ATC Game #6 and Results

After some brutal losses last round, we hope for some good pairings in the final game.  I apologize that I cannot remember the club we played in the final round, nor my opponent's name.  They had a dual lash list with 3 dreads, 3 defilers, and 4 rhinos, a kan wall list with 45 lootas, wolves, deathwing, and grey knights.  Wolves were a bad match for me (as usual as every single team had a wolf list with jaws) and several of my team didn't want to play the lash list or kan wall.

We won the roll, they put up the kan wall, so I volunteered to have a go at it.  His list was:
Big mek + kff
Big mek + kff
Lootas x15
Lootas x15
Lootas x15
Deff Dread
Deff Dread
Shoota boyz x20 + big shootas
Shoota boyz x20 + big shootas
Shoota boyz x20 + big shootas
Kanz x3 + rokkits
Kanz x3 + rokkits
Kanz x3 + grotzookas



I apologize that the photos are lacking in this report.  This was my 10th game of the weekend and I was about at the end of my endurance.

Pre-game: I have never played against a kan wall but it's pretty straight forward right?  A bunch of walkers with portable cover supported by 45 lootas.  The game was pitched battle and I won first turn.  My plan was to shoot out the kanz on one flank and roll up the other flank with genestealers.  I deploy fairly centrally, somewhat favoring my left side as there's better terrain there.

He deploys lootas on each flank and one centrally.  Kanz are also favoring my left side with 2 units there and 1 on the right.  I infiltrate both units of stealers mostly on the left but strung out to cover my hive guard.  He put all his kanz at the 12" mark so I know I have range as soon as I move up.  He fails to seize.  I give both units of stealers FnP and move everything up.

My shooting drops 4 kanz.  He advances his walkers.  His grotzookas kill a shocking amount of stealers from the far left despite cover and FnP.  His lootas target hive guard and I lose a full unit and one model from the other.  I believe he rolled max dakka from 2 of 3 loota units here.

I realize here I probably should have put FnP on the hive guard, but it's a tough call.  He could have targetted the stealers then and Swamped me with boyz.  I put FnP on my surviving hive guard and the unit of genestealers that can reach lootas this turn.  I kill a couple more kanz and assault lootas.  Genestealers underperform, both sides take casualties, and we lock.  If I remember right, he made 3 of 4 6+ armor saves with lootas against non-rends here.  He brings up his remaining walkers.  Both loota units roll max dakka again and I lose some tyrant guard and another hive guard.

He throws a bunch of boyz into my genestealers, I lose combat and flee back into synapse.  I spawn gaunts and send all remaining genestealers into the boyz and wipe them out.  My shooting isn't doing much anymore as my tfex loves to miss and there's only 1 hive guard left. 

He shoots me up again, wiping out all my genestealers with 2 more max dakka rolls from lootas.  He assaults my tyrant with kanz and I kill 1 and take some wounds.  His dread on the right makes it to my tfex by 1/4" and I take a couple wounds there also.

This was the last pic I took due to time.  Orks vs nids is a very slow game and we're struggling to even get a 5th turn in.  My tyrant ends up killing the kan he's fighting as does the tfex.  He then shoots down my tyrant with lootas despite 2+ armor and FnP.  He has 1 kan left which I have to engage with a tervigon to keep it off objectives.  I pen it but fail to wreck it.  His 2 remaining units of shoota boyz move up and unload an ungodly amount of dakka along with lootas.  I lose a bunch more stuff and he manages to kill my tervigon that's fighting his last kan.

The game ends with him holding 2 sg objectives, his own c&c objective, and up 2kp on  me.  I lose 5-25.  Chris, Jay, and Shaun all do great getting 25 or 30pts each.

There were a lot of things I could have done differently in hindsight.  I could have outflanked one unit of stealers, but he could have pulled the lootas towards the middle more.  I did kill 10 of his 11 walkers, but the attrition killed me in the end.  My opponent rolled max dakka for lootas 8 times during 5 turns this game.  At one point, he made 3 of 4 6+ armor saves on lootas and 4 of 4 cover saves when I hit them with a cluster spine blast.  His dice were on fire and I just couldn't stop the orks.

So it was a great weekend on 40k and I enjoyed almost every game.  The terrain was lacking and the venue was 85+ degrees every day, but the TO's acknowledged these shortcomings and promised to make improvements for next year. 

When the results were tallied up, the "Wrecking BoLS" (our round #4 opponents) came in first, "X-Men" (our round #2 opponents) came in second, and we tied the other Wrecking Crew team for third.  The tie breaker went to victory points, which were tallied during every game.  Our team ended up with ~800 more vp's then the wrecking crew team, so we ended up with 3rd overall.  Keep in mind that's 800 vp's over 6 rounds of 5 games per team, so we only edged them out by about 27 vp's per game on average.  Chris also took Best General in a field of 70 players and Joe won Best Appearance.

It was a great learning experience for my first big tourney outside of my hometown and I can't wait for next year, if my team will invite me along again.