Nova Open Day 2 - Round 4
Ok, well it was a new day and 1 more game in the first round before getting separated into brackets. My opponent was a nice guy and it was a fun game to play, but I have to say the dice cost me this game. Normally I don't blame the dice, but keep reading...
Mission & Setup - Round 4 was a control mission. There were 4 objectives, 1 in the center of each table quarter, and a 5th objective in the center of the board. Due to a scoring/reporting issue with Torrent of Fire the day before I end up with the wrong opponent. My opponent is running a herald heavy deamon army, so I castle up in the right flank.
Turn 1 - I win the roll to go first, but in hindsight this mission I should have gone second, since we ended up with night fight. Not a game changer by any means, but still worth noting. Daemons pre-game scout to behind the LOS blocking hill. With 15 hounds he couldn't get them all back there out of LOS. Turn 1, the dreadknight moves up then I open fire. Even with nightfight I kill 6 pink horrors he had sitting in the center area terrain and 4 hounds that were poking out behind the hill. His turn the hounds move around the hill and charge the grey hunters jut behind the aegis. The spawn turbo boast to behind the hill the hounds just occupied. He couldn't get my rune priest since the grey hunters bubble wrapped him and he was part of the long fang squad behind them. His horrors and 2 Tzeench heralds unload 7d6 of flickering flames but only manage to kill 2 grey hunters. Little did I know this was the last time my dice would roll over a 3. The hounds kill 1 hunter and the Khorne herald on a juggernaught kills 3 more. I manage to kill 1 hound but pass my leadership test.
Turn 2 - With his screamers out of site behind the hill the Raven shows up and opens up on the invisible grimoired horrors in the center, Dropping 8 of them!. LEaving only the 2 heralds and a loan horror in the squad. The plan being next turn the purifiers jump out and start kicking tantric zone on the heralds. The dreadnight and 10 fresh grey hunters charge the 6 hounds and herald locked in combat with the remaining 6 grey hunters from turn 1. I start off by using dark excommunication with the dreadknight then issuing a challenge, the khorne herald realizing he is now a limp noodle, declines and I pick up a boat load of dice. Here the emporer foresakes me and 48 attacks generate 15 hits...ouch. Worse those 15 hits only cause 5 wounds and he saves 4!. The dreadknight manages to do 3 wounds. The hounds attack back and drop 4 grey hunters from the OG squad. We tied combat and I can do nothing but stand there wondering. His turn and the Hell Chicken zomes on, declares vector strike on the Raven. He rolls a 1, picks up 2 dice and rolls 6s to hit. Then rolls 2 6s to penetrate and 1 6 later BOOM! Raven and Purifiers are toast. The hell chicken then kills 5 long fangs with its torrent flamer. Worse yet, the ongoing hound combat I do 0 wounds he does 1 and the dreadknight fails his leasdership test. At least the grey hunters hold and only the dreadknight runs away.
Turn 3 - Snap shots at the helldrake removes a hull point. 1 Psyker squad rolls snake eyes to blow themselves up. The rest of my shooting his army saves. I start running a squad across the table to grab the far left objective. The dreadknight charges back into combat and I manage to do 3 wounds this time, but loose 2 grey hunters. Lucky for me I pass all my leadership checks, the not rolling over 3 at least comes in handy for that. His turn the horrors and oblits make for the center objective. He deep strikes plague bearers on his left and right objectives. Then the screamers charge in the combat in the center. The screamers kill 7 naked (didn't make a single save) marines and 1 unit of grey hunters break along with the dreadknight again. I do no wounds to him.
Round 5
Setup & Turn 1 - Again another 5 objective control mission. Although the center objective works like the relic for this one. I get to the table and my heart sinks as I see Space Wolves on the table. It seems my tournement bane is the relic mission against Space Wolves. I am now 0-3 for playing this mission in tourneys against space wolves. The Emporer forsakes me on these missions and they have all ended with my opponent getting the win at the end of the last turn with a single model. SPOILER: As you will see this game ends in a similar way...Typical setup for me, everyone in ruins, behind the aegis, or up in the hill. He setups his death star, 4 thunder wolf calvary with storms sheilds, 1 with power fist, & lord on mount with sheild and fist. A 5 man grey hunter takes his top objective and a 5 man grey hunter squad takes his bottom objective. He has 5 fangs with plasma cannons in his ruins, scouts and 6 more grey hunters in reserve. He goes first and moves the Death star into the middle terrain. His vindicator tank is too far out to get a shot off. I move the dreadknight up and a grey hunter pack. My whole army shoots, but thanks to nightfight I do a single wound to the wolf calvery. To keep them out of my lines I declare a charge with the dreadknight and grey hunters into the wolf calvary. Unfortunately the grey hunters fail there 7" charge and the dreadknight gets his face smashed in by the lord.
Turns 2 & 3. With the dreadknight down, his death star goes south and hits my psyker squad rather than go for the grey hunters. He also drops a pod in front of my lines. While I totally don't blame the dice on this one, I will say this is the game the dice where offically retired from active service. Turn 2 the Death Star (DS) wipes out the psykers and the other squad rolls a 12 for there test and blow themselves up. His drop pod grey hunters killed 4 of mine. I shoot back and do nothing. I charge in against his drop pod troops, loose 2 guys to snap fire then we both wiff in combat. I charge the grey hunters in and the battle with the DS goes worse than expected. I loose 5 guys to rend, he saves all his wounds and wipes the squad with his fists. Turn 3 his pod marines kill my 3 remaining guys and jump over the aegis, the vindy, plasma cannon fangs, and scouts shoot at my fangs in the hill but only manage to kill 1. The DS charge and wipe my south long fang squad. The Raven shows up, purifers jump out and together wipe out the DS and leave the lord with a single remaining wound. I charge his pod marines with another unit of grey hunters and we each kill 2 guys.
Turn 4 & 5 - His vindy scatters on top of my purifiers and kills 3, his lord charges into the center combat. This swings the balance in his favor, he looses 5, I loose 7 and the last man holds out. My last unit of fangs take the demolisher cannon off the vindy and the remainder of my army (the rune priest and 2 purifiers) charge his lord and last 2 grey hunters. Coteaz takes his 2 guardsman and stand on the south objective. The Raven shoots at the grey hunters running off with the relic, but fail to kill a guy when they go to ground in area terrain and he makes all his saves. The Rune priest backs out of the challenge and thankfully his lord can then only kill the last grey hunter. His grey hunters miss and the purifier with the hammer steps up and drops his lord. His 2 grey hunters break off and the Rune priest and Purifier with the hammer move up to follow them. The Raven splits fire and kills 4 grey hunters on the lower objective, they run off the objective. The Raven also manages to kill 2 grey hutners around the relic, but cant shack them off the objective. The purifer charges into his last 2 grey hunters but neither of us score a wound in combat. The game ends his 1 objective plus the relic to my 1 objective. Foiled again in Relic...
Round 6
Round 6 was interesting since it was the last round of day 2. I ended up with a "ringer" meaning my opponent quit the tourney and i get an autowin, but can play a game for fun, so I get paried with an IG player from a lower bracket. Unfortunately it was late in the day, and with 2 looses under my belt I didn't bring the camera out. The game went really well for me though and I should have. I ended up winning 3 objectives to 0, 3 table quarters to 0, and 9 kill points to 2. It was a good game, only 1 noteworthy thing happened. At the bottom of turn 5, he positions his last Lemon Russ, with a single hull point remaining, and declares a tank shock against the dreadknight. Having already won the game, the dreadknight (1 wound remaining) flexes his muscles and responds with a death or glory attempt. I think to myself "hell I only need a 3 to wreck this thing". First leadership test passed, 2nd leadership test passed. Now I just need a 3+... BAM rolled a 2 and the dreadknight is crsuhed under tank treads! I look up at my opponent and say "we just forged a narrative". The look on his face was priceless.
Round 7
Final day game 1 - Ooops forgot the camera... I need to get better at that. I get paired up against a tau player. Good news was that he only had 2 riptides, and 2 skyrays. He took Farsight and a supper shooty body guard. The missions was control of 3 objectives and table quarters. I castle up in the right corner and he castles up opposite of me. He then scouts his blob of kroot out into the center terrian. Even with Coteaz the Tau go first and his whole army focus fired on 1 squad of long fangs, wiping them, and 1 grey hunter unit which suffers 3 casualties and falls back. Lucky for me they don't hit the table edge and rally. I target the left most riptide and some warriors, doing a wound to the riptide and killing a few warriors. Turn 2 the Raven shows up and thanks to the tall ruins in the center, he gets no intercepter shots. The raven unloads and drops 6 warriors and 8 or so kroot. The purifiers bail out and unload killing a couple more warriors. He responds by dropping the Raven with the Skyray missiles, and shooting his whole army to kill the purifiers. The grey hunter squad that fell back moves through cover and runs for a total of 5 inches (they do this all game). This is basically how the game goes for the next 2 turns. This grey hunter unit trugges through terrian and we trade dink shots at each other. Turn 4 Farsight shows up and changes things a bit, he just brings more guns to the party. At the bottom of 4 we are tied, 2 objectives to 2 and 2 table quarters to 2. So I notice he might have messed up his movement and go in for the kill since 15 minutes is called and we can only finish this turn. The grey hunters that ran turn 1 have now had 4 turns to move and run and have made it 24 inches (total) and can now threaten the remaining kroot holding the center objective. I kill some warriors in a squad nearby so they wont get to overwatch me too and I charge into the kroot. I was right and Farsight and his unit are too far away to overwatch so the last 4 marines make it in, kill 3 kroot, they break and I lawn mower them for the center objective. Coteaz puts his big boy pants on and charges the Riptide dropping him and cleaning out the table quarter. Time is up and I win 3 objectives to 1 and 2 quarters to 1. This game is a good example of playing the mission not the opponent. I got shot to pieces but pulled out a solid win.
Round 8
Setup, turn 1 & 2- Final game on the final day, I was roaring and ready to go when the necron player walked up. The final control objective/table quarter mission, lots of terrain and he didn't have much in the way of infantry. I win prioirity and elect to go first. I spread out a bit, since the center was LOS blocking terrain, psykers on the left with long fangs in the middle and on the right. He puts is bikes on the left wth 5 warriors on the objective , the bardge in the middle, stalker and 10 warriors on the right objective and 10 immortals. With night fighting I only manage to kill the 5 warriors on the right with the psykers otherwise no other wounds from shooting, and the dreadknight moves toward the right flank. Turn 2 On the right the grey hunters move out to shoot the bikes, and both psyker units target them. I drop 4 which don't get back up. The Raven moves on the right flank and opens fire on the immortals killing 5 after reserection protocals. With all the gauss weapons around the purifers bail out and drop 2 warriors on the objective. The 2 bikes on the left shot but can't wound, then fail there charge only to die to snap fire. The left flank grey hunters spend the next 3 turns moving up to claim his objective. The psykers miss the barge, the fangs dink the stalker and a few more immortals. His lord and other immortal sqaud show up and reinforce the right flank. The purifiers are gunned down by both immortal squads and the warriors.
Turn 3
The psykers glance the barge and the fangs drop the stalker. The Raven and 2 fang squad take out the 2 group of immortals forcing that lord to join with the first squad to servive. The dreadkight stumbles forward. Now in the open he takes 2 wounds from the fliers and barge. I start suffling my army right at this point with the bikes gone and everything else blocked by the center terrain.
Narrative forged, Turn 4 & 5
So at the top of turn 4 Calvin walks up to see how it is going. He asks my opponent if I "have done it yet" and we both look at him with puzzled looks. Calvin proceeds to tell the guy that I have a magic way of rolling dice and that I should be carefully watched. Chuckling I pick up 17 dice (to shoot the Raven at the immortals) and roll 12 6s. No joke. My opponent looks at me, I look at Calvin and he smiles and walks away. This is when my opponent gives up and it is all over but the final moves. Turn 4 sees 1 lord and 3 immortals die after protocols. The warrior squad on the objective is reduced to 4 warriors. The barge explodes thanks to the psykers, and both fliers loose a hull point. Turn 5 - I shoot up a few things then charge the dreadknight into the lord and last immortals. The dreadknight takes a wound charging in, fails mind shackle scarabs wounds himself twice but save then passes his leadership so he isn't imprissioned in the cube. Amazing he lived, but lesson learned, shoot necrons, don't charge single handed. The dice roll a 1 and it is over, 3 objectives to 1, 3 table quarters to 1.
Well there you have it. Sorry about the delay in getting them up and the lack of pictures, but will do better next time. If you like the battle reports and want to see more of them, just let us know.
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