What I did on my Weekend, by Charles Cowan
Saturday was the Geekcon. A number of us that didn’t go to the Seattle GT this year got together and had our own little event. Some played 40k, some played Fantasy and a couple of us even played Lord of the Rings and Flames of War. I got in a couple of games of Fantasy with my Chaos Knight army.
264 Exalted Champion 100 Disc 45 MoT 70 GW 4
Golden Eye of Tzeentch 30 Spell Familiar 15
190 Exalted Champion 100 Barded Steed 16 MoT 70 GW 4
190 Exalted Champion 100 Barded Steed 16 MoT 70 GW 4
96 6x Marauder Horsemen, Flails, Musician
30 5x Warhounds
132 4xScreamer
90 6xFury
295 5x Knights MoT, Chosen, Full Cmd
235 5x Knights MoT, Full Cmd
235 5x Knights MoT, Full Cmd
237 3x Dragon Ogres, Light Armor, GW
1994pts 11PD, 5 DD
Well, okay, “got in a couple of games” might be a bit euphemistic. My first game I got totally taken to school by Frank and his Dwarves. I kind of figured this would happen anyway, but he wasn’t trying that hard to stomp me and kind of did anyway. Moral of the story: Don’t try to charge ranked Dwarf units unless you’ve got a combined charge going on. Even if you are Dragon Ogres or Chosen Knights. They pretty much ran away with their tails between their legs. It really wasn’t pretty, but I got a lot more familiar with the game and learned a lot.
The second game, against Shelly’s Empire, was quite a see-saw. Her army focused on Hochland Long Rifles. Basically, she had a lot of snipers. She also had a cannon, a mortar, a steam tank and a bunch of basic black powder gunners. Her army wasn’t great against my heavy armor, but my lower numbers helped out, as did the Steam Tank, which quickly took down my Dragon Ogres, and then I had very little that could hurt it. At the end of the game, she had the Steam Tank and a small unit of gunners and I had a small unit of Screamers left. So, overall, a 2-300pt margin in a 2000pt game. I felt a lot better after that game. I had tried going around one end of her line and it mostly worked out until she got that Steam tank into me. I had an easier time with charges in this game, since most of my units could hammer just about any of her units quite quickly.
On Sunday, I got to participate in a small 40k tournament with my Tyranids. I showed up early to help the organizer check armylists and ended up totally rewriting one guy’s army. He had apparently ignored the selection requirements listed for the tournament, so we had to pull out all the figures he had and try to come up with some more Troops and less elites. Eventually, we got everything settled and began.
HQ 197 Hive Tyrant WS6 BS4 S6 T6 W4 I5 A3+2 LD10
Sv2+ Wings, Implant Attack, Warp Blast, Synapse, The Horror.
HQ 197 Hive Tyrant same
EL 240 3xLictor WS6 BS- S6 T4 W3 I6 A2+1 LD10 SV5+ Secret Deployment,
Stealth, Hit and Run, Rending Claws
TR 144 9xGenestealer WS6 BS- S4 T4 W1 I6 A2 LD10 SV6+ Infiltrate,
Rending Claws, Brood Telepathy
TR 144 9xGenestealer WS6 BS- S4 T4 W1 I6 A2 LD10 SV6+ Infiltrate,
Rending Claws, Brood Telepathy
TR 144 9xGenestealer WS6 BS- S4 T4 W1 I6 A2 LD10 SV6+ Infiltrate,
Rending Claws, Brood Telepathy
TR 144 9xGenestealer WS6 BS- S4 T4 W1 I6 A2 LD10 SV6+ Infiltrate,
Rending Claws, Brood Telepathy
TR 144 9xGenestealer WS6 BS- S4 T4 W1 I6 A2 LD10 SV6+ Infiltrate,
Rending Claws, Brood Telepathy
TR 144 9xGenestealer WS6 BS- S4 T4 W1 I6 A2 LD10 SV6+ Infiltrate,
Rending Claws, Brood Telepathy
HS 174 Twin Venomfex WS3 BS3 S9 T6 W4 I1 A2 LD10 SV2+ 2xVenom Cannon
(S10 Assault2 each, AP4 Glance Only)
HS 174 Twin Venomfex WS3 BS3 S9 T6 W4 I1 A2 LD10 SV2+ 2xVenom Cannon
(S10 Assault2 each, AP4 Glance Only)
1846pts. HQ=21% EL=13% TR=47%
HS=19%
One of the tables had almost no cover and was designed to be a desert plain with a few small dunes, a shooter’s paradise. Another was a medium forest world, another was a city table and there was also a tomb world (graveyards and stuff, lots of cover, but not much that totally blocked line of sight) and finally there was a Jungle table.
I ended up on the Jungle table against the guy whose army I had reworked. He was a pretty new player, but he was playing an assault-heavy Chaos army that included a tooled-up Daemon Prince and a Bloodthirster, plus lots of Chosen Terminators, backed up by some assaulty squads with super Aspiring Champs. Eh, at least he had an assault-based army, so I didn’t think he was too hosed going up against Tyranids in the jungle. He was pretty excited at how easily he killed off my Lictors, but that was about all he did. 54 Genestealers get to do a lot of eating before other people get to go. His Bloodthirster actually survived one round of combat with 18 Genestealers and killed several in return. The next round, he was summarily eaten. I don’t remember if he had any models left on the board at the end of the game.
For my second game, I played against the tournament organizer. He had some well-painted Eldar in an Iyanden army. 3 Squads of Wraithguard in Waveserpents, 2 or 3 Wraithlords, Farseer and Warlocks and a big squad of Guardians. I knocked down his Wave Serpents pretty quickly and he gunned down a fair amount of my Genestealers, then we moved into each other’s lines. By the end of the game, I’d chewed through all his big stuff, but still hadn’t gotten quite enough Wraithguard or that Guardian squad. (Fortune and Conceal are pretty big on those guys!) We ended with a tie, though another round would have seen me win pretty big, I think.
The third and final game initially put me back on the Jungle table against a Swordwind Eldar player. It was suggested that we play on the City table instead and I felt that would be more sporting. Turns out it was. We basically hammered each other at range (8 S10 AP4 shots/turn do a fair amount of damage to a Swordwind army!) for a little bit before we got into combat and started shredding each other. I’ve really got to start paying more attention to Victory Points. At game end, I’d chewed through several partial squads, but not enough full ones. He’d focused more on killing whole units or bringing others below half, and so he got the win. Again, I think this would have been a win for me if time had gone on a little more. Like I say, I’ve _got_ to pay more attention to Victory Points. I killed the whole squad of Banshees, except the Exarch, pretty much the same with several other squads. Just a few characters had probably 600 or so points tied up in them. Ah well, lesson learned.
Once the game was over, the organizer tallied up the points and found there was a 6-way tie! Erk. As a note, if you are running a tournament, try to avoid this. He used this system: Each game gives you 0 for a loss, 1 for a draw and 2 for a win, you also get 1pt if you are a fun player and 1pt if you have a “fun” army concept. The idea sounds okay, but it doesn’t pan out. While that theoretically gives you a range of 0-4 per game, the “fun” army and player thing pretty much assumes that everyone will get 2pts for that, leaving the actual range at 2-4 based solely on battle performance. A wider range for the soft scores (sportsmanship and selection/composition) would lead to more range in those marks, and a larger Battle score, perhaps along the lines of Loss=0, Draw =3, Win=5 would help keep the scores more separate, giving you a more distinct winner. I’m also in favor of Swiss Pairing, which puts the winners against the winners, meaning you get tougher opponents as you go, which also helps the separation of the field. Ah well, I’ve got a bit of experience running tournaments, so it’s a bit easier for me. (plus, of course, the advantage of hindsight being 20/20!) I still had a pretty good time, but a winner would have been nice.
All in all, it was a very good weekend and I think I learned a few valuable lessons. 1. Don’t charge in unsupported. 2. Make sure you understand what can affect the enemy army or a particular enemy unit, and if you’ve got a limited supply of it, work extra hard to keep it around! (once my Dragon Ogres were gone, not much could effect the Steam Tank…) 3. Don’t count your chickens before they hatch. If you are doing well in a game, don’t throw away a unit or two, figuring you can afford it, unless you are almost at the end of the game and are sure it won’t make a difference. 4. Play a little faster, both of my non-wins in the 40k tournament would have been more in my favor if we had gotten in an extra turn. I spent too much time flapping my jaws instead of getting in there and eating stuff. 5. Pay attention to Victory Points. Calculate when units are almost at half or are nearly gone and do what it takes to finish them off. I got too busy worrying about remaining combat capabilities and didn’t bother finishing off the wounded first. On a possibly related note, I think two Tyrants were too much and I would have been better off with more Genestealers. Heck, I could have gotten 12 more Genestealers for the price of the second Tyrant, and I think that would have made a bigger chunk in the enemy line. Heh, I finally decided to stop worrying about composition and just make a really tough army, but I think I went too far and hurt my competitiveness with the adjustment. Oh well, live and learn. I’ll get them next time!!
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