Feast of Blades '13

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Mechanicon Report from the 3nd Place Player/Vegas Ticket Winner!


Our club had one of its premier players, Simon who I have mentioned in many previous posts, who brought his trademark sisters Immolator spam list. This is the report from him I got about his experience at Mechanicon and how he ended up tieing for 2nd place and winning a Vegas Ticket. An excellent job to Simon who does not play what we consider a top tier army and always makes in one of the top armies in every tournament he plays in. So here on out is the words of Simon....


Two caveats: This is all from my (poor) memory, so there may be errors. Also, any mention of final scores and the like are second-hand. They had scores posted at the end, but I didn't bother to look. A bunch of the guys who I was hanging out with (we were all in the top six or so going into the final round) did, so this is second-hand from them.


General Tournament Info: The scoring is a combination of Battle Points/Painting/Sportsman. I believe max in each category was 100/50/50. Each game has a series of objectives which are weighted such that one is Primary, one is Secondary, one is Tertiary and one is...Fourthiary? So, for example, in a Table Quarters game, you might get 500 points for each quarter you control, 1 point for each victory point you earn, 300 points for killing all the other guy's troops, and 150 for having all of your Heavy Support units alive. At the end of the game, you count up all the points you've earned (from 0-somewhere around 4000) and compare that to the number that your opponent has earned. The difference determines what kind of win you get. Wins of different types get you 20/18/16/14/12 points, a tie gets you 8, and a loss of any sort gets you 6.


Game 1: Victory Points is the primary. I don't really remember the secondary/tertiary. One of them had to do with keeping all your troops alive. The other had to do with...something else.Opponent: Primarily foot guard with Creed/Kell to give lots of orders to lots of heavy weapons. A Hellhound (I think that's the one...it was the one that spits poison) and a Psyker Battle Squad in a Chimera.I win the roll and take first. I set up in the middle in a box (big surprise). He sets up all stretched out along his deployment (it was pitched battle). He keeps a large unit of Rough Riders in reserve, as well as the Hellhound.There's a nice hill in the middle of the board, so I use that for cover and pop smoke where I need to. My (minimal) long range shooting take out a couple of Heavy Weapon Squad guys. His first round of shooting does not a heck of a lot. A couple of dead tanks. On turn two, I hit him and start flaming thing. I hit him hardest on the right flanks on account of being a bit more stymied on the left (his successful shooting was over there). The right flank collapses, and I start working my way left through the middle, killing Creed/Kell and a couple of special weapon squads and veteran squads in the process. He has his Psyker Battle Squad in a Chimera on the far left side, and his Hellhound outflanks over there. I keep the Chimera stunned/shaken and Immobalized for several turns with lackluster melta shooting. The Hellhound comes in turn four, kills something, and then is similarly kept locked down through similarly lackluster meltagun fire. The roughriders come in on turn four, killed an IST squad, and ran off the board when I tank-shocked them.We rolled, and the game ended on turn 5 with him having one box-like Hellhound, one box-like Chimera, and a Psyker Battle Squad intact. Another turn would have seen a tabling. Because he managed to kill an IST squad and have a few things left alive, I got a 16 point win. I was 21 victory points from an 18 point win.


Game 2: Two Objectives, Spearhead deployment. Secondary is keep all Fast Attack alive, and Tertiary is keep HQ alive.Opponent: Sisters! I always seem to play the other WH guy. He has a Canoness with jump pack, 2+ armor, and the Mantle of Ophilia (first instant kill isn't an instant kill). He also has two squads of Seraphim, a squad of Retributors, a large squad of Celestians in a Rhino, two SoB squads in Rhinos, an Exorcist, and a squad of Grey Knight Terminators.I think I win the roll and take first. Or maybe he wins and gives me first. I place my objective fairly far back in my corner, but not so far back that I can't fire with my my 36" range guns. He places his about as close to me as he can, about 12" in from the middle of his long board edge. When I asked him about this after the game, he said it was so that I wouldn't rush his corner with all my tanks, allowing his Exorcist/Retributors to fire unmolested. Anyhow, I push everything that isn't Fast Attack/IG out towards his objective. I leave everything else back so that I won't lose any Fast Attack and so that I can protect my objective from all his Deep Striking forces. I basically make two walls of tanks in between him and his objective (on which I have troops). He kills a lot more than I do, but he can't get to his objective. He drops his Terminators into the middle of the board on turn two, and they get flamed/meltad into the ground pretty quickly. I think they got to charge a squad of Celestians, who got invuln saves, had a coupe die, ran away, regrouped, and meltad the last one down. His first squad of Seraphim came in on turn 3, and he dropped them in a quadrent of the map that wasn't seeing any action, probably to protect his FA unit. A little while later, he realized they weren't doing anything there, and started having them fly off towards my objective, slowly dying to HB/ML fire. Turn four sees his Canoness come in with the other Seraphim squad. He drops them between the two objectives, so that he can go after either of them and also be sure that he won't mishap. Thankfully, I had left all three Dominion squads and the Platoon Command Squad in that general area to help with just this sort of thing. So he had a nicely bunched up sqaud, and I had 13 flamers, 3 twin linked heavy flamers, and 6 bolters. Even the 2+ save on the Canoness and the Veteran Sister Superior making something like 10 saves in a row couldn't save them.We roll, and game ends on turn five again. Or maybe six. I get max Victory Points for a 20 point win.


Game 3: Table Quarters. Secondary is Victory Points and Tertiary is killing at least one of your opponent's elites.He's playing Mech Guard. He has apparently borrowed this army from the guy who owns it (and who won with it last year). It is all orks, but cunverted to look like guard. Well, the vehicles where. The troops were basically orks.I'm not gonna go through a turn by turn because A. it was complicated and B. it wasn't the most notable part of the game. Anyhow, at the end, I controlled two quarters, he controlled none, but he had killed a fair bit more than me. I ended up with about 360 more points than him, and you need 400 more for a minor win, so it was a draw.The notable thing was that he started the game off fairly drunk and quite friendly. As the game got close, he became quite drunk and very unfriendly. Tanks that had been getting cover saves were suddenly 50% visable. I kept not rotating quite along the tank's center axis. He argued for a long time with me (and the then the judges) about the Book of St. Lucius working even if a squad's leadership was reduced by a Pysker Battle Squad. Then he argued with me (and then the judges) about whether my Palatine could use the book on her own squad. The best part was at the end of the game. He had gone second and it was down to his assualt phase. The only assualt was his Psyker Battle Squad and an Infantry Squad againt my Palatine and Retinue and a Squad of Dominions. We decided to just ignore it, because it couldn't change anything. About ten seconds later, I realized that his Psyker Battle Squad was an Elite, and I'd get the Tertiary if I killed it. I asked if we could roll out the combat if it turned out to matter, and he said sure. Anyway, we figure out our respective points, and I'm 40 or so away from a minor win. So I ask to roll out the combat. He says no. I say 'but...you just said a couple of minutes ago that we could'. He says 'but we shook hands'. I say 'I know, but did you not just say that we could roll it out'. 'Well ya, but we shook hands'. I say 'fine, how about we roll off'. He agrees, we roll off, I win, we roll out the combat, he makes three 6+ armor saves, and its still a tie. Bill and Katia were both watching the game at the end and were about ready to jump the guy. Good times. He actually came up to apologize to me later that day and again in the morning, so I think he's probably a pretty cool guy. This was his first GT and I think he just had a case of the nerves, plus being drunk. (*Edit* I just read a battle report from someone on Dakka who also played this guy, and had similar problems.)


Game 4: The objectives all had to do with killing. A combination of VP,HQ, and Troops I think.He plays semi-mech guard. We've already read about what happens when I play semi-mech guard, right? At the end of the game, he as one Leman Russ missing its turret. I get a 20 point win.In his defense, his dice weren't loving him much. At one point he charged 5 Celestians with a Callidus Assassin. On his turn, he kills one and I put one unsaved wound on the assassin. On my turn, he kills one more, I finish him off, and consolidate towards his tanks. Game 5: 5 Objectives, Dawn of War.I play Nick, who I played in the first round of Salvation. He's way out ahead of the pack in terms of Battle Points, on account of being the only one to win all his games (there are a bunch of us who have tied a game). He's playing Fateweaver (a choice he made, apparently, after his game with me at Salvation convinced him he needed to do something to beat my list).He wins and chooses to go second. We accidently play with me going second, so then we replay the first round. This prevents us from having time to play turn seven. Basically, I can't kill anything because of Faterweaver (he lets everything within 6" reroll all saves). So Pretty much everything I'm shooting at is either toughness 5 or 6 with a rerollable 3+ or 3++ save. So I just play the objective game, which, as it turns out, I'm pretty good at. Basically, he tears through my army while I try to contest a couple of objectives and hold onto one. There's a ton of sneaky little things both of do to try to keep each other off of objectives. Turn 6 sees the following things happen:2 Plaguebearers charge an Infantry Squad. I have the Infantry Squad lined up over about 12 inches so that when they pile-in, they'll still be on the objective. The Plaguebearers kill two guys. Since I have the squad so spread out, there are only four attacks back. Those attacks put two wounds on the Plaguebearers (keep in mind that these are ws 3 s 3 attacks against ws 4 t 5 models). The two Plaguebearers fail both their 5+ saves and fail both their fnp saves. This nets me one objective.5 ISTs move up an inch away from a Soul Grinder, putting them within range of an objective. They meltagun the Soul Grinder to death, but it doesn't explode, so they're safe.Another Soul Grinder has been locked into combat with the Platoon Command Squad, killing one a turn. They're preventing it from consolidating onto an objective and constesting it. It kills onther one, leaving only the Platoon Commander, who fails his leadership, losing me an objective.5 Plaguebearers assault my Palatine and Retinue, doing 18 wounds. One girl survives, but fails her leadership, giving Nick an objective.All in all, a very very close game.


Results:Nick wins best General.I win Best in Codex.Jawaballs wins best overall on the strength of his painting (he lost a game and tied another).Me and a guy named Matt are tied for second best overall. We're both apparently one point behind Jawaballs (I didn't look at the specific results, but that's what I've been told). He wins the tie based on victory points.I come in third. The guy in fourth is one point behind me. Since the top two guys get a ticket to Vegas, and Jawaballs already has one, Matt and I get one.

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