NOVA open Game 4:

Now standing at 1-2 I was really feeling the pressure to finish out day 1 as 2-2 (as my goal going in was to try to finish with more wins than losses).  I lined up across the table from a Codex Space Marine Player, and looking at his list I felt pretty good about my chances.  His list consisted of Vulkan, 3 Tactical squads, a Thunderfire Cannon, A typhoon speeder, a Land Raider, A Libby with Null Zone and Gate, 2 MM attack bikes, and some TH/SS termies.

Mission was Objectives, Quarters, and KPs, my opponent won the roll off and gave me first turn.  I deployed in one quarter and he deployed opposite me.  He reserved 2 of his tactical squads.

At this point I honestly don’t remember much of what happened turn by turn.  This game was my one contentious game of the tourney, and unfortunately I think both me and my opponent handled it badly.  He was very concerned that I was moving things too far early on so I took it back and moved them again.  Then it seemed to me that he did not know many of the rules for his particular army (or base rules as well.) So the game took a while as I let him take back a few moves because he did not realize that they would cause things like dangerous terrain.  The game came down to turn 5 being the last turn due to time, and my opponent was able to control 2 objectives and contest 2 of mine.  One with his terminators killing a purifier squad, and the other with a librarian Gating himself to the objective from inside the land raider.  This was a contentious point which ate up some time, as I was not sure that gate would work from inside of a vehicle, but the judges ruling said it could so he was allowed to do so.  Honestly though I had forgotten that he had the power, so that was my fault as I could have deployed to block him out of 3” from the objective, and cast warp quake to attempt to prevent the move had I thought about it.  We rolled to see if the game would go on and it did.  However, since we were up against time the judges had ruled that the game would only continue if both players wanted to go on (which is not a very good ruling, either allow it, or call a hard cap, leaving it to the players can lead to bad blood as in a close game the winning player will never want to go on), my opponent said since he was winning he did not wish to continue.  This attitude upset me (not because he was in the wrong simply because I am just not that competitive as to want to win by a time out), and the game ended on somewhat bad terms.  Reflecting on it later I realized that what I should have offered was to give him the tournament win, score the points as they stood, and finish out the game just to see what would have happened (as that is what I wanted to see).  I think this was made worse because we were both tired.

I’m better when I am losing??!!!

So after then NOVA open (when I had time to reflect on my games) I noticed a trend in all but one of my losses.  The trend I noticed was that I felt that I was winning the game.  Now you may ask why that is a trend that matters but the more I thought about it the more it kind of bothered me.  How had I lost 3 games that I felt confident that I had the upper hand?  Why did I not notice the plays that gave the wins to my opponents?  Why did I make silly, unnecessary mistakes?  Think about this I came up with 3 things.

1.)    I play too fast.  This is not really a problem when I am losing or when I am crushing my opponent (tabling them effectively). I had 2 games in during the NOVA which required no thought at all on my point after about turn 2 as I was so thoroughly beating my opponent anything shy of a miracle would have been needed for my opponents to pull out a win.(One I seized and crippled my opponent turn 1, the second my opponents dice were the worst dice I had ever seen, for the entire game, and he could not offset his poor dice).  Also when I am losing I tend to take more care as any bad play can cost me.   I feel that I really need to slow down and take a breath at the beginning of the latter turns (4+) and try to work out why my opponent is making the moves that he is, and is there any thing that I am missing.

2.)    I make mistakes.  Following up my fast play, when I am confident I have the advantage I make more mistakes.  I aim to press my advantage, and I carry out “my plan” with little regard to what moves my opponent is making.  After all, “my plan” is working, I’m winning and I don’t see anyway for my opponent to comeback from this.  This has often been a bad habit of mine, even from back in my Chess playing days, when I am dominating my opponent I seem far more likely to let them make checkmate moves, simply because I fail to see them as I press my advantage. When I am losing I tend to be fine playing fast as I often have only one choice, and it is to be aggressive to try to get back to even.  I also know that I absolutely cannot make mistakes so I do a better job with my moves and my target priority.  Not that I am bad at these things in games I am winning, but when I am losing I don’t fail to notice slight changes in my opponents plans.  Maybe this is because I need everything to go right for me to even have a chance.

3.)    I get greedy.  My last bad habit when I am winning a game is that I get greedy.  I have a solid win locked up on the tertiary objective, but that is not good enough I push for the win on Primary and it costs me.  Or I am winning on Kill points so I press to get more instead of protecting my lead.  I multi-assault to kill 2 units when 1 would be just fine.  This results in me being out of position to achieve objectives, leaves me vulnerable to counter attacks, and generally does me in.  When I’m losing I’m more likely to be stingy and do just what I need to in order to win, no more no less.

Does anyone else have bad habits like this?  Acknowledging this going forward I am going to attempt to work on it as I don’t feel like I was outplayed in any game at the NOVA, and yet in most of my close games (all save 1) I lost, and in 3 of those 4 games I felt that I had the advantage.   

NOVA game 3:

Game 3 I draw another IG player Mech this time.  Standard fare pretty much Vets in Chimeras, 3 Vendettas, 3 Hydras, a mantacore, and a Leman Russ executioner( plasma tank). And  Alraheem.

Mission is Kill points (win by 3), Quarters, Objectives.  Deployment is Dawn of war.

My opponent wins the roll to go first, and deploys a command squad in a chimera.  I deploy 2 empty razors (with Search Lights).

Turn 1: My opponent moves everything on (except the Alrahim platoon), he boosts his vendettas, 1 on the left, one in the center, 1 on the right.  He moves his Mantacore, Hydras, and Leman Russ on my left, then brings his Chimeras in on the right.  On my turn I roll everything on to my right to deny him shooting with this Leman Russ, and Hydras.  I light up 1 Vendetta shoot it, he fails cover, and I wreck it. I fail to light the other one up, but my purifiers roll to see it (moved 12” on, and disembarked) see it, and blow it up.   So things are going pretty well.

Turn 2:  My opponent kills one Dread with his Mantacore, moves his Hydras up the left side of the table.  Kills one of my Razorbacks with his vendetta, and really not much else.  I move up the right side killing another chimera and the squad inside.

Turn 3: Alraheem comes in kills a razorback, a Dread and tries to kill my paladins, he ends up getting stomped, and losing my opponent 3 KPs.  I continue to move up and pop a few more another Chimeras, Crowe assaults a vet squad, and wipes them out.

.

Turn 4: My opponent has killed a few marines, and immobilized a Rhino and takes out another dread with his, I kill another Chimera and Crowe assaults another vet squad, and wipes them out.

Turn 5: Looking at the table  I am leading in KPS but just by 4, I think I am tying table quarters, and figure I will win 2 – 0 on objectives, if KPs get tied.  My opponent kills Crowe and a purifier squad, to bring us to me leading by2  .  I figure, ok I can probably get 2 Kps, but if not I’m winning on objectives and I figure quarters were tied.  SO I shoot My 2 Psycannons, and 2 storm bolters at a vet squad, but they pass LD.  I shoot his vendetta with 12 Psycannon Shots and gain nothing.  I end up killing one Chimera to get up by 3 Kps.  So we tie KPs. The game ends, he actually ends up holding 3 quarters for the win as he had just snuck his Leman Russ into a table quarter to out point me by 60 VPs (Crowe and the purifiers dying ended up being key). On my turn 5 I should have just accepted tying Kps, and made sure that I was tying quarters, but I was confident that I had enough points and got greedy for KPs.

NOVA Game 2:

So after dropping my first game (in part due to my own stupidity), I went into the second round feeling like I needed to get a win.  Upon arriving at the table I saw that my next opponent was a player I have played before (a great guy) and he was playing a nicely painted Blob (skaven) IG.  The mission was Table Quarters, Kill points, Objectives.  Seeing my list my opponent had the same idea that I did, if my Purifiers hit this IG blob this game was over.  Unfortunately for my opponent…the game was effectively over even before that.   The issue for my opponent was that deployment was table quarters and there was a large LOS blocking piece of terrain in the center of the table.

He won the roll to go first, and set up in the quarter to my right.  He deployed his blob in front, with his Heavy weapons and Vets behind it to get cover.  I was able to hide my entire army from half of his shooting (most of his Heavy weapons) and get cover from the units that could see.  On his turn he shot a bit but mostly moved to try to get LOS.  On my turn 1 I shot and killed 3 out of 4 of his heavy weapons squads as he failed to make just about every cover save he was called to make.

Turn 2 My AlRahim outflanked on my right and moved onto an objective. My opponent shot a bit more but still failed to do much damage.  My Paladins Deepstruck in near my opponent and shot and killed one of his vet squads.  The rest of my army moved up, shot and killed his remaining heavy weapons. 

Turn 3 He killed maybe 1 paladin, then my paladins assaulted his blob to pull them closer to my advancing purifiers.  He killed 2 more paladins, but I won combat and we got stuck in.

Turn 4 one of my Purifier squads and Crowe assaulted his Blob, and killed the whole blob except the Commissar.

Turn 5 The game ended with my holding 4 table quarters for the win.

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.