Thanks for the report!


Actually the rulebook doesn't say unequivocally that you can, it only talks about one drop zone which is a bit ambiguous:

4.3.1:
"In addition to saying when the spacecraft will arrive, you must secretly record the drop zone for units entering play using the planetfall ability, (see 4.4)"

4.4:
"Take one of the units with the planetfall ability and place it anywhere on the table that is within 15cms of the drop zone co- ordinates recorded at the start of the game (see 4.3.1)."

I've always played it that opponents can pick separate points as otherwise a drop army isn't much good I feel, but it's not exactly written that way clearly in the rules.



Grudge match! Or grudging doubles pairing???

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This has come up a couple of times in the past and is covered in the official FAQ's.

Let's just say that dropping has so far been a step learning curve... But I remembered my deathwinds this time!

Cracking weekend, wooden spoon was well deserved with three defeats.. I think it might be time to try something other than marines.. Getting cracking with painting my guard for the next tourney!

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Another excellent event, and a big thanks to Matt, Simon and Ben for some great games

Here's some brief batreps for each game:

Game 1: Matt Arnold (Guard)
So first game and i've got the one army i really wasn't wanting to face - a mighty 5 shadowswords to freem my Tank Co to death, and minimal macro to deal with them. I caught a lucky break on the first turn with Matt having some terrible activation rolls, most importantly with his big superheavy co, which had to settle for just rumbling forward. Matt had 1 more activation than me, and finished off with his mech infantry and regimental HQ right in my face, and breathing down my Tank Co's neck, which meant that the activation roll for turn 2 was all important - which surprisingly i won. this put me in a very strong position, and allowed me to break one mech infantry unit, and maul the Regimental HQ with the Tank Co. Matt still gamely went in for an engage with the regimentals, but even with me failing a fair few saves, it was too much for them to manage, and they ran off with just the commisar left alive, and the Supreme Commander dead. Ironically, with his passing Matt's activations got a heck of a lot better... Matt did at least manage to break my tank Co thanks to some superheavy freeming, but they then went and cowered behind a ruin out of the way, and while they didn't rally before the end of the game, they did at least survive. Meanwhile the warhounds and mech infantry picked up the slack and with an activation advantage on turn 3 i was able to pick up a cheeky 3-0 win on turn 3 thanks to Matt failing his rally roll for a warhound.

Game 2: Simon White (Nids)
Simon had as always taken an interesting list, going 'monster' heavy. It was an interesting one to play, as it had a heck of a lot of reinforced armour, and was still worryingly fast. However, the smaller units didn't take much to break, and with a heavy activation advantage from fairly early on i was able to push forward quite a bit, and while his BTS and Blitz was always beyond my reach really, i did manage to keep him out of my half of the board, keep all 3 objectives and also take my 2 objectives for another 3-0 win on turn 3.

Game 3: Ben Weir (Marines)
Ironically we'd played Thursday evening with identical lists - that time Ben had managed to snick a win, but i decided to play it a little differently this time around. This was to a degree dictated by my turn 1 activations going pearshaped, with both mech infantry failing to activate, and the tank co only managing it with a re-roll. This didn't get much better turn 2, with the regimental HQ failing yet again, along with a few other bits and bobs. Still, the Tank Co was in a good position with a mech infantry co camping on my objectives, and i had started knocking down some of the Marine Activations. Turn 3 and Ben drops the Terminators, hoping to take down a warhound and my Manticores (the blitz being too effectively screened by sentinels), and he promptly loses the activation, allowing me to move the warhound out of the way and rip apart one of the terminator squads (who couldn't teleport into cover either due to the sentinels). This threw Ben's plans into complete disarray, and by the end of turn 3 he found a tank co and mech infantry co pretty much sitting on his blitz, and his BTS Tactical Squad only just avoiding breaking (and giving me a 2-0 on turn 3) thanks to some good saves. With the other terminator unit smashed by the regimental HQ (who had finally decided to do something) things were not good going into turn 4. At this point Ben went defensive, pulled his BTS well away from harms way, although in doing so effectively gave up his blitz. He then threw unit after unit into contesting the objectives i was going for, but in the end i just had too many activations and was able to just break or destroy the remnants, and then focus my big guns on the warhounds, who were the best chance Ben had left to contest with.
A tightly played game! In the end i had a 2-0 turn 4, but it was rather too close for comfort.

It was good to get the Guard out again! The Tank Company as always performed well, and really the army as a whole really does just work for me. Looking forward to Open War in April!

Results are up for Full Scale Assault here

Game 1: I played Mike T with his Tyranid army. The first two turns were very cagey with most of my forces being pushed back around the blitz. My attempted break out failed with four consecutive failed activation rolls for my Stormserpents. As the noose closed on my small army I flung forwards with Phantom fire, retaining engagement & retaining engagement again to break the first wave of Nids. Weathering the follow up engagements I struck again breaking more forces leaving only two Nid formations unbroken at the end of the turn. If my falcons were a bit further forward they could have marched to secure the Nid Blitz and win the game there and then, but instead they were about 15cm out. Mike then suffered horrendous luck where he failed to rally anything leaving me able to wrap up a 3-0 win in turn 4. It was a very enjoyable game where the Eldar worked perfectly (apart from activating the Stormserpents) I consolidated back into a strong position and then broke out to with rolling engagements to achieve the victory.

Game 2: This game was against Mark P and his marines. With Mark taking a space craft we started off playing bluff and double bluff over the set up with my army starting on the opposite flank to my Blitz. The game started with me going after the only thing in range, Land Speeders, and Mark counteracting it by attacking my Falcons and especially the attached Firestorms. This was followed up by a Thunderhawk ground assault, which it lost.... I then started to hunt Mark’s Warhounds whilst his Terminator/Land Raider BTS dropped in by a Landing Craft shot my Guardians and Wraithlords. Cover & good saves are brilliant, although they were still beaten back. I was not able to do enough damage to break Mark’s BTS and I couldn’t kill them as the Phantom became engrossed in clearing my blitz from Marks’ pesky Scouts Game went to a fourth turn and then to points as I ran out of AP shots and couldn’t do enough to break the Terminators which were left contesting Blitz and a second objective in Marks’ half whilst I claimed three in my half. Yet another brilliant game against Mark which I just couldn’t force the win.

Game 3: This saw me play off against Tom S (Consol Avenging Angel) my regular opponent at home. (It was interesting to note that the top three tables had regular opponents playing each other.) Tom was playing a slightly different list to the one that I had previously played against, whilst I had kept with my Eldar which had lost to his Nids a couple of weeks before. The two armies were set up with Tom tempting me with some scouts and Land Speeders in the centre of the table. I took the bait and went for it. Tom responded and air assaulted my Guardians with his bikers. No wounds and four dead bikes later and the Thunderhawk went poof along with the remaining biker. Tom compressed his remaining forces together in the centre of the table attempting to both stay away from my titan as well as get ready to strike. I called down the Avatar and was preparing for a couple of big engagements, Tacticals incl. Supreme Commander followed by Land Raider BTS only to have Tom win the initiative and sustain with his Land Raiders critically hitting the Avatar and placing lots of BM around the table. My Phantom advanced to fire on the Land Raiders and only got one hit from its four titan killer shots. However this meant that the Raiders and Tacticals remained intermingled and I engaged with a fresh Guardian & Wraithlord formation. Tom’s dice rolls were under par and mine were average resulting in both formations breaking. The rest of the game was spent with me trying to push for as big a win as possible whilst Tom looked for a way to extend the game. We finished with a 2-0 win to me on turn 3.

These games showed that my army can be very powerful, but often lacks the final turn movement to seal a large victory. Thanks again to all my opponents for three great games and to Steve for running the event. Finally, well done Richard on winning the whole thing.

I was a tad disappointed at not getting a crack at the Eldar - it looked an interesting list, and i was looking forward to seeing how the Guard got on against it! Still, there's always another time i guess

I'll be honest and say that I'm glad I didn't have to play a Guard list as I think I'd have just been overwhelmed by their numbers. Although picking on Chimeras with my Phantom would have caused some interesting movement problems for the Guard.

Heh, if you were shooting a few chimeras with that Phantom i'd be quite happy! The big worry i'd have would be for the Tank Co - they don't like lots of TK shots

Wraithlords & Farseers would have gone for the tanks.

Well, as long as you managed to keep those Storm Serpents alive anyway! How did you find the relatively low activation count btw? (although it's generally inevitable when you add in a Titan with Eldar i guess...)

Against the Mike and his Nids it was play the numbers game and slowly wittle them down, so having less activations was not a great problem, especially when formations became intermingles due to trying to get to me.

Against Mark and his Marines I was facing almost parity with the air assaulting Terminators and Land Raiders all in the Landing Craft.

And against Tom and his Marines it was almost the same story again with forces in Thunderhawks and breaking formations before they could activate I wasn't that far behind.

I think keeping everything together and not having to worry about artillery in all three games helped an awful lot. The main thing that I missed was a Vampire to carry out deep shots or to land at the end of the game on an objective, but the only way to fit one in would have been to change the Phantom for Revenants and drop the Seer Council, but then I wouldn't have been playing with a Titan Killing Phantom.

Result are now up
http://epic-uk.co.uk/ukepicachampionship/t3x.php?tid=60

Thanks to Dave, Dave + Tim for their help, Maunsfield for hosting us and all the players for making it another easy event to oversee.

Congratulation to Richard (IG) on another victory with Steel Legion, Tim (Ulthwe) and Mark (CodeX SM) for edging quite a close pack to take 2nd+3rd. It was nice to see lots of new armies and Rohan (BL) and Simon (Death Guard) were worthy best armies though I have to mention Simon (IG) and Matt (IG) who only just missed out.
Most sporting went to Mike (Nids) after a 4 way dice off and Erin took the coveted wooden spoon with his all-drop SM.

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