NOVA tournament Report and Game 1

So I’m back from the NOVA, and I must say that it is the best tournament I have attended to date.  The atmosphere was great and I played 7 good games (one was a little contentious).  I ended up going 4-4 (1-3 the first day and 3-1 the second day) all my losses were extremely close and mostly due to mistakes on my part, and well timed plays by my opponent.

My list

2k Grey Knights

HQ

Crowe

OM Inquisitor in terminator armor w/ Psycannon and 1 servo skull.

Elites

5 Paladins (3 Halberds, Hammer, Sword, 1 Psycannon,, 1 MC Psycannon)

Troops

2 x 10 Purifiers (5 Halberds, Hammer, 4 Psycannons) in Rhino (one squad had psybolts)

2 x 5 Strikes (Psycannon, Hammer) in Razorback with Psybolts and search lights.

Heavy

3 x Dread with 2 TL auto-cannons and psybolts.

The list functioned well all tournament and the shooting power was quite devastating at times.  Most games I worked around trying to take center table and pushing my opponent back.  I also made use of the terrain to keep my opponent from being able to shoot with large portions of their army.

Game 1: Vs Space Wolves (Hulksmash)

Mission was Objectives, Quarters, Killpoints.  Deployment was Pitched Battle.

My opponents list was foot Logan wing and was sporting 24 missiles per turn.

He won the roll to go first and deployed his army across his table edge with a large Squad of 10 Wolf Guard (8 termies) and Logan in the Center of the table.  I deployed in the left corner of the board using the terrain to hide my army from view.  At this point I joked that now that I went through all the trouble to hide my army that I would probably seize….and then I did.

Turn 1:  I moved up which exposed my army to some shooting, and shot one Wolf guard squad down to 1 PA wolf guard, and did a wound or 2 to another.  On his turn he weapon destroyed and immobilized my 2 Razorbacks, which rendered them useless.

Turns 2 -4 We Traded shots but really not much damage was done (I killed a second wolf guard squad and a few of logans squad) His scouts came in and killed a couple of Paladins. 

ON Turn 5 I was moving up the left side with my Purifiers trying to kill a couple more of his units and getting set up to take objectives on turn 6 (and here was my first mistake of the tournament, I though all games were at least 6 turns, because that was the case in the NOVA primers).  His turn 5 he contests one of my 2 objectives and Moves on to a second objective and then we roll and the game ends in my loss. Really not much had been killed I think I was up maybe 2 Killpoints, and we had each killed about 600 points of the others army.  But not realizing it was the last turn cost me the chance to win.  I say chance, because there was no Guarantee that I would have been able to win with another turn, but I certainly had none when I did not grab for objectives on turn 5 ( I could have tried to contest the center objective turn 5 and I certainly would have moved more quickly toward the center if I had know I had fewer turns.

Connecticon Tourney Report II

So after winning the first Tournament of the weekend (and taking home a sweet golden bolt pistol.), I Took what I had learned and build my 1850 point list.  Which was essentially my 2k list with the following changes: No henchmen squad, Paladins Dropped down to 6 Standard Termies (with 3 Halberds, 2 Hammers, and 1 sword + 1 psycannon.), and combined the 2 strike squads into 1 big squad of 10 (1 hammer psybolts, and 2 Psycannons, I kept them with a psyback and made the other a dedicated transport for the Purifiers, but usually kept them empty.)

Game 1:  Mission was a little strange one person was the attacker the other the defender, defender chose one model to be his “champion” this could be any “sergeant” or character model (or monstrous creature I think).  When the “champion was killed the attack nominated one of his eligible models (closest to the champion), as the new champion.  This went back and forth until either the game ended, or there were no eligible models left (which would result in a draw).  If the game ended who ever had the champion won.  It is important to note that the champion (and his unit or any transport he was in) were subject to the rage special rule, he could not be reserved, he gained Feel no pain (and some other stuff I don’t remember).

So it was a wonky mission, made more difficult by the fact that rounds were fairly short (1:45).  My opponent was the same Chaos player I played in the first round of the first tourney (which I felt bad about I had played this guy twice already, once in pick-up, and I don’t think he was looking forward to a third game, next year I am bringing more than just my tourney army as in pick up no one likes to get stomped).  I had suggested some improvements to his list which he made (he added oblits, and some other long range elements), but he was still writing up his list when the round began.  I won the role and decided to be the attacker (who got first turn). After 5 turns I had tabled him, but he at least had managed to kill my storm raven, a razorback, and most of my purifiers so it was a better game for him overall.  My highlights were getting my purifiers charged by his Daemon prince, rolling my pskotrokes to drop him to LD 2, him taking a nemesis wound, failing LD and dying, my convincing him to charge his one armed dread into my Purifiers and Grand Master, so he could punk my GM with his DCCW, which gave him the champion on turn 4 (to his squad of chaos termies which was all he had left.).  At least it seemed that he had more fun this game than the previous 2 I had played with him (although I was pretty sure he was going to break something when I popped his Predator, and Vindicator on turn 1.)  I was happy for him that he ended up winning a game in this tourney later on as he had just been getting pounded all weekend (he had upgraded from Necrons to Chaos Space Marines this year…unfortunately not the largest jump in power.).

Game 2:  Deployment was table quarters; mission was to have as many scoring units within 3” of the center of the table. (This was a hill, so I guess we can call it king of the hill.) 

My opponent fittingly was another Grey Knight player.  He was running:

Crowe

4 x 8 Purifiers (2 psycannons, and some other stuff.) in Rhinos

2 x Psyfleman Dreads

2 x Venerable Dreads with MM and DCCW

And I think that is about it.

My opponent won first turn and slowly advanced toward the center.  The game quickly became a shoot out and my ability to pop his transports was huge.  On his first turn he managed to immobilize one of my dreads and not much else.  On my return fire I popped on of his Rhinos and killed all 8 purifiers inside.  My storm raven also moved up toward him.  On his second turn he dropped the storm raven, and tried to hit me with some more shooting, killing one of my dreads as well.  On my turn I popped another of his transports, the one closest to my purifiers.  My termies blew the close combat arm off his closest venerable dread, I took out one of his Autocannon Dreads, and then in the assault killed the most purifiers that had gotten out, and his Venerable dread (with my terminators and inquisitor).

On turn 3-4 Crow Assaulted my Grand Master (and used Hammer hand), my Grand master ended up killing crowe, and my purifiers finished his off, to get me out of that combat.  On my turn I popped his 2 remaining Rhinos, took down another purifier squad, and his other Venerable Dread.  Turn 5, he shot my purifiers some more trying to stop them from eating their way through the rest of his army.  I killed his remaining Autocannon dread and on turn 6 ended up tabling him for my second win.

Game 3:  Mission was Dawn of War, Kill points.

My opponent was the same player I had played in the finals of the other tourney with basically the same list (his Libby was an epistolary I think in this one).  He got first turn and pulled his gate move again to throw his termies into my face, this time it did not go nearly so well for him, as I turned and shot at him with my termies, my strike squad, and my Purifiers killing 7 terminators in 1 round of shooting.  It was still a tight game as his kill points were all hid in land raiders for most of the game, and we traded kills back and forth with his redeemer killing my stikes as well as most of my purifiers as I tried to hammer it to death.  In the end though my grandmaster was able to single handedly kill a 10 man marine squad (between his incinerator, grenades, and 4 S 5 Attacks) I took down both his speeders, his termies and both his HQs for 6 KPs, he killed my Strike squad, one of my Razorbacks, my Purifiers and two dreads for 5 KPS.  So I pulled out the win by 1 KP.

All in all the tournament was great fun, and I ended up taking home a Baneblade for my win.

Tournament Report Connecticon

So I went up to Connecticon (a decently large Anime/Sci-fi/Gaming convention) over this past weekend to participate in their various 40k events.  In past years the 40k tournaments have been small, but there is a good group of regulars and the organizers are great.  They run 2 tournaments each year as well as an ongoing mega-battle (which always draws a crowd at the convention as many players don’t bring their armies, and the common refrain seems to be I wish I knew there was a tournament I would have brought my army (this is the 3^rd year I have played, and it was happening prior to that, so it is a pretty sad excuse for most people.)  Anyway on to the tournaments….

            The first event of the weekend was supposed to be a 2000 point tourney that was 5 games (2 on Friday and Saturday, 1 on Sunday), however, this year only 4 players turned up (very sad as we have had more in the past), so we shortened it to 3 rounds.  My list was

Grey Knight Grand master (Rad + Psykotroke grenades, incinterator)

OM Inquisitor (Terminator armor, Psyker (psychic communion), Psycannon)

5 Paladins (2 psycannons, 1 Hammer, 2 Halberds, 1 sword)

10 Purifiers (7 Halberds, 1 Hammer, 2 Psycannons, Psybolts)

2 x 5 Strikes (Psycannon, Hammer (justicar)) in Psybolt Razorbacks (search lights)

3 x Psyfleman Dreads

1 Storm Raven (teleport homer)

3 henchman (they are unimportant) in a chimera (which usually got stolen by paladins)

This list was trying to test out a few things and I learned A lot that will go toward improving my list.

Round 1:

Really nothing interesting here, my opponent ran a mish-mash of Chaos Marines (expensive sorcerer and lord, 2 squads of termies, 1k sons, Bezerkers, Dread, Predator), my opponent won the roll to go first and gave me first turn (it was an objective mission).  A bunch of shooting later my opponent conceded the game on the bottom of turn 3 (when his only remaining models (a reserved 5 man terminator squad) did not come in.).

Round 2:

Mission was Dawn of War, Kill points with a secondary objective of Killing an opponents HQ in close combat, and a tertiary of keeping your opponent out of your deployment zone.  My opponent was an Eldar Player who had a close game with the fourth participant in game 1.  I have played him before and he is a good player, but his list this time was lacking in a few areas.

He was running

Avatar

Prince Yieriel

2 x 10 Wraith Guard with Spirit seers (with 5+ cover save power)

1 x 10 Dire Avengers in a Wave Serpent

1 x 10 Guardians with a missile launcher

1 x 10 Storm Guardians (melta pistols)

Wraithlord with Missile and Scatter laser

Wratihlord with Sword and catapults

Night Spinner (I think that is what it is called, grav tank with  large blast causes Diffcult/dangerous terrain.)

I get first turn and deploy both of my Razorbacks empty at the half way line.  He deploys one Wraithguard squad 18” away and we go to it.  ON my turn all of my stuff comes on, one RB search lights his Wraith guard and I shoot them with everything that has range killing 2 or 3.  On his turn he brings everything on, and hits my RB (that was lit up) with his night spinner, but only gets it with the effects as he did no damage.

Turn 2: My Storm Raven moves over to my left toward his storm guardians, as the rest of my force advances and shoots at his closest wraith guard down to about 3 models, as well as destroying his night spinner and Blowing off all the weapons and immobilizing his serpent.  On his turn he Advances some more, tries to shoot down my raven with no success, and not much else.

Turn 3:  I keep backing up just out of Wraithguard range, and light up both of his squads (one dead the other now at about half strength as well as putting 2 wounds on his shooty Wraithlord.), I disembark my purifiers and grand master from my storm raven and wipe out his Storm Guardians, then consolidate back into terrain.    On his turn his shooty wraithlord and Avatar assault my purifiers, get hit with psykotrokes (I rolled auto hit and one attack for him) The wraithlord dies, and the avatar takes 2 wounds, the avatar then kills one purifier, and then dies to fearless saves.  I think he might have wrecked one of my Razorbacks.

Turn 4: My Purifiers kill his guardians; I shoot at his Dire avengers some, and Wipe out his other wraith lord.  He advances some more and runs his dire avengers away from my purifiers.

Turn 5: I kill the last of his Dire avengers and bring him down to 2 wraith guard, we go on to turn 6 and the game ends with a tabling.

This was a rough game for my opponent, I had too much shooting and he did not take a farseer which really could have messed me up with runes of warding and by buffing the rest of his army.

Game 3:

Mission: Capture and Control, Pitched battle, secondary kill all opposing HQs, tertiary was kill as much armor as possible (each destroyed piece of armor was 1 battle point)

I went into this final game leading by 2 battle points (remember this later it is important)

My opponent was playing Codex marines with the following list (and apparently was playing less than 2k points the whole time, way less like 1750ish, he was a very good player with a strong list, or at least a bad matchup for my list)

His list

SM Librarian (Nullzone, Gate)

Cassius

10 Assault termies (7 TH/SS, 3 LC)

2 Tactical squads (1 with melta, Multimelta, combi-melta.  1 with Las/Plas combi-plas)

Land Raider (extra armor)

Land Raider Redeemer with Multi melta (extra armor)

2 Speeders

He won the roll to go first, we placed our objective directly across from one another on the right side of the table.  He combat squaded his tactical squads leaving the Heavy weapons on his objective and putting the assault weapons in the land raiders to move up the field.  He then deployed his termies on the 12” line with Cassius and the Libby.  I deployed across from him, but reserved my Purifiers and their storm raven, and my Paladins.  This was 2 mistakes for me.  1.) I forgot he had Gate, and 2.) Half or more of my army was off the table.

Turn 1:

My opponent gates the terminator squad across right on top of my forces (not literally) and runs them to block me from escaping with most of my army.  He then manages to pop one of the razorbacks, and the squad inside gets pinned.  I frantically move away, and try to shoot the termies as much as I can, and I think I kill maybe 1.

Turn 2:  He assaults my pinned squad and one of my dreads and kills both. I think I killed another termi. He pops my other razorback and things are really looking bleak.  On my turn I cast Psychic communion twice (I deployed both my HQs in the Chimera with the henchmen.  And Roll a 1 and a 6 getting the paladins in but the storm raven and purifiers are still off the table.  The paladins deep strike and try to shoot his redeemer, with no effect.  I shoot a little more at his termies and kill maybe 2. 

Turn 3: He opens up on my paladins and kills 2 of them, he flamestorms my strike squad and wipes them out (now only my purifiers are scoring thanks to my GM).  In combat he takes out another dread, but the dreads kill his librarian in the process.  On my turn My purifiers come in, and joined by my grand master go to work on the termies killing all but one and cassius. I also kill one of his speeders.

Turn 4: I finish off cassius, and my paladins with my Inquisitor are trying to walk across the table to his objective (2 of them are left with the inquisitor), 1 dies as does my storm raven.  I continue toward his objective, and while my purifiers get stuck with the last terminator as he makes 10-15 3+ saves.

Turn 5: My inquisitor makes it across and starts assaulting his marine squads by himself, he wins combat but they stick, and the game ends in a draw as I finally kill the last remaining terminator.  I win the secondary objective and kill both of his speeders, he kills my 6 vehicles, so we draw on primary for 3 points each, I get 3 points for secondary and 2 for tertiary for 8 points, he gets 6 for tertiary for 9 points.  We end up separated by 1 battle point for the tournament win (going to me.)  It was a very close game, that by all rights I should have lost after my early game mistakes.

The problem with Battle Points

Let me begin by saying I recognize that battle points are often a necessary evil. Most tournaments don’t have enough rounds to determine a single undefeated winner, and we need some way to match up players in rounds after round 1.  We also need a way of differentiating between players that have the same number of wins after all rounds have been played. However, after reading Mike Brandt’s post about evaluative Vs competitive, several forum discussions, as well as a tournament I played last weekend I got to thinking, do battle points do a good job of determining the best player on the day.  I would say the answer to this is often no, and when they do I would say that the winner is determined despite the battle points, not because of them.

I’ll use my local tournament as an example of what I think the problems with battle points are.  This was a 3 round tournament, with battle points determining the winner.  We had 14 players (fairly small but it was father’s day.).  I will also admit I don’t remember all the records of every player, so I will do my best. The first round was Kill points, with a secondary objective of having all your troops above 50%, you also got bonus points for difference in battle points between you and your opponent at the end of the game.  I ended up winning 10 -4 in KPs, getting the secondary objective, but not a full massacre (I had 20 out of 22 possible points), which earned me a spot on the second table (top table was a Grey Knight player and an Ork player who had massacred in round 1, lets ignore that Grey Knights are a horrible match up for Orks for the moment) playing against a 3 Land raider blood angel force in capture and control.  Again I got the win 1 objective to 0, but I did not massacre.  My win was however enough to get me to the top table against the Grey Knight player (I was also running Grey Knights at the tournament).  We had a hard fought battle (3 objectives) which ended in a draw on objectives, but my opponent got the secondary objective (table quarters), and more victory points.  He finished the day 3-0, and finished second overall (I got third).  Effectively we had knocked each other out of the top spot.

So who won you might ask?  A guard player (who is a good player) with a much easier road to the top finished first overall.  He played another Guard army (run by a weaker player) round 1, and won with around the same amount of battle points as I had.  Round 2 he went on to play against a chaos Daemon player, who he beat (in a close game), and then he went on to Massacre a Marine player in the last round, amassing enough points to take the top spot.  He won all 3 games, but against lesser opposition.  I will admit that some of the problem here is that there were not that many players.

Let’s just look at the roads to the top 2 tables.    

Me

Grey Knights Vs Dark Eldar 1 (this player finished either 2-1 or 1-2 I’m not 100% sure)

Grey knights  Vs 3 LR BA (this player finished 2-1)

Grey Knights Vs Grey Knights A (this player was 3-0)  

SO my opponents were either 6-3 or 7-2 overall

 Grey Knights A

Grey Knights A Vs Dark Eldar 2 (this player was either 2-1 or 1-2)

Grey Knights A Vs Orks (finished 2-1)

Grey Knights A Vs Grey Knights (this was me so 2-1)

So his opponents were either 6-3 or 5-4

Guard

Guard Vs Guard (1-2)

Guard Vs Daemons (1-2)

Guard vs Marines (2-1)

So his opponents were 4-5

Marines

Marines Vs Chaos (0-3)

Marines Vs Nids (0-3)

Marines Vs Guard (3-0)

This player’s opponents were 3-6

And here we can see the issue, the marine player only played against one player who won a game, and when he did he lost to that player badly.  Now that is not his fault, nor would it have necessarily have been any different under a different format.  I’m not saying we should penalize the guard player who won all of his games, all I am saying is that there should be some metric to take strength of schedule into account.  I was fine with being 3^rd, I lost a game, I should not have won, however, the player who beat me, who played on the top table all day against winning players should get something for playing against harder competition.  When it would have been better to me to have won by less to get onto table 2 we have a problem.  The Grey knight player who I played in the last round deserved to win; the fact that I am a strong player should not have cost him the win.

Battle Points ended up something like this

Guard 56

Grey Knights A 52

Me 48

What needs to happen is for each player to gain something for playing stronger competition, maybe add a percent of their opponents total battle points to the final battle point standings.  Let us just say for example the full list was something like this

Guard 56

Grey Knights A 52

Me 48

3 LR BA 44

Marines 42

Orks 40

DE 1 35

DE 2 32

Daemons 31

BA   22

Marines 2 20

Nids  18

Guard 2 16

Chaos  6

If you got say 20% of all the battle points for opponents you beat added to your score, and 10% of those you lost to added to your score you would get something like this for your top 6

Grey Knights A 76 points

Guard 73.8

Me  69

3 LR BA 59.4

Orks 52.8

Marines 52.4

As you can see not a whole lot changed at the top, I am still in 3^rd, but 1^st and 2^nd have swapped places because Grey Knights A played a tougher schedule, as did the Ork player who now moves from 6^th to 5^th.  I’m not saying that this is perfect, it still needs looking into, and overall I would prefer win\loss tournaments as far as determining the best player.  I’m also of the opinion that these numbers should only ever be used to rank people who finished with the same overall record.  A 2-1 player should never finish ahead of a 3-0 player, because in theory they should have been playing a similar level of competition, but the 3-0 player who played against the best competition should gain something for playing tough games.