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The thing is in this situation you can play for the draw and win on VP's. The landraider and it's contents are worth about 600. Knowing that purifiers struggle with av14 and the fact it's worth so much then just keeping it alive can be a game winner.

Okay all, here is the battle report:

Capture & Control (Again - they wanted to roll each game instead of play each of the three missions - meh)

Initiative to Evil Grey Knights (i.e. not me hehe - he rolled a 6 to my 1)

Description, he put most of his forces to his right, along with objective...my objective was in my right corner, so he put his landraider and deathstar to his left, as well as on razorback (psyback) and on purifier squad.

I deploy my entire army on my right..farthest is over to the middle in case i want to push for his objective or concentrate on taking out his deathstar and squad...

First Turn, he proceeds to explode my red Rhino with Strike Squad and my right most haminator squad :( - not looking good for my mobility... aslso, to my surprise, he pulls his land raider back to his table edge. This is basically the strategy Luke was thinking for him to do...

Lukus83 wrote:The thing is in this situation you can play for the draw and win on VP's. The landraider and it's contents are worth about 600. Knowing that purifiers struggle with av14 and the fact it's worth so much then just keeping it alive can be a game winner.

The thing is, 3 vendreads + 10 psycannons will outlive and outshoot 2 regular psyflemans and 3 razorbacks + 8 psycannons. While Mark's opponent is destroying rhinos (because he won't easily kill vendreads at all), Mark is destroying razors and normal dreads, thus diminishing his opponent's ability to wage a war of attrition from range. Yes, the LR will probably survive, but the rest of the army will be too thoroughly depleted from all of Mark's shooting. That's why his opponent should advance. You fight the fight you can win. In this case, his opponent won't win the shooting match because his army isn't really optimized for it as Mark's army is. As you say, a huge portion of his army - 600pts of it - is meant to close in on the enemy, not sit at a distance to trade shots.

sorry for not posting right away - network problems yesterday..

So - we finished up at his turn..

My turn 1 shooting -

Crowe moved away - he is now out of the fight and i moved my SS into the Razorback - i think it is more important for them to be mobile than for Crowe to be.

2 left ven dreads immobilize and knock out the weaons on two lazbacks (one t/l laz one las and t/l plasma) - i didn't destroy them, whcih was dissapointing considering the number of pens, but...they are effectively out of the game.

On the right, my ven drad shot at his psyback..just stunned it; my psyback knocks out 1 purifier from the squad... rest of rhinos and troops advance to close in to get psycannon shots on the LR.

His Turn 2 - he shoots at my ven dreads with both his dreadnoughts (no cover for me as i want them to give cover to the more vulnerable psyback) and he wrecks another of my rhinos...other than that...quick turn...

My Turn 2 -

Purifiers move forward to shoot at his LR; My right Ven dred explodes his Psyback... My dreads wrecks one of his dreads...that is about it... got a few results on the LR, but just 1's and 2's

Turn 3 for him

Blasts both arms off one of my ven dread (i think very lucky ) and starts to go after some of my troops with his troops and his LR's heavy bolter... he also stuns some of my Rhinos

My turn 3...

So, i lost the arms on one dread - basically he is mobile cover now - i don't think he will shoot at him any more as their are other more dangerous threaths. at this point the game gets pretty boring - we just trade shots.. I do manage to wipe out his purifier squad this turn on his left side.

I will say this - He got lucky with his land raider as my dice rolls were just horrible...you will see what i mean later.

Turn 4...

He surprises me by disembarking one of his purifier squads from the razor back and puts them into position to engage me...

He then immobilizes my dread with guns :(

At one point, maybe this turn he blows off and immobilzes my right most dread as well (may have been immobilized earlier

My turn 4 - same as before - this time i wreck his other Lazback and shoot at the purifiers in the crater...

again not much going on... just a turkey shoot

Turn 5 - okay so here my opponent really surprises me...how might you ask... he dissembarks from his LR to shoot at my squad... umm okay.

I would love to poll you all on this to see if you would havfe done this...i would not have...

he did shoot my purifiers...may have killed one guy...

not much else, he knocks off the other gun of my immobilized dread - yep i have 3 ven dreads at this point 1) no guns, 2) no guns can't move; 3) 1 gun can't move.

but all still only half VPs

My turn five - potentially the end of the game...i know we are going on VPs so...

I want to move my two squads (one in razorback, 1 in rhino - i.e. one SS and one PS) up to shoot at his purifiers - the rest of my army is going to try and shoot his deathstar to get below half as i think that will be easier than taking out his LR...

I do still have on eunit that shoots at the LR as they cant draw LOS to the deathstart --- i knock out two Las cannons off LR -

drum roll ----------------- on to turn 6

his is very quick...although his squad in the crater shoot at my purifiers - kill 4!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

his death star kills off one guy in one of my 3 man purifiers squads, now he gets half points...and he gets my other squad below half too...

So, I have 3 purifier squads below half, 1 purifier okay, 2 Strike squads okay, 2 exlpoded rhinos, 1 wrecked rhino, 1 immobilized no gun rhino, and 3 half ven dreds....

and in my turn I................


.............. kill the rest of his deathstar......including inquisitor

... his purifiers in crater lose two more (half points)...

... knock of the other ing gun from his Land Raider

He lost 1 full purifiers, 1 half purifier, half a LR, Death Star Purifiers, Inqisitor, 2 half lasbacks, 1 full las back, 1 dread...


DRAW!!!!!!!!!!!!


Now we go to VPs.... I gave up about 610 pts or he gave up just over 1,000 pts. I think over 350 pts is a Major Victory in old ways.

Going back to him getting out of the LR with his Deathstar - that gave me a lot of points, around 300 i think...would have been much closer game if he had not, although you never know as he may not have gotten my two squads to below half and i could have shot even more at the LR...one more weapon destroyed or immobilized would have FINALLY wrecked it.





Automatically Appended Next Post:
sorry, i think it is just victory...

Anyway, next game (Finals) is against DiuDiu, who plays Blood Angels.

Not sure of her list or if it is here, but as far as i recall it is:

2 Land Raiders (grrrr)
1 Storm Raven
Mephiston
Librarian
DC Dred
3 scout bikes
and some troops...

1 Landraider is manageable - 2 will be very tough. Also, 2 librarians should gimp my psychic powers...

Will post those games when they occur. I think our first game will be Monday

If he was planning on a firefight with you, I would have dumped off his guys much earlier, as in Turn 1. Advance the LR 12" and then drop off his purifiers. As a matter of fact, I would've also advanced the razors 6" and then dropped off their guys as well. Then he would've had a chance to do some damage in the shootout with full use of all his psycannons and vehicles, meanwhile making target priority a bigger problem for you. With his guys in the transports, target prioritization was very easy. Shoot the razors and dreads. Then shoot the infantry and the LR.

That's the only way he could've won this firefight.

I have to agree with jy2. Unloading his guys while his transports were operational would have given him a big advantage. He could have popped a lot more vehicles and started hurting infantry earlier. Although I'm surprised he split his deployment that way. Having everything working in tandem and supporting each other would have helped him a lot more.

I got lazy and just did the report in photos - so will load them here...

Next set

Another

Another

A

More text here so it is not considered "spammy"

Wow, I'm shocked! BA actually beat the GK's? What is this world coming to.

Diu Diu seems like a very good player, but if I was playing her army, I would have probably been more aggressive. Instead of hanging back the 2 LR's and furioso, I would've aggressively advance them to put more pressure on you, rather than to let your take your sweet time shooting down my vehicle and getting into position.

Then again, I'm still not quite sure how she managed to win, but I guess that just means you have to work harder next game.

Heh, that same issue. Land Raider moving into psycannon range doubles the shots of the psycannon? There isn't really much of note inside those LR's, she takes them as durable fire platforms and plays them as such. Good use of corbellos reroll IMO, that potentially was the game.

Diudiu is a careful defensive player, she has a good feel for when to hold stuff back and when to release it that has her in the finals. She is very careful wiuth model placement to prevent LOS, get cover saves etc. (can take some time heh).

Good luck tonight Mark, if you win I will come and watch the decider.

Might bring popcorn.

DiuDiu is a very good player. My guess is she planned ahead to turn 5/6/7 straight from the start. She didn't want you to rush headlong at her with everything so she gave you the side with 2 objectives. That's now 2 units of psycannons that wouldn't be advancing. She then takes her sweet time eliminating stuff, goes to contest turn 5 with very little left in your army that can actually damage landraiders. If the game goes to VPs she probably gets the win due to having 2 completely functional landraiders.

I know it didn't quite work out like that but did you end up leaving some psycannons out of the fight to hold objectives?


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Lots of use of the word landraider there...

@ Jy2 - it was a Draw - not a loss ... and actually if you look at the end I lost it...tank shocking the squad allowed her to move corbolo close enough to my objective (I think) still very close

@ Luke - No, actually the two objectives were in the middle, i had range on everything most of the game. While Mephiston was there, he was my target, not the Land Raiders.

I did have the one psycannon reserve squad meant to contest/take her objective...maybe i should have used them to beef up the two i already had...

She is good though and it was a fun game. Tonight we play again. Should be interesting.

and yes Luke, 2 landraiders are tough for me to deal with. especially with Mephiston and a furiouso running around...and a storm raven. She has a lot of very goo dthings in fact...damn.

If I were her, I would have also rushed me - she can overlaod me with so many threats i can't do much...then again, she played her way and damn...did pretty well. But i think with Mephiston and a furiouso in my lines i would get wiped out.

Well good luck tonight anyway. Maybe she will try something different tonight though I doubt it. As craig said she is a very conservative player.

Let me know how it works out.


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Also you might wanna confirm with yang about the draw/loss situation, just to be safe you know.

mray01 wrote:@ Jy2 - it was a Draw - not a loss ... and actually if you look at the end I lost it...tank shocking the squad allowed her to move corbolo close enough to my objective (I think) still very close

Oh, sorry. I thought that in the case of a draw, they use VP's to determine the winner.

In any case, good luck in game #2. I think your army should be able to take on hers.

So,

Played the final game last night - mission was multiple objectives Dawn of War. There were five objectives.

She reserved her entire army, I went first.

I had two turns of nothing to do - she got so luck where virtually her entire army came on the board her turn 2 (all but the razorback and Dreadnought).

Advantage was to me the first 3 real game turns. I was winning 3 objectives to 1 by end of turn 5. Unfortunately i she was avoiding the hell out of Crowe with Mephiston, i did get one chance to tie mephiston up but failed my difficult terrain test :( . Any case, he was a beast and pretty was going from squad to squad...i just can't survive that many attacks with my squads of five guys. His land raiders did a good enough job popping enough transports for mephiston to just reach havoc (turn 4, 5, 6) .

By the end of the match she held 2 objectives to my 1... I was actually about 1/8 of an inch away from one of her objectives with an immobilized rhino...if it was just a bit closer it would have been a draw

Sorry, i have pictures but only through the first couple of turns. The only bad experience is the game went from 7:45 - 11:00 PM She is just such a slow player it gets really irritating. She checks LOS from every one of my units to every one of her units each turn. A good player, but can use a bit of speeding up.

So, Monday 1/4 of an inch gave her a draw and kept me from winning, in this game 1/8 of an inch kept me from getting the draw.

Overall - i noticed that I have strong units, but against mephiston and Land Raiders it is very tough. These three units (and most of her points) are just too durable and Mephiston can just wreck me. Even the warding stave squads - 4 guys dead her turn, my turn, the other dies...

Overall, very fun though and for coming in second i picked up a new skyray/devilfish for my tau army and a Dreadknight for my GK (figured i woudln't buy a dreadnight and this is basically free so...)


Thanks all for reading the blog and I look forward to next time...maybe even play my marines in the next tournamnet.

Mark


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh, and going back a month - the first time i saw DiuDiu's list i felt it was tailored to beat mine. That fact still remains i think, both games were still very good though.

Sucks on the loss, but coming in 2nd is still pretty great. It also means the pressure is off for next year since she is now the defending champion.

I'm already working on next years list (just need 18 IG meltaguns and it will all be purchased).

So yeah dude, congrats on coming 2nd and looking forward to some gaming soon. Might be able to make some games in the holiday coming up. Will call if I'm free. Try and get Lilian to hang out with Candy since she is feeling a little low with all the pains pregnancy brings.