|
Dan's Battle report / Year Summary / Rocky meets the Mighty Duck's in Escape to Victory
Our story begins years before in the run-down ghetto's of St Andrews were everyone knew only playing Epic could get you out of poverty. We would play with rock's on dirt boards, dreaming of even owning a stand of tactical marines. My old, Santa Claus' looking Granddad took me aside one day and showed me, with awe, a square, silver contraptions. "This my lad, this is a Thunderhawk. It's not like those posh Vampire Raiders on Landing Craft. No, this here is for the honest poor people. One day, long after I'm dead and gone. These here Thunderhawks will fly again. They will bring joy to the downtrodden and hope to the despaired." Of course, as a young lad, I listened to much and foolishly advised my father that I would run a Thunderhawk list and try to win the coveted and highest award in the land, the Epic Uk Plate (shut-up Steve).
I remember his answer well, "NOOO! No Son, don't have such dreams. Aim low, try for something achievable like winning the Golf Open Championship. Nobody from a small five bedroom house in a poor working to middle-class area of St Andrews could ever win such an award. Only the Soviets and the English have the resources for that. They have all the tournaments, they have multi-million-pound gyms where they work out on rolling 6's, they have activation coaches, what chance do you have?! ....and besides THEY will never let you."
This was the first time I heard about the mysterious THEY, the nameless epic Uk Committee who had the power to do terrible things like nerfing Thunderhawk lists. A dark clandestine group of baddies.
Well as many are aware (see previous reports) I played with awe and wonder throughout the season inspiring fans and new players from all corners of the North, but found myself facing the last Tournament, the dreaded GT, and knowing that I had to win the GT to gain the Plate (Ok, I only needed a point, but if that's the inaccuracy your jumping on, were good..). I pulled together my Thunderhawk list, (6 Thunderhawks, 5 thunderbolts, terms with Chaplin, 2 assault marines, 2 scouts), gave a final thought to my Granddad's thunderhawk dream and boarded the plain for the far South of the country.
The GT had only ever been won by a professional with a team of advisors, previous winners were the great Richard Larkin, Boris Spassky and Bobby Fisher. What chance could I have? Worse, rumours were abounding that sinister forces were acting to stop me from usurping this crown.
Game one saw me grudge matched paired against Rob. This told me the tournament was going to be as much psychological as it was mental and physical. Rob had previously tried to defeat me through exhaustion, and failing in that, had tried to kill me in a death march around London. Fortunately, his previous failings were working against him and he played in a manner that can only be described as enduringly cowardly. His Orks hid in cover at his baseline all game. His one great hope (designed entirely to hurt me, and so ruining his own hopes for the tournament like some sort of super evil Ivan Drago) lay with his nine fighter-bombers, these he had prepped as an assassin uses poison, their purpose being to shoot down my Thawk with BTS and cost me any hope of winning. But such evil was undone when he failed his activation with a re-roll. His desperate efforts to drag the game past the three hour mark were undone by my fast play style, and the good guys came out with a 2-0 win.
If I thought that I was in for a respite, I was well wrong. Suddenly I was facing a space marine list like no other. 17 activations! five of which were fighters. Here was another list designed to stop me. How was I drawing these lists in a random allocated tournament?.... Dave was facing me for the first time, but he had a look of determination, he had been well briefed about my political leanings and had brought Spit Fires as proxies and Union Jack labelled dice, every effort to remind me of the failed Scottish vote on independence and to drive me into a knee jerk angry mistake.
Dave though is to nice a guy to really put the boot in, and we played through a surprisingly quick game. It all came down to a turn three terminator assault on the scouts at the blitz, although I would later lose a thunderhawk assault with the terminators supporting, the scout attack meant that I had my nastiest unit sitting on his blitz and not willing to share. Some supporting assaults in turn four meant that I held the blitz safely (though assault 6's were required) and Dave's list began to bleed out under the constant shooting from the empty thunderhawks and t-bolts. Some poor dice saw him loose his BTS to an empty Thunderhawk assault and I had a fortuitous 4-0 on turn three.
Surely now I would have a relaxed game... But no, the Comittee were having none of it. I found myself paired of against Steve, one of my best friends and the mentor that had got me into this game. He looked across the table with me with ashen face and seemed to whisper: 'They've got my family.' I knew there had to be some evil reason behind him putting up a fight rather than helping his fellow Scot to the glory of the plate by handing him a 5-0 win, but fortunately steve was playing Thousand Son's, my old army, and I felt oddly confident that the son's would remember our past victories and not stop my progress. True enough both squads of defilers polietly broke under limited Tbolt shooting, and then refused to rally all game, even with re-rolls on a 3+. It was like they were saying 'We wont shoot on our own, on you go Dan. Fly Thunderhawks, Fly!' Of course they weren't, they were bits of plastic with no semblance of sentience.
With his air umbrella down, and playing a new list, Steve pulled his army into the centre. He had a poor start to turn three when his terminators teleported with two blast markers, then he lost the roll off, allowing my scouts to pop over and break them. He pulled his army into the middle capturing the two objectives in my half, but in doing left the blitz over exposed and both of his own objectives open to the wind. The low activation count due to the defilers gave me a free run for most of the turn, so i was able to shoot up his retinue on the blitz, before taking them out with the terminators. The assault marines landed by the other objective, and I put a third thunderhawk down next to my own objectives to secure a 2-0 on turn three. Immediately on losing, Steve turned his allegiances and seemed to punch the air in support as I captured the blitz. For Scotland he yelled! silently,...in my head.
Who would I face next? What cunning plot to put another speed bump in my way?
I had a day to wait, and what cunning efforts were made to put me off. Firstly the ever embittered Rob tried to get me drunk by challenging me to a curry and wine drinking contest. I had been pre-warned about this, and had put the previous 25 years into developing a strong tolerance for both. Then my hopes of a nights sleep were dashed by the fire alarm going off in the hotel in 'mysterious circumstances,' and by their being no hot water for showers 'for no explainable reason.'
Like a true hero, I continued, red eye and exhausted, though I began to wonder, had the two hour train delay on the way down been a coincidence? Was the large workload dumped on me by my boss on Thursday happenstance? Or had Virgin trains and my work also been got to?
Sunday saw me drawn against Dave's Marines. I should have guessed this. No surprise to draw the most successful Space Marine player in history, the guy who helped draw the list, and what's more playing an air-assault list against my air-assaults. I remembered though my old School moto: "Keep your activations high when facing air assaults."
Dave to his credit had taken a spacewolves list and had made them into an impressive force. The great companies were a thing of terror to everything on the ground, but I decided I needed them on board rather than have them turning up on my blitz on turn three, my poor scouts got the job of bate. Turns one and two were ones of shooting at each other on air-intercept and bombing runs. The great companies that came on took care of my scouts as did the long Fangs kill a landed thunderhawk. But through some nice rolls taking out his t-bolts and a larger list I was able to leave myself in a position to do a blitz run with the terminators for the game. The only thing in their way was a landing craft. I put a good few shots into this first and landed a supporting t-hawk, but it was the macro's that sealed the deal giving me a 2-0 win on turn three against a very capable and gracious opponent.
You could now tell that the Epic world was getting nervous, I was one game away from winning the GT, the Plate, and the automatic European qualification (probably, if that's a thing) and all I needed was a draw. Efforts were made to ban my list, though they had to accept that this couldn't be done with immediate effect, I had a slight trip on the stairs that had until then been steady as a rock. But they must have known it would take something special, and they pulled out all stops, bringing back the previous world champion Steve Gullick. This was the Kasparov of the gaming world. A softly spoken man of intense burning intellect and a strategic mind to match Napoleon. He had all but retired from recent tournaments, but now stood intent on blocking my way.
He had brought black legion, with three obliterators with which to shoot down my brave Thunderhawks. I knew a draw was going to be a challenge. Aware that he had terminators, I doubled my scouts in a ring around my blitz and awaited the worse. No doubt having been briefed by the deplorable Rob, Steve used the same strategy of sitting in a fortress around his blitz, covered by the oblirterators AA. The terminators came in on turn two and sat in rubble in the centre and the game became dominated by whether or not I could break them before they marshalled and summoned or if Steve could roll enough 6's to shoot down the thunderhawks. In turn four I sniffed a win, as his doomwheels had moved up with some raptors to hold the middle board with the terminators broken. I knew his BTS had a fearless obliterator guaranteeing it couldn't be killed (I had learnt this from Andy-H in London). My first run on the doomwings went well with a squad of Scouts killing one. All I needed to do was for my terminators to kill the second, and I could achieve no unbroken units in my half and have a good shot at holding all three of my own objectives. But I had used up a good deal of luck getting their and the fates turned. I only achieved one hit with the terminators normal atatcks and two macros, worse the doomwheel shrugged them off. The thunderhawk took a hit and crited then the supporting fire of four 4+ killed two terminators. I lost the assault badly and with it my BTS. I knew then that I was chasing a draw, but that wasn't a tough ask, all I really needed to do was activate and land a thunderhawk or marshal my broken assault marines that had fled into Setve's half. My Thawks had left turn three with blast markers, meaning I needed a 4+ or 3+ to bring them in, but with no re-roll, or a 3+ for the assault marines.
The tension was palpable. A large group of players had surrounded the board. The fans had broken past the security cordon are were leaning next to the table. Steve looked at me as if to say 'The fire alarm was a step too far, I'm not part of this. Go-on! I want you to make these rolls!' The 4+ first, but I rolled a 2. I became more nervous, the 3+. another 2. I replaced the dice. My normally dry hands had become clammy. I could hear the fear in the breath of all those fans that had travelled down to watch this.
I rolled. It was a long one, bouncing of a hill or two. Slowly turning, until, a 5!
The venue went mad. It was a straight draw. Steve, ever the gentleman reached across and shook my hand before joining the others in applauding, and suddenly I was being lifted above peoples head and carried out to the screaming crowds outside.
Many hold it to have been the greatest moment in the history of Epic.
There is already talk of a film, but I am concerned that Hollywood may over dramaticse events and detract from the reality.
|
![:{[]](./images/smilies/headbang.gif "Headbang")
Thanks also for another well run event, and overall another great Epic tournament season. 
