Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

So I am sure that the avid Dakka readers have noticed all the traffic regarding this event, both before and after.  Here is the tourney report.

We have been hyping this event for weeks and a San Diego/ Los Angeles rivalry is definitely stirring.  Game Empire runs the best RTT's in Southern California with 20+ players average.  With that in mind, I brought my best army with my strongest list.

Luna Wolves (Minor divergence: Heed the wisdom of the ancients + Have pride in your colors).

Master; term armor, strom bolter, p-weapon.  Command squad with 2 assault cannons.

Inquisitor Lord;bolt pistol, cc weapon, Emp Tarot, Psychic hood, 3 mystics.

3x Termie squad; 2 assault cannons each.

3x 1 Land speeder Tornado

2x Dread; assault cannon, H flamer, extra armor, drop pod.

2x Tac squad: melta gun, vet sarg with P-fist, drop pod.

I went down to Game Empire with 3 other LA players who also are Dakka members. Blackmoor (Godzilla Nidz), Frenrik (Blood Angels) and SP Musubi (Crimson Fists).  Readers of these forums might remember that SP Musubi won the last RTT down at Game Empire with his Tau.

Round 1.

Aaron C. (Soul drinkers)

Mission: The Hunted. (me= his assault squad, him=one of my termie squads)

Aaron is a regular at GE and he usually plays Necrons, this time he plays a droppodding marine list.  Well thank God I invested in the Inquisitors insurance plan, with 3 mystics there is no way he will be able to drop in anywhere close to my castle. right?  First of all, Aarons army is beautiful and he based them on the Novel of the same name.  His librarian looks like some Chaos spawn.  But that guy will be no problem because I have the Inqisitor insurance policy, right?  Well we get down to the game and roll for going first and my Inqusitor helps me out with his tarot reading so I choose to go second.  Aaron only deploys his scouts on the table with one squad in a big building.  I feel safe so I place the Inquisitor with his retinue safley in the woods surrounded by 4 squads of termies and 3 Tornados behind them.  First turn Aaron sees my mistake and shoots my inquisitor with a scout squad and kills all 3 mystics and wounds my Lord, DAMN!  what was I thinking?  So there goes my drop pod defense.  This game devolved into drop- pods dropping all around each other and a huge scrum in the middle of the table.  The funny thing was my psychic hood did nothing to stop Aarons Librarian but he rolled so poorly with the librarian that I did not lose any models to him.  Aaron also introduced me to the concept of dethwinds on drop pods, those did work, and well too.  I may have to buy  some of those.  In the end, I had 385 more vp's than Aaron and got the victory.                                                               

Round 2

John C. (Deathwing)

Mission: This is Heavy Doc!

Are you kidding me?  Nobody ever chooses this mission.  I was so unprepared for this one.  Luckily Johns Deathwing was just as unprepared.  John deploys all of his army on the table except his assault termie squad and his librarian. We both deploy our termies in buildings to get further protection.  This turns out to be a very bad idea for both of us as most of the time the gravity -flux kept us from moving so this game devolved into a shootout from 20+ inches.  I had the advantage of more firepower so the early turns went my way.  This game my Inquisitor paid off for me, John deepstruck his guys 20+ inches away from him just to be safe.  That meant that his assault termies were going to have to walk through alot of fire.  All was going well until turn 5 when John started rolling hot on the gravity flux and his guys were running all over the place.  This was bad for me, except his army was very shot up at that point (assault squad down  to 2 guys from 6) and I was able to weather the storm and pull out a close win.  The ironic thing for me is that I placed 2 termie squads in a huge building to protect myself from a large termie squad John deplyed in a building across from me, the irony being that John's squad had cyclones, what was I thinking?

Round 3

Erick (Crimson Fists)

Mission: Hostage retrieval (I defended)

Erick always plays Tau except today when he borrowed his friends marines. I think this was the only game where I had more experience with my list than my opponent did with his.  Erick is a great guy and has crushed me twice before in 40K with his Tau, so I think I caught a break here.  Ericks list is based on assault marines and whirlwinds.  I have faced this exact list before when I played the guy who owns the figures, so I expected Erick to sit back, drop minefields and counter-assault me when I get close.  Erick decided to play it a little differently.  Since he was the attacker in the scenario, he really focused on getting back the hostage. I go first and move back into my castle while shooting up a couple of his jumpers.  I guess Ericks guys took their aggression pilss cause on his turn everything except 3 las/plas squads and the dev squad (4 h-bolters) and the whirlwinds make a mad dash towards my line.  My turn 2 has me moving back into a tighter castle ( did I mention I have a minefield there? damn those castellans).  I drop a tac squad in on his whirlwinds and they manage to shoot to no effect.  My termies and tornados open up on his onrushing jumpers and I kill one squad and damage the other.  His turn 3, more mines in my castle and his mad rush continues.  My turn 3, I drop a dread on his flank and kill his second jump squad.  Now it is just tac squads running at me.  My tac squad immobilizes a whirlwind, yeah. My castle is as small as I can make it and I have 3 minefields in it. I shoot up about half of his onrushing marines and await the inevitable close combat.  His turn 4, another minefield and his general with lightning claws jumps my command squad and kills the squad.  He has 2 marines left in my deployment zone and they grab the damn hostage, now I cannot shoot them for fear of killing the hostage. My turn4, my second dread drops in on his dev squad and kills a few but somehow manages to leave himself exposed to a las/plas squad. for counter fire. I charge his hostage retrieval team and my general gets killed by his damn general who consolidates into the guys who have killed his hostage retrievers.  His turn 5, his general whiffs against my  termies and they pound him to death with power-fists. My turn 5, My dread assaults his dev squad and whipes them out. i consolidate into one of his las/plas squads.  My tac squad kills the damn whirlwind that I immobilized and my second tac squad finall drops in, shooting up his last las/plas squad.  At this point the game is pretty much over.  So I mange to finally beat Erick. Even though he was playing someone else's army, I will take the win since I have doubts that I will ever beat his Tau.

I manage to go 3 -0 and I win the RTT.  I can't tell you how happy I am with the win, this was my 6th trip down there and I have to say that Game Empire has the best competition level that I have found.  The best part though was the games, all three games were amazing, I was sweating and laughing during each game.  Each game was close and could have gone either way.

I want to thank Bob and GE for running another great RTT and I can't wait to play there again in 2 months.  I also want to thank Aaron, John and Erick for the great games.

Questions and comments are welcome.

Darrian

 

sounds like a great RTT, so wish i could have made it. we will deffinately have to get another cross SoCal battle, i know a bunch of guys are coming up for the con, hopefully the SD guys will get some over on the LA guys!

Well, Strategicon was won by an LA player so I guess the next opportunity for the San Diego players to "get some over" on us will have to be at Game Empire in October for their RTT. You have 2 months to plan Reecius, so I hope you will be able to make it and represent. You can't let the LA players come down to your store and win 3 in a row, can you?

Darrian

*ahem* Not to stir the rivalry any, but LA players have now won the last 3 Game Empire Tournaments in a row.

*assuming that Strategicon counts as a Game Empire tournament

/definitely looking forward to some more great games against the SD guys

Ach!
hahah, well then i best polish up my tactics, and it look slike the SD boys need to get their A game in effect.

and no worries, stir the pot, i love it! So long as things stay friendly i say raise the stakes, it makes the game all the more enjoyable.

I will make a point to be at the next GE RTT, my schedule is clear for october baring Halloween (obviously).

I look forward to meeting and playing you guys, competitive gaming, IMHO, is by far the most fun.

Friendly games are great, but they just dont engage you as much.

P.S.
Are there any RTT's in september, i know of none, and i am totally free this month.

@SP Musubi, Actually if you want to include Strategicon then Bahkara won the Memorial Day RTT that Cliff ran at the last Strategicon. So that is 4 in a row.

@Reecius, There is an RTT at the LA Battle Bunker on the 23rd of September. Have you ever been there before? I have been there for a couple of RTT's and I have never seen you there. Maybe you can make this one. I will send you directions if you need them.

Darrian

There are not that many RTTs going on right now (compared to last month.)

There is also the Las Vegas Ironman on Sept. 30th that some of the LA guys will be heading up for.

http://www.lvgamersclub.com/

I will be at the battle bunker RTT for sure, i play there very frequently, actually.

Looking forward to it!

and thanks for the info.

So the October Game Empire RTT was won by another LA player.

Hopefully, Erick (spmusubi) will be kind enough to grace us with a tourney report since he did win, afterall. I hope he writes positively about the third game he played.

Come on Erick, REPORT!

Darrian

I'm writing! I'm writing!

Actually, I'm going to steal Inquisitor Malice's very nicely done batrep style with diagrams, so I'm trying to snag a copy of Visio from work to do it with. It's sort of a pain to write out these huge long text reports, not to mention I'm sure people can't always tell what's going on from just words.

That third guy was kind of a jerk though. Two Defilers, Bloodthirster and Daemon Prince? What was he thinking? I made sure to zero him for soft scores.

Ack! Zombie Thread!



So did he use Forgeworld Drop pods? And if not did your stance on scratch built models have any impact on you winning the RTT?

@Crimson Devil, Aaron did not use Forgeworld droppods and yes that did effect his score. I, however DID have 5 Forgeworld drop-pods and, I am sure, it did help me win the RTT.

Then I must assume you didn't tell him you were docking him points. Otherwise you would have taken a hit in your sportmanship score.

Are you saying you would dock someone's sports score for not giving you max soft scores? If I tell you i'm going to dock your soft scores if you keep picking up hits instead of removing misses would you dock my sports for that?

@Crimson Devil, Are suggesting that sportsmanship and comp scores are some quid-pro-quo, where if you give me max scores then I have to give you the same? More importantly, are you saying that you will dock me if I dock you?

Darrian

I am begining to think it is not worth the hassle to go down there.

@Blackmoor, Allan, I can't say that I blame you. Two times in a row, you have gone down there, went 3-0 and not won a prize. This last time you were the only 3-0 there and you got nothing. I love Game Empire and I love their RTT's but I definitely see your point.

What amazes me is that you played Tyranids both times. The local Tyranid player plays an army just as powerful as yours but he does win the RTT when he goes undefeated. I am not saying it is a case of homer-ism, but it does suck for you.

Darrian

Darrian 13 has made his disdain of scratch built models well known on this forum. And has stated publicly he would dock someone's soft scores for using them. I wanted to know if his opponent knew he started in the hole before the game started. I disagree with his stance on scratch built models and see it as bad sportsmanship. At best I think its arbitrary and at worst elitist. If his opponent knew than it would have evened the playing field. But I guess since Darrian 13 won the tourney it proves his opponent didn't know. In general, I don't feel that its appropriate to tank someone's soft scores for petty reasons. It would have been a real shame if this other guy didn't win the tourney because of Darrian's prejudices.

@Crimson Devil, Thank you for taking the time to copy and paste my question to you. Could you take a little more time and actually answer the question. Thank you.

Darrian

Good Batrep...

Thanks for taking the time to post.

Just one question in regards to your inquisitor and mystics.  I thought drop pods do not deep strike, therefore are unaffected by the mystic rules.

 

Depends on what version of the rules you use

GW Forum Faq has them working.

No, I don't believe in quid-pro-quo for soft scores.