1176 Tourney game 2 - Newcrons!

So carrying on from the previous post where I took apart a basic Tyranid army we move to game #2 with a Newcron army.

Now, understand that its the day after the new 'dex dropped and he is using the new rules.  I on the other hand am only barely tracking that the new rules exist.  So it was a very educational game for me.







He's running something resembling the below list.
-Monolith
-C'Tan Shard with 2 powers Grand Illusion and something else
-1x 5x warriors
-1x 10x warriors
-3x heavy destroyers
-Necron Lord with a destroyer body
-3x wraiths

The set up is 2 objectives with 12" in.  We both place objectives and drop troops on it.  We also set up almost all on the left side of the table.   So its a tight and fast fight.

I get first turn and drop Mordrak and co into the front of his 5x warriors which are screening his destroyers.  I push forward a bit and shoot a bunch.  Killing all but one warrior in the 5x (of course 2 come back), a couple of his destroyers and a wraith.  I also stun his Monolith but that's useless.  His turn, first things first he immobilizes his Monolith by parking it in terrain.  After that the monolith is largely useless as he can't face the door at approaching troops and the particle whip goes away next turn.  He does use it to vaporize some on my strike squad though.  This game is quick and brutal.  He picks away at my gunline of Dreads, Strike squad and purifiers with screening Rhino, while my Interceptors and Mordrak proceed to eat his army.

More so than anything Mordrak was a monster that he could not stop.  End of turn 2 his bubble wrap and 3 wounds were gone so every round of combat with him has me wincing.  Even with him going before me in combats at I2, he destroyed things.  The str 10 hammer with 4/5 attacks decimated his army.  Mordrak ate his wraiths, he ate the C'Tan Shard (well the remaining wound of it anyways), then he ate the warriors on his objective and finally wrecked the monolith. 

The gunline of dreads with psycannon support is nearly unbreakable if used intelligently.  There are a great many ways to possibly break it, as with anything.  Careful target priority choices are a necessity when playing a smaller model count army.

This game also illustrated the power of a GM to me.  Really hammered it in.  Mordrak's 4 wounds and capability to first turn deepstrike can divide or redirect the opponents whole army for a large number of turns.  If placed  carefully he can roll up a flank, destroying as he goes.  I can see attaching him to a bundle of Paladins and being pure unstoppable mess.  As cheesy as that is.    His ghost knight retinue may have a place in my army in the future but there are many other things I like to attach him to for that first turn delivery.

---I will have to add a pic of my version of Mordrak up later.  He's a poor conversion of an old metal Stern Model, but he works good on the table.---

I WIN! I WIN! and other inconsequential stuff.

So on Sunday I played in a LGS 1176pt (Standard force org) Tournament.  Not a huge one but most of the local villains, and a few new guys were there for the fun.  We had 2 sets of puppies, eldar, orks, my GK, nids, 2 sets of Newcrons, a marine player and something else I don't remember.


I ended up taking 1st.  Pretty cool.

Scenarios were pretty basic.  4x4 tables with 90 min time limits for fast and heavy fights.  Each had up to 4 Battle point optional bonus things like + 1 BP to kill enemy HQ, or have a unit in other deployment zone that vaired by mission.

Scenario 1 - table quarters annihilate, victory points 537+ difference for Massacre
Scenario 2 - 12" from edge, 2 obj
Scenario 3 - DoW, 4 d3+2 obj (we got 4 total)

My list was a chopped down version of my 'Ard Boyz List.
GM Mordrak w/ 5 termies (5 hammers, 1 psycannon)
5x GKSS (1 psycannon, 3 halb, 1 sword)
5x Purifiers (2 psycannon, 3 swords) in a rhino w/ searchlight
5x Interceptors (3 halb, 1 hammer, 1 incinerator)
2x TLAC Dread w/ psybolts

First game was against the 'Nid player.  Said that this was his first game in a year and he was a good guy.
He ran big maxed out blobs bugs.
20x termagaunts
20x hormagaunts
20x genestealer w/ broodlord
2x 15x harpy
1x trigon
1x hive tyrant w/gun


He puts out his two blobs of gaunts and his tyrant, I deploy holding only Mordrak for that backside punch.  he goes first and runs forward, shooting the tyrant for no good.  I proceed to drop Mordrak and the termies in the back, then shoot his tyrant and termagaunts off the table.  The hormagaunts get smashed by incinerator and Interceptors, but hold with like 9 left.  Turn 2 his trigon comes on in my backfield but is relatively useless as he can't get into combat with me.  His genestealers also come in this turn, and they proceed to eat Mordrak and friends, but loose the broodlord and a couple before finally walking away when the combat rolls back around to me.  I shoot the crap out of Trigon and finish the gaunts, but the big bug still has a wound left.  His turn rolls around again and the Trigon eats a dreadnaught, he pushes the genestealers forward.  I finish the trigon with the other dread and proceed to shoot his stealers off the table.  I regroup and kick off Warpquake to keep the harpies off me.  He tries anyways to drop them up close but mishaps get them far off into the corner where one drops off the table and the other ends up getting shot down as it comes in.

Game 1 - Lessons learned.....
#1 - Use freaking warpquake.  If I had used it consistently I would not have lost that dread, I Could have castled up and simply kept warp quake up and shot the crap out of him the whole time.  If the GKSS are not involved in a combat use quake.
#2 - Mordrak is a badass.

--more later--

pre-'Ard boyz Touney results

Well what a sad day for me.  1-2-0    Piss poor planning prevent performance.

There are some serious mistakes and lessons learned from this event.

#1 - Now this is just embarrassing...never leave parts of your models at home.  This is bad.  Namely the turrets for your razorbacks, and additional weapons for Land Raiders.You just look silly with a borrowed Dreadnought melta arm sitting on top of you land raider.  I am sure you can imagine it. 

#2 - Grandmaster and Land Raider - 500 points wasted.  In "Ard Boyz that is too much.  Just the Land Raider itself was the primary waste.  Blown up or wrecked in the first turn in 2 of 3 games.  The third game it got parked in turn 2 and sat there and shot for the rest of the game.    Too high of a point cost for so little effect. 

#3 - Grand Master - primary use...Grand Strategy.  This power is so very versatile and useful.  Need to take 5 objectives?  Have a rifleman dread sit at home base scoring while the purifiers run out for the far one.  Need to get that first turn alpha strike off?  Scout the interceptors, suddenly they have a 30" from deployment threat range.  Going to be recieving a lot of charges to shake you off that single objective?  Counter Attack is wonderful for those termies with a banner and libby attached.  This power alone makes me look at Grand masters as a useful part of my army.

#4 - Learn the codex's of your opponents.  Know your enemy.  ignore that paper airplane of the Dark Eldar, yes that little one, no really go ahead and ignore it....see what it just dropped off in you deployment zone....yes they can walk out of that thing.  Bugger.

#5 THRAWN!!  He rocks my socks....when I remember he's in the game.  When I forget for half the game its a problem.



Anyways... I played, as is evidenced above, a Dark Eldar player.  Who made great use of a webway portal carried by a haemonunculus carried in a Venom.  2 of them with a pair of pain engine things.  He tabled me.  Fuck, there goes winning anything in this tournament.

Second game - Mech-dar.  Low model count and great rolling.  I table him, but there were some hairy moments in there.   Once again proving to me that Swooping Hawks are the worst unit in the game.  Once upon a time I played with them and they saw the table 2 times.  Both times they landed pooped and died to little effect.

Third Game - Victory Points against....IG 2 chimera, 4 russes, 2 basilisks and vets...etc.  Crap.  Once again Grey knights prove to have a hard time against massed hulls.  He nearly tables me but a parked Land Raider and a pair of Dread keep him to a minor victory. 

Overall I finished like 8 out of the 10 folks that showed up.  Really! I fail at this game!  At least today.  But the purpose is for fun and I had a blast playing. Played the last 2 games against people who I really enjoy playing against. 

Interceptors - Far better than hoped

Interceptor with Incinerator...similar to shouting  "Surprise! Butt Seks!"

 So time for more dissection of the GK codex based upon experience.  This time we are looking at one of the two fast attack choices.  I do not own a Storm Raven as of yet as my model budget has taken a quick dive....but I do have some interceptor back packs.  Which means that I have access to Interceptors.

Stat line wise they are normal marines, jump marines.  Cool, 12" jump style moving for only 6 more points per model than normal Strike Squads.  With the usual options of incinerator for 20, psycannon for 10, daemonhammers etc.  Basically its +6 points per model for GKSS so they are now fast attack/jump infantry. 

I personally perfer to use them as distractors and disruption units.  A single 10 man squad with 2 hammers, 2 incinerators, 8 halberds is invaluable to me.  Today's tournament proved that.  They really earned their points in pulling focus from the rest of the army and breaking formations.

So lets talk a little about tactics.  The incinerator is pure fun.  Jump 30", no scatter, place your other Interceptors to maximize targeting, and its BBQ time.  I opened a chimera with this, not the best thing to use but it is possible.  Even better is that first turn, when everyone is all jammed together in the deployment zone.  Dropping in to flame on turn 1 can change an opponent's tactics by a bunch. Sure, using the 30" jump to get there means you won't be assaulting and will most likely receive that punch in the face you asked for.  It doesn't matter though, 5-10 of these can absorb some shots and possibly live through an assault (you did take halberds right?).  This forces an opponent to deal with the parts of your army that you hand to him on your time.  Keeping them from possibly getting to a more brittle/valuable target that you do not want him to be firing at this turn. 

Want to distract him?  Drop in a single squad and allow him to nuke it off the table.  Sure it just became an expensive speed bump, but with a little forethought on placement and weaponry you may have just forced him to maneuver in way more advantageous to you.

Disruption?  Jump them in a big bunch right in front of his tanks.  This guy will put a stop to any tank and possibly force that commander to divert around you, splitting his forces.

From here on out I will run a minimum of 5 of these dudes.

Running Events...Things to know and do

So here in the sweaty unwashed armpit of hell where the Army has chosen to park me for the next couple of years we have a small but aspiring new LGS.  It's nearest cousins are both 45 minutes to an hour away so no real marketshare is being lost by either of these more established stores.  (I'll do some store reviews later)

This store owner "J" is fairly new to the gaming scene himself, but is a big comic book fan and that was the primary basis for the store.  Comics weren't supporting the store completely and so he added in another aspect of nerd bait and added in the gaming stuff.  He had customers and a bunch of new players buying battle forces and what not.  There were a few experienced players but not many.  So he asked for help to run an event.  I volunteered, out of the goodness of my heart, and want to attract/find some other players who knew the rules.  Event went well but there are things that I learned and some thing I wish the shop owner knew at the time.

So there are some things that any event planner needs to do-

-Make an agreement with the store owner (if they are not the same person, obviously) about some seemingly negligible sticking points, notables are listed below.

• Hours- Need to open earlier or stay later than usual hours?  
• Pricing vs. prize support - how much money does the owner want to make from hosting the event?  how much of the entry fee is being put toward the prizes?
• Restrictions on Space - need more tables?  This can be a real big problem as a store can only filed so many tables for its size.  Some stores only have a few tables to play on in the first place.  This can severely limit the number of players,  and put a big downer on the event.  

-Plan ahead, and prepare the event rules.  A simple page of printed rules (ie.  No Apocalypse, or Forge World rules, etc.),  a list of what to bring (dice, 3 copies of your list, etc) and what not is essential in my opinion to a successful and lower stress event for you the planner.  You can always refer someone to the rulesheet.  Now if you are doing scenarios you need to have those prepared on printed sheets also.  Shouting special rules across a crowded store can be un-fun.  If you really want to be "cool" have score cards/sheets for players to initial results on and turn in. 

-Communicate with your player base early.  Put out the word as soon as you can about the date/time and where/how to sign up.  As an addendum to this...make sign-up easy.

-Be prepared for the day of the event.  Get there early and get set-up.  Preferably before the player get there, especially if you want to guarantee even terrain spread or whatever.  Players will often adjust terrain to better suit their army if you allow them to set up the tables.

-Have fun, but be fair.  You will end up being a judge, and being a dick to some guy you don't like because he tabled you last time you played him doesn't make it more fun.  It can and will riun the event for more than just you/him.  Now on the flip side if someone is being a dick, warn him, punish him (take points from his score), then drop him and have the owner ask him to leave.  Don't get into a screaming match, that's just ugliness that no one needs.  The second and third order effects can really ruin a shop (seen it happen).

-If there are bonus points available for something not hard wired into the game (like paint quality, sportsmanship, army fluff/cohesion, etc) have an impartial judge(s) or allow all participants to vote.  Ask every player after every game to rate their opponent from 1-5 on sportsmanship, have all players set up their army before /after play to be viewed and voted on for paint.  Or something like that.  "Because I said so" isn't fair and makes for tournament(s) that no one will want to go to.

-Try to know the rules.  As the organizer, you will be the judge most often.  If you don't know the rules you can't effectively be the judge, so get someone else.

With any dash of common sense, most of the above will not be anything new.  But hopefully it may help you plan/run an event if you are so inclined.

-Greyen

Lessons Learned #1

All right, for those of you who aren't familiar in the military we like to conduct AAR's after every single event.  Good/Bad/Ugly/Whatever events, they all end up with some form of written AAR that is intended to document how things went and how to do it better.

I am going to attempt to do AARs for most of the games I play and events that I attend. Theory and mathhammer are fine, but I far prefer actual experience to thought exercises.

So after this last little LGS Tourney (see Battle reports below) there are several things to look at and think about.

Things that went well and are worth keeping...
1.  Riflemen Dreads, while these guys weren't spectacular they did their jobs nicely.  With a decent price and good survivability a pair of them is well worth it.
-But is a third worth taking?  Interweb consensus is yes, but I think that third and final heavy slot can be used otherwise.  For later argument/testing I think.

2.Brotherhood Banner - This thing really shines in bigger groups, but even  with just 5 guys in the group an additional attack per model and auto passing force weapon checks is well worth it.

3. Deep Striking 5 man GKSS squads later in the game.  This allows for the small and mildly squishy nature a touch more survivability as well as other benefits.  It allows that magical (for GKs) 24 inch range to be maximised and for a late game score.

Things that need to be examined further-
1.  Librarian powers...really only 3 of these have impressed me as useful all the time.  Sanctuary, is a must every single time. This power is a must, allowing you to control the assault better and possibly grab a free wound or two.  Shrouding, really situational but very much useful in many situations and used in most if not all games I have played so far.  Might of Titan, +1 str that stacks with Hammerhand, yes please, for 5 points...even better.  Warp Rift netted me 1 penetrating hit, one time in three games.  This could be more useful if the libby is running solo, but when attached to a group of Termies it isn't valuable.
2.  Land Raider-  Now only for 2000+pt games.  My track record for these very awesome tanks is about 50/50.  50% of the time they get popped/wrecked in the very first turn, the other half of the time it lives for most of the game and is effectively Conan.  
3.  5 man squad size for GKSS- do you combat squad 10 men squads for 2x the scoring possibilities or just run a couple (2-3) small squads?  Situation/game dependent but in a tourney the list can't change.  Combat squadding happens at deployment but list writing happens long before that.

Things that went poorly and won't see the light of day again.
1- My own lack of judgement.  Sometimes I go for the longshot risk that may have a big pay-off.  Many times it works out great, many times it fails horribly.  Lesson learned here, but it will probably need to be learned a number of more times.  Its a game, make it fun, more risk is more fun.

2- Lack of transports; simply put I need more Rhinos and Preds.  The extra points for the TL Assault Cannon with Psybolts may or may not be worth it.  But is trading 2 fire points and 4 more pax for the mounted gun worth while?  Depends on the use I guess.  We will see.