Monday, March 21, 2011

Last Man Standing, Game #3

***We played this game from 1-3am, so I apologize for the poor pictures.  I wasn't taking as many pictures and I wasn't very steady after all the caffeine***

Game #3 pairings were based on total battlepoints.  I ended up with Smitty (again), Reece (again), and Jay.  Despite winning both of my previous games, this is actually table #2.  People on other tables are raking in 30-50pts and I just can't keep up.

Jay: warboss + bike/klaw, bikers + klaw/pole, 2 big units of boyz + klaw/pole, kommandos + scorchas, grotz

Reece: see game #2

Smitty: see game #1

Pre-game:  Well, we're all tired so this could get sloppy.  I've got eldrad and his runes to shut down my tyrant, JoTWW on my left again, and a horde of angry orks on my right.  The plan remains the same... take the middle and get as many killpoints along the way as I can.

Jay goes first and sends his grotz towards the eldar to tie them up.  They actually put a wound on the avatar with shooting.  Smitty puts his jetbikes on the objective and smears the grotz.  This actually gives his a big lead as turn 2 comes around and he starts scoring the objective.  Jetbikes with fortune are ridiculously hard to kill.
 Reece sends a rhino with the JoTWW priest over to the eldar and actually lines up all 3 wraith lords, but runes stop the power.  Jay changes direction with the bikes and sends them into eldrad's wraithguard unit.  I get my genestealers into the jetbikes during my second turn.
I still can't kill a fortuned warlock even with rends.  Because the player turns are randomly decided each turn, I actually end up killing the warlock and scoring the objective a couple times.  On the right, Jay and Smitty are beating the hell out of each other.
Jay is sending some boyz to the middle to screw with me.  Reece isn't doing much as his shooting is all short range, he's jockeying for position, and eldrad is shutting down his priests.
I clear the objective, back my genestealers into cover, and prepare for the next waves.
Reece sends the lone wolf in to contest for one turn, but I wipe him off and score the objective a couple more times.  At this point I'm just sitting on the objective scoring 3 points per player turn and hoping my resilience keeps me alive.
The orks waaaagh and assault my genestealers.  Reece rolls up almost his whole army, setting up a firing squad and huge assault.  He deals a couple wounds with shooting (I'm failing tyrant 2+'s like it's my job), and assaults in, popping 2 wolf standards.
We fight out the various combats for a couple rounds.  I end up losing the genestealers, but tie up the orks long enough for the game to end.  I end up losing my tyrant and all guards to all the wolves with their frost blades, power weapons, and wulfen attacks.  I did end up killing the priest and one unit of hunter landing me several points.
My prime didn't last long after that picture, but I gave the wolves a full volley from the tfex and charged it in to hold them down.  Reece ended up scoring about 15 points during turn 5 from killing my deathstar and holding the objective.  Smitty goes last and with some epic rolling, snipes the other rune priest with mind war!We tally up and...

Me: 26 (2 from hunters, 2 from priest, 2 from a rhino, 2 from jetbikes, 15 from objective, 3 survivors)
Smitty: 20 (some objective, the rest ork kills, rune priest)
Reece: 17
Jay: 6ish

So I won top spot on all 3 of my tables.

The good and the bad:  I was the only player to go undefeated all 3 games.  However, the dynamics of 4 players, player skill, lists, etc. lead Crispy to score a total of 94 over 3 games.  I only scored a total of 68 and didn't even place LOL.  A daemon player with Skarbrand also scored 84.  It was a really fun event and the players were all awesome as always.  The organizers took suggestions and next time the scores will be based on table results, so if I can go undefeated again I'll actually place hehe.  Here are some shots from other battles:




My army worked well, but putting 4 players together created dynamics that helped defeat me.  Many other players had really unbalanced lists (6 MC's vs hordes, all mech vs no mech).  My army must have appeared strong, because nobody ever deployed within striking distance of me.  In all 3 of my games, 2 of my opponents beat on each other almost making my battles 1 on 1.  Genestealers without poison are depressing, I don't think I'll do that again.  The deathstar died twice which surprised me, but they did the job taking on 3 wraithlords, avatar, and eldrad game 1 and 1100pts worth of wolves during game 2.  I tailored my list to play the objectives and did it well, so I was pleased in the end.  It's a good thing I changed my list at the last minute.  My fexstar would have been obliterated by JoTWW in two games.  Going undefeated was all the bragging rights I needed and my table won "Best Table" so I didn't leave empty handed.

I really need to give props to Crispy.  He took #1 at this event, best overall at the Millennium Invitational, and #2 overall at DaBoyz GT.  He did this all with Tyranids, and doesn't use hive guard or tervigons.  His conversions and painting are phenomenal, and his execution is great.  Maybe I can get him to write some content for the blog and send me some pictures...

7 comments:

  1. Sorry you didn't even place, despite what I would certainly call an overall excellent performance.
    I call Bullsh*t on that.
    Regardless- congrats on 3 hard-fought wins in sort of a wacky format.
    Excellent batreps of well-played games, and a lot of fun to read-thanx!

    Rock on, brother....

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  2. Congratulations, you did what you wanted:) Great reports!

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  3. Looks like it was a good time. I wish I could have made it out.

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  4. Congrats on winning all 3 tables. Sounds like you did really well with some tough matchups in a really funky tournament. Playing 4-way games is extremely unpredictable and even more so with random player turns every round. Add in the potential to score a HUGE 50+ points per game makes the whole tournament more unpredictable than a schizophrenic bipolar badger on PCP and acid.

    This tournament exaggerated the paradigm that a lot of tournaments fall into with the player who beats up on a "baby seal" and gets a buttload of points gets a huge advantage over the player who gets matched up against a tough opponent and has a great battle but doesn't get the points for completely slaughtering their opponents.

    It sounds like you had fun despite all that and a deserving player won the tournament.

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  5. Always nice to see the space pups suffering heavy losses at the claws of xenos. Very well done m8.

    : )

    H

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  6. Congrats on a great series of games - pretty surprised to see your deathstar whiff a time or two with all those rerolls ;) Excellent read; love the thought processes behind the movement - one of the best values to your blogging style in terms of teaching how to play nids. Thanks for taking the time and the pics.

    Would be great to see Crispy's thoughts (no HGs? or tervs... skeery)

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  7. I think I'm a bit out of the norm when it comes to army selection. I usually only play with models that I like the look of. Nothing against Tervigons, but I just haven't had the time to convert one up the way I like. As for Hive Guard, I just haven't bought any. I've picked up some Raveners & Gargoyles lately, but Hive guard are just low on my list of wants.

    In terms of this event, I knew that I wanted to bring my Ymgarls & Biovores. Both units have done extremely well for me in the past, and with a tight board, I guessed they'd do well again. For the second game that I scored 67 points, those two units alone managed to take out a majority of a guard army. My stealers held the center objective and my shrikes took out a couple of other units. I think it's also worth pointing out that Zack (CSM) had a terrible game. There was a good confluence of events that allowed me to grab the center and hold it without anyone really coming up to contest.

    Aaron - I've love to contribute. I'm a bit busy these days, but let's work on something.

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