Normally I like to write detailed battle reports after events, but I'm just not feeling up to it. The soccer-mom schedule and having a nasty cold (I blame the hot chicks at the Con...) has me feeling less than energized. So, some synopses, whines, quick pictures, and hilarity!
I woke up early on Friday morning, everything was already packed and ready, so jumped in the car...actually, I wasn't all packed...I had to go get my phone charger from my desk at work; then went to the wife's work to drop off her pocketbook in her car that I'd found on the couch...then stuck behind school buses as the GPS took me on a "shortcut"...
ended up about 10 minutes late to pick up Brendan in Stratford. Got some gas, stopped at Denny's, and got to the tournament about 11am. We were participating in The Fight For Hunger charity doubles 40k event, and are intent was to get people to spend as much money as possible to combat our flagrant cheesy douchiness...we came as close to 54 flamers and screamers as we could given the models we own. Hilarity!
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| Daemon-cheese in full effect! |
Our first game was against two very fun guys that shared their Scotch with me. Lots of Space Marines. Null Zone + 2 Thunderfire Cannons made things more than a little painful, they were erasing units at a time. Lucky for us, we were erasing two of theirs at a time (Daemons!) so pulled things out in the end. Great game, fun guys!
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| Brendan says you're jealous of his Daemon cheese! |
Second game was against a solo guy...his brother stood him up, left him playing both halves of the armies. Marines and IG. He rented a Baneblade. Screamers ate it turn 2. I think we tabled the poor guy in 3 turns. He took it well...was his first time against Daemons, I don't think he was ready for the over the top level of obnoxiousness we brought.
Third game was the real gem. Eric and Matt from Long Island...really great guys that I'd met before at Brendan's Gaming Etc events. The were using Dark Eldar and Grey Knights. I think between the four of us we threw down about $300...
...first they rented 4 Super Heavy tanks;
...we countered by renting 3 Heldrakes;
...they countered by bribing the judge to get their super heavy tanks Skyfire;
...we countered by pointing out that without interceptor, they were snapfiring at our ground troops;
...they countered by bribing the judge for interceptor;
...we countered, well...we were coerced by the judge to bribe him, which we did, which got us 3+ invuln and S10 Vector Strikes from our Heldrakes;
...we all went thru pocket-fulls of rerolls;
...early in the game, random passers-by would feel sorry for us, since we had so few things on the table (turn 1 drop! :P) they kept throwing Bombardments on the Super Heavy tanks. 2 of them died before we did a thing.
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| Big tanks...compensating for something? |
...once we got some stuff on the table, we pushed in to their dual Aegis Defensive Lines and started eating stuff. When we ran out of time the center "Relic" objective was contested, we held two objectives cleanly, but their two were contested...we won!
Nice prize support, we got some nice wooden display boards with a little 2013 Fight For Hunger plaque on them, and $45 from the Warstore! There was also a Raffle I threw $20 in, and won some non-GW stuff: a D&D Skirmish Game set (Lolth), a Dust Warfare terrain set, a Munchkin tee-shirt, and I traded for a nice Tea Infuser and packs of tea that I'm making right now...Blood Orange - Vervain...Thanks Eric!
This all ended very late, after 10pm. Went to Hotel, checked in, dropped off stuff, considered eating pizza from the vending machine, decided it was too dangerous so had Wendy's instead, some sleep, and up for the main event!
I got to set up my army on my new pretty display board thingie, which was fine, since I'd been too lazy to build a new one!
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| Certainly better than a Box Lid! |
Game 1
First round, and I'm really sorry to my opponent, because I forgot his name! He was using Space Wolves...Rune Priest, a couple of Wolf Priests (one in TDA), 4 Grey Hunters (with TDA Wolf Guard), Long Fangs (with TDA Wolf Guard).
I split up waves pretty even, but got unpreferred. One Flamer unit dropped in to torch the Long Fangs with attached Rune Priest, but scattered too far for Breath...Warpfire managed to kill 2, he failed Morale, and ran off the table. Ouch!
Nurglings tied up Grey Hunters until I got enough stuff on the table to really push. The missions was 3 objectives, with one being the Relic. He killed off all the troops I put on the Relic, but I was able to focus the entire remnants of my army on killing the last Land Raider parked on the Relic...next turn his Hunters would be able to get out and steal the relic! 7 Flamer shots...only two Glances! Fateweaver's Bolt failed, but his Breath did another Glance! Pink Horror unit shot and missed...last chance, one last Horror unit, hits, and a 6! It Wrecked, with lots of Screamers ready to assault the gooey goodness that fell out. With only 2 models left after the assault, my opponent very graciously called the game over. I managed to win the Primary, but without enough troops left was unable to get the Secondary...16 out of 20 points!
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| After turn 3, I believe. Marines at right were from a Pod, as were those on top-left. I'm just getting everyone in Fateweaver formation to close in. I believe 2 Flamer units were dead by this point, and two troops were dead as well. |
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| Most of the Marines dead now...Fateweaver challenged the Wolf Priest! |
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| He's got some guys in the top Land Raider that made a run for the Relic, but they were eaten too! |
Had a quick lunch (Subway!) and ogled the hotties in their bustier and skirts, then on to round 2!
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| I wanted to slap that fat guy for blocking my picture! |
Game 2
Had Swarmlord with a Whip Guard; 2 Troop and 2 HQ Tervigon (all loaded with 3 powers and Claws), termigant tax, 2 units of 20 Gargoyles, a Mawloc, 3 Zoanthropes, Deathleaper, and Doom in a Spore.
The mission was basically Capture & Control (2 Objectives) Primary with Table Quarters as secondary.
I was already in "brain-dead automatic mode", so defaulted to what I designed the army to do: go first, and frontload the preferred wave. I won the roll off, and surprised him by choosing to go first. He later asked why, I told him I wanted to get some space on the table before he spread spawned Gants and Gargoyles all over and left me no room to drop.
Of course I did not get preferred wave...it was up to the Nurglings!
I again surprised him by being more than a little aggressive with the Horrors. Again, I wanted to get myself some space for the rest of the army, and moreover with all his non-linear I wasn't going to keep troops on objectives alive anyway...this one was going to come down to him crapping out on Tervigons so I can kill troops and win on Quarters.
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| The aggressive Horror drops! |
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| Damn those bugs are big! |
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| I really liked his coloration! He confessed they were dipped, but looked incredible to me! |
So the Horrors and Nurglings came in in front of all the evil space virus bugs, while the Plaguebearers hid in the corner near my objective. Shooting was effective, killing about 1/3 of the gargoyles. Bill then started all the psychic stuff he had to do every turn, including Gating the Zoanthropes to mid-table to be a consistent threat and pain.
My second turn got me some Screamers and Flamers. Screamers did some slash attacks to thin out Gargoyles and Zoanthropes, while Nurglings went in to the Gargoyles to clog up the whole middle of the table...Bill had one unit stretched out across 1/3 the length of the table, with his big stuff behind. I thought this would work to my advantage, as he'd be stuck behind his own slowly consolidating screen.
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| My objective...hide, little pus-balls, hide! |
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| Note the long line of Gargoyles slowly piling in, holding up his big bugs. Also not the Blue Screamers which were assaulted by units coming out of reserve... |
Bill had his starting gants in reserve, they walked on, shot at, then assaulted my Screamers. Yeah, I know...I didn't catch it until later. He also started moving before doing all his powers...I completely understand that, I'd have a super hard time keeping track of all those powers myself, and he did a great job noting which models knew which powers and had nice markers (a la Warmachine) to note which units had which effects. I of course let him go back to finish his powers. Mawloc came in and tried to eat the Plaguebearers, but they only lost one. Doom came in near my objective too and did 2 wounds to Screamers. Nurglings and Gargoyles kept chewing on each other.
I got another flamer unit in, and went daring...I dropped very bravely in his backfield, not so much wanting to kill anything but hoping to keep something back there...tie things up a bit. Some Screamers went in to a Tervigon that wasn't crapped out and killed it. Other screamers helped finish off Gargoyles. Flamers tried to shoot down Doom, I did 4 unsaved wounds, Bill claimed it had 10 wounds on it. I pointed out that he'd only done 2 wounds, so he said it had 2 wounds left. I didn't question this, but discussing with folks later...it should have been dead. Oh well.
Things started getting slow and tense. He wanted to stop after turn 3, saying he didn't think we had enough time to press on. I ran to find a judge, who sad we had 30 minutes. I said let's play on, so we did. I finally got Fateweaver in. Screamers and Flamers went to work to finish off the last of his Gants...he'd killed all my Horrors with Gants, and now all his troops were dead as well. It was going to come down to quarters. My Screamers finished off the fights they were in, Plaguebearers tried to get luck with Deathleaper who was in their face, but no luck.
Bottom of 4, we did some combats, and the Mawloc came up in a quarter to outnumber me to give him 2-1 on quarters.
Then it got ugly, as he refused to do turn 5. I had top of the turn, told him I'd forego all the combats, just wanted to move Fateweaver and unengaged Screamers...2 of them (one over half) were unengaged, while one was almost full fighting Swarmlord. He refused, stating that we didn't have enough time to completely do the turns, and that he'd not intended to do turn 5, so had done his "moves" on turn 4 as though they were the last turn.
I pointed out that the only thing he had available to move that wasn't in melee was the Mawloc, and invited him to re-move him wherever he saw fit. He refused.
We argued almost 5 minutes before he called the TO over. The TO said we had just under 5 minutes, so not to start a new turn. I tried to explain to him that I had only a few units to move, and that other tournaments typically let folks start a new turn until time, then allow players to finish that game turn. I felt blow off...home field advantage. I asked Bill what he would do if the situation were reversed, he told me that he didn't know, and invited me to mark him as a Fail for sportsmanship.
So, game 2 was a loss, 12-8. Tied Primary, lost Secondary, tied Tertiary (victory points). Frustrating and unpleasant game.
Then I got REALLY grumpy, as other tables were allowed to continue playing for 20 minutes after we turned in our score sheets. Why was the TO's friend's game required to stop (when going on would have meant a loss) while other tables were allowed to go on playing?
I was bitter.
So, a bit disappointed but feeling that 8 points wasn't a horrible loss, I went on to round 3, to play against Eric! He was one of the dynamic duo that threw all the Baneblades and Rerolls at us at the doubles event the night before!
Game 3
He was using a GORGEOUS mostly-mech Dark Eldar force...Ancient Haemonculus, 5 Wracks; Defensive Line with Quad Gun; 20 Warriors with 2 Splinter Cannon; 5 Wyches with Haywire in Venom; 3 Trueborn with 2 Splinter Cannons each in Venoms; 5 Warriors in a Venom; two units of 10 Warriors in Raiders with Splinter Racks; 6 Reaver Jetbikes; and 2 Voidraven Bombers.
This mission was, I believe, Quarters primary, Relic secondary, and like others VP tertiary. I won the roll and had him go first. He set up a nice neat little formation of weanies that I couldn't get in to for Flaming...but I was not deterred!
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| The Pansy Evil Space Elves deploy for battle...and Eric's crotch. Nice! |
I went with the heavy preferred wave, and got it. One unit of Flamers went forward for some Warpfiring, while the others went near Fateweaver. Screamers dropped in a bit aggressively so that they got to do some Slash Attacks while turboing near to Fateweaver to try to survive the incredible Splinter barrage I was about to endure.
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| Turn 1 drop...2 Venoms down, and some Trueborn dead! |
But instead of shooting at the troops in his face, he moved for LOS to the Big Chicken himself and unloaded. He shot literally everything he had at Fateweaver, who was grounded and had 1 wound left...and then the Reavers came with their Bladevanes...and Fateweaver went down!
I wasn't too put out, though, as he had almost nothing left then to shoot at Flamers and Screamers, so they went to work. I was able to drop almost all his vehicles on turn 2, except the Voidravens of course. By turn 3 all the Vehicles were dead, Flamers were chasing down the Wyches on foot, and Nurglings were pushing in to his "big" unit.
I tried a few times to drop on the Relic, but scattered off, and ended up having disagreeable difficult and run rolls, and wasn't able to get up top to seize the objective. End of the game he had the Voidravens and half his 'blob' left...the HQ was still alive. I had Plagues, 2.5 Horrors units, 2 Flamers units, some Nurglings (half of both, I believe), and one Screamer unit left. I controlled 3 Quarters, winning primary, but tied Secondary and Tertiary for a 16 - 8 win.
This was a really fun game, we were both so strung out and silly from being tired, everything was hilarious, good or bad. We laughed our asses off constantly in this game...the way games should be! Thanks for the great game Eric!!
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| Avenging their captain, all but one Venom and the Ravager are plucked from the sky by vengeful pastel daemons! |
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| The Kabalite Warrior unit on the left failed its Leadership test from the Changeling's Glamour, and shot up the unit on the right. Hilarity! |
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| Screamers ate everyone...but that big Warrior blob made them pay! |
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| Big line of Flamers chasing down the Horrors as Nurglings close in on the Wracks! |
Having talked tournament strategy the night before, I knew that to have a shot at "Placing" I'd need two big wins today. I'd hoped my moderate scores from the first day would give me a nice squishy MEQ army...but no, I drew Keith Girard and his Horde Orks. Sigh.
Game 4
I was not disappointed, though, as Keith's known as a good person, good opponent, and I was looking forward to the challenge and a good game, and I was not disappointed. Moreover, Keith's army is incredibly beautiful...he had many Meganobs converted from KillKan parts...really gorgeous! His army was, from memory: Ghaz; Warboss with Megaarmor; 5 Meganobs in a Trukk; 4 Meganobs in a Trukk; two units of 10 Lootas; 2 units of Shoota boyz, and a unit of Choppa boyz, each with 3 Big Shootas; 10 Grots; 5 Deffkoptas; and a Defensive Line with Comms Relay.
The missions was modified Scouring, where we each had a 4, a 3, and a 2 point objective that were randomly deployed in our deployment zones...Hammer and Anvil. Kill Points was the secondary. Hard to get max points from this one!
Keith won the roll, chose to go second, and deployed with his boyz as spread out as he could get them..the two Meganob Trukks starting in reserve.
I again went with my brainless full-monty preferred wave, and rolled another 2. No worries, the table was so long I was able to drop troops back on my objectives and threaten one flank with Nurglings. He shot up said Nurglings a bit, and on my second turn I got everything in but one Flamer unit. I tried to do a bold and daring drop in his backfield with one of my Flamers, but scattered back to Reserve. The other unit, along with one unit of Horrors that moved up aggressively, put some wounds on one of his Shoota boyz, while the Screamers circled Fateweaver...who was hiding out of LOS of the bulk of the Lootas.
Things got hot and heavy then, as the damaged Shoota boyz came out to assault one Nurgling unit, making it in to melee, while the other tried to get in to the other Nurglings but failed. This failure allowed me to move Flamers in for a good toasting, wiping out 2/3 of the unit, that was then assaulted by Nurglings. Screamers went to work on one flank, freeing up Nurglings who were then able to assist in tieing up the Choppa boys for many turns. One unit of Screamers and Fateweaver had to run back to my backfield to rescue a 4-point objective from a speedy Trukk-born Ghaz and his Meganobz...Ghaz had taken a few wounds from shooting on the way in, and failed enough Invuln saves on Waaagh! turn to die to the Screamers, who finished off the Meganobz next turn, securing that objective for me. Another small unit of Screamers ended the game turbo-boosting to sit on a 3-point objective unopposed in his deployment, while Nurglings held up the remnants of one Boy mob (they ended the game with 8 models); whiel Flamers and Nurglings ended up in a big multi-unit battle I initiated to keep troops tied up from getting on to Objectives AND to keep Lootas from blowing my Screamers off his objective: Flamers and Nurglings vs. Shoota Boyz, Meganobz + Warboss, and Lootas. They held on long enough to keep him from having troops on one of the two objectives I was not opposing, giving me many Objectives for the win there. I was up one Kill Point at the end, but you had to win by 2 to get the Secondary, so a draw there, and I was only up a few VP for a moderate point value for the tertiary. I don't remember the points, but something like 15 points out of 20?
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| Bottom of 2...that building in the middle saved me from a lot of Loota damage! |
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| The Trukks roll up the flank! |
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| Spread out to avoid the Flamer barrage that never happened! |
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| Flamers at middle of photo abused the Shootas that failed their charge, while Nurglings assaulted...Meganobs went in to the Nurglings to save them! |
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| Ghaz and his lads get out of their wrecked truck to make a run in to my backfield! |
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| MegaWarboss and his lads take on my Poopie Cheerleaders! |
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| Flamers tie up as much as they can to keep the Screamers alive and scoring. |
Back to The Big Room to find the pairings for the final game...I'd moved up to table 5...in the top 10!...and found myself paired against Sam, also of the local club, and his CSM with Daemon allies!
Game 5
His list was: Typhus, Nurgle DP with wings, Mace, the works; 3 Plague Marines (2 with plasma, 2 with melta...the melta unit in a Rhino); two units of 10 Zombies; 3 Nurgle Obliterators; Nurgle Havocs with Flamers in a Rhino (an unusual choice that I thought a lot of!); 4 Nurgle Spawn; Epidimious and some Nurglings (I think he had 6-7 bases...not a full unit).
Sam was a top-notch opponent who knew his business and his list well. He was mensch enough to point out that my Nurglings and Plaguebearers would benefit from his Tally. This was an extremely cool thing to do, as I would not have known this otherwise! Big props to Sam for being a stand-up guy!
This was an odd mission, where you accrued points during the game for controlling objectives at the end of your opponents turn. Big Guns were in effect, allowing Heavy Units to score, as well as give up one objective point.
In all games, I had Warlord powers that did nothing for me. In this one, Fateweaver was scoring. Huge.
My plan was to have Screamers turbo-boost near his objectives to prevent him from scoring so I could go up early.
Sadly I chose to have all 3 Screamers in the preferred wave with Fateweaver and rolled a 1 again, so no preferred wave for me.
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| My initial drop... |
I dropped back along my table edge, except one unit that I was lazy with...I wanted to put them close enough to the mid-table objective that he'd want to drive up and kill them, but far enough back that he'd not be able to score if he did it...sadly I was close enough to the objective that he was able to score and flame me all at the same time. He also sent his DP back in my backfield to beat up the Plaguebearers, who died easily...he had Warp Speed up, and had something like 15 attacks when he charged me.
The tally went up, and we got 2+ poison on our Nurgle units! I scored one point for an objective.
I only got in Fateweaver, one Screamer, and one Flamer unit. The Flamer tried to land to toast the Nurgle Havocs at mid-table, but missed. Fateweaver scattered and came an inch away from landing on his DP! Screamers landed safe and killed all but 1 Havoc between Fateweavers shooting and their Slash Attacks...but that left 2 objective uncontested, so he would score 2 points at the end of my turn...
...but not before the power of the Nurglings was unleashed! I assaulted his Daemon Prince with a full unit...Sam didn't know that Swarms were not slowed by terrain, so I got off a charge he did not expect. He then rolled a 1 for his Daemon Weapon! Yes...36 nurgling attacks hitting on 3s and wounding on 2s makes for a dead Daemon Prince! Warlord for me, and a big threat removed!
Sam then took advantage of my mistake in failing to adequately bubble-wrap the one objective I held with Nurglings...I'd made the same mistake I alwasy do, and a Bastion model we'd decided was a Ruin I treated as impassable...he was able to mount the building and eat the Horrors with his 4 Nurgle Spawn.
The Tally was getting really high and scary, and I didn't want to have to deal with all his super buffed nurgley things, so Epidimious had to die. I worked out a great plan that worked perfectly...
...he had Epi in the Nurgling unit, but they were stretched out in a long line. I flew newly dropped Screamer unit over the Nurglings, killing enough that he had nothing to LOS! to from Epi; my Nurglings assaulted his Nurglings, while Screamers assaulted Epidimious. The way the geometry worked out, Epi would have to eat the whole Screamer squad's attacks, while his nurglings were unable to pile in to help him as they were in base with my nurglings! Moreover, I pulled off a sneaky combo-charge with the screamers to kill off that last pesky Havoc!
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| Pink guys did the Slash Attacks; Purple guys killed Epi; Nurglings did the rest! |
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| Flamers and Nurglings gang up on Typhus |
My other Nurgling unit went in to the Obliterator + Typhus unit, which had been mildly softened (he took 2 wounds) from Flamers. I did the Epi fight first, perhaps foolishly, as I would have loved to have the Nurglings unload more 2+ poison love on Typhus, but I did it in the wrong order. Still, Typhus and the Oblits were tied down unable to shoot or get away, and this was the beginning of the end for him.
Bottom of 4 he had forgotten that Fateweaver was scoring, and allowed me to score on the central objective...this brought the score to 4-3. Then I was able to get Screamers in to Typhus and Oblits, killing them off over 2 combat rounds...the Oblits were a Heavy Choice, scoring me another point to tie the Primary!
After that it was just killing off units, keeping myself in position to contest the one objective he had troops on, and killing the Rhino I'd chosen as my primary objective, which I did easily! He'd chosen Fateweaver, and once the Oblits were tied up his ability to do that was minimized. A minor win for me, but a win none the less! Sam was laid back and agreeable thru the whole game, a very pleasant game with a great opponent!
Final Standings
I ended up 4-1, with a mediocre (appropriate, IMO) paint score, good sportsmanship score, and enough Battle Points to get me 5th place overall! A very solid showing!
Ahead of me tied for 3rd/4th were Bobby Sinnot (Necron/GK) and Bill Souza (Nids). Second overall was Alex Fennel with Necron/CSM; and first overall was my good friend Sean Nayden with his DE/E Beastpack list of doom! Sean had a moderate loss on day 1, but had 4 solid wins to propel him in to the top table vs. Alex and a solid win there as well!
Big congratulations to Sean for Best Overall; Alex for Best General; Dean for Player's Choice; and Ragnar for Best Sportsman!
My Thoughts
I won when I should have, but struggled to get max points. This can probably be attributed to poor wave breakdown choices (loading up the preferred wave) and only getting the preferred wave 1 time. Moreover, 4 small, slow, easily killed troop choices make it easy for my opponent to deny me ways to win. I can't really think of how I'd change this...only thing I can think of is to practice NOT mindlessly stacking up the first wave...though that doesn't fix that folks can just pick on my troops and I don't win big.
Other than that, the army did everything I wanted it to, I played solid games all the way around (I mean, if that game 2 had gone to turn 5 I had a minor win there too for 5-0!), had a decent enough paint score to be near the top overall, and nobody thought I was a raging douche monster for playing daemons!
I don't foresee any list changes, will concentrate on cleaning up the appearance scoring, and am looking forward to a few more tournaments with my broken "unbeatable" Daemons! :)
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