Been Around the Block
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Hello everyone, due to popular demand I'll be writing up battle reports of my personal games at the 2010 European Team Championship. This of course only tells a fraction of the story, since there were seven other games each round that determined how our team did. Still, hopefully it gives a feel for what the ETC games were like. There aren't any pictures since I was concentrating on the games. Trust me, these games needed my full concentration.
On the morning of the tournament I was jet lagged, very nervous, and so high on adrenaline I couldn’t sit still. I suspect my team felt the same way, although they were all trying to appear calm. After so many months, so many hours of planning, work, and anticipation, the last 30 minutes before the first round were the hardest. What country would we play? How will we compare to the rest of the world? We were about to find out.
As they announced the first pairings we learned we were playing Wales in round 1. A challenging howl erupted from both teams. A certain Wales space wolves player had made many disparaging remarks on the 11th company podcast (all in good fun of course) about our chances at this, our first ETC. Some highlights included: “It is impossible for a team to finish in the top 5 at their first ETC,” and “Their lists are just awful, they belong at a composition event.” The chance to debut against them seemed fitting.
The pairing system for the ETC is a beautiful and complex mechanic. I had spent a lot of time trying to figure it out from afar, but as always there is no substitution for experience. One thing working to our advantage were our “awful” lists, which were completely foreign to Wales, and the other countries we would play. This meant they often didn’t know their strengths and weaknesses and gave us good matchups by accident. When the dust settled on the pairings I ended up playing against the enemy dual seer council list. The matchup looked like this:
ROUND 1:
SCENARIO: Dawn of War, Seize Ground 5 Counters
Player: Ben "Spacecurves" Mohlie Team America
ARMY DESCRIPTION: Space Marines
HQ 1: Librarian: Null Zone, Avenger [100]
Elite 1: 5 Assault Terminators with thunder hammer storm shield [200]
Elite 2: Dreadnought: Multi-Melta, heavy flamer (10) [115]
Elite 3: Dreadnought: Multi-Melta, heavy flamer (10) [115]
Troop 1: Tactical Squad
7 marines with bolters, 1 marine with meltagun (5), 1 marine with Multi-Melta(free), 1 Sgt. with Power fist (25), combi-melta(10) [210] (has transport 1)
Troop 2: Tactical Squad
7 Marines with bolters, 1 marine flamer(free), 1 marine with missile launcher (free) 1 sgt with bolter [170] (has transport 2)
Troop 3: Tactical Squad
7 Marines with bolters, 1 marine flamer(free), 1 marine with missile launcher (free) 1 sgt with combi-flamer [180] (has transport 3)
Fast Attack 1:
Land Speeder: (50) heavy bolter (free), typhoon missile launcher (40) [90]
Fast Attack 2:
Land Speeder: (50) heavy bolter (free), typhoon missile launcher (40) [90]
Heavy Support 1:
Land Raider Redeemer: extra armor (15), Multi-Melta (10) [265]
Heavy Support 2:
Thunderfire Cannon: [100]
Transport 1: Rhino [35]
Transport 2: Rhazorback twin heavy bolters [40]
Transport 3: Rhazorback twin heavy bolters [40]
Total: 1750
VS:
PLAYER 4: (Alex Whitehead/Torgoch) Team Wales. I think he posts on Dakka Dakka as Torgoch.
ARMY DESCRIPTION : Eldar
HQ 1: Farseer (55) with Jetbike (30), Singing Spear (3), Runes of
Witnessing (10), Fortune (30), Mind War (20), Spirit Stones (20) [168]
with 8 Warlocks (200) with Jetbikes (160), 2 with Embolden (10), 1 with
Enhance (15), 1 with Singing Spear (3) [388]
HQ 2: Farseer (55) with Jetbike (30), Singing Spear (3), Runes of
Witnessing (10), Runes of Warding (15), Fortune (30) [143]
with 8 Warlocks (200) with Jetbikes (160), 1 with Embolden (5), 1 with
Enhance (15), 1 with Singing Spear (3), 1 with Destructor (10) [393]
TROOPS 1: 3 Guardian Jetbikes [66]
TROOPS 2: 3 Guardian Jetbikes [66]
TROOPS 3: 3 Guardian Jetbikes [66]
TROOPS 4: 5 Dire Avengers [60]
HEAVY SUPPORT 1: Falcon (115) with Holofield (35), Spirit Stones (10), Shuriken Cannon (5) [165]
HEAVY SUPPORT 2: Wraithlord (90) with Eldar Missile Launcher (25), 2 Flamers (0) [115]
HEAVY SUPPORT 3: 2 War Walkers (60), 2 Scatter Lasers (30), 2 Scatter Lasers (30) [120]
TOTAL = 1750
So here we have the classic dual seer council elder army. He’s got two terrifying councils with farseers, and a bunch of slippery jetbike troops to go into reserve and grab objectives later on. This army also has some long range shooting in heavy support slots. A tough force, and like any deathstar army, if you make any mistakes it will ruin you quickly.
We scatter the objectives around the board, I try to keep them away from places he can hide the jetbikes.
My Turn 1:
I win the roll to go first and deploy two tactical combat squads. This allows me to have one missile launcher set up, and the flamer half will just hop in their razorback turn 1. He deploys nothing, keeping his troop bikes in reserve, and outflanking his war walkers. I move on mostly in the center since I don’t know where he is going to attack yet.
Torgoch’s Turn 1:
Torgoch zooms his councils up my right flank, hugging the board edge and stay out of line of site from most of my army courtesy of a big hill and ruin. The wraithlord puts on his night vision goggles, rolls 36 for view distance, barely gets range to one missile pod on a typhoon, and blows it out of the sky. Not a good start.
My Turn 2:
I shift my land raider and rhazorbacks slightly left, refusing the right flank and staying more than 18 away from both councils. Line of site is limited, but I get off a couple shots with heavy bolters, killing a grand total of 1 biker. I had hoped to do better since this was the only turn I could reliably catch him without fortune on. My thunderfire cannon can’t see the bikers, but he can see the falcon in the middle of them. I light up the falcon with tremor rounds, which scatter onto one of the biker units putting them in difficult terrain the following turn. No turbo boost for you!
Torgoch’s Turn 2: Torgoch fortunes his councils and turbo boosts the non tremored one to within about 10 inches of my lines. The other council flies up behind it, passing all their dangerous terrain checks. His war walkers appear and assassinate my thunderfire cannon, although the tech marine survives.
My Turn 3:
Alright here it is, I tell myself, this turn will decide it. It’s all or nothing time. I disembark with my ten man tactical squad, and terminators, and move up to charge the front council. “Trogdor” my redeemer rolls up six inches right in front of the council. At the start of the shooting phase it’s time for the hail mary pass, go go Null zone! It succeeds on a ten and affects the front seer council. With an evil grin I fire Trogdor’s flamestorm cannons. No cover saves, only one invul save, and 11 wounds, result in 5 dead bikers. On the other side of the board one of my dreads and tactical squads kill the war walkers. In assault I charge with the tactical marines and terminators, and wipe out the rest of the first council and farseer. With my consolidation move I move the termies behind the tacticals, to protect them from the second council.
Torgoch’s Turn 3:
All his troops arrive and hide behind buildings and hills waiting for later turns. He decides that rather than pile in, he is going to run away with his council and try to contest objectives with them later. They move back to the big hill on his side out of reach of my terminators. His shooting focuses on my librarian’s razorback, stunning and immobilizing it. His council lights up my tactical marines killing a few, before jumping out of reach in the assault phase.
My Turn 4:
I get the terminators back into the land raider and cruise it up towards the council. Now that I have the upper hand I need to stay on top of him. My shooting kills a couple of the council and two troop bikes.
Torgoch Turn 4:
Torgoch decides it is time to seek revenge against Trogdor and moves up his council to charge him. His troops stay hidden and his shooting doesn’t do anything. In the assault phase he charges the land raider. He has a million str 9 attacks, but he needs sixes to hit and penetrate, so only gets a couple glancing hits, destroying a weapon and immobilizing the tank.
My Turn 5:
I move my troops around trying to surround my objectives in such a way that he can’t contest them easily. I shoot everything at his troop bikes again, but can’t kill any. On the right flank, the terminators get out of the land raider again through the side doors and prepare a charge against the council. The farseer I killed earlier had the only runes of warding, so my librarian can now easily get Null Zone off. I flame, shoot and charge the council, wiping them out.
Torgoch’s Turn 5:
He finally moves his troops out of cover, and does manage to contest one of my 3 objectives. If it ends this turn, it will be a tie with 2 objectives each. However, it goes to turn 6.
Turn 6:
I shoot or charge all his troop bikes and wipe them out. I’ve got 3 objectives to his 1. On his turn there is little left he can do, and the game ends. We tally up victory points and I have scored many more, resulting in 18 points for me this round.
My team as a whole came out of the gate running, and we won the match. The results were:
David Richardson 1 Shaun Kemp 19
Swedish Ringer 11 Greg Sparks 9
Alex Whitehead 2 Ben Mohlie 18
Stuart Robertson 15 Nick Rose 5
Gary Morgan 10 The Mike Mutscheller 10
Ben Clark 7 Paul Miglino 13
Rich Morgan 6 Wyatt Traina 14
Mike Collins 16 Jon Willingham 4
Total: Wales 68 America 92
After the first round we were exuberant. Our pairings strategy worked well and our guys outplayed our opponent’s handily. On to round 2!
ROUND 2
We drew The Czech Republic. This round I was our team Champion. We went through the pairing process again, and at the end it was revealed their dark eldar list was their champion! Oh crap. At the ETC Dark Eldar armies are created to slaughter MEQ lists like mine. At least I kept the DE away from my MEQ team mates.
The Scenario was pitched battle deployment, capture and control.
My opponent was playing this:
PLAYER 1: Jiri Cerva (Toch)
ARMY DESCRIPTION : (Dark Eldars)
HQ1 : (Archon, Agoniser; Poisoned Blades Plasma Grenades [2] Haywire Grenades [4] Tormentor Helm [5] Combat Drugs [25] Shadow Field [25] [146pts]
Elite1 : (Wyches, Splinter P. & CCW (x3); Blaster (x2); Plasma Grenades [5] ; Wych Weapons [5] ,Succubus [42] Agoniser; Plasma Grenades; Wych Weapons in transport 5)[108pts]
Elite2 : (Wyches, Splinter P. & CCW (x3); Blaster (x2); Plasma Grenades [5] ; Wych Weapons [5] ,Succubus [42] Agoniser; Plasma Grenades; Wych Weapons in transport 6)[108pts]
Elite 3 : (Wyches, Splinter P. & CCW (x4); Blaster (x2); Plasma Grenades [6] ; Wych Weapons [6] ,Succubus [42] Agoniser; Plasma Grenades; Wych Weapons, in transport 7)[122pts]
Troop 1 : (10 Warriors, 2x Darklance [20])[100pts]
Troop 2 : (10 Warriors, 2x Darklance [20])[100pts]
Troop 3 : (5 Raider Squad, Splinter Rifle (x3); Splinter Cannon [10]; Blaster [5] in transport 1)[55pts]
Troop 4 : (5 Raider Squad, Splinter Rifle (x3); Splinter Cannon [10]; Blaster [5] in transport 2)[55pts]
Troop 5 : (5 Raider Squad, Splinter Rifle (x3); Splinter Cannon [10]; Blaster [5] in transport 3)[55pts]
Troop 6 : (5 Raider Squad, Splinter Rifle (x3); Splinter Cannon [10]; Blaster [5] in transport 4)[55pts]
FA1: (3 Reaver Jetbikes,Splinter Pistol; Splinter Rifle (x1); Blaster (x2)[20])[95pts]
HS1: (Ravager Disintegrator (x3)[15] )[120pts]
HS2: (Ravager Disintegrator (x3)[15] )[120pts]
HS3: (Ravager Disintegrator (x3)[15] )[120pts]
Transport1 : (Raider, Darklance 1x Troop 3) [55pts]
Transport2 : (Raider, Darklance 1x Troop 4) [55pts]
Transport3 : (Raider, Darklance 1x Troop 5) [55pts]
Transport4 : (Raider, Darklance 1x Troop 6) [55pts]
Transport5 : (Raider, Darklance 1x Elites1) [55pts]
Transport6 : (Raider, Darklance 1x Elites2) [55pts]
Transport7 : (Raider, Darklance 1x Elites3) [55pts]
TOTAL [1744pts]
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The board we were on was pretty open by ETC standards, heavy terrain by american ones. There was a ruin in the center, some impassible rock towers scattered around, and a few low hills. His army is a terrible matchup for me, his billion dark lances will shred my armor, and his archon and wyches would go right through my terminators in assault. The only thing I have going for me on paper is that he's made of...well... paper. I'll need to use the rock pinnacles to give cover to Trogdor, and try to use the dreadnoughts to draw fire away from my transports. He does have to shoot down the dreadnoughts before charging me because they are the one thing he can't beat in hand to hand.
I won the roll the roll to go first and felt hopeful. If I can get off a good first round of shooting maybe I can take out enough dark lances to even the equation. I put my objective in the lefthand corner of my board edge, he of course puts his in the exact opposite corner. His mobility means spreading the objectives apart is a great for him, bad for me. I deploy in the left hand corner castled up around my objective, and keep my ten man marine squad in reserve in their rhino. My plan is to run them up the right hand side, ducking behind hills and try to contest his objective. Realistically, I am hoping to get a draw and scrape out a few more victory points.
Ok I think, now its time for a good first shooting pha...and he promptly steals the initiative. Awesome, the worst possible series of events so far.
Jiri's Turn 1:
He wastes no time and zooms towards my lines. The ravagers just move six preparing to unleash on my tactical marines. His bikes turbo boost straight at my land raider, stopping within inches of Trogdor and hiding behind the rock feature I was planing to shelter behind. No fair anticipating my moves!
His shooting phase is painful, but not as bad as it could be. My tactical marines get plastered, I lose almost an entire combat squad despite going to ground. My razorbacks get stunned, shaken, and stirred, and one is immobilized, but they survive barely. My dreadnought on my right flank takes a lot of fire, but because he is sheltering behind a razorback he survives with just being stunned. All in all, deploying in cover saved me, taking out half the incoming lances was all that kept me in the game.
My Turn 1:
I take a deep breath and spend probably a good ten minutes considering what I'm going to do. I have suffered little permanent damage, but practically everything is stunned, so for this turn they might as well be dead. I need to use the shooting I have left to stop the incoming wyches or I'm going to get a blaster and agonizer enema. But at the same time I can't last long under that amount of dark lance fire. I can't deal with both this turn, so the wyches have to take priority.
I move my left dread who was only shaken up towards the bikes. He is easily in charge range of them. I use smokes on him, and every other vehicles except trogdor. My typhoons survived the onslaught because I had started them out of LOS behind the rocks and Trogdor, so now they side stepped into range and opened fire. I light up the wyches transports like a christmas tree and managed to destroy the closest one, and immobilize the others. Not quite as good as I'd hoped but it met the bare minimum. Unfortunately, the closest wych squad was the one with 12 inch charge, so they would be on top of my next turn anyway. My thunderfire cannon turned and fired at a dark lance squad on foot across the table. I killed 6 of them, and they ran off the board! Trogdor flame stormed the bikes killing all but one. My dreadnought then charged in and finished him off. I used the dreads consolidation move to block the only gap between the rock pillars trogdor was behind, thus ensuring the wyches couldn't blaster the land raider next turn.
Jiri's Turn 2: Now the battle is really joined as one wych squad moves past my left dread and pounces on a tactical squad, his dark lance lines open up again, destroying one typhoon, blasting off the missiles of another and stunning it, and destroying a razorback. Ouuuch. My dreadnoughts make all their cover saves and still stand firm. His wyches all got out of their transports and started running towards my lines. The archon lost his ride in the center, and he interestingly breaks him off from the warrior squad and moves him back toward his objective. In assault his wyches kill two tactical marines but I make my morale check.
My Turn 2: Alright, this is the turn that decides it. My marines are hurt but still fighting. I disembark the combat squad from my surviving razorback and move all the tactical marines on the table toward the assault to help their brothers. My rhino arrives from reserve and scoots up the right hand board edge popping smoke.
Trogdor drives around the rocks up to one of the wych squads. I disembark the terminators preparing for the assault. The lefthand dread moves toward one wych squad, the right hand dread moves towards a disembarked warrior squad. At the start of my shooting phase I fire off null zone. Don't ask me how it stops wyches from dodging, but it does!
My shooting phase shows what happens to wyches caught in the open. Trogdor burninates one squad, making the terminators unnecessary, I bolter down the other squad to a single member who is then charged by a dreadnought. My right hand dread catches a warrior squad, burning all but two then charging in. My thunderfire cannon ravages another warrior squad, leaving only a few alive on his objective. In assault I wipe out all the wyches thanks to null zone, and the dreads stay locked.
Jiri's Turn 3: My opponent suddenly realizes hes losing and takes a good look at his options. He has to stop my rhino on the right side or else it can contest his objective by the end of the game. He can't contest my objective, but his ravagers are more than capable of killing all my troops to make it a mute point. His last remaining warrior squad moves over to zzap my rhino, and the ravagers all line up to kill my troops. He gets a couple bad scatters and I only lose a couple tactical marines, and my rhino makes both its cover saves to emerge unscathed.
My Turn 3: Time to finish this. My right hand tacticals disembark from the rhino, blow up the raider, and charges the guys inside. My tactical marines on the left flank defiantly rise from cover, and blast apart two of the three ravagers with their missile launchers. The librarian and his squad get back into the surviving razorback and cruise towards his corner. Trogdor moves up and guns down some warriors with his assault cannon.
After my turn 3, it's effectively over. I proceed to zoom as fast as I can toward his corner trying to table him. He ends the game with one immobilized ravager surrounded by tactical marines throwing krak grenades. I get 19 points from the game.
I'm pretty proud of this game, it was one of the worst possible matchups for me, I set up first, and he stole the initiative! The first thing that saved me was deploying in cover in case he stole the initiative, which he did. As with many games, my high number of tactical marines was one of the tools I needed to win. They beat down wyches in combat thanks to null zone, and I had enough of them that I could absorb lots of plasma cannon shots and still have some alive at the end of the game. My dreadnoughts were the MVPs as they so often are. They drew a ton of dark lances away from my softer targets and generally worried my opponent. Ironically they both survived the game despite all the punishment thrown their way thanks to smart use of smoke launchers and lots of assault jumping.
We won the match against Czech by a land slide.
ROUND 3
Saw us Facing off against Finland. This was a great group of guys we got along very well with, looking up and down the tables I saw nothing but laughter and the joy of battling with toy soldiers the whole round. During the pairing process, I guessed that they had made their Mech IG player their champion, (Jon Willingham was ours) well, I guessed wrong, and as they revealed their real champion, I was left playing their mech ig guy! Oh joy even worse than Dark Eldar!
The Scenario was Spearhead Deployment, Annihilation.
Things were made even better by the fact that our opponents got to pick the table for my game, and cunningly picked a very open one, with nothing taller than a grot on 70% of it. The spearhead deployment meant I had to cover a ton of wide open ground under a LOT of fire. My opponent's list was:
PLAYER: Aleksi Meuronen
ARMY DESCRIPTION: Imperial Guard
HQ1: Company Command Squad (50) 3x Meltagun (10*3) Regimental Standard (15) [95]
Troop1: Platoon Command Squad (30) 2x Flamer (5*2) [40]
Troop2: Infantry Squad (50) Lascannon (20) Commissar (35) [105]
Troop3: Infantry Squad (50) Lascannon (20) [70]
Troop4: Veteran Squad (70) 3x Meltagun (10*3) [100]
Troop5: Veteran Squad (70) 3x Meltagun (10*3) [100]
Fast1: 2x Vendetta Gunship (130*2) 2x Heavy Bolter Sponsons (10*2) [280]
Fast2: Vendetta Gunship (130) Heavy Bolter Sponsons (10) [140]
Fast3: Vendetta Gunship (130) Heavy Bolter Sponsons (10) [140]
Heavy1: 2x Hydra Flak Tank (75*2) [150]
Heavy2: 2x Hydra Flak Tank (75*2) [150]
Heavy3: Manticore (160) Hull Heavy Flamer (0) [160]
Transport1: Chimera (55) Hull Heavy Flamer (0) [55] HQ 1
Transport2: Chimera (55) Hull Heavy Flamer (0) [55] Troop 1
Transport3: Chimera (55) Hull Heavy Flamer (0) [55] Troop 4
Transport4: Chimera (55) Hull Heavy Flamer (0) [55] Troop 5
TOTAL [1750pts]
I win the roll to go first and breath a sigh of relief, at least I will get to pop smoke and be 12 inches closer before the sky falls on me. The board is very open, but it has a ruin in two corners, so I pick one of them for my starting location. My tech marine fortifies it, and my thunderfire and missile launcher combat squads hole up inside. A note on combat squads, I always do the exact same thing with combat squads regardless of the mission. Even though having extra killpoints is bad, it is usually far worse to mess up how your army functions just to avoid maybe giving up another killpoint or two. So even though its killpoints I still break up the flamer tac squads putting 5 in the razorbacks and 5 on foot with missiles.
My tanks set up in the open as close to the center as I can. There is no where to hide them so I will just have to leapfrog smoke launchers across the board to reach him. My dreads set up just behind my land raider. They are going to be hard pressed to do anything this game. My typhoons hide back behind my fortified ruin. Typhoons vs. vendettas is a pretty uneven shootout, but 3+ cover can go a long way towards evening the score.
Aleksi deploys as far back in his corner as he can. There is a big ruin he can behind, and he puts his manticore out of LOS behind it. He keeps a combined infantry platoon in reserve along with a command squad with flamers as a counter attack unit. I'm fond of doing the same thing myself when I'm playing guard so I immediately figure this guy knows what he is doing.
He scout moves his vendettas to the corners so they can see around the ruin. Also worth noting, in Europe, scout moves on vendettas gives them a 4+ cover save turn 1. ( just one of many rules differences we discovered)
So I take a deep breath and prepare to mo....and he steals the initiative from me. NOT AGAIN!?
Aleksi's Turn 1:
So with an evil grin Aleksi rubs his hands together and begins his shooting phase. I am in the worst possible position, out in the open in broad daylight with no smoke launchers up. He unleashes everything, focusing on the easy killpoints. He destroys one razorback, immobilizes and stuns the other, and kills some of the guys inside each. Trogdor takes a lot of lascannons and manticore rockets but only gets stunned once. He also blows up a typhoon because of his tricky scout move to outflank my ruin.
My Turn 1:
Well it looks really bad and I haven't gotten to pick up any dice yet. On the left flank Trogdor moves up twelve and pops smoke. The dreadnoughts walk up behind him, they should be barely in range of the vendetta who assassinated my typhoon. On the right flank my dazed tactical combat squads run forward across the fields toward the gun line. My rhino moves up 12 and pops smoke.
I carefully consider my options in my shooting phase. The obvious targets are the vendettas, armor 12 just like everything, but toting 3 lascannons. However the biggest threat to trogdor and my terminators, who are my only hope of swinging this around, is a chimera full of melta vets dead ahead. If I can stop that chimera from moving next turn they can't get in melta range. I really only have enough shooting to hurt 1-2 targets, so I guess that's the game plan.
I fire all my missiles at the melta chimera, and succeed in stunning it. This meets the bare minimum to keep me in the game. My dreadnoughts firing up at the flanking vendetta on the move succeed in immobilizing it. My thunderfire cannon has no infantry to shoot, so it blankets his vendetta squadren with tremor rounds. Maybe a lucky 1 will bag me a helicopter.
After turn 1 he is ahead 3 killpoints to zero.
Aleksi's Turn 2: His reserves fail to arrive so he doesn't really have any movement. He considers his options for a while and begins by shooting up my rhino, clearly going for more easy killpoints. However this time he gets unlucky with his to-hit rolls and I make the only cover save I need to. The rhino escapes. The hydras choose to light up one of the poor combat squads in the open, killing all but 1 of them. His immobilized vendetta fires from the ground at my remaining typhoon, and immobilizes it. They are now both on the ground in opposite corners, firing missiles and lasers at each other over a hill. He went for all the easy killpoints, but came up short, and left only his manticore to shoot at Trogdor. It hits and blankets him with missiles, but smoke deflects the only penetrating hit and trogdor just gets stunned again.
My Turn 2:
I had been mentally willing Trogdor to survive during his shooting phase and now I'm grinning. Time for payback buddy! Trogdor moves up 12, and disembarks the terminators in a fan in front of his wall of tanks. The turkey shoot ends now.
On the left flank my dreads change course to go after the downed vendetta. It is realistically the only thing they can catch. They both miss their multi-meltas so the stupid downed flier can zzap back at me next turn. Just wait till I get over there..... My typhoon sends missiles at it, but aimed to low and they impact the hill in between.
My infantry mid field continue to re-enact Picket's Charge and go forward as fast as they can. My Rhino follows suit. My tactical squad's missile launchers fire at the vendetta squadren, and succeed in killing one of them! Still no killpoint though.... Trogdor fires his multi-melta and immobalizes another vendetta that is right next to my terminators.
With that it is time for my assault phase. I multi-assault his immobilized vendetta, melta vet chimera, hydra squadren, and command chimera. All 4 tanks are wrecked or destroyed and the melta vets get pinned. Suddenly, I'm ahead 4-3. Whats up now!?
Aleksi's Turn 3: His reserves both arrive and they move on to rapid fire my tactical's in the center. He has to kill the terminators but the wall of wrecked vehicles in between is actually going to deny him a lot of shots. He fires everything he can at them, but only succeeds in killing 2. The manticore again fires at trogdor, but finally rolls something besides a hit and scatters off harmlessly. His downed venedetta targets one of the dreads coming at him, and blows off both his arms and legs. Three weapon destroyed results, well at least he isn't dead!
On the right flank his newly arrived infantry rapid fire into my other combat squad, killing a couple of them.
My Turn 3: Now I've got him on the run and its time to keep the pressure on. My ten man tactical squad gets out of their rhino, and with their disembark move they can charge the infantry platoon. The tattered remnants of 1 combat squad also move up to charge. The lone surviver of the second combat squad plus the librarian hop inside trogdor to stay safe.
My intact dreadnought has no desire to become a paraplegic like this brother, so he side steps and runs out of LOS of the vendetta behind a rock outcropping. This means I cant shoot at it this turn, but next turn I can charge it for sure. My typhoon sends some missiles at the downed vendetta gain and succeeds in shaking it. My paralyzed dreadnought just pops smokes and calls AAA for repairs. The rest of my shooting is ineffective.
My terminators charge the pinned melta vets, killing a bunch, breaking them, and consolidating towards them to keep them running. My infantry charges his on the right flank, and a huge melee erupts. I win combat by a few but of course his commissar makes him stay put.
Aleksi's Turn 4: It is still 4-3 in my favor, very close. He again fires everything he can at the terminators, and kills all but 1 of them. The manticore fires his last rocket at trogdor but again it scatters off. I think to myself, "holy **** I'm actually winning this". The combat on the right side continues with more guardsmen dying.
My Turn 4: My dreadnought charges around the rocks and curb stomps the vendetta wrecking it. My lone terminator moves up to keep the fleeing vets within 6, and charges the last vendetta, hammering it from the sky. Trogdor puts some fire on the remaining hydras, succeeding in shaking them. I'm now up something like 6-3.
His Turn 5: His vets finally run off the table. His heavy bolters bounce off the last terminator. In the assault I kill the last of the guardsmen but they tear down the last members of one combat squad. It is now 7-4 my favor.
My Turn 5: Time to finish this. My terminator destroys the manticore, trogdor blows up the last chimera, and my ten man tactical squad swarm his hydras with crack grenades. When the smoke clears I have tabled him. 20-0!
This was a really, really intense game. It looked like I had no chance after his first shooting phase, but as long as Trogdor is alive, it aint over. The fact that I correctly targeted his chimera with meltas and not his vendettas was crucial. That stunned result also meant he couldnt move that chimera to block off the land raider, regardless of whether or not he killed it. After trogdor survived turn 2, my terminators cut a bloody swath through his army.
The unsung hero of this game was my tech marine. Fortifying a ruin means you have a 2+ cover save when you go to ground. This meant my opponent never bothered to shoot at my tactical marines in the back, or at my typhoons except with his flanking vendetta. Those missile shots were crucial to keep a few key targets shaken or stunned as I closed the gap.
The rest of my team also did great and we won the match against Finland. Special props to The Mike Mutscheller, who won his game without losing a single model.
ROUND 4
Scenario: Dawn of War, Capture and Control
In round 4 we were playing Sweden, last year's champions. The pairings were done very carefully by both team and ended up with a lot of mirror matches. Our IG played their IG, our space wolves vs their space wolves, our chaos vs. their chaos, etc. I put myself forward as one of the armies they got to pair against, and they put their ork player against me.
My Opponent's List:
PLAYER 8: Joakim Engström
ARMY DESCRIPTION : Orks
HQ1 : Warboss (60), Warbike (40), Power klaw (25), Cybork body (10), Bosspole (5) [140]
HQ2 : Warboss (60), Warbike (40), Power klaw (25), Cybork body (10), Bosspole (5) [140]
Troop 1 : Nobz x10 (200), Nob bikers x10 (250), Cyborkbody (50), Stikkbombs (10)
Nob1, Painboy (30), Grot orderly (5)
Nob2, Power klaw (25), Bosspole (5)
Nob3, Power klaw (25), Waaagh banner (15)
Nob4, Power klaw (25)
Nob5, Big choppa (5), Bosspole (5)
Nob6, Big choppa (5), Shoota/skorcha kombi-weapon (5)
Nob7, Big choppa (5)
Nob8, Shoota/skorcha kombi-weapon (5)
Nob9, Bosspole (5)
Nob10, [675]
Troop 2 : Nobz x10 (200), Nob bikers x10 (250), Cyborkbody (50), Stikkbombs (10)
Nob1, Painboy (30), Grot orderly (5)
Nob2, Power klaw (25), Bosspole (5)
Nob3, Power klaw (25), Waaagh banner (15)
Nob4, Power klaw (25)
Nob5, Big choppa (5), Bosspole (5)
Nob6, Big choppa (5), Shoota/skorcha kombi-weapon (5)
Nob7, Big choppa (5)
Nob8, Shoota/skorcha kombi-weapon (5)
Nob9, Bosspole (5)
Nob10, [675]
Troop 3 : Gretchin x10 (30), Runtherd (10) [40]
Troop 4 : Gretchin x10 (30), Runtherd (10) [40]
Troop 5 : Gretchin x10 (30), Runtherd (10) [40]
TOTAL [1750 pts]
Holy nobs batman, thats a lot of deathstar! The one advantage of the enemy getting to choose the army matchup, is that you get to pick what table to play on. I considered my options for a minute, and picked a table that had a big 4 level ruin in it. I luckily won the roll to go first and picked the side with the ruin for my deployment zone. My evil plan coming to fruition, I placed my objective on the 4th level of the ruin. My opponent placed his in the opposite corner behind another ruin. I deployed two tactical squads with missile launchers and my librarian in the top level of the ruin overlooking the battlefield. I also fortify it with my tech priest. I now have twenty troop models that can go to ground for a 2+ save up there. Bikes can't go past level 1 of a ruin, so before any dice have rolled I have secured at least a draw. Not to shabby.
Joakim immediately realizes this and makes a joke about his grots charging up there to kick my ass. I tell him real men charge with grots all the time. He doesn't take the bait. His grots go into reserve and his bikes deploy in the far corner in a flying v formation.
The game can be quickly summarized so I'll just write a paragraph rather than breaking it down turn by turn. Basically, Joakim had two choices, he could try to kill everything in my army besides my tacticals and get extra victory points, or he could play very safe and just guard his objective all game. He chose to play it safe and zipped around shooting up any light vehicles that got close to him. When I realized he was playing for a draw I considered my options for a while. In order to destroy both nob bike squads I needed my entire army present, both dreads, some tactical marines, and the terminators. My rhinos and razorbacks were quickly immobilized and my dreads were never going to catch the bikers, so that wasn't going to work. My best bet was to try to contest his objective with trogdor, always keeping him moving 12.
The game consisted of me driving trogdor diagonally across the board toward his objective, while I poured all my firepower into one of the bike squads. The bike squads danced away until trogdor was within one turn of the objective, and then they descended upon him. The last warboss attack succeeded in immobilizing him, securing Joakim the draw. My terminators then hopped out and killed the weakened bike squad and warboss, and they were then gobbled by the other bike squad. The game ended in a complete tie on both victory points and scenario. 10 pts each.
Joakim, like all the European players, was very good, and played very smart and cautiously. There was a big difference in style between our American players and everyone else. Our guys go for the win every time. As I told my opponents before every major assault "I didn't fly 5000 miles to dick around, let's do this!"
The match was very even and ended up a draw. We had a wonderful time playing the swedes. This match was an example of the fact that you can be playing at the highest level, for the highest stakes, and still have a blast and make new friends. I really hope some of the swedish players come play in America someday.
ROUND 5
Round 5 we played against Poland. The pairings ended up a story of extremes, with some great and some awful matchups. I ended up playing their space wolves player, one of the few games where no one had a huge advantage.
Scenario: Seize ground with 5 objective, spearhead deployment.
My opponent's list was:
ARMY DESCRIPTION : (Space wolves Krzysztof “Evil” Białek)
HQ2 : Wolf Lord, Runic Armour (20), Thunderwolf Mount (45), Wolftooth Neclkace (10), Wolftail Talisman (5), Saga of the Majesty (15), Power Fist (25), Storm Shield (30) - Total 250
HQ2 : Wolf Lord, Runic Armour (20), Thunderwolf Mount (45), Wolftooth Necklace (10), Wolftail Talisman (5), Saga of the Warrior Born (35), Frost Blade (25), Storm Shield (30) - Total 270
HQ3 : Rune Priest, Jaws of the World Wolf, Living Lightning, Chooser of the Slain (10) - Total 110
HQ3 : Rune Priest, Murderous Huricane, Living Lightning, Chooser of the Slain (10), Bolter - Total 110
Elite1 : 5 Wolf Guard (18), 2 x Power Fist (20), 2 x Combi Melta (5), TDA (15), Cyclon Missile Launcher (30) - Total 185
Troop 1 : 7 Grey Hunters (15), Wolf Standard (10), Melta Gun (5) - Total 120, Transport 1
Troop 2 : 7 Grey Hunters (15), Wolf Standard (10), Melta Gun (5) - Total 120, Transport 2
Troop 3 : 5 Grey Hunters (15), Flamer (0) - Total 75
FA1: 10 Fenrisian Wolves (8) - Total 80
HS1: 5 Long Fangs (15), 4 x Missile Launcher (10) - Total 115
HS1: 5 Long Fangs (15), 4 x Missile Launcher (10) - Total 115
HS1: 5 Long Fangs (15), 4 x Missile Launcher (10) - Total 115
Transport1 : Rhino (35), Dozer Blade (5) - Total 40, Troops 1
Transport2 : Rhino (35), Dozer Blade (5) - Total 40, Troops 2
So hes got tons of missile launchers to kill everything but trogdor, and a deathstar unit of wolves plus the two lords. The BS 5 living lightning casters won't be fun either. The rune priest and talismans mean that I basically can't cast psychic powers, at the ETC you are allowed to stack wolf tail talismans, so he would have a 4+ 5+ 5+ against null zone hitting his lords, not going to happen. The bright side is that neither lord has saga of the bear, so my dreadnoughts could squish them with a lucky charge. It is going to be difficult to get a charge against a unit that fast with that much missile support though...
We scatter the objectives around and I try to keep them as spread out as possible. With my combat squads I have way more troop units than him, so spreading out the objectives is to my advantage. I make sure to place two of them at the top level of two ruins. Cavalry, like bikes, can't go up floors. I know I'll have at least one objective safe from the deathstar this way. I win the roll to go first and choose the corner with the larger ruin.
I deploy mostly out of line of sight behind the ruin, fortifying it with my tech priest. On the top floor I put two missile combat squads next to the objective. Trogdor is out in the open on one side, since he doesn't have anything that can threaten him at range. My thunderfire cannon starts off in the ruin, hiding behind my land raider. I put my ten man tactical squad in reserve in their rhino. The ruin has solid los blocking walls. I put both dreads just inside the walls so no one can see them, but they can move through and into the open when they want to. I'll loose a couple multi-melta shots this way, but any dread in LOS is just going to get shredded by the long fangs. I'm hoping that the lords will approach my line in such a way that I can get charges off with the dreadnoughts at the same time as my terminators come around the corner.
He deploys with his rhinos near the center ready to push towards the left objectives. He has one objective in a ruin as well and puts his 5 man grey hunter squad with an attached cyclone missile launcher dude right under it so they can claim it later. He deploys his deathstar in an interesting way, his lords are in front, and the doggies are deployed in a long snaking line back behind them stretching out like 12 inches.
My Turn 1:
So my game plan is this, I need to take out the rhinos first to get his troops in the open and make it harder for him to grab the spread out objectives. I'll put as much fire on his long fangs as I can with things like heavy bolters and the thunderfire cannon. My typhoons side-step slightly, trying to get LOS to the rhinos without letting the long fangs see them. My rhazorbacks poke out as well. Everything is at least 50% behind the ruin still. Trogdor moves off to the right a bit. It is going to be an interesting cat and mouse game with his thunderhammer lord. My typhoon missiles all get stopped by cover, but the two tactical missile launchers high in the ruin have a snipers view of the battle field and can clearly see the enemy rhinos. One missile destroys one, the other immobilizes the second. My heavy bolters and thunderfire cannon all bounce off the long fangs but its still a good first turn, the transports have been neurtralized.
Zly's Turn 1:
Zly moves up the deathstar and disembarks from the immobalized rhino. His two big grey hunter squads move up behind the line of wolves using them for cover. One runepriest stays inside the immobilized rhino. It is then his shooting phase and Zly gleefully exclaims 'Its time for REVEEEENNGGGE!" The rune priests go palpatine on my typhoons, ("Unleeeassh the pooowwweerrr!" yells Zly) and the long fangs unleash on my razorbacks. Normally I'd have lost all my light vehicles, but 3+ cover saves do wonders and allow you to contest firefights you'd otherwise have no business being in. One typhoon gets immobilized and one razorback gets shaken. The only casualty is my poor tech marine who takes a missile to the face and fails his 2+ save. No more thunderfire cannon.
My Turn 2:
Zly has not yet committed his deathstar to a direction, so it is hard to tell what he is going to do with them. My rhino arrives from reserves and I drive him up the right flank toward Zly's ruin objective and long fang cluster. Trogdor sidesteps another 7 inches. I think the lords might be able to charge him with a good run move, but then they would be pretty far from the rest of my army still. This way, next turn I can threaten his long fangs or grey hunters with the terminators.
On the left flank I move up the two razorbacks to the next peice of cover, a large hill. His grey hunters are on the other side of it. Its not as safe as the ruin, but if he moves again like I think he will, I can engage with everything in my army on turn 3. Also I'm now in hood range of the stupid lightning priests so maybe I can stop one. All my missiles and trogdor throw lead at the long fangs, and succeed in taking out a few missile launchers.
Zly's Turn 2:
The lords move up again straight toward my ruin and don't try to charge the land raider. He has his wolf unit spread out in a long line, in between the 2 large grey hunter squads and my land raider. The grey hunters move up again and are right behind the death star. His other troop, the 5 man unit moves even further into his corner, safely out of my missile range.
I do succeed in stopping one lightning attack, but the other is still enough to destroy my mobile typhoon. Shucks. One long fang squad fires at my rhino, but doesn't hurt it, and the other send a hail of missiles at Trogdor which all bounce off. They couldn't see any other targets.
My Turn 3: Ok here we go, this is the big turn. I consider the board carefully for a while and figure out what all my models will be doing. This is going to be complicated.
Zly is clearly expecting me to dump everything on the death star unit, hes shielding his troops with them and has them centrally located so anyone I send their way is going to be exposed to long fang missiles on his turn. My dreadnoughts can probably make it through the wall and into contact with the lords. Sending my terminators in as well would probably hurt more than help, because the wolf claw lord will just shred them. No, the deathstar is scary, but its not the key to this scenario, all those grey hunters are. Its time for some troop assassination.
My land raider spins and tank shocks through the line of doggies and out onto the other side. My terminators disembark in front of the startled grey hunters and Trogdor pops smoke and primes his flamestorm cannon (in europe you can fire 1 weapon with a LR when you smoke). On the right flank my rhino zooms up and dumps out my tactical marines in front of a long fang squad.
On the left flank, the front razorback with my librarian moves up over the ruin to be adjacent to the second large grey hunter unit. The librarian alone disembarks and the razorback pops smoke.
The first dreadnought busts through the ruin koolaid man style OOOH YEAAHHH!. The second one rolls a 2 for difficult terrain and gets tangled up in the debris. That really sucks because now only one dread can charge the lords.
Trogdor unleashes on the righthand grey hunter squad, killing a few of them. Missiles and bolters drop a couple more. My librarian has an amazing avenger shot lined up on the second grey hunter unit, but the rune priest stops him on a 4+, curses! I fire everything else in my army at that squad , bringing it down to 3 models. On the right flank my tacticals bolter down the entire long fang squad. Who says tactical marines suck?
My terminators charge the grey hunter squad which also has one of the rune priests in it, but duff their attacks and leave one grey hunter alive and the runepriest unharmed. I consider whether or not my one dreadnought should charge the lords, and decide its still worth it. If that thunderhammer lord fails his 3+, its game over. I charge in and deal a wound. I hold my breath as zly rolls his save, and let it out in dissapointment as it comes up a 3. In return the lord hammers down the dreadnought and they consolidate closer to my terminators. It was worth a shot.
Zly Turn 3: Zly scans the board and I can tell he's calculating all the same thing I am. His deathstar moves back to be in charge range of the termies. He keeps his thunderhammer lord with that unit, but moves him so he can multi-charge the land raider if he needs to. He has 1 melta gun left, in the 3 survivors of the left grey hunter squad. He moves them over to take the crucial shot against Trogdor. If it doesn't kill the land raider I'm home free. He hits, penetrates, and blows it up. Damn. The bright side is the explosion takes out two more grey hunters.
His long fangs crack their knuckles and get down to business. One squad blows up my last dreadnought, the other insta kills the librarian. After the librarian is dead, he casts living lightning at my razorback but it survives.
In assault the deathstar charges the terminators. Thankfully not all the wolves can reach. The lightning claw lord kills all but 2 termies, but those terminators succeed in killing the last grey hunter from that troop, and the runepriest. The deathstar consolidates in around the terminators.
My Turn 4: Time to finish the plan. The combat squad in the front razorback gets out, steps over the smoking peices of the librarian and bolters down the last of the middle grey hunters. He now has 1 troop unit left, the 5 guys in the far back corner. That means at most hes going to get 1 objective.
My righthand tactical squad moves up and charges another long fang unit. They will be able to contest that objective if they get through these guys. My other razorback with a combat squad in it moves sideways away from the deathstar and towards another objective. I try to use my shooting to assassinate the rune priest, bu this rhino survives the missiles.
In combat my tacticals only kill 1 long fang and stay locked with them, and the wolf lords finish off the last terminators.
Zly Turn 4: Zly sees the danger to his objective and breaks off the lightning claw lord to charge into that combat. The rest of the unit moves over and annihilates my middle combat squad. His remaining long fang unit and rune priest return fire to my combat squad on my upper floor objective, killing 3 despite my cover save. The lightning claw wolf lord kills a bunch of my tactical squad, I kill the rest of the long fangs, and my survivors pass their morale check.
My Turn 5: I move my top tactical marines over to cluster on the objective so they all have to die for me to lose it. My remaining razorbacks moves to within 3 inches of the left objective.
In combat the last of my right flank tactical marines die.
Zly's Turn 5: He shoots at one of my combat squads in the ruin and they fail their morale check, good thing I moved the other one over there. The death star moves towards my left razorback but they are a long way off. We roll the dice and the game ends, I win two objective to 1! Zly as scores slightly more victory points than me so I get 14 points to his 6.
This is a really tactical game with some crazy complicated turns on both sides. The key maneuver for me was the tank shock through the wolves to dump the terminators on the other side. I don't think Zly saw that one coming.
Morale of the story is if your opponent has a big scary death star but not many troops, it is often viable to ignore the deathstar and kill the scoring units. That is, as long as you remembered to bring lots of tactical marines!
The match overall was a different story though, and Poland defeated us. They went on to win the entire tournament, so we only lost to the best, congratulations Poland!
ROUND 6:
We played Spain in the sixth and final round. I ended up playing against their eldar guy, his list was:
PLAYER 4: Moisés Ronda Ferrer. (Mohicanoska)
ARMY DESCRIPTION : Eldar
HQ 1: Autarch (70), mandiblasters (10), power weapon (10), Fusion gun (10) = [100]
HQ 2: Farseer (55), runes of warding (15), runes of witnessing (10), spirit stones (20), doom (25), fortune( 30) = [155]
Elite 1: 5 fire dragons = [80], in Transport 1
Elite 2: 5 fire dragons = [80], in Transport 2
Elite 3: 5 fire dragons = [80], in Transport 3
Troop 1:9 dire avengers(108), exarch (12) with power weapon and shimmershield (15), defend (15), bladestorm (15) =[165], in Transport 4
Troop 2: 5 dire avengers = [60]
Troop 3: 5 dire avengers = [60]
HS1: Falcon (115), shuriken cannon (5), vectored engines (20), spirit stones (10), holo-fields (35) = [185]
HS2: 3 war walker squadron (90), 6 scatter laser (90) = [180]
HS3: 2 war walker squadron (60), 4 scatter laser (60) = [120]
Transport 1: Wave serpent (90), twin-linked scatter lasers (25), spirit stones (10) = [125]
Transport 2: Wave serpent (90), twin-linked scatter lasers( 25), spirit stones (10) = [125]
Transport 3: Wave serpent (90), twin-linked shuriken cannons (10), spirit stones (10) = [110]
Transport 4: Wave serpent (90), twin-linked scatter lasers (25), spirit stones (10) = [125]
Total: [1750]
So here we have a pretty normal mech eldar list. He's got a lot of firepower and mobility, but no close combat to speak of.
Scenario: Pitched Battle, Annihilation.
I win the roll to go first and consider my options. The board we have is symmetrical with very little terrain. There are a couple forests and hills scattered around, and in the center of the board are two big rock spires. I break my normal rule of combat squads and deploy one missile squad a as ten men unit on the left. The other combat squads with the missile half going on the left flank one in a forest on the right, and the flamer half deploying in their razorback with the librarian. I would have deployed both as ten man units, but the librarian needed some bodyguards. My dreadnoughts go right in the middle along with Trogdor and my rhino. I stick both razorbacks and the thunderfire cannon hull down behind the left hill. I've got good fire lanes to most of the board and have my assault troops in the center to react to him.
My opponent chooses to deploy all in reserve, his Autarch will help ensure they arrive quickly. The war walkers outflank. An interesting move on his part, but probably a good one. He can come on the edges and dance around trying to rack up killpoints on my light vehicles.
My first 2 turns:
Well, there is nothing to shoot at and his guys can appear pretty much anywhere with their speed. I want to be close to his board edge with my center contingent, but I have to stay 22 inches away to make sure he can't zoom out with his fire dragons and melt my face in one turn. I move the dreadnoughts up behind the rock spires, one on the left one on the right, they are almost exactly at half field. Trogdor does the same, moving up right in between the rocks staying at the halfway mark. The rhino tags along next to him. Other than that I just keep my typhoons moving flat out and wait for his turn 2.
Opponent's Turn 2: He rolls for his reserves on a 3+ and gets literally everything but one warwalker squad. Alright, here come the elves! The first walker squad appears on my left flank, and he zooms his falcon up 24 from his board edge to give them a cover save. Very sneaky. His 5 man dire avenger squad hides out of LOS in a corner, they will sit there all game. The rest of his force interestingly moves on right in the center, challenging my assault troops. He moves flat out with two wave serpents, one with 5 DA one with 5 FD, and stop them just on the other side of the rock spires. The two other fire dragon transports and the 9 dire avengers with the characters move up 12 also in line with the rocks. His serpents and walkers unleash a ton of scatter lasers. They stun a razorback, and destroy the thunderfire cannon leaving the tech marine alive. He also stuns a typhoon.
My Turn 3: Well, this guy plays his girly elves with some balls, I respect that, but now I'm going punish him. His lead blocker serpents are an attempt to draw me out too soon. If I move the land raider up and deploy the terminators, next turn the land raider will get melta'd and the termies will get doomed and bladestormed. At the same time, if I don't deal with the front serpents, the lead fire dragons will hunt down trogdor anyway. What this calls for is some measured aggression.
My two dreadnoughts move forward to charge range of the front serpents and pop their smoke launchers. I could have fired the multi-meltas of course, but instead I want to do a little baiting of my own. If the dreads play defense while moving toward his main force, it gives HIM the choice of dumping early to melta them, or risking them running amok.
I move the land raider back and to the right, carefully positioning it about 18 inches from his right, back, fire dragon transport, and use smoke launchers. I want to tempt him to send that unit out on its own to kill Trogdor. If they do kill it, he'll get one killpoint and Ill get two from his squad and the waveserpent. And trogdor might just survive 5 meltas with smoke launchers up.
My left flank missile launcher has clear LOS to the left, rear fire dragon wave serpent, and blows it sky high pinning the passengers. In the middle, my tactical marine multi-melta pops out the top of the rhino and destroys the left, middle wave serpent. The Dire avengers there hop out and are also pinned.
In assault both my dreads assault the fire dragon transport in the center. I've got six attacks, sure enough I get one hit and fist it from the sky. The dragons get out unharmed.
Opponents Turn 3: Well now he is the one with lots of choices. His last warwalker squad moves on and also bunkers up behind his falcon. Its a good strategy because I hate wasting shots on the falcon, and it is big enough to give almost all the walkers cover. I can tell he is considering taking the land raider bait, but he eventually decides against it and concentrates on stopping the dreadnoughts that are getting ever closer. Both intact fire dragon squads unload into them. One dread is destroyed, the other just loses his close combat and flamer arm. The rest of his shooting shakes up my razorbacks some more, immobilizes a typhoon and kills some tactical marines.
I am up 3 kp to 1.
My Turn 4: My dreadnought moves up and gets ready to charge the disembarked fire dragons who shot at him. Trogdor moves up, and dumps out the terminators who will charge alongside the dread into the wave serpent. On the left flank the shootout continues, I wreck a walker and shake another couple. It's only a matter of time before I start losing killpoints on the left, so I need to wrack them up in the center.
My center ten man tactical squad packs away their multi-melta disembarks and moves up. They rapid fire their bolters into the disembarked DA, and wipe them out. Missiles, storm bolters, and heavy bolters kill the other central fire dragon squad.
The FD who were pinned all the back take more fire and go to ground with a single member surviving. In assault I destroy the wave serpent with my terminators. The dreadnought charge in and stomps one FD into mush. The others cant get a melta bomb on him, and they stay in combat.
His Turn 4: My dreadnought and terminators are running amok in his lines, and he has to do something quick. His dire avengers get out and blade storm my terminators down to two members. On the left flank he destroys one razorback, dumping the techmarine out on his ass. He also succeeds in destroying one typhoon. In assault my dread defeats the FD and chases them down. The killpoints are now 7 to 3.
My Turn 5: I'm way ahead but it isn't over yet, I still have some easy killpoints to get on my left flank. I move the termies back inside the land raider. The tactical marines in the center hold their ground, and bolter the last pinned fire dragon. My dreadnought flubs his difficult terrain roll (same guy as in the space wolf game, he can survive hails of melta weapons but a wall is always his nemesis) And can't charge the Dire Avengers, Farseer and Autarch. My missiles destroy the last wave serpent.
Opponent's Turn 5: He doesn't really have much of a chance to close the gap now, but he keeps on trying to his credit. Every victory point matters in the ETC. He succeeds in destroying another razorback on the left flank. His autarch and squad move up to try to stop my awesome dreadnought. He fires his fusion pistol, and blows off the dreads other arm. The dread is still standing so he charges in with his squad. The farseer has a witch blade, but duffs his attacks. In return my dread round house kicks the farseer, instant killing him! Go dread!
The game goes to turn 6, the only other event of note is that in the close combat, my dreadnought turns, and karate kicks down the autarch, instant killing him too! The dread ends the game alive, surrounded by DA who can't hurt him. That one dread walked through his entire army and scored 4 killpoints including two characters.
I won the game by something like 7 killpoints.
The match overall was extremely close. We needed to beat Spain to get a medal. The first games to finish went our way and things looked good. But the Spanish hung on grimly in the last games and got a couple key wins. It came down to the last dice rolls, but they managed to save enough points to barely get a draw, and beat us out for the bronze medal. Good job Spain!
The tournament overall was a blast and extremely challenging. I'm looking forward to next year!
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kidding... although this is the first time since 3rd edition i've seen them disallowed (i skipped 4th).
.....Bay Area Open GT 2013 - Best Tyranids 
.....LVO GT 2014 Team Tournament - Best Generals
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