Wednesday, December 23, 2015

A Local Tournament Report



Well, this last weekend was the last tournament of the year.  The last two events, I've been having a poll on the local Alaska Wargamers Group to see what army I should take to the local tournament next month.  I did pretty well last month when they voted I should take Orks; I ended up winning the event.

This month the vote was Imperial Guard (or Astra Militarum for those newer to the hobby).  I haven't played much Guard lately (I haven't even played the newest book yet!), and my Traitors were in a sorry state; I couldn't really field an army.  So I asked my buddy Dan (I'll be writing another blog post about our huge game of 9th Age that we finished as well) if I could borrow some models from his huge collection.  I cobbled together a list using the new formation from the Mont'ka expansion.

I feel like the list is pretty solid, but I would have made a few changes in hindsight.  Here's the list that I ran:

Emperor's Blade Assault Company:
Company Command Squad w/ 3 Meltaguns, Chimera
3 x 10 Veterans w/ 3 Meltaguns, Vox-Caster and Chimera
Devildog w/ Multi-Melta

Emperor's Wrath Artillery Company 1:
Company Command Squad w/ Warlord, Vox-Caster and Chimera
Basilisk
Wyvern
Manticore

Emperor's Wrath Artillery Company 2:
Company Command Squad w/ Volkov's Cane, Vox-Caster and Chimera
Basilisk
Wyvern
Manticore

It's an even 1850 pts.  Pretty solid, and has lots and lots of templates with Ignores Cover.  Now, the day before the event I posted my list so that people could see what I was bringing to the table.  It makes me feel a little cocky to say, but I've won just a ton of local events in a row.  I wanted to give people a chance to build against it if they wanted to.  It's not that people around these parts are bad players or anything; actually, it's completely the opposite.  I've just had a string of good luck in match-ups and have been able to either play slightly better or get better dice rolls when I've played against the really good players.

Here's a brief rundown of the games:



Game One:


Anyway, so to start the event I play against Chris B, who is playing a Guard/Space Wolves/Cult Mech list.  He brought:

Space Wolves Company of the Great Wolf Detachment:
Rune Priest (rolled Divination for Prescience and Precognition)
Iron Priest on Thunderwolf w/ 2 Fenrisian Wolves
Iron Priest on Thunderwolf w/ 2 Fenrisian Wolves

Cult Mechanicus Battle Congregation
Tech Priest Domunius w/ Volkite and ?
2 x 3 Kataphron Destroyers w/ Grav

Astra Militarum CAD
Pask in Punisher + Executioner w/ Full Plasma; Dozer Blades
2 x 10 Veterans
Wyvern
Stormlord

An interesting army to say the least.  Not a lot of stuff; seemed random; Chris stated at the start of the game he had chosen some random models he wanted to play with.  It seemed more effective than I thought it was going to be though; he really gave me a run for my money.

The mission we were playing was Emperor's Will, with a side of Modified Maelstrom.

Chris managed to win deployment, and chose to go second.  I was perfectly okay with this, as my army alpha-strikes pretty hard.

On my first turn, I knocked a hull point off the Stormlord, killed (due to a failed panic check) one squad of veterans and both the Iron Priests (which were in a unit by themselves).  Suffice it to say that I managed to kill pretty much everything that got to me, and I ended up having to use one of my Wyverns once all my chimeras were dead in order to try and get some of the objectives for secondary.  Chris was really good at making sure he got his Maelstrom points every turn, where I was really struggling.  I ended up having to make some sacrifices just to make sure that he was held at bay as far as objective points were concerned (we ended up tying secondary).  I was lucky in that I was able to kill all his units that were trying to get to my objective, as well as kill those that were camping his.  I end up winning to a thrown together army just barely 6-1.  Credit where credit is due, I was sweating it pretty hard the last couple turns at the Magos slowly chewed through my vehicles with his haywire CCW.

Result: 6-1 me.

Game 2

The only game I managed to get pictures of...


Game two I faced off against Matt and his Guard/Imperial Knights army:

Knight equivalent CAD:
Knight Crusader (Warlord) w/ Icarus
Knight Errant w/ Stormspear
Knight Gallant w/ Stormspear and Meltagun

Guard Allied Detachment
Company Command Squad (in Vendetta)
Veteran Squad w/ Carapace
Veteran Squad w/ Carapace
Valkyrie Vendetta
3 Wyverns

A pretty brutal list.  I was not looking forward to trying to deal with three knights, mostly the Ion Shields.  The mission was The Scouring with secondary Maelstrom.  I did however win the chance to go first...however Matt Seized the Initiative!

I was even more worried after getting Seized on...but somehow I managed to not completely lose any vehicles (minus one chimera on the first turn).  I was pretty happy about that.  My return volleys killed one knight a turn every turn after the first.  We had a ruling on how ion shields were used against Barrage Weapons and I'm not sure or not what was the right answer.  They were allowed if the closest side armor was the one being shielded to the shot...re-reading the section I think it's where-ever the hole ends up on the diagram (as per ITC), but I'm not upset by the ruling or anything..  I managed to nearly wipe out my opponent (with the exception of the running late Valkyrie and the CCS).  At the end of the game I was holding two objectives to one, and probably could have held another.

Two notes on this game:

#1.  Matt's army is beautiful.  His knights looked really good, he just needed to base one more but I feel like he very well could have the nicest army at the event.

#2.  I had a brand-new tournament experience; a legitimate heckler. See notes below for additional information and opinion.


Game 3:



So, for my game three I ended up playing against Jon, which is one of my regular opponents.  Although I usually do pretty well against Jon, his more common tournament list is a pretty good counter to mine.  Jon ran his usual GK/BA list:


BA Baal Strike Force:
Corbulo
5 Bolter Death Company
9 CCW Death Company (two Power Swords, 1 Hammer, 1 Inferno Pistol, one Hand Flamer)
5 Tactical Marines w/ Grav Gun and Pistol
5 Scouts w/ Camo Cloaks and Sniper Rifles
2 Storm Ravens (one with DC, one with Culexus Assassin)
Sicarian w/ Lascannon Sponsons
Aegis w/Comms Relay


Grey Knight Strike Force:
Librarian w/ Daemonhammer
5 Terminators
2 Dreadknights



Culexus Assassin

So overall a pretty nice list; it's fast and I've really got no counter to the flyers and Dreadknights (other than some Meltaguns).  Jon gets first turn, and the Mission is the Relic plus modified Maelstrom.

Jon has a great opening turn, killing 3 of my Vet Chimeras and taking two hull points off a fourth.  Ouch!  I struck back, but try as I might I just couldn't bring down a Dreadknight.  I missed with two entire squads of BS4 meltaguns at the same DK, and the other one I was only able to take down to one wound left.  I did manage to wreck his Sicarian and kill the entire Scout Squad in one go.  His terminators misshaped and I placed them back on his board edge; they played no further part in the battle.

His next turn saw the DC Stormraven come in; I killed the Bolter DC and the Razorback; took some wounds off the Tactical Squad.  I also killed the wounded Dreadknight but I couldn't quite take the other one down; he was left on one wound. Jon killed a Basilisk and my Devildog.

Overall, the game started to go way downhill here.  I tried to rush forward on foot with my remaining vet squads, but they were either gunned down or assaulted off the table.  I ended up calling the game on turn 4 with just a missile-less Manticore, three veterans and a single company command squad.

Overall a tough game; I didn't have the tools to deal with the 2+ armor MC's, or the flyers.  I could have probably absorbed one or the other, but both at the same time were too much.

I had a great time though, it was a fun game, and Jon gets to say he beat me at the tournament now!  He's been complaining a lot about always having to play me and losing on round three.  Haha; Merry Christmas Jon!

Overall a great and fun event!  I wish I could have stuck around more afterwards and hung out/cleaned up, but significant other and I had dinner plans with some other friends.  Overall another great Tier 1 event!







Continuation of #2:

An observer, watching this game felt like it was necessary to start heckling me when a rules issue came up. I've got at least a decent reputation as a solid player in our local group, but having someone telling my opponent that I'm a jerk and a power-gamer is pretty crappy.  The TO came up to me a while later and let me know if he made any other comments he'd be asked to leave, but...

Honestly, why would a community abide by letting a continuously disruptive, unproductive individual (who, I might add, is not a customer...can't remember the last time I saw this particular individual actually purchase something) participate in store events or seriously just even really be allowed in the store?  It's not the first time I've had run-ins with this particular person, and he's had a restraining order put out on him in one instance due to stalking behavior and also been kicked out of the local forums, as well as at least one store in town and been kicked out of a local convention twice for boundary issues.  He's even smashed out a taillight on one of my friend's cars due to being upset with him. I feel like our newer group is very kind hearted; but probably too much so in this case.  When I see a problem person like this, who's been given so many chances and still failed to meet any social benchmarks, it seems like for the good (and maybe safety?) of the community that they be ostracized.  Maybe I'm a little draconian, but it sure seems like it'd be the for the good of all in this case.  Anyway, I rambled enough.

Have a Happy Holidays and a great New Years!

-Danny

2 comments:

  1. Eh, I've experienced hecklers at tournaments before, and this doesn't sound like one. If someone is so caustic and so generally sketchy, then I think it's definitely the TO's responsibility to keep them out. At least, if they can't be placated.

    As for the reports, well done! I'm running the next few tournaments, but next time I play I hope to be using my own IG army that I'm putting together now. Do you think the doubling up on artillery formations was worth it? For my 1850 I want to try an artillery formation and a Leman Russ formation-- beyond that, I'm not sure.

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  2. Hello Hunchkrot,

    Thanks for the comment. That's cool that you're running events; from experience, sometimes it can be thanksless. I always try and make sure that I tell the TO exactly how much I appreciate them running the event.

    I think if I were to play the Emperor's Wrath Company again, I'd run just one of them, but try and get more pieces in each battery to make up for it. Then either a Tank Company or the Emperor's Shield and go for the full on Cadain Decurion. I do feel like Volkov's Cane is a gimme though; it was too useful not to take. There were several times where I would have failed the order that the "cold blooded" leadership test probably saved my butt.

    I'm excited to play in the next event; I decided that I'm going to take the army I want to play; probably an army from the new Tau book. There's so many options though, I'm not sure how I was to field it!

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