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| The Armies Finished and On a Finished Display Board! |
Okay now that I have had time to recover here is my take on Fields of Blood, the most narrative hobby driven major tournament to be found.
Firstly here is the list that I ran:
I got a whopping 8.5 out of 10 for army selection which meant that the judges found my list to be fluffy and noncompetitive. Just to add some fluff bonuses I was the only person to secure a grudge match vsing Chris Parkins Blood Angels in Round 1 for a glimpse of the War on Baal (I have no grudge against Chris and have never played him before, Grudge purely faction based for narrative). Turns out it was a successor chapter called in to defend the home-world.
And what a game it was, being soooo early in the morning and only my 2nd game of 9th (and technically only my 3rd turn of 9th) going first I took one look at the rules saw Objectives didn't matter till round 2 and promptly advanced my whole army off the objectives in my deployment zone... this was a mistake as they matter at the beginning of round 2 before you move...
I also failed to remember adrenal glands gave my Whippy Boi +1 to his advance (I remembered it on the charge) so he failed his charge by 2mm. From here I failed to stay in the game and my HQs all went to down, my rippers died to morale tests and I got stomped. Highlight however was when his captain charged whippy boi and killed him only to find that meant whippy boi fought him twice and killed him..
Game 2 was against a player I often talked to at Tournaments but had never actually played. Master of the Guard Regan Ridge. Today he had some sisters along to make sure his guard stayed on the path of the right and pure. This was a tough game with me again going first but again forgetting the +1 to Whippy Bois advance and this time failing the charge by 1mm.
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| He had lost a base while painting.. |
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| They just don't die. |
Next up was a mountain of shit, quite literally as I faced of against Nurgles filthiest - Alick Harris. This game was quite the laugh with me putting in just over 100 shots over 2 turns from my gaunts to kill 1 squad of Nurglings and 100 melee attacks from my genestealers, broodlord and flyrant to kill the other squad of nurglings, between the 3 turns we had as we both rolled 100s of dice for attacks. saves and feel no pains that didn't result in alot of damage on either side. He did have more sticking power however and though a single gaunt survived to ruin his well laid plans. After spending most of the game laughing about how hard nurglings were to kill Alick got my vote for best opponent (I must not have been the only one to laugh at how frustrating the nurglings are as Alick got the award for Living Saint at the end of it all.)
At the end of day 1 I had 2 games only go to turn 3 and 1 to turn 5. Was I playing slow or was it the Guard and Nurgles fault? Probably both.
Day 2 saw day light savings come and ruin life as we basically had to start at 7:30 in the morning thanks to everything moving by an hour (why I sign up to FoB knowing this happens day 2 every time is madness). To make matters worse I had to start the morning vs Tau (Michael Price). Despite being a terrible idea my genestealers were lined up for the first turn charge so they took it. After the majority of his army overwatched me the remaining genestealers stumbled into combat with the Ghostkeels locking them down for Whippy Boi to make a massive charge and engage one from behind. This also lined him up to consolidate into the line of firewarriors protecting his main castle. Whippy Boi got the whopping 9 damage roll off for the first time in the tourne to take the ghostkeel down and cause havoc.
Panic ensued as after he disengaged from Whippy Boi and locked in the Kauyon with Shadowsun meaning his Warlord was now in heroic intervention range and exposed to Whippy Boi. Whippy Boi tried his hardest to live but couldn't survive the firepower of an entire Tau army going with shoot the bug in our face. However thanks to some strategic play I was able to eventually pull out a narrow win. Game ended round 4.
As punishment for finally winning a game I was put up against some Ultramarines with all the tools. Chris Sims had Calgar, Tigurius, Leviathan Dread with Double Butchers and a Lieutenant with a Seal of Oath. Once again going first for the 5th time Whippy Boi ran in a straight line and this time I remembered the +1 to advances and he managed to just make the charge into the Leviathan Dread. This became the battle of 4+ invulns as neither side took damage. Calgar eventually moved to join in the fray but between 2 smites (one of which went big!) and a Psychic Scream he fell to mortal wounds from full HP. Tigurius also bit of more than he could chew as Whippy Boi repriortised when he charged in. It was a close game, the Tyrants held out for sooo long but eventually fell down leaving a large gaps in my synapse. Playing the objectives however I managed to sneak out the narrowest win at 49-48. It might have been bigger if I hadn't wasted a secondary on 'while we fight we stand' that got 0 points, the thinking was he had almost no anti tank and I could focus that first but the Oath was a game changer in terms of taking out the Heirodule.
Finally for Game 6 I was up against Steve Hills beautiful GSC, I would have to say he was my best dressed opponent in terms of painted models but I didn't get any photos of the game as he requested that we fast play as he had to be packed up and leave by the time the game was meant to be finished as he had a plane flight out of town. He said he was going to leave tactics in the dust and simply run it down mid and may the better fighter take victory. With him going first and barely denting me in the shooting phase this opened me up for the easy counter charge, while the middle ground objectives were contested early I was smashing the fight and quickly pulled ahead. Finally it seems I had picked the right secondaries as I was able to get max points for them and only 10 points shy of maximum primaries by the end of the fiesta.
All in all this leaded to me being the 2nd Best Nids player at the tournament. However with the only Nids player above me being on the podium with a 3rd place finish they got a real trophy and the Best in Faction trophy fell down onto my lap much to my surprise.
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| Not Pictured one more Mek and 10 more gobbos for 2000pt Brigade |
As always the hobby side of things gets amped up by a tournament and with my Nids being almost 'Done' I have shifted my attention back to my Orks. Lets see how long it takes me to tackle this long awaited project (Or how long it takes the butterfly to flutter onto something else). I have already started updating the paint job on the yellow truck. I got it 2nd hand and a bit over half painted, well better painted than I could at the time I got it but now I finally feel confident in finishing the paint job and making it something that I can call mine.