Winter War VIII

So Trond and I flew over to Bergen for the Titan club's annual 40K tournament last weekend. Much fun was had, both on and off the tabletop. Both of us faced opponents both skilled and pleasant - most of them both.

We didn't manage to place quite as high as we had hoped, both due to our army lists not being quite up to snuff as well as the some of the missions being a little too random. The latter has been communicated to the WWVIII staff, and will no doubt be addressed for next year. The former is something which we will have to look into ourselves.

Oh well... Enough of that! On with the tournament report:

My 1750 points list was Kharn the Betrayer with nine basic Berzerkers in a Land Raider, four Terminators (LCs 2CM HF) in another Land Raider, two CSM squads (PF 2MG IoCG) in Rhinos and two times two Obliterators.

In my 750 points games I ran Kharn with six Berzerkers and a Skull Champion with Power Fist, all in a jazzed up Rhino. This was backed up with the same four Obliterators as above.

Game 1 - "Endzone" - 1750 points
I started the tournament with a game against a Space Marines army consisting of a Terminator Librarian with seven Assault Terminators (2LC 5THSS) in a Land Raider Crusader, two Tactical Squads in Rhinos, three Land Speeders (MM&HF) and three Predators (AC 2LC).

The mission had us place three objectives each in our own Deployment Zone. We then had to hold more of our opponent’s objectives than he held of ours.
I failed to hurt his Land Raider in the first round of shooting, so he started a rush on two of my objectives with his Land Raider shielding his Rhinos from incoming fire. I managed to Wreck the Land Raider and thin his terminators out a little in turn two, and killed his Librarian with a lucky Power Fist hit a little later. With his hammer gone, his Tactical squads couldn’t get through my CSM squads and Obliterators. Kharn, my Berzerkers and Terminators went for his objectives after contributing to stopping his Land Raider. Assaulting his stationary Predators with the Berzerkers gained me the extra inches I needed to claim one of his objectives.

20-0

Game 2 - "Return to the Eye" - 750 points
This time I was up against a Chaos Daemons list with a Lord of Change, two units of Horrors, three Flamers and a Daemon Prince.

Erlend had lots of S8 at 24”, so my Rhino bit it about a round too soon. Stranded out of easy assault range, I had no way of reliably reaching the three objectives placed pretty much in the middle of the board with my Berzerkers. Not if I wanted them to survive anyway. Most of my own firing was countered with an uncanny ability to make 4+ invulnerable saves, so the game ended with a solid win for him.

0-20

Game 3 - "Recon and Control" - 1750 points
Richard's Space Wolves featured Bjørn the Fell-handed as the HQ, two or three full-size Grey Hunter Packs, a unit of Wolf Scouts, two Packs of Long Fangs and a Vindicator. There were also a Rhino and a couple of Razorbacks in there, but I'm not sure which squads they belonged to.

Pic from Mikhail Vasilyev's album

Six markers on the table. Two objectives, two duds and two booby traps. This table's prominent feature was a network of pipes high enough above ground to allow infantry to move and fire beneath them, but low enough to restrict vehicles from moving underneath them and blocking fire on most anything more than a foot or two away.

Fun and tense game! The pipes really screwed with my lateral movement, so when both of the 'real' objectives were found on the side of the table where I only had a CSM squad and two Obliterators I never really stood a chance to recover them. I didn't help that my CSM's Rhino was Stunned a few turns in a row, preventing me from moving it up as I had planned.

0-20

Game 4 - "Recover and Reclaim" - 1750 points
First game of day two. Trygve's Dark Eldar army is made up of an Archon with five Incubi in a Venom, a plethora of Warriors, Trueborn and Wyches in Raiders and still more Venoms and a couple of Ravagers.

The mission called for searching terrain features for a 'Listening Tower' and holding on to that piece of terrain until the end of the game. In all our test-games the Listening Tower had been found in turn one, practically deciding the game then and there. In this game we only found it in turn five, with only one (of eleven) terrain feature left to check. Trygve had plenty of Dark Lances spread around, but still seemed unable to penetrate my Land Raiders at AV12. He didn't have any better luck on his 5+ Shadow Field (?) saves, so I was able to drop one or two vehicles a turn.

20-0

Game 5 - "Adversaries" - 750 points
In the second 750 points game i was up against Dark Angels. More specifically Belial two times five terminators with Thunder Hammers and Storm Shields and one Typhoon Missile Launcher. He also had two Land Speeder Typhoons.

The scenario called for setting up in opposing table quarters no closer than 12" from the centre point and taking a Scout Move with our HQs (and any attached Squad or Dedicated Transport). I set up first and put my Rhino as far forward as possible with the Obliterators in cover on flanking positions. He clung to the table edge like a little girl and only 'scouted' a single inch forward. Again the S8 fire proved to be the bane of my Rhino, and with no Transport I was forced to turn around and hoof it to try and keep at least some of them alive until the end of the game. After several turns of Hide and Seek they still bit it, earning my opponent the primary objective for the game.

0-10

Game 6 - "Advance and Hold" - 1750 points
It’s the last game of the weekend and everyone's tired, and get to play my second game ever against Chaos Daemons. This army had a Blood Thirster, a great Unclean One, four Bloodcrushers, eight Bloodletters, two times five Plaguebearers, six Fiends and three Daemon Princes.

The scenario called for an objective in the centre of each table quarter, so I set up covering the one in my DZ. Wary of those pesky Invulnerable saves, i set up so as to cover as much of the surrounding area with as many guns as possible. I also deployed one (sacrificial) CSM unit forward to rush up and hold another objective to try to get an early lead on the primary mission, and pushed my Terminators to the right to be able to go kill the Plague Bearers he was bound to put on the two 'free' objectives.

During the game he left my Land Raiders completely alone, giving me the chance to pour their Heavy Bolter and Lascannon fire into his monstrous creatures and leaving them weak enough for my regular marines to kill off. The Obliterators was instrumental here as well, and it didn't hurt that he mishap-killed one Daemon Prince himself. He pushed me off my two objectives one after another, but not quite quickly enough when my Terminators ate Nurgle's foot soldiers before they could accumulate too many points.

16-4

Conclusions
In the end I’m at 56 (not 76!) points, and 13th overall. I’ve got a shared 2nd on the quiz and 3rd in Best Painted. Not too bad I suppose, but not quite what I'd hoped either. I made a handful of bad decisions here and there, and I paid the price in tournament points. As has been commented on elsewhere, the missions were a little too random. Several times I spoke with other gamers after a round, and noted how they'd seemed to have played another scenario than me - because of a few dice rolls.

Now... The tournament pack was made official well in advance of the tournament weekend, and even amended in response to questions and comments on Titan's forums. So we were at least somewhat aware of what we were getting into, but I suppose sometimes you don’t really see how out-of-whack a setup is until you've played through it with forty-something other guys.

As for the decicion not to send the tournament results to RankingsHQ... I don't understand their reasons not to do so and I'm a little dissapointed, but I think I'll leave it at that.

It'll be very interesting to see what Chris and the rest of the 40K-team comes up with for WWIX. Hopefully we'll be able to make trip again next year. I'll leave you with a little video featuring the eight nominees for Best Painted at this year's event.