Standard post battle report:
Exeter - At a meagre 400 miles, the flight down wasn't even the furthest I had taken this month (23,000) but I was damned if I was going to have a three defeat tournament. My competitive side demanded success (why does that never come to the gym). In an act of utter malice, Ian hadn't detailed the match offs, so I was left to contemplate a generic plan (a far more time economic approach than reading Steve's 84 e-mails psychoanalysing players styles, bathroom habits and recent stress levels). I found myself with the thousand sons as they met the rigid test I had set out: portable, painted, not recently broken. So the plan was straightforward. One cabal (bts) on blitz. Hidden and doing as much in the game as I do in the gym (see above). That left two cabals too: capture the two objectives in my opponents half (little hope for blitz) and in doing stop them from getting They shall not pass. That meant the rest of the army (2 titans, 2 defiler squads, towers, and doomwing) were pretty much disposable. It also meant that the two objectives I would place needed to be damn close (I'm not playing the sons for a while so happy to give away such groundbreaking secrets). So, with a strategy only slightly more enhanced than "try to win", I set forth...
Game 1. Mark Bollocks. I had never played Mark. I knew he could drink wine with a grim and resolute efficiency. I also knew that he regularly wins against Steve. Now this really is out of order. I expect a sliding scale of opponents. The first game should be against a novice, possibly with limited sight. This allows the hangover to pass.
There was some good points: no Emperors Children with there 50 cheap ass titan killing titans.. But, he had a damn Warlock. That and the eldar speed, and the damn falcons (see dead scout titans). The plan had to change. Whereas I had been defensive in planning, now I approached the game with the bravery of a particularly cowardly French possum. The first turn saw me snugged safely on my own deployment. The defilers on overwatch making the nasty elder stay away (and popped down). Only the doomwings ventured slightly further, getting rid of some nasty scouts and giving me an activation advantage. Still, they're wasn't much in the way of medals to be had. Turn two saw more of the same. Credit to Mark he eventually snapped and saying something under his breathe about 'ruining the game for every one' he pulled his guardians into a brave assault breaking a cabal. This of course ruined the master plan, the cabals were not to break, without them there was a very real risk that he would hold all his objectives, and I had yet to cross halfway. With no thought whatsoever I sent the towers to kill the mounted guardians. Obviously, anyone with half a brain would use their skimmer power and not leave them in the open.... Oh well. What's the worst that could happen? Yup, Warlock came and killed three. Shoved itself in the middle of my army. Obviously my bravery so far did little to scare its 3+ save. Things were looking bad. But defilers are awesome and came to my rescue (big thanks to whoever wrote those rules, know that the incriminating pictures are in a safe place). The 12 shots that Tz defilers have did some nice damage to the Warlock and I sustained with a warphound, sending the nasty git running and broken with three wounds left. The guardians were now looking pretty exposed and my other cabal finished them off in a revenge assault. End of turn two and I'm still not over half way, I've totally surrendered my left flank and its objective and I have two broken units, but the warlocks gone... As long as it doesn't rally. Yup, rally's. And the Cad avatar comes in from the broken guardians, disturbingly close to my titan...its like he's trying to win!! There then followed a turn of bad luck by my opponent. The activation went my way, so I broke the Avatar and killed of the guardians. The newly rallied warlock clambered forward, but failed to do anything with its screeds of shooting...and then when the defilers and warphound combined on it again, it went and died. Nobody expected that. It changed the whole game. Poor Mark was left starring at an absurd collection of 2 up dice. Suddenly all I needed was two objectives in his half. And now the killing really started. Set free from overwatch the defilers took out some guardians, the doomwings chewed up the exarches, and the warphound avenged past deaths on the falcons. End of turn three and my gracious opponent accepts a turn 4 2-0 defeat (possibly because he needs to go and return his dice to the elderly gypsy woman he stole them from despite numerous curse warnings). So that felt like a victory built on my opponents bad luck. And now for the weird scenario battle, that rewards large armies, this is going to be a struggle... Still, at least I'm not likely to be playing the guy that created said monster.. Game 2. Ian Dr.Frankenstein Well there was some hope as I wasn't starring at Feral Orks or imperial guard (or even a squat army that everyone was allowing a certain cheat to pretend were imperial guard). But it was a barrage tastic plague marine nasty ass disrupt list (this was going to need blast markers on an industrial scale) and worse, it was a beautifully painted home crafted army, the sort of army that suggests the owner went to absurd lengths such as learning the rules and playing test games. This was not a 'first battle fresh from e-bay' opponent. This would need some cunning / blind luck.
I shoved two cabals in the centre to hold that objective, effectively expecting them to 'form square' and soak up the artillery. The plan then was to bluff the right flank with the defilers, towers and a titan, push the left with the cabal and heavy support, when Ian over commuted the right, I'd collapse back to the centre and we would draw 2 objectives each. Things didn't go like that.
Well first there were plague zombies. The most annoying things not to have a program on mtv. They appeared right in front of my mobile right flank. Gonna be hard to bluff the flank if I can't get through them. And I really struggled. First the centre cabal summoned huge numbers and assaulted killing 8. Then two squads of planes killed one more. Eventually, near the end of the turn, the defilers pushed the issue with an assault, and although that killed the last two, I lost a defiler. There was much sniggering from across the table.
However things had turned odd. Ian had only shown a lacklustre interest in the right flank, only sending one plaguehound, and that had managed to fail a dangerous terrain twice and injured itself on a stick (woodland). So when the lingering beast pulled up to the right objective, it was a very attractive target. The towers set about and killed it. Of course I took advantage of their range and didn't put them inside barrage range, ...that would be mad.... (Sorry lads another massacre cause I got excited).
Over on the left, my other defilers, cabal and warphound marched forward. Here they faced a super heavy tank (forgot its name, but whoever wrote the burgle list wasn't creative, probably plague tank to go with plague marine, plague hound, plague cat....), plague hound and plague marines. I had the objective by numbers but first activation on turn two would decide the flank. My last action was to pull the right hand warphound back to the centre. This was a mistake and lead to its death in turn two, I really could have done with it. The centre cabal (zombie killers) had taken a pounding from the artillery and broken, costing me all the demons. This was to be a bad day for flamers. So first turn left me with both flank and my centre objective and I began to greedily think of a win. I'd taken a hell of a beating in the centre, but fearless units are good at bouncing back and being pests. Luck kicked back in and I won the start of turn two. This was not good news for Ian's right flank. The cabal summoned four demons and assaulted the plaguehound breaking it, leaving them in a place to support the defilers retained assault on the tank (plague tank?!) which promptly shat blood and died. Later the warphound would assault the plague marines with the cabal again supporting, ensuring the right flank was mine for the game. Ian avenged this by taking out my unsupported warphound in the centre and eventually securing the right flank. With the turn drawing to a close it looked like being an even turn on objectives and with my army beginning to take the hits from the artillery I expected turn three to be an ask. But now was Ian's baliclava moment, he advanced his horrid plague marines in the centre, just not quite close enough to capture my centre objective. I left off a weird happy squeaking noise as I realised that freed my remaining cabal. Worse for Ian, his own centre was unmanned. I quickly did the maths (10 minutes. Two sheets of A4 and a calculator), if I ran and grabbed this, I'd guarantee a draw. So I did...(obviously). With that done, all I needed from turn three was one objective. Taking all 4 with an army that doesn't march is a hell of an ask, but Ian gave it a damn heroic effort. I of course, sportingly helped, by rolling a one for strategy and in doing killed of the last two flamers (there had been 12). With initative in his hands he took out the biggest threat, his artillery combining to kill of my cabal on his centre. He then used his other units to break what was left of my right flank (the guys who were a bluff and would retreat to safety, ...never trust a plan) and he pushed up and finally took my centre objective. He pretty much bossed the entire turn, but I knew all I needed was one objective and the left flank was just to far for him. With his units all done, I had a brief forlorn effort at kicking him off the centre, but settled for the win by 2 points. Pretty sure he is in no way regretting changing the scenario from four turns to three. The fact my army was looking like the last moments of the Alamo in no way suggested that they wouldn't have survived a fourth turn / strong breeze / soft breeze. Game 3. David. After the heroics of game two, I mean I actually moved forward each turn!!!, I was overjoyed to draw dark eldar. What I know about the dark eldar list can be summed up in two lines- they have lance on everything- everyone that has ever mentioned them to me has said "they will shaft your list". Unable to actually take on board what David told me about his list, I set out on another cunning strategy, well actually two. 1. I would bore him to death through inaction and bunkering 2. I would repetitively ask him what things did, like a particularly dullarded child. This would suffice in infuriating him and making him hate epic, but perhaps also in some Ill advised attacks. This made for some truly exciting epic (think Greece winning euros). Turn one. Practically nothing. A rhino got shot by a unit. " hay Dave what's that unit again? What does it do again? Why? Why? Are we there yet?" Turn two saw much of the same, the towers sat on overwatch (part of my commitment not to kill them through bravado three games in a row) and everything moved slowly up under that umbrella. Driven numb by boardem David cracked and sent in his bombers to kill my defilers. I had been warned of these nasty sods pre game, so was somewhat scared. But had a cap'd doomwing to help. Scored 3 AA on the nasty gits and watched with glee as they ploughed into the turf with some really unlucky dice. His big ass nasty titan killer unit "say Dave what's that called again? What's its stats? Etc etc" failed to activate and the d.eldar stood down. Now, with no opponent to face, heroism overcame my army and two cabals charged into the objective flank setting up for an assault on his on board units. The titans moved up and broke a unit off "sorry David, what are they?" And moved themselves just across the rubble from "the thing that has titan killer but I can't remember its fire fight." With the cabals, titans and a defiler in assault range the turn roll was a big one and luck again favored me. This was the stage that I discovered the true 'glass' part of the glass hammer. Both cabals took it in turns to summon and assault "the guys with the other guys in the building what's their fire fight?" Transpired to be poor, and the cabals destroyed them. Of course there would be a counter attack, and out of the wraithgate came "things that look like dreadnoughts, are they CC? What do they do?" It transpired that they bounced and David joins the ever growing list of players that put hundreds of hits into a cabal and gets one kill. With the demons on board and the other cabal in fire support the supporting fire was horrid. With the eldar bleeding bad, I turned the screw and used a titan to wipe out "the things that loo like ships that killed the rhino, what are they again?", whilst the defilers did a supported assault to kill " those other guys". With the board looking sparse, David turned to his "thing with titan killer, does it have any other guns?" And rolled a one. This was not fun for him. The last efforts were a ground attack by his fighters (all shot down by doomwing, they had a good day), this forced an air assault on the cabal bts. I am rarely worried about the reinforced fearless bts, especially when it has demons on the ground. Less so when I have a spare doomwing on cap and even less when there is silver towers on overwatch right next to the BTS. Well, into the valley of death rode his air assault (I watched a documentary on Crimea on Friday). I'm pretty sure this was the side effect of a dull two turns and having to explain his list 17 times...a turn. Though the huge casualty rate that the eldar were recording couldn't have helped. With the towers having Ap/at on 12 shots (so that will be going into the weak armored personnel), and hitting ten of these 4+, it was ugly as. The Kabal (even I got that name) was wiped, the transport broken and so dead. With everything gone, and for the most part dead, the eldar were done in turn three. This left a dangerous terrain test as the only barrier to my warphound taking the blitz and handing me a 3-0 in turn three, and it made it with contempt. It was a triumph of annoying petulance and boring play over patience and bravery. David even spent my last few activations helping to see if I could win by more. On a day where each opponent had been brilliant, he was getting most sporting (I'm sure this will be a strong compensation to the wives and children off "what's that unit again"). Really good tournament, so much thanks to all for the organising. Just like Birmingham, I again came inside a hair of first, 2 miserable points. I will spent much time wondering if I should have done things different in the middle game, and no time whatsoever appreciating the numerous incidents of blind beautiful luck.
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