Game 2 - RichardL CSM

RichardL is one of the top players in the UK, and to stand any chance against him I had to be bang on top of my game, and have a fair dose of luck.
The first turn started fairly cagely, with plenty of jockeying for position, and few casulties on either side (flaming Fighta Bommas couldn't hit a barn door with a banjo).
I made an error of judgement at this point, running my BTS warband (usually big enough to handle itself in a fight) forwards ready to get stuck in on T2.

RichardL then won the roll off for T2, and the fighting began in earnest.

It was at this stage, that I realised I'd underestimated how much threat RichardL was able to bring to bear between his Retinue, Terminators teleporting in, and a bunch of summoned deamons.
A brutal fight ensured and, while I managed to take down 3 of the termies, my BTS was left massively mauled and broken.

So that was a mistake made, and round about now lady luck buggered off to see what scraps of the lunch buffet were still around.

Most engages I tried bounced, most armour saves failed, and the glorious to hit rolls from my previous game with IJW were nowhere to be seen.
Sometimes you have to accept that it just isn't going to be your day, so I tried not get too down about it and focus on doing what I could to limit the size of the loss.

In the end keeping it to a 2-0 loss was about as good as it was going to get. RichardL didn't make any mistakes of note and fully deserved his win.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Game 3 - Blip Black Legion

I was drawn against Blip in the third round, which was eargerly anticipated as he's from the SW crew and we've been enjoying a bit of a feud going back to Exeter Entrenchment 2015 when we met for the first time and he took my (freshly painted) Great Gargant down.
In this game he had a spaceship (a nemisis unit for me and my hordes of LVs) and a couple of Decimators, who are capable of taking chunks out of my army.

The game got off to a good start with the spaceship missing everything, although the Retinue that podded in somehow broke my fully intact BTS warband before it activated.

His Helltalons chose to intercept a unit of my FBs, which was a relief as it meant that my Landa with Warbike cargo could come in later unmolested.

After this Blip started castling up several of his formations, protecting his Blitz and covering nearby T&H objectives. While OW fire can be a pain for Orks, I was comfortble as Blip was pinning his troops in place allowing me to control the board.
My FBs broke his two Armoured Cos which whittled away the available support and allowed me to move several formations up for a large supported assault against the BTS Retinue and intermingled Decimator.

Winning the above assault took out the BL BTS, and at the same time allowed me to secure a 3-0 win (BTS, Blitz and T&H) in T3.

Overall this was a game that I was wary about going into as my last meeting with Blip and his BL was an incredibly close fought affair that I was hanging on throughout and only snatched at the death. But this time around I was able to take advantage of Blips cautiousness and grab the win. Another really enjoyable game, against a gorgeous looking BL force.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Round 4 - Steve Eldar

Game four and I was up against Steve54. I think I've played him 8-9 times at EUK events, and lost every single time.
I like to think that it's because he wusses out and runs high-strategy armies like Marines/Eldar, but I *suspect* it might be because he is just a much better player than me...

Anyway, for this game I decided to play it as tight as possible, not rush in and see how things looked towards the end of T3.

Oh, and he had a spaceship. In London earlier in the year his marine spaceship dropped its load on two formations with uncanny precision, covering 32 models. I wasn't looking forward to this time, as I had even more models on the table making it even harder to avoid...

Anywho, we got started and the spaceship came in, hitting a KoS and obliterating 10 models in the process. Already down by one fighting unit... ho-hum...

I managed to get a set of fighta bommas on CAP, which would hopefully mean his Vampire packing Dire Avengers wouldn't have it all his own way later on.

The remainder of the turn saw some tit-for-tat movement with me reluctant to come out until his Falcons etc had activated to stop them mincing through my main LV formations.

We ended the turn with a largish assault by the Vampire and DA, with plenty of support from Guardians/Wave Serpents.
The Vampire took CAP damage on the way in (woohoo) but failed to Crit (dang) and in the subsequent fight I lost a huge chunk of my BTS.

T2 started with the Eldar in a really strong position, the Avatar rocking up, and Steve promptly rolling a 1 for Strategy!

I was somewhat surprised at this, having mentally prepared for the remainder of the game to only take about 15 mins given the current position of forces!
I carried out two engages against both Falcon formations, breaking both units. Not the biggest threats individually, but they were what I could get to without incurring huge amounts of supporting fire, and it also stripped away all of Steves ground AA.

The remainder of this turn was largely spent exchanging assaults, with the Eldar gradually winning the war of attrition.
The only ray of hope was the staggering rate at which Steves Wave Serpents were dying - not enough to break the guardian units, but enough to deny him some mobility.

T3 saw me finally lose my BTS to death-by-plinkage, and both massively depleted forces consolidate positions to try and edge the win.
I had an outside shot at an unlikely win, to do so I needed to assault the remaining Dire Avengers near my Blitz, and move the remnants of a warband onto some of the other T&H objectives.

Sadly the assault on the DA went wrong when we tied the assault, fighting two rounds of combat and leaving both sides broken.
Steve then saw the threat of the warband, shooting it up with a Vampire. I failed all my saves and the formation broke.

Having reached the end of T3 and run out of time with Steve leading 1-0, we counted VPs to find Steve ahead by approx 300 to claim a winning draw.

All things considered, I was happy with that result!

Round 5 - MephistonAG Tyranids

The final game saw me pitted against MephistonAGs Tyranid horde. This was something of a double-edged matchup for me; on the one hand it was a game where the opposition wasn't going to be skirting around trying to avoid me (quite the opposite in fact!) and didn't have an abundance of AA to shut me down. Conversely while my freaks are generally more suited to FF, the Nids would want to be going B2B... couple that with the fact I need to get within 15cm to do most of my damage meant I was going to have to get uncomfortably close!
Oh, and Meph had TWO Dominatrix. Which was an issue, as I didn't really have any way of killing one, let alone two!

Meph won the roll for T1 strat, and began by scuttling his Nids forward into cover, to avoid getting strafed by my Landa.

I tried to focus in T1 on knocking out an activation or two to try and give me an advantage going into T2. I managed to smoke out the Nids who were garrisoned on one of my T&H, and put a big dent in an Infantry formation who had approached on my right flank.
Some lucky shooting allowed me to crit the small bio-titan who was accompanying the Dominatrix in Mephs BTS, but other than that the first turn was fairly quiet.

With both armies now VERY close to each other, the T2 Strategy roll was going to be vital. I managed to get this crucial roll, and immediately tried to 'do it to him, before he did it to me'. My first engagement saw a Gunwagon mob advance on a Nid inf unit, and assault it with support from another nearby set of Wagonz. The plan worked, and the Nids broke and legged it. The engaging unit the consolidated itself slightly closer to the next Nid inf unit in a nearby wood. I then retained and engaged this second formation with the second set of Wagonz that had supported the first engagement. Despite having support again, I whiffed my attacks and lost the assault, breaking back to my own Blitz.

Meph took advantage of this by doubling forward a Harridan unit who was currently uncomfortably alone and close to two of my formations on his left flank, to prep and support an assault by his Dominatrix. At this stage however the dice gods intervened and the big gribbly refused to activate, even with the encouragement of the supreme commander. Phew!

I was able to seize on this misfortune and start engaging other Nid units, pushing them back and starting to threaten Mephs Blitz. Meanwhile my bikes shot over to my extreme right flank to secure one of the T&H objectives.



T3 was more of the same, I was able to keep the pressure on, ably assisted by Meph failing a couple of activation rolls which prevented his fightback from gathering any momentum.
Having secured the Blitz and T&H by this point, I mounted an assault on his BTS Gribbly. Despite some 30 odd units taking part, I wasn't able to inflict a single wound! The only one getting through the armour being repelled by the Inv Save, much to Mephs delight! Given the earlier activation rolls, this luck was fully deserved...!


Breaking any units that contested my objectives and pulling stuff back to stop sneaky Nids grabbing any objectives, I was able to see the game out for a 2-0 win in the third turn.

The last time I played Meph I made some poor decisions and lost, so I was pleased not to make the same mistakes this time. Luck played its part at crucial times for me in this game, otherwise it would have been a very different outcome...



Finally, a word of thanks to Steve54 and MephistonAG for the smooth running of the event, Battlefield Hobbies for hosting us in their the fantastic facilities, and IJW, RichardL, Blip, Steve54 and Meph for 5 great games, I was chuffed to grab a top 3 finish and come home with more of Stugs superb artwork.

Congrats also go to RichardL for taking the Championship, and Stevekcole for claiming the (paper) Plate honours.

See you in 2017 folks!!!

Cheers
Reedar



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Awesome stuff guys! Thanks again for all the pics and reports. Sorry to hear you'll be putting away the Squats for a while SteveKcole. But I'm looking forward to seeing what force you do decide to take.

_________________
Resident Squat Army Fanatic

I can guarantee one thing. Following that game with Richard whatever I take next will activate on a 1+

_________________

Eh, don't get your hopes up - over the weekend i failed a god awful number of activations/rally rolls despite the 1+activation army...

Well, I look forward to new and spectacular ways to fail to activate while complaining that none of my units have 90cm death ray shooting.

_________________

As you all know, my dice hate me - join the club

Except against my poor redcoats

Sent from my 4034X using Tapatalk