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Thanks Steve for organising another smooth event, and also to Steve, Mike and Charles for my 3 games. I hadn't appreciated how close it was at the top, but Steve (2nd) and I (second bottom) played on the 3rd game which probably is an indication?
Game 1 for me was vs Mikes thousand sons. I'd never played against them before but "don't die and are fearless" is how I'd describe them. This game didn't go well from the beginning, but the specifics I might get mixed up with my other games (especially game 2) because history tended to repeat. I rolled a double 1 to activate the death strikes (reroll) and we're sniped by 30cm range doomwings, the SHT BTS also failed to activate and was out of the game from that point on. The vultures did kill a warphound outright though which was nice. I missed a lot, including volcano cannon shots, and with all my macro and TK out of the game I didn't have anything that could do anything really did hardly any damage to anything the whole game, once the marines got up the board it was clearly going to be an uphill struggle. But we didn't get to the end.
Game 2 was vs Orange and AMTL. "Here's an army I can beat, I thought". How wrong I was. The first roll of the game set the scene, I rolled one pip higher for strategy but AMTL have greater SR (why?) so that was a draw. On the re-roll I rolled a 6, but so did he. We rolled equal on every turn I think (ie he won strategy by 1 every turn). In trying to stay out of plasma/volcano sight I had to deploy behind 1 wood and 1 small hill, but I think I could have done it better. I knew if I lost strategy the reaver would barrage the artillery and death strikes but I didn't think it though fully and tried to fit too many things behind the cover. Not helped because I didn't realise storm troopers and valks could garrison. As it was, that barrage could hit both the death strikes and the hydras, which then opened the door to thunderbolts to attack the manticores with only 1 hydra on the approach (which missed both its shots). After initially failing to activate, with a re roll the vultures stripped all the warlords shields which turned out to be eventful. It marshalled its shields back, but the volcano cannon critted a shadowsword. I think this was after the SS failed to hit with its own. In total over the course of the game, I think all four of the SHTs died to crits but I didn't score any myself. With all my good weaponry gone I knew it would be a struggle to kill anything, so I concentrated on the single warhounds (I could break them but not kill them) and putting blast markers on the warhound pair. This I did with the infantry companies and storm troopers, who did exceptionally well. At the beginning of turn 3 it looked like I was going to lose everything, the BTS being gone, the warlord in close range of a tnh objective next to my storm troopers, 2 rallied warhounds on the blitz and a warning pair closing on it from the other side, whereas my HQ occupying my TnH was broken. The warlord engaged the storm troopers, but managed only 2 hits (saved) and 1 macro. Up by 1, I won the assault and the warlord broke. The storm troopers moved to contest the blitz and block the path to the other take n hold, breaking a warhound in the process. The manticores did the same, putting a BM on the war hound pair. The warhound pair dutifully failed to activate and my HQ rallied, so at the end of the turn it was 1-0 (BTS). The warlord then failed to rally, which left the AMTL without enough stuff in turn 4 to get blitz or TnH again after the infantry co blocked the way and contested all 3 objectives in my half. I did make a mistake here, I shot at the war hound pair pointlessly, I should have tried to break the single warhound as this would have given me DTF if I'd managed it (though hitting on 7s it'd be unlikely). With the final activation, the only thing AMTL could do was break the reg HQ holding TnH and denying TSNP, which they did. This turned 1-1 to 2-0. This left the rally phase for me to try to save TSNP, for which I had purposefully saved my re roll. I failed first time round, but made it on the second, meaning the game ended 1-0 to AMTL. The final comedy was in the VP, when of course I lost and had only managed to kill a single thunderbolt.
Game 3 vs Steve's air assault eldar was on the same table. I was determined not to spend all the time in my half like it felt in my other two games, and to avoid the orbital bombardment as much as possible. So I garrisoned the storm troopers and infantry company forward and left the blitz unguarded with most stuff on my left flank. To Steve's dismay I won the strategy roll, but proceeded to roll my second double 1 of the day to activate the deathstrikes. The bombardment came, I had guessed wrong and it came down in my HQ, killing nearly half of it including the hydra and supreme commander. I did not want to let the eldar get stuck in with all their Falcons and fire prisms given that I was sure to suffer some nasty aspect air assaults. So I went on the offensive, breaking one set of Falcons with the vultures, clearing one set of blocking Rangers with the hydras and doubling the storm troopers through to the corner to break the other set. However I totally forgot to CAP my thunderbolts. The autarch BTS came down on the storm troopers, of course winning for the loss of a couple of stands. I didn't mind this too much as they were then stuck, more so after I sniped the vampire with the BTS shadowswords (2 damage). I then failed to CAP the tbolts, and the other assault came down on the vultures and secured the blitz (I should have put it out of cover). Unfortunately a few failed activations with no SC and my inability to clear the rangers with my dwindling activations left me unable to both reach the autarch BTS with my BTS and stop a pair of Falcons from contesting my take and hold. When the BTS failed, I was then also unable to reach the autarch, which left me helpless to stop him marching them to contest. The other aspects conga lined to claim both blitz and take n hold, so the game ended 2-0 to the eldar.
I don't play my guard at all and I definitely made a couple of mistakes, but in general I was not unhappy with my performances. I know everybody always thinks they get bad dice, I felt like mine just came at the wrong moments and wrong units for me. I didn't have the use of my best support units in any of the three games, thanks to either failed activations (deathstrikes rolling double one to activate, twice, and my BTS failing several times), poor shadowsword shooting, and a preponderance of crits (four in one game). Ironically the game I felt least unlucky was the game I lost - I even managed to crit steve's avatar with a shadowsword (admittedly this was after it failed its activation then rolled a 1 for the TK damage).
So units that didn't perform: deathstrikes, SHTs (especially baneblade which didn't shoot once), manticores. Units I liked: storm troopers, infantry, vultures.
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