Yep, after losing the first two games (but still earning points in each), I get to spend the rest of the day at Table 7, the very bottom.
I have no idea or concept at all of anything else happening in the room, except that (bringing old memories to bear), on Table 1 next to me is a father playing his son for the Tournament Win.
Enough Nostalgia!
In game 3 I'd be playing against a great 40K friend and Mechanicus player! If anything this would be the best painted table for the day, having two fully painted and based armies facing off on a nice table of terrain. It would be a great way to finish the day!
The OPFOR [battalion?] (no list was available so see photo after this text) had the chief of all the Mechanicum characters - Cawl, supported by 5 units of Skitarii Rangers, 1 unit of Sicarian infiltrators, and a large blob of 15 Fulgrite Electro-Priests, a Dominus, and most importantly, a 15-model blob of Corpuscarii Electro-Priests.
The Round 3 mission was going to be an interwesting challenge. The important parts were to kill the opponent's warlord, and to get two of your units into the opponent's deployment zone.
I figured I had the advantage here.
Nope.
After deploying, my opponent siezed the initiative.
(art credit above - GW, all rights reserved).
Immediately before turn 1 the OPFOR was able to infiltrate the unit of Corpuscarii Electro-Priests nine inches from my nearest vehicle. Then on turn 1 he deep struck his Dominus onto my deployment edge, and at the close of his turn he earned one of the mission objectives (10 points).
Corpuscarii Electro-Priests assaulted the vehicle, the Baal Predator, wrecking it.
And you know what happens when they did that. These sparking happy electro-priests become 3++ assault terminators with one wound and 5+ FNP.
You can swear and curse with me right there....
On my turn, I put the chaplain and Sanguinary Guard deep strikers off in the enemy's deployment zone, since both players can score that mission separately. The Death Company would try to deal with the Electro-Priests. The Chaplain went off and assaulted a Skitarii unit, but the Sanguinary host failed their charge. The Skitarii unit was killed off, but the Chaplain was killed the following turn.
Bu responding to the Electro-Priest incursion, I did what I'm not supposed to do - I decided to try to kill off the choppy ones with my choppy ones. I've done it before against the same player...
I ultimately fed his Corpuscarii Electro-Priests blob the Death Company (9 or so anyway), a tactical squad, the Sanguinary Guard (after they got recalled with a stratagem), and Dante (because why not?). I only killed 9 of his shirtless sparkly guys in return, so they game ended with 6 still on the board with nothing to do. A sole survivor or so of the death company and a razorback went on a rampage towards the enemy line.
Yeah, it was fun to try. Giant waste of time.
Losing Dante lost me the game (15 points). I could have just moved him off to the Sanguinary Guard in the far corner to hide behind a building. If anything we would have then split that mission.
Final score was 25 to 16. I scored 34 points for the day, getting me 13th place. How lucky of me to do so! The other Blood Angels Player of the day got second place with over twice the points.
After the game I packed up and headed out to get to my ski lodge for the night for a planned ski day! I had a pack of nice Coffee Porter to complete as I mulled over the games by the fireplace. The next morning's skiing was EPIC BTW.
AFTERMATH
Overall I have a few closing thoughts from the day:
1. My list was built on the perception that it could do well in all tactical card play. It was mobile and based on claiming objectives while pressuring the opponent and having board control. Although it did that in terms of board control, it failed to be relevant since cards only came into play in game 1.
2. Morale is very important in the local meta / tournament missions. As you can see from the mission types (non-standard), things like not failing morale were more important than losing units. Morale had to be maintained by either special rules/characters or by spending CP's, for which I always ran out of (having only 6), while most of my opponents started around 9 CPs with ways to recover them. You are better off in these missions to lose the unit in assault/shooting than to lose it to failed morale checks. Smaller model count units in this case would have been better.
3. Throwing lead down range is far more important still than true mobility in this format. Two of my opponents had no real vehicles at all, and one had vehicles that rarely moved. Each of my opponents had nominal infiltrate or deeps strike ability. The missions did not require them to have more than that. For all practical purposes, a squadron of whirlwinds or indirect firing thudd guns would be more important than movement to get LOS.
4. Shoot the Choppy ones, Chop the shooty ones. it is a simple rule. I could have moved up several places in final points by doing so. Never ever try to assault the Corpuscarii Electro-Priests unit once they go super-sayan. In my case, moving on to other targets would have been more valuable, leaving the razorbacks and Baal predator to deal with things like that (while they backed away).
5. One thing I have not talked about or corrected myself on is that one of the missions (probably game 1) required you to be the first player to kill one of each of your opponent's unit types. I saw that mission type in December. That could range from simple (I only had HQ, troop, DT, elite, heavy), to much harder (HQ, troop, elite, FA, heavy, fort, flyer, etc.). Having variety is important in these missions, which again is not standard for the game in general. The best lesson here is understand the missions that will be played, and tailor your list to meet the missions. Clearly in game 1 (as well as Game 2) I'd have made more points simply by keeping Dante off the table or at least out of range/out of sight as an example, or hiding one unique unite (like the Baal) out of the range of the OPFOR. In game 1 my opponent had an elite unit and his heavy/indirect firing eldar platforms hidden to keep me from winning that mission (so we split on it).
All for now, I have some list tweaks to make and more models to change! I hope to get a game in again soon to do more tests...I look forward to hopefully talking with the other Blood Angels Player - his units were very different from mine and I'd like his opinion before I make more model purchases!
Did you see that Rouboute G will be available as a single model kit? Oh man....
MING
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