ATC Game #5

Sunday morning we walked into the hall in 2nd overall of 14 teams.  We had talked over pairing strategies until 1am the night before ad we knew we had some tough games ahead of us.  We hadn't played "The Wrecking BoLS" team yet or Mark Parker's <Wrecking Crew> team.  First game saw us paired against "The Wrecking BoLS" with Paul "TPM" playing blood angels, Thomas "Goatboy" and his space goats, Rob "Spikey Bitz/Man Boy Genius" and his looted guard, Nick "Darkwynn" with black templars, and Kenny "Next Level Painting" with his Grey Knights.

This was good and bad for me.  I had some possibly good matches and some very bad.  We knew this was a DoW game.  I think my list fares well against guard in DoW as per the INAT, I could deploy the tyrant+guard and infiltrate two units of genestealers.  I also think I could have done well against Nick's drop pod/assaulty templars with no psychic defense.  Hell, I even put gk as my third choice for a match as it was a very small draigo wing with 3 dreadknights and I think I could have outplayed that with swarms of stealers and supergaunts.  I had no illusions of having a chance against Goatboy's dual priest wolves or TPM with mephiston and a chaplian-lead assault termie unit in a stormraven.

Both teams talked some smack over both days and personal challenges were flying back and forth.  We lost the roll and put up Joe's salamander, they countered with Kenny's gk.  They put up Nick (go me!) and Shaun put himself up because Nick called him out.  I ended up against Goatboy's sw on the same table as Game #2 , FML!  I could go much further into the cause of this match-up and the effect it had on the team's performance, but let's just say I was unhappy.

Goatboy's Space Goats:
Wolf Lord on Thunderwolf + EW, all the talismans and trinkets, fist, shield, 2 pets
2 Runepriests
TWC + shield, fist
Wolf guard - enough fists and combi-meltas to put one in every unit
3 big units of grey hunters with all the toys in rhinos
1 small unit of grey hunters in a razorback
2 units of wolf scouts with melta guns
2 units of long fangs with 5 missiles




I won the roll to go first!  I initially pull out both units of genestealers.  My thought was to put them both about 23" on to push Goatboy's deployment back and be 1" out of the twc threat range.  Terrain sucked though and I put one objective near each table edge, so I decided to outflank one unit and deploy gaunts screening genestealers screening my tyrant unit.

Thomas outflanked the scouts and was going to roll everything else on turn 1.  He then stole the initiative... And so the uphill battle begins!  He rolls on the 3 rhinos and dumps out one unit into ruins with a priest.

Then, he spotlights my genestealers and hits them with hurricane and eats a tyrant guard with JoTWW.  This is about where I fell off the horse.  I deployed aggressively and lost the initiative.  Now my only genestealers are in dangerous terrain thanks to hurricane and I have to walk everything on to potentially face wolf scouts next turn.  I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place with JoTWW on Thomas's side and wolf scouts coming in with meltas and powerfists on my side.

I bring on the hive guard and run.  Tfex and tervigons form a small wall on my board edge.  Not only did I lose the initiative, but with that a turn of spawning gaunts to block my board edge.  You can see here how I turned my tervigons sideways to keep them an extra inch from the JoTWW priest in the red rhino on the right.  People underestimate how much reach they have when the rhino moves 12", they disembark 2", and the priest draws a 24" line of doom.  Here's also where I realize I don't know how hurricane really works.  I was under the impression that if I moved, it went away.  Thomas informs me I take the dangerous terrain losses also when I run and assault which I never knew (yeah I'm a noob).  In the face of that, I keep my genestealers in place and shift my tyrant right towards his JoTWW priest.

Thomas gets a unit of scouts in my dz.  He brings up the white rhino and unloads it.  The twc unit creeps up  on the left.  He hits the genestealers with hurricane again and shoots a bunch down.  Long fangs kill some hive guard and scouts kill some more in assault.  Thunderwolves assault my gaunts and I kill both pets hah, then get wiped out.  I still gotta do something, so my tyrant goes for the unit that jumped out of the white rhino.  Tervigons spawn some gaunts who try to kill the scouts.  Hive guard wreck the red rhino with the priest and stun the white one.  In assault, I clear out the scouts and tyrant wipes out the grey hunters.

Thomas gets his second unit of scouts.  He casts JoTWW despite SiTW and my tyrant dodges, but he has 23.5" to my closest tervigon and I lose it with a bunch of gaunts.  His long fangs put a couple wounds on my other tervigon, his melta scouts do a few more, and he finishes it off in assault.  So both tervigons gone in 1 turn.  I'm down to a few genestealers, 2 hive guard, tyrant with a guard, tfex, and one unit of genestealers about to come in at the bottom of 3.

Genestealers come in on the right flank by and objective and strung out to threaten long fangs if needed.  My stuff in the backfield starts failing instinctive behavior rolls due to no synapse.  My tyrant moves up, shoots, and assaults the priest's unit and wipes them out.

Thomas sends his wolf lord over to stop my rampaging tyrant and the twc to my backfield to start mopping up hive gaurd and gaunts.

At this point, I have no way of scoring my own c&c objective.  Genestealers are giving me a draw on sg objectives.  I'm down 1kps after killing both scout units, 2 units of grey hunters, a rhino, and the priest.  We decide to roll my shooting attacks to try and get a second draw for more points.  I pen another rhino, but only get a weapon destroyed.  So the game ended with me losing 5-25.

Thomas was a cool dude to play.  He knew it was a bad match for me and played in a comfortable, relaxed manner and took some of the edge off my humiliating defeat.  I'd like to think I could have had a chance if he didn't seize the initiative, but that's just how the game  goes sometimes.  The team did terrible this round with Courtney beating TPM 25-5, Jay drawing Rob 15-15, Shaun, Joe, and I losing badly.  The good news is we lost so hard, we dodged playing Mark Parker's team in the final round.