Bully's Brighton Breakdown

A bit of alliteration to start things off.

So first off, thanks to Ven for adding me to the SoS team. What you should be expecting to see is mainly Deathwing bits - from lists, tactics, to painting side of things (despite my army not being Deathwing, I will do some tutorials on the various schemes people use with my spare terminators). Also I will be starting a Grey Knight army, because it would be rude not to, and having been a fan of the boys for the better part of two decades, it has to be done. I will be slowly but surely painting up a force to the best of my ability (no 5 week rush on these guys).

So on to the tourney. I had the pleasure of having six fun/friendly opponents back to back that I'd gladly add to my regular crew of opponents, most of my games involved some what social-able chats during the games, despite the environment, and certainly post game banter. My aim for the weekend was to win half the games, and would take a single loss, and I'd have accepted a couple of draws along the way, lets see how that fared.



Game One: Chaos Space Marines - 3xObjective Spear Head

I faced up against a CSM Lord, Kharn both shoved in a land raider each with 8 berserker buddies. Then some marine bodies in a rhino and 3 deepstriking meltacide terms. He won to go first and took it, which  I didn't overly mind, as Deathwing are pretty resilient, and as we all know - having the last say at the end of turn is handy.

However, I did not count on 4 lascannon shots from the raiders that did not charge forward killing 4 terminators (nor me rolling 4 1's - those dice have been banished now) my first did not get much better as my conservative death wing assault deep strike scattered about 10" right into the mouth of his land raider with the lord.

Now, already 4 terminators down, I could have pulled a defensive manoeuvre/counter, but I didn't think about this, and in fairness it wasn't that obvious, but late on Sunday thinking about all the games, I realised this. I moved my terminators forward - in a way to "hold" the two objectives to invite him to take them, thinking that my terms would be fine off the charge. And I shot at nothing really. Instead, I should have run, moving my command squad closer to the scattered unit, and running them back - bad rolls wouldn't have hurt much, but an average of 3 on each would have ensured that if he did charge me and wipe me out, my command squad would easily take them out in return. I did not think of this, nor really the power of a "group" run, and the beskerers promptly charged, killed, and consolidated back out of charge range - they may not have even charged if I had run - and his kharn raider was well out of range (about 24"+ away I believe).

Anyway, the game ensued from there. At this stage I did play solid game, I held one objective pretty tight, one squad of bikes decided that not boosting and then failing 4++ saves from lascannons was the way to go, but the other squad did take out Kharns raider, and essentially stopped that unit dead and meant really he could only hold 1 objective and contest another.

Had the game ended after 5 I actually held 2-1, as my positioning of terminators meant he couldn't charge me and contest, nor pull me far enough away. Then in T6 it all got stuck in, I lost my final troop on that objective, he lost everything apart from his Lord.

Game ended in draw 1-1.

Game Two: Black Templars - Kill Points Pitched

I am always pretty confident versus marines/mech - and this list was 2xPreds, Rhino, Razor, LRC full of FC terminators, a marshal and a EC. I won to get first, and took the chance to take a lead/supress. This game I didn't really need to get stuck into combat at any stage, except as counter charge, but obviously he has about 800 points that have to charge to be effective. So I sat quite far back, 2 squads actually on the wings, and 2 squads in the center. Bikes outflank.

Basically the game starts with me taking out a razor straight off the bat and suppressing/blowing weapons off the preds for the first couple of turns, with him ploughing the rhino and raider forward.

I kept then moving back, making that charge range a bit further each time - and buying time to see if my melta comes in on the right side. One did and pulled off the luckiest snipe with a attack bike ever, in which it imob'd the raider 14" from my guys, through cover. Pretty much game at this stage. The other bikes come in and kill his other pred, and were a turn away from killing his combat squad. On my lines, I took the rhino and its contents, but got counter charged and wiped out due to crappy consolidation (1"), Belial and Co ran away from the EC and Marhsal I am proud to say, I just didn't really fancy risking Belial getting insta killed by the marshals TH.

Game ended 6-1 win.

Overall I played this pretty well, I had 1 bit of luck with the MM shot, but at that stage I had 12 terminators awaiting the charge from his deathstar. One thing is the whole IC attached to an IC he had his marshal and EC go off together, thinking about that now you cant do that can you? I think that would have changed my last couple of turns (positively for me).

Game Three: Demons - 2 Objectives Dawn of War

Honestly this is the game I'll never get back.

I faced off against the same list Andy played in game 2. Great Unclean One, Thirster, Prince, 3xFiends Units, some Bearers and Horrors. 

I won the roll to go first, and took it, which was mistake one.
I also then spread out - which was mistake two, I should have castled up and invited him to charge my objective in cover, and then get counter charged by lots of TH's.
I also picked a couple of bad spots early to charge, and lost a unit due to it, despite taking a fiend unit down with me.

The game went the full 7, and I believe at the end of 5 it was a draw, I'd actually redeemed myself in the later turns, however my TH's failure to do anything to GUO or the BT really cost me) I misused my bikes, and really should have stuck them all together. On T7 I very nearly got myself out of it with a great multicharge that saw me take out a fiend unit and put some fearless wounds on the GUO - but he made enough saves to keep himself there, 1 more wound and I could have consolidated so that his fiend unit couldn't contest, would have had to charge (still had Belial and 4x Termiators) and I may have drawn.

Not that I deserved the draw, and the demon player (Jon) was a great chap, and a v.good player, so a deserving win for him 1-0. I had a good chat with him both days, I also think he may have had a man crush on me (either that or I wear way to much aftershave, probably that tbh).

Day Two: Game Four - 2 Objectives Pitched

I faced a wraith wall list here - basically 3x Lords w/ bright lances, 10x guard with Eldrad attached, The Avatar, 10x Guardians with a lock, and then 10xbanshee's, 10xavengers. Not a great list, but due to my low model count it is actually scary just due to essentially 4 MC's, and then those blinking wraith guard with fortuned cover saves.

The game was one of two halves. The brunt of his force (1xWL, 10xWG, Avatar) vs my castled 15 terminators, and then Belial and Co deepstriking, and the bikes scouting up towards his objective vs 2xWL, Guardians, and eventually the avengers and banshee's.

On my part to take his objective, Belials crew (but sadly not Belial who got instagib's but the WL I think) took out the wraith lord first (after he charged me) consolidated up to near his objective, multicharged his Wl and guardians and spent a few turns in there, then held his objective, while the bikes shot up the banshee's, survived their charge, got counter charged by more bikes, eventually I ran them down, and took out his avengers.

On my defensive side, his WG did some damage, but I did knock a couple out with a lone terminator, failure to kill the avatar quickly nearly cost me, but in the end I was fairly safe there, due to the bikers and 2 different squads of terminators (1 and 2 men respectivily) giving him more targets than he could deal with.

Game Ends 1-0 or 2-0 I cant remember if his Wraith guard were actually contesting.

In retrospect, I should have been a bit more aggressive overall I think, those 15 terminators should have piled forward earlier, with the chance to maybe multi charge lots of fearless stuff with 10x terminators and force plenty of wounds on the Avatar and Wraith lord. I'd have lost the majority of a unit to the WG and their cannons of sillyness, but that would have set me up for the charge easy.

Game Five: Chaos Demons - Kill Points SpearHead

I faced up against a pretty brutal fatecrusher list - FW, BT with 3x4 crusher squads, 2x5 bearers, and a soulgrinder.

I got first and let him take first turn. I set up castled in a forest hoping to get some shots into the grinder, crusher or fateweaver. However my CML's failed me. Game was basically one of me backing up through cover to get him charging at I1 - and it worked largely - I knocked out a couple of squads of crushers, but again my failure to wound either a BT or FW here cost me dearly.

Had the game ended on T5 it was 3-3 - but it did not, my bikes were just a tad bit to far from his PB's - if I had shot and charged them I felt confident I'd have killed them both. But alas it was not to be, and fateweavers re-rolls just proved a little bit to strong for me. He eventually got the last of my terminators after some prolonged combats.

Game Ends 5-3

I didn't play this badly. I could have ran and ran and ran, but that was a risk that he'd eventually catch me on the charge. I think all said and done I did the right thing. I was gutted this was KP's, objectives was what I needed.


Game Six: Orks - 5 Objectives - Dawn of War

So I faced off against a 10x Nob Biker w/ Meganob, 10xBikers with the Biker Special, and 5xBikers.

Personally I think I played this game wrong, I should have just gotten stuck in early on, screw the counter charge by the nob bikers - in the end there was really no combat, just a lot of firing and saves and both armies standing off each other.

At the end of 5 I was holding 2 to his 1 objective (due to contest) but a slight misjudge saw my remaining contester and the current one being multicharged by his nob bikers - and the game ended a draw - he had no way to contest mine without losing his.

I wasn't particularly proud of this game I have to say, and I played quite timid, I should have got stuck in in the spirit of SoS and gone for it, what with our boys playing for #1. Lesson learned.

Overall:

I came 15th, really due to my pretty weak VP's - essentially my failure to wound any of those MC's in the demon games and that final game vs the Orks. So as I mentioned, this being my first event in a long time, with the exception of some Computer LAN events, I wasn't to bad off. I had set a target of 3-2-1 W/D/L for the weekend - and came in 2/2/2. Both of my loses came against #3 and #2 finishers respectively.

Put it this way, that's the bar set for me, and my uber competitive drive is setting in, to the extent that right now I don't feel like I want to start learning another army, rather perfect this one. Or certainly something based around this.

As for how the Deathwing got on, I certainly think they played well, and think moving to 1750 can do something good there, the weekend showed that "outside the box" lists certainly can work, and I don't think this is terribly crazy by any means. Plus the damn thing is painted now, and I kind of feel like I should use it!

I ended up tied for 3rd best painted - having 3 buddies down and none of them voting for me (at all) makes me laugh. Not bad as the guy who won (17 votes) actually spent more time converting one model than I did on the entire army lol. I will be going back and updating/redo-ing quite a bit of the army, especially the likes of arms and details on the bodies - adding a new squad etc.

In the end I had a great weekend really, any disappointment was more because I get into my own head, even when I win, and that came quite a bit after I'd left Brighton itself. It was a great venue, the club guys were great, and certainly had a blast chatting with a lot of them, not just about gaming, I was picking up some new paint techniques and colour combo's to improve and diversify my own style! My only regret is that I didn't bring a camera to take some shots, and I kept forgetting to get my iPhone out to snap a few anyway. 

Next up from me will be the end of my WIP from the Deathwing, with a few simple tutorials on things like basing, quick n easy blending and of course the finished article - the army. Though I will be going back and re-doing / re-modeling some bits I have to say.

- Bully