Tourney batrep: Game 3 Salamanders
Final game of this three game tournament.
1848pts:
190- Belial
95- Librarian: Bike, Auspex, Infravisor
355- DWCS: 4 THSS, CML, Champ, standard of fortitude
230- 5 DWT: 4 SB, HF
270- 5 DWT: 5 THSS, CML
104- 6 Tacs: LC
99- 6 Tacs: PC
165- 3 RAS (ravenwing assault squad)+AB: 2 PG, MM
210- 5 BK (Black Knights): RGL
130- 5 Devs: 4 ML
My opponents list
Vulkan
Master of the forge with servo harness, power axe on bike
Tact x10
Tact x10
Scout with camo cloaks and sniper rifles.
Sternguard with x2MM in rhino with SB
Sternguard with x2MM in rhino with SB
Sternguard with x2MM in rhino with SB
Landspeeder with heavy flamerC and Multi melta
Landspeeder with heavy flamer and Multi melta
MM attackbike x2
Techmarine with thunderfire cannon
Aegis defense line with quad gun.
The missions were from adepticon 2013. This mission was hammer and anvil deployment with two book missions played simultaneously, scouring and purge the alien objectives. Mysterious objectives were used. the games were scored by giving 10 pt for winning each of the objective games. if the game was tied after that score calculation, secondary objectives were counted at two points per secondary achieved. eg. If one player wins "scouring" and the other wins "big guns..." then they are tied at 10pts each until it is determined that player one has more secondary objectives.
At this point in the tourney my opponent has lost two games and so have i. We are just playing for pride and i think my opponent was tired cause he wasnt masking his emotions at all. It may just have been personality conflict but this game was not like the other games, where the banter was light hearted and cordial. It seemed like everytime i explained a rule, or tried rolled a die there was some conflict.
Deployment: my opponent deploys in a gunline. Deployment type is hammer and anvil which gives me less room to out flank. This is a list type that has given me quite a bit of trouble in the past, vulkan is my nemesis. My thinking is close the distance as fast as possible and get him in hth with the thundernators. He gets first turn and i scout my black knights forward (warning idiot move) then he goes first.
S1: his entire army unleashes on the black knights and all that remains is a tiny smudge where they once stood. i didn't know that the thunderfire canon could put out that kind of fire power that thing is a beast.
Da1: with the black knights gone i have to change my plans initially i was hoping to attack a flank but since he has left so much room behind his lines i decide that i will try to deep strike behind his lines and kill him that way. Belial drops but my DWCS scatters to far for the banner to be in range! I figure my only hope is to try and take out his troops. which i procede to do, i need to lock this guy in combat in order to have a chance.
S2: the reply from the salamanders is deafening and my storm sheilds cry as he decimates my ranks.
Da2: my shooting is anemic and my lone terminator charging is gunned done by overwatch. I am able to engage him in CC... but he fails his morale?! hes not fearless? wtf! wow well the writing is on the wall now as he procedes to anniliate me, some more, all my bikes do nothing.
S3: bikes doing nothin = dead bikes. Well its turn three but hooray for salamanders getting their victory.
Da3: again i try to engage vulkan and again he escapes. my heart isn't really in this any more as I've clearly lost. At this point i am playing my opponent to watch him practice rolling dice.
S4: salamader shooting sees me run. off the building.
Da4: so as you can see there is no image for this one cause the writing was on the wall at this point. its been a rough day. The thing that really left a bad taste in my mouth with this one is that on turn 5 the guy declares hes shooting with his snipers through the "ruin" at the remnant of the tact squad. which "ruin"you ask? you know, the pinkish one in the picture above, THAT YOU CANT SEE THROUGH. Yeesh. I therefore conceded on my turn 5 in order to go home and collect my thoughts.
Analysis: Aside from personality conflicts between two very tired opponents, i think my strategy for this game would have to be more soccer like and less hailmary pass in order to win. My opponent bunkered, and I have an alpha strike list. If i had placed everything on the table and tried to out shoot my opponent from range could I have won? I don't know but i couldnt have done much worse.
1.) I deployed second in this game. That should have meant that I should have tried to attack the two objective side of the ruin where the scouts were located and worked to challenge for those. This would have meant firstly placing the black knights on the far left of my deployment zone. this would have kept me safely out of sight of the thunderfire cannon (at least the black knights anyway.) scouting into rage of all his army was suicide.
2.) i often find i forget to run alot of times when the situation tactically demands it. When my comand squad dropped they nearly mishapped and there was a heated arguement about whether they had mishapped or not. I feel that while it was close no part of the model was overhanging the edge of the board. This meant no mishap. But in the heat of the moment i forgot to run the squad and instead elected to shoot with them. This was obviously the wrong choice.
3.) i was not expecting the mental fatigue plus orneryness to make me play so badly. I feel that had i been a bit fresher i may have been able to make better descisions. For all those out there that want to do a tourney, keep the coffee close.
4.) i am not sure if during a tournament you should ask your opponent if hes ever played your army before and then volunteer what is different. Honestly i feel that going to a tournament you are responsible for knowing as many rules as possible and its your opponent that should ask about units that are unclear to him or her or special rules require clarifying as opposed to volunteering info. We have a limited amount of time to play, so if you dont ask ill assume you know. In casual play this is clearly not the case, but a tournament is a different animal.
I also think mental fatigue, not having played a game in 2mo, and it being only my third outing with the new codex there were destined to be bumps along the way. I mostly played in this tournament to meet some new people, get some games, and play some hard armies. I think it was a good outing on that front. I think my inability to get games frequently, is a mjor conributor here. I may try to get games via Vassal in order to increase my ability to pratice.
Thanks for reading. Comments and criticisms welcome.
1848pts:
190- Belial
95- Librarian: Bike, Auspex, Infravisor
355- DWCS: 4 THSS, CML, Champ, standard of fortitude
230- 5 DWT: 4 SB, HF
270- 5 DWT: 5 THSS, CML
104- 6 Tacs: LC
99- 6 Tacs: PC
165- 3 RAS (ravenwing assault squad)+AB: 2 PG, MM
210- 5 BK (Black Knights): RGL
130- 5 Devs: 4 ML
My opponents list
Vulkan
Master of the forge with servo harness, power axe on bike
Tact x10
Tact x10
Scout with camo cloaks and sniper rifles.
Sternguard with x2MM in rhino with SB
Sternguard with x2MM in rhino with SB
Sternguard with x2MM in rhino with SB
Landspeeder with heavy flamerC and Multi melta
Landspeeder with heavy flamer and Multi melta
MM attackbike x2
Techmarine with thunderfire cannon
Aegis defense line with quad gun.
The missions were from adepticon 2013. This mission was hammer and anvil deployment with two book missions played simultaneously, scouring and purge the alien objectives. Mysterious objectives were used. the games were scored by giving 10 pt for winning each of the objective games. if the game was tied after that score calculation, secondary objectives were counted at two points per secondary achieved. eg. If one player wins "scouring" and the other wins "big guns..." then they are tied at 10pts each until it is determined that player one has more secondary objectives.
At this point in the tourney my opponent has lost two games and so have i. We are just playing for pride and i think my opponent was tired cause he wasnt masking his emotions at all. It may just have been personality conflict but this game was not like the other games, where the banter was light hearted and cordial. It seemed like everytime i explained a rule, or tried rolled a die there was some conflict.
S1: his entire army unleashes on the black knights and all that remains is a tiny smudge where they once stood. i didn't know that the thunderfire canon could put out that kind of fire power that thing is a beast.
Da1: with the black knights gone i have to change my plans initially i was hoping to attack a flank but since he has left so much room behind his lines i decide that i will try to deep strike behind his lines and kill him that way. Belial drops but my DWCS scatters to far for the banner to be in range! I figure my only hope is to try and take out his troops. which i procede to do, i need to lock this guy in combat in order to have a chance.
S2: the reply from the salamanders is deafening and my storm sheilds cry as he decimates my ranks.
Da2: my shooting is anemic and my lone terminator charging is gunned done by overwatch. I am able to engage him in CC... but he fails his morale?! hes not fearless? wtf! wow well the writing is on the wall now as he procedes to anniliate me, some more, all my bikes do nothing.
S3: bikes doing nothin = dead bikes. Well its turn three but hooray for salamanders getting their victory.
Da3: again i try to engage vulkan and again he escapes. my heart isn't really in this any more as I've clearly lost. At this point i am playing my opponent to watch him practice rolling dice.
S4: salamader shooting sees me run. off the building.
Da4: so as you can see there is no image for this one cause the writing was on the wall at this point. its been a rough day. The thing that really left a bad taste in my mouth with this one is that on turn 5 the guy declares hes shooting with his snipers through the "ruin" at the remnant of the tact squad. which "ruin"you ask? you know, the pinkish one in the picture above, THAT YOU CANT SEE THROUGH. Yeesh. I therefore conceded on my turn 5 in order to go home and collect my thoughts.
Analysis: Aside from personality conflicts between two very tired opponents, i think my strategy for this game would have to be more soccer like and less hailmary pass in order to win. My opponent bunkered, and I have an alpha strike list. If i had placed everything on the table and tried to out shoot my opponent from range could I have won? I don't know but i couldnt have done much worse.
1.) I deployed second in this game. That should have meant that I should have tried to attack the two objective side of the ruin where the scouts were located and worked to challenge for those. This would have meant firstly placing the black knights on the far left of my deployment zone. this would have kept me safely out of sight of the thunderfire cannon (at least the black knights anyway.) scouting into rage of all his army was suicide.
2.) i often find i forget to run alot of times when the situation tactically demands it. When my comand squad dropped they nearly mishapped and there was a heated arguement about whether they had mishapped or not. I feel that while it was close no part of the model was overhanging the edge of the board. This meant no mishap. But in the heat of the moment i forgot to run the squad and instead elected to shoot with them. This was obviously the wrong choice.
3.) i was not expecting the mental fatigue plus orneryness to make me play so badly. I feel that had i been a bit fresher i may have been able to make better descisions. For all those out there that want to do a tourney, keep the coffee close.
4.) i am not sure if during a tournament you should ask your opponent if hes ever played your army before and then volunteer what is different. Honestly i feel that going to a tournament you are responsible for knowing as many rules as possible and its your opponent that should ask about units that are unclear to him or her or special rules require clarifying as opposed to volunteering info. We have a limited amount of time to play, so if you dont ask ill assume you know. In casual play this is clearly not the case, but a tournament is a different animal.
I also think mental fatigue, not having played a game in 2mo, and it being only my third outing with the new codex there were destined to be bumps along the way. I mostly played in this tournament to meet some new people, get some games, and play some hard armies. I think it was a good outing on that front. I think my inability to get games frequently, is a mjor conributor here. I may try to get games via Vassal in order to increase my ability to pratice.
Thanks for reading. Comments and criticisms welcome.
Nice set of reports. I feel for you in that you lost all three on your first tournament. It's alright though you can learn from your mistakes and next time you won't make them. If you really want to do well in tournaments, my advice would be to get in a lot of practice games. Especially practice playing two games in a row and get used to being slightly tired and still having to be on top of your game.
ReplyDeleteThanks for writing all of this up. I enjoyed reading all of it.