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My List:

HQ:
Bjorn: P.Cannon
Rune Priest: JotWW, Storm Caller, M.Bombs
Rune Priest: JotWW, murderous hurricane

Elite:
Dread: M.Melta, H.Flamer
Dread: L.Cannon, H.Flamer
Dread: L.Cannon, H.Flamer

Troops:
Grey Hunters x 5: Flamer, Razorback, A.Cannon
Grey Hunters x 5: Flamer, Razorback, A.Cannon
Grey Hunters x 6: Flamer, Razorback, A.Cannon
Grey Hunters x 5: Melta Gun
Grey Hunters x 5: Melta Gun
Grey Hunters x 5: Melta Gun

Fast:
Typhoon
Typhoon
Typhoon

Heavy:
Long Fangs x 6: M.Launcher x 5, Lazorback
Long Fangs x 6: M.Launcher x 5, Lazorback
Long Fangs x 6: M.Launcher x 5, Lazorback

My list is obviously a shooty list that looks to alpha strike, which is why I take Bjorn and his funky fresh Dread crew as opposed to Logan or another HQ. Theoretically I should go first in 75% of my games thanks to Bjorn, which should give me the edge against other shooting armies as I hit so hard on the first strike that I can cripple most other armies unless they reserve up, in which case I kill them piecemeal as they come on. The dreads provide essential counter assault and can tarpit many units like Ork Boyz or Gants, etc, especially when comboed with JotWW to eliminate Nobs, etc. However, in all 6 games of Ard Boyz, I only got first turn twice and that was because of Bjorn's reroll. I still feel that increasing my odds to go first is worth taking Bjorn over Logan, however luck just wasn't with me in Ard Boyz this year in that regard, but that is the way it goes. Only in one game did I wish I had terminators instead of the Dreads and despite only going twice in 6 games, I didn't lose a game and have not lost with this list yet, so I am going to keep running with it.

Game 1 Vs. Nids (I am going off of memory and I am forgetting some stuff)
3 objectives

HQ:
Swarmlord with 2 Tyrant Guard
Flyrant with regen, and a bunch of biomorphs

Elites:
Doom in a pod
3 Zoeys

Troops:
5 Warriors: bone swords and lash whips, toxin sacs and adrenal glands
15 Genestealers with talons, toxins and adrenal glands with a brood lord
10 Genestealers with talons, toxins and adrenal glands with a brood lord
20 Hormagants with toxin sacs and adrenal glands
20 Hormagants with toxin sacs
20 Devil Gants

Heavy:
3 Biovores

Essentially this was a big time list mismatch for my opponent. I got first turn and killed his Zoeys right away, then focused fired the swarlmord to death. At that point it was pretty much game over as the middle of his army had no synapse. His Hormagants failed their check, charged a dread then got chased off the board. He could have swung the game when the doom came down as it could have wasted all my long fangs and 3 units of grey hunters who were clumped up, but it deviated out of range, and was then killed by a dread in HtH.

Game ended with me holding all objectives and all bonus points and leaving his spore pod with a wound to avoid tabling him and losing my massacre. He was a great opponent despite pulling a big time mismatch and having bad luck. Had he gone first, it would have been a much better game for him.

24 points to me.

Game 2
4 deep striking objectives

Mortetvie's hybrid foot/mech eldar
Mortetvie is an old friend of mine and I know he is a really good player so despite the fact that I had all the tools to ruin his army's day, this would not be an easy game.

HQ:
Eldrad
Yriel

Elites:
Fire Dragons x 5, Wave serpent with stones, twin b.lance
Fire Dragons x 5, Wave serpent with stones, twin b.lance
Harlies x8: Kisses, Shadowseer

Troops:
Dires x 5: Wave Serpent with stones and twin b.lance
Dires x 5: Wave Serpent with stones and twin b.lance
Storm Guardians x 10: flamer x 2, Warlock with destructor, Wave Serpent with stones and twin b.lance
Wraithguard x 10: Warlock with enhance

Heavy:
Wraithlord: B.Lance, EML
Wraithlord: B.Lance, EML
Super Falcon: S.Laser

He got first turn, and deployed in a broad front. I knew he would use Eldrad's redeploy ability to react to me, but I still had to force him to play honest and deployed in a broad front too, as otherwise he would have stayed where he was and hit both my flanks. He used the redeploy to force a flank and take Bjorn out of the game for a few turns.

The game came down to me shooting his skimmers, killing all but one serpent and being unable to kill the damned Falcon which got him the tie. I shot that stupid thing turn after turn, assaulting it at every opportunity with everything I had, but all I managed to do was take all its weapons off. His one remaining serpent contested two objectives by 1/32 of an inch and his falcon contested the third. In the middle the Wraithguard contested the 4th objective again by about 1/16 of an inch.

Great game against a very good opponent that came down to the wire. This was the only time I have ever wished I had Logan and his termies as I had nothing to take on the Wraithguard. My Grey Hunters got mopped up by them and the dreads got murdered by the witchblades of the warlock and Eldrad (who was attached to the squad). I had to just try and slow them down or run away from them. I couldn't shoot them to death as they were always fortuned with a screening unit to give them cover and the serpents were in my face delivering units that had to be dealt with.

If only I could have dropped the last serpent or the falcon I would have won, but the dice were not with me. My opponent played a great game and I have to tip my hat to him as he earned the tie.

10 points to me which basically took me out of the running unless I massacred my next opponent and the top guys all had minor wins.

Game 3
Kill Points

Necrons. It was funny, the one and only time I would ever NOT want to play crons in a tournament was this mission. Dawn of War and he had 10 very hard to earn kill points vs. my 21 very easy to get kill points. Oh well, them there is the breaks.

HQ:
Deceiver
Lord: Phylactery, 4++, War Sythe and Destroyer Body

Elite:
Immortals x 8

Troops:
Warriors x 10
Warriors x 10

Fast:
Destroyers x 5
Destroyers x 5
Destroyers x 5

Heavy:
Monolith
Monolith
Monolith

This was one of the least enjoyable games I have ever played. Ever.

It all started when I went to the bathroom before out game, came out and there was a die with a 5 on it on the table and he said, "that was my roll to go first that I rolled while you were in the bathroom." haha, I was like, sorry Paco, you need to roll that in front of me. He still got first turn, despite Bjorn's reroll. Le Sigh.

This guy had no grasp of the rules and complained and whined about everything, we had to call in the TO at least 6 times for rules disputes over BASIC rules issues. He just continuously broke the rules blatantly and then got butt hurt when I wouldn't let him do it. He was a decent guy after the game, but during it I actually yelled at him twice which for anyone who has played me knows is way, way out of character for me. I am usually really laid back.

He actually said, and I kid you guys not, when the TO told him that hills were not in fact infinite height (wtf?) but true LOS, and I quote: "You mean we can't play the way I want to play, we have to play by what the book says?"

I was dumb struck.

How the hell did this guy make it to table 4 of the Ard Boyz semis with Crons?!?!?!!?? That was blow up number one. I asked him if he had ever read the rule book and he replied, again, no joke, that he had skimmed it a few times.......wow. He started throwing dice and sulking when he realized he was losing, it was seriously pathetic to watch.

At any rate, JotWW gobbled up his destroyers (despite the fact that my opponent insisted that didn't make sense as they were flying), focus fire killed his Deceiver, Long Fangs and Grey Hunters gang banged his Lord and Bjorn and one of his Funky Fresh Dread Crew Members dragon upper cutted two monoliths out of the sky. I somehow managed to get a minor victory by taking out 7 of his KPs to the 6 he got from me. If this guy had any idea of what he was doing he could have just shot a few of my skimmers and razorbacks then hid and ensured his win. Good thing he didn't as this was a huge mission/list mismatch against me.

16 points to me, finishing me in 5th place. Now I just need to knee cap two guys to get to the finals! haha.

So despite the sissy la la who bitched about everything and didn't know the rules in game 3, I had a great Ard Boys experience. 5 of the 6 games I played were against skilled players with tough armies and were all very challenging, even against the Nid Player who only got creamed so badly due to some bad luck on his part.

I didn't go as far as I expected myself to, but I had a lot of fun and look forward to next year.

Total Ard Boyz record this year: 4-0-2, and despite Bjorn I only went firstt twice in 6 games! Oh well, that was just bad luck, statistical probability still says I should go first most games which means my army has a very large advantage.

Reecius, this is John from Vegas, it was good meeting you and your group from San Diego. I had three great games at the Semi Finals and I am glad I did not have to face your army, it would have given me a lot of trouble! Your third game sounds like it was a load of fun...

Hope to see you again at the next tournament in Southern Cali.

Yeah John, great to see you again and finally get to formally meet!

Way to go on winning! That was a good showing, you went through some tough players too, you handled Shane's horde Orks like I have rarely seen before. Nicely done.

I look forward to getting a game in at a future event. I Your Doom and Ymgarls scare the pants off of my list, but other than that I think I would have the list advantage.

Which army are you going to take?

Good luck in the finals!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh yeah, hahaha, here was another gem from game 3. At the end of the game he was like, let's just dice off to see who gets a massacre.

I was like, are you gaking me? That is totally unethical and I refuse to take a win or a loss that I didn't earn or to take a win away from someone else by lying.

Man, that guy needs to do some maturing.

Haha well I also wonder how he got that far in the Tournament, mmm so dose my winged hive tyrant not get hit by JOTWW because hes flying from now on?

I honestly don't know how he got that far, especially with Crons. It baffled me. I think he may have just brow beaten people into accepting some of his crazy rules interpretations.

He kept saying they needed to house rule out things that worked against his army for Ard Boyz, it was bizarre. Every other thing out of his mouth was just crazy to me.

But oh well, I don't want to bad mouth him anymore, he may be a really cool guy outside of that situation, although the TO said everyone complained about him which sucks.

Actualy at the Ard boys tournaments in my area there are plenty of people who came from outside out store who dont read other peoples codexs and just take their word for it when it comes to ability,s. I would say I could fight 3/4 of the players that came out of the wood work with Crons and they wouldnt know the Crons rules so would let me do whatever I wanted.
But as you said its no bad mouthing people, but I do hate people who whine like that, is is just a game after all.

Yeah, that is true. But every good tournament player I have met knows the rules for pretty much every army fairly well. It is pretty critical to do so to avoid situation like you describe.

The necron players at my LS are pretty cheaty-face from what I have heard, a trend?

Ah well, would you have placed if you massacred your opponent?

Gah, was scrolling through and saw that roll-off for massacre, that's probably how he made it to the semi finals...

Scary list you have there...

No, even a massacre would have kept me from making it. Drawing Mortetvie in round two knocked me out of contention. He ended up getting 2nd and would have won if he would have had even a minor victory against me.

I had fun though, so that is what matters.

Yeah, that is the nastiest list I have ever put on the table. It just obliterates most armies in the first 3 turns.

I am going to take basically the same Tyranid list to the finals, but I may change the Swarmlord for a flying Tyrant and I am looking at droping the Warriors in a Pod for some Raveners.

Reecius wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh yeah, hahaha, here was another gem from game 3. At the end of the game he was like, let's just dice off to see who gets a massacre.

I was like, are you gaking me? That is totally unethical and I refuse to take a win or a loss that I didn't earn or to take a win away from someone else by lying.

Man, that guy needs to do some maturing.

My second round opponent did the same thing with me! I was horribly out-matched against an IG Leafblower list but I used Sammael on the last turn to contest the double objective and keep him to a minor victory. He asked if I could just give him the massacre which I said no to (even if I didn't contest he still wouldn't have had it) and then he offered to dice off for it which is pretty much cheating the guys who actually did get a massacre. This guy was all sorts of shady, measuring too far for his vehicles, using Basilisks as medusas and then measuring from the barrel for range, and rolling his dice out of sight. Janthkin had to play him round one so he can elaborate if he likes but I don't want to speak for him.

Fortunately my other two games were great so 2 out of 3 ain't bad.

5th place is still nothing to sneeze at Reecius so well done and too bad you couldn't place just a bit higher.

@Jackel13
Nice. Good luck to you, I am sure you will perform well!

@Ozzy
Yeah, that is a bummer to draw those guys who are so wrapped up in winning that they lose sight of their morale compass. I don't wan't to win if winning means I feel like a scum bag.

I had fun and placed OK. I thought for sure I was going to the finals, but oh well. Next year I'll make it!

JOTWW hits destroyers? Do they count as normal infantry, or jetbikes, because doesn't it not affect jump infantry? I would imagine it wouldn't hit jetbikes either...don't have the codex, just going off memory.

Great batrep though, I have no idea how the 'Cron player got to the semi's. Really crappy prelim competition?

Destroyers are jetbikes who are specifically mentioned as being hit by it.

Thanks man, it was a good tournament.

How do those Assault Cannon Razorbacks work for you? Ive been debating about converting the turrets, or if I should jsut go with some typhoons for the same cost.

I have played Mortetvie a few times and afterward our games there was always a lot of drama. He is a very good player though.

So who won at your 'Ard Boyz? Names!

I had some one offer to dice off for a massacre as well a time or 2 after a draw...sorry, but what we got, we got.

Yeah, I hate that, why would someone want to cheat to win? So annoying.

John won 1st place with bugs, can't remember his last name, Mortetvie won second and I can't remember the third place guys name. He had battlewagon Orks. Normally I am really good with remembering everyone's names that placed but I was tired form dealing with my third round opponent who was such a pill.

@mistress of minis
They work great and are a good balance between las and heavy bolter. They have better odds to pop a tank than the las and are better at anti infantry, but the 24" range can be an issue.

I find that the 50/50 split works perfectly.

Assault Cannon Razorbacks is the awesome. I hear someone around here does pretty well with them

Who ever might you be talking about?!?!

Haha, I do have to admit that I took the idea from you, buddy. I was going to go all twin las, but after playing you at the SiS and seeing how effective the assault cannon set up was, I decided to go 50/50 split. Some games I hate the 24" range, but when they come in handy they come in big time handy.

Yeah, Same reason I split mine. I'm never gonna pay for the Las/Plas or TL-LC but I'm not gonna have all my Razorbacks have them. They do come up big once in a while and the rest of the time they make the opponent think.

A split is the way to roll. You gonna run a slim downed version of this at the GT at the end of the month?

Yeah, most likely if I can get it all painted on time. Is conquest 2000 or 1850?

2k, I'm trying to paint up a few things too. A little bit of changing goin on with my list too

Totally taking the 2 BP hit since I don't know what I'm bringing yet since it's based on what I get finished!

When is the cutoff for lists? I probably will miss it, too. I am having a hard time getting motivated to paint lately.

Reecius wrote:
@mistress of minis
They work great and are a good balance between las and heavy bolter. They have better odds to pop a tank than the las and are better at anti infantry, but the 24" range can be an issue.

I find that the 50/50 split works perfectly.

Ya, last year I posted a ton of mathhammer about Assault cannons being better than lascannon aside from range issues. Just wasnt sure if they made thier points back in the anti-mech meta that seems so common.

Oddly it already passed. It was last friday. they wanted them over 2 weeks early which is a little silly since they don't do pairing based on judged comp and aren't releasing the scenarios early. I don't see why they need them this early but meh, it's all good I sent one in but I think i'm gonna play something different

Despite your span of bad luck with Bjorn, I'm still not deterred. I've been painting my SWs and Bjorn is the lynchpin on how I want to play this army. Definitely an army to shoot first and try to cripple so I can get better assault matchups in the later rounds. Better luck next time.

Thanks for positng. Definitely gets me rethinking if I want to convert some Razorbacks with Assault Cannons.

Ozymandias wrote:

My second round opponent did the same thing with me! I was horribly out-matched against an IG Leafblower list but I used Sammael on the last turn to contest the double objective and keep him to a minor victory. He asked if I could just give him the massacre which I said no to (even if I didn't contest he still wouldn't have had it) and then he offered to dice off for it which is pretty much cheating the guys who actually did get a massacre. This guy was all sorts of shady, measuring too far for his vehicles, using Basilisks as medusas and then measuring from the barrel for range, and rolling his dice out of sight.

Ahhh, it is heartwarming tales like this every so often that remind me why I gave up tournament play going on ten years now.

Thanks for strengthening my resolve.

Tough battles reecius. As regards your round 2 game, it always hurts to see two solid players face off in the middle rounds. A draw kills off both your chances.

@Ozymondias
You poor chap.

@Mistress
Yeah, they are great, but every so often I am just a hair our of range with them and then my opponent starts backing up knowing they are out of range and I get frustrated with them. But, they are very good in most circumstances.

@Hulk
Oh well, I guess I am 2 bp down! Better make a display board then to compensate. I'll see you there buddy! Hopefully thing time if we do play each other it is at table 1 in round 5, not round 4, that stunk.

@Sarigar
I agree, Bjorn is the reason I play wolves not vanilla gunline marines as his ability should give me the edge, plus he is no slouch on the table top. In 6 games he was destroyed 2 times and in all but one game was a very big impact. I feel he is worth the points investment.

@CT Gamer
Most tournament games I have played have been great fun, it is really rare to get a douche lord that plays that way. Typically guys are competitive but fair and fun.

@Olympia
Thanks man, and I agree. The worst is drawing a tough player round 1 or 2, it is so annoying but it is just the luck of the draw. When that happened and we tied I was boned, he got 3 bonus points though so it allowed him to just qualify to go on to the finals, so good for him.