BoLSCon 2009: Mission 4 - Purple Rain

Mission 4 - Battle Report against Space Marines

Deployment : Spearhead, Random Game Length, Night Fight Turn 3 and 4

Objectives:
Primary - Seize Ground 5 Objectives
Secondary - Kill all of your opponents HQs
Tertiary - Have units in the most terrain features
Modifiers - Each force organization slot you destroy is worth 1 bonus point.

Ok, so I was going to use Vassal to show the turn by turn moves, but unfortunantly I've never used it before, and my current learning curve on little sleep is making it very hard for me not to get frustrated with the program :D

So instead I'll give you the narrative version, I'll try to keep it short but interesting.

Deployments: As usual my opponent rolled and was able to go first, this wasn't that big of a deal for me as going second actually gives me a better chance at contesting objectives. He deployed most of his force but held back a Demolisher and His Librarian and Assault Marines. With a 12" deployment he was able to sit on one of the objectives and was in good position to take the other 2 with 10 man marine squads in rhinos.

My deployment consisted of me keeping everything in reserves. I felt it would be best to to take advantage of the turn 3 and 4 night fight rules. By this I mean I would be able to enter the game on turn 2 with my reserves, do some shooting and hopefully knock out some transports or units and then he would have to try to shoot me using the night fight rules the next two turns. Allowing me plenty of time to manuever into place.

Turn 1:
Marines: He drops his Dreadnaught on the objective closest to me and moves his rhinos to the objectives.

Eldar: I smile and say done :D

Turn 2:
Marines: He rolls for reserves and brings his Demolisher on board to my right, trying to help out the 2 marine squads now sitting on objectives. He then gives me the evil eye and it's now my turn.

Eldar: I roll for reserves, getting everything except a Fire Prism, Falcon, and Jetbike Squad. As I'm setting up my opponent asked me if I wanted a beer, oh he's getting a Great! for sportsmanship :D So I do the sensible thing here I fly one Wave Serpent up and drop off the Dragons to take out the Dreadnaught on my left. I let the council wreck the Dreadnaught Drop Pod next to my left.

I then run my other Dragon Squad up the right side of the table to contend with the Demolisher. I fly my Falcons in and keep one in the center back and one center right to stay away from approaching Assault Bikes on the left. I also put my JetGuardians towards the right to start popping off shots at the rhinos.

I ended up shaking both rhinos, not to bad for first round of shooting, especially with the Dread and Drop Pod gone off my home objective.

Turn 3: Night Fight
Marines: He Rolled Reserves and was able to get his Assuault and Shooty Termies into play. The shooty termies Deep Striked next to the right most Dragon Serpent to try to take it down, while the Assault Termies and Librarian went into his back field. (He later told me this was because I had way to many thing to shoot at him) With reserves deployed he decided to move up with left Demolisher but it was immobolized on the terrain (alot of that going around this tournament) with it stuck it was out of range of my fire dragons that had killed the Dread Naught.

He was able to kill 2 of the dragons with snipers, and failed all of his other Night Sight checks. He shot the Far Right Dragon Serpent with his Demolisher and Termies but I was able to save both from moving flat out. Good start for me.

Eldar: My turn, I get my second Fire Prism in but not the Falcon. I load up the Dragons from the Dreadnaught Kill and start to get them over where they are needed. I unloaded the Fire Dragons to shoot at the right side Demolisher, and moved my bikes forward a bit to take more shots at the rhinos.

I believe I ended up stunning the Demolisher and was able to take out of one the other Rhinos, I then used the Fire Prisms to take out the Shooty Termies that had landed close to my dragons. No way I could let those guys stay alive.

Turn 4: Night Fight Again!
Marines: With all the marines on the table, and another Night Fight turn he was in a pretty rough spot. He moved his Assault bikes withen shooting range of the Council and took some melta shots with no deaths. He then shot at everything else with nothing connecting.

Eldar: The Falcon came in this turn luckily for me. I ran my council over to his assault bikes and doomed the one I'd assault. I then unloaded the Dragons next to the rhino's that were still up and moved my Jetbikes in for the kill. With The Rhino gone the marines dissapeared quite rapidly, leaving one rhino left stunned once again.

The JetCouncil charged one of the bikes and I threw one Spear Lock on the other bike to lock us up in combat during his turn.

Turn 5: The sun arrives!
Marines: With the sun up, there were some tempting targets for his heavy weapons, but first he used his librarian to teleport between my tanks and the objectives. He was able to shake one of my tanks and my Fire Dragons ended up getting pinned by snipers. In the assault phase my Council ended up finishing off the other Assault Bike.

Eldar: My turn, With the council free, I moved it up behind the wall, next to the objective on the far left side next to his marines, from here they wouldn't get shot at because of the solid wall. I then moved my bikes up to contest the one objective with the rhino marines, and to take control of the other objective. From there the Falcon went flying to land next to the objective that the Dreadnaught had originally been at.

From there I had to make a decision on what to do with the Assault marines that were in striking distance of my Guardian Jetbikes, it was a choice between shooting them or trying to block there path. So I went with the riskier option but the one that would solve the problem and tank shocked him with my Fire Prism. Thinking that I'd have a tank hulk there to slow them down I was very very surprised when he rolled double 6's for there Leadership. With them running and not able to regroup from all my friendly units in the area I pretty much had the game in my hands.

With a little shooting I had control of 2 objectives and was contesting the other 3 with a solid amount of units.

Outcome:
At the end of turn 5 we rolled a die and the game was to continue, we had 10 minutes left but he decided to call the game and go ahead and give me the secondary and tertiary points I would've received by moving my guys into terrain during the next turn.

It was a fun and solid game, and I probably the best one I played all weekend, we were both striking back and forth at each other with little result up until he failed that LD test and things just slid into place for me.

I think keeping my guys in reserves kept me from getting blasted into space, and being less aggresive with my council really paid off (I had lost it first turn during the first 2 games)

But Like I said, it was a great game, and I'd gladly give him a rematch as he was a greaty guy to play against.

BoLSCon 2009: Day 2

So once again I started the day facing the dreaded Imperial Guard, I swear they had it in for me, and for what? I hadn't done anything to them. Hell the Swordwind's Sheath had never faced them before ;)

But alas the might and numbers of their guns overwhelmed me, that and time. I made one really bad move at the end of game 4 thinking we would play through turn 5. If I had not made the move I would've tied up the match, and if turn 5 had come around a 50/50 chance of pulling this one off but I alas the guns scared me into moving a little further back out of range and the rest is history.

With the first game a loss, I went on to play a Pre-Heresy Chaos army. I really did enjoy this game, and he ended up receiving best sportsmanship for the tournament. He was playing with Abaddon with 4 assaulty Termies, 3 Rhinos of 10 Man Spacemarines with Mark of Khorne and 3 Squads of Daemons.

It was a capture and control match and I knew he needed to get to me, so I proceded to send in the sacrificial dragons to keep that Land Raider far far away. From there I popped his Rhinos and then slowly moved my forces in for the kill using a Wave Serpent at the End of my Turn 5 to Contest the objective. It was a solid win and a fun game.



Then it was down to the last game, and Nick asked me what was the worst thing that could happen. "I'm facing IG again?" He just shook his head and I realized we'd be playing each other at yet another tournament, during the final game, 6th table from the top... The Swordwind's Sheath was Ready to Exact revenge for their fallen brethren during the North Texas Champion Ship Campaign.

This was a tricky mission, 6 objectives and at the end of each turn they had a chance of disapearing on a roll of a 6, if you had a scoring unit on it, you would get to keep the objective, the unit would disapear and deep strike the next turn. Talk about whoa...

So instead of doing the usual reserve everything move I do against Nick, I fielded my entire army so as to have scoring units on the board for those objectives. It was a very intense game, with a bit of argueing that comes from friends, and a rediculous demand from him, after he let me make my Jetbike Assault move after he had started his turn, but before he had begun moving or deploying, (I won't go into it but it did make me a bit upset) but in the end I ended up getting full points off the game. It was fun, and I think me and him just need to try to play more for fun against each other then to smash each other's face in.

So that was it for Day 2, They havn't released the final rankings yet but I'll let you know how i did, I'm also going to write up a couple battle reports, 3 of the 4 games we're pretty interesting, even the loss on the second day to the IG so expect those either tonight or later in the week. :D

BoLSCon 2009: Day 1

Hey Everyone, managed to get my buddies laptop going and unfortunantly I don't have photoshop on here so pictures are going to have to wait. Let's just say it's been a crazy crazy day, 4 games at 2k each is mind blowing. I'm surprised at how well organized everything is going and you can see it.

There are also quite a few beautiful armies here. The most amazing one I saw was a fantisy army where they had LED lights for every single model, and custom created clear plastic where it was shining out of. Once I get back in town I'll have to get you guys some pictures of these thing because they are awesome and give a lot of inspiration.

The morning started off rough though, I'm not going to blame the drinking until midnight or anything like that ;) But I don't think I was totally in the right mind.

I ended up going 3 and 1 and will give more detailed battle reports later but I ended up loosing the fist game to IG, Battle Squad Psykers are cheap haha. After that I played against Dark Templars and Won, then played against Tau and won against a guy having a pretty bad game.

Then the final game of the day was against Marines, It was the best game of the day (and not just because he bought me a beer) but it was very tacticaly challenging and I was in the game completely (beer helps) I ended up getting all of the objectives in the last turn, I felt bad for getting all the points, but it was still just a fun and well played game.

Well that's the update for the night, time to eat some pizza and relax with a couple drinks before I wake up, dice get rolling at 8 am, so wish me luck :D

North Texas Championship Battle Report

The Big Day had arrived and as usual I was there before the doors were even open. Who knew there'd be no traffic at 9 on a Saturday Morning. But after a little bit of waiting and chatting with a couple other guys the doors were opened and we were ready to find out what the missions were.

Mission 1: Was a straight anihilation game but with a twist, night fighting rules determined by 2 D6, it was a 1 and a 4, so we were to have night fighting Turn 1 and 4 which was going to make things very interesting.

Mission 2: Had table quarters deployment, and the objective was to get as many scoring units into your opponents deployment zone as possible, a little rough when all your troops are walking but still do able.

Mission 3: Bunker objectives, with massive Victory Points for controlling your opponents object, a couple points for contesting it, and a few more if you just decided to blow it up. Once again deployment was 15"s with an extra D3 inches.

To see my army list take a look at the earlier post of it here.

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Round 1: Eldar vs. Dark Eldar

Dark Eldar Army List -

Archon
Punisher, Shadow Field, Combat Drugs, Haywire Grenades, Tormentor Helm, Trophy Rack, Animus Vitae

2 Squads of Warriors x10
Splinter Cannon

2 Squads of Warriors x10
Dark Lance

Warriors x10
Sybrite
Web Way Portal

Mandrakes x9

Wyches x10
Succubus, Agonizer, Trophy Rack
Raider

Wyches x9
Succubus, Agonizer, Trophy Rack
Raider

Ravager x2
Darklance x3

This was the First Game of the Day, I was very excited, at least until I found out I'd be playing Dark Eldar. Now this would only be my second experience against DE since 3rd edition. And he had pretty much wiped me off the face of the planet at last year 'Ards Boy.

But he's a really nice guy and I am always willing to have a good game. The game started out with me going first, I had layed out my army in a gunline using whatever cover there was, ie a crater and my vehicles.

He layed out his troops leaving his Wyches and Ravagers in reserve. The first turn wasn't very exciting it was night fight and we really did very little damage to each other, other then a couple of lost warriors.

The second turn became more exciting, I was able to scatter laser a warrior squad off the table and began to slowly move my vehicle forward (although I should've been moving my troops back.) During his turn he had a ravager come in and took some pop shots at my tank and shook it.

My next turn found another warrior squad wiped off the map and a destroyed weapon on the ravager, (I ended up forgeting to add +1 to damage table for open top vehicles the entire game) and moved my Wave Serpent to the center of the map to apply pressure while my falcon stayed to the right. During his turn the rest of his vehicles came into play, through the web way he had layed down. He was able to charge with both his witch squads one wiping out a Guardian Defender squad, the other assauting my war walkers and tying them up. He had also revealed his mandrakes and was able to destroy another GD Squad that was housing my GuideSeer.

With turn Four starting I moved my Wraith Lord into position to flame the Mandrakes, I also let the Banshees out of the cage and moved the Falcon up to unleash Fire Dragon Hell. Needless to say the Dragons easily popped a Ravager. The Wraith Lord completely melted the Mandrakes with his dual flamers and lucky for me the Banshees Charged the Archon Wych Squad and was able to detroy it. After my turn my opponents dice took a nose dive (which is where mine had start, failing 3 psycic tests first turn with two perils) He shot and shot and was able to remove another Guardian Squad but did no damage to my Tanks but was able to make the Fire Dragons run. In the Assualt phase the Wyches were able to take out another War Walker still leaving them tied up with the last one.

Turn 5 and the last turn we played because of the time limits, my banshees assaulted the mandrakes and the Wraith Lord went after more Warrior Squads. The Dragons shot but did little damage, then in his turn non of his shots connected and the assaults stayed stale.

In the end it was a very good Game that ended in a Draw, me happy that I didn't get wiped off the board, and I think he enjoyed having a good opponent :D

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Game 2 was against the Inquisition, unfortunately I no longer have his army list.

The game was played with Table quarters with a 18' Radius center No Man's Land. In this game he beat me on the deployment roll. He set up his 3 Lemun Russes a couple rhinos a chimera and some heavy weapon squads.

I then laid down my army, trying to stay in cover as much as possible, just something about big blast weapons that scare my Guard Defender Squads. With the army down I rolled a 6 for seize initiative and began moving my troops forward (the objective was to have as many troop units in the other's deployment quarter as possible. With the army moving, I shot and did very little damage other then a couple shaken rhinos. He then went and did even less damage then I, but began moving his vehicles down the long edge of his table.

Turn 2 was also not very exciting, I positioned my Wave Serpent next to the Russes so the Dragons could go after them next and placed my Banshees in the middle of his units, with fortune and a cover save I hoped it'd live. His turn went and he was able to pop the Wave Serpent, fortune and all, it was ok as they passed there pinning test and he had fired everything already and done very minimal damage.

With turn 3 in the works I popped his chimerra with scatter laser fire from the War Walkers, and a lemun russ with the dragons. The Banshees then assaulted his IG Command Squad and the troops that disembarked from the Chimera when it was destroyed, killing them all. It was then his turn, he shot his battle cannons again and once more they failed to really hit there targets, he then melted the banshee squad with his Inquisitor units leaving only the exarch and DoomSeer left. He also was able to assault the WraithLord with his Eviseror Assasin and killed it outright, overall the bloodiest turn I'd taken.

Turn 4 ended up being out last turn, the Dragons were able to destroy another Lemun Russ and the Banshees played havock with his Inqusition squad. The Assasin died to Guardian fire while the War Walkers tried to fire on a squad getting really close to my deployment area but with little luck. At the end of my turn I had one unit of troops in his deployment, and in cover with really only light fire and a Lemun russ to take it out, thinks were looking good. During his turn he managed to kill off the banshees and move a troops unit into my deployment, with us tied it then came down to Kill Points, with me winning out from destroying a couple units, and some vehicles and him only killing the Banshee squad and it's wave serpent.

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Game 3 was Against one of my long time friends playing Space Marines, boy was I in for a surprise.

Let me start off by saying I completely and utterly screwed this one up! Lol...

So I got first deployment deployed to the center of the map because I knew he was going to infiltrate most of his army. My first turn goes by, I do a couple random shots at the two heavy weapons he placed on the board and did little damage. He then drop pods a Iron Clad into my ranks and begins frying my guys.

On my second turn I move my tanks to where he dropped so I can unload the dragons the next turn, I shoot everything that has a chance against the dread and fail miserable, I then charge hoping to tie it up and maybe get lucking with my singing spear, nope once again the dice fail me and then my guys run away :( His turn comes and he brings on a rhino which shoots the crap out of one of my other squads, he then charges my War Walkers with his Dread and is able to take all of them out in one swift attack.

The 3rd turn found the dragons melting the dread into a nice little tin can, yay for the eldar! But little else of any effect happened. He then brought the rest of his reserves in, and used a road to his advantage, bringing his Land Raider up 18 inches, jumping out with Khan a Librarian and Assault Termies, he then assaulted the Dragons and my Wraithlord and Khan was able to instant kill the WL with his uber power weapon, (once again I was freaking suprised) Needless to say at this point I was on the loosing side of the battle.

4th turn comes around and I'm able to do a little shooting and take out a termi, banshees are in place for turn 5 assault but the game ends on his turn 4 because of time. In the end I played this one really bad but was able to learn quite a bit from it.

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EDIT: So something I completely forgot to mention was the end result :D I tied for second so not to bad, next time I'll come back in full force and um... make sure I don't help my friend out with his army lists at all.