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Hmm, I haven't posted in a while and can't seem to get my old username ("Gary") working, so started a new account...
Thanks to all who played at Open War, it was a great event. I haven’t been to an Epic tournament for a while, so it was fun to get back to it.
All the armies were nice, and some of them were amazing. I’d forgotten how inspiring it is to play games all day, surrounded by cool armies.
Curis’s marines were my favourite – I’m always a sucker for a crisp white snow scheme, and the painting was extraordinary. Kev’s eldar also deserve special mention I thought – a very gracefully posed Warlock titan (though it could certainly fight as well as dance, which it taught me several times over in our game).
Anyway, on to my games…
I took an ork army. First game was against Mark Preston’s Black Legion. I have played Mark at all three Epic tournaments I’ve entered, and all the games have been fun. This one was no exception, though my poor orks certainly took some punishment. I managed to hold on for a draw after turn 4, but I came off very much worse in victory points, so it was a losing draw, 16-9 to Mark. Mark went on to come second overall, so a losing draw aint too bad.
Next game was against Jeridian’s marines. Another fun game against a great opponent. It was quite refreshing to see that Jeridian had no terminators and no thunderhawks in his list, which is a rare thing. He did have a Warlord though, which certainly kept the intimidation factor high.
This game was really tight. In fact, it was decided by the very last dice roll. I hid from the Warlord reasonably well and gradually picked off the marine formations so I started to get an activation advantage. But a turn three drop-pod assault forced my gargant to retreat to defend my blitz. At the end of turn 4 I was 2-0 up, but Jeridian had a broken marine formation in my half. If he could roll 3+ he would rally and deny me “Defend the Flag” and make it a draw. The marine iron discipline held. The dice came up a 4 and the game ended in a draw. I was marginally ahead on victory points, so 13-12 to me.
So two ok results so far… if I could get a win in my last game, it would be a pretty good result overall.
Kev’s Eldar stood in my way, and at the centre of them stood the mighty (and very pretty) shimmying Warlock. I usually try to avoid titans if I can, rather than trying to take them out. That way lies heartache and frustration, I have often found. But something changed my mind in this game and I decided to go for it. Partly cos I had the tools for the job (a gargant, 5 supa-zzaps and a landa stuffed with ladz), and partly cos Kev put the Warlock on a hill right in the centre, so I couldn’t ignore it, and with a 25cm move it seemed a bit fast to run away from. My gargant was going to die if I just ignored the thing.
Once I had decided to try to take it down, I went for it in a big and slightly ridiculous way. My zzaps could only get a couple of wounds past the holofields, so I decided to try to take it down in an assault by the landa. The Gargant charged straight at the Warlock, blazing away and getting into range for firefight support. But he took horrendous damage on the way in (6 wounds, 2 fires) and was driven off to hide in a wood before I could bring in the landa.
As I tried to gang up formations, the Warlock stood glorious on the hill at the centre, fighting devastating firefight after devastating firefight. I ended up feeding him most of my army, and by the end of the game both the Warlock and my gargant had one wound left, but were still standing. Unfortunately, Kev had a lot more of the rest of his army left than I did, so it was looking like it would go his way.
In a last hurrah to try to take the titan’s final wound I brought in the landa. The eldar flak umbrella was formidable – the odds seemed to suggest the already damaged landa would not make it through. The sensible thing might have been to land somewhere quiet, maybe try to grab a sneaky objective to reduce Kev’s margin of victory. But these are orks, and that is not their way.
The air assault was declared. The landa promptly crashed and burned.
Game over. 3-0 to Kev on objectives, so 25-0 on tournament points. Painful, but enormous fun. It was great to see the titan and gargant going toe to toe.
Thanks to all my opponents for three great (as well as very good natured) games. A slightly underwhelming performance from my orks, ending up well in the bottom half with two draws and a loss. But dice were rolled, some spots of glory were earned and fun was certainly had.
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