Berks Spring Assault 3 Review

Brother C here, after playing in Berks Spring Assault 3 this past weekend, here is my review of the event. I participated in Berks Spring Assault 2 last year, and I thought the third edition of the event was leaps and bounds over the 2nd. Mission reviews and brief battle reports will follow sometime in the future. I went 3-1 for the day and we saw Lemun Ross and his draigowing take 2nd place overall. As well as 3 army domination awards, both best youngblood and best youngblood sportsman, raffle prizes, and Erik's 2nd to last award, we did very well as a club in total.


now.. onto the review..


Venue: The venue for the event was great. It was the right size for our group for sure. I really enjoyed the table area, after your round was over, you had a place to chill out while the others completed their matches. You werne’t standing around between gaming boards, getting in people’s way which I thought was a huge problem last year. There was plenty of room for the gaming boards as well, everything was much more spread out and it made for a very favorable gaming experience.  

Boards: I have to hand it to the guys, the boards were beautiful. I thought this was a vast improvement from last year. Some of my biggest complaints were the urban boards where there were more buildings than flat ground, that it just did not make for a very tactical game. This year, every board had a theme, which terrain that matched. I loved the idea of area clubs / stores sponsoring tables. And most every table had a good variety of LOS blocking and small difficult terrain that didn’t necessarily grant cover saves. It made for very tactical games where terrain was utilized but did not dictate the winner or loser (don’t let the haters tell you differently)  

Meal: Meh. It was a deli-style make your own sandwich buffet. Macaroni Salad, potatoe salad, fruit sald, a little dish of ice cream and/or cake for desert. Honestly, by the time lunch came around I was so hungry it didn’t matter what you put in front of me. I thought it was kinda weak that the place only provided 1 pitcher of soda per table for lunch. At a table that seats 8-10 people.. yeah.. it filled 4 glasses. Luckily we had a Chef Todd with us and he knew how to get the rest of the table their fill. At a place that charged 2$ for a tiny soda which was mostly ice, I thought it was pretty bad form for them to scoff at a pitcher refill. They were making money hand over foot off of us.  

Raffles: Great selection of terrain, black library books, paint, citadel gaming board, restaurant gift certificates, and of course plastic dudesmen. Not much really more to say about these, they were great as always.  

Achievements: Very fun idea. Loved it. However, there needed to be a way to announce to everyone when an achievement was achieved. I know we had a microphone later in the day, but man that would have helped earlier. I could hear people shouting something from across the entire room but I could not make out what they were saying, so I basically ignored the achievements. Sad, I did want to actively go for those, but not much I could do. I hope they include these again next year and we can figure out a way to announce these better.

 Time: I thought the time was great. The stuff at the end was VERY long. It took forever to calculate scores etc. one of the nice parts of the NOVA format, but saying the awards will start at 7 and not starting them till about 8:30 or so was a little too long. Again, still think it was an improvement from last year and they’ll be even better next year I have no doubt. Also, 1.5 hours to finish a round was plenty of time. Only in my round 1 match did we not finish all games turn we had. I think these mostly had to do with my opponent being very slow to deploy and understand the mission. He was uber cautious, and I wanted him to take his time, I don’t want to win just because he is rushing to throw his models down. It cost me quite a few battle points in the end, since we only got to turn 3, but that’s ok.  

Vendors: PLEASE PLEASE get more vendors. The hazeknight stuff was great. Would have loved to see some others.  

Missions: I will save these for a future post.

 Prize Support: Excellent as was last year. Ross from our club came away with 2nd best overall and he walked away with over $200 in prizes. Very nice turn around there for a $40 entry fee. I love the BIG table full of prizes, and that you rank the awards, and everyone gets to choose what they want from the table. Nothing is removed as ‘tiers’ of prizes. If no one picked the storm lord in the top 3, a young blood could nab it. I love that. Sponsors are donating prizes for the event, what do they care if 1st place wins it, or best youngblood sportsmen?

 Competition Level: MUCH higher this year in comparison to last year. From our club alone, we had to very new guys to the game, and we had recommend this event because it would be great for new players. And don’t get me wrong, it TOTALLY IS, but I did have to feel bad for my guys Dan and Erik, they definitely did not get special treatment. (which I feel is a good thing for them) they both said they had a great time, so I will leave it at that. I personally felt that I had more tactical games this year. I had played a very new player last year and just wrecked him not because I am a WAAC (win at all costs player) but simply because he did not know how to play his army or even the game in general. I do not enjoy those types of games, nor do I care about stat padding. I don’t want to go around clubbing seals, I want it to be a fun game, where both players are enjoying the match.  

Staff: (not the hotel staff, the event staff) I thought the staff was fantastic. Here is just one example I have of how I feel EVERY tournament should be run from a judge’s perspective. In round 1, I explained a rule to my opponent. He was unsure of my interpretation of the rule. It had to do with unit size and falling back. I expressed to him what I thought the rulebook said, of course he didn’t want it simply believe me because it would have very strong consequences to our game. We agreed to ask a judge and get his ruling, the fair and right thing to do. A judge quickly came over and OPENED THE RULEBOOK and directly read us the rule from the book with the page and everything. THAT my friends is how you judge. You don’t simply say.. oh.. well.. it says this.. you QUOTE the book or the FAQ or the INAT, whatever your event has decided to use. No arguments, no whining. Just simply, here is my proof that in this circumstance, it is played this way. End of story. Well done staff, well done.

Beating Paladins at 1k

image courtesy of Fritz 40k

So the crew here at LWG has been frantically preparing for Berks Spring Assault 3. A 1000 points hobby-style tournament. I think we have like 8 of us heading up. Should be a great time. Can’t wait. During our prep time, there has been a ton of talk about Grey Knights (no surprise) and how to defeat them. This is not a recipe to defeat Grey Knights. There simply is no fool-proof way to defeat them. They are a VERY strong army with an answer to deal with almost any opponent. And we are VERY likely to see a bunch of these types of armies at the tournament. Today I will be focusing on just one build – Draigo wing. Yes, people WILL be taking draigowing at 1k. and why shouldn’t they? 12 models strong, and a very tough nut to crack at 1k.

The boards for the tournament are 4x4 square. Which, if paladins are placed centrally, means they have range to the entire table. Throw them in some cover with a libby to give them a 3+ cover save. Very tough indeed. And don’t even think about assaulting into that mess. Sanctuary, hood, halberds, force weapons, and draigo. Ouch. Or take the inquisitor grenade caddy and watch your opponent’s forces just melt.

Did I mention that if you plan on bringing a draigo-wing at 1k, bring along some ear plugs so you don’t have to hear your opponent whine because he didn’t prepare himself for such an army.

And honestly, that’s basically where I am standing on this issue. Yes, I do think that Matt Ward went way overboard with the GK codex. It really is silly just how many special rules they have to deal with everything. But if a player prepares himself to deal with Draigo and friends, they can be stopped.

Here are some strategies to deal with the dreaded Draigowing at 1k:

1. Thunder Hammer / Storm Shield terminators – its very simple. I get a 3+ save, you get a 5+ and each unsaved wound I do, it counts as 2 for combat resolution (yeah, been playing fantasy too much). Paladin squad better hope they wipe out my 5 man squad toting shields or they’ll be taking leadership minus about 6 (average), unless they spent the points of an inquisitor to give them stubborn, but at 1k, I doubt it. It literally is hard counter for them. Be careful of the grenades. And always always try to catch your opponent off guard, maybe by chance he’ll have Draigo or a libby in a bad position and they won’t even get to be in the fight. When they are trying to string out their unit to capture multiple objectives, this is quite easy actually.


2. Mobile Strength 8 shooting – yes Dark Eldar I’m talking to you. Ravagers = win. Plain and simple. Stay out of range of their cannons and just pepper them with your lances. Herd them like sheep. Ok, so you play Astartes? You did take speeders didn’t you? With multi-meltas? Good. Sit back and light them up as well. The normal paladins don’t get feel no pain against the str8. draigo does, but statistically, you’ll be doing 2 wounds per volley, which means, draigo takes one and someone else takes the other. Taking down 1 or 2 paladins from shooting is a huge difference. Speeders have enough speed to stay out of range as well. Just keep peppering away, while moving into position to escort of the table if necessary.


3. Mass walkers. I have actually seen paladins not fair so well with walkers. I’m thinking.. Kan walls, Furiousos, even iron clads. All do very well versus these guys. Sure hammers are there. And so are grenades. But I have seen walkers perform very well against paladins.


4. Lash – CSMs are dead? Fear not! Lash and oblits are still VERY effective against draigowing. Here’s hoping they didn’t take a libby. But its still 50/50 at that point. You can place the paladins wherever you want on the field. Keep them pinned in a table corner. Move them away from their cover + shrouding. Hit them with 9x plasma cannons once they are all grouped up. Still a VERY effective list. At 1k it’s a little hard to fill your list with oblits, but again, your opponent will probably only have 1 squad of paladins so you can play the crowd control game.


5. terrain tests – making the paladins take terrain tests can be very effective as well. Making it hard for them to cover ground on the board, the key here is map control and again, herding the sheep. Thunder fire cannons, tremor staves, etc. anything to make your opponent act like they are moving through terrain gives you the edge to avoid the assault and the cannons. Keep them at arms length and you can dictate the fight. Come in late game for the victory.


6. Blessing of the Blood God - Do people actually play chaos demons anymore? If they wanted to hard-counter draigowing they would. Taking blessing of the blood god gives you a 2+ invuln. Against all attacks by a psyker.. meaning.. all paladins, draigo, libby, etc. go ahead, dust of those flesh hounds on your shelf, throw them in a game, see how long it takes those paladins to kill a unit of them off.

That’s it for now. These are not fool-proof strategies by any means. They are however, some ways I have found to be effective against the ‘dreaded’ Draigowing. Do you as a player still have to make good decisions? YES. Do you still have to exploit any and all mistakes your opponent makes in order to achieve victory? YES. Are you still fighting an uphill battle? YES. So fight the good fight, but make sure to equip yourself with the proper tools to be able to handle an army such as Draigowing in case you find yourselves across the table from one.

Cabin Fever 2012 Battle Reports

Brother C here,

so.... life is insane. just finished my hopeful 7th and final test for my license. that's what has been delaying my posting of my battle reports from Cabin Fever. I started out with a very ambitious venture to have detailed reports for every round, but.. yeah.. that didnt' happen. so here are basic overview battle reports of my matches. its a long one, but worth it.




Round 1: Tyranids
Opponent: Nate Crowther
List:

Dawn of War / Quarters / Objectives / KPs

Nate deployed his hive tyrant and guard centrally with a group of gaunts close, and another group of gaunts to the right side. I deployed a terminator squad on either side of the board to keep him guessing where I would be bringing in the majority of my forces. I wanted him to decide where he was going to load heavy, and I was going to attack the weak point. Which is exactly what happened. He reserved his trygon, 2x stealers and mawloc, then turn 1, his large warrior squad came in on my right, behind the large gaunts. The smaller warrior squad with the biovores came in on my left, venothropes deployed equally to pass out their cover saves throughout the army.

I proceeded to bring belial and company right up in his grill on the left side, and most of the rest of the army as well. I was going to try and clean sweep this side and let him have the other quarter.

Turn 2 the mawlock, and one stealer squad came in on my right. Assault the terminators, but I ended up taking him with the help of a dread in 2 rounds of combat. His gaunts in the middle managed to get a good fleet roll and hit belial’s squad with preferred enemy. But belial’s squad held fast and fought back. I believe I ended up finishing off the squad.. because the next turn I assaulted the mawlock with the terminators from his squad and belial took down the warriors. The multi-assault resulted in the mawlock having to take 9 or so extra wounds and he was gone in one turn. I consolidated near the venom and the biovores. Speeders forced the bios to flee, the termies finished off the venom and hid from the hive tyrant.

Speeders and dakka preds lit up the hive tyrant and guard as much as possible. I believe he had 2 wounds left and a single guard at the end of the game. His trygon came in on turn 3, immobilized a nearby speeder and proceeded to get shot down to 1 wound in my turn.

The gaunts on my right got stuck in combat with my termiantors and dread and I believe the dread swept them at some point.
Due to time restraints we only were able to get to the end of turn 3, so I was able to focus simply winning quarters without having to wait to see if the game continued. I guess that’s one of the advantages of going second, but it sure did seem kind of lame.

Nate was a great opponent. I fought him last year at Cabin Fever, and just barely eeked out a victory. This time it was a little more decisive, but as always, it was such a pleasure to play him.



Round 2: Chaos Daemons
Opponent: Andrew Blackwell (sorry if I misspelled your last name)
List:

Fate-Crusher variant.. first time playing one.. didn’t know this was going to go.

Pitched Battle / Objectives / Quarters / KPs

I split my force up. Terminators in the center, and right. One in reserve to be deployed on turn 1 where needed. Everything else formed a gun, but centrally located so I could get mobile in a hurry once those crushers hit. He get secondary wave.. no FW for at least a turn. 2x squads of plague bearers come down, a squad of crushers and 2x princes. He makes a vital mistake.. one that I tried to capitalize on, he deepstruck his princes to close to my terminators, I was in charge range. Crushers deployed nearby and plagues, in the back near objectives. My turn 1 I rush his princes with a terminator squad thinking with my 3+ saves, I’ll be able to smack these down before FW even appears making this much easier on me. No such luck, his 2 princes just carve my terminators to shreds, and me dealing very little wounds in return. Rest of army fans out across the other side of the board, taking ground and making his deepstrikes stay to my right side of the board.

He deepstrikes Cu’gath near my second terminator squad on the left, which I deepstruck into the front lines of my forces to lead the charge into his sectors. In his turn he finished off my terminators with the princes, which was great so I was able to get an extra turn to run away. He got another crusher squad in and deployed near the first one. FW still not in. I am already making arrangements to run from the crushers and make him chase me down. Other prince also comes in.



In my turn I assault Cu-gath and completely beat him down. No more. Quick work and that objective is now mine. I am able to shoot down his 1 prince and take the second to 1 wound left with combined speeders, preds and cyclone fire. Rhinos are running for their lives but are trapped, so I send one to my far right, thinking if he wants to stop that unit from scoring, he is going to have to divert his crushers from chasing down my preds and speeders and take that rhino and scoring tacticals out. Which works, he takes 3 turns to run them down and kill the rhino and finish off the squad. Their sacrifice for the lion will be noted in the halls of the angels.

Turn 3, FW is in. he misshaped a plague squad and destroyed. Nice. That helps with going for objectives. He assaults me with full wound prince into belial’s squad..and.. well. No more prince.



I continue to move my army around the left side of the table, keeping a good distance from his crushers and winged princes. I take down the 1 wound left prince. and a few crushers, but they are still in range, I’m moving my speeders around as well.

Turn 4 he assaults belial’s squad with the crushers and I take heavy casualties. This is where he decided to run after my lone rhino in my right hand covern of the board instead of continuing to pursue my speeders and preds who were slowly running away. (repositioning)

My turn 4, I throw 2 wounds on FW and on the second one, he fails his leadership and runs. Nice. Whew. He definitely took my entire army’s worth of punishment to even get him to fail those 2. belial’s squad still holding up in the middle, and my other terminators are trying to get in to help, but I’m out of range.

Turn 5, more shuffling, he finishes off belial’s squad, I think he finally killed my rhino on the right, but my tacts are still running around. I’m shooting up his plaguebarer’s but they are going to ground and its pretty much useless with FNP. I turbo a speeder to contest his one objective and because of the small size of his squad, I am able to get within 3”

Turn 6. he is trying to get his crushers across the table and into assault with my termies but it’ll take at least another turn. Plagues try to assault my speeder and of course do nothing. Time is called as we are going into my turn 6 which we finish out and I have 2 objectives outright he has one, and I am contesting his second. 2-1 victory goes to DA.



ROUND 3
Opponent: Steel Thunder Mike – From the Berks Club
Army : Orks

Killpoints / Objectives / Quarters

Finally I got a chance to play the president of the Berks Gaming Club, Steel Mike and his ork hordes.

I won the roll off and let Mike go first

Deployment was pitched battle, so mike deployed across his entire side of the board. Not knowing where I would deploy. A grot squad in front, spread as far as he could, a 30man ork boy squad behind that, and a 20 man stormboyz squad behind that. That was mirrored on right and left sides of the tables. Lots of bodies here. He kept his kanz in reserve, his coptas were outflanking, and of course he had the snikrot/warboss cheese ready to ambush.

I castled up in a corner. Trying to prevent the 3 groups furthest from me, from getting to me before I had time to deal with ones on my side. I knew I wasn’t going to outrun this army, he had too many tricks, my only option was castle up and prepare for green tide crashing against my blackened terminator armor. I deployed around the edges as well, so his coptas could not sneak into my back lines nor could Snikrot, he would have to come in on the sides of me, where I strategically placed my thunder bubbles. Ready for the counter assaults.



Turn 1 mike ran everything up. My turn 1, I shot stuff. Pretty boring, but again, you have to realize that mike is over there moving what? 150 models around the table, and it takes time.. as you will see in the result.. we didn’t get a full game in.

Turn 2, his coptas come in, Snikrot comes in. both assault terminators squads, great just as I planned.. now.. if only they could hold up..and.. Belial’s squad manages to crush them pretty handily. However my other squad gets chewed on by commandoes, snikrot and the warboss bunch.

My turn 2, dread and belial’s squad move up to engage the 30 man boys squad, also within range of the coptas to make them continue to flee. I shoot up the commandoes as well as other units but nothing is going down. He passes morale and they are still there.. drat.

Mike’s turn 3, he assaults my predator with the warboss, and wrecks it. Consolidates into cover. Belial and the dread end up sweeping the boys squad but now they are stuck in combat with the silly grots. His stormboys finally come charging in and assault my 3rd terminator squad, which was on its way to help push up my left side and into Mike’s territory. The other storm boys squad assaults my predator, wiffing and only managing to immobilize it.

My turn 3. I shoot up the warboss and snikrot’s unit. But they go to ground and manage to make most of their saves, leaving them with a wound a piece and still there. Dread and 5 man tactical squad sweep in and double flame the stormboyz who assault my predator. Killing most of the squad, the dread assaults them and end of being tied in combat.

Belial and Co. finish off the grots and consolidated towards mike’s objective, but are a bit out of range for capturing it. Stormboyz finish off my 3rd terminator squad and simply consolidate near my speeders.

But the game is over..
Only got to the end of turn 3. sadly. Mike had 1 more killpoint than I had. (thanks to the warboss and Snikrot refusing to go down) but you had to win by 2, so secondary objectives.. was.. objectives, and mike had that 2-1 advantage. Quarters was tied 2-2. so we calculated victory points for the heck of it and I ended up beating him by I believe a mere 6. close game, hard fought, and a great opponent. I would have loved to see what would have happened if we had gone past turn 3. but thems the breaks when you are playing against foot orks.



Round 4, I had a bye and I got to play Rich Ditzler’s IG (zeppelin) army. See photos. Was just a fun game, night fight the entire game, which I HATE, so I was glad to have a buy on this one.. VERY uneventful even though it was just for fun. Neither of us could see each other the ENTIRE game. So.. that was day 1 of Cabin Fever. 3-1 record and only losing by secondary objectives, I know I had to be in 2nd place at this point. Doug with his Battle Wagon Orks went 4-0 the first day. They were the ones to beat.



Round 5 – First elimination round.
Opponent: Ross Famous
Army: Imperial Guard
List:

My first elimination opponent (round 5) was against Ross Famous. Ross has been a HUGE part of our club and much of what our club is today has been through the hard work of Ross. He is extremely dedicated, loyal, and a great guy. Ross is also is not a WAAC (win at all costs) player. He makes a decent list and knows his stuff, don’t get me wrong, but he won’t use cheese. He will play you a solid game and is a great opponent.

Since being part of our club, I have gotten to face Ross many times. The most recent actually ended with his IG list smoking my DA. I simply rolled lots of 1s for terminator armor saves.. and.. well.. that’s sorta my whole game. Either I can make saves, or I cannot. That game helped me see some things though. My terminators are not invincible. Even with the apothecary, even with storm shields. Simple mass fire can bring them down. ( and I would still argue the most effective way to do so) Also having played my list, Ross and I talked about adding in some more heavy weapons into his list as well as the outflanking sentinels. Which seemed to work out very well for him.

Deployment was Dawn of War. Objectives was quarters / Killpoints / objectives.
I won the roll-off and made Ross go first. Thanks to his new FAQ he was able to deploy a huge portion of his forces, since they were only 2 platoons. His deployment was very linear, as one can expect. Deployed most of his units into cover, and was getting ready to bunker down, hold those two quarters and try to contest one of mine with the outflanking sentinels, rough riders, marbo and vet grens. Not a bad strategy, Ross has the bodies and firepower to do exactly that. My strategy was to completely over load my left side with terminators and basically just try to push him out of that quarter. While leaving a small contingent to hold my other quarter. I deployed 2x terminator squads directly 18” from his closest unit in cover. My dreads deployed directly into my corners of the board, didn’t want the vets or marbo of the sentinels getting rear armor shots on me.

Turn 1 he brings his heavy weapons teams in the middle of the board, having range on pretty much anything that would be advancing. He brings his PBS to wage war against the terminators. Now I am fearless, but that blast template, if rolled well can cause some havoc. He also deploys a plasma vet squad near the terminators as well. Shooting is meh because of NF.

My turn 1, I leave my 5 man tactical (grot) squad in reserver. Belial and super friends drop down about 12” or so from ross’s units on the left. Again, I’m really trying to overload that side and force him out. I use their run move to spread out and prepare for the PBS. Everything else advances. I keep dreads in the corners until the reserves start coming in. Shooting again, is meh.

Ross sees Marbo and demo vets and sentinels all come in on turn 2. they all ambush my small contingent on my right in the corner. Marbo throws a demolition charge, which scatters terribly. Vets come in and hit my pred with 3x meltas, but I make all my cover saves, he assaults with them with melta bombs but only manages to knock the autocannon off. Sentinels blow off the storm bolter on my rhino and assault it, but nothing since everything moved 12” my first round. Ross shoots at my terminators..but.. c’mon.. they are terminators.

My turn 2, I advance my terminators up again, this time within assault ranges and start peppering ross’s holed up units with frag missles and predator bombardment. My tactical squad on foot comes in and flames marbo and the rest of the squad’s pistols finish him off. My dreadnought was able to flame the sentinels as well as hit most of the demo vets and the predator’s heavy bolters and speeder frag missles, finish off the squad. The dread than assaulted the sentinels and wiped them.

Terminators continue to push his lines on turn 3. I am taking out squad left and right over there. Belial breaks off and assaults the PBS and smacks his revenge on them. Rough Riders come in and assault Belial’s squad but the storm shields are just too much, they end up fleeing off the table after some heavy losses. Ross manages to kill my 2 normal terminator squads on that flank, but Belial’s squad is still 5 man strong and Belial I believe only has one wound on him. They sit in cover and wait for the game to end. Ross tries to get some large squads across the table to maybe contest, but we both know its over. My terminator push was too strong, and Ross’s ‘ambush’ attempt just didn’t pan out for him. DA win 3 quarters – 1.

Again, Ross is a fantastic opponent. And we really did have fun once we both knew it was over for him. We got back to just enjoying the game, which was nice. My strategy worked, I was able to push him out of the top left corner and that is all I needed to steal victory from him. I think part of the problem is that I knew Ross’ army very well, I knew all the tricks and how to deal with them. I was ready and waiting to ambush the ambushers if you will.



Round 6 – 2nd Elimination Round
Opponent: Adam Hargrove
Army: Space Wolves
List:

Round 6 had me up against Adam’s Space Wolves. Finally, some power armor with some tanks. The thing my list had actually be designed to fight against... And it sure did show. Adam did not have what I would call a min/maxed list. Just one unit of long fangs and a raider full of blood claws WITHOUT Arjac and his drinking buddies. No thunderwolf cavalry. But lots of bodies. Grey hunters, priest, vindicator, a nice mix of the codex. But nothing I was too afraid of. I had honestly never fought against blood claws and was really unaware of their potential.

It was pitched battle deployment, and I won the toss, electing to go second. I think primary was quarters, the kill points, then objectives. He split up his forces on deployment, which is what I was hoping he would do. I deployed 2x predators across form his long fangs, it’s been my experience, and this is the best way to deal with them. Give them armor 13 to shoot at and knowing that I just need 2-3 turns and they will go away due to too much dakka. I put speeders on the flanks, hoping to get side armors on the vindicator. And my terminators just basically deployed as far forward as I could get them. I placed both dreads behind belial’s command squad, directly across from the land raider. I wanted them to have a nice juicy target to hit, so that they were basically contained. I had the dreads there for counter assaulting as I knew he did not have power fists to hurt them.

I’ll be brief on this report, my dice were on fire. And poor Adam did not bring a list that could adapt to an opponent’s dice being on fire. I think I made every cover save for 3 rounds of his shooting. He was losing long fangs by the handful, and on the assault his blood claws managed to throw 19 wounds on my command squad. I failed a bunch of saves on the terminators, but managed to make every single feel no pain roll. Which... Basically was the game. I blew up the land raider with multi-meltas from the dreads. Blew off the weapon from the vindi with speeder typhoons and I just let him have his one corner to my far right and just simply took the rest of the field. And sat back and just camped, peppering him with frag missles, etc. for the rest of the game.

Honestly, Adam was a great sport in the game, I know he had to leave early the night before to take care of some things on the home front, and It was really nice to see him back for day 2. I had never met or played Adam before and it was quite a pleasure, despite how the game went. The atmosphere was very tense for awhile until, he knew the game was lost, and then we both eased up and just enjoyed each other. Man, if only we (as a player group whole) could learn to do that more BEFORE we know the game is in hand. As I told Adam before the game started, it would come down to whether or not I could make saves, and the dice blessed me with some good rolls, and there isn’t much more to say about that.



Round 7 – FINAL Round
Opponent: Robert Morris
Army: Orks
List:

Now I have known Rob for most of the two years that Lancashire Wargaming has been around. He has been one of the originals. However, when I have played Rob, it has been against his vulkan drop pod marines, and not his orks. After having some struggles with Mike earlier in the tourney with his Orks, I knew I was in for a fight.

Rob was not bringing the Snikrot cheese from behind. He went heavy on the nob bikers, cans, and lots of boys. I really like the list, and if I was running foot orks, it would look similar. He got first turn, it was spear head, annihilation. Secondary was objectives, third was quarters. Ok great, I can handle this. Objectives means he has to spread out a bit. Bikers go in the middle, ready for a turn 1 assault. I give him my meat to assault on the first turn. I give him 2 squads of termies, with dreads behind. Goal is to get the termies to take the first hit and the dreads clean up the rest. Since I will be isnta killing those bikes. And that's pretty much what happened. I wrapped my armor with my thunder bubble, as usual, and he assaulted directly into it. I pretty much wiped his bikers in 2 turns of combat, with only minor minor losses. But then I had to get ready for wave 2, which crashed directly after this combat resolved. A big squad of nobz and boys, and my third termie squad went after his advancing cans along with my other dread. Being locked in combat would be a theme for this game.

He wipes my termies with his cans. Can a brother get a save? But my termies wipe his nobz off the table. And I'm chewing through his boys but its just taking too long. His lootas keep stunning my preds, but not doing much else. My speeders are taking pop shots at the can wall, and plinking off a few here and there, but really bad shooting is hurting me. I try to get mobile, but there is just too much mass in the middle. He has a grot squad on one objective and a big boys unit on another. I control mine. So he has secondary.

The last turn of the game (decided by time AGAIN grr) he finished off belial and last 2 termies. (rolled literally 3 1s on 3 wounds to lose that) and he makes the game MUCH more interesting. I ended up beating him on the primary objectives but I think 100-200 points. Which according to the rules says, we move onto secondary, which Rob had 2-1. However, because this was the final round of the tourney, the TOs stated that there will be no ties. If you win victory points only by 1 point, you still win the primary. So because of this rules stipulation, I took home the prize.

Honestly I felt a little lame on the win, but I think Rob was lucky it got so close at the end. And again, I HATE that we didn't get to play a full game. I spend 3 turns chewing those blobs of ork bodies and I'm ready to then move out and take the field, but time ends. Rob was a great opponent, we had a lot of laughs. I really appreciate his character because a couple of times I was getting beardy on him during the fight due strictly to fatigue and I think he did as well. We both manned up and noticed this about each other and deflected it before it ruined the game for us.

Again love playing Rob, he is so much fun, and hopefully I can get a rematch in here soon when we aren't so tired and ornery. Grats on your 2nd place showing man. Well deserved.