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Once upon I time, I took part in a competition between two teams, separated by a river.  Usually, each team had a huge banner up to block their opponent's view, so their opponents couldn't see what they were doing.  One year, however, the Odd Year team (don't ask) was dominating so completely that their coach pulled down the banner midway through the competition, cleared out all the bystanders so the opposing team could have a clear view, and shouted over to the other team, "Lock down all you want, because it won't matter.  We're coming for you."  They then proceeded to utterly destroy the opposition.

In that spirit, I post my own Gladiator list for your edification and enjoyment.  Make whatever adjustments you can in the next week, knowing that an AdeptiCon Gladiator Champion will be bringing this exceedingly rude and dream-destroying army to AdeptiCon.  Don't blame me when you wet your pants in fear after reading this list. 

So let me leave you with: "Lock down all you want, because it won't matter.  I'm coming for you." 

2000 Point Imperial Guard

Doctrines: Cameleoline, Close Order Drill, Drop Troops, Iron Discipline

Junior Officer, Iron Discipline, Mortar, Standard Bearer, Cameleoline

Ordo Malleus Inquisitor Lord, Psycannon, Null Rod, Psychic Hood, Emperor's Tarot; 3 Warriors /w plasma guns, 2 mystics, 2 sages, familiar; Rhino /w smoke, extra armor

Junior Officer, 2 flamers, Cameleoline; Chimera, multilaser, heavy bolter

Infantry Squad, plasma gun, lascannon, cameleoline

Infantry Squad, plasma gun, lascannon, cameloeline

Junior Officer, 2 flamers, Cameleoline; Chimera, multilaser, heavy bolter

Infantry Squad, plasma gun, lascannon, cameleoline

Infantry Squad, plasma gun, lascannon, cameloeline

Hellhound

Cyclops demo vehicle

Cyclops demo vehicle

Baneblade

Basilisk, indirect fire

Ha. You think that has a chance? I laugh in your general direction.

Hope to see you there. All these lists look nice and challenging. Unfortunately, all I can do is go for fun. I know I can't hold up with the heavy weights. You guys and your expensive toys. I think you're just over compensating...

Hey, I have to make use of that Baneblade I won at the 2004 AdeptiCon Gladiator tournament sometime...

I had no intention to do so, but after I saw all the leg parts I sold the Titan from 2003 within days. Don't worry boys, next year the King (or Generalissimo? ) will return to claim his title back.

I'll make you a deal Fred... after I repeat ...I'll step aside and run it for you next year...

Looks like all the heavy hitters are posting.. nice list Bill. Let's see if Sparky got what it takes to post his list.

Hank, that's awfully mean of you, making Fred wait until 2008.

'Cause this year I'll be reclaiming my title. <GRIN>

What happened?   I thought that list would have been pretty solid.  Baneblad go down early?

Baneblade took 1 structure point damage all tournament.

Record for the Gladiator was 2-0-2.

The second draw was a hard-fought battle...the first occurred because time got called on turn 4. I had the secondary and tertiary objectives for that mission, buit drew on the primary because I didn't have enough time to inflict the wounds I needed to on a Godzilla list.

Good time though...and welcome to the club, Papa Nurgle...

"Not enough time" seems to be a common complaint about the Gladiator. What was up with that?

Not sure. I didn't have a problem in any game except game 1. I didn't feel like my opponent was stalling (and I certainly didn't), but we just didn't make it past turn 4.

My round 4 game was against an opponent who had far more models than my Round 1 opponent, so it wasn't a horde army thing.

It was 2-hour games with 2000-point armies, so that might have been it.

No idea Mauleed .. I completed all the turns in every game I played all weekend. All the games I witnessed or involved with resolved quickly and on time.

OK, I was just curious.

Do you guys know the gladiator missions in advance? (I presume not).

What does a Cyclops demo vehicle do??

Well done Centurian!

Mauleed,

Correct. Previous years missions are made available online. Fred made it pretty clear on AWC that the Gladiator missions would be tough for anything other than a balanced army. But missions are not known before hand.

Now for some events like the Team Tourney a primer is held and test versions of the mission are run. Those may or may not be the missions at the Team Tourney. The Judge reserves the right to use or not use the missions ran during the primer. Primer is only 3 games and is normally used to test any new twists to the Team Tourney format. Based on feedback and judge moods some make the event and others don?t. Normally all see some sort of change. With 300+ people coming to an event it?s understandable that those running things want a test run with versions of missions they are thinking about running to make sure they get the rules and missions as air tight as possible.

On the flip side at check in for the Team Tourney your given all the missions for the day in a packet and have ample opportunity to review and plan for each of the missions with your team.

So what was the mission that was supposed to gimp drop pods but didn't?

I'm hugely against missions designed to gimp specific army types as a way to force balanced armys, because invariably a good or bad matchup with trump any mission requirements and mean that people are screwed in an uneven manner. The "reverse escalation" mission for example sounded like it hosed a great deal of very balanced armies.

My idea of an anti-pod mission was to allow each player to chose to keep any and all units in reserve. Game 4 allowed each player to deploy what they wanted and anything else would be held in reserve. Against a pod army, I surmised it would be advantageous to allow the opponent the choice of keeping everything off the board, then as the pods drop with little to no targets, the opponent can come onto the board and pick their spots as opposed to having the podders dictate where the fight happens.

Game 4 for Mick weas against a Word Bearer army with 4 daemon packs. He chose to start everything on the table and Mick got all 8 pods to drop in on turn 2. The Word Bearer was surrounded and running to fear before he could fire a shot. Interestingly if he chose to start off the table, Micks reserve rolls would have worked completely against him and all 8 pods would have come in to a scant few targets.

I must say I do not sit down and think of a particular army to 'hose' when writing a mission. Rather I try and make sure an army can successfully accomplish a wide array of tasks in order to be successful. The reverse escalation was in the Team event, not Gladiator, and most of the complaining is coming from guys who saw something new and don't like something new. In all the playtesting with reverse escalation, the army that was held in reserve most (or the slower army) won much more often than not. The fast army would see the advantage in numbers and race into the enemy deployment zone where they would hammer the outnumbered forces. Then as reserves came in, the fight would be in the slower armies DZ and they could bring to bear more numbers to win the fight. Meanwhile the reserves for the initially faster army would be 3-4 feet away and never get across the board to help in the fight.

This scenario was played in round 3 when I was playing as the ringer army. I had 2 dreads, 9 assault marines and a Landspeeder to start and I was severely outnumbered with a all footslogging marine list waiting in reserve. The chaos players took the fight to me and slaughtered my initial force. Then reserves came in and I was all over the chosen champion bike squad, the daemonettes, the Emperor children unit in rhino, the hounds and the winged daemon prince. The rest of their army got a few shots off, but nothing significant I won pretty easiliy.

The "reverse escalation" mission for example sounded like it hosed a great deal of very balanced armies.

Reverse Escalation didn't screw over any army. It was a winnable mission for any list. Bad playing screwd over armies. Not reading the mission screwed over armies. We drew a Orc Cult of Speed list with reverse escalation and started with over 3/4 of our army off the table staring down someone fully deployed. I suppose if we deployed out in the open we would have gotten ran over but we turtled, used what we had available knowing that by turn 3 everything in reserves was in. That's right .. by turn 3 whatever failed to show up turn 2 came in. I've played reserves and escalation missions when over half my army didn't show up till turn 4 or 5 due to bad dice rolls. Here you got everything turn 3 or for at least half the game. I could see complaints if you had to be in your opponents deployment zone to win and you had to walk to get there. But that was not the case the majority of the mission points was VP and Table Quarters. Both easily do able without leaving 1/2 of the board.

Posted By Centurian99 on 03/17/2006 9:53 PM
Hank, that's awfully mean of you, making Fred wait until 2008.

'Cause this year I'll be reclaiming my title. <GRIN>

 

Fellas,  Have you forgotten about me?  This is only my second gladiator, and the first was at the Bunker opening...  1-1 in Gladiator tournies.. I'd say I'm the odds on favorite... (to go down in round one and be found under the bar whimpering..)

I agree with Darth and Muhwe. The missions were balanced and any flexible list with a capable player could have won those missions. A lot of my missions were tight right up until a point where either myself, or my opponent made a mistake that was ripe for exploitation. Those games are the true test of the tactical mind. How you out metagame the other guy...to complete the mission. Capt K

Congrats again Papa, you da man. Too bad you lost 40k jeopardy though...that was entertaining as hell. Capt k