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Well, now that the drama's done, I'll go on with my original plan: to post battle reports about my games at the RTT. I had lots of fun playing, but I felt bad for assault-based armies or anyone who was depending on cover; the terrain was quite sparse, significantly less than the 25% rule (though by how much, I can't precisely say). The terrain that we had was well done, and the themes of the tables and the special rules were cool, but it still left more fragile armies at a disadvantage.

The Infamous List
Chaplain w/ plasma pistol, artificer armor, jump pack, Termie honors
Venerable Dread w/ TLLC, EA (D1)
Venerable Dread w/ TLLC/ML, EA (D2)
Venerable Dread w/ TLLC, EA (D3)
6 Tacs w/ las/plas (I)
6 Tacs w/ las/plas (II)
6 Tacs w/ ML/plas (III)
6 Tacs w/ ML/plas (IV)
Venerable Dread w/ AC/HF, EA (D4)
Venerable Dread w/ AC/ML, EA (D5)
Venerable Dread w/ AC/ML, EA (D6)

Game 1 - Gabe Dobkin - Saim Hann Wild Rider Eldar
A very fluffy list; I can also see a lot of power in it under the right circumstances. Unfortunately, we played on one of the "Chaos-world" tables, and the "metal-arrow" forests were kinda sparse.

His list (from what I saw)
Farseer w/ Mind War and Guide (I think)
Fire Dragons w/ Exarch in a Wave Serpent (starcannons) (Farseer rode here)
Storm Guardians w/ Warlock (Enhance) in a Wave Serpent (bright lances)
4 Vypers (3 starcannons, 1 bright lance)
2 squads of 6 jetbikers (2 shuriken cannons per squad)

The mission was Omega Cleanse. My Dreads and his Serpents start off-board. My squads have 2 in the middle of my zone, and one toward each of the unclaimed zones. His units set up similarly, in position to zoom forward and savage my edge squads. Nothing on Dusk and Dawn; he wins the roll, and tells me to go 1st.

My 1st turn - I do nothing; at this point, I'm praying that concealment saves my bacon from a less-than-well-thought-out deployment. If he slaughters them, at least he'll be where I can take some shots back (I hope).

His 1st turn - He swoops forward, sets up to shoot... and kills 1 Marine. And not even one from the exposed squad. My gamble worked. Poor sight rolls and flukes on the starcannons, means that, despite being totally exposed and staring down 3 starcannons, Squad III loses no one. His bikes scoot back behind cover, using the old move-shoot-move to good effect for most of the game.

Unfortunately, this was the start of a trend. My saves were great most of the game; his dice seemed to have it in for him.

My 2nd turn - I roll for reserves, and get the chappy and Dread 3. Rather underwhelming. Those 2 move on from my long edge, and then my shooting drops 2 of the starcannon Vypers.

His 2nd turn - He rolls for reserves... nothing. The remaining starcannon Vyper moves back behind some "trees" with the bright-lance Vyper, to wait for further support before attacking again. This turn, his shooting does significantly more; squad II is dropped to half, and III loses 4 in one go.

My 3rd turn - I get all but Dread 6 in; 2 move on from each edge, with 2 moving out from the corners into the neutral zones. The Chaplain starts using the short-edge Dreads as mobile cover, with Dread 4 moving to try for flaming some bikers in a turn or two. Squad III, now below half, decide to sell themselves dearly by moving to see and shoot the bikers near them. Shooting killed a few bikers in each squad, dropping one to half; neither broke.

His 3rd turn - Both Serpents come in (we treated the Farseer and Dragons as one roll, since he wanted them in the same Serpent), and move hard into the neutral quads. The Vypers come out to play, and between all the shots, squad II is reduced to 1, the remnants of III are wiped out, Dread 1's TLLC was destroyed, and Dread 5 was shaken. The Serpents made a difference, and gave him a weight of fire that hurt. I think Escalation ultimately hurt him more than me, this game.

My 4th turn - Dread 6 comes in on the long edge; hail, hail, the gang's all here. Dread 4 continued to move forward, now toward the Dragon's Serpent, with chappy in tow. Most other movement is Dreads jockeying for position or starting to advance to contest or take neutral quads. The last 2 Vypers died, along with 2 bikers (whose 2 remaining comrades ran) and, in a fluke shot, the Dragon's Serpent died to a plasma hit, killing a few Dragons and entangling them.

His 4th turn - The Guardians offload, and move up to see Dread 5, while their Serpent lines up a shot on Dread 6. The remaining bike squad drops squad IV to half; Dread 5 dies, and Dread 6 loses its AC.

My 5th turn - Dread 4 continues inexorably forward, mainly because he's being ignored. I had worried that the bikes would whip around to his rear and snipe the chappy or shoot him in the butt, but I guess bigger concerns were at hand. I finally manage to get the last bikers, and shook the remaining Serpent.

His 5th turn - The Dragons and Farseer move up on the wreck of their transport, and the Guardians move into assault position against Dreads 1 and 5. The Farseer Mind-Wars a plasma Marine, and the Dragon Exarch immobilizes Dread 2. The Guardians, with a witchblade-wielding Warlock, assault both Dreads 1 and 5... and do nothing. No 6s on the haywires, and the one hit the Warlock got... rolled a 2 to pen. The Dreads squish a few in return, and break the squad.

My 6th turn - Dread 4 finaly gets a chance at action, rolling up on the Dragons with the Chaplain. Some odd shots whittle the broken Guardians some more. Dread 4 sees off the remaining Dragons with assault cannon fire and heavy flames; the Chaplain wounds the Farseer with his plasma pistol. Those two then assault the Farseer and kill him. Dreads 1 and 5 assault the broken Guardians, who regroup but again fail to affect the Dreads. The Dreads win, and run down the Guardians.

His 6th turn - The last model, the Guardians' Serpent, shoots Dread 5 in the back and immobilizes it.

Result - Victorious Slaughter

This would have gone much better for him if (a) there had been enough cover, (b) it had been Gamma rather than Omega, and (c) his dice hadn't utterly betrayed him. Gabe handled the army well; the situation just wasn't on his side. I think, if some or all of those factors had been mitigated, I'd have been in trouble.

Gabe was a great opponent; he kept a good attitude, even when it seemed he couldn't catch a break.

Games 2 and 3 later.

Hey, i stand to be corrected on this- but in omega- you cant have vypers and jetbikes on board? Why did he have ANY models on board in that mish level?
He had no footsloggers yeah ?

Saim Hann counts FAs like Troops, and can always have them on the board at the start... or so he said. I wasn't going to nitpick; he knew his army better than I did (which is to say, at all).

Game 2 - Eugene Hogle
Necrons
Lord w/ warscythe, res orb, phase shifter, destroyer body
Lord w/ warscythe, res orb, Veil of Darkness
3 x 11 Warriors
Monolith
2 Tomb Spiders
2 Heavy Destroyers

We played Gamma Take and Hold on a lava table; this one was a little more dense on the terrain, and the difficult-terrain lava made things... interesting. I knew something was awry when he asked, "How did you do in the first round?", and he kinda blanched at my response. That's when we found out that there was no Swiss-system pairings in this tournament. I can understand, since it takes more time and can get complex, but it made for some mismatches, ours being one.

He sets up spread across the table, with the Destroyers on my left side and the VoD Lord with the far-right squad, and the Monolith fornt and center. I set up the squads in the central-right area, with 3 Dread on each end. No dusk or dawn; he gets and takes 1st turn.

His 1st turn - He moved forward with everything, created scarabs with the spiders, and shot with the Destroyers and Monolith's whip. The Destroyers blew off Dread 3's TLLC; the whip killed 2 Marines out of squad IV.

My 1st turn - Dreads move forward to make range and hide from the whip and Destroyers, just in case. The Chaplain moves forward, behind the lava rock "trees" in the middle. A single lascannon shot from a squad pops the Monolith, rendering a lot of my shots less useful. It was a fluke, and changed the game substantially. Remaining shots drop the Destroyers and kill a few Warriors.

His 2nd turn - His squad with the VoD Lord ports in to the left side, directly in front of 2 of the Dreads and the Monolith-killing squad. The other squads move forward, somewhat slowed by the lava flows. The VoD squad opens up on one Dread, pumping 22 shots into it... and achieved nothing. That was a shock.

My 2nd turn - Chaplain jumps further forward, into range of the "middle" Warrior squad; the 3 left Dreads move up to confront the VoD squad, while the 3 right ones move to bear on the "middle" squad. Gunfire dropped most of the VoD squad, a good bit of the "middle" squad, and one of the Tomb Spiders; the 3 Dreads assaulted the remaining VoD Warriors and the Chaplain assaulted the "middle" squad. The Chaplain did one wound; the Dreads beat and ran down the VoD squad and Lord.

His 3rd turn - The remaining unengaged Warrior squad moved forward, with the Destroyer Lord in support. The squad opened up on Dread 4, immobilizing it and blowing off its AC. The assault saw the Chaplain dropping a few more Warriors, but they stuck.

My 3rd turn - The right Dreads moved toward the left, angling for a shot at the unengaged squad. With virtually the whole army shooting at them, the Warrior squad is reduced substantially and, combined with the Chaplain's assault, dropped the Necrons below phase-out.

Result - Victorious Slaughter

The turning point was the death of the Monolith; at the very least, it should have absorbed many more shots, and the damage it could have done would have definitely changed the balance of the game. Looking at it first turn, I fully expected to lose 2 to 3 Dreads and a number of Marines to it. Also, the VoD squad dying to no return was unfortunate; they probably would have been better off dropping in on a flank and confronting just one Dread at a time.

Game 3 - Denis Atkinson
Tyranids
Winged Tyrant
6 x 10 Genestealers w/ EC
2 Zoanthropes

This was again on a Chaos table; about the same amount of terrain as before. The mission was Omega Secure and Control. He had everything but the tyrant; I was missing my Dreads. He formed in a line on the edge of his zone, tightly packed; I lined up slightly back from the line. No Dusk or Dawn.

We set up... and he had to run to get his Forgeworld stuff from the store. The lines were long, so it took a while. I didn't really mind, since he was a nice guy about it, but it was kind of inconvenient. Unfortunately, it meant we ultimately had to cut the game short.

I got choice... and had a brainfart, and took second. I was thinking to get him close so my shooting would be better, but that was stupid of me. Even if I was having to roll for Concealment, I should have taken the possible shots, and gotten my Dreads earlier.

His 1st turn - He surged forward with some killer Fleet rolls, and moved the Zoeys up to shoot. The Zoeys either fail to see or miss.

My 1s turn - No movement. 4 squads worth of shooting kill 4 'Stealers from one squad and 3 from another. *sigh*

His 2nd turn - His tyrant comes in. Most of the Genestealers close in to assault range and the Zoeys kill a couple Marines. In assault, the 'Stealers slaughter 2 squads and break a 3rd. The remaining squad is engaged by follow-ups.

My 2nd turn - 4 Dreads and the Chaplain come in, and reduce one brood from 10 to 3, breaking them. The broken squad, having regrouped, returned to assault in support of the engaged squad. It didn't help, as the larger squad got munched.

And then time was called. By agreement, we called it a draw, but I figure I would have ended up with a loss, had it continued. All those 'Stealers would have overwhelmed the Dreads, even if the Tyrant never got there. Brutal, brutal list.

Denis was a nice guy, and a pleasant player; it wasn't his fault that the tournament and the Games Day store were slightly incompatible. Hopefully, we'll get to play again and actually finish.

Thanks for the good reports. And from what I can tell, your list was/is completely legal.
Heed the....Ancients says that Dreadnaughts can be used as Heavy or Elites....all elites must be Venerable, and the 0-1 limit is removed.
SInce the limit is removed....then you Heavy support dreads have the Venerable as an option.....
Nothing prohibiting it. Questionable, slightly. Someone probably just didn't want to play it or thought it might be too tough.....but you only had 24 marines plus 6 light "tanks".....

LordSutekh- you're not being nitpicky- and its got nothing to do with troops. The escalation rules arent for force organisation classification. They are for unit classification. Vyper= skimmer = not allowed. Jetbike= jetbike = not allowed.

Good thing you beat him or I woulda felt cheated.

Soup_Nazi: it's open to interpretation, and the judges were within their rights. I regret that it became an issue, but hopefully it will stir up a clarification or expansion on the intent of the rule.

Morticon: If we'd played it that way, it would have screwed him on the reserves rolls even more. I prefer that my opponent be happy (within reason), and I didn't know the CWE rules well enough to have any idea of what was what.

editing my post - sutekh doesn't want his thread full of arguing over this, and I want to try to respect that.

Mauleed has a thread in You Make The Call talking about it; how about hashing it out over there? It's the place for debate, and we can get everyone's input in one place.

Sprout, you are wrong. I was wrong. We're all wrong together. (move your comments over to YMDC and I'll happily explain our error).

And Lord S, jetbikes do not start on the board in escallation even when taken as troops choices.

I Deleted the top portion so Lord_Sutekh can continue to talk about his games.

All in all it sounded like you had some good games and I too was upset that the terrain on the tables was so sparse. Hopefully, I'll make it to the next GD and those tables won't be setup yet so I can set more terrain on them. I'm normally in charge of getting those tables setup and I ensure that there's enough terrain on each table to make the players happy (I think it was 2 years ago there was so much terrain on the tables, players were removing a few piece...lol). Sadly I didn't even make it to setup till around noon on that Friday (we start setting up at 8am and are done at 6pm. Taking the convention down Saturday after everyone leaves, we start at 6 - 6:30pm and are done by 8pm.)

I also hope that the next GD they have results sheets or if they don't I'm told in advance so I can get proper ones made with paper and not 3" x 5" cards.

Sprout, are you a GW employee or a volunteer? Just curious.

You'll solve it!? My uber rules argument solves every problem about the ven dread question!

Lord, looks like you got a bad deal at the tourney. As for the argument that says you should know the rules, it appears the interpretation wasn't clear from one judge to the next. You did right in asking the opinion of the refs before the thing started and they did wrong telling you it was legal, then pulling the rug out from under you after your first game.

On the other hand, from reading sprout's post, it seems like the crew there was working under some heavy disadvantages. Hopefuly GW will take note as has been said and clarify the rule a bit so your incident isn't repeated.


I'll have to say you're showing some real class in getting things back into perspective and coming up with a good battle report.

I am not sure if this has been asked/answered but who won the RTT and with what army?

THanks in advance

I can't remember off the top of my head and the computer that the scores were kept on was the event coordinator's so it's back with him. They should have results on the website soon (I hope).

I think the first game was a case of having a very old codex. The Saim Hann rules state in 'any' mission he may place fast attack choices instead of troop units

You are right about Gabe's Saim Hann list. It gets looked over a lot for viability. It works suprisingly well in RTT's. However, there was another similar, but left out the two jetbike squads for more Vypers: brutal.

Still a misread. Whether it's a Troops choice or a Fast Attack choice has nothing to do with whether a unit starts on the table in Escalation.

Oh well; it's not like it was game-breaking. He might have done better with them off-board, or he might have gotten screwed by poor rolls. If I'd had a few turns to move unopposed, he'd have been struggling to deny me his "home" quad, much less the neutrals. I'd have been able to position agressively and get my whole force into scoring positions, dig in, and then wait for him to come on and gun the Eldar down in penny-packets.

Also, I'm pretty sure it was an honest mistake. Myself, I can see it as appropriate for Saim Hann: a fast, elite raiding force pouncing on the enemy in a coordinated wave. If they ever get updated, they should get the Dark Eldar "always attacker" rule.

As mannahin says, FOC makes no difference. It has to do with unit types. The rulebook says ONLY BASIC INFANTRY, IE, models which are classified as basic infantry. Jetbikes are "bikes", not infantry, and so they do not start on the board even if they occupy a "TROOPS" slot. Vypers are "Vehicles" and vehicles never start on the table in escalation, unless you are the pathfinder devilfish and you interpret it that way.