Well, I'm home, we've finished the gaming and found the ultimate bad-ass.
It wasn't me.
To be fair, I stomped Chaos & Space Wolves, lost only marginally to two
Eldar players, and kicked another Eldar player's butt.
The main problem was this. Under the tournament rules, you are rated for
winning battles, Army Selection and Sportsmanship. Now, under
sportsmanship, each player you face gives you a mark out of 5, depending how
friendly you were, how well you knew the rules, etc. . .
Now, if you play someone and absolutely stomped him, is he likely to give
you a great mark? I'm not bitter about this (really!), but I got chatting
to this American bloke who ended up winning the Sportsmanship prize. When I
looked up my scores, I couldn't believe it. Only two people scored worse
than me! I AM NOT THAT BAD! Mark, tell them!
As it happened, this made a big difference in the company I was in. If I
had had an average score, I would have come into the top ten. A good score
and I would have come in the top 5.
Another point is that they opened Bugman's Bar at lunchtime and kept it open
all afternoon and evening. I am sure I was getting funnier and more
friendly as the day went on. . .
Enough moaning, onto the battles!
The first was vs. Space Wolves. Suffice to say, the only casualties I
suffered was when a Wolf Guard with a Cyclone Missile Launcher unloaded a
full salvo into my Deathwing Squad, killing two of the Storm Bolter dudes.
Then my army rolled forward and wiped him out. He scored no points
whatsoever. I was the only player in the Tournament to achieve a victory
like this (got no credit for that!).
Next was Vs. Eldar. Not good. Took down his Falcon & Fire Prism quickly,
but then it degenerated into a slugging match where we just took each other
apart. He won by 120 points (a very, very small number).
The first special scenario was against Chaos. We started with one squad
each on the board and brought reserves on each turn. He started off with a
veteran squad in the middle of the board, holed up in ruins, I started with
a Ravenwing Attack Bike. When my Bike got up to speed, he had great
problems hitting it and it lasted most of the game. This was the only thing
he killed, but not before it wasted his Dreadnought and Terminators. After
that, my reserves just marched forward and rolled over his positions. My
Master of the Deathwing charged into the ruins where his veterans were
cowering. A Heavy Bolter guy overwatched him and he displaced right into
the middle of the enemy squad. What followed was not very pleasant, but it
was all good for me.
Right! Sunday:
First battle - oh dread, against the Eldar again. I lost this by 180 (very
small again - I won the two other battles by over a 1000 point difference)
points. I am trying hard to remember the details of this game, but I
believe I was still drunk from the night before! I must say, I cannot even
remember what Craftworld they were from. Oh yes, I remember! It was the
night battle, where range is restricted to 16". I was doing well until I
let my Dreadnoughts stray just a little too close to his Wraithguard. One
was destroyed, one damaged.
The last game was the weirdest I have ever played. Another Eldar. I was
worried, given my previous performance against these guys. He got first
turn and his 12 Jet Bikes (four with Shuriken Cannon), 2 Vypers, 5
Wraithguard and 2 Exarchs on Jet Bikes raced to my line and opened up. This
immense salvo completely failed to hurt any Terminators (bare in mind how
many Sustained Fire dice we are talking here, killed one Servitor and
destroyed my Attack Bike. And that was it. Nothing else was touched. Now,
my Attack Bike, when destroyed, went out of control and exploded. This
destroyed a Jet Bike and a Vyper. The Vyper also went out of control and
crashed into the Wraithguard squad. A Wraithguard was destroyed in the
explosion and sucked another Wraithguard into the warp! The guy could not
believe what was happening. He then learnt why a three man Swooping Hawk
squad should not land within short range of a Marine Tactical Squad on
Overwatch. The Dark Angels had chicken that night. He then tried dropping
a Hawk Exarch into close combat with a Dreadnought and the Tactical Squad
opened up again. The guy had given this Exarch a Displacer Field which when
hit, displaced the Exarch away from the Dreadnought. I had learnt to wipe
out Wraithguard quickly by this time - when rolling to damage them, I
literally could not roll anything other than a 5 or 6. He managed to
destroy one Dreadnought in close combat with an Exarch, but when that
exploded, it killed his Exarch, 2 Jet Bikes, one of my Tactical Marines and
wounded another Exarch! In won that game by over 300 points.
In all, it was a fun tournament. I am definitely going to the next one and
advise everyone to do the same if you are able. You meet all sorts of
gamers, most are agreeable and there is plenty to drink. You get to talk to
the designers (I told Jervis Johnson that the Eldar Codex needs some serious
rewriting). You get to see loads of pre-release stuff (I saw some prototype
Dark Eldar. Spooge).
See you all at the next Tournament.
Received on Sun Mar 01 1998 - 21:16:36 UTC
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