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Battlecry 2011

Over the weekend I returned to Auckland to try defend last years Battlecry win. The event was 1850 points, so i made some slight additions/changes to my list. I received a 2/5 for composition my list, which provided other scores people got weren't ridiculous, I could recover from if I won all my games. In short, I took:

Warboss - the usual toys
KFF big mek

5 lootas

2 x 30 shoota boyz with big shootas and pk nob.
12 trukk boyz with pk nob.
11 grots
8 meganobs in a battlewagon with deffrolla

4 deffkoptas with tl big shootas and 1 buzzsaw

3 kans - big shootas
3 kans - grotzookas

Normally I write a much more in depth blow by blow encounter of the games, but when you get to the end you'll understand why I kept it a bit shorter this time.

Game 1: Kill Points, Pitched Battle.
The TO doesn't like kill points, and doesn't understand that the concept is to restore an overall balance, i.e. if you spam millions of units all over the show, you are more powerful in objective claiming, but reduced effectiveness in kill points. As such, he paired the match ups based on number of kill points each army has, so everyone was playing a list with ~the same number of kill points.

I got paired with a blood angel player who took Tycho, a librarian, 4 squads of 10 tactical marines, a sanguinary priest, 2 squads of 10 devestators with missile launchers and 1 lascannon each, a baal predator and a vindicator.
This was easily the softest blood angel list I've ever seen. It offered no way to pop my battlewagon out side of the one shot I would let a vindicator get off (2 lascannons isnt going to do much), no answer to the meganobs, and overall just had no real means to win games. Apparently this list got the same comp score as me though, 2/5 - so I knew something was way, WAY off base.

In his first turn he drove his vindicator forwards 12, shot at turbo boosting deffkoptas, and parked a 10man squad right next to it. In response I went and destroyed the vehicle and 10man squad with the meganobs. He counter charged the meganobs with another 10man squad and tycho, who they killed and consolidated. I then sent them to kill one half of their army on their own, with nothing there that could hurt them at all, and slowly sent the rest of my army after what was left, tank shocking back and forth where I could, which got rid of a unit or two.

15-0 to me.

Game 2: Dawn of War - 5 objectives
I got put up against a marine player. From memory he had Cassius, Librarian in terminator armour, 10 thunderhammer termies in 2 landraider redeemers, 2 10 man marine squads with razorbacks, and a dread. I think that was it.

I won the roll for first turn and set up 60 ork boyz on the half way mark, and he set up just 2 empty razorbacks. I moved the boyz forward so they would be in charge range of the land raiders, hoping to bait him into a stupid charge.
In his turn, he didn't take the bait, but did immobilise a landraider coming onto the table. Shooting was mediocre, with nothing really dying - maybe a couple of orks. He kept his 2 tactical squads and dread in reserve.

As I now only had 1 landraider and unit of termies to worry about, I danced around in the mid field a bit, moving back somewhat, hoping to bait the other squad of termies back. I immobilised one razorback as it was driving up a ridiculously steep hill, meaning it actually couldn't get LOS to anything due to its hull being in the way. In his turn he took some pot shots at vehicles, stunning a trukk and otherwise bouncing off cover. The dread came on the table, as did one marine squad.

I finally sent the trukk boyz to go kill the immobilised land raider, not expecting to do it but really just offering a distraction to waste his time on his board edge for another turn. Although their trukk was stunned, they had the range to get there. The deffkoptas came on and blew up the other razorback, while everything else shuffled around in mid field. The trukk boyz came up trumps, exploding the landraider and killing 1 thunderhammer termie. Meanwhile the lootas stripped both arms off the dread.

In his turn he finally had enough of the thunderhammer termies not getting to do anything, and took the bait, sending one squad alone, with cassius, into the meganobs. The other squad who had been blown out of their raider charged the unit of trukk boyz an inch infront of them. The game was over from this point. 5 terminators do not kill 30 orks, especially not when they lose 2 on the charge before they get to fight, so it was a slow grind over a few turns but the boyz squad finished them off, including cassius who ate a long series of power klaws.
The other termie squad kept getting delay after delay (after the trukk boyz, i parked their trukk in their face denying them movement again), before just shooting the remains to death in a single turn. The tactical squads were wiped out and the game finished with a tabling around turn 5.

15-0 to me.

Game 3: Spear Head, 3 objectives - 1 in the centre of each non deployment quarter, and 1 in the middle of the table.
My opponent had Spacewolves, consisting of A runepriest (jaws/lightning), a wolf lord on twolf, a wolf guard battle leader on twolf, 30 grey hunters on foot, 2 x 5 scouts on foot, a collection of wolf guard spread out amongst squads, a unit of twolf cav, and 2 units of longfangs. I think this list got a 2 for comp.

My opponent won the roll for first turn, and placed his long fangs on a rediculously high piece of terrain where they would basically be invincible to assault and have LOS to everything. Meanwhile he set up his 30 foot boys in front of the army, with the twolf cav behind them. He infiltrated both squads of scouts just over 12 inches from my kans on my right, just out of LOS. I set up with a central surge in mind. As there were 3 objectives, and he had 3 scoring units, my plan was to just wipe these out and tie everything else. His only answer to the meganobs were the twolf cav and HQ's attached - which, lets be fair, would monster the meganobs quite considerably, so I had to be very careful here.

In turn 1 my opponent moved everything forward, including the scouts to get a couple of melta shots on KFF protected kans. After the meltas failed spectacularly, the longfangs opened up on those kans and killed 2 of them.

In response, I showed my opponent how he had just lost the game, but instead I wouldn't make that charge, and would win the game a different way. He moved his thunderwolf cav and a unit of 10 grey hunters into charge range of the meganobs, leaving a gap big enough for only 1 base to fit through for the thunderwolf cav; the wolf guard battle leader with frost axe. This would mean that none of the other thunderwolf cav would be able to get into base to base or fight, no thunderhammers, no s8, no rediculousness, just me racking up a tonne of wounds on the regular squad and making the thunderwolf cav run on double 1's, only to keep them running with turbo boosting deffkoptas.

INSTEAD - I moved the remaining kan and boyz squad in to charge the scouts that had moved forward for ntohing, killing both these, and shot up some long fangs (killing 3, who then failed their moral check, and ran to the bottom of their stupid tower unable to get LOS to anything for the rest of the game) and half a unit of gray hunters.

He responded by trying to charge a 30man unit of orks with a 10man grey hunter squad, but fell short on the assault, and rolling double 1 for the twolf cav movement, meaning he couldnt seperate and charge off like he would have liked, so they milled about.

In my next turn I went and killed the 10man unit with my 30man unit + kan who had demolised the scouts earlier, hit the remains of the shot up squad with 30 orks 3 kans and the trukk boyz, and killed the last 10man squad with the meganobs, so he now had no scoring units left.

The wolf guard battle leader charged a 30man unit on his own, dying in the process, while the thunderwolf cav hit the meganobs and boyz, killing a couple of meganobs, and also the warboss (which cost me a point, doh!), but dying in return.
I shot the remaining long fangs and it was over.

14-1 to me (I lost 1 point for losing my general, he got 1 point for killing the enemy general).

This game was a lot easier than it needed to be, none of his movements at all made any sense to me. I was certainly helped by him failing all but one or two counter charge tests. Some pretty poor to average rolling on his side of things :(

Game 4: Pitched Battle, random objective coming down on turn 2, with objectives scattering from this location afterwards.
My opponent had a Warptime Daemon Prince with wings, a Chaos lord on bike with power weapon (!), 4 obliterators, 3 rhinos full of CSM's, a predator, and a big unit of bikes with mark of nurgle to be t6. This list had gotten a 3 for comp - it was pretty damn weak to be honest, and I'd like to think it deserved higher. Last year I played him and he had a big unit of 4++ save termies with lash, so this was a step down for sure.

I won the roll for first turn and set up centrally, pushing my deffkoptas up in their scout move to hit the predator on t1. He set up as a refused flank, promptly siezed the initiative, and wrecked the battle wagon in the first turn!
That was where his good luck ended however. The daemon prince responded to the deffkoptas, passing his warptime and assaulting them, doing 3 wounds. In return the koptas delt 2 wounds, passed their LD6 moral check, passed their i2 hit and run check, flew back, and shot the daemonprince to death!
The meganobs moved and ran into a big central piece of terrain in the centre of the table, everything else moved up and shot an obliterator to death.

Turn two was basically just a bunch of shuffling about by both players.

My opponent then drove forward and popped a unit out to blow up some killer kans, which between the oblits, and assaulting with krak grenades and a powerfist + melta guns, did the job, consolidating back next to a rhino full of guys. Meanwhile the trukk was blown up by the other 2 rhinos driving 6 inches and shooting meltas out the hatch. By this stage however, the objective had come down right in the centre of my army, with the next one scattering back 13 inches directly towards my deployment zone, so he had to come get them off me.

In response, the meganobs killed the remains of the squad that ate the kans, and also killed one of the rhinos next to them. the other unit of kans blew up the remaining rhino.

The remaining turns consisted of more obliterators being shot to death, more objectives appearing in my deployment zone, the meganobs killing another unit of 10, along with the bike unit and their lord, while a boyz unit finished off the last 10man marine squad. We called it in the end as all he had left was the predator fleeing for its life, and in charge range of a meganob unit that still had a waaagh up its sleeve.

Game 5: Pitched Battle and Victory Points.
The quirk for this game was that it was night fight from turn 2 onwards. My usual strategy against Marks tyranids is to tie him up with cheap stuff and stop him moving for a couple of turns, while I just shoot to death anything thats a threat, before cleaning house in the closing turns with assault. This wouldnt work however, so it was going to be a bit harder.

My opponent had: Tervigon as HQ, 2 trygon primes, 3 shrikes with boneswords, 10 ymymymymymgmggmgmrlrlrl stealers, 2 units of ~15 hormagaunts, a unit of ~15 gargoyles, ~6 hive guard and 7 ravenors. This list had gotten a 3 for comp.

I won the roll for first turn, and as his gargoyles set up infront of his whole army screening, I had the perfect opportunity to delay the trygons for a turn. I flew the koptors into the gargoyles, where only 6 could reach me to fight. He did 1 wound, but i managed to fail to wound with every single attack and did none, losing my moral check, and getting chased down. Hmm - not what I'd expected, I was hoping to be spread out an inch in front of the trygons by this stage. I shot a couple of wounds off a trygon, and killed a shrike.

Everything pushed forward for the nids, with the gargoyles reforming their screen, but he left a big hole in his screen by accident.

In the next turn I saw this gap left as my opening to finish the game then and there and took it. I multicharged the gargoyles, ravenors, and trygon with my meganobs. I used the big mek as the 1 model that could fit through the gap to the trygon, meaning he would only do 2 wounds, and not hurt the meganobs. The ravenors/gargoyles did pretty much nothing, and in return i wiped out the ravenors and quite a few gargoyles, causing the trygon to have to take ~25 saves along with the gargoyles, wiping them out. I was then able to consolidate completely within terrain.

He counter charged the meganobs with the shrikes and wounded trygon prime. When the dust settled, 2 and a half meganobs left, while the shrikes were dead, and so too was the trygon.

Unfortunately I failed to get a unit of 30 boyz with the warboss completely into terrain, so the ymrmrmrmgmrmglrlglrlgl stealers were able to hit them at one point, and kill 16 boyz, which after fearless saves were failed, left very few models left. In the next phase the warboss ran away, but was unable to be chased down as I used a remaining killer kan to stop the stealers from being able to pursue.

The game was just mop up from here - the meganobs eventually died, but not before killing 3 hive guard and 16 hormagaunts. Meanwhile the other unit of kans finished the other hive guard and tervigon.

My last chance for the warboss was to not run off the table, and shoot the ymargle stealers off the table so that I would be able to rally him in the turn following. Unfortunately he found his sprinting legs and ran 11 inches when he was 10.5 away from the board edge, doh!

I took out the last remaining models and the game finished as 14-2, as he had killed my general and most expensive unit, while i lost a point for losing my general.

Game 6: The final remaining game. The mission was what everyone was calling "Drawhammer". A single objective in the middle of the table with normal claim/contest rules. The deployment was spearhead, but with a centre push back of 18 inches rather than 12.

My opponent had Eldar, running a Farseer, Autarch, 2 units of 6 harlies with 2 fusion pistols each, 2 falcons with holofields and spirit stones, 2 wave serpents with 5 dire avengers, a fire prism, a wave serpent full of storm guardians, a wave serpent with fire dragons in it and a vyper.

I won the roll for first turn, and had a couple of choices. The risk to me is that a vehicle could fly in at the last minute and give me a draw. 5 wins and a draw is not enough for me to have a shot at the event, so i had to go for the win. That means immobilising those vehicles as quickly as I can, and silincing their shots to keep my kans alive. The kan survival is crucial, as they will form a wall that cant be tank shocked through around the objective in the last turn. I also had to keep them looking harmless to try make him focus on my trukk and battlewagon instead.

As such, I chose to set up first, and forced him into a corner that was all difficult terrain so he would have to roll dangerous terrain en masse on the first turn.

He set up packed into his back corner, and in a show that proved his battleplan was to zoom in with a late turn contest, he used the harlequins to block a turn one vehicle assault on both flanks of his army. He kept two wave serpents in reserve, hoping to get them on late and zoomzoom! The avengers were in the falcons, one with the farseer.

In my first turn everything moved forward, one harlequin unit with autarch attached was shot and fled off the board, while the other took some casualties and went to ground. The vyper was blown to pieces, and crunch time was on.
His shooting did little, either missing, bouncing off a coversave, or just shaking things.

In my next turn the battlewagon was able to hit an empty serpent and the deffrolla immobilised it after it failed its 3+ im a skimmer save. The remaining harlies were shot to death, and everything was ready to go next turn. The lootas immobilised the other empty serpent, which had just turbo boosted, so it died a horrible death.

In his turn he scored 8 penetrating hits on the trukk, which I promptly made 8 coversaves in a row on. He then hit the battlewagon in the side with the prism, and then rolled a 2 for penetration. The storm guardians came on in my far right corner.

In my next turn (3) the meganobs assaulted a falcon that had only moved 6, killing it, and the trukk boyz stunned the prism, which did not have extra armour.

In his turn some shots bounced off the kans, and he shot up the trukk boy unit to try make them flee and preserve the prism. They passed their moral check however, and blew up the prism.

In my next turn (4) I finished off the dire avenger squad that had hopped out of the living falcon with the trukk boyz, while the meganobs immobilised the other falcon, and killed the farseer + remaining avengers. The Lootas stunned the storm guardian wave serpent, and this one had dropped its spirit stones to be able to squeeze the prism into his list, so it wasnt going anywhere next turn. I used this opportunity to pop my waaagh and assaulted with a 30man squad, who wouldnt do much this turn, but would let the nob autohit in his.

In his turn 4 the fire dragons showed up, and zoomed on close to the aforementioned boyz squad, ready to do a turn 5 dash to the objective. The stunned serpent was blown up by the nob, as was the falcon, leaving just the serpent with fire dragons as a threat.

In my turn 5, I set up the kans so that he would have to sucessfully ram and destroy not one, but two kans before being able to make it to 3 inches from the objective, and survive a death or glory. I shot it with lootas, who shook it a lot. I shot it in the rear with boyz, who shook it a lot. I assaulted it with 30 boyz and a claw, who shook it an aweful lot, but there was no immobilising this thing!

In his turn 5 he went for it, I hit and penetrated with the death or glory, before rolling a 1. He was having to also go through difficult terrain for a crucial part, but again passed his test. All this culminated to a s7 hit on the front of a kan.... which he rolled a 2 for, doing nothing, and stopping the skimmer. We then called it there, as there was nothing further he could do. I left his troop unit alive so he could have the point, and the game finished up as 15-1.

So, in the wash up, it worked out as follows:
I finished with 88/90 points battle points, with the next highest person being around ~72, and a few people not far behind him. I had received full sports marks, and 19/20 for painting, meaning that with a 2 for comp, I had received pretty close to ~85% of the total tournament points.

This wound up not being enough, and I placed 2nd, with first going to a ravenwing player that scored 3 wins, 2 draws and a loss, but jumping ahead with 5/5 for comp. He was rather apologetic, as he knew and had been saying all weekend it was a robbery and that his comp should be much lower than that with ~16+ meltas and a handful of shiny new FAQ cyclone shots, but the guy is a personal friend of mine so I was glad to see his effort and enthusiasm for the game pay off.

There was however a very dark turn, that has put a very sour taste in my mouth. Over the years, I have built up a very large group of friends in this hobby from all over the country. When there are tournaments at my house, they all stay at my house - when I travel to their cities, I stay at their places. I'm quite personable (if I do say so myself !) and usually make a lot of friends at the events I go to. Over the years, when I've managed to win an event, or at least podium, there have been a lot of congratulations, and friends happy for me, etc.
This year however, when I was called out as second place, there was a big cheer. This wasn't a big "congratulations on coming 2nd, which is still an achievement" type cheer, but rather, was quite clearly the sound of a hall full of people who were genuinely glad I had lost. I even spoke to the friend I was staying with at the time about this, who, in a nutshell said "well, from a player perspective, it was nice to see someone else win for a change, people are tired of competing for second place".

I never set out in this hobby to be the villian, and it quite frankly upsets me that this has become the case. There has always been "that guy" at a tournament, that everyone wishes wasn't there, and it seems I am now that guy. Some people are okay with this mantle, and I applaud those people for not giving a damn what others think about them, but unfortunately I am not one of those people. As such, I have decided (at least for now) to chuck in the towel. I have one last event next month that I have already paid my flights and entry fee for, but after that, that's me done.

I still enjoy the buzz of painting a new army up for a new tourney season, showing that army off at the event with a big unveil so to speak, so when/if I finish my next army I may show up and concede every game in the final turn, but other than that, I'm reasonably disappointed that my exit from the scene is not in any way even close to how I would have imagined it.

Thanks for reading the massive wall of text, kudos if you got this far!
- Charlie St Clair

That's too bad. Don't let other people ruin the game for you.

Most of the other people you are playing sound like they are WAAC players whose despite cheesing it up still lose, and are angry about it. Gratz for winning with Orks in this IG dominated meta

I would've taken that as an honor, and motivation to come back and stomp them even harder next time.

Don't take it so hard, man. You got full sportsmanship marks, so it's not like people don't enjoy playing you. I'm sure that hall full of people didn't want you to quit.

Look at it this way: you're the golden standard of a good player. People were just excited that there are other people in your league.

no one will be happy you quit. seriously, even those that don't like you or your playstyle.

i don't know you from adam or will have any chance of ever playing you etc, but from your battlerep, you seem like a very detailed person while playing the game. i can see how people would find that kind of detail painful to lose to...to say the very least.

comp scores are "f@ck you votes" IMO. sure, we all want to tell the tale of taking a fluffy masterpiece to a tournament and using pure strategy and skill to win the day but it's hardly-rarely-never going to happen.

take the jeers on the chin and get back on the tabletop. proving yourself as a mentor to new players is a great way to curve this type of resentment, too. it is also a self-motivating tool to keep yourself in check. just a suggestion. (it worked for me)

Wow. Just wow. This sounds like a rather one sided account and if you do not understand why your 'whining' sounds a lot like bragging and a search for self validation then god bless you.

2 for comp? That's ridiculous. Your list is very varied and contains different unit choices. I shudder to imagine what my list would get.

Really sorry to hear that Charlie, I'm the Eldar player you played last round (I think I mentioned I posted on Dakka at some point, you might guess its me anyway if you remember my name lol). Thanks again for the game, would have been a bit more interesting if my dice had co-operated and actually let me kill stuff lol. Dragons + other stuff into the Kans to maybe clear enough space to push enough Serpents in there that I completely pushed your infantry off the objective was my rough plan, but I didn't slow down the incoming fast vehicles enough (as in at all) to give myself time to do this. Probably a long shot to get the win but probably my best shot at it. I probably could have done a little better with the Dethcopta screen, spreading out a little more and putting the Vyper more in the center to stop you flying all the way over to the far Harlies (the 12" bubble which you would have had to go round which might have been enough), but your Big Shootas made that plan fall over faster than I was expecting. The Harlies are designed to start outside the Serpent (not in the Falcons, certainly not in an objective mission) anyway so I though I might as well do it. Not that it really mattered at that point, but you probably should have Death or Gloried with the Kan at the end, you get a S10 hit and the worst that can happen is I hit your AV10 rather than 11. Incredibly memory btw, I don't remember you taking notes.

I sorry that you think you have become the villian here, for what it counts imo you certainly aren't 'that guy' in any sense of the word. You are widely regarded as the best player in the country (using Orks which aren't always regarded as a particularly powerful codex) and I was very happy to get myself into a position so that I could play you myself. I really hope you continue to turn up to tournaments in the future, I would happily play you at any tournament because aside from being a great guy to play with (which is reason enough to play in the first place), you can't really claim to be the top player at a tournament if you don't beat (or somehow dodge playing) the best. Certainly I wasn't cheering the fact that you had lost, because I knew that you had won all your games which meant for all intents and purposes you had won the tournament (in the same way that I know I was in the top 5 if not the top 3, as I don't know that many people could have jumped me as the 4 closest behind me all drew, yet I still managed to fall outside the top 10 (presumably on paint score, which while I can understand as not everything was fully detailed must have been pretty low to drop me that far)).

I was rather surprised that Doug managed to jump past you to get 1st overall (although like you I can't say I hold it against him at all, I had an incredibly close and generally awesome game against him the week before at OTT), I would have thought the 20 odd battle point lead would have been enough to keep you clear at the top. Although I haven't played many tournaments so far (went to Fields 3,4 and 5 years ago but that doesn't really count, different editions and then I had a break from the hobby for a while) I do think that the TO didn't run a particularly good tournament, the first 2 missions were just book missions and the last 2 were not well designed to say the least (Night Fight for basically the whole game = bad, 1 objective with the capturing/contesting rules we were using = bad). Comp, in short, was a mess, Haydn's Eldrad + Avatar score and Doug's Ravenwing being the two most extreme examples off the top of my head. Perhaps the biggest problem is that for some strange reason they didn't give out a Best General Award (as in the person who actually won the tournament award) which would have recognised you as the best player there.

I'm still keen to get to as many tournaments as I can this year but unless things are very different next year I will probably be giving Battlecry as miss. If I manage to get myself together enough I might try and run a smallish (probably 32 player) 2000pt NOVA style tournament towards the end of the year (slotting in before Masters some time) which hopefully you might be interested in coming up to Auckland for. Otherwise I guess I see you at Equinox .

calypso2ts wrote:Wow. Just wow. This sounds like a rather one sided account and if you do not understand why your 'whining' sounds a lot like bragging and a search for self validation then god bless you.

I think you're perhaps being a bit unfair there. Ignoring the comp debacle (as that's not the issue at hand) - im not trying to claim there is any spite, malice, or in fact any other relevant sides to the "account". In fact it's pretty basic human nature, and happens time and time again. I can honestly say, in areas other than Warhammer, I recognise this in myself. Every time Manchester United lose a game, I cheer. Every time Nadal gets knocked out, I cheer. It's human nature to root for the underdog, and this can rapidly turn into actively out right wanting that person to lose. I don't particularly blame anyone, and I don't think its unfair. It's just something that happens, but it's not something I'm comfortable with happening to me.

If you're looking at this as a "boo hoo I didn't win the tournament" thread, I really think you should go back and reread that part. I honestly don't care about coming second, I still think second is a great achievement, and I was really, really glad to see a good personal friend chalk up his first ever tournament win. The only thing I think that sucked about that, is that it was the only tournament in the entire country each and every year to not have any trophies - so he doesnt get to plonk down a nice shiny piece of memorabilia in his games room... yet.

I'm a very competitive person, and I play this game to win, but not at all costs. When winning event after event has got to the point where (some) people like to see me lose, then that's a cost I'm not prepared to pay.

Powerguy wrote:Really sorry to hear that Charlie, I'm the Eldar player you played last round (I think I mentioned I posted on Dakka at some point, you might guess its me anyway if you remember my name lol). Thanks again for the game, would have been a bit more interesting if my dice had co-operated and actually let me kill stuff lol. Dragons + other stuff into the Kans to maybe clear enough space to push enough Serpents in there that I completely pushed your infantry off the objective was my rough plan, but I didn't slow down the incoming fast vehicles enough (as in at all) to give myself time to do this. Probably a long shot to get the win but probably my best shot at it. I probably could have done a little better with the Dethcopta screen, spreading out a little more and putting the Vyper more in the center to stop you flying all the way over to the far Harlies (the 12" bubble which you would have had to go round which might have been enough), but your Big Shootas made that plan fall over faster than I was expecting. The Harlies are designed to start outside the Serpent (not in the Falcons, certainly not in an objective mission) anyway so I though I might as well do it. Not that it really mattered at that point, but you probably should have Death or Gloried with the Kan at the end, you get a S10 hit and the worst that can happen is I hit your AV10 rather than 11. Incredibly memory btw, I don't remember you taking notes.

I sorry that you think you have become the villian here, for what it counts imo you certainly aren't 'that guy' in any sense of the word. You are widely regarded as the best player in the country (using Orks which aren't always regarded as a particularly powerful codex) and I was very happy to get myself into a position so that I could play you myself. I really hope you continue to turn up to tournaments in the future, I would happily play you at any tournament because aside from being a great guy to play with (which is reason enough to play in the first place), you can't really claim to be the top player at a tournament if you don't beat (or somehow dodge playing) the best. Certainly I wasn't cheering the fact that you had lost, because I knew that you had won all your games which meant for all intents and purposes you had won the tournament (in the same way that I know I was in the top 5 if not the top 3, as I don't know that many people could have jumped me as the 4 closest behind me all drew, yet I still managed to fall outside the top 10 (presumably on paint score, which while I can understand as not everything was fully detailed must have been pretty low to drop me that far)).

I was rather surprised that Doug managed to jump past you to get 1st overall (although like you I can't say I hold it against him at all, I had an incredibly close and generally awesome game against him the week before at OTT), I would have thought the 20 odd battle point lead would have been enough to keep you clear at the top. Although I haven't played many tournaments so far (went to Fields 3,4 and 5 years ago but that doesn't really count, different editions and then I had a break from the hobby for a while) I do think that the TO didn't run a particularly good tournament, the first 2 missions were just book missions and the last 2 were not well designed to say the least (Night Fight for basically the whole game = bad, 1 objective with the capturing/contesting rules we were using = bad). Comp, in short, was a mess, Haydn's Eldrad + Avatar score and Doug's Ravenwing being the two most extreme examples off the top of my head. Perhaps the biggest problem is that for some strange reason they didn't give out a Best General Award (as in the person who actually won the tournament award) which would have recognised you as the best player there.

I'm still keen to get to as many tournaments as I can this year but unless things are very different next year I will probably be giving Battlecry as miss. If I manage to get myself together enough I might try and run a smallish (probably 32 player) 2000pt NOVA style tournament towards the end of the year (slotting in before Masters some time) which hopefully you might be interested in coming up to Auckland for. Otherwise I guess I see you at Equinox .

Of course I remember your name Rob The main reason I didnt death or glory is that if i kept it at av11, at your strength 7 i worked out it was going to be something like a 20% chance for you to blow it up, meaning the probability of you doing that to both at av11 would have been like 4%. If I made myself av10 however, that would bring it up to a 40% chance for you to take it out, and would increase the likelihood of doing it to both to something like ~17%. Mean while the odds of me getting you with the death or glory were pretty close to 1 in 3, but i felt safer in you having a 96% chance of failure and having to roll well enough on 4 separate dicerolls, than for me to have to roll well enough on 4 separate dicerolls and increase your odds 4 fold in the process I was quickly working those numbers out in my head when umming and ahhing about what direction to send the deffkoptas during the scout move, as that was when I was forming my long term plan of action for the game.

You played fantastically to get to where you did, and walked away as one of only a very small number of people with 5 wins or better (in fact almost everyone drew that last game so it might be a very small number indeed!). The most exciting thing I got out of that weekend actually was seeing how far you guys who play at Nicola's club have come, I see big things in the future for you guys! I wouldnt sweat your final placing. To give you an idea of the impact comp had, Doug and Haydn finished on the same record, 3 wins, 2 draws, and 1 loss. Doug finished 1st, and Haydn finished 37th. What ever you take away from the weekend, you should be proud of your results - and great to here you're looking at getting stuck in with running a tournament at the end of the year

Bummer.
What a drag.
Well played though!

Proximity, I am glad you clarified your point at the end of the report. In my experience there is a difference from being a 'villain' and some good natured ribbing. If you are close with a lot of the community, then they are probably just giving you a hard time (which is much different than rooting for someone to lose). I apologize for my initial impression since it is clearly not what you meant.

It is hard to judge how the comp was determined, I do not think your list is 'that bad' overall and has some nice variety in it. I think too often comp is viewed in terms of actual list power rather than in terms of army composition which consists of unit variety, being representative of the codex and alignment with 'fluff' aspects as well.

Battlecry's an Auckland tourney. 'Nuff said really

I gotta say from having played over here in England for almost a year now, I can happily say judged comp is crap, (I don't actually mind hard caps that much) and when I get back to Aotearoa, I'm gonna run a no-comp tournie and see where that goes. I'm also loving the Doubles tournies. New Zealand really needs some more tournament variety.


Cheers
James

I want to preface this with the comment that I mean no offense to you as an individual player, or in fact any of the people playing the tournament. It sounds like there were 6 fun games of 40k, and in particular it sounds like you had a good weekend that was capped off by some negativity.

That said, I will never understand why large groups of people put up with crap tournaments like this. Comp scores without guidelines are terrible. And I've seen the player packet for the event, those are not guidelines. Only 1 of each named character across the entire tournament? Are you kidding me? Missions that promote draws? Terrible.

Congrats on second place, I mean that in the best way possible, and I honestly don't blame you for stepping back from the tournament scene there. I truly hope you can find some semblance of great games on the casual scene where you're not going to run into that kind of crap.

@derek. On the whole comp is a much bigger factor in Australia and NZ than it is anywhere else in the world, its something that is basically intrinsically tied to the game here and mostly we just have to live with it as the guys who run tournaments tend to be the same every year (I don't think I've seen a 40k tournament without comp in NZ in the last few years, Fantasy is even more heavily restricted). Also we didn't find out what the missions were until we got there on Saturday morning which was a bit meh.

On the whole it seems comp is finally starting to be scaled back in NZ though. From what I gather the last couple of years or so the average comp scores have been 2/5 which pretty clearly shows the system isn't working properly. There are going to be a couple of no/minimal comp events later in the year which is good to see. Honestly I expect that as soon as we have 1 tournament which runs without comp (which proves to everyone that the game doesn't suddenly explode without it) then quite a few more tournament will drop comp.

Hey man.

I've followed your battle reps for quite a while now and I've even gone back to your old posts from before I joined Dakka. I have to say they're the best written ones I've seen anywhere, and enjoy how they just focus on the important details. Also I've probably learnt more about the game from reading your play style than any 'tactica' out there.

I'm sorry to hear you had such a bad ending to the weekend, and it'll be a shame if you do drop out of the hobby, but you should do whatever makes you happy.

So thanks for all the battle reps - and best of luck with whatever you end up going onto next.

Ga.

Powerguy wrote:@derek. On the whole comp is a much bigger factor in Australia and NZ than it is anywhere else in the world, its something that is basically intrinsically tied to the game here and mostly we just have to live with it as the guys who run tournaments tend to be the same every year (I don't think I've seen a 40k tournament without comp in NZ in the last few years, Fantasy is even more heavily restricted). Also we didn't find out what the missions were until we got there on Saturday morning which was a bit meh.

It's the having to live with it that I just don't get. Maybe the logistics are different, but I would think if enough people had a problem with it and as a group decided to vote with their non attendance to an event or events then the message would sink in that the system isn't just not working, it's having a negative effect on the scene as a whole. There is also organizing non comped events (which it seems someone is doing) to get away from the negative attitudes and the skewing of scores by a small group of individuals.

Either way I wish the people who want to play without that in their tournaments luck.

Thanks for an awesome report, which has definitely inspired me to go back and re-read some of your older ones.

I think you're taking the cheer a bit hard, though I understand what you're talking about re: people rooting against Nadal, etc., and I've certainly seen a similar phenomenon crop up in warhammer when one person goes on a dominating streak.

I do think the organization and rules of this event sound pretty terrible. I may be one of the last defenders of Comp in the United States, but I would never support a system so extreme (3W, 2D, 1L beats six wins?!) so irrational (one of any given named character in the entire tournament?!) and so unfair as this one seems to be. My goodness.

Sucks about losing 1st due to comp :( Your list wasn't really that hard! Thus is why comp is pretty bogus

Either way buddy, grats on 2nd at least

So we've (NZ) just had what looks like it may be one of our biggest natural disasters in history. A huge earthquake has just ripped through christchurch which was already badly earthquake damaged from late last year. Confirmed fatalities but mixed reports on how many - apparently at least 2 busses full of people have been crushed by falling buildings.

Desperately trying to get a hold of friends down there to make sure they're okay... kind of puts things in perspective, that none of all this matters ah?

Sorry about the comp loss and the "cheer." While it seems like you had some great opponents, the missions and final scoring left a lot to be desired.

I never liked the Comp as it so subjective and never ever works out. Best way to make sure that armies are well balanced is to make good, varied missions.

Your reports are always good and I enjoy them. Don't let this get you down. Heck, your army was by far fluffy and dead killy!
You won second by talent, tactics, and sticking to the objective. That, plus your good sports, is what makes you a great player. Keep playing man!


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Jeez. Prayers to you and your loved ones.

Death toll just got confirmed as 65 so far, most collapsed buildings and homes are still to be searched D: will likely finish up much, much higher.

Most friends/family have confirmed they're ok for now. Some injured but nothing serious.

Hey buddy,

Luke here - I came over to see you and introduce myself half way through your game against andy's space wolves, i'd just finished my round over in the WHFB division at the time.

The following monday after the tournament I went around to Dave Dawn's place for a game of 40k (he came 3rd I think with his nids, nice effort) and we had a bit of a yarn about the result.

And then today in my lunch break from work I went across to the mall where the TO of your tournament works and had a discussion with him as well. After work I went over to vagabonds where a friend of mine was on duty, and it turned out doug was playing a game with one of his mates.

After talking to all three of these parties I got a different story each time, so it was interesting to read your own take, but the main point I thought I would chip in to make is that none of the above had anything remotely negative to say about you personally, and the only sentiment over the 'cheer' at your second place seems to be doug's success and really, the drama of an 'upset'. Drama being the key word there.

When I was at the restaurant dinner of the NZ masters touranment last year (of course I was attending for WHFB and not 40K) Pete Dunn's comment about your consistent success in the field was that "the people playing charlie just haven't evolved" which I think says more about the competition than anything else. The way you talk about your batreps makes it seems like people ought to be playing better rather than waiting for someone to overtake you on account of a faulty comp score.

I've recently started playing 40k, and i'm not sure i'll be attending 40k tournaments, but if I do, i'd be dissapointed if you weren't there providing the competition.

- Luke 'Vaul' Brimblecombe