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Well, this weekend just passed was New Zealands GT (which was also branded as Fields of Blood). Last year GW pulled the plug on running their GT's, but continued to provide support to the person who stepped in to take over running it so NZ would still have this event. From there, under his guidance, the tournament has gone from strength to strength.
This year it pulled the highest attendance NZ has ever achieved I believe, with 75 people.

Last year I came third with my Pre Heresy Emperors Children, and won it the year before with my Tyranids, so I was going into this putting a fair bit of pressure on myself, hoping for a top 5 finish - but felt there were a few other people I know that I was fairly certain would be on the podium.
I knew at best I would be playing for second, as David Lewy had publically announced that he would obtain first place. He was quite certain of this, so best we all move out of his way

A few weeks prior, I had won a local tournament as a practice for this event, which was somewhat promising - however I had gotten a 2/5 for comp. Given that Lootas seemed to be a swearword in comp environments, I decided to replace this on short notice. Painted sitting on my shelf was another 3 killer kans, 2 deff dreads, 30 lootas, another KFF Big Mek and 4 deffkoptas. Compwise, it was obvious to me that the deffkoptas drew the short straw and was to slot in.
This boosted my comp for the event to a whopping 2.1! Woohey here we go!

In the end I took the following;

HQ: Warboss, Attack Squig, Bosspole, Eavy Armour, Cybork Body, Power Klaw, Kombi-Skorcha
HQ: Big Mek, Kustom Force Field

Troops: 30 Orks Boyz, Nob with Klaw and Bosspole, 3 big shootas
Troops: 12 Slugga Boyz, Nob with Klaw and Bosspole, Trukk with Reinforced Ram and Boarding Plank
Troops: 11 Grots, 1 Runt Herder
Troops: 30 Ork Boyz, Nob with Klaw and Bosspole, 3 big shootas
Troops: 8 meganobs, 2 Kombi Skorchas, 1 Kombi Rokkit, Battle Wagon, Big Shoota, Reinforced Ram, Boarding Plank, Eavy Armour

Fast Attack: 4 Deffkoptas, TL Big Shootas, 1 Buzzsaw

Heavy Support: 3 Killer Kans, 3 Big Shootas
Heavy Support: 3 Killer Kans, 3 Grotzookas

I caught up with some of the Aucklanders who had taken the trip down, and someone who had made the trip over from Australia the night before, where we watched our local rugby team get SMAAAAAASHED (sigh!) over some pizza and beer, before we got down to some totally unserious pool. Let it be noted that as there was only one Australian, I was forced to become an honorary Australian for the night. In a game with national pride at stake, Tom and I, on behalf of Australia, smashed New Zealands finest, The Double Dave Delux combo of Foster and Lewy.
On my walk back to my car - I nearly got my head smacked in by a bouncer by surprising a friend from work by leaping over a wall and putting him in a headlock, right in front of a bouncer I hadn't seen until that moment, a hurried explanation that he was a friend and I was only saying hello was necessary, before I snuck off home to get some sleep for day 1.

Game 1:

Mission: Annihilation Varient (HQ = 1kp, Troops =3kp, elites heavy and fast = 2kp).
Deployment: Pitched Battle

My first opponent was Chris Ford, a fairly local player who I hadn't actually met before. Unfortunately just months before the event his army was stolen from his car, so he had rushed a new army and gotten it painted in time.

Chris had:
- Primaris Psyker, a Grey Knight Terminator Brother Captain + Retinue of Grey Knight Termies (5 or 6 I think)
- Inquisitor with Mystics
- Infantry Platoon (command squad in chimera with plasma guns, 3 infantry squads in chimeras, 3 lascannon team, 3 autocannon team), Veterans with meltas
- 1 Valkyrie
- 1 Demolisher, 1 standard Russ

I won the roll for first turn, and proceeded to set up fairly centrally. A HUGE piece of terrain in the middle of the table not only blocked all line of sight, but threatened to actually block out the sun and plunge the entire planet into an age of darkness. To my right of this was another one of these, meaning I was going to have to pour through a gap no wider than 12 inches to get at the enemy, or try go all the way outside around the table against an army far more mobile than mine. Hmmm!

Chris set up his army mostly across from me, so that once I filled the breach in the terrain, I would have multiple pie plates bearing down on me, and a torrent of fire. Unfortunately, he plonked his 2 heavy weapon squads right next to each other, and right next to them the demolisher; the biggest threats to my 2 transport vehicles, and their contents, with me having the first turn.
I proceeded to turbo boost my deffkoptas full steam ahead, stopping 12 inches out from these units, and after a failed initiative sieze, on rolled turn 1!

T1 Orks: My vehicles both lurch forward, ready to come through the gap next turn, whilst kans and boys move and run forward. The deffkoptas perform better than I could imagine, getting a combined assault on all 3 targets, in a way that the buzzsaw can reach the demolisher, but no guard can reach him with the counter assault. The Demolisher is wrecked, and the combat with the guard drawn so that I can't be shot. Good boys!

T1 IG: A small handfull of orks (~5 or so) are killed, and some shots bounce off the battlewagons AV14 and/or its forcefield. Some chimeras drive up 6 inches ready to plug the gap next turn, so that my only way through is blocked, and take pot shots at the trukk/boyz, killing a few boyz but only stopping the trukk from shooting.
The koptas with their s6 buzzsaw now kill a couple of whole bases, chasing both heavy weapon teams off the table and consolidate towards the other Russ.

T2 Orks:
The Deffkoptas go after the other russ, blowing off its battle cannon and immobilising it, also shaking it. Trukk boyz boarding plank explode one of the chimeras, whilst a 30man squad now down to about 23ish wreck the other chimera - so that gap wont be plugged. The meganobs lurk back in their wagon a bit, now that no AT can hit them here, ready to counter assault what ever is to happen next.

T2 IG:
The GKT's head forward to counter assault the ork boyz, whilst the 2 remaining chimeras immobilise the trukk. The GKT's do their job quite well, and win combat by about 10. Once the combat res is done, there are ~7 or so orks remaining.
The valk comes on the table, dropping the veterans and primaris psyker who wittle a few orks but not many, whilst the valk pops a kan.

T3 Orks:
The meganobs hop out to counter the GKT's, who are all engaged with orks. As they wind up only being able to reach a single GKT thanks to some tactical hanging back, only one is going to get to strike meganobs before hand. The koptas proceed to spend the rest of the game knocking off 1 gun a turn on the russ, but theyre enjoying themselves.
The Trukk boyz hop out of their immobilised trukk, waagh, and get into the primaris psyker, retinue, and an infantry platoon squad near by that had had its chimera blown up last turn. Both squads are beaten by a lot in close combat, and run, to be running again and within 6 of enemy next turn so are off the table. The GKT's are wiped out, and some good consolidates see the meganobs get into cover.

T3 IG:
The remaining chimeras move into rapid fire range and shoot at the meganobs, doing little damage between 2+ armour and 4+ cover.
The trukkboys are whittled down to a handful of models, and charged by the Inq + Mystics, both mystics are killed but the inq remains to dish out his own personal brand of justice in the next phase. The Valkyrie pops another kan, but does not move to do so.

T4 Orks: The warboss rushes forward in his battlewagon and gets 6 autopens on the valk, blowing it to smitherines. The meganobs stumble forward and eat the plasma squad, and the inq is finished off. By this stage all thats left is 2 chimeras and 2 guard infantry squads, whilst I haven't lost any full squads, one of my 30 mans is down to ~2 boyz left, and the trukk boyz are down to ~3.

T4 IG: The infantry squads hop out and rapidfire the meganobs, but again little damage is done.

T5 Orks: Both remaining guard squads are destroyed, as is one chimera. The other has all its weapons blown off, and is stunned, but not shaken.

T5 IG: Chris now just has a Chimera with no guns, so proceeds to tankshock the meganobs. Of course they fail their moral check, and the game ends

I get max points, whilst Chris gets a point for my most expensive unit fleeing at the end of the game, for a final score of 15-1.

*Sigh double post*

Game 2:

Mission: The Stelek Mission (5 chosen Killpoints, 5 objectives, 1 pretty much in each far corner of the table, and 1 central).
Deployment: Spearhead

My second opponent was a zealous Dark Eldar player, who I actually really quite get along with We had played a very similar game just a few months ago, again in round 2, and again 5 spread objectives in each quarter, though this time the KP points were added as well.

Dave Had:
- Typical Archon with drugs agoniser and shadowfield
- whyches in a raider
- 2 squads of mandrakes
- 2 foot squads with dark lances
- 2 or 3 x warriors with blasters in a raider
- 2 Ravagers
- 2 Reaver jetbike squads with blasters

I think thats all, but im usually a bit flakey on dark eldar armies, my eyes start to glaze over as they describe stuff, and I start to plan a shopping list in my head of what I need to buy for next weeks groceries.

For the killpoints, I chose his Whyches and their Raider (as these are units he would need and could not afford to hide), his Archon as he would also need this guy in the thick of things, and 2 raiders belonging to warrior squads, as I knew Dave would be wanting to push deep with these to get to the 2 objectives in my back table edge.

Dave picked my 2 transports, koptas, trukk boyz, and my Warboss.

Dave won the roll for turn 1, so I outflanked my koptas and set up across from him. Fortunately there was a nice piece of LOS blocking terrain in the center of the table. At a push, he could get some shots on my side armour on my battle wagon, but would be in front arc, meaning some 3+ cover.

DE Turn 1:
Shooting was highly ineffective this turn, Dave didnt push out to get any shots on the wagon or trukk, probably as this would require him getting closer than he would like to the rest of the army. A small handfull of orks died to ravager templates, and a Kan went up in smoke.

Orks Turn 1:
Both the trukk and the battle wagon were able to drive forward ~11 inches, to hide behind the next wall of this ruined building, again getting the same sort of LOS blocking, which was very fortunate -all I had to sacrifice was a single inch of movement to pull this off.
I immobilised one raider, and stunned the whyches raider. Not a great deal achieved, but some good prep work to make the next turn crunch time.

DE Turn 2:
The raider Dave has in reserve doesnt show up, and not a lot of movement takes place. Some blaster shots bounce off the battle wagon and/or its forcefield, as well as one or two dark lances. One of the big shoota kans loses its weapon, whilst one of the grotzooka kans is destroyed. quite a few more ork boyz in the squad on my left are killed, they are down to about 18 guys now, but the other squad remains untouched.

Ork Turn 2:
It's go time. The trukk bursts through the terrain, a huge multicharge on the cards for them. Whilst they are 2 selected killpoints I'm throwing away here potentially, the damage they will wreak will do so much more than that, and will force his hand next turn to take care of that threat, leaving the rest of my goods unmolested. The meganobs push forward to threaten the immobilised raider with lord in it, and the foot squad standing next to it.
Big shootas blow up the raider with lord in it, meaning that now if I waagh, I can multicharge, and use the free wounds from the warriors to moral-rape the lord, getting both a killpoint and a tourney point, whilst taking care of a headache all at once. This winds up being exactly what happens, whilst a big consolidate puts me close enough to keep the lord running.
The grotzooka kans clear out a reaver jetbike squad.
The trukkboyz earn their pay big time. They multicharge the whyches raider, wrecking it - with the whyches then failing their pinning check, a regular raider, which they immobilise, a ravager which they blow up, and a dark lance foot squad, who are beaten by enough that they run off the table.

DE Turn 3:
So much damage was dealt to Dave that turn that he is in big trouble now. It's going to take some magic luck to pull it off from here, but Dave decides to try for it.
The lord and remenants of squad run but are not quite off the table, some whittling of the trukkboys take place, but they pass their moral check. Their trukk is not so fortunate, and dissapears.
Daves reserve raider comes on, and turbo boosts down the far side, making a break for the far objective. away from my entire army.
Everything that can opens up on the meganobs, but the ravager does nothing (I'm spread to maximum coherency with 4+ cover), as do the blasters.

Ork Turn 3:
The deffkoptas come on the table, with me picking table edge, and come on right next to the newly arrived raider. They proceed to blow it up with their TL big shootas, and assault the remenants, wiping them out between the explosion and their attacks.
The ravager escpaes unharmed, but the other jetbike squad is picked off by the battlewagon big shoota, single kan big shoota, and 3 big shootas from my untouched boyz squad starting to spread amongst objectives.
The meganobs introduce the whyches to 3 kombi heavy flamers, whilst getting close enough to make the lord and squad run again.
The last raider squad that hadn't moved is popped, and the remenants have a show down with the remenants of the trukk boyz. The Trukkboyz win the showdown and the DE are sent off.

DE Turn 4: Both mandrake squads reveal and assault the remanants of the whittled 30 man squad.
The ravager unleashes with its 3 plasma templates on the now more bunched meganobs, but going to ground sees off most of the damage.
The Mandrakes coming through cover lose half their number before the attack even begins. Both lose combat and run, one too low to rally, the other getting away.

Ork Turn 4: The mandrakes are kept running by the kans, the ravager is shaken, and we call the game there.

The game finishes 15-0 to me, which I was quite happy with as Dave is quite a good player, and has been using his DE long enough to know all their ins and outs. Unfortunately for him, he was a smidge too far up, and a smidge too bunched up. He may have been able to spread right before I hit, but i got quite lucky with some immobilised results on vehicles at crucial times, and was able to pull off some multicharge madness. If the battlewagon and trukk had been popped earlier like in our previous game, things could have become quite close, but between some massive LOS blocking, good cover saves, poor rolling on Daves behalf, and less shots fired at them that what could have been, it was not to be. Couple this with the DE failing most moral checks they had to make, and things wound up being quite one sided.

Game 3:

Mission: 6 objectives placed by the players. Auto turn 6. On turns 2, 4, and 6 roll a dice and correspond this to the objective. This will be a real objective, so at the end there are only 3 objectives, randomised.

Deployment: Dawn of War

My opponent was Ryan Simister, a predominantly Fantasy player, who had a rather pretty pre heresy Death Guard list I had helped him work on list wise, based on the models he had available.

Ryan had:
-Chaos lord, mark of nurgle, daemon weapon
-7 terminators, mark of nurgle, various combies and powerfists spread throughout.
-3 rhinos with 7 plague marines in each, with powerfists, and a split of meltas and flamers mostly, one foot squad of 7 plague marines
- las/las predator

I won the roll for first turn, and elected to go first, spreading 60 boyz spread along the half way mark. This would buy me time to push everything forward unmolested, and if we got into any combats, it would be a tarpit vs tarpit fight until my 9.74 metric tonnes of powerklaw attacks could catch up and get involved.
My kopters out flanked to be able to hit his pred at some point if possible, and my grots went into reserve as always.
Ryan deployed a rhino with plague marines + lord inside.

Ork Turn 1:
Totally uneventful, the scrum line pushed forward, did nothing to the rhino with their big shooters (with the other squad running forward), whilst everything else moved on as fast as they could, running where relevant.

DG turn 1:
On my right, a rhino drove on 12, spitting the squad out to rapid fire. The foot squad walked on a bit further back to rapid fire as well.
The rest of his army drove on the table on my far left, but due to nightfight had trouble getting any damage done.
The rapid firing whittled a few boyz, but not many due to my 4+ cover from having the majority in area terrain.

Ork turn 2:
The koptas dont turn up, but the grots move on tentatively, hunkering down in terrain ready to go to ground if anyone coughs at them.
The boy squad on my right moves up, fires 800000000000 shots at the deathguard who hopped out of the rhino, but don't kill any (they probably shouldnt, considering t5 fnp 3+ armour).
The meganobs drive up in their wagon to help them next turn, whilst the entire rest of my army swings to the left to deal with the bulk of his force. I back the boyz squad up so that any attacks on them will be able to be supported.

DG turn 2:
The termies dont show up yet. The squad with lord drive up to unload flamers + combi flamers at the boyz squad, but Ryan doesnt pay much attention to the kan unit now dangerously close behind a screen of boyz. The other squad hops out of their rhino and rapid fires the same squad.
I use these casualties to pull the green wall around the kans, so their way through is now clear.
The pred opens up on the kans, but only kills one.
The foot squad of plague marines assault the 30 mob on my right (or whats left of them) to help out. The orks lose the combat and are whittled to about ~12 orks after combat result.

Ork turn 3: Still no koptas, boo!
The meganobs bust forward and assault the remenants of the 2 squads of plague marines on my right in combat. This cleans them out and rescues the boyz quite convincingly.
The trukk immobilises itself with a double 1, so the trukk boyz are forced to go into the squad standing right next to them.
The remenants of the 30 man squad on my left move into a position to link these together.
In the combat, a kan picks up the chaos lord and proceeds to snip him in half, many plague marines are killed, and a few more die to the combat res.

DG turn 3: Still no termies!
The rhino on my right takes out the battle wagon with a combi melta. The rhinos on my left drive 12 and pop smoke to try stay alive. A kan from the other squad is killed by the pred.
The remaining plague marines are wiped out in combat.

Ork turn 4:
The koptas show up, fly behind the predator, and blow it up. The meganobs blow up the rhino that got the battle wagon, and the 2 rhinos are killed on the left in assault by kans/boyz.

DG turn 4:
The termies show up, being the last thing left, being his most expensive unit, Ryan elects to try protect these till the game ends to deny me a bonus point.
They come down and shoot up the grots, who pass their moral check.

Ork turn 5:
Everything beelines towards the termies, moving and running where they can. None die to any shooting.

DG turn 5:
They move slightly forward to shoot the boy squad on my right, killing a few.

Ork turn 6:
I have to kill the unit this turn. The meganobs roll a 3 for their movement, boo! As such, I hop the warboss away to join the ork boyz unit instead of steam forward 6. I call my waagh, and manage to get into combat with the termies.
The kans were just in range too, so I now have about 8 orks, a warboss, and 2 kans in contact with 7 termies. The termies counter attack, putting 2 powerfisters onto the warboss, and we hold our breath.
Not only do I have to wipe them out, but also not have my warboss die for max points.
The kans only hit twice, one of which passes his invulnerable save, whilst the boyz do nothing. The warboss only kills 2, and the nob only kills another 1. Meanwhile the termies kill a few orks, and its time for the powerfists. They open up on the warboss with 4 attacks, scoring 3 hits. 3 hits wound 3 times, and I take my cybork armour saves, making 1, meaning 2 wounds get through. Ryan lets out a cheer, does a fist pump, and a very slight pelvic thrust he thought I might not have detected. The look on Ryans face when I explained the warboss was T5, and as such not instakilled by the powerfist was similar to the look on my sisters face when she was a little kid and I told her the family dog was put down on christmas eve (it wasn't, but she wasn't to know I was lying).

DG turn 6:
The boyz are never going to do the business wounding on 6's with a 3 + save, mean while Ryan has an ablative wound.
The boyz proceed to do nothing, the kans seeing the warboss in trouble though, hit 3/4 times, wound 3 times, and Ryan fails all 3 invulnerable saves - the termies are wiped out and the game ends. PHeeeeeeeeeew!

The game finishes 15-0, in a dawn of war setup with me having the first turn, this mission was never going to be in his favour. It meant that I got to dominate the mid field, and tie him up with a flesh wall. Whilst hes mowing through that fleshwall, I get to apply up to a potential 52 power klaw attacks standing still (given theres no bonus charging attacks). T5 FNP doesnt count for anything at that point. Unfortunately he was at the wrong end of a paper scissor rock game with the mission against him.

-------------------------------------------------

Well, with day 1 done and dusted, we were all off to get some food in us.
I raced home to play with the new satellite TV that had been installed that day, and then took my wife to the pub to hang out with the suave socialites that is NZ's wargaming community.
That night was the Bledisloe Cup between Australia and New Zealand, so with that rugby game on the cards and only a few Australians making it over this year, we decided not to have the Battle of the ditch, and let the rugby teams decide it instead.
At half time we got tired of sitting outside in the cold watching the game on a postage stamp sized screen, so with out bellies full of hot pork, about 10 of us made the short drive to my home to watch the rest of the game in comfort.
As we arrived, my wife rushed in, put the heater on, grabbed some extra chairs, went out to the beer fridge and got everyone some drinks, before dishing up pretzels and what not then disappearing into the other room. Good girl... *pats head*

New Zealand proceeded to Smash Australia like the proverbial red headed step child, deciding the fate of the BoTD, which was rather fantastic - and then we let Tom explain to us that despite being the most dominating presence on field in the game; the mass of seagulls on the pitch of an Australian Football League game weren't actually part of the game.

Exhausted from the day, I passed out on the couch with a few people still there. They, thankfully, decided not to draw genitalia on my face with permanent marker, so we cruised into day 2.

Game 4:

Mission: Table Quarters plus a central objective. Your own quarter is worth nothing, the enemies deployment quarter is worth more, as is the central objective.

Deployment: Spearhead

My opponent was Kevin Shen, whilst he was relatively new, he had a very solid list, and had been carving his way up in a most impressive style. So far he had only dropped 2 points in his 3 games.

Kevin had:
Pedro Kantor
~10 sternguard with a meltagun, I think 5 kombi meltas, and a power fist, in a rhino
Ironclad in a drop pod
4 Thunderhammer termies, 1 lightning claw termie
10 marines, melta + lascannon, razorback
10 marines, melta + lascannon, razorback
Landraider Redeemer
Whirlwind

I won the roll for first turn, and deployed things somewhat differently, with my boyz squads able to swing out into either quarter and hold their own. Normally I have my BW and Trukk centrally, but as this was quarters, I could easily contest my long edge quarter with grots later in game through reserve, as such, I stacked things more to the right flank, and had a wall of kans centrally.
In return, Kevin castled in his corner completely and utterly, hemmed in along the board edge, with his tactical squads combat squadded to be in a ruined building pointing their lascannons out, but protected from kopta t1 assault by the prescence of pedro attached to them.
I decided to send the koptas after the sternguard rhino. Trading 165 points for a 35 point rhino isn't exactly good maths, but all kevins firepower was pretty much long range quality anti tank. To then deal with the koptas, he was going to have to take pressure off the battle wagon.
Not only that, but from where I was standing, it looked like he had blocked off all but 1 door with the back of the table, and a razorback, if I wrecked it, that would be some dead sternguard.

Ork turn 1:
Everything pushed forward, I used the trukk to protect one side of the battle wagon, and the kan wall to protect the other. By putting ork boyz behind it, Kevins ironclad was either going to have to pod down infront of my army (giving me extra movement), outside of melta range on the battle wagon, or waste his shot on a trukk, all of which would serve me more than harm me.
The koptas pushed forward and did exactly what I was hoping, they wrecked the rhino. As we went and checked though, when assaulting my koptas in I hadn't been careful enough, and didnt move quite as close as I could down one end by about an inch.
Also, what I couldnt see, was that there was pretty much enough space to just fit some models behind the tank, so in the end, only 1 or 2 sternguard were able to be placed so that they weren't within an inch of one of my models. What this did mean though, was that they were auto pinned next turn, so at least I would have one less turn of worrying about them. I did however get to teach myself a lesson with this, so was glad at least for that.

Marine turn 1:
Kevin then did the unthinkable, something I had in no way imagined him doing, that would completely give the game away. He disembarked the thunder hammer termies, and used them to counter the deffkoptas, but did not use the land raider to block any counter assaults on them, instead driving the land raider to get a multi melta shot on the battle wagon.
This multimelta shot wound up being just out of melta range, but missed anyway.
He placed the drop pod right where I felt I had forced him to go, firing on the truck which was saved by the KFF, and would in turn, provide me with free movement for a boys unit in assaulting it.
Kevin then bounced 4 lascannons off my AV14 front armour on the wagon, and killed a few boys with the whirlwind.
I was now set to multicharge the trukkboyz and meganobs into his TH Termies, using the trukk boyz to lock in all of the termies, and situating the meganobs to only be able to reach 1 TH termie, meaning none of them would die, whilst their 38 power klaw attacks would mince the unit.

Ork turn 2:
Seeing the game gifted to me on a silver platter, I pushed forward to prep this coming multicharge.
My boyz squad on my right pushed up and assaulted the ironclad for the free movement. I doubted the odds of the klaw killing it, but would try tarpit it till I could manage it later.
I used the ork squad on my left to charge the landraider. I expected them to do nothing. What I did hope to achieve however, was to bait Kevin into only moving the landraider 6 inches, so that he would fire both flamestorm kannons, letting my kans charge in and hit on 4's.
Other vehicles shot at the sternguard, killing a couple, and my waagh runs saw the trukk boyz up close, and the meganobs about an inch and a half away from the termies.
In came the assault phase, the trukk boyz moved in perfectly, blocking lanes of assault for the meganobs so that they would get in, but only reach one termie. All I had to do was not roll double 1's for their assault and I was going to be fine.
I casually grabbed the nearest 2 dice, and threw them across the table with the words "The meganobs assault".
Oh no...
Without thinking, I had accidentally picked up 2 of Kevins Dice. They immediately betrayed me, and came up with the dreaded snake eyes. They were now stranded, with 10 melta guns and 4 lascannons pointing their way.
To make matters worse, the trukk boyz, now seriously overmatched expecting to have help from the nobs, only kill 1 termie, and proceed to run. My mind has suddenly reeled ahead 3 turns, planning out Kevins moves and assaults, formulating exactly what he can do to win the game with ease.
It doesnt all go to poo however, to balance that terribleness the boyz on my right wreck the ironclad with ease, and consolidate to a position where they can put more pressure on if needed.

Marine turn 2:
Well, Kevin prepares to unload everything into the meganobs. I have a vision in my head of half the squad getting wiped out, and Kevin using the thunder termies to wipe them out for few losses. Fortunately I still have the majority in area terrain, so I'm getting a coversave!
Kevins Landraider doesn't take the bait, he drives ~8 or 9 inches or so, tank shocking through to try bunch me up, and fires one cannon. I try to get a read on his face to see if he realised what I was trying to do, but I honestly cant get a read, this man would whoop my ass in poker without a doubt!
He kicks it off with Pedros s10 AP1 orbital bombardment. I go to ground, and 3 meganobs are instakilled. The sternguard unload with their 6 melta shots, when the dust clears, the warboss has taken a wound, and the other 3 hits have been saved.
Kevin uses his 2 combat squads to not melta the meganobs, but instead shot the running trukk boyz so they will not be able to rally. When it finishes, Kevin doesnt assault with the TH termies, and I still have 5 + the warboss, who unfortunately pass their moral check, to stay in the belly of the beast.

Ork turn 3:
I unload what shooting I have into the sternguard and the TH termies, reducing the sternguard to 2, and the termies to 3.
I use the ork squad that was landraider baiting to assault the 2 combat squads that had gotten out to shoot the trukkboyz, this sees one squad wiped out, and the other one running away, despite his stubborn. In my consolidation, I can either try to keep him running off the table, or bait the landraider one more time. I elect to try bait the raider instead, as that could go kill the grots in 2 turns time and cost me the game if I dont stop it.

Marine turn 3:
The raider takes the bait and double flamestorms what is left of the ork squad. Pedro and his combat squad also move forward to assault the squad.
The thunder hammer termies and sternguard move to assault the meganobs this time, whilst the TL lascannons bounce off the kans, only stopping 1 from shooting.
The whirlwind kills a few more orks, pretty negligable numbers each time.
The Warboss then has the biggest fail known to man. A normal, naked standard sternguard walks up to the warboss, with 4 attacks, hits 3 times, wounds 3 times, and I fail 3 saves! The meganobs are wiped out by the TH termies, but in return, they wipe out the TH termies, and kill 1 sternguard. Had that warboss not had such a fail, the result of the combat would have actually been the warboss coming out alive winning the combat, then hiding in the battlewagon - instead I lost a bonus point for his failure.
Pedro and his squad kill all but the nob and one ork with klaw. He has a chance to autokill pedro, so natually misses every single time. One wound is put on pedro however, from the ork, so it wasnt all bad.

Ork turn 4:
The kans with big shootas, now perilously close to the LR close in for the kill. Hitting on 4's, they make very short work of it.
The other kan squad makes it into pedro and his squad. Only 1 kan has the klaw still, but he attacks pedro, missing every time.
The last sternguard is shot to death, and before assaulting, another wound was put on pedro.

Marine turn 4:
The last marine from the earlier assault hops in the mobile razorback which starts to drive away, but only drives 6 to shoot. It, along with the other, tries to kill kans, but mearly stops one from shooting.
In combat, the kan again fails to kill pedro, who dispatches it with his fist, and consolidates back into his building. Oh well, at least it held him up

Ork turn 5:
The kans who had eaten the landraider move up ready to kill pedro and his friend, but are close to the other combat squad in the building too. The big shootas on the Trukk, Battle Wagon and remaining ork boyz first kill the last guy with pedro, then kill pedro himself. This leaves the kans to go into the building, which they do, wiping out the squad.

Marine turn 5:
Kevin now only has a single marine in a razorback, and an immobilised razorback next to his whirlwind.
The whirlwind shoots some of the remaining boyz squad, but does little damage again. The lascannon on the immobilised razorback hurts a kan, whilst the other razorback runs to hide.

Ork turn 6: At this point I move into Kevins quarter, but cannot blow up the vehicle AND kill the marine. I have the middle objective, and a side quarter, whilst Kevin has nothing. We check quickly if theres a turn 7 to get his last scoring model, there isnt, so we call the game there.

The game finishes and I get 14 points (as my general did not live, feeling the shame of a regular sternguard killing him in single combat), whilst Kevin gets 3 (My general, my most expensive unit, and a scoring model still alive).
Whilst Kevin made a couple of very crucial mistakes, he also did a lot of things very, very right - and things were quite touch and go for a while there. I had to gamble a bit an do some things I wasnt overly comfortable with (such as using a 30 man boyz squad as bait twice) in order to secure the win.
I expect we'll be seeing Kevins name on the podium of many events to come if that game was anything to go by, not only that but a really nice guy.

Game 5:

Mission: A crater will come on via a reserve roll from a randomised board edge, moving 12 d6. The person with the most scoring units within 6 of this wins. Anything hit by the crater gets a very, VERY bad headache.

Deployment: Pitched Battle

My 5th opponent was Jack Dunn, someone whom I have the utmost respect for, and who has always, for years and years, played at the highest level and causes me to have some very difficult games. He's also somebody I consider a good friend, so I was glad to be playing him, every time I've ever played him in the past he has earned my vote for 'favourite opponent' (best sport).

On top of this, this game was on table 1, up on the stage, on a GW realm of battle board that had been supplied by a sponsor to showcase the most interesting match of that round.

We have played twice before with these armies, but in the past my lootas had always popped his defiler in t1, then put the hurt on his GD, and if his daemon prince ever showed his face, they would eat it. Now i had dropped them, and we felt it would be a close run thing, but that the edge may have slipped the other way.

Jack had:
Daemon Prince, Mark of Khorne, Wings
Greater Daemon

8 Chosen, icon of khorne, 2 meltas, 2 or 3 flamers, rhino

8 Khorne Bezerkers, 1 powerfist champ, icon
8 Khorne Bezerkers, 1 powerweapon champ, icon, rhino
8 Khorne Bezerkers, 1 powerweapon champ, icon, rhino
8 Lesser Daemons

Predator, Autocannon Heavy bolter sponsons
Defiler
Landraider

I won the roll for first turn, and again set up centrally, incase he tried to refuse a flank and roll down one side. Jack set up across from me, but with his rhinos far enough back behind the pred and raider that deffkoptas would not be able to hit them.
I turbo boosted ahead, and after the initiative was not siezed, went into T1.

Ork turn 1:
The koptas decided to go for the predator. Not a solid point swap, but I hoped to pull a squad of bezerkers out to counter assault them, so that I could then shoot them and hurt one of the squads. Bezerkers do horribly nasty things to orks!
They immobilised it, blew off his autocannon, and stopped it from shooting next turn.
My big shoota kans moved forward, and due to the built in hills of the table, and his landraider being half on it half not, I was able to see the arm of his daemon prince. Big shootas opened up, and through some pretty tragic rolling of Jacks, I managed to put 2 wounds on him.
My Trukk moved up into the centre of the table, and my battle wagon was able to move to a LOS blocking wall, meaning that any shots would be on the side armour, but in the front arc, meaning 3+ cover.
My grotzooka kan squad in the mean time moved forward and ran another 5 inches, getting into terrain so that if his defiler were to hit them with a good fleet, it would come through terrain and be i1.

World Eater turn 1:
Jacks Landraider moved forward 6 to shoot a TL lascannon at the trukk - I think as soon as he took the shot, he realised that this was a mistake. My grotzooka cans had moved 11 inches towards the raider last turn, and he had just moved another 6 inches closer. The shot then bounced off the forcefield.
His Chosen hopped out of a rhino instead of zerkers, and shot at + assaulted the koptas. They lost the combat, but miraculously passed their test, they naturally failed their hit and run however.
The battle cannon on the defiler shot at a kan, but was cover saved.
The daemon prince started to run away, not quite getting away after running only a 1.

Ork turn 2:
The objective failed to show up, so it was down to business.
I could see a golden opportunity, but I had to capitilise on it. My battle wagon proceeded to thunderforward 12, pulling up next to the landraider for some boarding plank funtimes. The Meganobs hopped out, close to the chosen in combat with the koptas.
The grotzooka kans burst through the terrain they were in, ready to assault the front of the landraider. The trukk mob then rushed forward and hopped out, ready to assault a) the rhino that only moved 6 behind the landraider, b) the defiler next to it, and c) the other side of the landraider, leaving it completely surrounded.
Shooting from the big shoota kans saw a single wound being done to the daemon prince, and then we went into combat.
The meganobs demolised the chosen, and finished off the predator, creating a crater for them to sit in. The last remaining deffkopta consolidated infront of them somewhat, so that any assaults would either have to multi with it, sucking many beserkers into B2B with it, or have to go around it, causing less to go in, through difficult terrain.
The landraider was ripped apart, but with an explosion rather than a 5, so the squad were out in the middle. The Rhino behind the raider was immobilised, and the defiler wrecked. This was certainly the turn where everything that could go right for me did, and everything from this point onwards that could go wrong for Jack, did.

World Eater turn 2:
Both the daemon prince and the lesser daemons failed to show up.
2 Khorne Beserker units went to assault the meganobs, whilst the other unit assaulted the trukk boyz and the kans that ate the raider. Jacks daemonprince came into this assault against the trukkboyz.
The trukkboyz were finished, only killing a couple of beserkers, whilst the kans killed another one, once the dust settled, there were 2 kans alive, and 3 khorne beserkers - along side a wounded nob. The nob ran away, and the daemon prince couldnt reach the kans, so consolidated.
On the othe end of this mess, the Khorne Beserkers redefined the word fail. 5 wound up having to be in b2b with the wounded deffkopta - killing it, wasting their attacks. When the dust settled, 1 wound was done to the big mek, and 3 wounds to the meganobs (all on different wound groups). In return, 11 khorne beserkers were killed. After the fearless saves, only 2 champions were left standing there in combat. Just to be clear, that's 2 squads of bezerkers, including 10 power weapon attacks hitting and wounding on 3's, doing a grand total of 3 wounds to the meganobs.

Ork turn 3:
Again the objective decided not to show up.
The warboss went to assault the 3 khorne beserkers in combat with kans, if these were killed along with the 2 champions taking on 8 meganobs, both the lesser daemons and the greater daemon would be trapped in the warp.
The daemon prince was shot to death, and the kans moved towards the rhinos left.
The meganobs finished off the 2 beserker champs, whilst the warboss had a little fail moment of his own - the kans did nothing and he only killed one, meanwhile the zerkers got a wound on the warboss, and a pen 6 on a kan. This proceeded to blow up and do 1 wound the beserker. Jack had to decide which to allocate it to, as only the icon and champ were left alive - in the end he went with keeping the champ, rolled his icon save and failed, killing him.

World Eater Turn 3:
Jacks Greater Daemon finally showed up, and assaulted the warboss. Mean while, in an all too familiar fashion, when all Jack had left was neutered transports, he tankshocked the meganobs and they ran away.
The greater daemon only did a single wound to the warboss, but the warboss did none back, then proceeded to fail his moral check and run away, getting caught - woohey!
In other news, an immobilised rhino restarted itself.

Ork turn 4:
Again no objective, a 30 man boy squad went and ate the greater daemon, whilst 2 rhinos were blown up (one taking 15 orks with it in the blast!). The meganobs have to run again, as they are too close to the rhino. Naturally, I forget I can also run them in the direction they are going, so they fail to get far enough once more.

World eater turn 4:
The rhino left keeps the meganobs running.

Ork turn 5:
The rhino is killed, the objective comes in, and I sit on it. I can't remember if the game finished here, with the meganobs running, or if they rallied in a turn 6.

In the end, I was happy to get a 14-2 or 14-3 (can't remember which it was), but felt like a couple of crucial massive dice swings had caused things to be way more one sided than they needed to be. Jack mentioned he had such phenomonal rolling in his previous games that he was expecting a dice karma swing, just a shame it went down like that. One crucial mistake was the precurser for this though, the moral of the story is that if your land raider is going to be inside 12 inches of 15 s10 attacks, move 7 D:

Game 6:

Mission: The stelek mission again, but pitched battle deployment.

My opponent for the last round, Wil Hoverd, was actually someone who had only recently returned to 40k, and was new to 5th edition. He had contacted me a fair few weeks prior to the tournament, asking for some help in writing a list based on the figures he had, to which I happily obliged. Fortunately, this helped me a lot as I already knew what to do to counter it!

Wil had:

Hive Tyrant, Implant attack, Enhanced Senses, 2+ Armour, S6, 2+ armour, quad devourers 2 tyrant guard with lash whips
Hive Tyrant, Enhanced senses, VC, twinked devourers, 2+ armour, S6

Carnifex, Barbed Strangler, Scything Talons, Bioplasma
Carnifex, Barbed Strangler, Scything Talons, Bioplasma

10 Genestealers, Feeder Tendrils
10 Genestealers, Feeder Tendrils
7 or 8 Genestealers, Scuttling, Tendrils
7 or 8 Genestealers, Scuttling, Tendrils
8 spineguants, with out number
16 or so fleshborer gaunts

6 Flying Rippers, +1S

Carnifex, VC, Barbed Strangler, +1W, +1BS

A few things were different to how I had recommended he run it, for example as good as feeder tendrils are, flesh hooks are also very win, I also don't like that fleshborer gaunt unit ;D

Wil won first turn but allowed me to go first. I set up fairly centrally, and Will matched me across, though deployed far back to get more turns shooting, and was quite thinly spread.

I then totally forgot to turboboost my koptas as a scout move, then will rolled to sieze the initiative... and DID! Thank heavens I didn't boost!

Nid turn 1:
The nids shuffled a bit, but really only lined up their long range shooting. The venom cannon shots failed to hit, and the stranglers bounced off the wagon, those the one that went for the trukk scattered wildly. One killed a kopta who passed the relevant tests, and a couple of boyz were killed.

Ork turn 1:
I pushed my trukk and Wagon up the centre, planning to head to the right. Out right he had a carnifex and tyrnt without guard standing almost in b2b contact, with a handful of gaunts and a 10man stealer unit next to them - 2 of these were the KP's I had selected for the mission.
The grotzooka kans ran forward, and the units with big shootas took pot shots at the genestealer unit on the left, killing about 4.

Nid turn 2:
The Flying rippers flew up again, ready to assault the deffkoptas.
One squad of outflanking stealers showed up, but I had made sure all my units were slightly over 19 from the board edge. They came in on my left, and hunkered up in terrain.
The venom cannons again missed, the strangler not harming the wagon. 1 more strangler got shot at it, also not getting the 6 to glance, so the last one fired at kans, scattering wildly.
In combat, the koptas won the combat by quite a lot, causing 3 bases of rippers to die in total.
The tyrant shot at the kans with big shootas, stopping 2 from shooting.

Ork turn 2:
With my transports being unscathed, it again was go time. The trukk pushed up and spat its boys out in a position where they could link the carnie, tyrant and gaunts together. The meganobs pushed up to link those same gaunts to the stealers.
The boyz unit on my left pushed across to the left, waaghing big to not only hit the stealers in cover, but to also link to the rippers for free combat res.
More stealers in the back squad were shot, with this now down to just 2-3 or so.
In the combat phase, the stealers that had outflanked, and rippers were wiped out, and some big consolidates saw everyone advance forward, whilst the orks stayed in cover to strike first if the other squad outflanked onto them.
In the other end of town, the stealers and gaunts were wiped out for little loss, killing the carnifex and doing 3 wounds to the tyrant, keeping them in combat and unable to be shot at. Yay for gaunts and the free combat res they provide.

Nid Turn 3:
One of Wil's barbed strangler fexes took out the trukk, whilst the other fired at some kans again, though not with much success. This however left them standing right next to each other. In the combat phase, the tyrant was finished, and big consolidates saw them move near the 2 aforementioned fex's. The without number gaunts turned up, and tucked in behind the other tyrant.

Ork Turn 3: I used the Trukk boyz to charge both fex's, and the meganobs to hit the one with only 2 attacks who wasnt getting feeder tendril rerolls, and killed one leaving the other on 1 wound. The boyz on my right spread somewhat between objectives, whilst the boyz on my left advanced and shot the other tyrant, doing nothing.
The last remaining genestealers were reduced to 2.
My grots showed up, and now that they were fairly safe from shooting, made a break for the middle objective.

Nid Turn 4: The other outflanking squad of stealers turned up, and tried to hide to keep a scoring unit left at the end of the game. The Tyrant returned fire against the boyz, killing a handful, whilst the last fex was finished by the meganob trukk boy conglomerate, who again got decent consolidates.

Ork Turn 4: Unfortunately when Wil bought the spinegaunts on behind the tyrant, he did not use a run to close the gap, and with a full move, the meganobs could squeeze through and assault the tyrant + guard. This however, was turned into a giant multi combat linking all the gaunts also with the ork boyz, resulting in the gaunts being wiped out, and what was left of the tyrant + guard losing the combat by 25, leaving just a badly wounded tyrant left alive.

Nid turn 5: The gaunts pop back in a corner, the outflanking genestealers realise theres nowhere to hide, charging my other boy squad but without flesh hooks, getting wiped out, and in a micraculous fail, the remaining meganobs + boyz do nothing to the tyrant and lose combat, but pass their moral check.
I point out that if he hides his remaining 2 stealers who have been on the run in an intact building, I wont be able to wipe out his scoring units, as I wont be able to blow it up and get to them later on.

Ork turn 5: The tyrant is finished, and we call the game there as it's now done and dusted.

The game finishes up as a 15-1, and we have a bit of a chat about how things went down. Because of the lack of flesh hooks, I was able to neuter the outflanking stealers. From there, I could focus my shooting entirely on neutering the other stealer squads, and use the gaunts as free wounds on the MC's. Whilst the barbed stranglers were never going to do anything to it, missing with 4 VC shots against the battlewagon was pretty blues for him, especially as they can actually pen with it being open topped. This allowed the meganobs to really just start at one flank and roll down the line.
Will mentioned that in all his other games this tourney, people had been focusing too much on the gaunts being scoring units, shooting them instead, and getting swamped by stealers. As they also werent putting pressure on with a solid front, he was able to shoot much juicier targets with his stranglers, and was at a bit on the back foot about how to react when the tactics used against him suddenly changed drastically.


-----------------------------

Well, with all things done and dusted, I had managed to wind up on 88/90 battle points, which I was quite happy with. I hoped I had done enough to get up near the top, but did not in any way shape or form think I had it done and dusted. There were several other people with 5 wins and a loss, or 4 wins a draw and a loss, who would have quite respectable comp. I was expecting somewhere between a 2 and a 3 for comp, and knew some of those on 5 wins would be looking at between a 3 and a 4, in a tourney where comp is 30%, this was always going to be extremely relevant.

When 5 of us were called up on stage, Myself, Jack Dunn (see game 5), Brynn Jones (a space marine player on 5 wins and a loss), Alan Borthwick (a reasonably high comp tau army with ~4 wins and a draw I think), and Dave Lewy (a tau army with 5 wins and a loss) were called up, I knew it was going to be touch and go, every one of them I expected to get about a point or more of comp on me.
As they called out Alan for 5th, and Dave Lewy for 4th, I really didn't care who finished where from there onwards. It was left with the podium being myself and 2 of my mates, so regardless of where we came I was happier for them than I was for myself. I was fortunate enough that the massive battle lead put me out infront reasonably comfortably in the end, but from them calling people out from the top 15 or so onwards, I was expecting my name to be next each and every time.
In the end it was an insanely close tournament at the top end. A single painting mark, or a single comp mark, or a single game bonus point seperated the players between 2nd and 5th initially on stage with me - where the softscores really wound up deciding the top 5.

The weekend was huge sucess, due entirely to the constant planning and effort put into the orginisation of the event by Peter Dunn. It was hands down the best tournament I have ever been to, or will be to for the next 363 days; that is until he runs Fields of Blood 2010.

Good reading. I don't understand on your game 3 turn 6. How did your warboss wipe out the termies with power claw without getting attack back from the termies? They both are I1

Your battle reports are always an interesting read proximity Great job, and intresting that bigshootas managed to work so well, but I guess when you can reliably hit AV10 with them they aren't too bad

Well done sir! Well done! Congratulations on the excellent results. A question--in the game against the Pedro Kantor marine you wrote:

Also, what I couldnt see, was that there was pretty much enough space to just fit some models behind the tank, so in the end, only 1 or 2 sternguard were able to be placed so that they weren't within an inch of one of my models. What this did mean though, was that they were auto pinned next turn, so at least I would have one less turn of worrying about them. I did however get to teach myself a lesson with this, so was glad at least for that.

How did this ruling come about? Can you provide more detail about the consequences of him not being able to place all his models--usually I see this resolved as destroyed for that unit.

Anyway--great stuff!

Awesome battle reports, and a pleasure to read, but one thing wasn't made entirely clear.

Were you 3rd, second, or 1st? Inquiring minds want to know!

liao989 wrote:Good reading. I don't understand on your game 3 turn 6. How did your warboss wipe out the termies with power claw without getting attack back from the termies? They both are I1

The warboss was only in contact with sternguard, and not the powerfist sergeant.
When the combat cleared, all that was left was a single sternguard powerfist toting sergeant, the termies and meganobs mutually destroyed each other, so that if the warboss hadn't had a giant cup of fail for breakfast, he would have killed that sternguard figure, and been the sole surviving model in the combat.

@ olympia
We had a quick look through, and from memory there was something along the lines of, if you can't disembark; = emergency disembark. With an emergency disembark, any models not able to be placed are destroyed. Don't have a rulebook here at work though, and given I had a lot of models and a tight time frame, I was keen to push on and not get bogged down on a rules query too long.

@ Orkestra, I came 1st There was a bit of a gap between me and 2nd, but 2nd 3rd 4th and 5th were all a single point in any single category away, there was 0.21% separating them.

How did you like the stelek missions?

I know a lot of people have been critical of them saying they favor mech armies. Did you feel like you were at any disadvantage when playing those games?

That is along the lines of my initial reservations, when playing it though, I found that things were brutal enough that there wasnt really room for it to advantage the mech armies to a greater extent.

When selecting my 5 killpoints, I usually tended to pick units I knew I couldn't afford to ignore, units I would have to deal with. This in turn encourages you all the more to just go balls to the wall and rip the heart right out of your opponents army. They then have to commit stuff to protect these, and you can then look to forcing a bitter mid table scrum, rather than chasing ghosts around the edges of the table.

Everybody should be either building in the ability to handle mech, or working out how to play against it (ideally; both) anyway - so any mission advantage should be nothing greater than what 5th ed allready lends an all mech force.

Congrats on the win!

But man that was one REALLY bad dark eldar list.

gardeth wrote:Congrats on the win!

But man that was one REALLY bad dark eldar list.

How dare you sir.

hehehe

Nice job man, looks like you really layed the smack down!

Congrats on the win! Very fun reports to read. Do you know how they did the comp scoring? Curious to see how they did the ratings since it was such a large part of the tournament.

gardeth wrote:Congrats on the win!

But man that was one REALLY bad dark eldar list.

Whilst I agree, I believe that was intentional on his behalf, hoping to trade effectiveness for higher comp. It worked to a certain extent, he got 22.2/30 - which helped boost him up to 9th overall.

Warmaster wrote:Congrats on the win! Very fun reports to read. Do you know how they did the comp scoring? Curious to see how they did the ratings since it was such a large part of the tournament.

From memory they had 8 judges form a panel and mark each list. The highest and lowest scores were then dropped, to give you a mark out of 50. This was then normalised to a percentage of your overall score, up to a maximum of 30%.

So I got 21/50, which worked out to be 12.6%
My first opponent (IG) got 32/50 which worked out to be 19.2%. He finished 56th overall, but 67th in battle (softscore boost of 11 places).
My second opponent (DE) got 37/50 which worked out to be 22.2%. He finished 9th overall, but 27th in battle (softscore boost of 18 places).
My third opponent (Chaos) got 28/50 which worked out to be 16.8%. He finished 33rd overall, but 21st in battle (softscore drop of 12 places).
My fourth opponent (SM) got 27/50 which worked out to be 16.2%. He finished 11th overall, but 5th in battle (softscore drop of 6 places).
My fifth opponent (chaos) got 31/50 which worked out to be 18.6%. He finished 2nd overall, but 4th in battle (softscore boost of 2 places).
My last opponent (nids) got 27/50 which worked out to be 16.2%. He finished 19th overall, but 6th in battle (softscore drop of 13 places).

Important to note though, is that of the 3 people that dropped places in that sample above, is that whilst they all got max sports, they all did not receive full marks for presentation, so some of their drop may relate to that, if someone with higher pres leaped ahead of them.
Presentation did not contribute a great deal though, it pretty much used the Adepticon scoring system (check sheet of 45 marks, with a max score of 36, making it fairly easy to get max points, or close to).



@40kenthusiast - thanks mate. Glad to see you read it, I read just about every battle report you post up here, and between you and Shep's contributions, I have gained quite a bit. I firmly believe that no matter how good someone gets, they can always learn something knew and improve on their current skillbase if they only have an open mind. I've gained a lot in the past from peoples battle reports, so hope that in turn I can help others by taking the time to do one of my own ;D
Plus I work for the government, so it means I can sit there typing about man barbies instead of doing actual work sometimes, and get paid for it. Yay!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, it was good to see that the draw had worked out quite solidly, come day 2, I played the people 4th, 5th and 6th in battle. The person who came 3rd in battle, we have played several times; and he winds up being on the wrong end of a bad paper scissor rock match up. In short, a big seer council is not a fan of a big meganob unit. In our previous games, the words Om Nom Nom Nom Nom have come to mind.
After having a day1 loss, the person who came 2nd in battle points needed a big win in the last round to get there, so there wasnt much chance of me playing him. He also is someone I play regularly though, so it was nice to play someone I had never played before

no idea what comps and softscores are, but grats anyway!

Congrats. Sounds (reads?) like you did well.

Man, Your posts have given me afew idea's on how to play. ie talking about land raider movment and baiting.

All the times i've tried baiting my dice fail and i end up worse off than before....

Can't believe that nid list as well always more MC at least thats my simple minded opinon

Great Reports too easy to read and understand.

proximity wrote:
Plus I work for the government, so it means I can sit there typing about man barbies instead of doing actual work sometimes, and get paid for it. Yay!

Truth!!

As a fellow Ork player (and government worker), game four had me reeling and howling with relief at the end!! I liked how you took out the TH SS which are my least favorite unit to fight. I'll try you're strategy next time!

Excellent post, who needs pics when the writing is so good

Excellent batrep! I am surprised comp is so hard on your army. It doesn't seem that hard, solid but nothing crazy.

Great report and congrats. It's kind of nice to know that it's not some anomaly that Orks can do ok in a tourney as been hotly debated in the past several months, especially from outside the US.

And I agree, the comp system that was utelized seems painfully stringent. Very low comp scores from a relatively friendly army.

Wow, that was long but interesting.

Sarigar wrote:Great report and congrats. It's kind of nice to know that it's not some anomaly that Orks can do ok in a tourney as been hotly debated in the past several months, especially from outside the US.

Yes and no.. I actually agree that in a world where everyone is a good player, with a list that maximises both the codex's strengths, and the strengths of 5th edition, that Orks would no longer be competitive. Where that falls over is that we don't live in that world. Instead we have a vast mix, from bad players with good lists, to good players with bad lists, and everything in between.
Factor this in with an environment that rewards taking a weaker army, and anything becomes possible. All of the best case/worst case scenario things on paper go out the window. What it does mean though, is you can have wide variety, and that variety can thrive - which is always a good thing.

Concur. I believe that has been a well established line of thought. Having an event where everyone was deemed a 'good player' and every list is completely maximized just doesn't exist except in internet discussion.

proximity wrote:Yes and no.. I actually agree that in a world where everyone is a good player, with a list that maximises both the codex's strengths, and the strengths of 5th edition, that Orks would no longer be competitive.

Now, how do you know that is true? You are making a hypothetical statement with your own assumptions.