. If you disagree with this then your mind doesn't work correctly.

RudeboyJefe wrote:

Hey first time poster. I've gone to the Alamo Fantasy tournament every year they've had it, and last years first 40k one. I've known the TO's for many many years. The way you score sportsmanship in their tournaments is not a good game vote or a bad game vote, you're given the option to give a bad game vote after the game and at the end of the tournament you then give out your best game vote. So just because he didn't get a bad game vote in the first 2 games doesn't mean he was given good sports scores.

That's not how sportsmanship scoring was done this year. Every game was voted "Good game" or "bad game." In addition, there were two extra checkboxes next to every player name on your scoresheet; one for "Fluffy" and one for "Best" where you cast one vote for the fluffiest army you played, and another for the "Best" game you had.

Dashofpepper wrote:

SonsofVulkan wrote:And its not like dash had a history of bad sportsmanship ratings. Kingsley your rating/reasonings(illogical it seems) had nothing to do with the next 2 guys Dash played. His game 4 opponent was friends with dash's final opponent, dash already got blackballed and had a target on his back and them sharing strats to beat dash. And to be honest, I'd probably do the samething, its just the nature of the beast.

And I dont like those raider-venoms either, hopefully dash use his necrons instead until the actual venoms are released.

Not quite - My game 4 opponent was actually buddies with Kingsley here, my game #3 opponent. Kingsley briefed my fourth round opponent on how I play, what to do, what to target, etc - should have been no surprises there.

Wow... and he has the audactiy to argue about your other negative game ratings. Then with the 4th opponent(his friend) being unrudely and calling you out in front of others during your final game?

daKing wrote:
Agreed, in this case I declared 'shooting phase' and the first thing I wanted to shoot was the passangers inside the storm. When he reminded me I couldn't I asked to disembark since I hadn't acturally done any shooting yet. He said no and I said okay. I don't even know why he mentioned it in his report besides to make me out to be a bad player...?

Not to go off topic and talk about strategy, but why did you not disembark the Scouts from the Speeder?

It looked like you were pretty close to that Ravager and you can assault effectively 9" out of the vehicle. Given it is an AV 10 open topped vehicle next to a pile of ravagers, you can assume it is dead next turn anyway. It seems like shooting and charging the ravager would have been a better strategy and if you just destroyed rather than exploded it you might have some cover to hide from splinter cannons...

Of course, you might have just forgot and meant to disembark, which happens!

pretre wrote:

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.

From the Alamo rules:

If illegal units or rules violations are found in a player's list, at a minimum, immediate correction of the Army List will be required. Tournament points may be deducted and award eligibility may be forfeited.

Of course, it doesn't really help that no one noticed it until after the fact.

RudeboyJefe wrote:
Hey first time poster. I've gone to the Alamo Fantasy tournament every year they've had it, and last years first 40k one. I've known the TO's for many many years. The way you score sportsmanship in their tournaments is not a good game vote or a bad game vote, you're given the option to give a bad game vote after the game and at the end of the tournament you then give out your best game vote. So just because he didn't get a bad game vote in the first 2 games doesn't mean he was given good sports scores.

Alamo IndyGT wrote:
After each game the players will have one question on the score sheet which asks, "Did your opponent's behavior and/or army selection honestly make this a bad game for you?" If someone receives a yes then they will have to give back some of those points given on credit.

At the end of the tournament everyone shall vote for their best opponent. The question will read, "I certify that ______ provided me with the best game of the weekend. His attitude and army selection were outstanding." As with bad game votes, the value of each best game vote goes up dramatically the more of them you get:

If thats the wording of the scoring, the thats terrible. That could mean ANYTHING from losing to an opponent to actual bad behavior. MAke a bad game for you? Really? Reminds me of the tournment of old, where my opponent hated my army, back in 3rd, because he didnt believe tyranids should concentrate that much on shooting ability.

These soft score tournies really need to start going away simply because you can lose a tourny on the whims of an opponent and not even know why. If lists were supposed to be fluffy the rules for list building would actually support that and not allow you to build a power list. Of course DE are known for being ruthless raiders so Dash's list would actually be perfectly fine in that respect.

canthatenuff wrote:

BIG POINT: I mentioned my disapproval for raiders as venoms, but this isn't necessarily advantageous to Dash. Venoms are smaller thus easier to hide, this is very important. He also would gain almost no movement from having a smaller model. If you disagree with this then your mind doesn't work correctly.

Untrue. Bigger venoms, being an open topped vehical, means he has more room to drop and assualt out of by a couple inches(ok maybe 1-2, not sure exactly the size difference). If for example he jetted everything folward and the marine player DS something behind him, he'd have a couple inches difference to move and assualt out of going back, or sideways.

Again, I understand the models arent out yet, but raider was a bad choice. But to say NO advantage is just, as you just said, your mind not working correctly.

blood angel wrote:
Gaining extra inches for assault armies is HUGE HUGE HUGE and if it appears that someone is going out of there way to abuse 'counts as rules' or taking what many consider as a liberal interpretation of how movement works then you, as a player, have to expect resentment.

There's a vast difference between hypothetical and actual. To start with, I wasn't playing an assault army. The list of disadvantages to larger venoms is longer than the list of advantages.

carmachu wrote:

canthatenuff wrote:

BIG POINT: I mentioned my disapproval for raiders as venoms, but this isn't necessarily advantageous to Dash. Venoms are smaller thus easier to hide, this is very important. He also would gain almost no movement from having a smaller model. If you disagree with this then your mind doesn't work correctly.

Untrue. Bigger venoms, being an open topped vehical, means he has more room to drop and assualt out of by a couple inches(ok maybe 1-2, not sure exactly the size difference). If for example he jetted everything folward and the marine player DS something behind him, he'd have a couple inches difference to move and assualt out of going back, or sideways.

Again, I understand the models arent out yet, but raider was a bad choice. But to say NO advantage is just, as you just said, your mind not working correctly.

Never said NO advantage, just said there is no movement advantage, which there really is not. He also doesn't assault with warrior or trueborn squads. Quit thinking in a vacuum and think about how the army works. Vyper models would have been more advantageous, it is that simple.

daKing wrote: (which was very frustrtating when he also blocked the path to get to his side of the table with his army tray).

My dice tray you mean - and its quite an easy thing to say, "Could you move that? I'd like to move over in that corner."

I do it all the time when people have a pile of dice or a codex, or odds and ends on the table where I'm about to move to.

C'mon.

Dashofpepper wrote:Kingsley briefed my fourth round opponent on how I play, what to do, what to target, etc - should have been no surprises there.

That's really no big deal. People talk about what should have/should be done all the time at tournaments. It's nature to do so to your friends first. I understand you didn't attach negative connotation to this action in your post, just using it as a talking point.

If this were being done during the actual game, well that's more an issue.

Also, am I the only one who still likes just battle report stuff in battle reports? Do sportsmanship scores at a local tournament really have anything to do with what went on during the battle?

Dashofpepper wrote:

daKing wrote: (which was very frustrtating when he also blocked the path to get to his side of the table with his army tray).

My dice tray you mean - and its quite an easy thing to say, "Could you move that? I'd like to move over in that corner."

I do it all the time when people have a pile of dice or a codex, or odds and ends on the table where I'm about to move to.

C'mon.

Were you playing some 12 kid who spent his parents money on the army or something? It just seems like these hysterics and lack of any attempt at understanding couldn't come from even a high schooler of any maturity.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

DarknessEternal wrote:

Dashofpepper wrote:Kingsley briefed my fourth round opponent on how I play, what to do, what to target, etc - should have been no surprises there.

That's really no big deal. People talk about what should have/should be done all the time at tournaments. It's nature to do so to your friends first. I understand you didn't attach negative connotation to this action in your post, just using it as a talking point.

If this were being done during the actual game, well that's more an issue.

Also, am I the only one who still likes just battle report stuff in battle reports? Do sportsmanship scores at a local tournament really have anything to do with what went on during the battle?

I'd say when you're doing a tournament report they do and when you see a player win all his battles and still lose it's better to know why.

Dashofpepper wrote:
There's a vast difference between hypothetical and actual. To start with, I wasn't playing an assault army. The list of disadvantages to larger venoms is longer than the list of advantages.

You know that. But the problem is you need to look at it from your opponents POV- he looks acorss the feild ata bunch of raiders and you've declared "they are all venoms" and might see it as something....funny business, desipte the fact the model is on prerelease at the moment.

You're not taking your opponent into account- a really cool conversion that might be slightly bigger then the model? People can take it as they see how much work you put into it. Venoms as raiders with the back pionty things ripped off? Looks bad.

SonsofVulkan wrote:And its not like dash had a history of bad sportsmanship ratings. Kingsley your rating/reasonings(illogical it seems) had nothing to do with the next 2 guys Dash played. His game 4 opponent was friends with the final opponent, dash already got blackballed and had a target on his back and them sharing strats to beat dash. And to be honest, I'd probably do the samething, its just the nature of the beast.

And I dont like those raider-venoms either, legal as they were but it really can leave a bad taste with your opponent. Hopefully dash use his necrons instead until the actual venoms are released.

I mean no disrespect to Chris here (game 4 opponent) but calling him and I friends would be like calling the backup catcher for the yankees and the best pinch hitter on the reds friends.

We know each other, we run into each other at events, and we get along just fine. If we saw each other more than 2-3 times a year we'd probably be friends. Otherwise, we're acquaintances.

We get along just fine, I've gone out to dinner after tournaments with him before and enjoyed it.


But in this particular tournament we didn't talk very much beyond the traditional hello's and good lucks.

Until after my 5th round game had started I didn't know who had played Dash in the 4th round (or even who I was playing in the 5th). My weekend had been a little more rough than most of the others.

I arrived to the tournament and immediately got a flat tire. I'm stuck 4 hours from home without a drivable vehicle, and only the hours of the tournament saturday to get it fixed (stores closed sunday).

After my fourth round game sunday morning (against a player from my local store who I am great friends with, and who's hotel room I crashed in for the weekend) and got exceptionally lucky to get the win (instead of draw), all I wanted to do was go eat lunch. For the first time that weekend things were getting calmed down and back to normal.

So the idea that I got together with my friends to discuss how to beat Dash, or that someone told me to dislike him or to blackball bad game vote him is both incorrect and disparaging towards me.

I'll ask people to not take guesses as to my actions or motivations. I'll wait for Dash to get to the game 5 battle rep and respond directly to it.

Foreigner wrote:<snip>

Sounds a lot like you had a bad few days, got beaten and QQ'ed so far, but we'll wait and see I suppose.

Ohh come on now, that was unecessaary Norade and requires a ton of speculation about a situation no one knows anything about!

That sucks about the tire, you didn't have a spare on hand? I always carry a pump that plugs into the cigarette lighter for that reason, you can often fill it up and drive a bit if you have to.

Norade wrote:

Foreigner wrote:<snip>

Sounds a lot like you had a bad few days, got beaten and QQ'ed so far, but we'll wait and see I suppose.

I was there and he was a good sport about the whole thing, given the extremity of the situation.

I just wish they (Dash / Foreigner) had been given time to complete the 5th game.

That was my bad, got the 4th guy mixed up with you, it should be with the 3rd guy.

And sharing tactics before the game is perfectly fine, no complain about that. The point was that kingsley is trying to say that he wasnt the only one giving Dash a bad score and thus Dash should be considered a bad sportsman...

Its like going to a randomn FLGS for a tournament, 2 of the players there absolutely hate my guts and the 5 other players present are good friends of theirs. And I know no one except those 2 guys that hates my guts, and I end the day beating all my opponents. But then I got horrendous sportsmanship scores... am I surprise? no....

Its just the nature of the beast. And isnt one of the guy that gave Dash a negative score a TO at wargamescon? Good thing there is no sportsmanship scores at warsgamecon....

daKing wrote:Mech guard are one of my armies but I don't play them anymore because everytime I took them to a tournament (win or lose) I knew my opponenet wasn't having any fun. REally took the taste of victory out of my mounth.

This mentality drives me insane. You assume that bringing a SOFT list makes for a fun game. Do you think your opponent, who brought an optimized list, had fun absolutely crushing your soft list where he really had no chance of losing? I doubt he'd look back and say that game was fun (other than getting max points and helping him in the tournament, so crushing a soft list has some level of "fun"). I personally find it a waste of my hundreds of dollars in travel money to play someone who brings a crap list to a tournament. I don't get upset, because I'm getting max points, but I definitely don't find the game fun, because the conclusion is fairly obvious, simply by virtue of the lists involved.

If you took your "hard" mech vet and meet up against another hard list, then the game should be pretty interesting, as you're both on a level playing field. So the question to ask yourself is "What am I more likely to see at a tournament? An optimized list or a soft list? If you can't answer this question, then really there's nothing more to say. If you're looking to make sure you have a satisfying victory and that your opponent had fun, a good start might be to take an army that gives him a relatively level game (e.g. a more optimized list, as people GENERALLY bring optimized lists to tournaments).

I agree with that. I would rather play a balanced list and win instead of a list that I see hit the table and immediately feel like im going to be fighting an uphill battle to make the game not a complete disaster for my opponent.

Blowing someone off the table is not fun for most people, because they are going to struggle to make the game enjoyable.

canthatenuff wrote: He also doesn't assault with warrior or trueborn squads. Quit thinking in a vacuum and think about how the army works. Vyper models would have been more advantageous, it is that simple.

I'm not taking sides on the overall issue here, but I will with this statement. An obvious tactical advantage to the longer Raider's pivot would be to allow the disembarking Trueborns a longer reach for their blasters. A tactic which has been used predominantly in the first 3 games as a sort of suicide squad. A shorter transport would offer a disadvantage to this tactic. The difference between clipping a tank at near maximum range with the Trueborn and allowing that tank to fire again on the next turn could have been huge, depending on the tank.

Foreigner wrote:

I mean no disrespect to Chris here (game 4 opponent) but calling him and I friends would be like calling the backup catcher for the yankees and the best pinch hitter on the reds friends.

Yeah...I've tried pointing out that I'm talking about #3 and #4, not #4 and #5.

*sigh*

Can we just get some Dash Battle reports without eRaging and QQ'ing? Seriously?

carmachu wrote:

Dashofpepper wrote:
There's a vast difference between hypothetical and actual. To start with, I wasn't playing an assault army. The list of disadvantages to larger venoms is longer than the list of advantages.

You know that. But the problem is you need to look at it from your opponents POV- he looks acorss the feild ata bunch of raiders and you've declared "they are all venoms" and might see it as something....funny business, desipte the fact the model is on prerelease at the moment.

You're not taking your opponent into account- a really cool conversion that might be slightly bigger then the model? People can take it as they see how much work you put into it. Venoms as raiders with the back pionty things ripped off? Looks bad.

The thing is...no one had a problem with them or with me using them. Until they lost and were looking for a reason to gripe. None of my opponents said, "Those venoms are too big and Dash exploited that fact by....." It's just "Those are too big, and I consider it cheating." As I said - there are more disadvantages than advantages; mainly along the lines of not being able to get cover, hogging space behind terrain, taking up extra front row seats in my deployment zone, and being much easier to smack with templates.

There are two possible advantages: Move and pivot for extra inches to get units out front and into the action, and a wreck result from a unit at the head or tail or the transport, where the unit disembarks out of the opposite end. Those 3rd Edition raiders are longer than venoms, but venoms are just as wide or wider than third edition raiders due to the wings - and the only time it came up (Game 5) was a side-shot wreck that wouldn't have fit into that category.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

DarthDiggler wrote:

I'm not taking sides on the overall issue here, but I will with this statement. An obvious tactical advantage to the longer Raider's pivot would be to allow the disembarking Trueborns a longer reach for their blasters. A tactic which has been used predominantly in the first 3 games as a sort of suicide squad.

My trueborn are *never* suicide squads. However, if they fail to do their job, they deserve what happens to them.

Dashofpepper wrote:
The thing is...no one had a problem with them or with me using them. Until they lost and were looking for a reason to gripe. None of my opponents said, "Those venoms are too big and Dash exploited that fact by....." It's just "Those are too big, and I consider it cheating." As I said - there are more disadvantages than advantages; mainly along the lines of not being able to get cover, hogging space behind terrain, taking up extra front row seats in my deployment zone, and being much easier to smack with templates.

There are two possible advantages: Move and pivot for extra inches to get units out front and into the action, and a wreck result from a unit at the head or tail or the transport, where the unit disembarks out of the opposite end. Those 3rd Edition raiders are longer than venoms, but venoms are just as wide or wider than third edition raiders due to the wings - and the only time it came up (Game 5) was a side-shot wreck that wouldn't have fit into that category.

I'm not saying its a reason you should have gotten a poor sports. *I* were your opponent, just from reading report one where the list said venoms, and sawa whole bunch of raiders, it raises eyebrows. I had to go back and forth between pics and list to make sure I got it right.

Again, doesnt matter how many disadvantages you list, people will only see how little work done to them and a whole bunch of them. I wouldnt have a slight problem now with them. Bigger problems 6 months from now after the venoms were released and you still had the raiders. People generally dont see disadvantages.

Dashofpepper wrote:H
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".

Sarigar wrote:
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.

Photoshop fun



I just cut out the lead "Raider/Venom" and place it behind itself twice to illustrate just how far it moved from the table edge to illustrate this better.

Dashofpepper wrote:
The thing is...no one had a problem with them or with me using them.

No one told you they had a problem with them.

Doesn't mean no one had a problem with them.

DarthDiggler wrote:

canthatenuff wrote: He also doesn't assault with warrior or trueborn squads. Quit thinking in a vacuum and think about how the army works. Vyper models would have been more advantageous, it is that simple.

I'm not taking sides on the overall issue here, but I will with this statement. An obvious tactical advantage to the longer Raider's pivot would be to allow the disembarking Trueborns a longer reach for their blasters. A tactic which has been used predominantly in the first 3 games as a sort of suicide squad. A shorter transport would offer a disadvantage to this tactic. The difference between clipping a tank at near maximum range with the Trueborn and allowing that tank to fire again on the next turn could have been huge, depending on the tank.

I'm sure dash could demonstrate in vassal the negligible difference in range that using a raider makes. If he really wanted to prove you wrong. At the most it gains him a few inches. Still doesn't make it more advantageous than having a vyper model.

As Dash said a vyper model grants him easier cover saves and has a smaller footprint. These are both important.

As far as this games goes, doesnt really matter if those venoms are raiders or converted vypers... that vanilla SM list was gonna go down hard regardless.

carmachu wrote:

Gorechild wrote:
To be fair to Dash, there is no way of him having the official Venom model yet, so people can't complain that he uses a "count's as". If he continued using the same models a few months after the Venom kit is on sale, then complaints about using an inappropriately sized model might be reasonable, but at the moment there isn't an official replacement.

While I wouldnt dock his sports score yet for having raiders as venoms(6 months after the release with the same models, yes), yes we can complain. Its not like he did a tone of work on them. From what I see, he ripped off the point stuff ion the back. Thats it. Thats not quite good enough.

And while there isnt an offical one, much like other folks that have to make do, there could have been more effort or if not, just play raiders fora while longer.

Again, wouldnt dock him for it yet, but no matter what claims of disadvanatage they might have, there will be clear advantages.

As has already been said, there are just as many drawbacks as there are advantages. Considering DoP wasn't using a combat based army, using his "venoms" rather than the yet-to-be-released venom or a vyper puts him at a disadvantage (as it is so much easier to draw LOS to). If he was using his wych cult army with these transports in 6 moths time, I believe you'd have reason to complain, but as it stands (in my view at least) he's done nothing wrong. If its okay with the TO then it shouldn't be disputed.

blood angel wrote:

Gorechild wrote:

blood angel wrote:Dash.. when you use shifty tactics like the modeling and the pivoting you are going to inspire harsh feelings.

Sad thing is that you are probably good enough to win without doing that crap but seem to prefer to continue to tarnish your rep.

This is nothing I haven't said to you face to face but when are you gonna get it, bro?

To be fair to Dash, there is no way of him having the official Venom model yet, so people can't complain that he uses a "count's as". If he continued using the same models a few months after the Venom kit is on sale, then complaints about using an inappropriately sized model might be reasonable, but at the moment there isn't an official replacement.

The whole pivot thing is perfectly legal, if people don't like it, it's not really his fault. If you didn't like the fact that beast can assault 12", it doesn't change the fact that it's allowed by the rules...this is exactly the same with pivoting a vehicle before or after you measure to move it, the rules say you can do it, so you can do it.

Your 'head in the sand mentality' is fine for one off games but it is NOT going to win a major tournament on a regular basis.

What you describe as 'perfectly legal' is a huge grey area that a lot of people do NOT consider perfectly legal.

As far as the 'counts as' argument goes there is a commonly accepted size for conversions out there and a full size raider is not one of them. Gaining extra inches for assault armies is HUGE HUGE HUGE and if it appears that someone is going out of there way to abuse 'counts as rules' or taking what many consider as a liberal interpretation of how movement works then you, as a player, have to expect resentment.

Again, if the TO accepted them as a reasonable "counts as" then there should be no disputing this. Gaining an inch or two with an assault army is an advantage (I wouldn't go as far as calling it HUGE HUGE HUGE though), but he wasn't using a close combat army, if you thing a unit of 5 warriors is good in assault then there is something wrong.

Warhammer 40,000 Rulebook: page 56 wrote:As vehicle models do not usually have a base, the normal rule for measuring distances to and from the base cannot be used. Instead, for distances involving vehicles, measure to or from their hull (ignore guns *snip* and other decorative elements). There is however a notable exception, a vehicles weaponry. When firing a vehicles weaponry ranges are measured from the muzzle of the firing weapon

Warhammer 40,000 Rulebook: page 57 wrote:Vehicles can turn any number of times as they move, just like any other model. Vehicles turn by pivoting on the spot about their centre-point, rather than "wheeling" round. Turning does not reduce the vehicles move

Warhammer 40,000 Rulebook: page 57 wrote:Pivoting on the spot alone does not count as moving

That is the sum total of what the rule book has to say on the matter, now (without wanting to derail this battle report into another one of the many YMDC style arguments on this exact matter) everything Dash does is permitted by these rules. Did he pivot about the centre of the model? Yes. did he measure from the hull? Yes.

Dash, you are blowing some of the details up. I'm not mad anymore but I don't like how you are distorting some of the things that happened.

Couple of things. kingsley did come over and talk to me about the game with you. He said, "Wow that was the most bs army I've ever seen." I asked what the guy brought. He told me about the list and I said, "Oh ok. Well I know how to fight that." But at no point did we "scheme" or anything to fight you. I have been playing DE since november so I did not need a tactics discussion or anything.

David is right, we are not friends but aquintences. he lives in Houston, and me in Austin and we hangout a few times a year. When I talked to him during your guys game, it was about wishing him luck and such.

And I would like to point out, I did make a scene at your game 5 but only cause you were pulling some crap with david and it made me angry that you were trying to cheat him to. That was the only reason I spoke up. Other than that I stayed quiet and I think you can attest to that.

Your getting new venoms which is cool. They didn't bother me so much in our game until the denied charge. As I stated during the game, with a normal model I would have been able to assault around it but since it was so long I couldn't and that's what the judges had us dice off on. I still think I should have been able to assault your trueborn the other way cause I could touch your base without touching the venom.

For instance, a good friend of mine once told me, "Your too good to use that tactic, don't resort to it." This was referencing the pivot-vehicle move to gain extra inches. And I hold to that, I don't use it because it's cheesy and not fun for your opponnent. Regardless of the disadvantages of having the longer frame for your venoms it's still kinda cheesy gaining appox. 4-5 inches total for your dismounted blasters and splinter cannons. It does add up like has been stated already. Your bit about not being able to hide, sure it's harder but let's be honest, there was no real hiding vehicles on that board we played on.

But anyways, it's behind us now. I should be in dallas for akon and will def be at wargamescon. I hope you can take some of these criticisms and try not to use these little things that have been discussed in all these threads to try and win.

Edit: I will also say this about the pivot thing....Dash measured very accurately when doing it....haha

If you measure fire from the tip of the hull then it's a pretty big advantage since you gain range by this pivot crap and then again by the large size of the vehcile. It gives a short/medium range weapon a much greater threat range.

At tournaments like this vehicles don't often gain cover saves from terrain (since the premium terrain is spread out over many tables), they gain it from hiding behind other vehicles or moving flat out.

Continuing to harp on the fact that 'the giant vemons are a disad' isn't going to fly.

Let's be clear though - dash had this dude out listed from the jump. There were very few possible futures where this dude was going to win. Further proving the point that these 'tactics' aren't required.

blood angel wrote:If you measure fire from the tip of the hull then it's a pretty big advantage since you gain range by this pivot crap and then again by the large size of the vehcile. It gives a short/medium range weapon a much greater threat range.

I hear what you're saying - and I'm telling you that it was irrelevant. I understand the hypothetical advantages of a longer venom. I do.

blood angel wrote:
At tournaments like this vehicles don't often gain cover saves from terrain (since the premium terrain is spread out over many tables), they gain it from hiding behind other vehicles or moving flat out.

And again - I understand what you're saying, and am saying that it isn't relevant. Not once in five games at the Alamo did one of my vehicles take a cover save from being behind another vehicle. While a larger venom could hypothetically give cover where it shouldn't....it didn't.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

Caldera02 wrote:Dash, you are blowing some of the details up. I'm not mad anymore but I don't like how you are distorting some of the things that happened.

Couple of things. kingsley did come over and talk to me about the game with you. He said, "Wow that was the most bs army I've ever seen." I asked what the guy brought. He told me about the list and I said, "Oh ok. Well I know how to fight that." But at no point did we "scheme" or anything to fight you. I have been playing DE since november so I did not need a tactics discussion or anything.

I didn't say that you were scheming, and wouldn't care if you did. I said that he briefed you on how I play and what to prioritize for targets - which is precisely what you told me he did.

wrong, again strecthing what happened to try and put yourself in a favorable light. When Kingsley and I spoke, it was what was in your list. that was it. So when I got to our table I mentioned Yea a friend of mine mentioned whats in your list. How in the world is that remotely, he told me how to beat you?

Caldera02 wrote:wrong, again strecthing what happened to try and put yourself in a favorable light. When Kingsley and I spoke, it was what was in your list. that was it. So when I got to our table I mentioned Yea a friend of mine mentioned whats in your list. How in the world is that remotely, he told me how to beat you?

I'm not sure that you and I even speak the same version of English.

This is the exact kind of thing I was talking about in the Alamo thread. You could cut out the drama by using my stock reply.

Dashofpepper should have wrote:
Caldera02, thank you for our game at the Alamo GT. In the interest of a civil dialogue, I will post how I remember the game in the "Dashofpepper's Darklight Storm at the Alamo GT: Game Four" Battle Report Thread. I apologize if there were any misunderstandings which reduced your enjoyment of our game and would be happy to discuss any specific points in person when next we are at a GT together.

I like the Dark Eldar list, it is very effective. I do not like the choice of models, though. You should be able to win your games without cheap tricks such as those 'venoms', and the thread has certainly noted that.

Moving sideways and then pivoting, having larger vehicles than the official model, and mounting all the vehicle weapons on the prow, if you only did one of those things, it is quite excusable. All three, though, and one can only assume that you know what you're doing is subject to controversy.

Great battle reports, though, the pictures of each turn are very thorough. I would prefer a more objective approach to the reports for games 4 and 5, though. You drop subtle statements that force your opponents to defend themselves, and it's unnecessary and confrontational.

Caldera02 wrote:wrong, again strecthing what happened to try and put yourself in a favorable light. When Kingsley and I spoke, it was what was in your list. that was it. So when I got to our table I mentioned Yea a friend of mine mentioned whats in your list. How in the world is that remotely, he told me how to beat you?

What are you trying to defend yourself against? No one in this thread has insinuated any unacceptable tournament behavior on that front.

Sucks your game 3 opponent was a sore loser :(

Oaka wrote:I like the Dark Eldar list, it is very effective. I do not like the choice of models, though. You should be able to win your games without cheap tricks such as those 'venoms', and the thread has certainly noted that.

Moving sideways and then pivoting, having larger vehicles than the official model, and mounting all the vehicle weapons on the prow, if you only did one of those things, it is quite excusable. All three, though, and one can only assume that you know what you're doing is subject to controversy.

Great battle reports, though, the pictures of each turn are very thorough. I would prefer a more objective approach to the reports for games 4 and 5, though. You drop subtle statements that force your opponents to defend themselves, and it's unnecessary and confrontational.

My battle reports have always been a running dialogue of what I'm thinking as the game goes by - often times noting that I'm not sure if something was legal or not as an invitation for someone reading to pipe in. I will say this: The venoms were approved conversions. Get over it. Four pages on this thread, four separate topics, three of them in battle reports (soon to be five) and its getting tiresome to see ALL of them focusing on whether or not random people who didn't attend approve of my venoms. Until I have my pre-ordered venoms, these are it. Another 5 pages worth of "I don't approve of your venoms" is quite redundant and unnecessary.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Oaka wrote:
Moving sideways and then pivoting,

Is quite legal. Whether you move forward and pivot at the end, pivot halfway through, spin a 360 and pivot some more is irrelevant. Both of us did it - because it is legal. There's even a linked thread in YMDC for you to go talk about it in.

Oaka wrote:
having larger vehicles than the official model

In quite a disadvantage in this situation, as has been outlined in depth.

Oaka wrote:
and mounting all the vehicle weapons on the prow

Guess where weaponry goes on Dark Eldar vehicles? Yes, this is starting to sound hostile - because I consider your post hostile.

Oaka wrote:
if you only did one of those things, it is quite excusable.

Actually, all three is quite excusable. #1 is the rules, plain and simple. #2 is more disadvantageous than not, and an approved conversion. #3 is following the convention of weaponry on DE vehicles.

Hostile and redundant.

Dashofpepper wrote:
Hostile and redundant.

Believe me I'm not trying to be hostile, I'm just echoing the majority, hence the redundancy. What you seem to crave is a tournament where every participant is like you, with a full grasp of the rules and an army build to suit. That tournament does not exist. You will find that person in the last round of every major tournament, someone who has decimated their opponents just like you have.

Since I joined Dakka, I have read posts from players intent on winning. Mauleed, then Stelek, and now Dash. You were all amazing generals, and never lost a tournament. I look up to your advice when it comes to army builds, but I refuse to use rulebook tricks that the average gamer is not aware of.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

Dashofpepper wrote:

Oaka wrote:
and mounting all the vehicle weapons on the prow

Guess where weaponry goes on Dark Eldar vehicles? Yes, this is starting to sound hostile - because I consider your post hostile.

Official Model:


Your Model:


Both your splinter cannon mounts are a good 2-3" forward than the official model. Combine that with a longer model and the free pivot, and you get an extra 6" range with your models, easy.

That official model is not yet a model. It will be a model in the near future. I modeled those splinter cannons where the weapons go on every Dark Eldar vehicle as of NOW. When new vehicles come out that have a different representation of a Venom, I'll get them. I already have them ordered.

But in the meantime, the only egg that counts is the one where you get TO approval for conversions. Which I did. You're echoing the majority in *this* thread, which is not a majority - there's been plenty said in the Alamo GT thread in tournament discussion - pretty much along the same lines. No guidance provided, TO approval of conversions, both boxes checked.

Individuals voicing disapproval based around theoretical POTENTIAL advantages...I put no stock in. Mountains get made out of molehills all the time.

I don't know if this will make it through the sea of hate but here goes...

Hey dash, first off I want to thank you for resuming your battle reports as they always give me insight on how to handle the tougher lists (or in this case, how not to)

In saying that, I'm thinking of starting a DE army soon and am wondering how useful the flickerfields are to your vehicles survivability? I ask this because I'm wondering if it is worth it compared to getting some more infantry on the board.

Thank you in advance and I hope to meet you at NOVA

mythological wrote:I don't know if this will make it through the sea of hate but here goes...

Hey dash, first off I want to thank you for resuming your battle reports as they always give me insight on how to handle the tougher lists (or in this case, how not to)

In saying that, I'm thinking of starting a DE army soon and am wondering how useful the flickerfields are to your vehicles survivability? I ask this because I'm wondering if it is worth it compared to getting some more infantry on the board.

Thank you in advance and I hope to meet you at NOVA

If you roll statistically accurate, having flickerfields means that you have 33% more vehicles than you actually do. I think its definitely worth it! The first time that a dreadnought deep-strikes next to a ravager and drops a melta-gun into your rear armour and you make a 5+ invulnerable save, you'll never leave home without them again. Or when you move 12" and get assaulted by a unit with a powerfist - and after 6+ to hit, he gets one hit...and one penetrate...and you make your flickerfield save.

Its a 33% chance shot, it costs 10 points, and I look at it like this - 3-4 flickerfields is worth a new vehicle and cheaper.

You make some good points and I think that I will put them on my Ravagers, but I don't think that they are worth in on raiders (won't really have them in my list, running a lot of venoms) as IMHO you should be moving those raiders flat out (with wyches) until disembarking

Oaka wrote:
Both your splinter cannon mounts are a good 2-3" forward than the official model. Combine that with a longer model and the free pivot, and you get an extra 6" range with your models, easy.

Vypers are only 3.5 inches long, so that's an exaggeration.

Ans also, they were approved for use. What more do you want? To go back in time and make them not approved? Good luck with that.

Dash, I really enjoyed the report, but I wish you would leave out all the comments of "this tree had no leaves but I let him have cover anyway" or "he had to have moved too far but I let him have it anyway" ad nauseum.

Just report the game, don't nitpick in hindsight every move of your opponent's and none of your own.

Other than that, I really enjoyed the report, especially all the pics. However, the comments you're making make me wonder if I'd be comfortable having you take pics / write a report of my playing a game against you...

Unrelated to that, I like your list and army, and am actually considering Dark Eldar... so I look forward to your reports for the final 2 games, and will go back and read the first 2. The in-game parts only, that is...

As everyone is defending Dash's models as being within the rules of the tournament, I'd like to point out Kings' bad game vote was completely within the rules and not an example of being a sore loser. This is from the Alamo website (emphasis mine):

"Sportsmanship is about having a good game. There are a thousand things that can make a game good or bad, and no one can list them all. It is very hard to determine how good or how bad a game was. It's very subjective and different to everyone. However, it is easy to tell if a game was good or bad and pretty much everyone can agree on it, so for the Alamo GT, sportsmanship will focus on if the game was good or bad."

He can do it for whatever reason he wants, and he didn't do it simply to hurt Dashs chances (which is what chipmunking is).

RiTides wrote:Dash, I really enjoyed the report, but I wish you would leave out all the comments of "this tree had no leaves but I let him have cover anyway" or "he had to have moved too far but I let him have it anyway" ad nauseum.

Just report the game, don't nitpick in hindsight every move of your opponent's and none of your own.

Other than that, I really enjoyed the report, especially all the pics. However, the comments you're making make me wonder if I'd be comfortable having you take pics / write a report of my playing a game against you...

Unrelated to that, I like your list and army, and am actually considering Dark Eldar... so I look forward to your reports for the final 2 games, and will go back and read the first 2. The in-game parts only, that is...

I *write* those comments because they are relevant - to the scoring of the GT. They were rules/cover/talks/discussions that we *HAD* during the game, and I believe it relevant to bring up that I gave him the advantage in every instance. I *will* write about it, because it is directly relevant to the game, the decisions that I made and where I chose to shoot based on those conversations, and the extraneous conversations that happen where people postulate that I must get bad sportsmanship scores because I am a jerk to my opponents.

I will *continue* to write about them for *THIS* GT because it is extremely relevant. I've never written about them before because I've never had sportsmanship issues before.

So... How long will it be before you start to regret writting bat reps again because of the drama they cause?

Also, your DE battle Reports are not visible in your signature. You need to remove a line somewhere.



On your list:


While DE are tough and your list is good, It is not really the worst cheese fest net list I have ever seen.

Were there no Space Wolves with 15+ ML?
Were there no Mech Vet/Leaf Blower lists?
Were there no BA lists with a ton of Razorbacks?

svendrex wrote:So... How long will it be before you start to regret writting bat reps again because of the drama they cause?

Maybe he can just get the thread's locked right away or something. There's half a dozen people who put up really useful battle reports, and he's one of em.

I know. I really like his Battle Reports. They were some of the first things I read on this site, and were part of the reason I joined in the first place.

I for one am highly amused by the comments. I've never seen so many people who weren't present at an event freaking out to defend their net heroes. Y'all need to turn this into a regular column.

Looking forward to seeing how the next battle rep comes out.

Dash wrote: I've never written about them before...

And I enjoyed those more :-/

However, as I said, the pics and tactics are fantastic... so I will definitely read your first two games. Not so sure I want to wade through all of the chaff in the last two, though... you still have the choice to leave out the off-the-field (or board, in this case) issues, and stick to the events of the game on the tabletop.

RiTides wrote:

Dash wrote: I've never written about them before...

And I enjoyed those more :-/

However, as I said, the pics and tactics are fantastic... so I will definitely read your first two games. Not so sure I want to wade through all of the chaff in the last two, though... you still have the choice to leave out the off-the-field (or board, in this case) issues, and stick to the events of the game on the tabletop.

I understand - I'm taking a lot of flak from a lot of angles - all of it repetitive, most of it irrelevant - and I'm putting out fires.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Krisken wrote:I for one am highly amused by the comments. I've never seen so many people who weren't present at an event freaking out to defend their net heroes. Y'all need to turn this into a regular column.

Looking forward to seeing how the next battle rep comes out.

Presumably you also haven't seen so many people who weren't present at an event feel the need to override TO rulings to weigh in with their opinions either?

Dashofpepper wrote:

Krisken wrote:I for one am highly amused by the comments. I've never seen so many people who weren't present at an event freaking out to defend their net heroes. Y'all need to turn this into a regular column.

Looking forward to seeing how the next battle rep comes out.

Presumably you also haven't seen so many people who weren't present at an event feel the need to override TO rulings to weigh in with their opinions either?

What can I say? If I had read those posts most recent, I would have laughed at them first. As it stands we have two sets of points of view and then a whole slew of peanut gallery experts making assumptions they couldn't possibly back up.

Like all things, I tend to find the truth is somewhere in the middle.

I like peanuts!

Dashofpepper wrote:I like peanuts!

The only peanut I want to see talking is Mr. Peanut.

I am enjoying the battle reports, by the way!

Krisken wrote:

Dashofpepper wrote:I like peanuts!

The only peanut I want to see talking is Mr. Peanut.

I am enjoying the battle reports, by the way!

And interestingly, my wife and I have been having a House marathon while I've been writing them. o.O Coincidence? Government plot?

Dashofpepper wrote:

RiTides wrote:

Dash wrote: I've never written about them before...

And I enjoyed those more :-/

However, as I said, the pics and tactics are fantastic... so I will definitely read your first two games. Not so sure I want to wade through all of the chaff in the last two, though... you still have the choice to leave out the off-the-field (or board, in this case) issues, and stick to the events of the game on the tabletop.

I understand - I'm taking a lot of flak from a lot of angles - all of it repetitive, most of it irrelevant - and I'm putting out fires.

Here's the problem Dash... Myself and others have given you advice on how to avoid the e-drama and you continue to do the same things you've always done... Fan the flames. I love your BRs, but all the other gak is really unnecessary. Just this last page of this thread really puts into the question your statement that you have internet drama. It looks more like you thrive on it.

You still can be the better man, walk away from e-drama and build your reputation on your skill and battle reports. Alternatively, you can continue to fan the flames and cultivate your celebrity through drama and scandal. Choice is yours.

I forgot to comment on the paint schemes- I love both armies' looks . For yours, the highlighting on your new raiders stands out as being particularly awesome / eye-catching. Are you thinking of getting some of the DE beasts models? Your khamaeras (sp?) look good, although I couldn't quite make out the ones you're using for the flocks. I just picked up a few Clawed Fiends and that model is a really nice sculpt.

In your opponent's, I really like the yellow pattern on the tank (razorback?). If I remember right this is the paint scheme for "veterans" or some such for the Mantis Warrios, while the rest is green. Looks fantastic

The flocks are scarab swarms with little wings on them.

RiTides wrote:I forgot to comment on the paint schemes- I love both armies' looks . For yours, the highlighting on your new raiders stands out as being particularly awesome / eye-catching. Are you thinking of getting some of the DE beasts models? Your khamaeras (sp?) look good, although I couldn't quite make out the ones you're using for the flocks. I just picked up a few Clawed Fiends and that model is a really nice sculpt.

I have 5 of the new Khymera models and 4 flocks. I agree with RiTides, the models are really nice.

Do not know if its been mentioned before, but with regards to game 3, how can 10 man teams take a razorback?

I thought squads of up to 6 could use them as its a TRANSPORT vehicle and a razorback CANNOT transport 10 men.

Just curious.

My internet is messed up, it didint show the other 3 pages after the battle

A transport can be take even if the squad can't fit inside (unless otherwise stated in each codex entry). I beleive it is a previous edition that had a restriction on that, and is no longer in the rules.

However, by breaking into combat squads one of the combat squads would then be able to ride inside.

Hmmmm, i'll have to remember that for future reference... a bit beardy and unsporting though to do that with razorbacks and 10 man squads.

Or maybe not, a good way to add firepower and minimise kill points. I am not so much a gamer as modeller, just play casually.

Not all armies can take transports for oversized squads. Space Marines can though.

Have to echo the "poor terrain" sentiment. A shooty army would gain so much from that kind of setup that it's almost silly...

AlmightyWalrus wrote:Have to echo the "poor terrain" sentiment. A shooty army would gain so much from that kind of setup that it's almost silly...

That's why I take terrain with me. Orks have 4+ cover all the time. My Necrons have Mobile BLOS terrain. And my DE have 5++ invuls regardless of cover, and 4+ cover for flat out when they need it.

Terrain never really bothers me one way or the other; I'm not reliant on it in any situation, so its density isn't a factor in my games.

Using raiders to represent venoms until the new model is out shouldn't have been an issue. Expecting people to buy a Vyper, maybe a LSS, some DE, and use them to make a venom seems a bit over the top.

The extra move from pivot seems to be more of a grey area when arriving from reserve (did the vehicle turn sideways just before entering the battle?). When deploying a vehicle sideways, the extra move you can gain can be balanced by the fact you are exposing a possibly weaker facing to the enemy.
The BRB FAQ entry on tank shocking from reserve seems to indicate a vehicle arriving from reserve is not facing sideways, as you are supposed to:
"declare the distance it is going to move along with its direction and move the tank onto the board that many inches, measuring from the board edge as for a normal from reserve."
(my emphasis).
This seems to indicate the vehicle is counted as facing towards the board edge before arriving, not sideways.

As the FAQ entry also mentions "as normal from reserve", and the reserve rules don't specify the facing of the vehicle before it enters, the case can be made for allowing it too (although I personally don't like this interpretation).

This seems like an issue that the players/TO should resolve before the battle (dicing for it if needed), as the threads in YMDC seemed to be locked without a consensus.