Goodbye to Seventh Edition
In the last eight days, I have seen seventh edition off in style, attending not one, but two tournaments. They were small doubles events, and it gave me a chance to do another nutty showcase force, project: dangerzone. Pictures of some cool models from the second event, Double Trouble, will be spread throughout the post.
My first force was a CAD with lots of flashgitz, and the second event I didn't need to take a troops choice, so the grots were dropped in favour of more flashgitz. The forces were broadly the same. Lot's of dakka, no combat, completely irrational and imbalanced force but it's a theme and let's hope for the best.
As you might expect, such excellent tactical forethought saw me win a grand total of one game from six...
The first event wasn't so bad, my lack of combat ability could be made up by my Genestealer Cult partner, with the multitude of rending attacks he could take down pretty much anything. Admittedly we got off to a bad start... a space wolves blood angel mix, the blood angel part being 4 dreads in drop pods with those S6 rending template 2 things... ouch. Cooked my orks, damaged my ships, and annihilated the genestealers on overwatch. We got buggered there.
The second game went much better. Against a combined Eldar force, normally wraithguard are to be feared but when they are walking into the path of 30 str 5 apD6 shots (not to mention str 7 large blast ap3 cannon fire from the frigates) they aren't so tough any more. We also had the GSC coming and going and grabbing objectives at will, and eventually tabled our opponents.
Third game we got unlucky in not getting either the warlord trait we wanted, any useful psychic powers, or the right roll on the cult ambush table. The guys with autoguns, sure they can arrive and assault. The genestealer primarch and brood of genestealers? They can turn up and shoot. Great. Ta. Much obliged...
Overall we finished 7th out of 10, not unreasonable given Ken had never used GSC and I had never used Flashgitz...
So the second event was Double Trouble... a strange doubles event where you turn up and get partnered up on the day... and it changes each round. Now at this I didn't win a single game, but technically you didn't have to... the scores for each team (both VP and Bloodpoints) are totalled up from each game. So if for instance you lost (VP) 25-24, 23-22, 32-30... but the other winning teams then won their other games 1-0... well your VPs for the event would be 76, theirs may only be twenty something... So basically, you don't have to win the game, just score as much as possible before you die.
This made the games feel quicker, more gung ho. I guess the best comparison would be the 20/20 cricket, where they don't have days to tactically play, they only have 20 overs so they'd better wallop the thing and hope for the best. I don't care if running and grabbing that objective results in me getting tabled, if it scores me another three points in the final turn then I'll take it thank you very much.
I'll admit I was a sceptic about going to a small scale event without a buddy (normally I prefer big armies of my own, but will do these occasional little things just to have a chance to hang out with my buddy for the day) but overall it worked quite well and the format of the event, where the best prizes are in the raffle rather than for actually winning, I think helps encourage people to not be arseholes and or everyone to have fun.
As for my games, well the first game I was paired with custodies against Dark Angels and Necrons. Now with hindsight, the event special rule that we all count as Battle Brotehrs, we should have taken advantage of... we should have got my open topped battlewagon to give the custodies a ride while my guys laid down fire support. But as it is, we struggled with two small forces to deal with the several targets our opponents put in front of us, and we lost this one by a solid margin.
The second game saw me teamed up with Cawl and a host of servitors (6 grav 3 haywire) facing Heresey Dark Angels and Dark Eldar... This was a much closer game but the withering hail of bolter fire from the dark angls, using legion specific rules to stand still and fire twice, basically cut me down. Also a venom that never seemed to miss took the servitors out, and while Cawl was left to hold the day, they overtook us on VP.
The final game was disastrous. We were facing an Iron Hands player running a Land Raider Spearhead. That's basically three land raiders that ignore all damage table results except explodes, and have IWND so can regenerate lost hull points. Right. I asked my teammate if he had anything that could deal with that... In his deathwatch force. He had a sergeant with a meltabomb, and 4 frag cannons if they got close (they would, they were in a pod. Other than that I could ram the thing with my battlewagon, but that would probably hurt me more than him anyway. We could certainly hurt the Blood Angel player... except he deployed his troops in the Land Raiders. Ah. So we dropped the pod with frag cannons down, they were rerolling 1s to hit, they got 8 hits, needed 5 to glance... One glance. Ah. They were duly Redeemed by the Land Raider they targeted. Meanwhile my Battlewagon got shot and was immobilised (there goes plan B) and my truk got accidentally clipped by a scattering plasma cannon shot, and immobilised (there goes plan kamikaze) Strangely, we were winning this game on VP most of the way through, they only overtook us on VP when they tabled us in turn 5, but it was nowehere near being a close game. Oh, if only the deathwatch had been by my side against the filthy Dark Eldar and those delicious Grav servitors had been with me for the final game. Ah well, luck of the draw I guess. Oh, the meltabomb sergeant, swung and missed... but he got a 1 and could reroll those. Nope, another 1. Really not our day.
I stuck around for the prizegiving but was in a bit of a hurry to get home so don't know my final placing till Alex puts the full results on his blog, but I didn't leave the event empty handed... my Project: Dangerzone got the award for Best Conversions. It got 19 votes (28 competitors) so I'm quite pleased with that. It's what makes all the hours faffing around on ebay and with lego worth it!
Overall, a good week off work with some fun at the weekends, but a rather bruising encounter that shows the Orks have a long way to go, which they hopefully soon will. I did play about 15 minutes of an intro game while I was there and it seems fairly straightforward, and I'm looking forward to getting my teeth into it and learning the armies. The Index books are thicker than I anticipated, so given I ordered the full collection, it's going to be giving me quite a bit to read in the next couple weeks. Think I shall have to focus on one army at a time... definitely starting with Orks though. They've got their good old mob rule back at last!
My first force was a CAD with lots of flashgitz, and the second event I didn't need to take a troops choice, so the grots were dropped in favour of more flashgitz. The forces were broadly the same. Lot's of dakka, no combat, completely irrational and imbalanced force but it's a theme and let's hope for the best.
As you might expect, such excellent tactical forethought saw me win a grand total of one game from six...
The first event wasn't so bad, my lack of combat ability could be made up by my Genestealer Cult partner, with the multitude of rending attacks he could take down pretty much anything. Admittedly we got off to a bad start... a space wolves blood angel mix, the blood angel part being 4 dreads in drop pods with those S6 rending template 2 things... ouch. Cooked my orks, damaged my ships, and annihilated the genestealers on overwatch. We got buggered there.
The second game went much better. Against a combined Eldar force, normally wraithguard are to be feared but when they are walking into the path of 30 str 5 apD6 shots (not to mention str 7 large blast ap3 cannon fire from the frigates) they aren't so tough any more. We also had the GSC coming and going and grabbing objectives at will, and eventually tabled our opponents.
Third game we got unlucky in not getting either the warlord trait we wanted, any useful psychic powers, or the right roll on the cult ambush table. The guys with autoguns, sure they can arrive and assault. The genestealer primarch and brood of genestealers? They can turn up and shoot. Great. Ta. Much obliged...
Overall we finished 7th out of 10, not unreasonable given Ken had never used GSC and I had never used Flashgitz...
So the second event was Double Trouble... a strange doubles event where you turn up and get partnered up on the day... and it changes each round. Now at this I didn't win a single game, but technically you didn't have to... the scores for each team (both VP and Bloodpoints) are totalled up from each game. So if for instance you lost (VP) 25-24, 23-22, 32-30... but the other winning teams then won their other games 1-0... well your VPs for the event would be 76, theirs may only be twenty something... So basically, you don't have to win the game, just score as much as possible before you die.
This made the games feel quicker, more gung ho. I guess the best comparison would be the 20/20 cricket, where they don't have days to tactically play, they only have 20 overs so they'd better wallop the thing and hope for the best. I don't care if running and grabbing that objective results in me getting tabled, if it scores me another three points in the final turn then I'll take it thank you very much.
I'll admit I was a sceptic about going to a small scale event without a buddy (normally I prefer big armies of my own, but will do these occasional little things just to have a chance to hang out with my buddy for the day) but overall it worked quite well and the format of the event, where the best prizes are in the raffle rather than for actually winning, I think helps encourage people to not be arseholes and or everyone to have fun.
As for my games, well the first game I was paired with custodies against Dark Angels and Necrons. Now with hindsight, the event special rule that we all count as Battle Brotehrs, we should have taken advantage of... we should have got my open topped battlewagon to give the custodies a ride while my guys laid down fire support. But as it is, we struggled with two small forces to deal with the several targets our opponents put in front of us, and we lost this one by a solid margin.
The second game saw me teamed up with Cawl and a host of servitors (6 grav 3 haywire) facing Heresey Dark Angels and Dark Eldar... This was a much closer game but the withering hail of bolter fire from the dark angls, using legion specific rules to stand still and fire twice, basically cut me down. Also a venom that never seemed to miss took the servitors out, and while Cawl was left to hold the day, they overtook us on VP.
The final game was disastrous. We were facing an Iron Hands player running a Land Raider Spearhead. That's basically three land raiders that ignore all damage table results except explodes, and have IWND so can regenerate lost hull points. Right. I asked my teammate if he had anything that could deal with that... In his deathwatch force. He had a sergeant with a meltabomb, and 4 frag cannons if they got close (they would, they were in a pod. Other than that I could ram the thing with my battlewagon, but that would probably hurt me more than him anyway. We could certainly hurt the Blood Angel player... except he deployed his troops in the Land Raiders. Ah. So we dropped the pod with frag cannons down, they were rerolling 1s to hit, they got 8 hits, needed 5 to glance... One glance. Ah. They were duly Redeemed by the Land Raider they targeted. Meanwhile my Battlewagon got shot and was immobilised (there goes plan B) and my truk got accidentally clipped by a scattering plasma cannon shot, and immobilised (there goes plan kamikaze) Strangely, we were winning this game on VP most of the way through, they only overtook us on VP when they tabled us in turn 5, but it was nowehere near being a close game. Oh, if only the deathwatch had been by my side against the filthy Dark Eldar and those delicious Grav servitors had been with me for the final game. Ah well, luck of the draw I guess. Oh, the meltabomb sergeant, swung and missed... but he got a 1 and could reroll those. Nope, another 1. Really not our day.
I stuck around for the prizegiving but was in a bit of a hurry to get home so don't know my final placing till Alex puts the full results on his blog, but I didn't leave the event empty handed... my Project: Dangerzone got the award for Best Conversions. It got 19 votes (28 competitors) so I'm quite pleased with that. It's what makes all the hours faffing around on ebay and with lego worth it!
Overall, a good week off work with some fun at the weekends, but a rather bruising encounter that shows the Orks have a long way to go, which they hopefully soon will. I did play about 15 minutes of an intro game while I was there and it seems fairly straightforward, and I'm looking forward to getting my teeth into it and learning the armies. The Index books are thicker than I anticipated, so given I ordered the full collection, it's going to be giving me quite a bit to read in the next couple weeks. Think I shall have to focus on one army at a time... definitely starting with Orks though. They've got their good old mob rule back at last!
Well done Ginge! The force looks great.
ReplyDeleteCongrats on the award, well deserved!
ReplyDeleteThanks guys, always nice when these stupid little projects I give myself come to fruition and better yet, actually get noticed :P
ReplyDeleteDon't know if I'm going to the next double trouble yet, but with eighth about to drop, who knows what I'll come up with next... :P
Congrats Ginge! I think you thoroughly deserved that award. I'm already looking forward to your next creation.
ReplyDeleteI'll have to check out this Double Trouble tournament. Seems like heck of a lot of fun. The only list I didn't like the look of was that Iron Hands Land Raider Spearhead. Very nasty.
Well it was nasty to me, but if I'd been against him the game before, when I had Cawl, 3 haywire servitors and 6 grav servitors on my side, we'd have made absolute mincemeat of him. It was a very rock paper scissor list... unfortunately I had paper in the last round and was joined by a second pair of scissors in this one :P
DeleteBesides, with the way I hear it, there won't be such beastly formations to worry about any more. If nothing else, my guns can hurt a landraider in 8th ed. It might take a hell of a lot, but at least I could try, rather than sit there going Hmm, right, great...
And next creation, I'll probably carry on with the flintstones themed Orks that were put on hold... will have another look at that army once I figure out what the hell it's worth and how many points it will now be etc...
Delete