This year the Da Boyz GT was run at the beautiful Bristol Harbor Resort. I had the chance to room with fellow members of The Grand Strategery (Grubnards and Sinistermind) and the Beef and Wing team from Buffalo .in a cottage on the property. I arrived at around 9:00 on Friday and had a chance to have a few drinks, talk warhammer and get to bed. The room when I arrived was already filling up - but it was a nice throwback to college. Here is a shot from the morning before I ran off to register for the morning.
If you look closely on the sleeper sofa is a Beef and Winger whom I gave a hard time that morning too - he came in a bit late the night before and I was sure to wake him up! There was also some last minute painting prep going on too.
For anyone who missed my list and discussion as the Monks go to war I brought a Fleshhound heavy list featuring Fateweaver (whom I despise in spite of how good she is). Keep in mind Da Boyz has traditionally been a comped event - with the restrictions being all units are 0-2, except troops at 0-4 with a maximum of 3 flyers per army.
HQ
Fateweaver
Herald of Khorne on Juggernaut w/ Exalted Gift and Locus of Wrath
Elites
-
Troops
16x Daemonettes
10x Pink Horrors
10x Plaguebearers
Fast Attack
16x Flesh Hounds
16x Flesh Hounds
16x Seekers of Slaanesh
Heavy Support
Soul Grinder of Nurgle w/ Phlegm
Soul Grinder of Nurgle w/ Phlegm
Game 1
My first game was against Therkorn (This is the one name I did not write down, I know I am close - we even talked after round 6 and I am still drawing a blank) who brought a really interesting Ork w/ allied CSM army to the tournament. We hit it off pretty well from the start and we had the chance to play on a beautiful Necron board - that Necron fabrication facility is indeed lit by LED's too.
Mission/Deployment
Primary: Crusade
Secondary: Purge the Alien
Deployment: Dawn of War (how appropriate for the first game of the morning)
Opponent: Orks w/ CSM
HQ
Warboss on a Bike w/ Klaw, Cybork Body, Bosspole, Kombi-Scorcha
Daemon Princess w/ Wings, Black Mace, Mastery 2x, Mark of Tzeentch, Gift of Mutation, Spell Familiar
Elites
-
Troops
10x Orks w/ shootas
10x Orks w/ shootas
10x Cultists w/ Heavy Stubber
10x Cultists w/ Heavy Stubber
5x Biker Nobz w/ Cybork Bodies, Pain Boy, Waaagh Banner, 1x Klaw, 2x Big Choppa, Boss Pole
Fast Attack
Heldrake w/ Baleflamer
Dakkajet w/ Fight Ace
Dakkajet w/ Fight Ace
Heavy Support
Battle Wagon w/ Big Shoota, Red Paint Job, Deff Rolla
Battle Wagon w/ Big Shoota, Red Paint Job, Deff Rolla
Maulerfiend w/ Lasher Tendrils
Fateweaver: Lord of Unreality - Perfect Timing//Fire Shield: Iron Arm//Psychic Shriek
Khorne Herald: Grimoire of True Names, Axe of Khorne
Horrors: Bolt of Tzeentch
Warboss: Reroll Reserves
Daemon Princess: Doombolt, Invisibility, Icy Aura
Deployment
I win the roll for the choice of turn and choose to take the second turn - since it is an objectives game. We do not get Night Fight on turn 1. I deploy near the objective I placed on the left flank - both my opponent's objectives are placed on the same side. My second objective is off to the right near the Soul Grinder.
Turn 1
With little shooting, the Orks and CSM move forward and fail to inflict any wounds with their shooting. The Daemon Princes casts invisibility on herself and will continue to do so each turn.
Somehow this seems like not many models - but there is a lot of firepower waiting in reserve.
I attempt the Grimoire on Fateweaver so she can stay on the field and not get wrecked by flyers but fail - and then fail again with my reroll. Fate has to hop into ongoing reserves.
Everything moves forward - the blue Hounds are to be a throw away unit to hold up the Princess, Bikers and Maulerfiend while maybe taking down a Battlewagon. The Warp Storm manages to wreck the left Battlewagon for me with Khorne's Wrath netting me First Blood, and killing 5 Boyz, pinning the unit.
The hounds eat the second grinder and kill off another seven boyz who flee. I now also have a wall between my units and the Maulerfiend while the Daemon Princess will have to expose herself to a lot of Rending (and a lot of Flesh Hounds) if she assaults.
Turn 2
Both Dakkajets - one not shown on the right side - and the Heldrake come in. The blue hounds eat all of the shooting from those units while my opponent calls his Waagh to really amp up the shots.
Notice the Daemon Princess and Maulerfiend are both ready to assault my Herald w/ Hounds. I made a mistake here - I had interpreted the building as impassible but when we discussed terrain I did not make it clear that I had been interpreting it that way. That left the core of my army very exposed.
The Flesh Hounds meant to be a speedbump to the Nobz and Maulerfiend only succeed on doing so to the nobz who wreck what is left in combat.
The Black Mace does its dirty work and the hounds are eaten up by the Maulerfiend and the Daemon Princess.
The Horrors come in - I wish they had Flickering Fire, I thought they would be hunting Battle Wagons but I should have kitted them to hunt troops. they fail to do any meaningful damage.
The Daemonettes go into the Princess to attempt to Rend her out - but she is invisible and only takes a pair of wounds. In return she does a lot of damage to the Daemonettes. The Maulerfiend whiffs on the hounds and spares them for another turn.
The Seekers pile into the Nob Bikers - I need 6's to hurt them but they had the Grimoire this turn and I was hoping to win combat and run them down. I came close as they lost by two - failed their leadership but made it with the Bosspole reroll. Not shown are the Plaguebearers who were hiding on the objective to the right side of the board. What did Fateweaver do this turn?
Turn 3
She shot down the Dakkajet - with 4d6 Flickering Fire shots.
Casualties are heavy and the Daemonettes are crushed by the Daemon Princess - but they did land 1 more wound on the Princess. The maulerfiend wipes out the rest of the Hounds with three straight failed saves. I was hoping to get 1 more turn out of the Grimoire.
Fateweaver flies over to take care of the Daemon Princess after getting off Perfect Timing to ignore Stealth/Shrouded - she succeeds with some Tzeentch shooting powers to strip the last wound.
The Horrors fail their charge on the Cultists - I was hoping to wipe the unit out by being marginally more durable and better in CC.
Turn 4
The Heldrake finishes off the Plaguebearers with a final Vector Strike and Bale Flame - I really needed them to stick around to hold that objective.
With the Cultists and other assorted troops, Fateweaver gets grounded on her second test - even with a reroll. The Maulerfiend then assaults and instant kills her with the one attack that makes it through. The Seekers decide to be heroes though and roll snake eyes to regenerate the unit!
No more pictures, but without Fateweaver I am stuck being unable to contest the right hand objective while Flcikering Fire out the unit on the left hand side. That costs me the game, although the Horrors do make good on killing some cultists in assault as a consolation prize.
Results
Primary: Loss
Secondary: Loss
First Blood: 1
Slay the Warlord: 0
Linebreaker: 1
I take 2 points in the first round of the GT, which is pretty demoralizing.
Round 1 Thoughts
My opponent played a good game and I made a ton of mistakes that really cost me in this one. I placed my objectives poorly - I should have put them midfield and deep struck onto them or as far away as possible. I also misplayed my deployment horribly. Outflanking with his objectives so close to the board edge would have been much better and required him to keep a unit back to protect his relatively weak troops. Fateweaver here should have been an ACE. She gets the Grimoire and then goes to town with Perfect Timing enabled Flicker Fire to just clear out all his troops - except the bikes, but that is a Turn 5 contest solution.
The rest of my army could have waited for him to approach - which would have been necessary since I could kill his troops more effectively than he could mine. Also, I had answers to the prince and the maulerfiend if I had actually chosen to use them in an effective manner. I really compounded the problem by not doubling back with the Seekers to take down the Maulerfiend and given them up the next turn to the Nob Bikers. With 2 Soul Grinders nearby, I had a credible threat to them - especially if the Warlord had stayed engaged with another unit.
Naturally, I did none of those things and instead took a crushing defeat and paying the price for trying to power through the opposing army.
Touch start, hope you managed to turn or around. Thanks for writing these reports. Cilithan
ReplyDeleteThanks for reading! For tough games like this it is somehow therapeutic to relive them a bit and figure out exactly how things went wrong.
DeleteTough break. I think the terrain hiccup was extremely costly. To me, the intent looked fairly clear on the table what you were attempting to do and had both of you had the same understanding of terrain, you would have simply been able to string out the unit to prevent the Maulerfiend from advancing. Kind of a shame considering everything else. Looking forward to the rest.
ReplyDeleteI really should have hedged my bets on this one and created a long strung out line of hounds in the first place - that way I was covered from both sides. Either way - that mistake hurt but I really think that I put myself in a bad position from the start. I made some huge mistakes betting on that strategy in the first place.
DeleteI think the Necron terrain is from Laser Cut Card in South Africa, tell em I sent ya: http://www.lasercutcard.co.za
ReplyDeleteI don't understand how he got past the terrain piece. Did he climb up the side and then down again? Did he treat it just as a patch of difficult terrain and just walk through it?
ReplyDeleteHe barrelled straight through it liek you might do for ruins or a forest. I think he would have had enough movement though if he counted it as 3" climb up and down.
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