Colonial GT Recap Part 2 - The opponents

A quick recap of the armies I faced at the colonial GT.

Round 1 - Lou Branco of the Warmongers and his awesome Eldar

 

My first game was against Lou who had just played at Adepticon.  His army looked great and was something that I had never played before.  Eldar is rare, but this wraithguard/wraithlord mix was totally outside my box.  He had prince yeriel as well.  His army had great synergy, giving extra toughness to the wraithguard from something.  His spells were handy and that damn table-wide 3 d6 to get of a psychic power was a pain in the ass.  My firepower was not enough to take out the guard with their high toughness and 3+ save.  He pulled pretty far ahead of me by turn 3. I had a chance to recover and almost draw by turn 6 but it went to turn 7 and I lost scoring only 7 points!  Great game though.  Lou was alot of fun and I know what what all those pretty eldar models do.

Round 2 - Jeff Omundson with Triple Land Raider Blood Angels w/ Mephiston

So I saw this list and was like oh shit!, bu then I was like, okay I have a good chance because there is 800 points of mech in 3 targets.  I figured I would stun the stormraven, pull a couple raiders away from my main army and shoot mephiston to death.  Well it turned out that I was firing NERF guns the whole game.   I couldnt kill anything.  Auto hit melta bombs - rolled a 1 on the pen table.   Lascannons could pen, but again... 1's and 2's.  Couple more pens...... weapon destroyed.   Complete garbage.  Jeff was a good general and he played his army well.  I managed to kill mephiston and his death company, but nothing else. I held until turn 6 but lost majorly.  I had to complain about my dice, but even Jeff said the game wasnt fun because I couldnt do anything.  Props to Jeff though for being a good sport and going on to make it to 4th place I believe. I think I scored another 7 points.

Round 3 - Ashley Eaton and her Chaos Daemons

 

 And so I found myself at the last table.... the good news was that there was beer and good company.  I was playing next to Jim from the Stout Smurf and my opponent, Ashley was cool to. Turns out Ashley and her husband are from VA, which is right down the road from my gaming area.  

  Deamons usually mess me up bad, but this time I deployed better and my rolls got alot better.  I was able to take out the Deamon Princes by turn 2 and the Keeper of Secrets by turn 3.  My thunderfire did well against the groups of Deamons running my way, especially her super big squad of hounds led by karnak.  In the end, I was able to score max mission points and most of the bonus points, i think it was like 30 something.  A great game and Ashley was a good sport as her dice were not rolling so hot and mine were above average.

Round 4 - Bryan Kentner and his Blood Angels with....... Mephiston!

Oh look.... 2 storm ravens with evil I kill everything dreadnaughts and our buddy mephiston.  This list looked like it was going to be so enjoyable to play, I cannot tell you how excited I got.

Okay, bitterness aside, Ben was really cool and fun to play against. He turbo boosted his stormravens at me turn 1 and I got lucky and wrecked them both.  Managed to stun both the dreads so I was safe for turn 2.  I stayed out of range of his devastators and had strong command of the battle until mephiston hit my lines.  My idiot self stayed in combat for about 2 turns longer than I wanted to (though I think with his initiative he would of caught me and kept me in anyways) preventing me from killing mephiston.  In the end, mephiston managed to kill my squad on my home objective and make me give up the primary objective.  I still squeezed a victory out but I gave up alot of points to that mistake.  Ben was alot of fun and it made up for the fact that he took Mephiston.

Round 5 - Ronen Yair of the Warmongers and his Blood Angels - Without Mephiston!!!!!!

 

Ronen brought a cool all infantry army with FNP out the wazzoo.  I thought I had him as the first few turns I really did good, but when I baited him with my TH/SS termies, he not only took it, but committed his entire jump force which completely wiped them out and allowed him to consolidate onto the objectives.  This wound up being what pushed me out of the lead and into a position that I just couldnt recover from.  He got his sang. priests into a position such that I just couldnt get anymore than 1 or 2 guys out of a squad per round due to the FNP.  In the end he would up scoring the needed 3 more KP's than me and 7 more VP's than the 300 he needed, which pushed me out and gave him the major victory.  I dont remember what I scored on this mission but it didnt matter.  Ronen played a great game and came back from an underdog position in my opinion. 

The Verdict:

All of my opponents were pretty cool.  I voted Lou as my favorite, though all of my opponents were cool and fun.  The tables were set up great with good terrain and the missions were complicated enough that it forced everyone to be out of the box, which was nice.  I made some big mistakes in my games, but that is how you learn and I still had a good time.  I expected to go to the colonial and go 1-4, so 2-3 wasnt too bad for me, especially since I know 1 game was my own stupidity and 1 game was at the very least the worst dice ever.  But what can you do.  

It was interesting to see how many Blood Angels players were there.  Mephiston is apparently an auto include. Props to Ronen for going against the grain.  There were also an abundance of Storm Ravens and Valkyrie/Vendettas..... I guess everyone will be ready for this summer of fliers crap when it comes out.

The paint scoring was a joke and it is sad that at such a good event they pissed so many people off on that.  The max score you could get was like 30 and the highest score was I believe 21.  They had too many discretionary points that could just be given or taken on a whim with no rhyme or reason.   I score 9 for the following reasons according to the head judge:

"my army didnt pop, space marines are not exciting, and were a basically drybrushed army"

"no theme, Crimson fists should have Pedro Kantor and Sternguard" forget the fluff I wrote and the fact that I have forgeworld and GW crimson fist iconography all over

These comments were just ignorant in my opinion, but what can you do.  They gave best painted to a extreme highlighted/dipped army.   Next stop..... craft store for some Pastells and varnish.

Despite this and the low light levels in the room.  I had a great time.  Thanks to the staff who set it up and ran it.

Colonial GT Wrap Up Part 1 - The Armies

Pictures of the lists that were present at the Colonial GT. 

Starting with the Beltway Gamers group armies:

Myself:

 

Marc Smith:

 

Dameon Green:

Seth Low:
 I cannot find a picture.


Here are pics of the majority of the armies:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I believe there were at least 3 other triple vendetta IG lists, but I did not take pictures of them.  I am sure I missed at least 5 other armies.  As you can see..... LOTS of blood angels, good amount of space wolves and vulkan lists.

Battle Report: Crimson Fists VS. Chaos Space Marines 1850 PTS

Wed 3/23/11 at Dream Wizards in Rockville, MD.
Psybilliah vs. Berimusmaximus (Bert).

We were trying Mission Alpha from the upcoming Colonial GT.
Spearhead deployment.  2 home base objectives plus 6 objectives that randomly either counts as an objective or are removed at turn 4.
Primary objective: Objectives
Secondary objective: take enemies homes base objective
Tertiary objective: Victory points

This was a crazy mission that wound up costing either of us a major victory, however, it was a close game and alot of fun.


Berts List (from memory) 1850 pts
2 x Deamon Princes of Nurgle w/ wings
3 x 6 man Berserkers w/ power fist in Rhinos w/ combi melta
15 x lesser deamons
3 x Dreads w/ Missile Launchers and DCCW
3 x Auto/Laz predators


Bert deploys first:

Psybilliah deploys (landspeeder storm w/ scouts in reserve)

 

I was stuck with this giant piece of terrain blocking me, but I figured he would go around it anyways, so I set expecting him to go down one side or the other, allowing one of my firing lanes to get some side armour, etc... It worked out great first turn, but in retrospect, I should of gone farther to one side or the other because my lanes were blocked more than I would of liked later in the game.

Turn 1:  Bert moves up and pops smoke on his vehicles.  A dread goes crazy and frags a pred, nothing really much going on. Some crack shots on the tacticals, stuns a predator.

I move the termies to the left and forward a bit and cast null zone to help ensure those DP's are going down.  Since the pred cant shoot, I move it up on the short edge to open its lanes for the next turn.  I unload a ton on the DP's and they go down.  respectfully to Bert, his rolls were not the best.  The thunderfire slows down a dread. The rhinos move forward a bit and get some cover, ready to melta some pill boxes or dreads.  Bert makes a fair amount of this smoke saves.

Turn 2: 
Bert moves forward with everything again.  Keeping one rhino back a bit in anticipation of my termies gating i guess. He shoots me a bit, kills a marine or 2 and both my attack bikers.  His berserker rhino moves up and is destroyed, the beserkers are then taken down to just a champion by the fury of my rhinos storm bolers. I dont want to let him down, so I gate my termies up, hoping that everyone will come play with them and be left in my lanes of fire afterwards. Thunderfire slows a dread down again.

Turn 3:
Berts deamons come in.  He disembarks his 2 remaining beserkers who shoot my termies with their pistols and cause them to take a test, which I choose to fail, bringing me into the ruin/cover closer to my side, in an attempt to get out of range of 2 berserk squads and a dread.  Turns out, he finally gets his rolls back and makes into combat with one squad and the dread, killing my termies and libby.  My storm comes in and melta bombs his back right predator, leaving them open to the fury of his scary dreadnaught and leaving the storm open to fire from his back predator. I push a rhino forward to try to get to his deployment zone and take out that middle predator. Again the thunderfire slows down a dread.  I just cant get a good shot off on the cannon, but dont want to move it and risk blowing it up on a 1.  Probably should of done that anyways.

Turn 4:
We roll for the objectives and all the ones on my side of the table go away, as does 1 of Berts, leaving the 2 objectives left in his deployment zone! Oh no!
Bert shoots the Storm off the table with is predator and then fires at the scouts, they choose to fail their test and run back, hoping the dread will chase them through all that fun difficult terrain. His deamons and unengaged berserker squads start running back to his home base objective. And an empty rhino moves up with a combi melta to but it doesnt do anything. I rush a rhino deeper into his deployment zone, but now I have these damn deamons to shoot to death.  I focus fire on them and several go down, but its a big, fearless squad so of course they just laugh. I shoot the middle and back predators, but only score some weapon destroyed results. My tactical in the ruins get the remaining zerkers down to 2 guys and I get a weapon destroyed on the dread in the ruins, taking out its DCCW.

Turn 5:
For some reason, there is no picture of this turn - probably because the Brotha http://www.canabrothagetasix.com/ came by and started kabitzing! J/K

Anyways, in this turn Berts Dread moved up and engaged my marines in ruins, they failed to put any krak grenades on it, imagine that.  Berts deamons move forward a bit and his zerkers get to his home base objective.  He pops one of my rhinos.  I manage to clear out the 2 zerkers hanging in the ruins with my tactical. And I fire my forward marines into this deamons hoping to get them out, but alas they do alright in the saves department.  I focus the rest of my fire on the zerkers, hoping to bring them down and off that home base objective, but he still has 3.

Turn 6:
 The deamons eat my forward tactical squad.  I wreck his predator contesting the 2 objectives.  The dread and my tacticals dance another turn and nothing happens.  I shoot all I have at his zerkers again, but alas, they live.

 

The game ends with us both holding no objectives other than out home bases.  This means we score no points for the Primary and Secondary objectives!!!! I take a minor win on victory points.

What a crazy mission.  I always enjoy playing Bert because he has a good time and take bad rolls well and keeps this fun.

Looking back, my deployment could of been better.  The objective randomness was hard because it didnt make sense to commit all my rhinos so far forward until turn 4 when they were already being used, who would of known that my objectives would all leave and he would keep 2/3.  not sure how you really prepare for that, but none the less, it was a good game.

Thanks to the Beltway Gamers www.beltway-gamers.com for the new terrain.

Hopefully I will get another test mission in on Sunday.