Golden throne Game 2

With the first fun game behind me I got to meet Jacek another fine gentleman. Jacek likes AP3 alot....

His list was an angels of death list with Blood angels and dark Angels It was something like this...

Drop pod 5 man squad meltagun
Drop pod 5 man squad meltagun

Drop pod 10 man squad 2 meltaguns

Drop pod 10 man squad 2 meltaguns
Drop pod 5 sang guard

4* Helios platform missiles
4* Helios platform

2* devestator squads missile launchers

1* plasma cannon devestators

2 librarians with presience.

Landing pad

Setup Long table edge, Kill points

First big roll of the game I get protect on the shadowseer . I get exited and forget to change out enervate for conceal Doh... forgetting about those plasma cannons who care less for a 2+ save.

Turn 1 

I win first turn and give it to Jacek this leaves  me with the table end with the big LOS blocking building. He gets 2 buildings and the landing pad at his end. He sets the landing pad up about 12 inches into his deployment zone and the BA devs/DA devs and all 3 helios setup around it with his warlord and other librarian nearby to cause annoyance with their prescience! 

I setup very deep myself leaving Jacek's army out of range turn 1 and hiding a good portion of my army.

the warwalkers, hornets, bikes and 1 warp spider unit go in reserve.  

Jacek takes a long look at the board and says hmm you are a good player aren't you? Smiling. He then decides that his drop pods have to drop deep in his own zone as putting them into my forces will just mean they will be eliminated.  I respond by telling him I now know I'm playing a good player too as dropping in would have been suicide.

Protect fails to go off which is very disappointing as I was planning on walking up the middle... instead I have to retrench to stay out of range of that ferocious amount of AP3

Turn 2 

With still few units to fire at no real damage is done. One dev squad rumbles forward and plinks at the wraithknight to no effect and the plasma devs run forward to try getting into range (but bring an LOS unit into play). the remaining droppods arrive and cluster together on the right flank... one scatters quite a long way forward.

Realising that this game is going to be cagey and that first blood may even win it I roll my reserves.

The hornets and bike squads hide and  the  warwalkers go for broke at the limit of their range to try and kill a drop pod. Warpspiders dropping in my own zone scatter 11 inches and are left fractionally off the board.... they then roll a 2 and are placed right in front of my opponents army.

the Helios open up with a thunderous fury and kill 7 of the 8 (about average but could easily have gone the wrong way). Whew!!!

The wraithguard move forward with Protect up and stay out of line of sight of the plasma cannons.

The Warwalkers wreck the Drop pod as expected and then scoot back behind the building (bar one who promptly gets a scatter laser blown off by the devestators) . This is pretty game defining and means that in his next turn Jacek is going to have to come for me.

Turn 3

Jacek's marines start hoofing it up the board and everything he has unloads at the wraithguard killing a solitary one (2+ rerolls are awesome) He then charges them and although I was expecting a win it turns into a slap fight as the Blood angels make 4 FNP rolls. 

In my turn the slap fight continues with no deaths. The wraithknight and warwalkers (dancing once again) kill a few marines from the 2 10 man squads.

Turn 4

Again with most of my army  out of range and 2 other squad of marines joins the fight in the center. 

Again this is a slap fight with no deaths. this time however I am in a position to hit and run. leaving his units in the open. 

In my turn I kill the sang guard so no more feel no pain for nearby units which subsequently get gunned down / reduced to a handful of models. The Wraithknight does fail a 5 inch charge to finish them off.

Turn 5

In a last ditch effort Jacek fires everything at the wraithguard unit and does eventually manage to kill the baron (1 for look out sir, 1 for save and 1 for reroll save -nice work dumbass!!) He then follows up with a charge but loses the combat as there are so few marines left. 

At this point with my end of the table secure and with my Wraithguard ready to run rampant in his lines + a decent lead in kill points Jacek decides to shake on it.

Summary:

Very cagey game which just about went my way, one of those games where getting ahead early gave you a huge advantage, further emphasised by the point from first blood. Jacek was a smart player and made the right calls but the dice fell my way. Also playing long table edge with tons of intercept with a foot and deepstriking list is a royal pain in the ass. 

MVP's this game would have to be the warwalkers again as they got me that early lead. The Spiritseer and his 2+ generated save was pretty awesome too though as it allowed me to threaten the angels lines.

So 2 games and 2 wins - pretty happy with that as again this was a tough matchup. Next round I get to play Trip Riptide Tau against Adam, who I trounced once with Nids on marines and he trounced me once with eldar on new tau.... how will the decider roll 

Golden throne gt Intro and game 1

With very little planning and less play testing I rocked up to the golden throne tournament in pleasanton California.

The venue was the Alameda county fairgrounds ... Quite a spacious hall with lots of tables. 32 gaming tables and 32 more between each so that everyone has a place to put their stuff. Very nice touch.

The event was managed by rob who did an awesome job!

The basics of the event were as follows...
2000 points
Double force org
Allies and fortifications
Forge world approved allowed
No forge world army lists
Book missions

64 players broken into 8 groups
3 games each day
Win all 3 games day 1 to go into knockout day
Day 2 for everyone else was a reppachage tournament

I had never played in anything like it but was actually very impressed. It made every game nailbiting.

First off my list.
Wraithseer
Spiritseer

Bel Ananth of Mymeara

9 Wraithguard

3* 3 jetbikes

2* Hornets

2*8 warp spiders

Wraithknight

Baron Sathonyx

10 kabalites with splinter cannon.

Overall I was comfortable that this army could put up against most things pretty well. the only things I was really afraid of were lots and lots of Ap 3 especially with ignore cover.

In my first game I was drawn against Keno - who is very familiar with this army as he actually painted most of it!! 

Keno was playing with a Slaanesh noise marine army (Ap3 and ignores cover blastmasters!) His army was a work in progress using sanguinary guard as the basis for his noise marines and lots of gold and purple base colours.  On the plus side eldar do Hate slaanesh :)

He has grand plans for how this will end up and I am sure it will be spectacular.

Kenos army was something like

Slaanesh lord on bike

3*10 blastmaster units

1* 5 man blastmaster unit

Vendetta with company command

Guard platoon with lascannons

3* lascannon sabre platforms

Aegis defence with comms relay.

Heldrake * 2 with baleflamers

Mission was Vanguard strike 3 objectives

Setup.
Nothing interesting with my powers, conceal and enervate both pretty much useless
I setup with my warwalkers skirting the big LOS blocker in the middle. and the wraithguard and wraithlord slightly left of center. Warpspiders both deepstrike and the hornets do too.

Turn 1
I go first in night fight conditions the warwalkers jump out and fleet back behind the terrain killing a few noise marines including one blastmaster in the process. The wraithguard power forward 11" with fortune up and spread out... the baron leads the way. The wraithlord plinks one of the sabre platform and the wraithseer kills another. the last one breaks and runs away (ld7) for first blood. Good start!

Keno's blastmasters and lascannons respond by targetting the wraithknight (loses 2 wounds) and kill 1 wraithguard. Everything stays pretty much hunkered down and readies their weapons.

Turn 2
In reserves my bikes stay off (due to Keno's master of the fleet) and one of the warpspiders jumps in on the right flank close to a 5 man squad. They manage to kill another blastmaster and 2 marines from the squad. They then jump behind a wall to save retaliation.
The Wraithguard power forward again and are now standing about 5" from the enemy lines - looking menacing. The wraithseer follows them firing his D cannon as he goes. A rent in space time opens catching the Chaos lord and his closest aides killing them. Great job wraithseer!  This takes the counter punch capability from the chaos infantry and gains warlord!
The Warwalkers do the dance of doom again and kill 6 marines including 2 blast masters.... you might even think I was targetting them

everyones favourite time of the game... when the reserves get rolled for Hell turkeys....

They both arrive thanks to the comms relay as does the vendetta. The vendetta kills a few warriors on the left flank (sitting on my home objective. The right flank turkey kills 7 of the 8 warpspiders but the remaining one looks very focused....  The left flank turkey kills 2 wraithguard. The Blastmasters take 2 more wounds of the Wraithknight.

Turn 3
the second warp spider squad arrives behind the right flank turkey and the hornets hove in on the rear of the vendetta.
The wraithguard and wraithknight charge the guard blob clearing the platoon from the objective. The warwalkers work around the hill to get behind the other turkey they open up and the twinlinking of the starcannons proves very useful as it pens and kills the Helldrake.

The warpspiders including the survivor focus on the right flank Helldrake and do exactly nothing (for some reason my warpspiders just don't like shooting at aircraft and damn the statistics - no hits at all!) The Hornets have slightly better luck vector putting 2 glances on the vendetta.


Keno is on the ropes but hes is not done yet. the turkey blasts the wraithguard squad killing 4 and the remaining noise marines train all fire on the wraithguard and the warpspiders killing most of them. He also tries a very aggressive drop with the flamer toting platoon command to try and clear my Kabalite warriors from the objective but scatter too far away to do damage.



Turn 4.
The wraithknight charges a 6 man squad of  noise marines and takes 2 krak grenades to the face. while killing only one - the wraithknight is left on one wound. The wraithguard decide to try for the left hand objective but roll a 2 on difficult terrain so charge a remnant squad of marines and the master of the fleet. Killing them instead.

The hornets and the kabalites open up on the platoon command killing them to a man.

The hornets take down the vendetta and the warwalkers (Heading into MVP territory for sure) manage to put 2 glances on the surviving helldrake... the warpspiders manage a solitary hit to take it down ... at least someone seems to have learned how to point their gun skywards! They then jump back on the right flank objective to contest.

Keno's remaining undamagedsquad takes umbrage at their temerity and blasts them into oblivion. A lone remining blastmaster also tries to kill the wraithknight but fails to wound for the first time. (Keno showed a very amusing ability to scatter every single time but just scatter 4" so hitting anyway)


Turn 5
In turn 5 the wraithseer and wraithknight clean up the remnants around the aegis area to claim linebreaker and the wraithguard head back to the objective.
The warwalkers again do their merry little dance and blast 5 marines from the remaining squad, being fearless they stay where they are.

The last remaining blastmaster tries again to kill the wraithknight but scatters away for the first time.

With only a sole remaining troop and the wraithknight and the wraithseer closing in angrily keno decides to call it at that.

MVP - The wraithseer just loses out here as his FNP, linebreaker and warlord were a massive contribution

A win for this odd hodgepodge of a list which I am pretty happy with and a tremendously fun game with a gentleman of a player. I roll on to round 2 where Jacek and his Helios await... find out how that goes on the next blog post :)