Well that could have gone better. GT part 1.

Sooo

It has now been nearly a month since the GT and I am just about over the disappointment. I will briefly go over my games and then make a load of excuses. I won't go back over my list as it is all in the previous post.

Game 1: vs Jungkoo Saeys (Grey Knights)

5 objectives, Spearhead deployment.

Jungkoo took a slightly different GK list, it was roughly; Libby + 5 Terminators, 1x 10 man Strike Squad 1x 5 man Strike Squads in Razorbacks, 1x Storm Raven, a Vindicare Assassin and 3x Dread Knights.

I was pretty confident to begin with as I thought my Mindstrikes would have a field day, he didn't have much in the way of ranged anti-tank so my Ravens were pretty safe and between them and the dreads I should be able to out shoot him. He got first turn and set up pretty aggressively, only reserving 1 dread knight that would deep strike. The terminators and libby went in the Raven. I decided to reserve my Ravens but set up the razorbacks and dreadnoughts to try and de-mech him as quickly as possible so that I can use my mobility to pick him off a unit at a time. The game seemed pretty close until the very end, his aggressive deployment allowed him to spread out and sit his troops on objectives while the terminators and dread knights kept me in my corner. However I managed to kill off the vehicles with the dreadnoughts and the dread knights with the storm ravens as they came on.

When turn 5 came around I still only had 1 objective and he still had 3. Despite killing all of his major threats he still had most of his troops left, each sitting on an objective. To make matters worse I had lost two Ravens to charges from the terminators and a dread knight respectively and my third storm raven had been immobilized. However I had the libby & death cults advancing on one objective who could get there as long as there was a turn 6, the purifiers and a couple of death cults threatening the mostly untouched 10 man squad sitting on another and there was 1 man remaining back on his home objective. In an inspiring round of shooting from the immobilized raven, using machine spirit it managed to wipe out both of the smaller units. Also the dreadnoughts and purifiers shot the large squad down to a more managable number. At the end of turn 5 it would have been a draw on objectives.

Luckily the game went to turn 6, I managed to get the purifiers in to charge the last 4 models he had left, a lone death cult failed its charge to help out. The purifiers killed 2/4 of the strike squad, they then flee but unfortunately I caught them and they passed their fearless wounds. Had I wiped them out or not caught them when I chased I would have got the 20-0 but as it was I had taken enough damage to make it a 17-3 win.

Not too many excuses to make after this game, I lost both storm ravens to charges where 6's were needed to hit and where the unit that did it rolled exceedingly well, but that happens in a dice game. The loss of mobility made it a lot harder to get rid of his troops as my army does rely on combat to deal with infantry, especially as I had to spend the mindstrikes mostly on his dread knights.


Game 2: vs Franco Murufo (Grey Knights)

Take and Hold, Pitched battle.

Another grey knight army, this time a bit more standard fare. He had Coteaz, an inquisitor with grenades, 7x combat purifiers in a storm raven. 2x 5 Death cults in RBs, 2x 5 Acolytes with some meltaguns in RBs and 2x 5 man strike squads in RBs. Of course there was also the 3 standard issue dreads with autocannons.

Once again I went second so I reserved the storm ravens. I have to admit that Franco didn't have the best luck. That said, I think he really should have been far more aggressive and pushed on to the middle objective. Instead he sat back and let me have the board control. This allowed me to put a unit of death cults in cover on the central objective and make him come to me. I could also turbo my Ravens on and multimelta his dreads. Once they were neutralized my dreads could focus on destroying his razorbacks and storm raven.

Not much more to say about this game. He only had 2 badly damaged razorbacks and 3 purifiers left. 19-1 win to me.

Game 3: vs Alex Harrison (Grey Knights) (sensing a pattern yet?)

Capture and Control, Pitched battle.

Another grey knight army: Coteaz, Inquisitor with nades, 2x 5 Death cults in RBs, 4x 3 acolytes, 2 in RBs, 2 in Chimeras. 2x 10 Purifiers in RBs that steal the chimeras, 3x Dreadnoughts.

This was a very stupid game, I won the roll off to go first and set up everything except the acolytes that would walk on on foot. Alex then spent ages deciding whether to set up or not. In the end he talked him self in to reserving everything except the dreads. He then rolled to see whether he would have seized if he had set up and of course he rolled a 6 so he was kicking himself. I figured that this game had draw written all over it so I thought I may as well try and push if for no other reason than to stop him getting to me. I then rolled atrociously on the damage charts and managed to fail to destroy any dreadnoughts in 2 turns of shooting. This was a trend that continued all game. In the end I had immobilized all 3 of his dreads and blown off 5 weapons. I backed off as he came on and it looked all set to be a draw until a turn of madness that saw 600+ points disappear to a pair of psycannons on two remaining purifiers that refused to die.

I had tried to keep some points safe and reinforce my objective against a small unit of death cults who were trying to move up by jumping the libby and his unit of death cults out of their storm raven and moving them out of line of sight of his army. The storm raven then moved 12" away to shoot at his advancing unit. Another storm raven carrying purifiers turbo'd across to just within 6 inches of the libby to get the 3+ save from shrouding. Then the two purifiers manage to shoot down the turboing raven when I failed the one 3+ save I had to make, it of course explodes the full 6", catches 6 of the libby's squad kills all 6, they fail their ld 10 check and run off the board, to add insult to injury 3/5 purifiers also die. Then as the libby is dead the dreadnought just in front loses his 3+ cover and of course I roll a 3 and he also explodes. This point swing results in the game being a 8-12 draw.

It was pretty frustrating but there was not much I could have done, he had passed about eight 3+ saves on the two remaining purifiers before they shot down the Raven, some times the dice gods like to take the piss.

The GT

So, this weekend is the 40kuk GT. Probably the biggest 40k tournament in the UK. I have been looking forward to this since warp storm last year when I heard about it and the time is finally come. I went to Caledonian Uprising in January and came a respectable 7th, so I have set my sights extremely high and decided to aim to beat that result. A forlorn hope? almost certainly, but it can't hurt to make the attempt (except for the disappointment of failure and abandonment of 40k for the randomness and absurdness of warhammer fantasy).

So here is the list:

1750 points of ... Grey Knights (I know, I'm Sorry)

HQ:

100 - Coteaz

165 - Librarian, Warp Rift, Shrouding, Might of Titans

TROOPS:

62 - 3x Acolytes, Razorback, Psybolt Ammunition

62 - 3x Acolytes, Razorback, Psybolt Ammunition 

102 - 3x Acolytes, 6x Death Cult Assassins

107 - 3x Acolytes, 6x Death Cult Assassins, Meltabomb

ELITES:

129 - 5x Purifiers, 2x Incinerators, 2x Halberds, 1x Hammer

FAST ATTACK:

206 - Storm Raven, Search Light

206 - Storm Raven, Search Light 

206 - Storm Raven, Search Light 

HEAVY SUPPORT:

135 - Dreadnought, 2x Twin Linked Autocannons, Psybolt Ammunition

135 - Dreadnought, 2x Twin Linked Autocannons, Psybolt Ammunition 

135 - Dreadnought, 2x Twin Linked Autocannons, Psybolt Ammunition 

So you can now see how the blog got it's name, and no I did not steal this idea from Gareth Donnelly, (except the librarian).

I have done pretty well with my three storm raven list at caledonian, jolly toys and rolling thunder, but with the arrival of new shiny necrons I have made a few tweaks. Firstly I have dropped a squad of 5 assassins as they weren't really durable enough without a character and the meltaguns from the acolytes in the other assassin units as I almost never used them. I kept the bare acolytes as I have found having the extra bodies to take wounds from explosions and small arms fire really helps keep the assassins alive long enough to do their job. This has given me enough points to add a small unit of purifiers with 2 incinerators to help deal with hordes and scarabs. 

The last tweak is the addition of warp rift on the librarian. It is a one stop shop for dealing with necrons. It can autopen command barges with no save allowing the dreadnoughts to finish them. It can murder whole squads of wraiths, scarabs or warriors and put down (even if temporarily) annoyingly tough characters like the traveller or stormlord. Put that in a storm raven and that's a 23.5" threat range. 

The down sides are that I now only have 4 troops, this isn't so bad at the GT as there is no bonus to winning by more than one objective and there are no secondaries to worry about. I still am going to have to reserve if I'm forced to go second against most armies. 

Apparently the draw goes up tonight so I'll do some guesswork about what my first opponent will be taking and see how it goes.

Intro

I've been playing 40k pretty solidly for 16 years, I played at my local GW and thought I was a good player because I could beat the regulars. Then I moved up to York and met the likes of Neil Kerr and Steve Revis and found that actually I was a "baby seal". 

So last summer, somehow I ended up tagging along with Neil to my first proper tournament, a little tournament in Mansfield called Warpstorm. 47 players that just happened to include most of the best players in the country.  I took my brand spanking new dark eldar. The Baron, 34 Hellions, 18 Reaver jet bikes, 2 Void ravens and a Razorwing jetfighter. Needless to say, I didn't do very well 41st out of 47 with 3 losses 1 win and 2 draws. I did however catch the tournament bug. 

Since then I have been to 8 tournaments in 8 months. I have improved gradually but steadily from one to the next. I'm aiming to go to about one tournament a month this year so this blog is going to mostly be tournament reports hopefully documenting my rise to the top tables.