Throne of Skulls - May 2013

So I’m already in the middle of the slowest Adepticon write up in history, at this rate I’ll be attending Adepticon 2014 before I finish the singles and team tournament games from Adepticon 2013. However this weekend I’m going to Throne of Skulls at Warhammer World. Throne of Skulls (ToS) is Games Workshop’s main “tournament”. I’ve heard mixed reviews of it, due to its random pairings for every round, the odd way they work out the tournament winner and some of the odd rules rulings that the event staff make at times. However this is all second or third hand conversation so that’s why I’m attending one myself to experience it first-hand.

ToS is set at 1500pts, I assume to ensure games finish on time. It’s a lot smaller than I usually play so I’m having to think afresh about my army. I’m also thinking of taking Tau for the first time. This is heavily dependent on me painting quite a lot in the next couple of nights. I’m thinking of using a Tau / Space Wolf combo. Although not totally pointed up yet I thinking ;-

Wolves Primary
Rune Priest
Rune Priest
8 Grey Hunters in Drop Pod
8 Grey Hunters in Drop Pod
8 Grey Hunters

Tau Allies
Commander
Kroot Squad with Sniper rounds
Riptide with Ion Cannon
Broadsides with High Yield Missile Pods

Skyshield Landing Pad

The basic idea is against low initiative armies (Tau, Necrons, Tyranids with Tervigons) one or both Rune Priests keep their Jaws and join one of the drop pods for a first turn alpha strike against some high value targets. Otherwise at least one of the Priests will swap to divination and hang out near the Riptide. The Tau meanwhile are stationed on or around the Landing Pad, giving them a 4++ save. I was originally using an Aegis wall to defend the Tau but I think there will be a number of Tau armies there and they can remove cover saves fairly easily. The Skyshield is 25pts extra investment but gives an invulnerable save to the people on it, plus its elevation will give the Broadsides a fairly commanding view of the table (Warhammer world are notorious for light terrain boards). The kroot can help bring down big creatures and if I’ve got the point I want to include a Kroot hound for the option to out flank.

This master plan is heavily dependent on me painting a lot of the Tau models in the next two days, I’m making good progress but it will be close. I had hoped to include a small unit of pathfinders in the Tau allies to support the Riptide (the Broadside’s weapons are all twin linked so work pretty well without them), but I suspect I won’t get them painted in time. Of course if all else fails the Tyranids will be going on their next trip for an outing.

Adepticon singles tournament, Game 2

Adepticon singles tournament, Game 2

So with no chance of qualifying for the second day of the tournament (if there ever really was) my aim now is to have fun and hopefully still finish in the top half of the table. My second round opponent was Ruddy who was playing a Chaos Space Marine army. Luckily for me  his army doesn’t feature any Helldrakes.  Ruddy had a background for his chapter as being one of the two original founding legions which were expunged from Imperial records, the 2^nd or 11^th legion. I’ve noticed that in the US there is a lot more emphasis on the fluff side of armies, this is evident through tournament points for you display board. The team tournament takes this one step further with specific points for army theme, display board and team appearance. Not saying it’s a good or a bad thing but it is different.

Ruddy's army was a little odd. It featured ;-
Chaos Lord tooled up with wargear
8 Khorne Beserkers
10 Chaos Space Marines in Rhino
10 Chaos Space Marines in Rhino
5 Havoks
3 Obliterators
Landraider
Daemon Prince with Black Mace
Threat wise, I’d need to deal with the Daemon Prince before he made it into combat and the Land Raider could cause me some issue and would likely deliver it’s payload of Beserkers and his Lord into my battle lines.
 
The two primary missions in affect this game were Emperor’s Will and Crusade, so four objectives two of which counted for Emperor’s Will. The Deployment was hammer and anvil, so quite a long way for the bugs to travel.  
 
Once terrain had been placed there was a fairly large open area of terrain in the centre of the board which the Tyranids just wouldn’t be able to cross without taking some fairly brutal casualties, so I was a little surprised that Ruddy deployed his Landraider on this side of the board. It was highly unlikely I’d be attacking on that vector, so I thought it was kind of wasted.  When we deployed we concentrated on the opposite side of the board to take maximum advantage of the woods place to cover my approach. My home objective was defended behind a LOS blocking piece of terrain by the Hive Guard, Zoanthropes and a unit of Termaguants. 


Ruddy got first turn and drove his Landraider into the open area towards my objective, whilst his Daemon Prince flew a full 24” forward towards my battle line.  This was a fairly big mistake in my mind and my two flying Tyrants promptly punished it by swooping near to it and both unloading their devourers into the Daemon, queue one dead Prince and first blood to me. My Hive Guard fired at the approaching Landraider and managed to glance a hull point off it.
 
During turn two Ruddy made an unusual choice, he backed his Landraider up to be outside of the 24” range of the Hive Guard. Why he didn’t continue to drive forward I don’t know. We might have taken another couple of hull points off it but I very much doubt we would have popped it, especially before it had got close enough to drop off the Beserkers. Another mistake he made was disembarking his squads from their Rhinos. The Doom was pretty much guaranteed to arrive next turn, needing a 2+ with reroll due to my warlord trait. Until the point he disembarked from the Rhinos the only target for him were the Havoks in a building, which would have placed him near the Landraider with its Las Cannon as well as limiting the number of wound available to him. Now that two 10man squads had disembarked he had plenty of choices where to go.  Ruddy's Obliterators were still in reserve and I was a little worried they may try to deep strike into my deployment zone to threaten my objectives now that the majority of my monstrous creatures had moved down the board. Ruddy chewed through a number of Gaunt squads but the Tervigons were still producing more.  For my turn we swept forward further toward Ruddy's primary objective. The Doom lands and strips wounds off the marines, whilst the Tyrants fly over to open fire on the Havoks on the building roof.
 
Turn three and the Obliterators arrive but deep strike down into the middle of the board. The Lord and crew disembarked from their Landraider and headed toward the mass of Tyranids moving down one flank. The Marines fought a fighting retreat in the face of overwhelming Gaunts, especially with the arrival of the second Mysetic Spore with the Devilgaunts in, but it was pretty much a loosing battle. The Tyrants swooped on the Landraider, both using crush attacks to destroy the vehicle. The Gargoyles charged the Lord and the Beserkers, less with the intent of killing them, more to just tie them up to stop them charging the grounded Tyrants. Mass Gaunts fire brought down an Obliterator and then they charged to lock him combat. 
 
The remaining turns were mostly about mopping up. His Lord did manage to kill a Tyrant but that was mostly about keeping him away from objectives. The obliterators died to the poisonous Gaunts whilst the 2^nd Tervigon and his broods hunted down the remaining marines. In the end I controlled both Primary objectives as well as one of the secondary ones to win both mission.

Adepticon singles tournament, game 1

Adepticon singles tournament, game 1

So Single tournament day 1. Adepticon had a number of differences from the "typical" UK tournament. They had actually embraced the core rule book system of terrain placement by players, so as part of the pre game process you needed to place the six terrain pieces on the board. Players alternated to put a piece with the majority of it being in your board half. The terrain peices were a mixture of area and LOS blocking, and considering the amount of terrian the tournament needed to provide for the c150 board in the 40k hall alone were a pretty amazing quality.

Similiarly objectives were placed already knowing which side of the board you would be starting on, this is a little odd as if there's an odd number the person placing first will obviously stack his side with more objectives.

Mission wise there were two primary objectives in play in a game, win the majority of those and you scored a crushing victory. If it was a draw on the primary to fell to the usual secondary missions (First Blood, Slay the Warlord and Linebreaker). Winning via this was a minor victory, otherwise it was a draw.

My first opponent in the US was Thomas, he using a Tau force but still on the old codex as it had been released a week too late for inclusion in Adepticon. He also had an Eldar ally which only contained Eldrad and some pathfinders. Great so there goes my psychic powers. He had three broadside, two large units of fire warriors, a commander and body guard unit and a 2nd unit of crisis suits in reserve. The primary missions were kill points and five objectives. Kill points is never a favourite of mine as it restricts my spawning from the Tervigons. Closing on the Tau was going to be key here as I needed to minimise his firing.

Tom deployed first and castled up behind his Aegis wall, then I made my first mistake, I forgot that Eldrad could redeploy models. But thinking about it even if I had remember I wouldn't really have been able to defend against it. Once I'd deployed Tom moved two of his Broadsides to sight on the Biovore for first blood, and his HQ and support unit over to a flank to threaten my Tyrants.

He was also going first which meant he'd have the advantage in the firefight to keep the Tyranids from getting to grips with him.

Sure enough, things went downhill pretty fast. The Biovore and none warlord Tyrant died in turn one to Tom's firing.To make matters worse both my Tervigons rolled a double on their first spawning first weren't looking good. Tom's HQ unit was protected by a 2+ save crisis suit and two shield drones which also had 2+ saves due to being owned by that model. My Warlord flew down the flank towards them but totally failed to get a single wound through their save.

Turn two and my warlord died to plasma death from the HQ unit, the Gargoyles were also butchered. As fast as we were advancing we were being shot off the board. The Doom did arrive and cause some carnage in the HQ unit, first slaying four wounds with leech essence, then manifesting psychic shriek for a further two. But it was probably to little to late.

Tom's final crisis team arrived from deep strike behind my lines near the Tervigons and proceed to vapourise one with their firing, the ensuing wounds to the Gaunt units cause one to break and flee off the board, the other were thankfully in the second Tervigon's synapse range. It pretty much went down hill from there (if that's possible). In the end I don't think I managed to get a single kill point as even the unit of Firewarriors my devil gaunts picked on managed to save enough wounds to not be wiped out.

So it was that I suffered a crushing defeat in game one. It was still an enjoyable game to play and Tom was a great opponent, but I'd already ruled myself out of getting through to the second day of the tournament (not that I really had any belief I would have gotten through).

Adepticon Post 1 (not sure how many I'll span this over)

So last weekend it was Adepticon in Chicago.The biggest tournament in the states and a lot bigger than ones you see in the UK. There were two main 40k tournament that weekend, a singles one and a four man team affair. I was lucky enough to get into both tournaments, the team tournament I was with three other people on the Geek Nation Tours.

Whilst on that subject I do recommend Geek Nation Tours, probably a little more expensive than if you sorted everything out yourself, but a lot less hassle and you get some nice extras too. The main one being exclusive access to the shopping cart two week prior to general release. Let me put it another way, tickets went on public sale around midnight UK time and the singles sold out in six hours, the team tournament in something like four hours. Without the earlier access its very unlikely someone in the UK gets a ticket unless they stay up real late or are lucky. Added to that is a number of organised trips to various restaurants, plus a lovely geek nation bowling shirt and Teras (your host) to answer any questions.  Overall it made the whole trip a lot more relaxed and enjoyable.

Anyway back to the write ups. I'll start off with the singles event. The US operate quire a weird system. There is four games played on day one, then the top 16 generals battle it out on day two. I'm not sure this format would work outside of a convention, since I doubt many people would pay to enter an event where the vast majority of the players will only play on one of the two days. It works in Adepticon since you can spend the second day playing in one of the other tournaments or just visit all the vendors (like I did). Four games in a single day is long, it's 10hrs of gaming before you add in any breaks for meals. It didn't help that the weather leading up to the start was terrible and so registration took a lot longer than I think they'd planned for, so instead of starting at 9am as advertised Game one didn't start until 10.30, it was gonna be a long day.

Now you should all know which army I was taking. The Tyranids have been my only army for the first half of the year and they were going on tour to the US. The bugs actually travelled quite well. They did end up being checking into the aircraft hold as AA wouldn't allow the bag as carry on, but there were only a couple of minor repairs required at the other end.

The list is used was a fairly standard affair, pretty much what you'd expect from the bugs in the current meta.

HQ1: Hive Tyrant (170), Wings (60) 2x Twin linked Devourers (30), Hive Commander (25)  

HQ2: Hive Tyrant (170), Wings (60) 2x Twin linked Devourers (30), Old Adversary (25)    

Elite1: 3 Hive Guard (150)  
Elite2: 2 Zoanthrope (120) 
Elite3: DOOM! of Malan'tai (90) + TRANSPORT1 
Troop1: Tervigon (160), Toxin Sacs (10), Adrenal Glands (10), Catalyst (15), Onslaught (15)  
Troop 2 : Tervigon (160), Toxin Sacs (10), Adrenal Glands (10), Catalyst (15), Onslaught (15) 
Troop 3 : 17 Termagants (85), Devourers (85) + TRANSPORT2 
Troop 4 : 10 Termagants (50)   
Troop 5 : 10 Termagants (50)  
FA1: 15 Gargoyles (90), Toxin Sacs (15)  
Heavy1: Biovores (45)  
Transport1 : Mycetic Spore (40)  
Transport2 : Mycetic Spore (40)


Heavy on the psychic powers and T6 creatures. With a lot of Str4 firepower from devourers and fleshborers, and here they are on their lovely display base (you got extra points in the painting section for having a display board, so I figured I may as well get one).

There were 232 people playing in the singles tournament (and that makes for a large room full of gamers the photo to the left is only half the hall we were in), so to keep in running with my blog I was looking to finish between 100 - 150 for mid table obsurity, higher would be nicer but there was a fair amount of soft scores for painting, and unlike a lot of UK tournaments there was a fairly strict scoring system for it, I knew I wasn't going to get anywhere near to top marks on it and in the end came away with 23 / 40 for appearance.

I think if I start to go over my games this will begin to get a long blog so I'll sign off this entry now and post game one tomorrow. Stay tuned.....

The road to Adepticon...

Well Adepticon is no a week away and there's a mixure of emotions. Excited to see what the grandest US wargaming event is like, nervous because believe it or not it's my first ever solo overseas holiday so I'm worried I've not got some visa I require or forgotten something else. From a gaming point of view I'm not overly confident. I took a real beating at the GT final and its really knocked my confidence in the Tyranids. I have took some learning from the weekend (The Swarmlord lost his ticket to the US by his terrible performance at the GT), I'm hoping that it was just a blip.I'm registered in two tournaments over the pond, the Championship and the Team Tournament.

The Championship is a singles event set at 1850 points. The missions used are the kind we've not really seen in the UK since 5th edition with a primary and secondary conditions. Although reviewing the primer packs they produce it does seem that if you win the primary you win the round, and since it's a win/loss system that appears to be key. The tournament is an eight game event with one twist, only the top 16 players get thought to day, so realistically most people in attendance only play 4 games. I'm under no illusion that I'll make it to the final. If I do it will be an act of god. I'd like to come away with three wins, but will settle for two. The Tyranids have been building to this all year and the list I'm going to take is a fairly familiar one, both to my readers (if there are many) and to the Internet as a whole as it's a fairly common build for Tyranids.

HQ1: Hive Tyrant (170), Wings (60) 2x Twin linked Devourers (30), Hive Commander (25) HQ2: Hive Tyrant (170), Wings (60) 2x Twin linked Devourers (30), Old Adversary (25) 

Elite1: 3 Hive Guard (150)
Elite2: 2 Zoanthrope (120)
Elite3: DOOM! of Malan'tai (90) + TRANSPORT1
Troop1: Tervigon (160), Toxin Sacs (10), Adrenal Glands (10), Catalyst (15), Onslaught (15)
Troop 2 : Tervigon (160), Toxin Sacs (10), Adrenal Glands (10), Catalyst (15), Onslaught (15)
Troop 3 : 15 Termagants (75), Devourers (75) + TRANSPORT2
Troop 4 : 10 Termagants (50) 
Troop 5 : 10 Termagants (50)
FA1: 15 Gargoyles (90), Toxin Sacs (15)
Heavy1: 2 Biovores (90)
Transport1 : Mycetic Spore (40)
Transport2 : Mycetic Spore (40)

It's pretty much what I took to Caledonia Uprising, which was singularly my best tournament placing for a major tournament ever, so I'm hoping for some more of that luck to rub off. I'm also registered in the team tournament with a few other people on the Geek Nations tour. This is a doubles team event so four player split down into two pair, each person with 1000 points. 

I'm looking forward to the whole event and hopefully I'll get some good write ups and photo to post on here in a couple of weeks. 

UK GT Final 2013 Post Mortem

I say it’s a post mortem as my performance at the recent GT final was pretty dead. I don’t intend to go through a turn by turn write up as I did for Caledonia, mainly because it will only depress me more. What I will go through is some high level highlights, match-up, good units, poor units and overall thoughts.

Firstly lets be fair, the GT final was always going to be a competitive affair. Everyone in the room had finished in the top 50% of one of the heats, so it was an achievement to have qualified. It was 1850pts with 40K approved Forge World units allowed.  It was a win/loss/draw system which does have its advantages and disadvantages. Tyranids can struggle to smash opponents in a typical 20pts system as we tend to loose a lot of our units crossing the board, but it is frustrating to be just pipped to a win and to leave with effectively nothing. Overall the event was well organised, but did highlight that a 1850pt game of 6^th edition is a struggle to finish in 2hr 30mins. It’s something I need to address for Adepticon. The list I settled on was ;-

HQ1 – Swarmlord (280) [280pts]
HQ2 – Hive Tyrant (155), Wings (60), 2x Twin Linked Devourers (30), Old Adversary (25) [280pts]
Troop1- Tervigon (160), Catalyst (15), Onslaught (15), Toxin Sacs (10), Adrenal Glands (10) [210pts]
Troop2 - Tervigon (160), Catalyst (15), Onslaught (15), Toxin Sacs (10), Adrenal Glands (10) [210pts]
Troop3 – 15 Gaunts (75) [75pts]
Troop4 – 15 Gaunts (75) [75pts]
Troop5 – 15 Gaunts (75), Devourers(75), Transport1 [150pts]
Elite1 – 2 Hive Guard (100) [100pts]
Elite2 – 2 Hive Guard (100) [100pts]
Elite3 – Doom of (90),Transport2 [90pts
Fast1 – 15 Gargoyles (90), Toxin Sacs (15) [105pts]
Heavy1 – Biovore (45) [45pts]
Heavy2 – Biovore (45) [45pts]
Transport1 – Mycetic Spore (40) [40pts]
Transport2 – Mycetic Spore (40) [40pts]

Another trial outing for the Swarmlord, to see if he could earn himself a ticket to Adepticon. Also I’d taken more Hive Guard as I suspected a heavier mech based meta there.

Game wise I came away with 2 win and 4 losses. The whole of my second day was pretty awful. Nothing to do with the opponents I face personally, but 3 games of terrible matchups where there was very little to nothing I could to disrupt my opponents plan or implement one of my own. Things I learnt about Tyranids from a matchup point of view.

• Tyranids simply can’t deal with flyers. This can be mitigated by ignoring them in some cases, but specifically Helldrakes and Grey Knight Storm Ravens are just impossible to beat. The Helldrakes can pretty much do what they want with little comeback and are easily capable of destroying monstrous creatures and hordes alike. I do think I need to hold back my flying Tyrants against Helldra to try to ensure that after they’ve flown onto the board I can swoop behind and shoot their rear armour, plus it will prevent the vector strikes on the Tyrants. The mind strike missiles of the Storm Ravens will easily destroy my synapse creatures with minimal effort.
• Certain Forge World models are horribly broken. I faced two Warp Hunters in game 5 and their barrage 36” range D-Cannons are just ridiculous. The Swardlord was instant killed by one in his first turn of firing with absolutely no possible way for me to defend against it. 

The meta also seems to be shifting back toward more vehicle spam, the Necron army I faced feature 5 AV13 vehicles and 4 flyers which I simply just couldn’t touch. They moved around with almost complete immunity killing the monstrous creatures at range. I also don't like Helldrakes or Bastions both of which I didn't really have a solution to.

With regard to specific units and their performances

Swarmlord – He’s just not fast enough. He also cost me a game by not being able to kill the Dark Eldar Baron in a round of combat. Of the six games I played him he didn’t stand out in any of them and indeed in two gave away first blood. He may work better if he had a Tyrant Guard with him, but I’m not sure. For Adepticon I think the two flying Tyrants will be used.  

Tervigons / Gaunts – Pretty much the stand out units in the army and the real work horses. Tervigons holding the relic are a nightmare to put down and in at least two of my games they were spawning Gaunts all game. So much so that I may have to consider trying to paint more Gaunts to take to America. 

Doom! – The Doom was his usual hit and miss. In one game he dropped, took four wounds of the enemy’s Swarmlord and murdered dozen of Gaunts that his Tervigons kept spawning. In another he landed took a stray round from my own Biovore, before dying to the first melta shot fire at him. This said I think he’s worth the points for the fear alone that many armies have for him, and how he can disrupt a players deployment and movement just to prevent a juicy spot from appearing for him to land in. 

Gargoyles – These winged little Gaunts under performed somewhat this weekend. Being a fraction of on a inch outside of synapse in my last game meant they fled from combat against a dread knight totally collapsing my flank. I think I still need to work out how best to use the faster Gaunts. 

Hive Guard – These were also a little under whelming. If the enemy force featured vehicles which they could prey on, my opponents were quick to deal with them. Their 24” range really is a barrier to this as most of the tanks they want to prey on have much longer ranges and so will simply stay out of range. They are also not a viable anti air unit as they simply can’t hit them.

Biovores - Again under performed, but I'm still yet to face a real blob so they might just have not had the oppotunity to shine.

Overall I'm pretty disappointed with the performance and it hasn't left me in a good mood with the Tyranids. They've got a least two more oppotunities to perform as I'll have little replace them for the Throne of Skulls in May and they definately have to travel to Adepticon in a weeks time. However I've joined in the 40K UK Age of Armies campaign, so there's a replacement army in the making, who prevails for the latter half of 2013 is still to be seen.

Incoming Tau

2013, where am I? In the 40k Games of 40K I’ve had eight games so far (5 at Caledonia and 3 at the Yorkshire Open). Of these eight games I’ve won five, drawn two and only lost one (to the Daemon Flamer / Screamer spam). That said I’ve not had a game against Necrons so far or faced the triple Helldrake threat which is all over the internet at the moment.

Coming up I’ve got six games at the GT final coming up this weekend, as well as three more at Adepticon in just under a month (maybe even six if I make it into the final 16). I’ve also signed up for a ticket to the Throne of Skulls in May. I’m still hoping to get the full 40 games in with my Tyranids but I’m also looking to future.

For that reason I’ve decided to take part in the 40K UK podcast’s Age of Armies campaign . The basic idea is to buy and paint £50 of stuff for a new army each month, culminating in everyone who has taken part attending the same tournament with their new armies. I like the idea of the slow burn on collecting and painting as it allows me to have some small scale games 750, 1000pts as I’ve collected the level of models.


I’ve chosen to go for a Tau Empire army for the campaign. I’ve actually already got a Tau army, but with a new codex due in a couple of weeks and the host of extra models this will bring I’m thinking of just starting from scratch. I do like the look and feel of Tau, plus after a mostly close combat orientated army like Tyranids I fancy a complete switch up.

One thing I want to address straight away this time is the basing of the models. I’ve keen to avoid my usual poor paint and flock, I’ve used the sand and glue approach before and it works better but I’m thinking of trying something fancier this time, I’m just not sure what. It may involve buying some custom bases from one of the web stores or possibly putting more of an effort in before I glue models onto their bases. I’d welcome any suggestions of relatively simple way to make a more detailed base.

My first update is due on the first Wednesday on April, but given the new codex is released four later I think that might be a light update. I may look to pick up a box of fire warriors before then, but I suspect the main area of concentration will be on the basing solution.

Next update for the blog will be all about the games at the GT final. Looking forward to the weekend, but I think the games are going to be tough.