We had 31 players at Ancient Wonders for the semis. 7
GK, 3-4
DE, 2 Eldar, 4-5
SW, 2 Orks, 2-3
BA, 3
IG,
WH,
DA… and the rest vanilla marines, I think? We started referring to the
GK players as brownie-pan marines, since most of ‘em could fit their entire armies in a 9x13 pan.
DarkBloodDeathAngelWing
Belial
Sammael
2x Dreadnought with twin
AC/
DCCW
1x Deathwing w/2x
TH/
SS, 2x TLC,
CF/
HF
3x Deathwing w/2x THSS, 2x TLC,
CML/
TH/
SS
1x 3 Ravenwing w/2 meltaguns, meltabombs,
MM attack bike
1x 3 Ravenwing w/2 meltaguns,
MM attack bike
3x Typhoon w/
MM
3x Vindicator
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Game 1
In the first round I was paired with a local
SW player who I’d also faced off against in the 1st round of the preliminaries. He was running las/
plas razorspam, headed by Njal and a couple thunderlords. Steve’s a great player, so our games typically come right down to the wire. From my side, the table had ruins in the
SW/center/NE, hills in the NW/SE, and a few craters here and there.
Rounds 1-3
Steve won the roll to go first, and took it. He deployed mostly in the center, with fangs in the NE ruins, the NW hill, and the center. His messenger was in a razorback in the center of his parking lot. I deployed 1
CML squad in a crater to the SE, and everything else in a refused flank to the
SW (using the ruin and Sammael’s hoopty for cover).
I popped most of his transports and the fangs to the NW, he popped my typhoons and dreads. I made a couple really stupid mistakes (forgetting to shoot with Sammael against a
de-meched
GH squad, forgetting to assault a lone wolf), but they weren’t critical. Despite plenty of Vindi pie, Steve couldn’t roll less than a 3 for his
TWC’s. The crucial bit came in round 2, when the wolf scouts were able to assault my
RW squad with the messenger. A
DW squad managed to rescue him, and I was able to turbo into Steve’s DZ on turn 3 for the 500
vp.
Rounds 4-6
The second half of the game was a bloodbath, with Steve finally getting his messenger into my DZ on turn 5. At the end of the game, we were within ~ 200
vp, and scored a tie.
Postgame thoughts: with 31 players, a tie essentially took me out of the running for 1st. At this point, I NEEDED two massacres for a shot at the finals.
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Game 2 (table 7)
For the second round, I drew a Draigowing list. 10 pally’s w/Draigo and a librarian, 5 more pally’s in a SR, 5 purifiers in a SR, and a dreadknight. Of note, the 5-man pally squad and SR were painted in a rainbow colored, My Little Pony scheme. Yes, you read that correctly. There was a large hill in the center, ringed with a mix of craters and low hills.
Rounds 1-6
Given that my opponent didn’t combat squad Draigo’s unit, and I won the roll, this game was a no-brainer. He elected to go all reserves, and was shocked when I did the same. Vindicators, melta, & missiles vs paladins and stormravens = massacre for me. We finished in under 40 minutes.
Postgame thoughts: well, I couldn’t have asked for a better matchup. Unfortunately, the game ended on 5, so I only managed to snag 1 bonus point. On the upside, I believe that only 2 or 3 tables managed a massacre with the 2nd mission. I figured I’d need to get a perfect score in the 3rd game to stay in the running.
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Game 3 (Table 4)
The last round was against Ron’s dark elder.
IIRC, he was running two vanilla haemonculi, 2 raiders full of wyches, 3 or 4 raiders with warriors, 3 blasterborn in Venoms, 2 squads of reavers with cluster caltrops, 2 Ravagers, and a Razorwing. The table had a fairly even distribution of ruins, craters, and trenches.
Rounds 1-2
I won the roll and gave Ron turn 1. He deployed everything but his troop choices and the Razorwing, ready for the alpha. I deployed one
CML in ruins, with the typhoons and dreads hiding behind it. I put one
RW squad behind some trenches, and held everything else in reserve. I scouted the bikes out of
LOS behind ruins, and failed to seize. Ron killed the bikes (but not the attack bike) with cluster caltrops, and tried to move everything else out of missile range. I deathwing assaulted with the other two
CML squads, and between those and the typhoons, managed to blow up the razorwing and half of his transports on my first turn.
Rounds 3-6
Ron rolled for the victory conditions… and it came up
KP. With that, the game was mine. We called the game after turn 5, as I had a 7 or 8
KP lead with no way for him to recover. Massacre to me. I didn’t manage to kill either haemonculi, though, so I only scored 3 bonus points.
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IG took 1st, Witchhunters(!) took 2nd, and with a total of 55 battle points, I managed to take 3rd!
I'm going....somewhere! 4th thru 6th place had 54, 53 and 52 points, respectively, so I was pretty darned happy with my performance overall.
Obviously, I had a great time at the tournament. I would have like to see some actual judging (we were told to settle rules disputes between ourselves, at the start of the day), but I only heard of one player that made it an issue...
All told, it was a great experience. If I lived closer to Tualatin, Ancient Wonders could easily be my
FLGS. Huzzahs all around.
I think a pure Deathwing with Vindicator backup would be a good one too