I always find it interesting to read reports on my games and see how my opponent’s have felt that it has gone.
I decided to take Tyranids to this tournament and when with a heavy combination of Assault Swarms and Harridans backed up by a solid section of Hive Nests, Dominatrix, Genestealers and a Trygon.
1st game was against Gavin and his new Yme-Loc force. Whilst I felt that I had an even chance against all the Eldar skimmers, the first turn went badly for me as I managed to fail four activations and have a Harridan killed by Gavin’s Phoenix Bombers. This left me at the start of the second turn with effectively two waves of forces instead of one mass to swarm over the advancing Yme-Loc. The Avatar came down and with the Strategy Roll in his favour Gavin engaged an Assault Swarm with the Avatar and BTS Aspect Warriors. The Swarm was eventually wiped out, but not before the Aspects had taken a load of hits losing two or three Striking Scorpions, a Wave Serpent and most critically the Autarch from some cheeky supporting fire. The Aspects broke and fell back, but the game turned at this point. We were both expecting the Guardians to engage the next forward formation, Harridan & Gargoyles, only to roll a 1. Dead Autarch meant no re-roll and this provided critical for the Eldar as the rolling engagements were stopped and my Nids could choose their targets. Which they did breaking a formation of Hornets and sniping the BTS to claim the goal.
Whilst badly mauled Gavin still had options and he continued to push for the centre of the table, but when an engagement with one of his Falcon Hosts, against a Harridan, which drew his second Falcon host in to the combat failed the tide had turned fully into my favour. And from my glum at the end of the first turn I was very much surprised to force a 5-0 victory. More than anything I would say this game turned on a famous Gavin ‘1’ for the retain at the start of turn 2 more than anything else in this game.
It was well fought and always a pleasure to play.
2nd game was against RichardL and his token Marine Force. (It’s extra Championship points you know.) (And I’ll be doing the same later on this year.
) It is always a difficult game against one of the best players current and past on the EA scene. Richard had a list which contained no Warhounds and he had made up with this with a Spacecraft and more activations. As with the first game we played corners and I set too marching my forces up the table and taking the hits to get into range for the next turn. Activations went a bit more smoothly, but again I lost a Harridan in the first turn to aircraft. However the Marine air assaults started to reduce my activations. I was lucky though at the start of the turn as the spacecraft hit three formations only to kill three Termagents and a Gargoyle.
Turn two started with the Trygon popping up in the woods near the Marine BTS and Blitz and the terminators coming down near my Blitz. Starting in the centre Richard assaulted my Dominatrix with his terminators which had charged forward to try and bolster my advance. My luck for the game happened here as 12 hits (4MW) saved later the unharmed Dom won the combat to stand supreme in the centre of the table. The second terminator formation then failed to engage the Nest Swarm on my Blitz and the game was on. We traded formations trying to break and wipe out as much as possible whilst never gaining enough advantage to win out right.
Main points of note were the Marine Landspeeders doubling, shooting and killing my Harridan bolstering my Blitz defence. They then subsequently won an engagement from the Hive Nest as I attempted to shift them. The Trygon and Raveners breaking the Marine BTS to hold the Blitz and almost win the game 2-1 at the end of the fourth turn until a Thunderhawk flew in to contest the objective. Counting back on points I just hadn’t finished off enough of Richard’s formations and it was approximately 400pts in his favour with me being thankful that we did not roll to go into a fifth turn. A tough, tough game against an opponent who can complain about their luck as much as me and still pull it out. I look forward to the rematch.
The final game was against Simon and more Marines. There were several things going for me in this game. As Simon has said above, Marines vs Nids don’t go well for him in his experience so I was up already. Simon was manfully running the tournament and I know how draining that can be and after my result against Richard I felt that I was out of the running for the tournament and relaxed into the game.
Whilst I won’t say that it was easy, the game felt more like a club night game where the game just slipped along. The dice went in my favour and I slowly stripped Simon of activations and pushed forward to claim a straight forward victory. On an Imperial Tactica note I’d say that you end up too square onto the Nids at the end of turn 1 Simon. If you had been lined up more on the angle you could have tried to hit the closer formations first whilst limiting the response back. But then again what do I know as I’m a rubbish marine player.
It was great to see everyone again and to meet Florian and Stephan. Plus, I’m looking forward to reading DaveT’s report of the day.
however Charles was very cautious in pushing forwards and I was able to cut his activations down by killing his artillery, hydras and sentinels, a lucky engagement from some scouts on his Reg HQ BTS broke them, and I subsequently shot them to death and wiped them out, a final air-assault from some bikes on his shadowsword company failed, which left me with a 3-0 win (BTS, TSNP, T&H)
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More tournaments in Leicester....