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This year was my first foray into the 'Ard Boyz, and after having taken 1st at my flgs in the prelims, I made the trip to Woodinville, WA for the semi's at Ernie's Games. The store was fantastic, easily accomodating 9 tables for play.

I couldn't be 100% about this, but I believe the 18 players broke down as 1 daemon, 3 mech eldar, 2 sisters, 2 nidzilla, 1 dark eldar, 3 mech guard, and 6 marines.

My list:

Ku'Gath
Bloodthirster (might/strike/collar)

Flamers (x3)
Flamers (x3)
Fiends (x6)

Bloodletters (x10)
Bloodletters (x20) --normally, I run three squads of 10, but the 1st mission prompted me to consolidate two of them.
Horrors (x10, changeling, bolt)
Horrors (x10, bolt)
Plaguebearers (x7, icon, instrument)

Soulgrinders (x3, fully loaded)

----

Round 1 / screwy kill points, pitched battle.

My first opponent was an old-school ork player named Rick, out of Redmond (IIRC). Great guy, but very new to 5th ed.

From memory, his list was:

Warboss, w/meganobs in a trukk
Big Mek w/Badrukk & flash gitz in a BW

Three squads of trukk boyz
Deff Dread

Zagstrukk/stormboyz
Deffkoptas x5

I won the roll, elected to go second. He outflanked with the 'koptas and everything else castled up in the center of his half of the board, with the trukk boyz in the rear. I received my preferred wave (all the big guys and both flamers). Flamers caused extreme havoc in the backfield, grinders and Fat Boy blew up the battlewagon, wackiness ensued. His high point was the warboss and nobz ambushing Kugath and dropping him in one round (sweet christ, that was a lot of powerklaw attacks). My high point was finishing out the bottom of turn 5 by killing off two trukks, two squads of boyz, the warboss, and a nob squad, with three minutes to spare. The only orks left on the table were an immobilized trukk and 8 boyz cuddling in the woods.

Massacre, 22-0

Round 2 / random objectives, Dawn of War, night fight all game

I ended up paired against my friend Ty, one of the three from my home turf. He and rednekgunner had both massacred their opponents in round 1, with 23 points each. Oddly enough, Ty and I had practiced this exact scenario about a week ago.

His list:

Calgar & assault termies in a Crusader

Termies w/cyclone

Scouts (in the godhammer)
Tac marines in a twin-las razorback (x2)
Tac marines in a rhino (x2)

Landspeeder typhoon (x2, one unit)

Attack bikes (x2)

Godhammer
Vindicator

We placed the objectives, with mine clustered as close together as possible with his, except for one way off in the corner. He promptly won the roll and forced me to go first. To add insult to injury, I rolled a two and got my secondary wave. At that point, he told me that "I can't ask for any better than that. If I lose this one, I'm going to go cry in the corner." This was easily the most difficult game for me all day--in no small part because we play each other on a regular basis, including practice runs of these scenarios. Other than a couple of minor mistakes on both our parts, it was pretty tight throughout the whole thing. After the top of turn 5, I had twenty bloodletters parked on one of the objectives, the remains of the other bloodletters and a horror squad contesting the empty crusader for the second, and the changeling's squad unopposed on the third. On his turn, he swooped the typhoons to reinforce the contested objective, and then unleashed everything else on the changeling's squad. At the end of his shooting phase, the 5 remaining horrors each had to make a 4+ invulnerable save. 1-2-2-1-3. Much swearing ensued. A casual combi-melta shot exploded the only soulgrinder nearby (who had been about to rip the crusader in half), shifting the game from a major victory/massacre in my favor to a minor victory in his. Needless to say, Ty didn't go and cry in the corner. All in all, one of the best games we've ever had.

Round three put me up against a jetbike/mech eldar player on table three.

His list:

Eldrad w/dire avengers in a serpent
Farseer & 8 warlocks on jetbikes.

Banshees & exarch in a serpent

Guardian jetbikes (x3)
Guardian jetbikes (x3)
Guardian jetbikes (x12, +warlock) --no, I have no idea why he split them up this way.

Fire Prism (x3)

For this game, I lost the roll-off and he forced me to go first. He depoyed all of his tanks in a wedge, surrounding his council, with the guardian bikes all in reserve. On the upside, I managed to get my preferred wave in. My flamers managed to stun all the fire prisms, but I only managed to kill one council bike and put a wound on the farseer. It all went downhill from there, with my opponent making a couple key mistakes: he fed the entire banshee squad to Ku'Gath, and left the 13-bike squad within 19" of the fiends. At the end, I nearly tabled him, with only two prisms left (one of which was immobilized and gunless). The only things I'd lost were the two flamers, one grinder, and the bloodthirster.

Here's the part where holofields cost me the massacre: over the entire game, I could never get more than a shaken result on that last prism. In the final two rounds (we went 6), I assaulted that prism with a full squad of fiends, 8 bloodletters, Ku'gath, and shot at it with 4 tongue shots and 4 bolts. I had at least 18-20 chances on the damage table, a good third of them pens, but still couldn't get more than a shaken. If I had, it would have been a 24 point massacre. As it was, I ended up with a 17 point minor victory.

At that point, I figured I was done. In a perfect world, ties/minor victories on tables 1 & 2 could have left things open for me to take the tourney with a massacre, but it just wasn't in the cards. When they called my name for 3rd place, I was genuinely shocked--I had beaten rednekgunner for 3rd place by one point! Considering I had rounded out my conversions with some of rednekgunner's mini's to make 2500, this made it even more awkward. I offered to cede my ticket to Chicago to him, but he graciously refused to accept. If for some reason, asugradinwa or the DE player that took 1st cant make it to Chicago, he'll be there.

--

Overall, the semi's at Ernies Games were fantastic. There was an unfortunate incidence of douchebaggery in the 2nd round with a slow-playing eldar player ruining rednekgunners chances for the day (I think he only managed to play 40-45 minutes out of the 150 alotted), but Ernie handled the situation as well as he could, really. Other than that, I didn't hear of any major conflicts or arguments. I had been hoping to get a matchup with the dark eldar player who took the whole enchilada, but my minor loss in the 2nd round took that off the table. Not to take anything away from his victories--he's easily one of the best generals I've ever seen--but it did seem as though he drew some extremely lucky matchups in all three rounds: 1st against a mech-guard newbie, 2nd against a drop-pod marine player who fed him marines in widely isolated chunks, and 3rd against the slow-playing eldar player (with both judges hovering around the table all game to prevent shenanigans)... and truth be told, that curb-stomping had several of us quietly cheering. Having never managed to actually play against a *good* DE player, I hope I get a shot at him in the finals.

Here's the part where holofields cost me the massacre: over the entire game, I could never get more than a shaken result on that last prism. In the final two rounds (we went 6), I assaulted that prism with a full squad of fiends, 8 bloodletters, Ku'gath, and shot at it with 4 tongue shots and 4 bolts. I had at least 18-20 chances on the damage table, a good third of them pens, but still couldn't get more than a shaken. If I had, it would have been a 24 point massacre. As it was, I ended up with a 17 point minor victory.

Good report! grats on 3rd.. maybe people who denounce holofields will understand that they can really alter games one way or another

My prisms have survived 6 games so far due to fields thus denying Kps and making my victories easier

CatPeeler, Great job at the semi-finals chief, you deserve it. Good luck in Chicago.

rednekgunner wrote:CatPeeler, Great job at the semi-finals chief, you deserve it. Good luck in Chicago.

Sorry to hear about your problems in the 2nd round. I was really hoping you'd pull out a win in the hopes for a Salamander vs Salamander game in the 3rd round. You Knightfall guys seem pretty cool, maybe I'll get a game in sometime this fall durning the football weekjend down in Oregon.

Its all good, I am over it (and prepping for next year...lol) sounds good, you are more than welcome anytime.

Good luck Catpeeler and representthe NW.

Asugradinawa- I'm enjoyed playing you in round three and would welcome a rematch, good luck to you as well.

asugradinwa wrote:You Knightfall guys seem pretty cool, maybe I'll get a game in sometime this fall durning the football weekjend down in Oregon.

Any time, chief.

Well it looks like some work commitments will keep me from the finals. Rednekgunner better get his Salamanders ready for 3 more rounds of 'Ard Boys.

That's aweso--no, wait...that suc---...no, wait....that's....awesuck? Sucksome?

Well, at least your salamanders can rest assured that their honor will be maintained by the salamanders.

I will ensure that Vulkan and his posse purify all enemies with fire.

Being said Eldar player from round 3, let me explain a couple of the choices in my list and tactics.

I will note, I have played Saim-Hann style eldar since 2nd ed and I like to be semi-fluffy, even in competitive builds - hence why there is a good portion of bikes in my army (its crazier for fun games, the spears come out to play)

12+1 GJB squad: this does two things, typically its a bitch to kill against the MEQs and it has a similar torrent of fire to that of dire avengers with blade storm. It also gives me 8 models to suck up wounds before an opponent can put wounds onto my shuriken cannons, which are key for dealing with various units.

2x 3 GJB squads - these act solely as reserve objective grabbing troops and are mostly a small filler for cheap troop slots. Many Eldar builds run 4x 3 GJB as troops, I personally perfer to have at least one unit of them that is actually built to provide some fire power - hence the big unit. Plus its fun to see faces of folks unfamiliar with the bike build see that big unit hit the board - its a free tournament, why not have some fun too?

Now as far as the fiends are concerned... it was a combination of bad range guestimation and forgetting they are cav up until I completed my move - oh well.

Banshees: Being that they all have power weapons and are supported with doom, they are truly my only effective unit against FNP. Torrent of fire will still net only 1 wound in 8 hits pushing through at best (shurican cannons) and 1 in 72 with the rest of my fire. Where as the banshees push through at 1 in 12 without doom, 1 in 6 with - overall not bad math given that their power weapons are rendered ineffective against your entire friggin army LOL.

Good luck to both of your guys in Chicago - make at least one of the winning slots someone from the Northwest!

CatPeeler wrote:
I couldn't be 100% about this, but I believe the 18 players broke down as 1 daemon, 3 mech eldar, 2 sisters, 2 nidzilla, 1 dark eldar, 3 mech guard, and 6 marines.


My first opponent was an ork player

I thought that was funny.

Guardian jetbikes (x3)
Guardian jetbikes (x3)
Guardian jetbikes (x12, +warlock) --no, I have no idea why he split them up this way.

In a jetbike list that is not that unusual. To over simplify it you have one large hard to kill squad, and others that can hide.

Do you know what kind of list the DE player had?

Wych cult (6 units of them)
3 ravangers
a jetbike squad
1 or 2 raider squads

Blackmoor wrote:I thought that was funny.

Hey--math is hard! shutupshutupshutupshutupshutup!