UK Masters Day 1

So, what happened at the Masters? Was certainly a hard weekend of gaming, with some of the best players around the UK pitted against one another. The way the system works is the winner gains 15 points, the lose 5, and draw 10 each. Then VP difference gives or deducts between 0-5 points depending on the difference.

For those wandering, the lists can be found HERE stolen for Kirby's blog like a boss ;)

I took a fairly strange pick, both army lists I had never used before, but fancied something a bit different and challenging from the norm. Was also hoping to catch a few players off guard, but I think that happened only once in my games (see bellow).

So a quick recap of my games:

Game 1: Josh Roberts (Grey Knights)
Mission: 5 Objectives, DOW.
Points Value: 1750

He Won first turn, game over. Nah just kidding, but may as well have been. To get close I needed that first turn, DOW or not, it was going to be a struggle without the two turns of movement. Josh positioned everything in two groups, centre left and centre right, with both flanks containing enough Purifiers & Assasins to hurt my advance + Meph.

Unfortunately I simply could not De-Mech the transports I wanted dead i.e. Assasins & Purifiers. This meant I could not get a good charge from my Assault marines & Meph. Also, a big mistake on my part (forgetting that a unit who shoots at a tank can assault the unit inside, yes big newbie error) left me with little hope in pulling a draw/win from a dire situation. Losing a multiple combat by 4 saw Meph legging it off (1 purifier held in place which prevented a consolidate which would of made the game completely different) and my inability to roll armour saves meant that the game was well and truly over.

I don’t think any of my positioning or movement was off, just nothing really went my way (having a unit pinned when I needed them, then Meph getting stuck in combat just put me in a right bad mood lol).

VP’s wasn’t too different so at least I scraped a few points.

Loss 3-17.

Game 2: Richard Grint (IG Mech)
Mission: Capture & Control
Points Value: 1500

Yes, its DOA vs IG Car park. Well I was overjoyed, and yes this was the match up I was hoping for with my DOA list. Not much to say here really, Richard was worried coming into the game so I assume he wasn’t too sure what to do with my army. He gave me first turn, so I put all my Ass marines into Deep Strike, Meph hid and my Preds hit the flanks. He deployed his Hydras centrally, with all his Chimera squads on the right to push my objective, and his Vendettas flying around during his scout move.
I popped one vendetta with the Preds whilst another one lost a Lascannon. Not a great start, but Meph felt like a boss so fleeted into a Vendetta…and did nothing, oh poop. Well tbh I did it for a laugh, and in return I would now expect him to die a horrible death.

And no, he didn’t!!! 5 lascannons, 6 Hydras and a psyker battle squads blast later, Meph sits comfortably with 3 wounds despite him being in the open (and none of them were caused by the lascannons!)

My Assault marines dropped down turn 2 and proceed to wreck havoc in his lines over the next 4 turns. Even with plasma and melta, he could not stop them. Weight of fire from the Hydras was shrugged off, and despite me losing half a squad due to scattering, the other 2 squads of ten went through a good chunk of Richards army. I think by turn 3 he knew what was happening, and decided to play on for fun. There was little he could do, he even went through the effort of shooting & assaulting with Guardsman (yes Meph died eventually to lasguns, damn them!)

Game ended turn 5, leaving Richard with a Hydra with 1 gun left. This gave Richard at least a slight breather to gain 1 point out of the game.

19-1 win to me.

Great sport none the less and took the tough matchup on the chin. Hard luck Richard!

Game 3: Gaz Jones – Eldar
Mission: Killpoints, Dawn of War
Points Value: 1750

Well this was suprising, not sure how I was to play Gaz because I was around 10 points up on him, but I guess it was because they wanted to stop players playing each other again, and with only 16 players to choose from, it was relatively hard to stop that happening.

The game would come down to whether or not I could get up close early enough without getting bogged down early on and then him running off and hiding. Unfortunately for Gaz he could not stop my advance with his army due to lack of anti-tank.

I went second and pushed up the middle with most of my army, killing the Avatar turn 2 with Lascannons & a follow up of Mephiston.
Have to admit, Gaz caught me off guard by charging his 2 Bike squads forward into my 2 attack bikes instead of zipping off to hide. This cost me 2 Attack bikes over 3 rounds of combat (had to throw in an assault squad to get rid of them). This slightly slowed my advance, but would not stop the inevitable. Gaz was constantly up by 1 Killpoint, but unfortunately come turn 4, the game took a huge swing.

He forgot about my Heavy Flamer razorbacks moving 12 & shooting, so I managed to catch his Harlequins in the open and killed 5 of them. This reduced his effectiveness t stop my assault squads which, with a combined effort from the flamerbacks & priests, killed his harlequins & Banshees. A lucky shot from my lascannon pred immobolised his Holo Field Fire Prism, which meant, after killing the wraith guard, Avatar & Wraith lord, Meph went through his Prism turn 5 to put my up onKillpoints. Just to add insult to injury, a flamerback moved up and flamed his Vibrocannon, causing 3 wounds which perfectly allocated to 2 of his crew and 1 on his Vibrocannon, killing them all. Then, his Spiders who were harassing my flank and stun locking my vehicles finnaly fled the field in terror after seeing Mephiston fly through half is army single handily.

Good try from Gaz and the result doesn’t reflect the fun we had. Silly things like a flamer killing 4 Warp spiders after 4 wounds, his Guardian Jetbikes smashing through my Attack bikes and refusing to die, his Wave Serpent never dieing till I finaly get a lucky pen with an Autocannon last turn, and Mephiston losing a wound in terrain twice!

Cheers for the game Gaz and well played, even with a god awful army!!

20-0 win to me.

So after day 1, I sat with a fair 2 wins and 1 loss, with a total of 42 points out of 60.

That’s me spent for now; I’ll finish off day 2 when I get the chance.

Alex Harrison