Caledonian Uprising - Final Learnings

The best thing about coming 75th out of 80 people, indeed the only good thing is that it means that you've made lots of mistakes to learn from.



Army List



My list isn't focused enough. It should either be Rhinos or Razorbacks not a mish mash of both. For my next tournament (which I think will be the next Open War) I'm going to go with the old fashioned Rhino Rush or with a proper Razorspam list rather than a mix between the two. I also kept forgetting about the two filler items in my list - Saga of the Beastslayer and Wolf Tooth Necklace. Just goes to show that you need to be really hot on the army that you're running.



Experience



It's no coincidince that the only army I actually beat was a Space Marine army. By far , they're the army I've played most in the last year and a bit. Clearly I need to look a bit further out and play against dome different armies just for experience.



Get more Bolshy



In the third game against Brad, he did his combat incorrectly (allocating wounds against a unit to an Independent Character), used his Wolf Standard incorrectly (unveiling it as I charged in which would have meant that it would have worked for the second round of combat) and he deep struck his Land Speeders after only declaring that they were in Reserve. They were all clearly innocent mistakes but I should have called him on them. Especially the combat one since my Wolf Guard with Power Fist was in base to base with his Priest and would have kileld him which would have meant D6 S7 shots coming ym way each turn. I don't think it would realistically have made any difference to the outcome of the game but it certainly didn't help.



Also, in the sixth game, Graham wasn't taking Leadership tests on his Destroyers. I've only played Necrons once so I assumed he didn't have to. Of course he should have been taking them. Again, it was purely accidental but I should still have been asking.



Now let's look game by game at some more specific learnings:


Game 1 - Objective Placement


Three units of Bezerkers are a serious Combat threat that clearly want to get to grips with my guys as soon as possible. If I'd placed the Objectives in Peter's half of the board then he would have had to make some tough decisions about whether he wanted to sit on the Objectives or whether he wanted to rush into combat. If he'd sat on the Objectives, I could have just sat back, shot him to pieces and then zoomed in to claim the Objectives nearer the end of the game. If he'd advanced then I would still have been able to shoot him, then held him with my larger squads while my smaller squads drove round the melee to claim Objectives.


Game 2 - Shooting Before Combat


My Wolf Scouts turned up nicely on the back board edge, near to Ian's Objective. I then shot with them at one squad with the intention of multi-charging two squads. Unfortunately my shooting was too good, the squad failed its Leadership check and ran away and left my Scouts swinging in the wind.

Game 3 - Deployment


After I'd seen that Brad's list had more shooting than me, I should have given serious consideration to placing my army in the corner as far away from him as I could get. This would have meant that he would have had to have moved his Dreadnought's to get them into range and his Long Fangs would have had some tough decisions to make around where to move to in order to get into range and trying to stay in cover. I could also have left some units in Reserve allowing me to come on my long board edge and attack his army piecemeal. I'm not saying that this would have been a foolproof tactic but it would at least have made for a less static game.

Game 4 - Aggression


I delayed my charge for a turn to keep my vehicles out of range of Grotzookas and Rokkits and in the final reckoning I was about half a turn away from Sean's Objective. I should have forgone shooting Living Lightning for the first two turns and moved my army forward 12" which would have given me a much better chance of getting to the Objective.

I also started with my Speeders on the board which just allowed Sean to shoot at them. If I'd left them in Reserve, I could have brought them on right next to my Objective and Heavy Flamered the Orks who were claiming it.

Game 5 - Deployment

For some reason, I have this blind spot when it comes to Battlewagons - I always forget that they can travel 12" and then the Boyz can assault out of it. So that's a 20" effective charge range on Turn 1. Unfortunately for my Long Fangs they were only about 16" away. Bye bye Long Fangs before they even got to shoot.

Game 6 - Stay in the Rhino

One of my Rhinos got Stunned so rather than lose a turn of shooting from my Rune Priest, he jumped out with his squad and cast Living Lightning. They then got shot to pieces and after the 3 survivors got back into their Rhino on the next turn it was subsequently blown up. In retrospect I should have stayed in the Rhino, popped smoke and accepted not shooting for a turn.

Actually, in the same way I made mistakes in Game 4 by concentrating on shooting too much out of the top hatches and not getting forward, I did the same thing here. I was never really going to win a shooting contest against Destroyers since I couldn't deny them WBB. If I'd been more aggressive, I could have gotten into Jaws range and from there into combat, both of which would have given me much better chances to win the game.


As you've seen, I've already started thinking about my next tournament list which is going to be a lot more focused. Time will tell how we get on...