My list was:
White Scars Battle Company:
Khan
Chaplain
4x Tac Squads w/Grav cannons and rhinos
2x Tac Squads w/ razorbacks, 1 twin linked Lascannon and 1 heavy bolter
1x Assault squad w/ 2 flamers in a drop pod
1x Assault squad in razor back w/ lascannon and twin linked plasma gun
2x devastator squad with 2x grav cannons both in rhinos
1x Command squad w/ 4 melta guns in drop pod
1x Ironclad dreadnought in drop pod
Null Maiden Task Force:
2x Sisters of silence w/swords, 1 rhino.
Time for a blow by blow for those interested! - I plan on uploading these game by game, so game one below! -
SIDENOTE:
Obviously I didn't end up doing this game by game in the end, but as one massive post! This also explains why it's almost a month late. You'll also notice I give a lot less detail on the lists I was facing, that's because as 8th edition has solidified, such things have become irrelevant.
Game 1:
Against a guy who'd come all the way from Sweden, which only tells me how seriously he takes it. Great guy who had gone all out with his imperial fists theme, t-shirt, objective cards, everything (except his chapter tactics which I can't actually remember). It's really fun playing against someone that has taken that kind of effort. I wish I could be bothered to, maybe a future blog post...
He was running a castellans of the imperium detachment, with Coteaz to make all his infantry obsec, stealing my biggest advantage. He also had centurions in a pod, scout squads (I'm not sure how many as they came back every single time I killed them), and a biker deathstar with a shield eternal chapter master and Celestine.
If I'm totally honest, I should have won this game. Nerves got the better of me on a few decisions, and in one or two spots I over estimated my ability to kill some of the smaller units, and staggeringly underestimated the durability of Celestine. - whereas if I'd allocated more resources to certain situations I would have got some crucial kills at key points.
The big swing was when I had to kill 1 more bike to gain 7 victory points due to the way my cards had accumulated. He proceeded to pass 11 4+ cover saves. I lost the game by 5 points. brutal.
Game 2:
Another excellent opponent, actually the guy who I nominated for best sports, mostly because he took a total pounding from a list that was a really bad match up for him.
He'd set up (as I'd originally been tempted to do) to fight monster mash type tau, with a sky hammer and some grav toting bikes, there was an imperial knight as well, but the warden with the fists and chainsword. This was pretty much a terrible match up for him, I gave him first turn, soaked up the bike firepower and then just countered hard, dropping in both pods, nuking the knight and then just systematically picking the rest of the units off. It wasn't a tabling, but I did get 20 points, which propelled my up the rankings.. (unfortunately I forgot to take photos of this game as I was busy apologising for the excessive destruction my army was wreaking.
Also by this point I had totally nailed my army transport system:
Game 3:
Aha game 3. This was not my finest hour of 40k. I'd pretty much expected to lose this game going in, as kill points and battle company are not bosom friends. Pretty much my only hope here was a mirror match up and taking first turn.
I ended up against a necron Death Star and was going second.
In hindsight I should have deployed everything, as he didn't have enough fire power to completely dent me, and that would have maximised my counter attack. As it was I deployed about half my army, and so only had about a quarter of my total firepower on my first turn. I got lucky killing a big spider and a couple of tomb blades, but then just spent the rest of the game trying to survive. Whereas if I'd have had a few more units on the board I could have actually killed his warlord (I was so close!!) before he was absorbed into the star.
Some really unlucky card draws meant I didn't achieve a single objective card for almost the entire game, and ended up with a 20-0 loss. BOOO. This did not put me in the best mood heading home, and definitely had me longing for the supposedly shorter games of 8th... (I'm totally aware that I deserved a 20-0 loss given that I also handed one out)
Game 4:
Right! Day 2. I managed to, through the medium of X-Men Apolcolypse and ice cream, get out of my gaming funk and came back ready to kick butt.
The loss had dropped me a bit down the table, so I ended up against someone who had also got 2 losses.
A Khorne Demon player with A LOT of flesh hounds, a khorne Juggernaut, furies and blood letters.
This was an absolute blood bath of a game, and actually my favourite of the tournament. Demons is not a great match up for me given that my main damage output is my grav, but I'd done the maths going in and knew it was better to fire grav with the re rolls to wound and weight of shots, rather than fire bolters.
He lined up everyone on the line ready to charge, and I gave him first turn and elected not to scout. I'd set up to deny him charges on literally everything, so he just ran forwards. I think he tried to make an 11 inch charge against some scouts and miraculously made it, but due to my positioning, could only kill 3 models. I hit and ran out like the dirty white scars player I am.
My counter was actually outrageously effective, although as I basically go into every game assuming I've given
up first blood because of my propensity to go second and my ludicrously explodable rhinos, I forgot that in this game I could actually have got it and didn't focus down the squads I should have.
Nonetheless I killed a lot, enough that given my amounts of obsec I was relatively confident that I could pull the game out the bag after the first turn. Although it was close in the end, time pressure meant we had a very enjoyable and productive 5 minuted agreeing that neither of us was going to get the relic, which meant that I could just focus on everything else, which I did to great effect. Unfortunately for my opponent, battle company loves the short objective games. - Although this wasn't actually my fault, I play fast, but there were a lot of deep striking demons and a lot of complicated warp storming going on.
Game 5:
Right, two wins, two losses. I really wanted to finish 3-2 so was really nervous about the last game.
It ended up being against someone who I've seen at my gaming club before, but the list he was running was new to me.
Celestine
Coteaz
Bucket loads of various henchmen
sisters of battle and all their various tanks.
I thought I was in a bad way after turn one, as seeing how much melta he had I went balls to the wall and scouted up really aggressively, taking first turn. Naturally, I was promptly seized on and lost a lot of tanks. The upside was my scout move meant a lot of my stuff was in range for strong counters, and bolters just shredded most of his army. I did not anticipate the brutality of the Sisters Repentia on the charge. They hit one unit like an absolute truck and I deemed them enough of a threat to devote my flamer drop pod to their erradication.
The absolute highlight of this game was the final turn when he split off Celestine and leapt her onto a 3 point objective, flaming apart a fast attack tank and charging the unit inside (killing them obviously). - An 8 point swing as the mission was the scouring. I'd been sitting pretty till this point and hadn't quite predicted that little Celestine move (I think she hit and ran out of combat with something, which I totally forgot she had having studiously ignored her for the rest of the tournament. Anyway, I took a deep breath, and slowly moved everything in her general direction, unloading absolutely everything I had at her and the Geminae.
It took something like 6 Grav Cannons, two las cannons, a heavy bolter and a lot of bolt guns to eventually get it done. I was honestly so happy when she went down, but had to keep it under my hat in the interests of good sportsmanship. My opponent did try to argue that she had a chance to get back up, even though it was turn five and the game was over, which was slightly awkward, because if I'd have known she'd get the chance to even though the game ended, I would never have done it. Fortunately I'd been right and my day did not end in tears.
Overall, it was an absolutely excellent day and I will definitely be attending again next year! (If I'm lucky enough to get a ticket!).
The next blog post will be a huuuuuggggeeeee dump of photos of the best armies and things, which I promise will be slightly more interesting than my ramblings and the photos above.
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