GoT 4 way free for all 40k tournament!

Last Saturday was the www.guardiansoftyr.com 40k Mayhem tournament. 4 players, each with 1000 points, on a 4 foot x 6 foot board fighting over a relic and kill points. It was definitely mayhem. Alliances were formed, only to be broken the next turn. Backs were stabbed and bodies littered the battlefields at Wargames Workshop Milton Keynes.

The Format of the tournament was 2 games of 4 way or 3 way free for all. Each game to last a max of 3 hours. The objective was a relic in the centre of the board, this was worth 20 points. Kill points were worth 2 points each. There were bonus points for things like turbo boosting, reserves and scout moves. There were also pre-tournament achievement points for things like having a painted army (1pt), 1 point for each unit, 1 point for each troop choice, wearing a t-shirt in the colours of your army. The achievement points and points gained for both games counted towards a total that decided the winner at the end.

Before the tournament had started I had tricks up my sleeve. I had engineered my army to get a ton of achievement points. 32 points to be exact. I had maxed out my force org chart and managed to fit in a fortification and 2 transports! This gave me a bit of a head start as the closest other person only had 23 achievement points. Having such a crazy army was very risky though as there was a lot of easy kill points in it.

My army list for the day:

Big Mek with Shokk attack gun and boss pole

Big Mek with boss pole (Warlord)

3x 10 Grots

3x 10 Ork Boyz

3x 5 Lootas

3x Kannons

2x Trukks

2x Deffkoptas with big shootas

1x buggie with rokkits

Aegis Defence line with Quad gun.

The plan was to simply hide behind the Aegis and shoot everything, once everything was dead hop out and grab the relic. Of course plans rarely survive contact with the enemy though.

Game 1

The tables for the first game were decided by order of achievement points from highest to lowest. This put me on a table with mech Dark Eldar in front of me, Dark Angels diagonally opposite me and Salamanders to my right. I deployed behind my Aegis and got to go first. The Dark Eldar deployed as far from everyone's guns as possible, the Dark Angels turtled up behind their Aegis and the Salamanders put a squad of terminators and a vindicator within spitting distance of my orks, ready to tear them up.

The Salamanders grabbed the relic and started hauling it back to their deployment zone. Bullets were flying in every direction except between myself and the Dark Angels. Forced started thinning out but the Salamanders still held the relic by turn 3. The Dark Eldar sent on their flyer, it dropped a bomb and promptly fell out of the sky due to a hail of fire from the Ork Quad Gun (hehe).

With the relic almost safely in the salamander hands all attention turned to him and his forces came under attack from all angles. He managed a rather cheeky manoeuvre though. The Dark Angels were sending their bikers to grab the relic once the remaining stragglers of salamanders were wiped out. The Salamanders had dragged the objective up a level in the ruins though. Bikes can't clime ladders!! Game ends and nobody has the objective......

Game 2

The tables for the second game were decided by how many points you got in the last game. On the top table were myself (Orks), Ken Chambers (my nemesis) (Tau), the pink Eldar and the Dark Eldar. 

This time I decided to play for second place. I deployed my Aegis further back from the edge of my deployment and stayed behind it hoping that everyone would forget about me.

The Eldar grabbed the relic before the game had even started. They infiltrated their rangers right on it. These were then reinforced with the help of jetbikes and then the wraithknight. The scouts died and the wraithknight picked it up.

Then the Dark Eldar swooped in, stabbing their brothers in the back. The wraithknight was toppled by the combined firepower of the Dark Eldar, Orks and Tau. Wracks got out of their venom and ambled over to the relic and picked it up.

As soon as the wracked picked up the relic they got shot out of existence by the Tau who send over their 2 riptides to pick it up. 2 riptides in 1000 points!!! Goddamit Ken!

The Eldar were wiped out by this point and the Orks and Dark Eldar set out to kill the Riptides. I gave up after a round of unsuccessful shooting and started picking of Tau infantry and Dark Eldar things.

The Riptides just laughed off the incoming fire with their 2+ saves and feel no pain. They went and hit in the corner away from my guns and waited for the end of the game. The end came and they still had the objective. Bodies lay everywhere..... except in the ork deployment zone! My plan to be ignored worked. I only lost 4 units, 2x deffcoptas, a buggy and a trukk. Everyone else was devestated. Ken had just his 2 riptides and his HQ suit thingy, the Deldar had a couple of venoms and a ravager and the Eldar were gone completely.

After the totals were added up I was expecting Ken to win as he had the relic and me (hopefully) get 2nd. Lo and behold! I beat him with a crap ton of bonus points and kill points. 44 points to 42! The trick was keeping 9 units in reserve as each one got me a point when it came on. Also sitting back and picking off stragglers with my lootas made a big difference. Sorry Ken.

End Result

After the end of the game I had no idea who would win as it was possible to get a huge amount of points if played right, Ken got  52 points in the first game. The results were announced in order from last to first. Making me wait to be put out of my misery. I came first!!! AAAAhhhh! I went into the tournament thinking it was impossible to plan and win in free for all games. I didn't even touch the relic in either game. Turns out that was the winning move. Let everyone duke it out for the relic and you just sit there killing them one by one.

YAY!

Thanks to Ian Wardle of Guardians of Tyr for organising the event and thanks to everyone who took part.

	Total
	Pts	T. ach	G. ach	Kp's	S.troops	Relic
Michael towers	116	32	40	34	10	0
Ken chambers 2	110	16	19	34	1	40
James hulance Taylor 1	81	21	17	22	1	20
Chris king 3	79	23	22	30	4	0
Dan burrows 1	69	22	13	14	0	20
David Stewart 1	69	14	18	16	1	20
Keaton James Callaghan 3	69	12	19	18	0	20
Jake trapnell 0	61	14	15	10	2	20
Michael Stewart 2	60	15	15	28	2	0
Steven almond 1	58	17	21	16	4	0
Dean Hankin 0	45	15	18	12	0	0
Tobias Barr 0	42	17	8	14	3	0
Tom van den end 0	41	16	14	10	1	0
	0		0	0	0	0
numbers after names indicate	0		0	0	0	0
warlord kills	0		0	0	0	0

The Final GoT 40k Tournament of 2012 and the Grand Champion announced

Last Sunday was the final battle in this year's Guardians of Tyr 40k championship. It was a big game with 2 teams which were randomly selected. Each player had 2000 points but no force org chart. We had 4 secret team objectives worth 30 points each and personal objectives that could total up to 40 points and these could be secret from your allies if you wished. There were lots of bonus points available for things like having a fully painted army or deepstriking or killing a warlord.

The game is limited to 4 turns....

I think the crazy rules for this game may have scared some players off as there were less than usual. We still had a great game though. 3 on each side. On my side we had Glenn Few's Red Scopion marines, myself with Necrons and Imperial guard with a Warhound Titan! Our opponents were Space marines, Ken's Salamanders and Ian (Duggie Dunlop)'s Grey Knights. There were 4 Land Raiders on the table! 2 of them directly opposite me!

The board was 3 6 foot by 4 foot tables and there were 12 objectives in three lines equally spaced. Out team objectives were 2 in the middle on out side and 2 in the middle on the opposition side. My personal objectives were to hold 2 on our side and one in the middle line.

I'm not going to go a full battle rep as it was a huge game and I can't actually remember it all. I'll do some highlights though.

I had to rush to paint Zahndrek and Obyron on the Friday before the game as Weyland games failed me and I had to go to a physical shop to get the models. Won't be ordering from them again!

My army:

Squad 1
Zahndrek
Cryptek with veil of darkness
20 warriors

Squad 2
Obyron
Lord with res orb and warscythe
20 warriors

Squad 3
Overlord with res orb, warscythe etc.
Cryptek with veil of darkness
20 warriors

5 warriors
4 night scythes

So I had a highly mobile, hard hitting and hard wearing force. Capable of hurting vehicles or infantry alike and hopefully capable of doing some damage if they get charged.

We get to deploy 2nd and fail to seize the initiative.

Ken's Gunline of Tanks

Glenn's Tanks

Turn 1, enemy drop pod lands. With the power of Zahndreks cheese I bring on all of my flyers in their turn. They promptly shoot 2 of them out of the sky before I've done anything with them. Fail on my part maybe?

I deep strike my 3 squads of warriors behind Ken's horde of tanks and take out a landraider and a land speeder.

Other damage ensues everywhere.

Turn 2. I deepstrike my stuff again. I plonk a squad next to Ian's land raider then forget to fire it, then get torched by AP3 flamers from a dreadknight but I messed up the armour saves, had to roll again and only took 1 wound on the overlord with all the warriors safe.

Kens other land raider and his vindicator get taken out. Glenn has terminators in his deployment area and a combat between his warlord and his opponents.

This combat seemed to last all game, the stubborn guard blob just wouldn't leave combat

I rolled a misplaced on the mishap table when my deep strike went wrong. Ken placed the squad in the far corner and then afterwards found out the two dreadnoughts were on his side and he'd plonked me in rapid fire range of both.

 Turn 3 is a mulchy mess of combat and shooting. I loose my flyer that has 5 warriors in it and they come on from the edge.

He's bravely running away!

 Turn 4. The game breaker turn. Everyone manoeuvres to claim objectives. My 5 man warrior squad amble up to a team objective and nobody seems to notice hehe. I deepstrike one of my squads onto one of my personal objectives but scatter and land on the wrong one but luckily it still gives me points. I deepstrike a 2nd squad and hit the mark, claiming a 20 point objective. My 4th squad shoot the snot out of a squad of marines contesting and objective with myself and Glenn, while their overlord detaches and punches a tank to death.

End game.
At the end of the game none of us had a clue how well we did. Our objectives were secret and there were bonus points to add up too. Our side held to of our team objectives and the opponents held 1 and contested one. I managed to claim all 3 of my bonus objectives by accident due to the scatter.

There was a tense countdown from last place to first. I managed to get 1st with 169 points WOOO! I can't remember the rest of the scorings but because we held the 2 team objectives our side came in the top 3. Always remember the objectives.......

Things I've learnt that day.
Super heavies just don't die! That titan kept taking shots but barely noticed anything.
Huge squads of warriors that can deepstrike and have res-orbs are AWESOME!
Nightscythes aren't as awesome and scary as everyone makes out, in the last few times I've used them they haven't done much damage, but they are cheap so I'm not bothered. They make a good distraction.
Landraiders are laughable against lots of gauss fire, I feel bad when I kill the tanks so easily.

The Guardians of Tyr Warhammer 40,000 Grand Champion for 2012 is:
erm, me.  The only person that could have challenged me didn't come to this game.

Look at that smug bastard!

Warmachine Journeyman League Final Week - Prizes for everyone!

Last Monday was the final week of the club Journeyman league. Only one game left and then results and awards at the end.

The battle was 35 points with no restrictions. I stuck with the starter box as the jacks work well but I changed the caster to have a play with the Witches Coven of Garlghast. The coven has some interesting abilities that I wanted to try, like making a unit have stealth or adding +2 speed, +2 mat and terror.

My opponent was Martin Copperwheat and his Khador. He used some bizarre caster that had to roll each turn to find out how much focus he had. His force had a fair amount of shooty stuff, with 2 squads of sniper things, a sniper solo and some heavy infantry with guns.

Martin was the home player so he got to setup first, he deployed everything in a long line in the pic above. I deployed in a deny flank formation putting everything in the right corner of the board. 

Martins first turn was just moving stuff up towards me.

On my first turn I cast stealth on the deathjack for laughs, infernal machine on my stalker jack, giving it +2 speed for a total of 9. The stalker then ran a whopping 18 inches! I also plonked a cloud aoe thing between my army and his shooters blocking LOS. 

Martin then moved up again right into my charge range, he tried some shooting at my chicken jack but its high def made the shots miss.

For a few turns we had various bundles of combat along the middle line of the board. Deathjack was chopping people to bits, at one point he had 4 focus that he generated himself with his skulls and with soul tokens giving me 13 focus on the board!

We were slowly chomping through each others army until the time was almost up. I frantically thought of a way to end the game quickly and found a way. The chicken on the left of death jack in the picture above was dead at this point. Deathjack was locked in combat with his heavy jack. With a crazy combo of spells I managed to get deathjack into combat with his caster with 5 focus on Deathy. I cast ghost walker on deathy, which allowed him to move out of combat without getting free struck, I then cast curse of shadows on his heavy infantry to make them almost incorporial, allowing me to move through them without penalty, I also cast infernal machine on deathy to give him +2 speed and +2 mat. Deathy then walked around the big jack, going through the infantry and into combat with his caster. After 2 boosted hits with deathjacks fists his caster was dead. Victory.

 After my game everyone's scores were tallied up for the award giving. Congrats to Ian Wardle for getting the most Journeyman points and hobby points with an overall score of 67, he was awarded badges for painting and overall points. I came second over all but first for game points so I got a little badge for it. Carl Sharman actually scored the same amount of game points as me but had painted less so the judge (Barrie) ruled that I beat him even though when the two of us actually played he beat me lol. 

Everyone who played received badges for the points they achieved and a league badge. 

Overall scores were:

 

	GP	HP	JP
Ian Wardle	21	46	67
Michael Towers	27	13	40
Barrie Wardle	24	13	37
Carl Sharman	27	6	33
Adam Eaton	23	0	23
David Copperwheat	17	5	22
Dave Bartley	21	0	21
Martin Copperwheat	16	0	16

  Thanks to Barrie of www.guardiansoftyr.com for organising the league.

Warmachine Journeyman League week 5

This weeks restrictions: 35 points - Caster Swap Allowed - Game length 90 mins. 2 games to be  played.

This Sunday after a week of procrastination on the issue I started painting my Cryx starter box. With about 20 minutes to spare before I had to leave I had managed to finish it. Deneghra, Slayer, 3 death chickens all painted and based. I’ll probably put some finishing touches on them later though, like verdigris and the green glow of Cryx. So I’ve now got 13 hobby points putting me way out in first place for painting stuff……. Except for the fact that Ian Wardle has gone mental and obviously has far too much time on his hands, he’s somehow managed to paint up 30 points worth of trollbloods!!!!!1! Nerd rage ensued when I found this out checking the scores when I got home :( I would have to buy loads of cryx to equal this insane amount of painting and its not worth of for a sew on badge.

My army for the day, starter box, Deathjack, banethralls and mechanithralls

 

Before I start with the 2 games I played that night I should point out that Carl also pulled out some stops and had bought, assembled and almost finished painting the Cryx Colossal, the Kraken. Fortunately for me I didn’t have to play him that night and don’t have to play him in the final week either. Phew.

Game 1

My first game was against Adam Eaton’s Menoth. I was a bit nervous about this game as Adam was effectively undefeated up until this point. He had lost 2 games but this was down to him not being there that night. I had been defeated twice, so simple mathhammer told me I should loose this as Adam is a good player and I know he’s got loads of experience playing the game.

I was the home player so I got to go first.

 I moved my guys up cautiously. I managed to get my Mechanithralls and Deathjack within charge range of the roght flank. I expected to take some flak but thought I’d still have some thralls left and deathjack a bit damaged but I’d be able to put him in combat with squishy guys and heal the damage. I thought wrong. Adam killed all the mechanithralls in one go. I did manage to get deathy into combat and killed 1 man :( Adam then charged in his heavy jack into Deathjack after his choir and caster managed to increase the jacks hit and damage rolls by 3. Deathjack died to that one charge from a super buffed but otherwise normal heavy jack :( I was not a happy bunny.

His caster heroically hiding behind a wall of metal

My Banethralls went up the other flank and managed to get into combat with his other heavy jack. 3 Banes charged in and a 4^th just ran in to surround it and stop it doing the weird running away thing that Adam had planned. 3 charging Banes with 4d6 damage didn’t do anything to it at all.

I managed to get my acid belching death chicken into range of his caster and shot it, I killed one of the choir, did some damage to his caster and got corrosion on the caster and the big dude in front of him. The phase two of my evil plan, Deneghra cast venom 3 times through the death chicken. Yay for arc nodes! Didn't kill him though. He had 6 health afterwards.

Adam then popped his feat which stopped me from doing any focus generating for a turn. Bummer. Deneghra cast her feat and ran away from the enemy.

We didn't get much more done than that. We ran out of time. A draw by default is better than a loss. It was the first game Adam hasn't won in the league. Woo, I didn't die :D

Game 2 

David Copperwheat's Skorne again. This table had a nice pond and wall to hinder movement unless you have ghost walk, which Deneghra conveniently does. David was the home player and had first turn.

I deployed with my main bulk in the middle, my mechthralls on the right and my banethralls on the left. David had deployed his shooty stuff on my left so I put the banethralls there to take advantage of their stealth and negate his shooting a little.


On my turn I ran everything except the banes up the right hand side to hide behind the wall. 

David couldn't do much with all my stuff behind the wall. I managed to get the charge and sent in my Mechanithralls and Deathjack into his big infantry line, smooshing them in the process. 

Both sides ended up bundling into this combat. My acid spray chicken dealt dealth along a long line of infantry all bunched up, catching one of my other chickens but not damaging it.  

David then made a fatal error. He'd kept his caster too close to me and I popped my feat, catching all the skorne. I lowered almost all of their stats by 2. He'd also moved the big beast in front of his caster away from it into combat with my Mechanithralls. David popped his feat which stopped me from allocating any focus. I then finished the game by getting Deathjack and a chicken into combat with his unprotected caster. My jacks had no focus but Deathy deals and absolute ton of damage anyway and managed to pulverise him. Game won. There was only 3 minutes left on the clock, too close for comfort.

Deathjack perfoms the coup de grace.

 
By the end of the night I had won 1 game and drew 1. This put me in 2nd place for overall points and joint 1st for game points. Ian's insane painting spree means he's pretty much guaranteed to win overall unless someone else decides to go nuts. It won't be me that's for sure.

The league score's at the end of this week are:

 

		GP	HP	JP
1	Ian Wardle	20	30	50
2	Michael Towers	24	13	37
3	Barrie Wardle	22	7	29
4	Carl Shaman	24	0	24
5	Adam Eaton	22	0	22
6	Dave Bartley	19	0	19
7	David Copperwheat	14	5	19
8	Martin Copperwheat	15	0	15

Game Points: W3/D2/L1
Hobby Points: Newly Painted Models
Journeyman Points: GP + HP
 
 1 More game to play next week against Martin Copperwheat, will he avenge his father? I know he's using Khador so I'll plan accordingly.