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<?  I decided to go to Baltimore for my first GD as soon as I heard the date.  As usual, I also decided not to take anything normal, hence I spent the better part of this year building and painting my Kroot Merc army.  I'll be posting the results over the next coupld of days.

 

My army:

Master Shaper--power weapon, fleet, Kroothawk totem

Shaper council--3 shapers w/plasma, 5 hounds

2x16 Carnivores, shaper w/evisorator

2xhounds (10 handlers, 14 hounds) shaper with evisorator, fleet

8 Trackers, shaper with evisorator

8 hunters

 

Game 1

All Hollow?s Guard

Marines with Traits (tank hunter devastators, furious charge assault troops)

3x9 marines, plasma cannon, powerfist

8 devastators, 4 missile launchers

10 assault marines

Commander with jump pack, artificer, power weapon

Chaplain with jump pack

Predator annihilator lascannon sponsons

Gamma level (counters--4)

 

Marines set up in a standard fire line, leaving gaps at the ends.  Devisors are centered in the line, with assault marines set back and in a crater.  A set of woods on the left flank of his army allow carnivores to infiltrate 12? away.  The master shaper and a hound squad infiltrate ready to charge the left flank; the other hounds set on the right flank, supported by the second carnivores.  The council is in the center, facing the devastators, trackers behind them to tie up any surviving devastators, and the hunters are back in the only other woods to take a few shots.

 

Turn 1: win the roll-off without the totem.  Everything except the hunters move forward to make range for charges or rapid fire.  The council sprays the devastators, taking down three marines, and taking a wound from overheat.  Hunters drop a single assault marine, but they are fearless with the chaplain.  The hounds and trackers fleet closer, trying to insure their charges.  Master, hounds and carnivores slam into the left flank, but the hounds on the right can only make it to the Predator, and the trackers hit the devastators.  Left flank is rolled; hounds consolidate toward another tact squad, carnivores back into the woods.  Trackers drop two marines, but lose two themselves; combat stays.  Predator blows from the evisorator, taking 4 kroot with it.  Now they are in the open for the nearby tact squad.

 

He responds with a hail of fire at both open hound squads, mostly at the shaper.  Both squads take large casualties, but stay.  He assaults the master and hounds with chaplain, commander and assault marines.  Master and hounds lose, but take about half the marines with them.  Trackers and devastators have little effect on each other and combat stays; his command squad joining it. 

 

Turn 2:  Carnivores on the left head toward the command squad.  Hounds and carnivores on the right move toward the closest tact squad.  Council and hunters keep in the woods, near the counters.  Council fire on the middle tact, drop two.  Hounds and carnivores on the left each charge.  The hounds make short work of its tact squad, moving behind a crater to get cover.  Carnivores drop his command squad and move toward the last tact squad.

 

He fires with tact squad at the hounds to the left, dropping a few.  Devastators fire on the council, with a pair of hounds taking the damage. 

 

Turn 3:  He stands with only a tact squad and a pair of devastators.  I charge the tact squad with both the hounds from the left and the carnivores from the right.  Tact squad gone, both squads move toward the devastators. 

 

He makes the valiant move?his devastators charge my carnivores.  They drop. 

 

I spend the next couple of rounds gathering the loot counters.  Victorious slaughter for the Kroot in game 1.

 

Game 2:
Wolf Drop Pods
http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d34/drazz00/Baltimore%20GD/gamesday006.jpg
(from the man himself
WGBL: Term. armor, frost weapon, combi-plasma, runic charm, wolf pelt, wolf tail talisman
Retinue: 4x WG terminators, assault cannons x2, power fists x2, combi-plasma x2, power weapons x2, runic charms x4, mounted in a drop pod.
WGBL: on a bike with Frost weapon, bolt pistol and frag.
Elite: Dread with assault cannon, heavy flamer, extra armor, Drop pod.
Troop: Grey Hunters 7+1, power fist, power weapon, plasma pistols x2, meltagun, bolters x4, wgpl with power weapon and combi flamer, Drop pod
Troop: Grey Hunters 7+1, power fists x2, plasma pistols x2, meltagun, bolters x2, wgpl with combi melta and lightning claw, Drop pod
Elites:Wolf scouts x4 with melta gun and plasma pistols x2
Fast attack: Blood Claws bikers pack x4, powerfists x2
Fast attack: Land speeder tornado with assault cannon and a Heavy bolter.
Omega Take and Hold

Set-up. He places nothing. Everything is either in pods or not infantry. I place the whole army in a line through the center of the table, everything in cover. In addition, all units are in woods except the council, which is in a rock terrain. The center of the table is a large woods.

Turn 1: I give him first turn. Nothing happens.

Turn 2: The wolves start to show. Barely. Speeder, scouts, dread and bike squad come on. Speeder comes on toward the center, dropping a few carnivores. Dread lands next to the center woods, dropping more carnivores. They flee. Scouts are out of position, in the center of my board edge, behind terrain. Bikes charge into the council, killing a hound and a shaper, with no losses. The council holds.

Carnivores from my right head toward the solo dread. Hounds from the left head toward the bikers to reinforce the council. Carnivores from the center continue to flee, dropping the scouts with rifle fire as they go. Master and his hound squad move toward the drop pod to take it out. Snipers fire at the speeder, one glance makes it shaken. Both the hounds and carnivores in the center drop their targets with few casualties; dread and drop pod gone. The council loses another hound, but the hounds from the left drop the bikes. Looking ok.

Turn 3: He gets a commander on bike. Nothing else. With nowhere to hide, he charges into the trackers. I lose two, but they hold. Speeder goes into hiding.

Some movement, but basically just trying claim as much cover as possible. The tracker's shaper drops the commander with a pair of evisorator hits.

Turn 4; Everything else shows. Bad new for me. Bolters, storm bolters, combi-flamers, assault cannons tear through the Master and his hounds, as well as the carnivores in the center woods. Bother take serious damage, but come out without breaking. He now has a wall of powerarmor, drop pods and termies on my right, next to the terrain/take-and-hold counter and I have two shot up squads within.

Time to charge. Master and his hound squad, and the carnivores within the woods move toward the enemy and to clear a path for my second hound squad, about 14" to the left. Those hounds come screaming and fleeting through the woods and make it into combat, with the other two squads. The two hounds target one Grey Hunter Pack, while the carnivores more to try up the second sqaud. Meanwhile, the coucil lays down some plasma fire on the termies, dropping only one (runic charms to the save). The trakcers begin to move around the terrain for a charge next turn, and to stay out of sight. The hounds drop their grey hunters, and move into the tried up second grey hunter squad.

Turn 5: Termies move out of consolidate range, and lay fire into the council. Council drops. Grey hunters hold for one more turn. His speeder is still hiding.

Trackers still skirt the terrain just out of reach of the termies (not that they would have done much). Hounds and carnivores finally drop the Grey hunters, but have to consolidate into the woods, rather than into the termies.

Turn 6: Termies lay fire into Master and his hounds, then charge. Hounds are done, and the termies consolidate into the other hounds. Speeder makes his way to the area, trying to claim the bonus points as the only unit on the board that can score.

Hounds and carnivores drop another couple of termies, preventing them from scoreing. Trackers make a charge to the speeder. Needing 6's to hit, I make 1 from the standard trackers. No glace. Shaper with evisorator makes one hit. Speeder down.

End: A difference of 32 points, brings a draw. It costs the Wolves the tourny; he ends in third with 2 vistorious slaughters and our draw. Absolutely great guy.

Posted By drazz on 05/21/2006 10:56 AM

 Meanwhile, the coucil lays down some plasma fire on the termies, dropping only one (runic charms to the save).

Ummm...Runic charms don't allow you to re-roll invulnerable saves. (I wish they did, but it's only armor saves)

Did all of your Kroot units have Blood of the Stalker? I ask because you make mention in the first battle report that you made first turn assaults and shot 12" rapid fire weapons. When you infiltrate 18" away, you have to have Blood of the Stalker for those to be possible. Count your blessings that you didn't face any skimmer tanks. Seems to me that if you know all the games will have infiltrate, then Kroot can hold their own.

- Oaka

skyth: yeah, I didn't realize it at the time. That's a drawback I have at touries--I don't regularly face some of the popular tourny armies at my club. It didn't make that big of a difference though--2 wounds I think.

Oaka: Blood on one hound squad and the master (who joins the second hound squad) for charges; blood on the council for rapid firing plasma. Trackers don't need it (infiltrate, scout move, fleet with charm, 6" move, 12" charge generally puts me anywhere I want to be on the first turn). The carnivores generally are my shooting units/backup for a second round of charging when needed/objective holders. In game one, I was able to get them hidden behind a wood 12" away from a unit to make a first turn charge.

Interlude:
Before I go on to game three, I want to share some thoughts on the GD and tourny. This was my first big tourny, though I have been to a few small RTT's. As a GT, I expected things to be a bit different than at a small RTT; I expected better organization, a lot of really put together armies, and some tough, but fun, competition. (I can imagine some of you who are more experienced to be laughing about now.) So, while I had fun, and my first two games were against absolutely great oppponents, there were disappointments.

Tourny rules issues:
--no army lists were ever turned in. A judge came by to look at them during the first game. Considering he spent about a minute looking at my Kroot list, I think its safe to assume he did not, and could not, have noticed any and all discrepincies. Given that we were to earn tournament points for the army lists, including validity and theme, I don't know how its even possible that these points were ever evaluated and given.
--painting. I expected to see some great armies, and wasz not disappointed. With some. Of the 50ish people there, I would list maybe 20 who had very nice looking armies. I spent the last 5 months trying to meet an imaginary standard.
--painting scores. Players were to score their opponents' army on a scale of 1-20, based on their painting/modelling/army theme. I worked my tail off thinking I might be able to pull out an average of about 16. Come to find out, its common practice to just give 20's, no matter what the army looked like. Very disappointing.
--Best Army. According to the rules pack, a small number of player armies were to be chosen by the judges as outstanding. Then, the tourny players were to vote on best army. No vote, no 'outstanding armies.' NO Idea how they chose Best Army.
--Trvia Quiz. There was to be a trivia quiz before the tourny started. Never saw it. Not that I would have done all that well, but I did think about it.

My judge hardship.
At the start of the third round, table matchups were posted. I proceded to Table 5, as assigned, and found my opponent was to be one of the standouts of the competition--a Saim-Hann army with 15 vipers. (How would the close combat of Kroot fair against skimmers?) I was very excited at the opportunity. But, the game next to us, Table 6, had two oppontents that had faced each other. Thus, one (Black Templars) would be bumped up to play me; the Saim-Hann dropped down. After the move, and about 15 minutes into the round, I still had no opponent. Neither did the Tau player at Table 4. A judge came and decreed we should play one another. We rolled for mission. Rolled for tabel sides and deployment. Rolled for mission level. He placed his first unit (broadsides). Our opponents showed, with another judge. I argued that I had already had to undergo two changes, and had started the game against the Tau. The two newcomers argued they were not late and that they had been assigned to tables, though at this point bother were assigned Table 5. (they did not want to play each other, as they were friends that came to the tourny together.) The judge did not care that they had been moved to play one another, and placed me against one of them; a Blood Angles player.
Now, by the time my third game started, I had already rolled for two other missions, began setup on a different table, and had to consider fighting against 4 seperate opponents and their armies. I was highly irritated and totally discouraged, and therefore not into my game. Throw in that my opponent was the kind of player I expected, but hoped to avoid (far more interested in a win than a good game; check out my rules questions in another thread), and its easy to see that I was not in the right frame of mind. I made my own mistakes and lost the game, but events certainly added to it.

When it's two termies you are talking about, that mistake might have cost you the game (I won't go out on a limb and call it cheating).

Ah, the joys of Games Day judging and tournament organization. Too bad that the last game was such a pain.

Game Three.
Blood Angels
4x 10 Tact with melta
2x 10 scouts with ccw/bp, powerfist
3x speeder with MM (individual units)--ignored and essentually useless in the game
chaplain with 10 death company
Gamma Recon

Setup: Since my opponentactually had infiltraters, I had to set a couple fo units to ensure some are form my own. He deployed in a fire line, with death compnay on my right. I deployed hunters on my far right, and a squad of carnivores on my far left. He placed scouts as far forward as possible on both flanks. I concentrated on my left, with both hounds there, council and trackers in the center woods.

Turn 1: I do the usual, not thinking about the short range of his weaponry or the devistating Furious Charge that all his marines have. Hounds charge into the left flank of his firing line. Trackers dive into the unit next to them, after some plasma fire from the council. Hunters drop a pair of DC. Carnivores move up to support my center and left flank. The other hounds, moving to take out the scouts, roll double 1's for my fleet and fail to make combat. That would turn out to be the game. Combats are drawn, but I have the upper hand in his fire line.

He moves both scouts and the DC straight ahead; DC toward the council. Tact squads begin to move toward the combats on my left. The scouts on my left charge my hounds. The hounds lose, but stay. My Master and his hounds drop the remaining marines they face, and move into combat with the tact and remaining trackers. DC charges the council, but combat stays.

Turn 2: I move the center carnivores into charge range with the DC, though they are in cover. The carnivores on the left move to try to make a charge with the scouts there. Snipers drop a scout opposite them on the right. Charges are made from both carnivore squads. The DC wins againts both the council and the carnivores; council runs (rules issue), carnivores stay. The scout combat on my right has major issues, both rules wise and my very poor rolling. Hounds stay, carnivores run (though they never participated in the combat). Master and his hounds drop the tact squad, though the trackers are gone. Master consolidates into the woods, as much as possible.

Master is charged by tact squad 3 (issues). Scouts charge hunters after a 'black rage(?)' roll. Scouts on the left drop the hounds, consolidate in range to keep the carnivores there from rallying. DC combat is drawn.

Turn 3: Carnivores on the left fall back, but drop scouts through fire. Council falls back, cannot rally. Master and his hounds still fight against Tact 3. Hunters drop from the scouts on the right. DC still tied up with carnivores.

Half-played, as our time was out after the late start and lots of rules arguments. DC finally drop carnivores. Otherwise, everything stays the same.

Result: Major Defeat for the Kroot. I had Master's hound squad as the only scoring unit, with council and a full carnivore squad that were fleeing, but would not count, though it would have changed the scoring.

Not a fun game. Late start and rules questions limited our time. My own lack of strategy and impatience hampered any chance I might have had. Some poor rolling definitely did not help. And rules questions (in which I gave in every time to try to keep the game rolling sealed the deal.

Drazz,

I do recall using a couple of my Runic charms during our match, but I do not recall when.

Are you sure thats when I used my Runic charms?  Could it be that your confusing my Runic charms with the invulnerable save that Terminators get anyways?

It was an intense game, and I didn't take any notes during.

I certainly understand how they work and know that they are only used against regular armor saves and not invulnerable, (hell, what ya want for 5 points)

If I did indeed use them for an invulnerable save then I appologize and assure you it wasn't intentional. (though it is odd of me to make such a mistake)

I attend ALOT of tournaments, and have been a regular attendant at GTs since 2000.

It certainly would not be in my own best interest to attempt to cheat anyone (I see and face many people year after year, not to mention the whole point is really to meet and play against new opponents, hoping to see them again. Year after year.) I know you didn't accuse me of anything, but I wanted to clear the air.

I found you to be a great opponent and would love a rematch anytime.

Littlbitz-

I took notes, but they weren't that accurate. I can't say for certain when you used the charms and whether or not they were for plamsa; though, I don't shoot with much else at times. I also truely enjoyed our game. And, for a rematch, I might have to make my way down to Jester's for the tourny in the fall. Though, 2000 points is a LOT of Kroot...

Drazz were your "rules questions" the ones you posted here and on B&C? or something else?

SOME of the rules issues were those listed on those sites. My kroot charged through and past cover--he claims I10 on his scouts, even though they were not in cover. (Major rules debate everywhere I post this.) My kroot were assaulted, some in cover. They DID NOT get I10. My kroot fled through woods--at half speed, preventing them from moving more than 6" from the enemy, and thus, from rallying.

There were others, some that were legitimatly in his favor, some that should have been in mine, that I did not post because the answers, once I took time to find them, were clear. As I said, I gave in every time, mostly out of frustration and to try to keep the game moving.

Drazz, cool.. I hope you decide to come. I'll be sure and have some extra flamers just for you.

Send me a PM if you have any events your way, I'd love to make the road trip!