All Quiet on the West[ern] Front (Coast)

Post AdeptiCon I have been busy with a number of things:

• writing up the [bloody] BatReps!
• rebuilding the army courtesy of United Airlines' "wasn't it fun to build the first time!" program
• working on the first 1500 points of my Isengard force for War of the Ring
• I've had to pull out of Astronomi-Con Vancouver - family scheduling commitments - which is a sad thing for me to do as it is one the of the highlights of the gaming calender north of the border.
• I've also been interviewing for a new job - I've actually had FIVE interviews for the position! This started on the last day of AdeptiCon when the recruiting company flew me home. My last interview is in a couple of hours...

I'll get back to model making this weekend, and if I get the new job, I'll be buying myself a SWEET gift from Forgeworld!

Post AdeptiCon - Part 3

Day 3... getting tough to keep going...

Warhammer 40k Championships.

Game 1

Opponent - Jon "yakface" Regul - Tau.

Mission - Annihilation; Primary - Annihilation, Secondary - VPs, Tertiary - Eliminate Troops.

OK... so I get one of the best rules "lawyers", and he is playing Tau. So I won't be cheating... hehehe.
The best shooting army in the game, vs. my HtH beasts. Oh, this was going to hurt!

I let Jon set up first - I want to see where he was going (I guessed either way I was screwed, but at least this way I could maybe counter some of his deployment. I could always seize the first turn.
I failed to take the first turn... Jon quickly dispatched two Penitent Engines.
Turn 2 saw my Arcoflagellents and remaining Engines moving up. I had to try to get something into HtH as quickly as possible...
The Tau ventured forward and I committed my celestians to the battle - they had to be capable of doing something!
Not much it seems... other than attracting a LOT of Tau fire power and dieing...
Turn 4 would finally see some combat (yes, all my other HtH units had been wiped out...).
Yes! Lost combat to 5 Firewarriors - TWICE.... bloody hell... Eventually she beat the warriors, but succumbed to the waiting circle of Kroot.
Mercifully the game would end on turn 5... I think I had one Inquisitor left - he hid all game.

Result - Primary - loss, Secondary - loss, Tertiary - ... loss! ZERO points gained.
Ouch.... Jon was a lot of fun to play; just the wrong match up for me and mine!

Game 2

Opponent - Jason Bentley -Space Marines

Mission - Unplanned Assault; Primary - unknown, Secondary - VPs, Tertiary - Eliminate HQs.

I like this mission - we find out on turn 4 what we are fighting for Table Quarters, Seize Ground (terrain), or Field of Battle.

The marines set up first.
The rest of the army was destined to come on on turn 1...
I countered with one unit and transport.
Turn 1 saw some inconsequential shotting from the marines (plus turn 1 was a night fight), and then I bought my army on.
So did you notice it? Yep, he forgot to bring his army on during his first turn. OMFG!
To be honest I have no idea what this means in rules terms, but I did not want to even contemplate asking the judges, just in case they came up with "destroyed!".
We decided that they should now come on as Reserves. Of course, this could potentially doom his game plan as I out numbered him for most of the game.
He did manage to get a Vindicator and Devastator Squad on in turn 2.
My Penitent Engines had rushed forward and after dealing with one of the tactical squads, they were engaged by the other, in the woods. This battle would last for the majority of the game.
My Immolator moved up to the woods, to track down anything that wanted to come near the combat - and promptly immobilized itself...
Turn 4 was good to the Marines... the Landraider arrived! An attack bike showed up, but I killed it off with 2 storm bolter shots from an Arbite Rhino!!
My Arco's went after the Vindicator (which has been pummeling the Sisters Repentia in the woods), and the Repentia finally Raged and ran towards the Landraider.
Turn 5, and the final unit of marines shows up - jump troops! The assault terminator squad, with Cassius, jumps out of the Landraider and heads towards my Celestians and Palantine.
The Sisters Repentia get stuck into the Landraider and wreck it (woot!), the Celestians stand up to the terminators (Spirit of the Martyr, and Preferred Enemy really do help!)
Turn 6 I had to try to deal with the jump pack troops that were going to deny me my right table quarter, but that was not going to work out.
The Repentia came over to help deal with the terminators, but in the end Cassius survived, denying me both the tertiary objective and one of my table quarters!
Result - Primary - tie, Secondary - tie, Tertiary - tie. Plus all 3 Tactical Bonuses. 20 points gained.
Hard fought game. I'm not sure how different it would have been if the marines had come on on turn one like they were supposed to. But that is part of the game - you have to remember which units are coming on how, and when. I really should check the rule on that mistake.

Game 3

Opponent - Chuck Bethea - Daemons of Chaos (Nurgle).

Mission - Capture and Control; Primary - Objective Markers, Secondary - VPs, Tertiary - Control the Table.

Ah, daemons - so much fun! Chuck had one of the nicest Nurgle armies I've ever seen, and his painting score reflected this.

Chuck let me deploy first... I use my turn 1 to spread out a bit.
The Tallyman, a Soul Grinder, some plague bearers and two winged daemon Princes drop in...
Epidemius backs off from my penitent Engines...
My Repentia charged up the middle (with some nice Holy Rage rolls), and wiped out the unit of plague bearers. They'd need that cover to survive shooting from the Soul Grinder...
Didn't help much! But at least I failed my moral check and got to charge.
The DP went after my two Engines, that combat would last a couple of turns more...
Turn 3 saw some Plague Bearers come in behind my lines, so I needed to deal with them ASAP, and my other two engines went toe-to-slime with the Greater Daemon - eventually beating him down.
Turn 3 saw more Plague bearers come in, and need to be dealt with. As well as the Soul Grinder going over to help out the Greater Daemon.
Turn 4 - I wanted Epidemius dead! I threw in my Battle Sister squad... the Penitent Engines finally went down, it would have been nice if they could have lasted one more round...
Turn 5 saw some ongoing combats...
Turn 6 did not resolve much...
Game end.

Result - Primary - win, Secondary - tie, Tertiary - tie. Plus one Tactical Bonus.13 points gained.
A good hard fought game! This is the first time I've done well against daemons in a regular game - I think my extra-choppy units were well worth the points.

Here are the results. Not so great - I really stunk on the quiz, and I'm betting I lost a sportsmanship point from game 2, when I did not allow him to just walk on after messing up his turn one deployment (yeah, like I'm going to give up an immediate assault, on his terms!).

Post AdeptiCon - Part 2

Day 2 - the Team Event!

The team event is why the Geeks came to AdeptiCon. A moment of madness at the OFCC last August had Eric, Trent and myself planning our armies - we soon has Rob involved. With Trent's work commitments he sadly had to drop out, but we were very fortunate to find a replacement player. Mitch Tucker (Elthniar) stepped up with an excellent Eldar list to help us out.

Looking around the room I was not sure what to make of the event. Obliviously some people went to a lot of effort on their displays, some had lots of fun with theme, some just stayed with power/WAAC concept from the Gladiator event!
This one made me laugh (you seeing this John?!)
Warhammer 40K National Team Tournament.

Game 1

Opponent - Rocky Mountain Cavaliers (Damien Garcia and Daniel Lemier) - White Scars

Mission - A Breakfast of Shrapnel; Primary - Control Objective Markers, Secondary - Kill Points.

Eric (Daemonhunters) and I opted NOT to use our Command Counters this game.

We set up first - the plan was to protect the Inquisitional Retinue for as long as possible...
And sit on objectives as long as we needed to.
The Cavaliers chose not to Outflank, or deploy anything. On turn one they came on in a concentrated "left hook". Strangely they did the same on the other table (vs. Rob (Marines) and Mitch's Eldar)... did they have a plan???
Yes, those are all bikes! Ones that look like Sammael's Jetbike were in fact Attack bikes. Oh, and Kor'sarro Khan is buried in there somewhere! They immediately took a turbo-boost move to saturate that corner. I figured if they were allowed to do that again they would have the table in 3 turns, so I moved my two Penitent Engines (2 units) and a unit of Arbites up to slow them down, and make them fight for the objective.
The maneuver achieved this goal, but I'm sure Eric thought I was nuts "sacrificing" the Engines!
Eric's shooting picked away at the more central unit, but we really could not do that much damage with the 3+ save. Eric forgot to roll for his GK Termies on turn 2...
Turn 3 saw greater success. For them... The Arbites were finally dealt with...
And the bikes started to use the classic "bull horn" move to envelope our forces.
Eric's Termies showed up on turn 5... close to the objective.
Lots more bike movement this turn, and plenty of HtH; IIRC the Repentia went on their monthly rampage and attacked the bikes after failing a Ld test from shooting (I kill off the Mistress sometimes to allow this to happen!)
Oddly my Arbites could not stand up to Khan...
Game ended after turn 5...

Result - Primary - Tie, Secondary - Loss. 7 (?) battle points gained.
Well, I know we did "OK", but having lost my record sheet from the Team event I'd don't know exactly how we did!
These guys were lots of fun. they went onto win the Best Imperial Theme Award.

Game 2

Opponent - Opposing Force (Jeremy and Michael) - Nurgle CSM

Mission - The Process of Denial; Primary - Control table Quarters, Secondary - Kill most expensive unit, Tertiary - Kill Points.

So these were the guys with the amazing display (sorry no photos!) - 4 Nurgle armies, themes boards... the two guys who Rob and I faced off against had identical lists.

We got to set up first...
Their deployment was rather conservative, given the primary objective (I was surprised when they did not mingle their troop units!). The two winged princess (one had rather small wings...) were obviously placed for a purpose.
Turns one and two see a little bit of dancing around, but no major moves by either side. In turn three I decide that my Penitents need to get stuck in, especially to deal with annoying Obliteraters, so I use my Arbites Rhinos (empty) as a shields.
For the previous turns my Repentia had been merrily skipping up the board and into the ruins. This little "jaunt" had attracted some attention from the foul minions of Nurgle. They beat the crap out of them with shooting! Whilst it may seem crazy to run them forward like this, I am never ceased to be amazed at how they scare the crap out of an opponent - if I'd got into HtH with multiple units there would have been some serious vehicular carnage at the least!
Rob had done some serious maneuvering - teleporting his Sternguard (Librarian's ability) to the left flank, and shooting one unit of marines up the right side. These now came into play in turn 4 as we headed towards game end.
The right flank got messy, with an addition unit of PMs coming in... and the combat not seeming to be able to be anything but a draw!
In the top right Rob continued to pin down 3 units of Plague Marines
In the middle he was in tough against a Daemon Prince.
To help out the left I sent the Palatine and Retinue over...
Rob's Marines succumbed in the middle, so my Arbites bravely stepped up...
On the right, my Arbites were charged by the other Daemon Prince...
Amazingly they would wound the Daemon Prince, and then he would completely fail to wound the Arbites!
In the bottom of 5 I lost a couple of guys, but they passed their Ld test!! Holy Crap - I stood up and beat a Daemon Prince!

Result - Primary - Win, Secondary - Tie, Tertiary - Loss.
What a hard fought battle! I think Rob and my armies worked well in concert. Guess who won the game for us? The Arbites!
The Celestians were a huge help on the left flank - a women's touch was all it needed.

Game 3

Opponent - Emperor's Grease Monkeys -Ultramarines

Mission - A Flood of Skulls; Primary - Objective Markers, Secondary - "Marked for Death". Tertiary - Recon.

I was paired with Mitch for this game.
The game was very odd - almost seemed to be played at a "staccato" pace. One of our opponents was a veteran player, the other (his brother I believe) was not...
I marked the bikes for death, and my Penitent Engines were duly marked also.
Turn 1 saw some early action. The bikes had turbo-boosted forward to I was able to engage in HtH, and a marine drop pod came in behind our lines.
Mitch has taken down the Landspeeder Storm early on, and now had to contend with the Scout that survived the ordeal. They proved to be a tough bunch!
My (now Immobilized) Penitent Engine was ticking away at the bikes, the Celestians came back to deal with the drop pod marines, and the Sisters Repentia were moving up on the left flank to anchor that side.
I don't really remember much else of the battle, other than Telion was a pain, I had a tough HtH battle with some assault marines in the ruins on the right (with my Celestians) - ultimately I lost that one IIRC. My Repentia ripped though a couple of marine units, and then started after objectives.
Nope - no recall and a lack of pictures!!!

I think we ended up with a tie across the board.

Result - Primary - tie, Secondary - tie, Tertiary - tie.
Not a bad game, not the best game. I think we were all flagging at that point - a quick dinner and a "Punch-In!" were definitely in order if we were going to survive the final round!

Game 4

Opponent - Trent and [sorry don't recall!] -Grey Knights and Imperial Guard

Mission - A Twilight of Ash and Ruin; Primary - Victory Points, Secondary - Control Objective Markers, Tertiary - Survival of the Fittest (HQs).

OK... so it was getting really late, I'd had a couple, and I was tired... yeah, so no pictures of this one...
Highlights.

• both objectives failed to scatter on placing
• they forgot to use the Callidus Assassin's "Word in Your Ear" (as I had for all my games during the Gladiator event.)
• once the GKs had been dealt with it was slog across the board to deal with the 2 Leman Russ Battle tanks.
  
• The hellhound was a tough nut to kill - I think it took the combined efforts of 4 units to finally get rid of it.
• one Penitent Engine was tank shocked by a LRBT... I stood up to it, penetrated, and rolled a 6 - BOOM!
• the engine then walked up to the other Leman Russ and pen-sixed that one too. The better (!) part was the explosion took out a number of guardsmen that were holding "our" objective. They failed their moral test from these wounds and fled. With the Engine being so close they continued to run off the table.
• Rob was able to get a unit over there to secure it from any other unit taking it (not that they had much left...).
• I took their objective with my Arbites, and Rob rolled half his force along their table edge and wiped out the dug-in guardsmen.
  

Result - Primary - win, Secondary - win, Tertiary - tie.
Hugely fun game! These guys, and the game they played, were what we were hoping for at the team event. It was a pleasure to play such fun opponents.

Overall thoughts:
In all the years I've been playing on the GT circuit this day has to be one of the highlights. The events was so well run, the idea well executed, and the general tone (10 Land raiders armies aside...) also good; I'm glad we signed up for this one.
Next year we will have a complete team. Having Mitch join us worked out so well, but with [our] Trent dropping we lost the theme of our army, and the drive to compete things like ours display.
I'm going to put this one down to a learning experience - we know now what is "expected" of us, and will step up next time.

Here are the Team results! NWGG came in... I dunno, bottom quarter?
We got burned on the Theme aspect (no display base, costumes, hand outs etc.). Next year...