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Here is my report from heat 3. This was to be my third GW tournament over the course of two weekends, having played in the 'Ard Boyz final and the Baltimore GT the week before. My models all survived the airline trip okay and I wandered in to GW just before 9am on Saturday, my body clock insisting it was only 4am. Apologies in advance for having no photos. Totally forget to take any!

I'd coverted a bunch of models for the army and all of the Plague Marines were skeletons equipped with backpacks and shoulder pads and were dripping in mud (I'd worked out a way to paint mud which looked like it was dripping which I was very happy with). My army was very straightforward and consisted of:

Lash Princess with wings x 2
7 Plague Marines (2 meltas and fist) in a rhino x 2
7 Plague Marines (2 meltas and fist) no rhino
2 Obliterators x 3

It had done very well in the US and I was looking forward to seeing how it stacked up in the UK.

Game 1 vs Gareth (I think) with Eldar
My opponent had a real mix of an army with quite a few different units. No Eldrad though and the Farseer he did have didn't have runes of warding. We rolled up 3 objectives and Gareth took the first turn and the quarter with two of them. His initial shooting wasn't very effective and my rhinos survived the hail of starcannon shots and in my turn my army minus one squad on foot surged forwards, the last guys securing the nearby objective. The lash was pretty effective and although they would die in combat (to guardians, of all people) the two princesses caused some havoc while my plague marines did a great job jumping on Eldar. Gareth's scouting War Walkers turned up on the far side of the board away from my objective which meant they didn't do a great deal, their scatter lasers bouncing off the plague marines in the open. My Obliterators eventually came out on top in the duel with the Fire Prism, Vypers and Wave Serpent and fortunately by the end of my turn 5 I'd managed to kill or immobilise all of his fast movers, ensuring that I was always going to hold one objective even if he could get to the two in his quarter to contest them against the plague squads. So a win to me with around 1,250 vps.

Game 2 vs Rob Madely (16th in the end) with Necrons
Rob had a combination of the two armies I drew against last year in the heat, 15 destroyers, 15 warriors and the Deceiver. Fortunately for me this year I had an army that could deal with the firepower that his army puts out. Our objectives were placed diagonally opposite each other with the Deceiver guarding his and the destroyers setting up opposite mine, protected by a building and the foot marines and one obliterator squad. Very wisely his warriors went into reserve. My two rhinos, 4 oblits and two princesses leapt forward to go after the Deceiver. In the shooting phase I dropped three destroyers (the others failing a break test and running from the game) and put a couple of wounds on the Deceiver before lashing him backwards. Down to 10 destroyers at the start of his first turn Rob went for it and moved them back towards the centre of the board to target the rhinos and my commanders. Their fire was pretty good and I lost three wounds from a Princess and had a rhino explode. The wounded Princess lashed the Deceiver backwards after it took two more wounds while the other obliterators failed to hit very much with their plasma cannons. Rob took out the wounded Princess in his second turn and put some wounds onto the other but didn't kill it. A squad of warriors turned up and moved to secure his objective. In my third turn I managed to get the last Princess into combat with a Destroyer squad and dropped the last unit with shooting. A Plague Marine unit killed the Deceiver with melta guns but promptly lost 5 of their number to the explosion. By the time my 4th turn ended I had 9 plague marines in combat standing over the remnants of the two warrior squads they'd killed in combat and the last few of them phased out.

Rob was a great guy and was onto a bad game from the start. My army shrugs off most necron firepower and he couldn't roll a 4+ for his Deceiver save at all. He kept up a brave face and when the writing was on the wall threw his warrior units right at me in order to go down fighting. I ended up with 1,500 vps.

Game 3 vs David Chilvers (94th) with Space Marines
Up to table 4 against a mustard yellow Imperial Fist army. The yellow combined with my Pink marines and the white table we were on meant that we had one of the most visually jarring games of the weekend David had 10 kill points up for grabs as did I. I took the first turn and used the rhinos searchlight to illuminate a 10 man tactical squad, letting me lash it into close combat range. The range was so tight I couldn't shoot it with anything in my army lest David take off the one model that was allowing me to charge. Thanks to their stubborn rule (Lysander was in a Redeemer with 5 Terminators) it would take the Princess 4 rounds of combat to kill the Tactical squad. In the meantime David's army came on and was fairly inneffective with shooting. A Dreadnought drop-podded in right in front of a Plague Marine squad who promptly melta-gunned it down. Even though I was ahead on kill points I kept advancing my army to really give him a fight and before too long we each had a squad in combat with each other. Lysander's Land Raider was killed by a lascannon and by the start of David's 4th turn all the Terminators were dead except for Lysander. My own guys were running amok in David's back line and would kill the techmarine and last rhino in turn 5. Deciding that I was going to re-capture Lysander and sell him to the Iron Warriors I lashed him into the middle of my army and declared no shooting or assaults, giving him the chance to attack anything he wanted. Two dead obliterators later (eternal warrior is great when hit by power fists!) my wounded Princess charged the yellow monster and dropped him.

David had a real mix of an army and I thought he would do well in later games if the Land Raider could survive to deliver Lysander into combat. Unfortunately against my army I had a great round of shooting in turn 2 which really put him on the back foot and he couldn't recover. I wound up with another 1,500 vps with David taking around 400.

Game 4 vs David Millar (9th) with Chaos Space Marines
Up on table 1 for the first game of day 2. Woo. David was a great guy from Australia who had travelled from Edinburgh for the tournament and was using a twin-lash list with 2 vindicators and a defiler (and some regular marines with daemons). Twin-lash vs twin-lash is generally always a fun game and this didn't disappoint. Our objectives were diagonally opposite each other and having won the roll I set up for a first turn dash forwards with David set up to defend. He promptly steals the initiative This wasn't a real problem as he'd set up far away which meant very little of his was going to be in range. I lost an Obliterator to a battle cannon shell but that was it. In my first turn everything surged forward except for one plague unit hanging out at the back. Double lash on a prince got it into charge range by both Princesses and it died (but not before inflicting damage). I immobilised the defiler guarding his objective with a marine squad and that was about it. In his turn David got the Greater Daemon out and blew up a rhino. His prince got into combat with two oblits and killed only one while gunfire from a disembarked marine squad killed one of my Princesses. The centre of the board was turning into a slaughter as we threw units into each other. Over the course of a couple of rounds my guys ended up the only survivors and importantly I had one Princess left (with 1 wound remaining). With all my vehicles gone I was going to have to run to David's objective and the single lash would be ideal for getting his units off that objective, especially as I had the last turn. Unfortunately a defiler shell killed all remaining plague marines from one squad and a speculative bolter shot from a rhino killed the Princess. Drat. In turns 4 and 5 I ran my 2 surviving obliterators towards his objective but it was a pretty forlorn hope. In turn 6 David would have advanced with his marine squad and gunned down the first obliterator and even if he missed he had a fist in the 10 man unit with which to kill me, his last squad of daemons holding his own objective all the while. As it turned out it was a moot point as the game ended at the end of 5. A draw. 1100+ points to me and 700+ points to him.

An awesome game made all the better because rather than hang back we both went all out for it. Had my Princess survived to lash him off the objective it would have been a piece of bad luck David didn't deserve from the way he played and a draw was definitely a fair result. In fact, the top 5 tables all scored a draw in this mission!

Game 5 vs Thomas Moore (43rd) with Chaos Marines.
I drop to table 2 (David goes to table 3) and after some small confusion I end up playing another twin-lash list. Thomas's army was identical to mine except for two things. All of his squads were in 8 and he had no rhinos. Otherwise it was going to be a real mirror match. We roll up 5 objectives and it's Dawn of War deployment and I go first.

This game was great. We both went for it and the middle of the board was full of dead bodies at the end. In turn 1 I double-lash a prince and kill it. In his turn 1 he kills my forward Princess. In turn 2 I kill his last Prince and in return he only does 3 wounds to me. However, I've already told him that I intend to play 'balls to the wall' and so rather than hide my Princess jumps into combat where she is promptly killed

At the end of the game Thomas has two Obliterators left as do I. I also have a single squad of Plague Marines sitting on an objective which gives me the win, 1-0. In terms of vps I've scored 1,350 and Thomas gets 1,120. Quality game.

Game 6 vs Richard Simms (3rd) with Tyranids.
Back up to table 1 again. Yay. Now I'm playing a Tyranid army that has been modelled to be the cult of the machine god. It looked excellent and Richard spent his time going through what everything was on his models.

As it was a kill point game I thought I might have the edge here. My models are generally pretty resilient and with all the powerfists everywhere I can hold my own in close combat if Richard gets the charge off, though with two lashes I can hold off his two Tyrants almost indefinitely. Its pretty clear this is what Richard is thinking as well and I tell him that he's in luck and that I intend to play by getting stuck in wherever I can. My obliterators start wounding carnifex's early and in turn 2 I finally kill one (though others have wounds on them) in assault with plague marines. One of my Princesses dies to massed devourer shots but by turn 4 I'm 5-3 up and doing a great job of stalling a Hive Tyrant with plague marines. By the end of turn 5 he's got one carnifex left, a ton of gaunts (who spent the game hiding near zoanthropes), the 3 zoanthropes and a tyrant with guard. I've got all the obliterator squads and two squads of Plague Marines and a rhino. I'm up 5-4 on kill points and he rolls for the end of the game. We carry on

All three zoanthropes missed in turns 4 and 5 and I wasn't going to get that lucky again. My two single obliterators do a stunning job on the last carnifex and kill it taking no casualties, while the Plague Marines lose a couple of guys against the Tyrant and kill a guard and make sure both the Tyrant and surviving guard are wounded. The last Plague Marine squad and 2-man obliterators leg it closer so they can charge in turn 7 (the oblits failing to kill a single zoanthope over the course of turns 5 and 6, the rotters). The single Obliterators back off and prepare to eat zoanthrope fire. Sure enough turn 6 ends and I've only got three plague marines battling the tyrant and guard and my single man Oblit squads get wasted by the finally-accurate zoanthrope fire. It's 6-6 and he rolls to end the game. It does. Draw I end up with 929 vps and he gets 936 vps.

My four wins and 2 draws sees me get 140 points overall and in 6th place. Importantly though I have 7,579 victory points which gives me the award for the Most Bloodthirsty General which was awesome. Thinking about things afterwards had I hung back and out-lascannoned Richard in the last game there is a decent chance I would have won but I wouldn't have gotten the vps I did, which would have meant I would have been 3rd overall (but no Bloody General prize). Had the game ended on turn 5 I would have won but missed out on the vps for the carnifex (as I was unwounded at the end of turn 5), meaning I would have come 2nd overall but with no Bloody General prize

As usual, the organisation was excellent and my thanks to GW and to my opponents for a great weekend. We even managed to get 10 members of the Cold Steel Mercenaries in one place and 3 of us placed in the top 15 (5th, 6th and 14th). I'm really looking forward to the final, assuming of course I can make the flight over.

Great report. Congratulations on 6th.

So, at the top tables, how many dual lash lists were there?

Cheers! At the start of game 4 the top three armies were all dual lash

In the end there were 5 CSM armies in the top 10, 4 of which had dual lash with the other single lash (he came 5th). From what I could gather the lash was the only common feature among those armies. The rest of build varied between all mech, mix of mech and oblits and all heavies being Oblits.

I'm sure GW will put up the results soon but in the top 12, 5 were csm, 4 were orks, 2 eldar and 1 was Tyranid. The highest Tau came 13th, Witchunters 14th, Space Marine 15th and Necron 16th. It also looks as though 6 new marine lists qualified for the final out of 45 available places.

And what was the highest non-lash CSM place?

Great report!

Kudos for flying to the UK to take part.

You seem to have had a great time. What were your general impressions of UK compared to US GTs?

(Obviously all good things, of course... )

The Everliving wrote:15 destroyers, 15 warriors and the Deceiver

Ummm...Is that a typo? Thought a Necron army had a minimum 20 Warriors in it.

hmm good job!! Hopefully we get to get a game in one of these days

skyth wrote:

The Everliving wrote:15 destroyers, 15 warriors and the Deceiver

Ummm...Is that a typo? Thought a Necron army had a minimum 20 Warriors in it.

1500 Necrons is

Deciever
15 warriors
10 Warriors

3 X 5 Destroyers

Kilkrazy wrote:Great report!

Kudos for flying to the UK to take part.

You seem to have had a great time. What were your general impressions of UK compared to US GTs?

(Obviously all good things, of course... )

I would hope Alex would say good things about the UK he is from there

Man, and Lash ISNT broken? Or at the least undercosted?

Lash for Chaos, Eldrad for Eldar, Ork Nob units of doom for Orks. Honestly, next year's tournament circuit should consider handing everyone their army lists once they have declared the army. One list per race. "Eldar? OK here is your list containing Eldrad.. Marines.. Here is your Kantor and Sternguard list... NEXT Chaos player eh? Nurgle colors, Khorne conversions, who cares, you have 2 lash princes now, like everyone else"

Call me jaded, but if everyone was running the exact same lists, at least you would see a bit of skill to differentiate the List Monkeys and the good, tactical players.

You seem to have had a great time. What were your general impressions of UK compared to US GTs?

I've been playing in UK GTs in Nottingham since 2000, so I'm a little biased in my fondness for the UK events

I noticed there is another thread up that talks about the differences between the two events. I prefer the smaller value of the UK GTs (1,500pts vs 1,750pts) as this lets you get 6 games in but up until this recent tournament I preferred the way the US has the gradients of wins compared to the UK win/lose/draw. However the use of victory points to seperate the degrees of wins in the UK works incredibly well so I'm back on the fence about whats the better way to run it.

I think that overall there was better 5th edition terrain at Baltimore (can't speak for Vegas or Chicago). Just about all the tables at Nottingham had awesome 4th edition area terrain but of course in 5th everything's changed. I'd love to see a whole bunch of los blockers scattered on the tables when I next go back.

I know some of the US guys here have made it over to UK events in the past and I'd certainly encourage people from this forum to go if you have the chance. The fact there is a bar right next to the gaming hall (and the bar staff even come round during games and take orders!) just adds to the fun of the weekend.

No high ranking IG players? Sad times.

IG are at the bottom of the barrel in 5th edition with their current codex. They desperately need a massive overhaul. My experiment of using a pure IG list (no =I= allies or units at all) is proving that point quite well.

Capt K

"Call me jaded, but if everyone was running the exact same lists, at least you would see a bit of skill to differentiate the List Monkeys and the good, tactical players. "

How do you not see skill differentiating players? If they all have the same lists, skill is the only thing differentiating them.

or diceluck...

greetings Badger

How'd you dothe mud? Pics?