Friday, July 22, 2011

Coppa Boyz: Round One Summary!

Welcome to our first tournament review! We have been trying to get together for a while, and one of our friends, Shade, had recently started playing Necrons. We thought this would be a good way to teach him the rules and get some games in. Sadly, Blabbadon wasn’t able to attend. Perhaps next time he can and we’ll have more games to play.

Army Lists:

Tau:
Our Tau player, Pano, brought three squads of Fire Warriors, two 6-mans and one ten man. He also brought a Crisis Team and a Crisis Suit Commander.

Nercons:
The newest player, Shade, wasn’t able to bring much. Two 11-man squads of Necron Warriors and two units of Scarab Swarms.

Chaos Space Marines:
Remi brought a small force this time around, 9-man Khorne Berserker squad, a 5-man Chaos Marine squad and a Chaos Lord.

Imperial Guard:
I’ve been trying to work on a horde list for my Guard, this is what I ended up with. An Infantry Platoon with five squads, with a commissar, plus command squad, and an armored Sentinel.

GAME ONE: TAU VERSUS IMPERIAL GUARD
I admit I was worried to take on Panoption’s blue little bastards. He’s a good player, and I have terrible luck. This time, it appears the tables were turned. I deployed a blob with my commissar, and put the Autocannon squads in cover. The command squad was tucked behind the blob, ready to issue orders. The Tau only deployed the two small Fire Warrior squads and hid them in some ruins. As the game progressed, the blob slowly moved forward with assistance in the form of ‘Move! Move! Move!’ from the command squad. The blob ended up on the Tau end of the board, and engaged the larger Fire Warrior squad once it had arrived from reserves. The Crisis Team ended up deep striking in the middle of the table and was fired upon by just about everything that could get line-of-sight. It didn’t last long. The Crisis Commander ended up scattering off the table, to die from deep strike mishap. The blob was eventually brought down to just the commissar, who ended up running away. (He was later executed for this cowardly act.) The command squad ended up taking a few hits as well. After the dust cleared, the Imperial Guard controlled two objectives, while the Tau only had one. Win to the Guard.

(PICTURES)

GAME TWO: CHAOS SPACE MARINES VERSUS NECRONS
Both players of this game didn’t have a lot of experience, so this game was one of the longest. Remigious’ Chaos forces tried to charge Shade’s Necrons, who had deployed in a bubble. The Scarab Swarms ended up engaging the Chaos Marines and the Berserkers in close combat, tying up both squads. One unit of Warriors ended up trapped in close combat with the Berserkers, making a headache of multi unit assault for all involved. The rhino, after dropping off the Berserkers, moved up to the second squad of Warriors, plinking away with its Havoc Launcher, its only surviving weapon. With the game deadlocked, the Chaos commander was given a flash of insight, and ended up Tank Shocking the unengaged Warriors. They passed their leadership, but choose not to try shooting the tank. It ended up behind them, and almost on top of the objective they were holding. What would have been a tie was now a victory for Chaos.

(PICTURES)

GAME THREE: IMPERIAL GUARD VERSUS NECRONS
I have to admit, I was curious to see what would happen when I faced Necrons, having never had this chance before. It was interesting, to say the least. The Necrons deployed in their bubbles, to discourage use to the Plasma Cannon the armored Sentinel was lugging around. This tactic worked, to a degree. The blob once again ran out into the fray, after deploying in the back. They managed to slag one Warrior with a melta gun, before being counter-assaulted by one of the Scarab units. This speed bump slowed them down, but not for long. Meanwhile, the other Scarabs had locked the Sentinel in close combat, denying the Plasma Cannon a chance to fire. By the end of the game, the little robot beetles had torn the thing off, making the combat pointless for them. The blob engaged one of the Warrior units, where they remained until the end of the game. During all this, the Guard squads traded fire with the unengaged unit of Warriors, with neither side gaining an edge. But, in the end, the Guard controlled two objectives, the Necrons one, and another contested by the bloody hand-to-hand fighting. The Guard were on a roll.

(PICTURES)

GAME FOUR: TAU VERSUS CHAOS SPACE MARINES
Panoption learned his lesson about deep striking from his earlier game with me, and deployed his forces in a firing line. Remigious’ troops had no choice but to duck for cover or rush him. They did both. The rhino charged forward, while the smaller squad hung back in cover, hoping the Tau wouldn’t notice them. This didn’t work. The Tau put out a withering amount of fire, from pulse rifles and plasma weapons. The forces of Chaos put up a brave fight, but in the end, couldn’t tolerate that much fire power. They lost both squads and all of the objectives. The Tau had avenged their earlier defeat.

(PICTURES)

There was a week break between the first four games and the last ones. The first four had taken so long, we ended up having to wait until we could get back together to finish off the round. But now, there was a lot riding on the final two games of the round. Remi and Pano were tied, one win and one loss apiece. If Shade’s Necrons could pull of a win, there would have to be one last battle, to see who went home. It was also during this week that I realized my army list was 520 points, not 500… Oops.
(Of course, I had my own worries. I had easily taken my first two challengers, but that only made my last one try all the harder. Remi needed a win badly, to have a chance to advance.)

GAME FIVE: IMPERIAL GUARD VERSUS CHAOS SPACE MARINES
This was a game that would shape the next round, so I made sure to give it my all. As did Remi. The Chaos forces deployed in their usual fashion, with a unit of Berzerkers in the rhino with the Lord and the smaller unit of Chaos Marines set up a distance away. On the first turn, the rhino met a firery end, forcing the Khorne-lovers to hoof it across the board. The unit of Chaos Marines also made their way towards the gunline. The Guard had been set up with the 30-man unit to one side, and the Autocannon units on another, with the command squad lurking behind them. As the Chaos forces advanced, they shrugged off a huge amount of fire. They also took out the Sentinel and the Autocannon units. The smaller unit of Chaos Marines assaulted the larger unit of Guardsmen, during which another sarge met the business end of the Commissar’s bolt pistol. The Marines were eventually put down, and along with the command squad, brought down the last few Berzerkers in a hail of plasma and melta shots at the top of turn six. Victory for the Imperium, having tabled the dread forces of Chaos.

(PICTURES)

GAME SIX: NECRONS VERUS TAU
Meanwhile, the Tau had another shooting battle going on. The Necrons stood up to the Tau’s fire, getting up time after time to continue the battle. The Tau were able to eliminate a unit of Scarabs, which ended up being a major error later on. The battle raged, with both sides exchanging fire from across the board. The Shade was able to out-fox Pano, and with the help of ending the game at the end of turn five, held two objectives to Pano’s one. Victory to the Necrons.

GAME SEVEN: NERCONS VERSUS CHAOS SPACE MARINES
Well, as I feared, the games weren’t over yet. With Shade’s win, he had tied with Remigious, and we had to have one last battle to see who would advance to the next round. Chaos played it smart, and hid the rhino when she could. The Necrons poured out fire whenever they could get line-of-sight. For some reason, the Berzerkers ditched their ride early on, and had to rush the Necron gunline. They finally got place, and ended up taking down a unit of Warriors in a vicious brawl. The rhino managed to make it to one of the objectives, to contest it. The unit of Chaos Marines held their ground, and objective through out the battle, and the Berzerkers, after wiping the Warriors, held another. The surviving unit of Warriors held an objective, but it just wasn’t enough. Chaos carried the battle and made it into round two.

Well, since I had made a mistake in the scoring, it turned out Shade, Remigious and Panoption were all tied for 2nd place. There was a final battle between Pano and Shade...

GAME EIGHT: NECRONS VERSUS TAU
(to be filled it later)

I was sad to Shade go. He just started playing, but he was hampered by his older codex. He did put up quite a fight and our game was a close one. I think he’ll be ready to win during the next tournament we run. Call it a hunch…

Well, there you have it folks. Necrons placed fourth and were out of the running. Remigious’ Chaos Space Marines managed to get in enough wins to squeak on in. Panopticon’s Tau suffered from some bad luck, but did fairly well. As for me, well, I got a clean sweep. I don’t know how I managed to do it, but I cleaned everyone’s clocks. I have a hunch I may not make it to the finals, but I’m just happy to make it this far.

Scoring:
Imperial Guard: 3 wins
Tau: 2 wins, 1 loss
Chaos Space Marines: 2 wins, 2 losses (including final game)
Necrons: 1 win, 3 losses (including final game)

Until time, readers. Round Two: CITIES OF DEATH!

Thursday, July 21, 2011

Round One

Had the first round of our little tourney conclude this past Monday, so I figured I'd post something about it, this will not be a turn by turn commentary, rather a brief overview of the fights, who won and where I think they went wrong/right. There are some who might say that I played Dead Space 2 instead of paying attention to the fights I wasn't involved with, to them I say feh! In my domain few things are hidden from my sight! Don't underestimate me or I will boil your organs with my wierding module!.

Round 1: Tau (Panopticon) Vs IG(Captain Pete)
Tau list:
Shas'el with AFP and stuff
3x crisis suits with TL plasma
2x6 fire warriors
1x12 fire warriors

IG list: (Corrected by Pete)
Command squad with vox, medic, 2x plasma
30 man blob with 3x melta, commisar, vox
2x10 ig with AC
Armored Sentinel with PC (Later changed to Autocannon)

Pitched battle, 5 objectives
This ended in a loss for the Tau, his AC squads sat on objectives and didn't contribute much while his blob ran upfield, I was unable to get enough firepower into it to break it before they killed a 6 man squad and my crisis team. made the mistake of taking a couple potshots at the Sentinel and had reserved my suits so I was relying pretty much entirely on fire warriors to do the job, then the commander mishaped to death. His Sentinel spent most of the game in a fruitless for both sides assault contesting one of my objectives. Still coulda gotten a draw on objectives but was unable to get enough shots into one of his holders to force morale.

On the other board we had Chaos(Remigious) Vs Necrons(Shade)
Chaos list:
Chaos lord with P fist and plasma pistol (attached to the zerkers)
1x9 berserkers with plasma pistol (rides in Rhino)
1x5 chaos marines, no upgrades
Rhino, havoc launcher and daemonic possession

Necron list:
2x10 warriors
2x3 scarab swarms, disruption fields

This game was won by Chaos and pretty much was a big cluster assault in the middle of the board involving one warrior squad, the zerkers, and the scarabs. Probably would have gone faster if Remigious had put more attacks on the scarabs to max fearless wounds in the fights as she never lost combat, but as it was Shade survived the first round and the durable Necrons warriors tied things up for most of the game, Chaos managed to own and contest more objectives though.

Tau(Pano) Vs Chaos(Rem)
Another objective mission, this one basically involved me shooting her off the board as she walked up, I lost a fire warrior and a crisis suit, she had her 5 man chaos marine squad left.

Necron(Shade) Vs IG(CP)

To be honest, didn't follow this one that closely, but I believe it sorta mirrored my match above, the IG just shot things up and the blob tied things down enough that IG could get more objectives.

Tau(Pano) Vs Necron(Shade)
This is one where I totally was winning handily, then lost entirely due to my own mistakes and Shades good target priority. I shot the scarabs off the table in round 2, without those to threaten my firebase I was then able to wipe an entire warrior squad, unfortunately he was able to conga line that squad to control two objectives and my dice utterly failed me in the lat few rounds of shooting, still would have been an objective tie and I would have won on KP except I neglected to cover a reduced squad of warriors in the bottom of turn 6 and he was able to shoot them off the objective and win 2 to 1. I got all concerned with protecting my suits that I forgot entirely that the point of the game was objectives.

Chaos(Rem) Vs IG(Pete)

Rem's ongoing terrible luck with vehicles struck early here as her Rhino got immobilized at the first shot on the top of round 1, having to footslog across the board left her weakened to much to carry the assault against IG, and the lord/zerker deathstar was tied up for 2 rounds by the Sentinel, game ended with a tabling as it took too long to get anywhere and 15 models just can't take that punishment for that long.

Chaos(Rem) Vs Necron(Shade)
This was a tie breaker for going into the 2nd round, I dunno how Pete was doing his scoring but these two had to play off. (Pete says: At this point, Shade and Remigious had two losses and one win each, making a tie.)
Rem learned from her previous games and was able to get some good assaults in without having to wade against a river of fire, as well as a good tank shock to contest an objective with an empty Rhino. Shade was not as aggressive with his Scarabs as he could have been and that may have cost him a tie at the end being unable to contest objectives, Chaos wins it 1 to nothing

Final thoughts:
Tau: My list kinda blew and I lost my first game in the deployment phase, at this point level and on this small of a board I don't really need to have deep striking reserves, also my loss against the Necrons was a pretty huge mistake, reinforces the need to cover objectives though. Gonna switch it up a bit in the next round.

IG: Played pretty well, I always think his list building is schizophrenic though, if you are going to have an assault blob then tool it up for assault I say. Get some power weapons on the sergeants already. He was over by 20 points as he did bad math as well, but that 20 points was in the Sentinel Plasma Cannon and it did very little in any game so I forgive him. (Pete says: My list building is a byproduct from my learning process. The goal of the blob was to tie up shooting squads for several turns, and the Autocannon teams were there to hold objectives, while offering some ranged support to the army.)

Chaos: Rem is still getting into the aggressive mindset needed to run berserkers, she likes to shoot with the Rhino when most of the time it might be better to just move 12" the list was perfectly decent for this level, though I would pull the plasma off the zerkers and the havoc off the Rhino and either buy more dudes or give the CM squad a plasma gun or ML or something.

Necron: Shade is a brand new player and brought his entire model collection to the fight, he did well using the old codex, though again could have been more aggressive with his Scarabs, they move as jet bikes and he didn't take as much advantage of that as he could have. However he made no real other mistakes and good decisions about what to shoot at most of the rest of the time.

Thursday, July 14, 2011

Combat Patrol Rules

Revised rules for combat patrol. Uses 500 points.

• 0-1 HQ choices.

• 1+ Troop choices.

• Any remaining points may be spend anywhere in the codex, using normal force organization chart limits.

• No models may have more that 3 wounds.

• No special characters.

• No 2+ saves.

• No Vehicle may have a total armor value of 33. (F+S+R)

• No ordnance weapons.

• Use a 4’x4’ playing area.

Sunday, July 3, 2011

Coppa Boyz

Coppa’ Boyz:
500 point Warhammer 40,000 tournament

Welcome to Coppa’ Boyz!

• All games use Combat Patrol rules
• One army list for each round (that means a take-all-comers list)
• Reasonable proxies are okay (let us know what’s what)
• Have a hard copy of your codex. Printed pages are okay.

At the end of each round, the player with the lowest total of wins is eliminated. If there is a tie, the player with the lowest total of wins and ties is eliminated. If there’s still a tie, the players have one last battle, with the loser being the one who has been eliminated.

Any Infantry unit can hold objectives. However, only a Troops choice can still hold an objective if under 50% strength.

Rounds continue, with the player with the lowest total of wins being dropped, until there is only one player left. That player is the winner of the tournament.

Rules, errata and etc.

For this tournament, the Necron ‘Phase Out’ rule is suspended.

Round one details:

All games are seize ground. Deployment rolled normally.

Starting with the player with the oldest codex (in order: Witch Hunters, Nercons, Tau, Chaos Space Marines, Orks, Space Marines and Imperial Guard), they can pick who they want to play against first. They may pass, if they want. When the game is finished, the winner picks who they want to battle, until all players have fought against one another.

Disqualifications:

• Failure to attend – Any player that doesn’t show up the game, without a good reason or forewarning, is disqualified. The game then advances to the next round.

• Extreme tardiness – Any player that is more than an hour late, again without good reason or forewarning, is disqualified. The game then advances to the next round.

• Poor sportsmanship – Any player, whose attitude or behavior, is determined to be unacceptable will be asked to leave the game, and is disqualified. The game then advances to the next round.

• Cheating – Any player caught cheating will be asked the leave the game and is disqualified. The game then advances to the next round.

Prizes:

The winner of the tournament wins an AoBR Ork Boy that has been painted copper. He may lord over his/her friends and rub his/her wins in their faces. If the boy is lost, stolen or broken, I will not replace it.

But, wait there’s more!

Before the winner collects their prize, they have one last battle to play! The player that was eliminated in the first round (note: only the first one to be eliminated, not disqualified) can challenge the winner. I will pay the winner of this game $5. The tournament winner still collects his prize, but has a chance to win some money, too.