bigbossredskullz

So I went to this years national miniature wargaming tournament, hosted in Oslo. From now on called NM for short. It was held over two days and you could compete in one of the following games:
Warhammer Fantasy
Warhammer 40.000
Warma/hordes
X-wing

As anyone following this blog can guess, I competed in 40k and for fun and hopefully some scoring in the painting department I went for the dread mob formation. I played my standard list:

Big mek
– mega forcefield, eavy armour, bosspole, 2 grot oilers

Painboy
– 2 grot orderlies

Morkanaut
– Kff, grot riggers

Gorkanaut
– grot riggers

Deff dread
– 4 powerklaws

Deff dread
– 4 powerklaws

Deff dread
– 2 powerklaw, 2 skorchas

3 killa kans
– 3 big shootas

3 killa kans
– 3 rokkit launchas

3 killa kans
– 3 grotzookas

I knew I would struggle against a lot of lists beforehand and I can immediately confirm that the dread mob is for friendly gaming unless you don’t care about placings. If it’s the last I can’t recommend the list enough cause it’s great fun to play with and against I was told.

So here’s our arrival at NM, Thomas posing for the camera.

Was a nice venue with everything you could need. In my case coffee, and lots of it. Since I haven’t mentioned it already we where 9 from my region going to NM. 5 from Team Anarchy which is my club and 4 from Imladris which is Tromsoes club. We all know each other so we had a blast all weekend. Know that we flew down to NM, 1600 kilometers. Dedication 😉

Now then, my recollections of the games. Be advised that this is from my subjective view and it may not be the same as my opponents.

Game 1.
Adam’s Raven Guard in Crusade with Vanguard strike deployment.
He roughly had:
Inquisitor
Terminator librarian
3 grav centurions
All in a land raider

Three 5 man strong tactical squads in rhinos (I’m missing 5 but I don’t remember them)
Two 5 man strong jump marines

Two rapiers.

We rolled 5 objectives.

This game I had in the bag until the last turn where my horrible rolls against his fantastic rolls turned the game in pretty much the last turn. In short he deployed very defensively and kept some units in reserve. The terrain was very dense so it was difficult getting a bead on him. I spit my mob with one gang going straight for his main centre while the other part aimed for to objectives on my right flank. It was a really even game as it went back and forth and I actually had the lead until he had a great last  turn where he managed to just barely reach the objectives with his rhino marines and take them due to objective secured even if I was on them with my kans. Don`t think I could`ve done a lot differently really. Bad dice had a lot to do with it but he played well so well earned victory on his part.

Loss 1-12.

Game 2.
Pawel’s Dark Angels in Big guns never tire, hammer and anvil deployment.
He roughly had:
Biker lev 2 librarian

5 deathwing in land raider
Dreadnought
Two ten man tactical in rhinos
5 ravenwing bikers
Plasma devastator squad

Now Pawel was a really great guy but he wasn’t that confident in the rules and he understood after his first game that he’d brought the wrong list. He also had terrible dice while mine where red hot.

I had a great start and got the half with the large buildings giving me a lot of cover. I sat my big mek and one mob of kans on top of one objective in my rear in the ruins, another kan mob on top of an objective in my bottom left corner. I then pushed my three dreads forward aggressively with mid support from the nauts. I stopped him in his tracks with some really great shooting and could mop up with my dreads in his deployment zone. In the end only his devastators lived.

15-0 to me. Could’ve been more had we played out the game but we agreed to just end it there and I think that was the right call.

Nominations for best painted army and voting
Four armies got nominated and mine wasn’t among them. I should’ve taken some pics of the nominees but I was in “disappointed mode” at this stage…

The armies that did get nominated where:
Nurgle CSM
Iron hands
Tau
Farsight enclave
Note that this is my subjective opinion but at least two other armies deserved nominations, mine not included in that count (though I still personally think I deserved a nomination 😉 ) so I guess it all comes down to a matter of taste from the organisers in picking armies for nomination.

Best army won though, Thomas in the first picture with his nurgle CSM. He also got my vote.

Game 3. Last game of day 1.
Morten with Necrons and Imperial knight ally in the scouring with dawn of war deployment.
He roughly had:
C’tan
Necron Lord
Two five man squads of necron warriors, one of these in a croissant.

Imperial knight.

Let me start by saying that Morten was a very friendly guy but what a shit heap of a list. Not fun at all…
The C’tan has nothing to do in regular games of 40k, period! Also Mortens army wasn’t even assembled properly and mostly had one layer of bronze spray on so strictly speaking he did not fill the tournament rules for painting but I didn’t care and just completed the game and packed my stuff so I could check out some other games.

Game went like this. My majority rushed against the C`tan and knight to try and lock them in combat. I then sat my kans on objectives. He then shot. Half my army evaporated..
In my following turn I couldn`t do much besides hugging cover and trying not to auto-die. He shot even more.

This is how it went until turn 5. I only had my big mek and painboy in hiding behind that big ass hill on top of an objective worth three points. The rest was taken out. I didn`t even scratch his thin coat of bronze spray.

Lost 3-10.

Game 4, day two.
Mons with Eldar in purge the alien with Vanguard strike deployment.
He roughly had:
Eldrad
Two 7ish strong jetbike squads with warlock
Wave serpent with dire avengers (Eldrad with these)
Wave serpent with 5 fire dragons
3 scatterlaser war walkers
That jet flier thing.

This was a very good game as it was exciting throughout but in all respect to Mons the game in some sense was decided when he failed to alpha strike my morkanaut with his fire dragons due to me saving all 5 penetrating hits with my Kff. Definitely the gaming highlight in all games 😀
But Mons played very well and hadn’t the game ended in turn 5 he could’ve taken it. He did however lose points by going piecemeal at me with his walkers and with only AV 10 it was easy pickings for my big shootas.

Win 6-1.

Game 5.
Last game and with a 2-2 record I was confident I’d get a nice opponent and it didn’t fail on that account.

Magnus with Pask armoured company and Imperial knight in the relic with dawn of war deployment.
He roughly had:
Pask in that 20 shot leman
One plasmacutioner
Two AT lemans
Two  anti-infantry lemans
One hydra
(sorry, can’t for the life of me remember the patterns..)

Imperial knight

So only the knight could take the relic, hence I put the morkanaut and the shoota kans on my left flank there to draw him away from the relic. Success on that front.
On the other however I just got picked apart but I got the relic and didn’t drop it before he blasted my Gorkanaut holding it in his last turn. Game ended and it wouldn’t have mattered because nothing was in reach anyways.

Lost 0-1 and no issues here, was a close game all the way and I enjoyed the match.

Overall summary
I ended up as 28 of 42. Not bad all things considered, and with some lucky breaks in my way in game 1 and 5 I could’ve been in top 10. However that’s guesswork since that would’ve meant going up against some nasty drop pod lists, triple riptide lists or daemons.
So with dread mob I think I did all right all things considered.

Now for some improvements I think we need to see next time at a tournament in Norway.

1. Not filling the minimum painting requirements is disrespectful to all of those busting their asses to get things done before the tournament and it sours the gaming experience for those playing against an unfinished army.
Nothing was done with this from the organisers. Not good enough imo. Wasn`t just my game three opponent this went for.

2. Tournament comp.
In the three necron armies I saw, everyone had the C’tan. From my own experience and talking to others (my mate with his triple knight list got tabled against a C’tan for example) you have to regulate and cap LOW. Simple as that. Otherwise it’s like showing up to a stone-scissors-rock game with only a scissor and your taking the rock in the face until it’s over.

3. Related to the above point is that objectives needs to be shaken up a bit. After this tournament I’m convinced that eternal war as primary, modified maelstrom deck as secondary and the old secondary as tertiary is the way to go. This will shake up the meta and reward multi-tool armies and not the “one giant beat stick” armies.
At least I believe so and reading the LVO and NOVA experiences kinda supports this case.

But as it’s important to end on a positive note, here’s the good stuff.

1. Great event and very nice that 4 game systems do it in the same place at the same time. I had plenty of time to go around looking at nice armies, talking to people and checking out game systems I was curious on.

2. Socially this was an awesome weekend. Nerd talk and nice and friendly people all the way.
It will have to be something seriously hindering me for not going next year on this point alone.

3. I need to improve my skills.
Not so much as a player but as a hobbyist. My mind is churning on what areas I need to improve.
My main goal is getting a nomination at least next year so stay tuned for me testing out various techniques and pushing my boundaries in the coming year. Despite my initial disappointment I will turn this into something positive 🙂

However it is important to add that I got a ton of positive feedback on my dread mob from opponents, other gamers and non gamers. I really appreciated all of the complements as it made all of the work I put into them more worthwhile 🙂

Oh and for those wondering on the standings in regards to top armies in Norway, go here:
http://www.2d6.no/viewtopic.php?f=93&t=14630&sid=35fd4151a2d85faa02c2d50a72221029

Regards,
Tommy