NI4 Game 4

So, I ended up playing a fourth game, but the score would not count towards my total. This was due to the odd number of participants and the issues that occurred at the start of the tournament (I won't go in to them again, I've moaned enough about them!). I'm not sure if this was the best way to make up the games, as I was playing sabotage rather than for points. The game however was really enjoyable.

Deployment

So, I was wondering how to play this game. Aggressive or defensive? I deployed first and went for a usual set-up, however I decided to push the wyverns up in to one of the ruins for some cover, try and keep them away from the big scary beasts. I had nothing but the flyers and their squads in reserve.

The forces of the imperium.

My opposition flooded his side of the table with models. 2 large broods of Gargoyles and to large groups of Gaunts on opposite sides of the table, 4 flyers, 2 flying Hive Tyrants and 2 Crones started on the table. Rounding everything off were a couple of Tyranid Warrior broods. Oh, and a couple of Zoanthropes and some spore mine things in reserve.

A very scary nids deployment.

If you can't be seen, to can't be hit. Hiding in the ruins

Turn 1

I knew that his flyers were going to be on me in no time at all, but I didn't really have anything for dealing with them apart from the autocannons and they didn't have line of sight. So my main target was either one of the Gaunts or the Gargoyles. I went for the Gargoyles as I thought that they were the greater threat, mainly due to their speed. I fired the Wyverns at the squad and with all the re-rolls managed to eliminate a whole unit, earning first blood in the process. Only 26 points left available! I took a couple of pot shots at some Warriors, but did little.

First blood!

My opponent replied in brutal fashion, with his flyers moving right up and taking on my Wyverns ! After a lot of shooting, including two template haywire shots! But my Wyverns went pop, not a good start. In the rest of the shooting, a number of guardsmen got hit, but the majority of the fire-power went on the Wyverns. Everything else ran to get in range.
 

Oh crap!

Wyverns about to die.

The hoard approaches, Crone to the front, Gaunts in the centre and Warriors to the rear!

Turn 2

With the flyers right on my doorstep and both my Wyverns down and out, things were looking pretty dire. The only bit of luck was managing to ground one of the crones, which was then dispatched with massed lass fire!

Now you see it (bottom left)

Now you don't! 1 down 3 to go!

The rest of the units did little. The centre held the line but the PCS ran for the ruins at the top of the table. The newly arrived Valkyrie targeted one unit of Gaunts, killing a number, but not wiping them out.

My opposition continued his advance. Pretty much everything but the flyers and the Warriors ran forward. The flyers went to work on the troops, removing a number of the guardsmen, as did the Warriors, even though they only had one shot, a blast, in range.

Moving in for the kill.

At this point in the game, the points were pretty even, with me on two and my opposition on just one, but things still had a long way to go. I was now playing to deny and not really for points.

End of turn 2. A lack of guardsmen in the centre

Turn 3

Its hard to see, but if you look through the window on the left, you can just see a Gaunts head peaking around the corner of the building in the middle of the table. (Trust me its there!)

For the first time in all the battles, my Promethium Relay Pipe come in to there own. The unit of Gaunts moving towards the centre objective get the full force of thee torrent flamers and a bunch of lasguns, killing all but one Gaunt! On the left side, the flamers and lasgun fire take the other Gaunts down to half strength. I also take a chance this turn, and decide to Grav-Chute insert my vet squad, something I generally don't like doing, and for good reason, when 2 of my squad manage to splat themselves all over a building. The rest run in to the cover of said building, with the intention of going for both line breaker and his objective.

One gaunt, holding the objective. 

My opponent continued attacking with the flyers. One moved in to glide to keep firing at the guardsmen, the other swung around going for new targets. The left Gaunts recover and move up, but not in to the building, keeping out of flamer range. The Warriors start there moves forward as well. By this point, I'm starting to run out of units, but I've not given up many points at this point.

The onslaught continues!

End of turn 3, and the grunts on both sides have been feeling the pain!

Turn 4

As there is little I can really do to all the flying beasts, I decide to move. My left squad moves towards the objective, removing some more Gaunts in the process, with the flamers hanging back to keep the torrent rule. On the right hand side, the PCS move up and issue an order to themselves, to fire and move, flaming the Gargoyles on that side. As a result of 4 flamers, the squad is removed, clearing the way for the PCS to take the objective. In another point saving move, the two psykers break form the centre squads and move off with the left squad, running away from the flyers in the centre. The Vendetta went in to hover and dropped of the plasma command squad, with a lot more accuracy than the last drop! I did put the Vendetta in a dangerous position. The squad didn't fire though as they charged in to the two units, the last Gaunt and the Zoanthrope, both of which were on the objective.

Advance!

The table at the top of turn 4.

Moving for the objective.

Combat.

My opposition continued his relentless assault on my squads, killing off the command squad and killing my warlord and more importantly earning himself a number of points. Unfortunately, my gamble didn't pay off and my vendetta was brought down. The combat in the centre continued with nothing happening, which was not good for my part, as I wanted to break out to be able to fire in my turn.

End of turn 4

Turn 5

By the beginning of turn 5 it was pretty clear that I had managed to complete my objective of reducing the points my opposition was getting. I had sacrificed a few units, but that had been necessary.

For my turn I just moved to secure the objective, the PCS on the right, the Blob on the left and the vets ran for my oppositions objective, while the remnants of the centre blob held mine. The centre objective was still contested at this point, but I managed to destroy the Zoanthrope during the assault phase.

My opposition did his bit and went for kill points, taking down the now hovering Valkyrie and also opening up on the plasma command squad in the centre with his Warriors, as a result the command squad was down to the commander on 1 wound. The flyers also eliminated the last of the centre blob squad, which was taken with one of the swooping flyers. There was not much else that happened as it was clear that my opposition was not able to gain the number of points needed to win the tournament.

End game, apart from the squad at the bottom is dead.

At the end of the game, the score were, 10 to me, First Blood, Line breaker, 4 for objectives and 4 kill points, and my opposition had 12, Line breaker, Slay the Warlord, 7 kill points and 3 objectives. While this was a loss, my only one of the tournament, it was in fact a successful game, I gave away only 12 points, short of the 21 my opposition needed to win. In many respects, this game wound have ended differently had we both been playing for points. At the start of the game I was on 25 and my opponent was on 23. This would have put us on 35 a piece, and drawing. What would have happen, I don't know, but it would have gone on to tertiary points (Warlord, first blood and line breaker) and i might have still been able to win. However, if we had of been playing for points, i might have played differently, keeping both flyers in zooming and gone for the last of the Gaunts for more points. We also made a few mistakes at the end, with the plasma command squad commander surviving a strength 6 hit which should have killed him outright, giving a kill point and also enabling him to take the centre objective. This would have put his score to 15 and potentially winning the tournament. Its all academic though, as my points were already decided.

End game - loss - 10 (FB, LB, 4obj, 4 kp) - 12 (LB, StW, 7kp, 3obj)

NI4 game 3

Game 3, and my final tournament game. There was some discussion about who was going to play who, as the general consensus was that top two should play, then next two and so on, Al la the Swiss system. However, that meant that my would be opponent was still playing (a long running 5 hour epic of a match!). There was the added complexity that some people were playing in the AoS tournament the next day, so it was not really possible to role the games over until tomorrow. This lead me to play a different player, a fellow from my own club, who id played my one and only practice match against! Although this time he was playing a slightly different list.

Deployment

I deployed first and yes, I deployed in standard fashion. Wyverns behind the main blob squad, with pcs on the left flank and command squad in the building. The other blob squad and priest outflanked due to my warlord trait again. I also gained draconian discipline, which want great as most units are fearless due to the priests.

The guard lines, pretty much as usual.

My opponent, having faced my Wyverns in the past, spread out. All his armour, something my Wyverns can't harm, was on his left,my right, facing my Wyverns and his bikes went to the opposite corner. They spread out as far forward as possible ready to advance on my troops. His scouts pushed forward,snipers in the tower in front of the bikes and the other squad hid behind the building on the other side, ready to take the objective in the building.

Marine deployment. Vehicles on his left.....

.....Bikes on his right. Oh and snipers in the tower and scouts just visible behind the far building. 

The battle field, wayward marines on the left, loyal guardsmen of the emperor on the right

Now, I can't quite figure out what's happening as I've got it down that I deployed first, but my opponent moved first. I don't remember him stealing the initiative but unless my notes are wrong, which is possible, he must have. Anyway, on to turn 1.

Turn 1

My opponent went full advance with his turn, no shooting apart from the scouts, who did little. The Land raider and rhino went full pelt across the board, driving to within inches of my lines. The bikes also moved up, ready to pounce on the left flank of my lines.

For once, I got some good psychic powers and actually got them off! Most of the games I had poor luck with the dice, failing to get off most of my powers or only generating 3 or 4 dice in total, making it hard to generate powers. This game however, I had misfortune, rending is a great power to have, as the bikes found out to there disadvantage. Being able to place rending on a target unit, rather then a shooting unit is very good and they Wyverns took full advantage, with ignores cover removing the jink save and shred maximizing my wounds, the unit suffered. A full squad including attack bike plus captain were reduced to an attack bike on one wound. The captain tanked a couple on his invun, but with 6 rending hits plus twice as many normal hits, the squad was doomed. A number of scouts also fell to autocannon fire, but the vehicles remained unharmed.

The remnants of the bikers

Raider and rhino up close and personal.

Turn 2

Things took a turn for the worse here. The raider got as close as it could before disembarking its cargo, as did the rhino. This meant I had a squad of 10 marines and a 5 man squad with librarian terminator on my doorstep. The Libby and squad tried to assault the command squad in the tower, but had to go around another unit and didn't quite make it. The other squad, raider and rhino opened up on my blob squad in the middle. There want much left by the end of it!

A big hole where some guardsmen use to be

I was quite happy with my reply. The command squad, pcs and blob all replied, along side the newly arrived Valkyrie. As a result, both squads were down to half strength, although this want quite enough as it turned out. The last of the snipers were dispatched by the Wyverns, I thought it was to much of a risk to try for the marines in front of me.

Smaller holes where some marines use to be.

Turn 3

There were some fun end games this time. To start with the land raider tried to move off of its perch, and managed to get itself stuck! The rhino disappeared off somewhere, still got no idea where it was going. The marines on the other hand carried on forward and were joined by the reminding scouts. As a result of all the fire power and some assaults, the centre squad was destroyed along with the majority of the command squad. Only the pcs survived the onslaught. At some point during this a Wyverns disappeared, not quite sure where or when, but it went somewhere. I suspect it might have fallen to the raiders assault cannon or the whirlwind.

During my turn, the vendetta turned up and did have an impact, destroying the rhino. The Valkyrie engaged the whirlwind, destroying the rockets, not that they had much to fire at any more. The pcs ran for there lives, straight in to the central building to take the objective there and the wyvern decided it was time to leave as well and headed for the left objective. There was little point in hanging around to get destroyed by the raider or the marines.  The slap fest between the Libby and his squad and the command squad continued, I say marines and command squad, but by this point we were down to just the Libby and my warlord, not quite sure how the rest of the marines were dead by this point, alongside the command squad, as I would have thought at least 1 marine should have survived. The other marine squad also made quick work of the last of the central blob squad.

Vendetta arrives to support the valkyrie

Guardsmen? What guardsmen?

Slap fest, unfortunately people wearing TDA tend to slap harder than those without.

End of turn 3 and there's a slight lack of models!

Turn 4

By this point in the game my opposition had little remaining on the board. With just one scout squad, a 5 man marine squad, an immobilized land raider and a Libby on 1 wound.oh and I think the whirlwind was still alive at this point, hiding at the back after having lost its missiles  some point. I think it might have been the Valkyrie that did the damage. There was little damage done from my opponent at this point. The marines mostly manoeuvred to claim objectives.

In  turn, my last squad decided to turn up,  thankfully came in on a useful side. With this squad turning up and moving  claim an objective, at the same time trying to eliminate the last scout squad. They managed to remove 7 models and force a moral test, which was failed! Although they only ran a couple of inches, not quite enough. My Valkyrie also dropped off the  to take the objective in my opponents half, and removed the whirlwind for a added bonus. The vendetta moved to drop off the plasma command squad next turn. The pcs ran  hid in the centre building and claimed that objective, while the last Wyverns went full pelt for the other objective, not quite making it this turn but within easy reach next turn.

The major talking point was the slap fest between the Libby and my warlord. in my opponents turn, the Libby fluffed all his attacks and I failed  wound, in  turn the Libby got just one attack through, but it was all that was required. After 3 battles my warlord had finally fallen. His consolidation put him at  bottom of the tower, ready to strike at my blob squad.

Better late than never, the second squad arrives.

The battlefield, not much remains.

The Libby triumphant at last!

Turn 5

At this stage in the game two things were very clear, I was winning and there was nothing my opponent could  about it, and I couldn't table my opponent. I could possibly take out all his foot troops but with  raider parked in the middle, a tabling was out of the question.

My opponent tried as last gamble to keep the objective on the right, moving his scouts back in  the building and pushing  the Libby before using smite to remove a large portion of the squad. By the time the shooting was  done, the squad  down to just over half strength. Things went from bad to worse for the squad in my turn, as decided to try and assault to ensure I removed that squad. I lost a man to overwatch but made the charge, loosing a further couple of guys in assault, being reduced to just 7 guardsmen and a priest.  To make matters even worse, my attacks, even with zealot, were a disaster. As a result only 2 scouts died, leaving one to contest the objective!

In other news, the  command squad jumped out  the now hovering vendetta and attempted to plasma the marines to death, something they managed but not before 2 of them fried themselves with gets hot rolls! This resulted in a failed moral test and running off the board! At least they killed the marines.

Elsewhere on the table, the the pcs went firm on the centre objective and the Wyverns parked up on the left one. The vets consolidated on my opponents objective and the two flyers ganged up and killed  the Libby for some payback. Thus the game ended.

The flyers removing the libby.

The last stand

Still standing! All that remains of the marines

At the end of a good game there was little on the table. Both sides had taken heavy losses though out the game. My opponent had very little, a scout and an immobilized raider, I had a Wyvern, vet squad, pcs, 7 guardsmen with  priest and the two flyers. While it sounds a lot, only the vets and the vendetta could do anything against the raider, and the vets were over a turn away from being able to do anything. The fact is though that I still had only 24 of 76 guardsmen left, and half my ground vehicles were destroyed. A war of attrition, one the guard are quite good at!

Points wise, my opponent scored slay the warlord and line breaker plus 6 kill points for a total of 8 and I scored first blood, slay the warlord and line breaker, 8 kill points and 7 objective points, for a total of 18. If the plasma command hadn't been such rubbish soldiers and looked after their weapons properly and the others had sharpen their knives properly (there Catachans! Their knives should be razor sharp already!) it could have been even higher. But that's just greedy really, as an 18 to 8 win is pretty good really.

End game

end game - win - 18 (FB, StW, LB, 7 obj, 8 KP) - 8 (LB, StW, 6 KP)

So, at this pointy tournament should have been over and I was sitting on 43 points, a good strong position, with my nearest rival (another club mate) sitting on 23, 21 points behind and  game to play. There are at least 16 points on every table, 10 objective, 3 for warlord, first blood and line breaker, plus 3 for the CAD (1 HQ and 2 troops). that meant that 21 points was not unachievable depending upon the opposition. As it turnout i was the only available player, the two other players having already played my next opponent. So with 21 points needed, I was offering 27 points, with 14 kill points on offer. It was going to be a very different game for me.

NI4 Game 2

Game two and I was not looking forward to this one, having seen the army I was about to face. There were only 2 armies I was not keen on facing, this one and the tyranids army.

Deployment

I had first turn this time around, and chose to go for my usual deployment. The main issue was that in both deployment zones there were entrenchments, I went for the bigger one in the end but this meant some lateral thinking was requires for the pipe line. In the end I placed it behind to make use of the torrent rule for the flames negating the need to have the flames at the front. The second blob squad was prepared to take the flank. I can't find my notebook at the moment, but from memory I gained preferred enemy and an 18" orders range warlord traits and my opponent gained. Some fancy necron thing, aka zealot. 

My deployment

The Necrons also went fairly defensive, but with 2 monoliths, one barge, an ark and a skimmer thing, not to mention the big walker thing as well, all at armour 13, I was slightly worried.

Necron deployment 

The monoliths

Stalker sitting on top of a building

Turn 1

For the most part turn 1 was pretty dull, the monoliths moved forward as did the bike things (tomb blades), the other skimmer (annihilation barge) and the walker (stalker). My wyverns had previously done a number on a squad of warriors, continuing the trend of turn one first blood.

Turn 2

With my reserves coming on, well, one of them anyway, I was hopeful I could do some damage. As it stood, only the wyverns and the valkyrie did anything. The wyverns taking out the tomb blades and the valkyrie taking a few potshots at the lychguard, and mostly missing. The squad on my right shuffled around to stay out of sight.

End of turn 1

The tomb blades at the bottom are about to take a beating

No more tomb blades

My opposition continued to advance across the board, firing as he went, slowly taking down my blob squad in the trench. He was slowly chipping away at the squads, at the rate he was going I was worried I would have none left soon. Apart from that he did little damage.

The relentless advance

The field of play at the end of turn 2

Turn 3

I continued to chip away at what I could. By this point I had removed a squad of warriors and no concentrated on the immortals, taking a few more down with the wyverns. I also took a few potshots at the lychguard, with little effect. Again, my opposition kept up the steady advance, taking down more troopers in the trenches and manovering to grab the mid field objectives. His barge moving for the left side and stalker entering the building g for the right one. His lychguard and remaining immortals moved for the center.

There is a lot fewer models in the trenches that there was at the start.

The steady advance

Spider in the building! Or rather stalker....

Turn 4

And the vendetta finally turns up! Better late than never! And it immediately had no effect on the game at all! With all the shots bouncing or not even hitting! The valkyrie on the otherhand was playing the smart game and shifting to the back field. The blob on the right went in to the building to challenge to stalker. I also looked at pushing forward with the remnants of the blob squad in the center and the pcs, in an attempt to take the center objective.

The final push forward begins.

It was also at this stage that we realise that my opponent had been playing some rules wrong. He had been playing the stalker as a vehicle and not a walker, and therefore had been moving a lot further than he should have. On the flip side, he had been snap firing a lot of his monolith shots, when as a heavy vehicle he shouldn't have been. So all in all it balanced out, and my guys took one hell of a beating in the last two rounds of shooting! When there not snap firing, monoliths can put out a lot of shots! As for his movement, the warriors finally disembarked from the ark and claimed an objective and the last of the immortals and lychguard claimed the center. The stalker also moved to claim the right objective. At this point it was going to be a close run game.

Warriors disembark.

The necrons hold the center of the board.

Turn 5

For turn 5 the wyverns went to work again, removing the newly disembarked warriors from the objective on the left. The ghost ark went on to claim it but removing the warriors was satisfying. The blob squad in The center fell back after taking casualties and realizing that it was now impossible to get to the centrw objective, the pcs made the same choice, although that was due to poor movement the previous phase by me! This meant that the plasma command squad dropped out of the hovering vendetta and tried a suicidal run to the center objective, I managed to plasma one squad, the immortals, to death, with only one vet killing himself in the process! However, they were charged by the lychguard and lord and were swiftly annihilated with the lychguard getting a good run and getting back to the objective! Oh well. The right hand blob squad carried on moving in to the building and swamped the objective. Also, almost unnoticed the valkyrie hovered and dropped of a bunch of vets who went full pelt for the objective, claiming it with ease.

The suicidal charge in the center, you can see the vendettas flight stand, the vendetta itself was removed for ease of play.

Piling in to the building to steal the objective. It is in there, somewhere under the stalker.

At the end of my opponents turn we were at the end game and it was time to total up scores. With the ghost ark claiming the leftobjective and the lychguard the center the necrons had 4 objective points, one kill point for the plasma command squad and line breaker by a sneaky monolith for a total of 6 points.  Had claimed the right objective, my own and thanks to the vets his objective for 6 objective points, to which I added first blood and line breaker. I also added 4 kill points for the two squads of warriors, the immortals and the tomb blades. Thus giving me a total of 12. So a win at 12 to 6.

End game

End Game - win - 12 (FB, LB, 6 obj, 4KP) to 6  (LB, 4obj, 1KP)

NI4 Game 1

Game one started off on shaky ground, my original opponent was the young lad with a box of models, one one I had a good moan about last post, but as we couldn't get the army list together, the tournament organizer stepped up with his chaos black legion. He force was a good around list, with 5 termies and a sorcerer in termie armour, two squads of marines, one with a lord, a bike squad and a rhino backed up by a squad of havocs. 

Deployment
My opponent deployed across the board, with termies on his right, marines in the middle and left, clearly going after the objectives, the bikes and empty rhino were also on the left with the havocs at the back to provide some long range firepower.

My deployment was along my standard lines, however I had gained 2 units outflanking due to my warlord trait, along side relentless, and as such a blob squad and priest were outflanking. The rest set with wyverns at the rear, blob in front with pcs to the left (right on picture!) and c's on the right In The building, to give the snipers some height.

Its hard to tell deployment from turn one, mostly as nothing has moved!

Turn 1

The pictures above are actually from turn one,thought they were deployment, but on closer inspection you can see the marines have move forward. Nothing else really happened for him as he ran most things and took a few pot shots with the havocs. My turn was not much different, my MoO scattered wildly, about 15 inches or so! As did my wyverns, about 10 for them i think, even with the reroll,which was worse then the original roll! However, the shot clipped a havoc,despite the fact I'd been shooting at the marines in the center! As a result the 5 marines were blown back to the warp, and I gained first blood and a point, and they wyverns started as they would continue for the rest of the tournament.

Turn 2
My opponent continued his advance, getting a marine on to the right objective on top of the building and pushing forward with all the other units, including using a psychic power to jump a bunch of marines right up to my right, just on the corner of the center building. Pot shots were taken by the rest of the units with little damage sustained.

My turn 2 and things get interesting. All my reserves are on and mostly doing there job. The vendetta kills off the rhino and the valkyrie and the blob take out half the bikers. The wyverns helps out too, although with the low numbers doesn't do as much damage as I'd like. Still at this point I'm confident I can secure a win.

Turn 3

And my confidence take a bit of a knock. The marine squad that were jumped get up on the building and make it in to combat and start munching through guardsmen, the termies on the left turn and over the psychic, shooting and assault phases, destroy the outflanking guardsmen with little trouble. Points wise, were pretty even at this point, but I've got a plan!

The destruction on the outflanking unit, already down from 21 to 8 and yet to strike any blows in combat.

Turn 4

Things go from bad to worse for my guardsmen!

Yes, that is a daemon prince

The chaos gods decide that the sgt is doing a fantastic job and gift him with princedom, thus a daemon prince appears in the middle of combat, the remaining guardsmen, priest and two psykers are slain with ease for 4 points! Not only that, butte command squad in contacted by the bikers. A little cheeky on themove I think, withthe bikes moving from one side of the building to the other by going over the top, not sure about that? But they passed there difficult terrain tests, so ill let it go.

The combats.

Termies moving for the objective, just out of shot are my pcs who were running for the same objective but though better of it when the remaining termies, the Libby and sgt?, gave them a bit of a spanking. The rest of the squad had died to the wyverns and vendetta, the valkyrie whittling down the marines on the otherside of the board. 

Turn 5

No pictures here, but it was pretty clear at this point I'd won. My flyers had dropped off their cargo in the last round and both squads were heading to their objectives. The chaos troops consolidated on the objective in my deployment zone and the bikes tried in vain to kill my warlord. I also went for objectives, forgoing trying to kill anything. My wyverns went flat out for the left objective, as the termies had tried to take out the last of the pcs who were going for the center objective, they failed but so did the pcs. The plasma command squad ran for the opposition's home objective and the vets went for the objective on the right that lord was sitting on. I should have charged but decided to run.the lord was on one would and my squad was still 11 strong (vets plus priest) and may have been able to take out the lord. There was also a little bit of rule bending going on on my side. My bloke was just about quarter of an inch from the base of the wall and I rolled a 3 on my run move, I placed him up on the next level, a 3 inch move, but should I? To be honest if it was the other way around I would have been happy to let my opposition do the same. It claimed me the objective from the lord due to the vets being troops.

The dead pile, I'd completely forgotten about the spawn! The charged in to the blob squad on turn 2 and were very quickly dispatched.

End game, the vets are missing from the right hand building, you can just see the lord on top. My warlord is just out of shot the bottom, the last survivor of the command squad.

At the end game the points were - 13 to me (FB, LB, 4 Kill points, 7 objective points) and 10 to my opponent (LB, 3 obj, 7 KP). So a win to me and a food start to my campaign.

As for the battle plan, everything went as planned. I had hoped to keep my objective contested and might have been able to if the daemon prince hadn't turned up, but that's the luck of the dice. On to round 2!