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Hi there,

the ramblings below chronicle the tactical wardolly shenanigans that took place during the 6th Liber Animus tournament, over in not so sunny Melbourne. Whilst overall numbers were down somewhat this year, it did mean that the 5 kiwi's we had brought over would comprise 10% of the field, and some very skilled players who I had been hanging out to play for years now, but always somehow had wound up dodging would be in attendance.

After choking last year in the final round and coming in 5th, I decided that that wasn't actually all that bad, so my mantra for the weekend would consist of crossing my fingers and whispering "please not worse than last year" again and again in my head.
After winning 900 odd points worth of orks at a couple of different tournaments last year, my next army had been somewhat decided for me, so I would be bringing some very Swedish looking orks (whilst lacking the blonde hair and buxom bosoms, they were wearing the Swedish national colours with pride).

The list I took is as follows:

Warboss - Power Klaw, Eavy Armour, Attack Squig, Bosspole, Cybork Body, Kombi Skorcha - 125 Big Mek - Burna, Kustom Force Field, Bosspole - 110 14 Lootas - 210 30 Shoota Boyz - 3 Big Shootas, Nob, Power Klaw, Bosspole - 235 11 Gretchin - 1 Runtherder - 43 8 Meganobs - Kombi Rokkit, 2 Kombi Skorchas, Battlewagon, Reinforced Ram, Boarding Plank, Big Shoota, Armour Plates - 450 12 Slugga Boyz - Nob, Power Klaw, Bosspole, Trukk, Reinforced Ram, Boarding Plank - 157 30 Shoota Boyz - 3 Big Shootas, Nob, Power Klaw, Bosspole - 235 4 Deffkoptas - Twin Linked Big Shootas, 1 Buzzsaw - 165 3 Killa Kans - Grotzookas - 135 3 Killa Kans - Grotzookas - 135

Practice games down here in Shebangabang land had been going somewhat tough, everybody was proving capable of taking out a single av14 vehicle with av12 side armour (it doesn't take a rocket surgeon to set up side armour shots on that fatty), sneezing at a trukk (which always, ALWAYS kills 2/3 of the squad in the resulting explosion), and 60 boyz just wasn't proving to be enough to stick around, whilst their anti terminator strategies were proving to be doubly good at removing my megascaredycats who seemed to rather enjoy the skill involved in running clean off the table.
In saying that, I was managing to hang in there for several very close wins through tactical use of strong swear words squeezed through clenched teeth, so it was going to have to do. Swapping armies with opponents had revealed some very strong weaknesses that I would just have to hope my opponents didn't pick up on, whilst I would do my best to minimise the effect.

So with all prep done, we were off to the beautiful free range prison that is Australia, staying at the fabulous 5 star "Waltzing Matilda" in the very suave high end suburb of Springvale. For those that don't know Melbourne very well, replace "5 star" with "rat hole" and "suave high end" with "the white trash equivalent of Compton". Shortly before leaving, I had been contacted by the other half of the NZ contingent, letting us know that as one of their girlfriends was hospitalised and would not make the flight, they would also be staying with us in the VIP suites at the waltzing. Naturally before leaving, I spread the word, but may have changed the reasoning to be some what more HIV related.

Shortly after arriving in Melbourne, we discovered that Hagen had decided that the challenges set out for us already were not nearly entertaining enough, so had hired us a miniature clown car known as a Hyundai Getz for us, our luggage, and our armies, to get to the event. WOOHEY! The upside to this is that as there was no light in the front seat, I both got to call shotgun, and didn't have to navigate, which is fortunate as I am clinically brain dead when it comes to map reading. Never the less, without Pete Dunn and his humorous lack of eyesight attending to distract us with false directions, we made it to the venue in record time - where I got stuck into a meal consisting of the worlds biggest steak, and the worlds smallest lobster. Hayden with all his diving experience was fortunately on hand to educate me on how to eat a lobster of such small stature, in-between explaining to various Aussies that his girlfriend just had dodgy kidneys, not full blown HIV.
Many beers later we were set for round 1!

Round 1.. FIGHT!

Round 1 was going to be, in true Liber fashion, a grudge match. After calling him out online, and referring to him as a colossal lady part, I had promised to be tender, and as such the bait was set. Conor then proceeded to challenge me, and set about taking a tyranid list that could stick it to me. Conor's a particularly lovely chap who I had drunkenly heckled with during the last Liber prize giving, and I had been wanting to play him for quite some time.

Mission: Secure and Control
Deployment: Pitched Battle

Conor had:
Combat Flyrant Combat Tyrant with 2 Tyrant Guard (lash whips hooooo!) Combat Carnifex 6 or 7 warriors with a barbed strangler and deathspitters 8 stealers with flesh hooks, scuttling and extra armour 8 stealers with feeder tendrils and extra armour 8 stealers with implant attack and extra armour 14 hormagaunts with a whole lot of toys, super hormies. unit of ~16 termagaunts (may have been a bit smaller). Carnifex with barbed strangler and venom cannon Carnifex with barbed strangler and Twin Linked death spitter

Conor won the roll for first turn, and set up pretty much in one half of the table, keeping everything close together. I set up across from him, and there was quite a bit of terrain in the centre of the table, which I was more than happy with. Not only would I be getting liberal amounts of 4+ cover, but with so much stuff not having flesh hooks, I could spend a lot of time sitting back shooting, letting myself get assaulted and still going first. Still, with having the first turn, some good runs would see Conor controlling the centre of the table, which is never a good start! I turbo boosted my koptas up on the right flank, to be able to plink off stealers here and there, then rolled that magic little dice for seizing the initiative....

BOOYA, 6! I had been very worried about the sheer destructive power of the venom cannon against my battle wagon, so to get that extra turn of movement would mean that Conor would have one turn at taking it out before it was spreading its yellow spiky seeds into conors line.

Ork Turn 1:
I pushed a unit of shoota boyz up on my left and right flanks, through terrain, but getting max movement for them both. The vehicles drove right up the guts, with the kans running behind trying to keep within the KFF field. I pushed the kopters further down the right flank, keeping them close to max range, to try peel away one of the carnifexes to deal with them.

The koptas opened up on the implant attack stealers, killing 3, whilst the boys squads both ran 5 and 6 inches, the kans not far behind with runs of 4 and 5. The lootas opened up and did a single wound to the gunfex, whilst the trukk big shoota killed another 2 stealers from the same squad. As I was within charge range of the hormies now, I ensured the boyz squad across from them had all their closest models in difficult terrain, meaning that if that squad came in for the charge, it first was going to wear 30 orks hitting them in the face.

Tyranid Turn 1:
Conor took the deffkopta bait and pushed a carnifex off towards them. The fex with guard also pushed off that way, so that it was segregated from the rest of the list, and across from 30 orks and their kanular friends. Behind in obvious counter assault position however, was the squad of stealers I hadnt molested.
The 3 remaining stealers I had put the hurt on moved to hide behind some terrain, whilst the flyant pushed up a little but still safely behind the bulk of the army. His combat fex moved and ran to be somewhat in the way, whilst his gaunts spread to make a protective screen in front of the warriors.
The hormies moved ahead to take on the ork boyz in cover ahead of them, and it was onto shooting.

The deffkoptas lost one to a barbed strangler, passing their moral but were pinned. The battlewagon survived with only a "may not shoot" to its name, with a very small handful of boyz from each squad dying. In the assault phase the hormies hit the boyz, rolled high enough for their difficult terrain, but were nearly wiped out, resulting in losing combat by enough to finish the squad. A big consolidate meant that these boyz were now eyeing up the flyrant hungrily.

Ork Turn 2:
The trukk boyz rocked up to take on the combat fex, the meganobs positioned themselves so that their kombi skorchas could cause some havoc to both the warriors and the gaunts, whilst the kans pushed up to take care of those lovely bunched stealers behind the tyrant and guard. The 30 man mob next to the flyrant moved up to take it on, whilst the other 30mob moved to take on the walking tyrant. My grots arrived from reserve, and snuck into some terrain near my objective to hold it and go to ground as/if required.

The kans opened up first, completely killing the stealers. Next came the meganobs, clearing half the gaunt squad and killing a couple of warriors. The other kan squad then finished off the gaunt squad, and took down another warrior. The lootas again had a big pile of suck and did nothing. The 30 man mob fired on the flyrant, making a whole lot of noise and doing nothing at all, whilst the other 30 man mob managed to kill a tyrant guard.
In the following assault, the flyrant was brought down to 1 wound left, whilst the last guard and tyrant were killed.
The combat carnifex was dealt 2 wounds, but won the kombat - the orks hanging on for now.

Tyranid Turn 2:
The scuttling stealers showed up, and rocked in to bail out the flyrant. the warriors stumbled forward to bail out the combat carnifex, whilst the carnifex sitting at his back eyed up the grots, the other doubled back for the meganobs.
Shooting saw 3 grots die, with a passed moral check, whilst the meganobs were left unscathed, with 1 wound going on the warboss. The warriors came in and did some damage to the boyz, as did the combat fex, whilst only wound wound was dealt back, leaving it on 1. 1 warrior was also killed, meaning the few boyz left hung around for another phase, annoyingly.
The stealers cleaned out the ork boyz against the flyrant so badly, and the nob failing to bring it down, that they ran away and were chased down, whoops.
The 3 stealers left alive from the first turn moved to take out the warboss, with a narrow enough gap meaning that 2 of them could get in contact with him. As the warboss had taken a wound, only 1 would be required to sneak past the gate before implant attack would double it. Sure enough thats exactly what happened! The stealers were killed, and a consolidate slingshotted them towards the flyrant.

Ork turn 3:
The 30 man mob still alive went for the fex shooting the koptas, well the koptas brought in their buzz saw to help out.
The meganobz moved to take out the flyrant and the warriors in a multi charge, and the kans moved to take out what stealers were left.
Shooting was miserable this turn, with only a couple of the last stealers being shot. The lootas, in a pattern you're becoming all to familiar with, shot at the flyrant, and did nothing. At this point Conor remembered he had a 2+ save, we couldn't remember how many failed saves had been 1's and how many had been 2's, so we restored him to full wounds.
Combat saw the big ork mob and koptas hit the carnifex with strangler and spitters, whilst the meganobs hit flyrant and warriors (go go gadget multicharge!). The flyrant was killed in fairly quick order, as were the warriors, the combat fex was finished off by the power klaw, and we decided to call it there, as the other fex was a gonner, meaning that Conor only had 3 stealers and a wounded fex left.

A win was worth 14 points, a draw 10 and a loss 6, whilst there were 6 bonus points up for grabs;
- Killing their most expensive HQ
- Killing their most expensive unit
- Breaking their army (reducing to 25% or less of models)
- Having a scoring unit in their deployment zone
- having no scoring units in your deployment zone
- Completing the mission objective totally (in this case, capturing both objectives).

I managed to walk with full points, whilst conor only got the point for the general, meaning the game had finished 20-7.

Conor and I had a bit of a chat about just how big the siezing the initiative had been, coupled with the hormie through cover situation, and it was time for food! The bowles club puts on a good ole fashioned aussie barbie, but it was hard to enjoy it, as the MacDonalds we had for breakfest had left me feeling like a reindeer had taken a dump in my stomach :(

Round 2!

I normally hate winning the first game big, as it usually drastically increases the chance of getting a very hard game. This was going to be no exception, After stuffing my face, the round was called out and I was to be playing someone who I had a huge amount of respect for, Ben Llewellyn. Ben has a reputation as a solid player, who is the nicest guy you'll ever play, produces gorgeous looking armies, and is usually a comp rolemodel to boot.

I had been hanging out to play him since I first came across him at KF in Melbourne back in 2007, so was stoked I would finally get to have this match up! Not to mention, his round 1 20 point pantsing of an opponent was in a grudge against one of my Kiwi contingent, so there was some revenge to be had!

Mission: Sieze Ground
Deployment: Dawn of War

Ben Had:

Terminator lord with daemon weapon 5 termies with a heavy flamer and some combi flamers dread with multimelta and heavy flamer ~10 beserkers in a rhino (it may have been 8) 10 Chaos marines in a rhino with 2 meltas ~10 posessed with icon of Khorne in a rhino 10 Chaos marines on foot 10 Lesser Daemons 10 Lesser Daemons 3 Obliterators

Ben won the roll for first turn, and made me go first - relying on the nightfight and knowing where to position his stuff. Again, sitting across from 3 oblits I was all too happy to give my battle wagon that extra turn of get up and go, and set up my 2 units of 30 boyz interspersed across the table to push back any of Bens units that were going to set up on the table.
Ben set up just a rhino with a squad in it, on my right flank. His Posessed rolled up Fleet and we were good to go!

Ork Turn 1:
My truk drove on 18, and the battle wagon 12. The Kans walked on and ran in behind them, keeping within the forcefield, whilst my boys scrummaged forward somewhat. The lootas filled in the back field, and the grots moved in to claim some objectives late in game, hiding behind a building. One of the boyz shot at the rhino with their big shootas, but a whole lot of nothing was achieved. My kopters turbo boosted on fairly centrally, ready to respond to where ever they needed to go.

Chaos Turn 1:
Bens Oblits came on on my extreme left flank, his dread came on behind a hill, and the other 2 rhinos full of beserkers and posessed drove into the centre of the table, turning sideways and popping smoke. The foot squad came into some terrain on my right flank, and his rhino that had deployed pushed further up my flank.
A big night fight fail saw no shooting take place.

Ork Turn 2:
My Trukk pushed forward a little further, I had the charge range if I needed it to go assault a rhino, but that would be a colossal waste of an otherwise good squad. Instead I brought everything in line in the middle of the table. I initially started moving my big boy squads closer, ready for some rhino assault, all whilst saying "this is a mistake" over and over in my head. A practice game recently really tought me not to take lesser daemons against orks lightly, when in big enough numbers. Instead Ben and I had a quick chat about the real threat range of a lesser daemon squad (14-15 inches depending on the unit size), and instead I made sure I was outside of this range on my right. I was inside it with the squad on my left, but that would mean the daemons coming through cover, which should result in me winning.
Shooting was somewhat pitiful, I did one wound to an obliterator with the deffkoptas, but on the other hand, half the loota squad could see the beserkers rhino. They rolled a 2 for their shots, hit 8 times out of 14, and proceeded to get 5 pens and a glance.. wow, just wow! The 5 penetrating dice then rolled 5 5's, a quick cry of "Yahtzee" and the beserkers were walking. As I still had a lot of units to shoot, including the kans, Ben had to pop them out the back of the vehicle, lest half the squad evaporate. As it stood, some big shootas killed off 2 more beserkers, and the ork turn was done.

Chaos Turn 2:
Bens termies deepstruck into the centre of the table, in a position where they could flame my big unit of orks on the left who were in cover...whoops. Next to them a daemon squad popped out, moved ready to assault that same squad, and the posessed hopped out of their rhino and fleeted, ready to assault my trukk. The dread rolled fire frenzy, and the beserkers moved forward, ready to take the candy the dread was about to give them. The rhino on my right moved forward a bit more, close enough to unleash some daemon madness, but far enough away to not be threatened, whilst the foot squad ambled up through terrain some more.
The termies flamers took care of enough orks to remove those in range of the daemon assault, but this also meant they were no longer in 4+ cover. 3 Oblit plasma cannons later, there were about 13 very worried orks shaking in their boots (fortunately the big meks KFF had saved a lot, or I would be looking at a lot less!).
The posessed burst through the terrain into the trukk, but only stopped it from shooting. Meanwhile, this left them perfectly bunched up with the other units in the centre of the table.

Ork Turn 3:
When you're facing someones entire army bunched up in charge range of your entire army, what more can you do, but cram it full of templates and assault whats left?
The front kan squad would be in range of the posessed, and pushed forward. The trukk got out of their way, tank shocking through to pop out the back - 1 failed death or glory later, and they were out back ready to assault, with 1 less posessed to kill!
The untouched 30 man mob bunched up near them, far enough away to not get hit by templates, but close enough to assault after a waagh.
The meganobs drove up and got out infront of the termies, with a wide enough frontage to link nearly the entire thing if they needed, whilst the 13 orks on my left moved up to do hardly anything to the khorne beserkers.
The grotzookas opened up, as did the heavy flamers from the meganobs, and once all that dust had settled, there were 2 daemons, 6 posessed (who had lost their icon), 2 terminators (losing their chain fist) and a lord. I then shot the beserkers with my little 13 ork squad, and killed all but 1 beserker... what... the....frick. The deffkoptas fired again on the obliterators and did another wound, killing one off finally.
In the assault that followed, the remaining daemons, posessed, termies and chaos lord were wiped out.
The consolidation meant that I was able to now move to threaten what was left, and a big consolidate from the meganobs saw them slingshot towards the dread.

Chaos Turn 3: Bens turn 3 promtply started by a 2 for the daemons to show up, and another fire frenzy for the dreadnaught. As he was now looking at double shooting his multi melta into the 2 remaining obliterators, Ben had to beeline a rhino right at him.
Bens rhino moved forward a bit more, ready to unleash daemons next turn, but not enough to get hit once again.
Ben then killed 2 koptas with the oblits (who proceeded to run like chickens), the multi meltas only managed to stun the rhino, and the trukk was wrecked. The lone beserker charged the trukk boys, killing a few, but being power klawed and slingshotting the squad towards his rhino with troops in it.

Ork Turn 4: The meganobs went forward and ate the dread, failing to pop the rhino in the combined assault. The koptas unloaded on the oblits, doing 4 wounds, which Ben proceeded to fail 3 saves (this rolling was starting to form a pattern :/!).
What was left of the trukk boyz went for the rhino, and the lootas immobilised it so that they would auto hit. The kans took a weapon off it, so that minimal effort was required from the trukk boys. Half the foot squad were shot to death, and the rhino was destroyed by the trukk boyz.

Chaos turn 4: the foot squad hopped out, and moved to shoot some boyz. The trukk boyz were reduced to just a wounded nob, and some minimal other casualties were done. The lone oblits lascannon missed, and it was allready onto turn 5.

Ork turn 5: The meganobs and remaining boyz from my decimated boyz squad ate the rhino, a whole lot of shooting bounced off the last oblit, and both marine squads left were reduced to about 3 guys left. I position the nob on 1 wound left in the perfect spot to deny the daemons a comfortable deepstrike. A wild grotzooka scatter fixes that problem for ben, exploderating him.

Chaos turn 5: The daemons show up right in the freshly created hole, but by now I've hidden everything enough that guys are going to have to go through cover. They come into the mostly untouched boyz squad, and are wiped out.

Ork turn 6: the last ~6 marines are killed, and the koptas finally get their man.

Game finishes 20-6.
Everything that could go right for me, did this game dice wise, and everything that could go wrong, did for bens rolling. Wether it be a small handfull of orks wiping out beserkers with shooting, or his dreadnaught clearly playing on my side, the dice stacked this thing pretty badly.
In saying that it was great to finally play Ben, and his army really did look outstanding, it was easily on my list of armies to vote for come beauty pageant time, and Ben took the dice like a champ.
With decent rolling, and some not total crap from me, Ben had the stuff to wipe out both boy squads through large daemon assaults and beserkers doing what beserkers do, to which I would have to respond with meganobs vs the beserkers. From there, that would leave them nice and plasma cannonable from the oblits, and it would be on like donkey kong.

Well, into game 3 we go!

At this stage I was quite stoked with where I was sitting BP wise. I had had some fantastic luck, though I was worrying that it must be due to run out any second now.

Upon getting to my third game, I met Ben Clarke for the first time. Ben had been up all night painting and hadn't gotten to bed yet. He would have finished with plenty of time to spare, but one of the people he was painting with had jacked his good brush, and mixed red into his white! Unless he wanted to be drybrushing pink instead of painting fine white markings, he had to do the mad search which took hours of compromises. If you're the meany that did this, I guess I owe you a thanks, Ben was very tired and it showed!

Mission: Sieze ground-esque, it had 10 objectives.
Deployment: Spearhead

Ben had:

A tyrant with Venom Cannon and Twin Linked Devourers 3 or 4 warriors with deathspitters and a barbed strangler and scything talons ~6 warriors with rending claws, scything talons 8 Scuttling Genestealers 16 gaunts without number 16 gaunts without number ~10 hormagants with a few upgrades ~10 hormagants with a few upgrades 6 Rippers with strength and Weapon Skill upgrades 5 Raveners with deathspitters Super mega ultra combat Carnifex of omgimgoingtoeatyourmeganobsdoom Carnifex with Venom Cannon and Barbed Strangler 3 Zoanthropes, warpblast, synapse

The mission had 10 objectives, and with my squad sizes, it was going to benefit me greatly to have them spaced as closely as possible. Each time Ben placed one, I would place mine forming a central box with it, so that the bulk were as closely spaced in the middle of the table as possible. A big central scrum was going to work out massively in my favour, so with my objective placing, I managed to force exactly that.

In something that was becoming all too familiar, I lost the roll for first turn, and this time Ben elected to take it, drat! my battle wagon and trukk should expect some pain.

Ben set up his tyrant, shooting carnifex and warriors in a large thick forest near the front of his line, with a unit of gaunts spread wide infront of them to shield them somewhat. His warriors were behind ready to counter assault, and his shooty warriors/raveners were positioned to shoot over this line with their template madness. The hormies plopped down on the extreme of each flank, whilst his other unit of gaunts was on my extreme right flank, where 2 objectives had managed to hide.

I set up my lootas where they could not get genestealer outflanked, had my battle wagon and trukk central, maximising force field and leaving room for both vehicles passengers to hop out should they get burst like I was preparing myself for, and the boyz behind the kans for some 4+ loving from all those templates. I turbo boosted up my kopters to be out of shooting range, but able to move out of genestealer range in their first turn, and also in position to threaten those hormie units that scare me so much.

I really wanted to sieze the initiative here, but sadly it was not to be, and Ben rolled out like an autobot into his first turn.

Nids turn 1:
Bens tyrant and shooting fex stomped forward, importantly - he had his shooting fex's base half sticking out of the forest. The gaunts were still spread wide infront of them, whilst the hormies on the right pushed up with the gaunts. The hormies on my left backed off into terrain, ready to do a turn 2 assault, but have cover for turn 1. The warriors all moved up, but I wasnt going to be able to get LOS to the combat ones.
The templates killed about 10 orks from one squad, whilst the venom cannon only glanced the battle wagon - I failed the cover save, but ben then rolled poorly and only stopped it from shooting. 2 lootas died in the explodey fray, and that was the nid turn over.

Ork turn 1:
I felt like I had been gifted a massive boon here, the only thing that was really scaring me for my battle wagon was that venom cannon fex, however Ben had put him easily in charge range of the trukk boyz, and in a way where I could use that gaunt screen as free wounds. If I wanted to get the tyrant involved in this as well though, I was going to need to go through cover which would be too risky. I promptly drove up and unloaded my trukk boyz.
The kans stomped up, and prepared to drop some templates. The boyz moved up as well, but I was careful to string one of the units far enough back that if the genestealers came on from my left edge, I could turn 2 assault them using a waagh and get them before they threatened my backline. My kopters came up out of stealer range, and eyed up some tasty hormies, a shame about them being in cover. The battle wagon trundled forth, satisfied that it would now be safe for one more turn.
This shooting phase was massive, the kans on the right opened up on the gaunts, placing the template as close as I could get it to the hormies. This managed to kill half the hormie squad, and exactly 15 of the 16 gaunts, meaning no refresh this turn.
The lootas opened up on the hive tyrant, and did 3 of the 4 wounds. At that point I had to go for it with the koptas, and they took the last wound from the tyrant.
The kans on my left took out some ripper bases, half the hormie unit, and a warrior, whilst some of the big shootas finished off the hormies on my right.
The trukk boyz went in, set up so the power klaw would contact the fex, whilst the rest of the boyz would contact termies. They proceeded to lose a couple of boyz, wipe out the termagaunts and win the combat by 15... 15 saves on the fex later for fearless combat res, and it was dead. This would mean some gaunts popping back to life, but well worth it for protecting the battle wagon. Their consolidate got them into the forest, so in their death, they would be protecting my lines all the more, and halting the nid advance.

Nids turn 2:
With such a huge turn 1, Ben was somewhat reeling. His genestealers came on, and hid behind a forest on my left. Another turn would see them able to get into the lootas, whilst I couldnt see him for now. His gaunts refreshed and moved to threaten the deffkoptas, whilst the lone gaunt ran forward to suicide on some kans for a refresh next turn.
His warriors moved forward to take out the trukk boyz, whilst his combat fex moved forward to assault meganobs if he blew up the wagon.
Templates killed another 10 orks or so, and then the zoanthropes got a buzzin. The first str10 penetrating hit bounced of the forcefield, but the second one made it through, wrecking the battlewagon. Had the roll been 1 higher, exploding it, I would be looking at pain city, being in range of the combat fex. Instead, I was able to hop out on the other side and be just short, so the fex ran. The gaunts did a single wound to the koptas, whilst the hormies had gone to ground last turn, meaning they were chilling out still.
The warriors cleaned the trukk boyz clock, only losing 1 warrior in the process, whilst the loan gaunt got exploderated, slingshotting the kans quite considerably (6 inches for the pile in, and then a 4 for their consolidate).

Ork turn 2:
OK, so that battle wagon had looked a lot safer earlier.. D:! I pulled my strung out ork squad back to take out those stealers, and backed off the koptas to take out the not in cover stealers as well, the less orks dead the better.
My trukk pushed off to my right, for some tankshocking fun should gaunts be left at the end of the game.
The kans on my left walked up to hack up the fex, whilst my meganobs walked forward to take out those raveners, who were very bunched up. what was left of the other ork unit, quite decimated by now, moved up to multi assault the rippers, shooty warriors, and combat carnifex should it kill all the kans (I had to stop that meganobbing my meganobs!).
My other kans with their giant slingshot last turn were now well in range of his warriors, who at s5 were going to have a bad day, so in I went, killing another to templates and wounding a zoanthrope with a scatter.
The lootas killed another warrior from the shooty squad, and meganobs took out all of the raveners with the skorchas and tl shootas.
Some waagh runs saw the genestealers having a bad day after the koptas only killed 2, and the other orks got into their multicahrge using the waagh, and due to their good roll caught a zoanthrope as well.
In that assault, the kans had a total fail against the fex, only hitting once and doing a single wound, whilst the PK only did 1 wound to it too. In return it blew up 2 kans, and pulled the klaw off the other.
The kans with the combat warriors dropped it down to just one left after the combat res saves, and only 3 genestealers were left when that dust settled.

Nid turn 3: The other squad of gaunts refreshed and came on the table quite far from any action, but able to hit my trukk (which they promtpy immobilised).
The hormies now free to move, came in to bail out the combat fex, rippers and warriors, whilst the zoanthropes didnt manage to do much to the meganobs.
In the combat, the fex was finished, whilst the warriors and rippers did a few wounds holding their own with the 5 or so hormies help, and the zoanthrope dying.
The kans finished the warrior, and consolidated to kill a zoanthrope.


Ork turn 3: From here it was just mop up unfortunately. The kans went after 1 of the 2 remaining zoanthropes, the meganobs moved to finish the warriors, gaunts, rippers, and hormies that were there and all decimated, the lootas took out one of the zoanthropes, and when the dust settled for this turn, all Ben had left were 2 units of 16 gaunts, with no synpase - his options were lurk for the rest of the game, or chain fail moral checks running on and off the board.
I had a weaponless killer kan ready to go take one out of the game, with 3 unhurt kans next to the other, we called it there, and Ben went to get some very much needed sleep.

Having really only lost a 30man unit of orks, and now in a position to claim all 10 objectives should I need it, I was looking at another 20-6 win, going 60/60 for day 1, and only giving up 1 bonus point to my opponents in the first day.
Bens grasp of the rules, and some of the things he was doing in game was very solid, he came across as a very competent player who I knew would be up in the top tables again in no time tomorrow, and I feared what he could do with some sleep under his belt.

I felt very fortunate to have drawn both tyranid armies there in the first day. A couple of armies ago I played Tyranids, and had 180 odd games of experience with them under my belt. This really helped in playing against them, knowing the list that well really was an asset.

After an exhausting day 1, we went across to the bistro amongst all the pokey machines, and wined and dined with some of melbournes finest socialites (we were a table of wargamers amongst a bunch of gambling addicts, whilst a score of unattended children were playing mini basketball with a clown who looked like he owned a white panel van).

After that highpoint, we went back to our room with about 10 people, and put to the test some of those fine spirits we had picked up going through duty free.
Some of us partook in this more than others, and the night finished with Scott (Chaplain Fortis for those that know him) feeling left out watching Hagen and I toss cans to each other, throwing a glass bottle half full at Hagen, ralphing in our toilet, and passing out on the floor of the room next to us, which thankfully, contained more wargamers.

Arise at 7am on Sunday morning where Hagen wakes us up for shower funtimes, and decides to bang rather entheusiastically on the door to next door. Don't get Hagen wrong, he's not a big meanie, it's just that the 2 people the room contained (+ scott) slept in last year and arrived about an hour late.
The result was a still extremely drunk scott shuffling into our room, as his pants were around his ankles, showing that he has some of the hariest legs in the western world, stumbled, sat on my figure case, asked quizzicly "How did I get drunk again allready?" - then allowed us to usher him out pointing out he wasnt drunk again, but rather, still drunk.

Round 4 saw me drawn against Matt Eaton, a top quality Western Melbourne player with a very anti daemon army. He had drawn 3 daemon players on day 1, which isnt as unlikely as it sounds given the number of daemon players in attendance, and we had drawn each other. His friend Ryland keeps referring to him as a cat in PM's, but without any saucers of milk around, we steamed right on into the game.

Mission: 6 objectives, all in the "deadmans zone" 8 inches apart from each other.
Deployment: Pitched Battle

The mission had a bit of a twist, you each had a body guard, who was basically a 2 wound space marine sergeant with a power weapon and bolt pistol. They had to stay within 6 of their objective at all times.

Matt had (and by this stage I was quite hungover so forgive me if some of the details here are wrong):
Grey Knight Grand Master with psycannon in termie armour Imperial guard command squad with officer of the fleet 6 or 7 grey knight terminators with a psycannon inquisitor with sanctury and mystics 2 10 man squads of grey knights, one with psycannons, one with incinerators 2 Guard platoons - a single lascannon squad, a couple of normal squads, to be honest I don't really "get" guard and as such, found it hard to really pay attention to what was going on with them :P! A fast attack grey knight squad of 8 with incinerators 2 Leman Russes (one with plasma cannons the other with heavy bolters)

Matt won the roll for first turn (I had lost this 4 from 4 now), and picked his table edge.
He then set up from one end of the board to the other, in true gunline style. His russes were fairly central, at the back of the board, with the smaller grek knight squad at the back ready to counter attack. His termies with master were right in the centre, the lascannon squad in a building to my right. One of the Grey Knight squads was on my extreme right, with the other left mid - so a long way from each other.

I felt like this was a huge mistake in deployment. I actually really fear the GK's assault capability, and to have the units where they would struggle to support each other felt like a boon to me. He had the models to either out aggress me, whittling as he goes in (and GK's in the past have made a big mess of my Kans), or to meat shield gunline me, counter assaulting with the GK's. I normally counteract GK's combat ability with a deffdread or two, but I had dropped these for comp so felt really quite naked.

To make the most of this, I set up fairly central, heavy on my right side, so that I could apply full pressure to those termies, and if anything on my right went to help them out, hammer in on the side. My lootas had a prime position, and were able to be close enough to have a good shot with shrouding, whilst protected by the av13 of the intact building they were chilling in, open topped as it may be. I turbo boosted my deff koptas up, keeping just out of gk assault range, hoping he would take the bait and lay off some of my other units as they came in. The flipside meant that if he didnt, these would be free to mess up guard squads in assault, all the better if I siezed the initiative.

Naturally as soon as I had that thought, I didnt sieze, so on Matt rolled with turn 1.

Imperial Turn 1:
Matt pushed up the grey knight squad on my right, and didnt move the rest of his army pretty much. Going straight into shooting, a penetrating hit on the trukk and the battle wagon as well as a battle wagon glance were all forcefielded off. The russ with plasma cannons did 15 wounds to an ork squad, but I miraculously saved 13 wounds. A few boyz were shred from each squad, but because Matt had spread his army so wide, he was having to really split his fire between the units. Only 2 deff koptas were killed, who then passed their moral check. Matts terminators had inched forward, so I knew if I steamed ahead they would be in assault range next turn on my wagon.

Ork turn 1:
I couldn't help but notice how much lighter my losses were to what they should be. I advanced everything forward, zooming the trukk forward 18 inches, and the koptas where they could eat a guard squad and have some los blocking fun times with a consolidate. I parked the battle wagon temptingly close to the terminators, as far as I was concerned, losing a 100 point battle wagon was going to be more than worth eating the squad of terminators and grand master. I set up kans, and a 30 man boy squad to hit the termies after they came into the wagon, and got ready for shooting.
The lootas plonked off 1 termie after only doing 2 wounds, half the GK squad on my right was removed, and the koptas assaulted into the guard squad, beating it up with ease. After chasing it down, they consolidated so that one kopta was at the perfect height to completely block LOS to the battle wagon for the 2 lascannons. The koptas were going to have to be focus fired by enough units to get that shot.

Imperial turn 2: The termies went for the battle wagon, whislt what was left of the decimated GK squad on my right moved to shoot the trukk. Everything else remained stationary again.
A small handful from each squad was once again removed, and all the regular guard squads bar the one on my far right and out of range tried to strip those koptas down, but unfortunately failed. I had 1 kopta left, who happened to be the one blocking the LOS. As such, Matt was forced to lascannon it into oblivion, with nothing else in LOS. The grey knight squad wrecked the trukk, with the orks out on the spot, but just out of assault range for the gk's.
The terminators then failed their assault distance, needing probably a 5 or 6, but only rolling a 3.

Ork turn 2: I drove the battle wagon up, hopped out the meganobs to assault if it was absolutely necessary, but I would prefer not to, those guys scare me! The trukk boyz walked up through some cover, with one squad of kans going for the grand master, the other going for the decimated grey knight squad. My left 30 man squad now a fair bit reduced went for the gk terminators, whilst the other went upto assault those same grey knights.
Shooting saw this squad reduced to just a couple of models, whilst everything unloading on the grey knight terminators saw all but a couple killed, the meganob heavy flamers coming up huge.
The lootas killed 3 GK's from the other squad so far ignored by me, and the trukk boyz waaghed 6 to get very deep into the guard lines. An assault roll of 5 for them meant they could contact the HQ command squad, a both troop command squads, and get the power klaw into a stationary leman russ. This resulted in the command squads being wiped out, one running off the table, and the tracks + battle cannon of the russ eaten.
The last of the termies vanished, and the grand master was killer kanned.
Big consolidates meant that Matt now had orks all through his line, and his best units gone from the game. No more orders for the guard, and no more answer to the meganobs. Matt conceeded as with the orks having anywhere from 3 to 5 turns to go, it would really just be going through the motions.

I felt really quite badly for Matt, it was always going to be a tough game, but his army really had the tools required to do the damage required. A bit light in anti tank, but I was lucky to make all my cover saves when it was most important. Couple that with the broken good rolls on my boyz, and they remained more deadly than they should have been. We knew that day 2 was going to have 2 kill point games, so we had both been assuming we would be playing kill points, but it wasnt to be. Matt felt he had a very good chance if it was, and quite frankly, I agree.
Matt took the dice shenanigans and was a great sport throughout the game. A couple of tactical blunders stacked with a deployment that hindered rather than helped, coupled with insane dice on both ends of the spectrum meant that the game was way more one sided than it ever should have been. Matt went on to get second highest battle points, proving that he was a great player playing his army well.

End result; 20-6.

Game 5; the one, the only, the ever so hairless, Hagen Kerr!

Hagen was a member of our Kiwi contingent, and sharing a room with us. Its always a bit gutting going all that way to play someone from my club, but Hagens a lovely guy to play, and after we had had a practice game a couple of weeks earlier, where Hagen left me with just a handful of models, we were both looking for a rematch, having seen that Hagen had all the tools to table me, as he had come so close to doing so already!

Mission: Kill points, with a twist
Deployment: Dawn of War

The twist was that those 3 damn bodyguard from the last game were back, but now in independant character form! Not only where they back, but they were worth 2 kill points each, so my total went from 13 to 19, and Hagens from 15 to 21! Not only this, but any squad they were attached to became fearless.

Hagen had:

Daemon Prince (daemonic flight, warptime) 8x Chosen in a Rhino (2x meltagun, 2x flamer, Icon) 3x Terminators (1x chainfist, 1x combi-flamer, 1x heavy flamer, icon) 12x Chaos marines (meltagun, flamer, icon) including Champ with power weapon 10x Chaos marines in a Rhino (meltagun, icon) including Champ with power weapon 10x Chaos marines (lascannon, plasma gun, icon) 3x Obliterators 1x Vindicator (no upgrades) 1x Defiler (no upgrades) Greater Daemon 3x 6 Lesser Daemons

Hagen won the roll for first turn, and elected to go first. He deployed one squad in a building deep in his back left corner, one in the centre of the table to maximise push back, as well as his daemon prince up close on my right flank. He had 1 objective dude with his las plas squad on the left back corner unit, and the other 2 with the 12 man unit.
I set up my 2 30 man units spread through terrain, fairly central to the table.

Chaos turn 1:
Hagen pulled his daemon prince back, hiding out of LOS, walked on his oblits slightly to my left, as well as his defiler, and drove on his vindicator near his oblits. His rhino drove on on my extreme left. Due to the massive push back he had created, everything was well out of range for nightfight and no ork casualties took place.

Ork turn 1: Hagens game was now looking pretty much like a refused flank, mostly on my left. As I had a giant piece of impassable terrain there, this was very smart, if I wanted to come on across from him, I would be having to go around it. Instead I had to move centrally, and if he winds up basing things there, I would have a bit further to travel.
My two boys squads advanced up to shoot his 12 man squad that was worth 5 kill points currently. I was in a pickle though, as it stands, my 30 man mob on my right was looking at sitting across from pie plates, and having to cross the entire table to do anything, assuming the middle squad was taken care of. I had to set a bait trap for the chosen, who would really mess me up if they came on from the left. I bunched enough orks so that the chosens outflank would burninate them, but not so badly that they couldnt kill what came out in assault. This would mean they could have a crack at 2 kill points.
The vehicles drove right up the centre, and kans came on central to them. Lootas walked onto the back of the board, getting majority into cover, whilst having an objective guy with them to become fearless (mmm gotta love them fearless lootas). Meanwhile the other 2 were in the battle wagon, making for a fearless meganob squad.

My boyz squads were careful to stay more than 14 inches away from the icons, to not get daemoned (our practice game gave me a healthy respect for lesser daemons), and the shooting from the boyz squads as well the koptas killed about 8 or 9 marines, leaving him with 3-4 marines and the 2 ic objectives in it.

Chaos turn 2:
The chosen arrived, and went for the the bait. The termies arrived, which I hadn't counted on going for the same unit, did a 'balls of steel' deepstrike right next to the same squad, and scattered forward about 3 inches, enough for a misshap. The misshap roll came up a 2, and that was that headache solved before it began.
One squad of daemons appeared, but with nowhere to hit, had to come out behind his units in the far left corner, meaning it was a full on denied flank now. His rhino shuffled around out there, his daemon prince shuffled around a bit more, ready to do a counter assault on the ork unit, and his vindicator hid a little to get cover should the lootas hit it.
A handful of boyz were killed, as well as 2 koptas by the vindicator, the battle wagon killing another handful. Coversaves on these units were terrible, but that was about all the terrible rolling I had during the game. Moral check for the kopters were promptly passed. His central squad backed off and ran to get as out of range as possible, but this would also give me more ground in the "you shall not summon on me" war.
The oblits opened up on the battle wagon, but the pen was bounced, and the trukk was killed, which proceeded to scatter 15 inches directly to Hagens central squad. Unfortunately for me, they failed their pinning check, losing half the squad to the explosion!
The chosen opened up, killing 8 orks, and prepared for the response.

Ork turn 2:
A unit of kans sidled across to help the orks take on the chosen, and maybe pop their rhino. The rest steamed ahead towards the bulk of his army. The koptas advanced to have a crack at that central unit again.
The lootas opened up on the worlds biggest defiler, but failed to damage it, only stunning and shaking which it promptly ignored. The last of the marines in the central squad were taken out, but those 2 pesky IC's remained.
The kans stunned and blew the weapon off the chosens rhino, whilst the chosen were killed to a man by the shooting, which meant I wasnt going to be power klawing that rhino :<
The trukk boyz sat around playing pattycake patty cake as they were gone to ground, and so our turn finished.

Chaos turn 3:
The daemon prince hopped over the building, ready to assault the orks. The rest of Hagens daemons arrived, the GD popping out of the rhino in no mans land, the other 2 lesser daemon squads joining the first, behind his army in a corner being much less useful than they should have been. The 2 IC's made a run for it, one hiding behind the vindicator, the other getting far further and hiding behind a building.
Far less orks died to the 2 pieplates than what should have this turn (plenty of coversaves combined with a healthy scatter), though my numbers in my left hand squad were getting very low now (about 15), whilst the squad on the right was about to be playing with a daemon prince for the rest of the afternoon. The oblits bounced off the battlewagon once again, as did the lone lascannon in the las plas squad.
The daemon prince assaulted, killing a handful of orks with nothing done in return.

The kill point total was currently at 3-1 in my favour.

Ork turn 3:
The battle wagon moved forward full speed and unloaded the fearless meganobs to assault his squad of marines in the building, with their objective IC, and clip the greater daemon whilst they were at it. This position was important, as they would be out of LOS from both the vindicator and the oblits once it was done, which was a load off my mind.
The trukk boys, amazed that they were untouched, hopped out of the terain to have a crack at the vindicator.
Meanwhile, the kopters were able to get LOS to the wounded IC hiding behind the vindicator, so they went for the candy. One squad of kans pushed up further again to have a crack at a couple of lesser daemons, whilst the other moved to help out with the daemon prince next turn (no room to fit them in this turn).
A good waagh roll saw the trukk boyz getting into the vindicator, the meganobs into prime position, and the koptas managed to shoot that IC.
The lootas opened up again on the worlds biggest defiler, an this time were truely useful, getting a penetrating 5.
The meganobs cleaned house for little casulties in return, 3 wounds on the 3 seperate wound groups - but no models lost. In return, the CSM's were wiped out except for icon, his objective IC clawed in half, and the greater daemon took 2 wounds. The combat res saw him having to take another 10 saves on the GD, who died, and the icon ran away.
The daemon prince killed some more orks, but this time we did a wound, yay orks. A few more orks died as the result, and from here they would no longer be fearless. Lastly, the trukk boyz hit home with the vindicator, getting a penetrating 5.

A big KP swing that turn, the balance now sat at 11-1.

Chaos turn 4:
Sadly for Hagen that turn had just been too great a blow. Hagen readied to try kill the warboss, and maybe get the meganobs for some bonus points, surrounding them, and charged his remaining hero into the trukk boys (who promptly ate him). The squad in a rhino also got out to rapidfire the meganobs, doing a wound on the warboss, but nothing else (I assigned a melta to him to save a meganob).
In came the lesser daemons, in such a way that plently would get to attack the warboss. Hitting it on 4's, wounding on 5's - Hagen rolled up big time in order to kill him, doing 7 wounds. With only 4+ armour, I figured he was as good as dead, and proceeded to roll 6 4+'s - the resulting slaughter saw the daemons wiped out, and a consolidation towards the csm's who had just rapid fired them, and their rhino.
The daemon prince killed a few more orks, and took 1 wound. Losing the combat by 2, the orks hung around.

Orks turn 4:

The KFF big mek with his s5 power weapon joined the remenants of the trukk boyz, as did one of the IC's - and they went to take on the oblits. The kans ran over to the prince (never a good idea but I was getting desperate), the meganobs went after the marines and the rhino, whilst everything else that could, shot the obliterators. In total they did 10 wounds, and Hagen failed 5 of those saves, meaning he had 1 wounded oblit left, before being assaulted by some orks and with a klaw - to which I promptly rolled double 1's and failed my difficult terrain roll.
The meganobs wiped out the marines and blew up the rhino, while the daemon prince killed 2 kans, and took 1 wound. I lost the combat again, but yet again, stuck around thanks to the bosspole and some lucky rolling.

Chaos turn 5:
Hagen only had 3 models left, an oblit, the daemon prince on 1 wound, and a rhino with no gun hiding, so it was quick. The oblit TL Flamed the trukk boyz, not quite wiping them out, the rhino did nothing, and the prince killed the last kan, the orks did nothing and ran like girls, and consolidated low.

Orks turn 5:
I shot what was left at the daemon prince, who made all his saves, and the 12 or so remaining boyz in my other 30 man squad assaulted him, finishing the job. We didnt bother working out the oblit, as by now we were low on time and it wouldnt have made much of a diference.

End result: 20-6.

Again luck was pretty stacked my way, I think however that if Hagen had gotten his outflankers in on the other side, he could have put 3 meltas on the battlewagon, giving a good chance of blowing it up. If that happened, 3 plasma cannons and a vindicator template would have spoiled their afternoon quite nicely.
As with my game 2, I think that the respect for lesser daemons I had developed allowed me to really get the upper hand, I've never been able to track a lesson from a game quite that directly to some solid results.
As always Hagen was a great guy to play with a beautifully looking themed and quite soft army, and as a fellow kiwi I was hoping he would do well going into the last round.

going into the final round I had managed to somehow get to 100/100 battle points. It was, quite frankly, beyond belief. I had gone in hoping to win 4 games, and see where I was when the dust settled - instead I was shooting for the perfect score, something noone's ever done at any tournament I've ever been at.

When the draw went up, it turned out I was playing Brad Morin. One of the nicest guys I've ever met. I had also been hanging out to play Brad ever since meeting him at KF 2 years ago, so was so glad we finally got to play. Unfortunately for Brad, the mission was not in his favour.

Mission: Kill points
Deployment: Dawn of War

Brad had:

Lord of Change 2 squads of 3 flamers of tzeentch 6 squads of 9 pink horrors, all with a bolt, 1 with a changeling 1 squad of 4 or 5 screamers 2 daemon princes without wings 1 soul grinder

Brad won the roll for first turn, and gave me the start, with the reasoning that it would be 1 less shooting phase for me, and he would be able to see where I was.

I then proceeded to show him where I was; I deployed my 2 30 man units on the table, spaced out as far as I could go, using a nifty GF9 tac template to get the 2 inch spacing with ease. Once I moved and ran spread out like this, as well as filling in my back line with the other units, I had taken up rougly 2/3rds of the table, leaving him very little room to deepstrike, and where he could, would be hugely risky if he wanted to go anywhere good. I kept my rapid assault units central, able to hit where ever required, and had my kans trundling behind, with everything majority in area terrain.

As Brad got ready for his deepstriking, I felt compelled to utter the words "deepstrike this"

Daemons turn 1:
Brad selected his waves, and rolled his preferred, which consisted of, 1 daemon prince, the screamers, the soul grinder, and 4 squads of horrors.
He started with the horror units, deepstriking 2 of them into a building to my left, who got reasonable scatters, well within assault range of me, but safe from misshaps. He did lose a horror to each squad for dangerous terrain however.
The screamers did a balls of steel deepstrike into the same far left corner, getting a hit, and feeling quite safe, Brad plonked down the soulgrinder in the middle of all this. Unfortunately he deviated somewhat, and appeared inside some pink horrors. The misshap roll came up as a 1, and the biggest threat to me was gone.
The other 2 horror units popped down in a building in my far right corner, relatively safe but losing 1 each to dangerous terrain, whilst the daemon prince popped down fairly close to the table edge next to them, but was safe with a hit.
4 squads of horrors shooting later, and I had 12 orks left - my cover saves were fairly abysmal (they should have killed 12, as opposed to the 18 they killed), but I felt at this stage, Brad was more than owed it !

Ork turn 2:
The deffkoptas were in assault range of the screamers, but shooting them would prove hazardous with the changeling nearby, so I elected to simply assault them - something I might not have done had I known they had just beaten up a daemon prince of khorne last game!
The 12 man unit sandwhiched between 4 horror squads doubled back, whilst the rest of my army moved towards the other squads of horrors.
The kans opened up on the closest horror squad, as they were not running after deepstrike, it scored 30 hits - the unit was quickly evaporated there after.
The other kans + the 12 boyz killed all but 2 horrors (the bolt and the changeling), and the boyz then failed their difficult terrain to assault the remenants.
The lootas and other shooter mob got rid of half of one of the remaining horror squads, leaving just one squad untouched.
The koptas wiped out the screamers, and consolidated up that flank, things were allready looking beyond grim for the tzeentch daemons.

Daemon turn 2:
Brads reserves saw 1 squad of horrors, the lord of change, and 1 squad of flamers arrive. The flamers balls of steel dropped next to the 12 orks who had failed their terrain, and the daemon prince did the same next to the battle wagon to breath on its side armour, both hitting.
The lord of change scattered into some orks, misshapping and the horror squad also scattered onto some models, getting the 3-4 result. I had made a nice convenient hole for it in the middle of my entact ork squad, so plonked them down there; surrounded.

Brads shooting saw the 12 ork squad evaporated, and the battle wagon stunned, luckily I bought that extra armour! A few orks from the full strength squad were killed, but this time the saves were really rolling up.

Ork turn 3:
The trukk unloaded to take out the near by prince, the kans pushed up to take out the original entact horror squad, whilst the battle wagon drove forth and unleashed to multi charge what ever was left.
The other kan squad finished of the changeling and bolt horror, allowing the kopters to now shoot the flamers, eliminating them.
The lootas and kans combined finished the entact horror squad, whilst the 30 mob shot and assaulted the other entact horror squad. The last horrors were killed by the meganobs, who managed to completely spread as their consolidation, and the trukk boyz killed the daemon prince.
At the end of this turn Brad just had a daemon prince left.

Daemon turn 3:
Brads other flamer squad showed up, deepstriking down to flame the meganobs - scattering a wild 11 inches to land clean on the other side and still in flaming position! The flamers did 3 wounds (they could each only cover 2 thanks to the spread + scatter), doing a wound to each nob, the daemon prince assaulted the warboss and meganobs, finishing the warboss for a bonus point before being killed.
The other horror squad came down without issue, but only killed a couple of orks.

Ork turn 4:
The meganobs ate the flamers, the foot boyz ate the horrors, and really that was all she wrote :(

In the end, the game finished 20-7, and whilst the last game went so crazily one sided, Brad took it like an absolute champ, and is possibly one of the nicest human beings roaming the planet.
Brad went on to win best sport, and it was very easy to see how.


In the end, I had somehow managed to walk away with a totally unbelivable 120/120 battle points, and had played 6 opponents who I would happy play any day of the week.
I'm actually a bit worried that I owe one soul to some religious diety somewhere, as some of the rolling that took place was stupid good beyond comprehension. Any time I ever rolled really poorly, was usually at a time of little importance.
6 games against 6 great guys with 6 great armies meant that to me, no matter what the end result, all the money I had spent to fly over there and back was well worth it. I would have loved to have gone for some of the painting awards which is what I usually shoot for, but some of the armies there were of such an extremely high quality that all I came back with was total inspiration. Those of you who took out players choice (peer vote) and Harlequin (comp + painting) really should be amazingly proud.

When the awards were called out, I had managed to sneak away with 2 trophies, highest battle and 1st overall. I felt very honored to be in the company of those who have achieved the warmaster title before me, and was glad I could bring it home for New Zealand for the third year on the trot.

All that was left from there was to politely shake the TO's hand to express thanks, showing my excitement in a very mature way....























Thats all from me guys, please out!
I may go back and edit in some pics of peoples armies as I stumble across them but as I didnt take a camera with me, this pretty much makes the report complete

Cheers,
- Charlie

ah, great reports and truly absurd dice it seemed!

well done!!

Liber Animus always seems to be a great tournament, maybe if I move back to the homeland [nz], I will get to go one day..

Wow! Amazing rolling, and it sounds like you avoided making any tremendous blunders (always the hardest part of a long tournament). Strong list, well played.

I've never heard of someone taking a 6 game tournament perfectly, that's gotta be tough. GG!

Nice report. Orks FTW!

Ive updated some pictures of the finished army here: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/60/223390.page

To be honest RE: the dice, it probably averaged over the tournament... its just that when it went well, it went REALLY well, and when you're winning; it's the good stuff you remember most vividly ;D

I know the list is really not that optimised, I've played against it swapping armies with my opponents and tabled it in the past, but we play in a pretty comp heavy environment so it was necessary to build some concessions in there. With only 2 transports, I was quite lucky to face so little anti tank really In the end I managed to finish on 47/60 for comp, and with the highest comp at the event coming out at 50/60 - I was close enough there for it not to be an issue.
I dropped a few sports points, but the comp scoring system really rewards how enjoyable your game itself was. I'm never going to begrudge someone for marking a game as an average Liber game (which is quite high going off their precident) when theyre only getting 2-3 turns in several of those games D:

Rofl, totally awesome battle report man, and now that I see the picture of your army I can answer the burning question I had.

When I read your list I went "Ok, but why no red paint jobs? D:" Red would have really clashed with the colors of the rest of your army though :( So, great job crafting this force!

Great batrep and awesome to see another kiwi on these forums, where do you hail from?

Great Report and Great Job!!!

It's nice to see someone else use nobz in a battlewagon instead of Biker Nobz. I hate the idea of taking wounds when Bikers fail dangerous terrain test. Just really bugs me!!

How do you rank your Meganobz for effectiveness? They didn't seem to be your MVPs in any of your games. Do your opp. usually take notice of them or ignore them?

PipeAlley

Awesome report man. Detailed stuff like this makes it that much more enjoyable to read. Well done

Do post pictures of the other armies if you find some though!

Hey great reports and nice to see a fellow kiwi on here once in a while (and doing well too)

Keep it up for all of us in the motherland!

Kragura wrote:Great batrep and awesome to see another kiwi on these forums, where do you hail from?

I'm down in Wellington : D

PipeAlley wrote:Great Report and Great Job!!!

It's nice to see someone else use nobz in a battlewagon instead of Biker Nobz. I hate the idea of taking wounds when Bikers fail dangerous terrain test. Just really bugs me!!

How do you rank your Meganobz for effectiveness? They didn't seem to be your MVPs in any of your games. Do your opp. usually take notice of them or ignore them?

PipeAlley

The meganobs do okay, but theyre never really MVP unless my opponent is very silly. People should be bringing enough anti tank to strand them, in which case they become a counter assault force. Theyre not the most mobile though, and any melta guns / powerfists /thunder hammers etc put a very, very big hole in them. No invulnerable save hurts a lot.
More often than not they run away truth be told. For the same points, I could take a much, MUCH better regular nob squad, but the mega armour is more themey when a big mek is involved.

I orignally ran this army with 9 kans, 2 dreads, 2 big meks and 2 loota squads, which did very, VERY well, but have changed it to this iteration for comp purposes. Its often a bit all over the show, but is good fun none the less