Monday 24 January 2011

A day to forget and a day to remember!

So as you can see below we attended Maelstrom this week for the Caledonia open. Two early starts, some great games, a couple of good wins and meeting 'that guy' I came 56th out of the 80, not a great performance but not as bad as it looked at one point so I guess I should start at the beginning.
A day to forget
Game one saw me come up against a Daemons army which featured a hefty amount of Nurgle on the board along with 18 Fiends. The game had 5 objectives and I have no shame in saying I was outplayed by a much better opponent. At during turn one things seemed to be going pretty well, a soul grinder gone, a Greater Daemon of nurgle on 2 wounds and one squad of fiends down to 2 models one with a wound left. However a great reserves roll saw everything else come on bar a squad of Plague Bearers and I quickly was overcome by too much close combat even for a wolf. I avoided the tabling by the game ending in turn 5 but I have no problem in saying that I played a better player and he deserved the win. Finally tally Loss 17-3

Following a good lunch with plenty of food (Much better than Warhammer world) I found myself facing an Ork army with two objectives on the board. It all started so well. I knocked out his Meganobs transport so they were walking, my thunderwolves charged his bike squad and destroyed it and then when his meganobs got there sorted them too. By that time they had almost been destroyed but I felt it was a good trade off. A squad of Grey Hunters took out one of his squads of boys and my scouts dealt with a squad of grots.

All in all I was happy and then his burners arrived. Now the Ork forces I had played don't use burners, I had faced them once before but then they were on foot and they decided to charge in using their power weapons. This time there were ten of them in a battle wagon and my grey hunters were all bunched together after just finishing a combat. 70 hits later they were gone. I learnt and the next grey hunter squad they got to they only got 40 hits but it was enough to kill them and then again with 30 something and again they died. That one unit killed the vast majority of my army and I was left with 3 points again. My inexperience cost me with that one but I will learn.
So after game 6 I lay on a lowly 6 points and headed further down the tables to meet 'that guy'.

Annihalation, spearhead against a gun line IG player, it was only going to go one way really. There was just too much firepower kicking out because he just never had to move. The tables were set up with a lot of terrain to limit IG apparently but it really did play into their hands when you wanted to get up close and personal and you just kept getting stuck in tar pits or terrain. There was a lot of rules bickering over very simple rules and I just didn't enjoy the game, I had to query a ref 8 times over the two days, 7 times in this one game. In the end turn 5 came along and instead of continuing I offered the win. I had been beaten and beaten completely but unlike the other two games this just wasn't fun and it really put a dampener on the day.

A day to remember




(Thought this picture was suitable because Gav and Andy being bitter Blues will never see one and Graham being a Newcastle fan only thinks that the inter toto cup exists when it comes to Europe)

Because of a 20-0 loss the day before I found myself in the bottom 2 on Sunday morning and had a determination to do better. I know I'm not a great 40k player but I didn't think I was this bad. I knew I was facing a footdar list this morning having spoke to a fellow First Company vet the evening before when the lists went up. I also knew that my opponent played Eldar very differently from the normal Eldar armies you see. It featured 2 big squads of Guardians on foot, a Farseer without Doom, Dark Reapers, Scorpions and Banshees. To say it was a massacre puts it lightly, the lad clearly hadn't played much and although it was good to get a win it didn't feel good to get it in these circumstances. I lost 2 Long Fangs, had a wound off my Wolf Lord and suffered an immobilised Rhino. He had nothing by the top of turn 6. A 20 nil win left me on 26 and finally moving in the right direction.

The fifth game was Spear headed 5 objectives against a Khorne themed chaos marine list, they very nicely painted. It involved my opponent Ray walking towards me and and me backing off until I had eventually took out his vinidcator and terminators. I lost this game due to a mistake made not in the game or even in deployment but when talking through the game. We decided that the buildings were impassable terrain, fair enough, I then inquired about the hills which normally I adjudge as line of sight blockers only however my opponent suggested that they would be 4 up cover. I never really thought just nodded however this cost me thoroughly, took my Thunderwolves 3 turns to get through it and then only because they were charged by some Beserkers and they had to pile in. Once they had dealt with the beserkers a squad of oblits and a Greater Deamon followed but it was too late, one more turn would have given me a draw, two more the win but for the fourth game out of 5 we only saw 5 turns. I gained 5 points Ray gained 15 putting me on 31 and bottom out of the 5 Claws and Fists team members.

The advantage of losing my fifth game meant I didn't have to move for the final game. Another nice thing was that I was playing fellow First Company Vet Si Thorne and another Khorne heavy Chaos marines army.

With no Oblits to worry about I knew Si would be coming at me quickly so I set about shooting him as much as possible. First turn his Raptors flew just in front of my Rune Priest in a Rhino with 9 Grey Hunters in the hope to next turn take my Long Fangs who the Squad were baby sitting, not realising the slowing effect of Murderous Hurricane. I only got 4 hits at strength three but that did manage to cause an unsaved wound, the squad were then in difficult and dangerous terrain. Next I took a couple of pot shots at his terminators with las cannons and against his Rhino's with missile Launchers, the rhino lost a weapon and a Terminator made an invulnerable save.

His turn saw his greater daemon come on just in front of my Rune Priest which led to the only real debate in the entire match, does a Rune Priest wound a Greater Daemon from the Chaos Space Marine Codex on a two up even though they don't have the daemon special rule (which I do believe an Eldar avatar does)? Si claimed it didn't for that reason, I claimed that common sense said it should. Unlike in game 3 the rules debate was done in good spirit, I offered to 4 plus it but in the end we decided to go and see the ref who in fact decided that it did. With that my squad multi charged the Daemon Prince and the remaining raptor slaying both the Daemon and the squad while losing a Grey Hunter and the Rune Priest. Bit of disappointment losing him but he had took out his points so all in all I was fairly happy.

I then made the brave decision to separate my Wolf Lord from the squad of Thunderwolves, the Wolf Lord would go for the AV 14 Land Raider which had moved 12' with his Thunder hammer while the squad went after the Vidicator which had also moved 12'. The Wolf Lord hit twice but and penetrated once but unfortunately did nothing because of the blasted daemon inside the hull, the squad did however manage to take off the demolisher cannon leaving the Vidicator looking pretty pointless. However now my Wolf Lord was all alone with 5 Terminators and a Chaos Lord with a daemon weapon advancing. They finished him off without him getting to attack back and I was beginning to worry that I didn't have enough to take out the Landraider. My Thunderwolves then rounded on the Terminators but not before my Duel Plasma gun wielding Grey Hunter Squad and their Rhino rapid fired into them. Combined with the charge of 4 thunderwolves the Terminators and the Lord were dealt with while a squad of Grey Hunters dealt with some summoned lesser Daemons easily.

My Thunderwolves already down to a wound a piece were then charged by the remaining squad of Beserkers (the others having been killed by a combination of Suicide Scouts and Grey Hunters) died which left 2 and a half squads of Grey Hunters against 5 Khorne Beserkers who were running away. I had a choice, 1 and a half squads couldn't get to them but I had my Duel Plasma gunning squad with a Mark of the Wulfen, Wolf Standard and Power Sword to finish four Beserkers who were about 5 and a half inches away, the question came, should I risk shooting, not killing them all and not getting into assault, surely 3 power weapon attacks + rending attacks + 24 normal attacks re rolling 1's should be enough? I feel that you can see whats coming, not one wound caused in fact I lost the combat by one. We stayed locked in and I had to hope for a sixth turn to finish them off which I didn't get. Final result was a 17-3 win and a very enjoyable game.

All in all I picked up 42 points out of 60 on day two which I can't grumble about compared to my 6 points out of 60 on day one. I played 5 enjoyable games and I hope that the one that I didn't enjoy doesn't sour my memories, I know my team mates will remember the weekend for the sage like advice on women I dispensed to them which can't be repeated on here.
I was pleased to see the Army I voted for win the painting competetition, I had actually voted for it at Open War as well but it didn't win there. It was a pre heresy World Eaters Army and the owner was using the blood angels codex to run it.
Now I have to think where I go next before the Indie GT which is fast approaching. Double Rune Priest is calling especially as I know that with Jaw this weekend I would have done much better against Deamons but it means I have to make sacrifices elsewhere (Will my 280 Points Thunderlord make it?).

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.

LinkWithin

Related Posts with Thumbnails