Class A

Much like Class B, Class A was another category product of the new TSHFT ladder ranking system, reserved for veterans of the hobbies that have had a good track of records in past TSHFT.  This time, the break line for Class A is 1025 and higher and 7 participants had met the criterion this time at the start of the tournament.

Best General

A common belief circulate around the hobby community is that shop owners perform poorly at events (or simply are bad players).  This proves to be a misconception again as Zach Barley (owner of Fantastic Games and a major sponsor of my event) grab the title of Best General again.  Zach won the Best General of the Class B category in the TSHFT event earlier this year, and secured the title again with his Tyranid army.  Even though I personally consider TYR one of the weaker codex out there, I was proven wrong by Zach again with his shooty bug list.

Best Overall

This is an award that has been long pending.  I first met Jared Maggard 2 years ago when he brought his Crimson Fist and was intrigued by his clean painting scheme and the amount of freehand works.  This time Jared brought his Imperial Fist 1st company led by Lysander – a whole armada of 30 terminators!  Quite a few of his Terminators are converted from the Black Reach starter set with extensive green stuff works.  Also a few of them are from the Space Hulk board game, traded in their BA symbol for the solemn IF symbol.

Open

The Open category is one that any TSHFT participants (no matter their ranking) may accomplish over the weekend.  It has two winning positions: TSHFT Champion and the Best Tactician.  The TSHFT Champion is similar to the Best Overall award in other events in which the player with the most accumulated score points wins the deserving honor.  In the future when TSHFT becomes a GT qualifier (need all of your supports on this one ), this would be the position that guarantees a free ticket for the official GT.  The Best Tactician is an unique award in TSHFT in which it goes not to the player who accumulates the most BP in the tournament but the player who has obtained the most secondary/tertiary objectives (a much harder feat than simply winning games).

Best Tactician

Jayson is a tough competitor and a good general in 40K.  He has won 2 past TSHFT in the past already and this time he is trying out his vanilla SM again (after thoroughly pounded in one of the previous TSHFT) with no SC in them.  His demeanor is less than likable at first glance, an expression less face coupled with off beat humor earned him the nickname “Necron J.” from me after his first few visits at my old shop.  However, once you started to know him, you would find him likable, though you might have to beat him a few games first before you find out.

TSHFT Champion

And our TSHFT Champion this season is (drum rolls please…) Dan Root!  Dan came to the event as a sub when another regular TSHFT attendee (Mark McDonald) could not make it due to family commitment.  He brought his heavily converted Blood Axe/Bad Moon themed Ork army and had little thought on winning the event.  But the Orks proved to be quite a force for other generals to reckon with (despite what the internet had told us…) and triumphed over most of his opponent.  This was especially fitting since Table 1 this year was Ork themed. (see pic.)

Flavor Awards

These are awards solely chosen based on fellow player’s votes and represent the attendees’ general consensus on the player(s) achievements in perspective fields: composition, painting/conversion, and last but not least – sportsmanship.  Winners of these events receive a “Golden Ticket” to any TSHFT event (4oK or WFB) in a year’s window as other players enjoy the ambiance that they bring.

Love of the Game

This newly added award from last September represents a player’s army composition.  I never liked the idea of events inflating the total point structure by using subjective measuring systems, but I am also a big fan of fluff and army composition and think player should try their best bring the most competitive yet balanced list to any event (no matter the level of competition.  McBee’s Grey Knights received a daunting 33 votes (the next runner up received 11 votes) by representing the Emperor’s purest warriors with no inducted IG.

Player’s Choice

This category reflects the group’s consensus on who brought the best converted/painted army for the event.  The winner of this category, Ross Hertzog, qualified with a total of 30 votes with his highly converted Thousands Son/SW list.  Ross explained to me that he already converted this army for 3rd/4th ed CSM codex.  But with the last printing of CSM, much of the flavor of the cult marines were lost, and Ross shifted his focus from Chaos to Space Puppies, making his then Thousand Sons list into a SW company that was corrupted through their warp.

Favorite Opponent(s)

Favorite opponent award – this highly respected and very important award (a true sportsmanship award) was decided in TSHFT over a coin toss.  The two fellas in pictures are actually friends of mine (and ex-Patron of FSGC).  Trahern (L) and his dad Chief Clayton had been a great help for me in past TSHFT transport/unpack the terrain and Flugey (R) had been a postive influence near me (hobbywise) for a long time.  It was actually originally Flugey’s spontaneous suggestion of “Why don’t you run your own event?” pushed me starting TSHFT in the first place.  And 11 TSHFTs later, he is still here participating and promoting the event for me.

It was a pleasant surprise to find out there was a 3 way tie in Favorite Opponents this year (all with 11 votes, max possible 15 for F.O.).  That means TSHFT not only attracted the competitive players from the west coast, but also the most civilized and fun players as well.  The third player ended up winning something else as well (coming up soon), deferring his prize of Favorite Opponent to a simple coin flop between Trahern and Fluger – with Fluger winning the Golden Ticket.

Unfortunately neither player gave me a chance to take a full picture of their army (Trahern’s SW and Fluger’s Ork).  But that is not the important issue here, the important part is that if you ever ran into either of these fellas in the future tournaments, you can take my words that you are going to have a blast time playing them.

Class B

This is my daring attempt in trying something that has been used in Chess (my former hobby) for the longest time.  It should give incentives for player to compete at all levels.  For the 2010 season, it was decided that the separator for Class B is any players with a starting ladder ranking of 1024 and lower and/or unranked players.

Best General

This time around, the best general for Class B was none other than my partner in crime – Paul Kimm.  Since we closed our business, neither one of us had been getting much gaming done.  Ere go, Paul decided it is time for him to polish his skills and see how would he perform in a competitive setting.  Though he was undefeated, the fact that he got 2 draws and little secondary objectives kept him from gaining any other worthy titles.  Paul finished with 68 BP and deferred his title and prizes to the next 2 players who tied at 66 BP.  (no Army Previews)

Matt Farnam (L) is a veteran 40K player who was battling with the eventual tournament winner at Table 1 on Round 5.  But no amount of tactics could have saved him from his notorious dice rolls.  He used a fast moving, shooty oriented Mech Eldar army. (Top Right)

Shawn Kelleher (R) is a new 40K player who was a FSGC regular.  I guessed he learned well from battling against other veteran players at the old shop and even surprised a few players with his 2 Thunder Wolf Cavalries SW list.  (Right)

Best Overall

Now Devin Scheirman (Devo) accomplished something that was not done in TSHFT before.  Not only did he accomplish the feat of acquiring the most overall points in his category, he also tied for F.O. with 11 votes and had the most P.C. votes of 40!  A true gentleman painter converter hobbyist that he is!

Unfortunately the picture I took (I was in a hurry) does not do his highly converted CSM justice, if you want a better insight on his army, check out my special coverage posted before.

A grand total of $800 in prize was given out this time.  Though I hope that I broke even financially at least with only 19 people turning out, the smiles and jib jabs from players I got when handing out the prizes were already worth the time and efforts I’ve putted in the event.  These are the energy that I need to push me to organize a better one next time.

I am no expert at web development and can’t update the event website easily.  There fore I shall dedicate some of my personal blog’s space (what else is it for ) to TSHFT this week in order to bring you some special coverage.  The many pictures I took will eventually surface either here or the official site.

But first thing first… some much deserved rest for myself

My last match was set up by the opposing team’s captain – Magnus.  For those of you who actually read my battle reports you probably recognize him from my round 1 match during Seattle GT in Feburary.  Magnus brought his Space Wolves again but instead of rematch he decided to set up a match between Mike Ruscus and myself.

In Magnus’ own words, he described us like Superman and Batman each with an unique playing style and plays extremely well in tournament.  He felt that we keep on missing each other on the top tables and is about time for us to have a match to see which of the super heroes will prevail.  Honored by Magnus comment, I jokingly took on the alias of Batman since I consider myself a master of all trades.

Mike seemed a good fellow, he arrived at our table and gave me a firm hand shake and let the showdown of Batman vs Superman begin.

Mike’s Brotherhood of the Storm

Mike brought a beautifully painted SM army.  He has two of my favorite SM assets, TFC and the Ironclad.  I must say I am a bit biased towards liking his army due to the fact that he is using two of my favorite units.  He also has Pedro for HQ, a fitting adversary for my Vulcan leading list.  Unfortunately, Mike did not part with his list with me, but the shot above is WYSIWYG and should explain enough. (Fortunately, Mike is both an awesome general and a gentleman and included his list in the comment section below   )

On a glance, Mike’s list has more shooting and more assault than my army.  I know then it was going to be an uphill battle.

Special

In case you didn’t pick up the hint from the event title, the special of the scenario is that any none vehicle unit may choose to Warp during the movement phase.  That unit may DS anywhere on the board and may even assault afterwards.  However, if a double is rolled (there is no way to prevent scattering) then the unit is considered lost to the warp and dies.  Fun!

Terrain

I apologize for doing this but the game was nearly 2 weekends ago and I didn’t quite have the exact memory of the exact placement of terrain since they were quite numerous.  However, thanked to my recollection of using digital technology (yeah, me!), you can see them clearly from the photos.

Primary Objective (Pushback)

Okay… the primary objective really sucked.  At the end of the game, the player who has a model closest to his own long table edge loses.  If the difference is less than 2″, then the game is a draw.  Since I play with Drop pods, I know that I’ll have to drop them near the edge in order to win.

Secondary Objective

Have more FO categories with a unit still alive at the end of game than your opponent.

Tertiary Objective

Use the warp.

Deployment (Echelon)

Mike won the roll and decided to go first.  He spread out his forces across the diagonal and hid his assault marines behind the twin Rhino Chassis at C1.  He utilized combat squad on 2 of his squads (Sgt w/ SpWpn in Razor backs) and HwyWpn walking.

I looked at his deployment and pondered whether I should use Reserve Gambit.  I knew RG is not favored in this mission because I ran the risk of the unit coming up last and losing the primary objective.  But since RG has been so kind for me thus far and I really didn’t want to risk having my LR immobilized early, I decided to go with Reserve Gambit again.  I left the Assault Termies in the LR, the Tacs in the Drop pod, and outflanked the entire 10 men scouts.  I then put my TFC on the opposite side of Mike’s, and the Predator behind the hills at B3 (a mistake as I should have put it all the way up near the TFC at A2).  The rest of units I left in reserves.

Turn 1

BoS

Mike didn’t have much to do since the majority of my forces are not on the table, he ran the 2 5 man support teams and moved up the rest of his forces.

U.R.T.H.

I tried to drop the Ironclad near his Land Raider but it scattered instead to B2.  I popped out the Iron Clad and ran it towards one of the 5 man squad.  I moved the TFC towards Mike’s board edge.  Realizing that I had deployed the Predator too passively and did not want to risk an immobilized result, I moved it 12″ up and popped smoke.

Turn 2

BoS

Seeing that I hauled ass with my TFC, Mike moved his artillery piece as well.  He then ignored the Ironclad and blew up my TFC.  Little did he know, I actually prefer the Tech Marine without the TFC since he can move more freely and still burn units with a TL flamer.  It was an uneventful turn other wise.

U.R.T.H.

My Land Raider, Terminator squad had both arrived.  I ran the Land Raider right near his LR and unloaded the Assault Terminators, setting up a possible assault on either the Ironclad or the Land Raider.

By now I am feeling pretty confident, even though my Speeders haven’t shown up, I have enough firing power left on the board that should give me an edge over the ensuring skirmish (In case you can’t tell, I’ve been watching too much Deadly Warriors ) The following turn of events, however, did not unfold as I foresaw due to human errors and dumb luck.

Trying to get his Assault marine to direct attention at my lone Tech Marine, I decided to Tank shock the them with the Predator, thinking it should group them and make them easy target for the Tech Marine.  But Mike rolled a “10″ on Ld and fall back 17″ and lost the unit. Trying to salvage the situation, I assault the other 5 men squad with the Ironclad, and completely whiffed.

I decide to leave the Termies near the middle and use them as bait for Mike.  I shot 2 missiles into the Vindicator, wrecking it.

Meanwhile, I made a series of error on the Ironclad.  For some dumb reason I thought I could hurt the Land Raider and put 3 TH against it and only 2 TH against the Ironclad.  It was only during the penetrating step I realized what a mistake I’ve made.  I then made another mistake during consolidate and moved the LC terminator next to the Ironclad BtB when I could’ve move it away from the base.

Turn 3

BoS

Mike started his major counter offensive.  His assault terminator squad piled out the Land Raider and showed my terminator what meant to be a successive assault.  His Rhino and Razor back (and their crew) managed to destroy my Predator and the TFC decided to take my bait of Terminators and fired at them, he then assaulted them with his other Dreadnaught, killing 2.  The real disappointment was when his Land Raider fired at mine, it immobilized mine instead of destroying it.  I knew by then I could only win by tabling Mike since there was no way that he’ll shoot at my Land Raider again.

U.R.T.H.

All my reserve showed up (or so I thought..).  The scouts showed up on the L flank and assaulted the TFC, killing it.  The Land Speeders dropped behind Mike’s Land Raider and I took a desperate attempt with the drop pod.  I dropped it near one of Mike’s Rhino and split the squad, hoping to either wreck both Rhino chasis or wreck both to prevent his marines from coming out.

Mike’s Land Raider proved to be quite resilient, soaked all of my Speeder’s MM and the Land Raider’s.  Meanwhile, the Tac Squad failed to Wreck the Rhino with the 10 men squad (only immobilizing it) and Sirius and the Tech marine managed to only shaken the Razorback.  My assault phase sucked completely, the 2 terminators kept on whiffing and got their asses kicked again the dread.  The Ironclad continued its whiffing as well, unable to kill any of the 4 SM surrounding it.

Turn 4

BoS

Mike moved Pedro away from the Land Raider, joined by the surviving Assault Termies.  They decided to assault the Speeders (after wrecking one) and lost a TH termie to dangerous terrain test.  Meanwhile, his 10 men squad aided by his 5 men squad shot and assault Siriu’s 5 men unit, instant killing poor Sirius.  The only good thing that happened that turn was his 5 man support team tried to use the warp gate and rolled double and died.  Yeah, only 11 more units to go!

U.R.T.H.

I seriously thought of conceding at this point.  I didn’t have a clue how am I going to kill off Mike’s 11 units with my original “baiting” strategy changed to a “annihilation” one.  But I pressed on (otherwise I wouldn’t have this epic game with Mike) and hoped dumb luck will prevail.  I assault the Dreadnought that was tied down with my termie with the scouts (yes, the termies whiffed again last turn) and killing it after suffering some casualties.

I tried to maneuver my 5 man Tac team led by Sgt Kephas has a chance to assault the now 8 men Tac squad of Mike’s with the aid of the Tech Marine.  But my desperation attempt backfired, instead of getting a twin linked shot with the Plasma Pistol from the Tech Marine, I rolled “1″ three times and killed him from over heating.  I was hoping the Tech Marine would be able to draw the PF away from the squad but now I am fresh out of options.  I assaulted Mike’s squad anyway, barely made away with SGT Kephas (Pedro had been a huge help for Mike) alive.

Turn 5

BoS

I hinted Mike to drop the bomb over my Scouts since I have no area terrain to seek cover, but Mike decided to wreck the Drop Pod instead (it had picked off an unluck Assault Terminator earlier).  His remaining 5 man squad at B3 assault the lone Sgt Kephas, killing my hope of getting a PF on his other squad.  Meanwhile, My Ironclad had finally finished combat.

U.R.T.H.

Before my turn started, I joked with Mike and told him that in order for me to even have a shot, that my dice need to be hot and his dice must fail and the game must go to turn 7.  He calmly nodded and agreed with my unlikely hypothesis. The game, however, started to turn in a miraculous fashion.

I shouted “Maximus” and teleported his squad next to Mike’s Rhino at A3.  They then assaulted it and destroyed it.  The Terminator and the Land Raider tried to play with Mike’s Rhino at E4, but only managed to stun it.  The Ironclad assaulted Mike’s Assault Terminator unit and Pedro, barely made it with a hair.  Mike’s Ironclad, however, took a LC shot in the face and exploded.

Turn 6

BoS

Mike teleported his now 3 men Tac team near my lone terminator and assaulted it.  Amazing it, my invul save held out and bought me a turn of breathing room.  Mike’s Assault terminator bit from the Iron Clad.

U.R.T.H.

I sincerely thought my prediction at turn 5 was taking effect.  I walked the Ironclad towards the immobilized Rhino at B2 and destroyed it.  I then took a risk again, teleporting Maximus next to the engaged Terminator and freed it by killing Mike’s Tac Squad.  Mike had now only the Rhino at E4 and a 5 man Tac Squad within.  It was at this moment I realized that I forgot about my Storm…..  I apologized to Mike and asked him to place it anywhere he want (it ended up being none consequential)

Turn 7

BoS

Mike passed his turn as he has a 5 Tac team inside a stunned Rhino.

U.R.T.H.

I took another risk with SGT Maximus and landed about 1″ away from the Rhino, nearly killing the remaining scouts.  I then poured everything into the Rhino and the remaining occupants, trying to instill a failed morale check.  The remaining Tac Team, however, seemed possessed with their cover save, and lost only 1 (lost one earlier from explosion) from all the MM and LC shots.  The game then came to the final difficult terrain check, a successful assault would be the only chance I need to win and a failed one means game over.  I needed at least 3″ to attempt an assault and my rolls were “1″, “2″, “2″.

Batman “0” – Superman “1“

Aftermath

Mike and I gave each other a firm handshake and the favorite opponent as well.  I applauded him for not falling for my baits and clever maneuvers and he commended me for not ever giving up and nearly turned the game on him.  I was surprised how much fun I have had despite a really messed up mission, I guess that’s what was supposed to happen when two good generals with 2 balanced lists meet – a freaking blast!

I finished with 42 battle points (4-1) for the event and 3 favorite opponents pins, quite a personal accomplishment for myself.  I’ve employed Reserve Gambit for all 5 of games and in only failed in one game, which gave me more confidence in my tactics and approach to the current ed. of 40K.  Next stop, Portland Conquest in October.

The Sunday started out well for my team.  I was told by the enigmatic team captain Derek that his team will be facing mine instead of the other team from my gaming club (my hat off to Evil Brian for taking the efforts in making we did not waste our time traveling down to play someone we did on a regular basis).

Though I really wanted to play Derek’s 5 RAS BA list, Trahern ended up ultimately playing him and left me with Skipper’s Deamon list.  Now Skipper (aka. Keith Nyberg) was a regular at my old my shop, though we only got one game in the three years my shop was in business.  Skipper is also a regular attendee at my private event TSHFT and is known for bringing outlandish one track mind list.  Though a big fellow with a great sense of humor, he often is taken the wrong way by his opponents in tournaments by his off shot humor and seemingly over-powered list.  If you know him, however, then you would have known that Kieth could care less about power rating of a list and simply enjoy a game or two over a pint or two of beers.

Kieth’s Deamons

HQ Skultaker

HQ Herald of Khorne , Juggernaut, Rending, +1S

HQ Herald of Khorne , Juggernaut, Rending, +1S

HQ Herald of Khorne , Juggernaut, Rending, +1S

TP Pink Horrors of Tzeentch x 9, Changeling, Icon

TP Bloodletters of Khorne x 8

TP Bloodletters of Khorne x 8

TP Bloodletters of Khorne x 8

EL Flamers of Tzeentch x 5

EL Bloodcrusher x 8 , Champion, Icon, Standard

HS Soul Grinder / Phlegm

HS Soul Grinder / Phlegm

Special

This mission features the concept of anchoring.  There are total of 4 objectives and they drift at the beginning of each player’s turn.  Each player can, however, anchor them down by not activating a scoring unit that is withing 3″ of an objective…. staring turn 3.  Now the thing that both Kieth and I misread was that we can only anchoring them starting turn 3…. oh well, so much for following instructions.

Terrain

Hill (C2~D3, E2)

Ruins (B2, E4, F2)

Forests (A3, C4)

Primary Objective

Control more objective than your opponent.  (B1~B2, B3~B4, Center, E1~E2, E3~E4)

Secondary Objective

Anchors more objectives.

Tertiary Objective

Keeping opponent from anchoring more objectives.

Deployment (Pitch Battle)

I won the roll and chose to go second.

Kieth decide to drop his Soul grinders and Skull crushers and Flamer first.  I then deployed the TFC, the Predator, and the Land Raider (with the Assault Termies inside) and infiltrated the sniper scouts near the forest at A3.  As always, I reserved the rest of the group.

Turn 1

Deamon

Keith got a “2″ on his choice and have to DS all 3 of his Bloodletters (BL) (with a herald in each of them) on turn one along with the flamers instead.  The blood letters arrived without mishap but the flamers scattered right on the Land Raider and died.  For a moment there, I thought this was going to turn into my last match with Geoff with mishap all over the place.

SM

Since we misunderstood the rules, I anchored the objective at B3 with my scouts on turn 1.  I then tried my darnest shooting at the BLs at B2 (nearing an objective) with the TFC and the LR and managed to put one wound on the herald and killing 5 BL in the process.  The Iron Clad arrived somewhere near D2 and popped smoke.

Turn 2

Deamon

A soul grinder arrived with Skulltaker.  A pod of horrors also arrived near the Drop pod.  The soul grinder shot at the TFC, missed it with a huge scatter.  Skipper’s next move then scared the bejeezes out of me.  Not only did he move both of the BL near B2 towards my sniper team at B3, he also ran all 3 Heralds (Skulltaker included) towards them as well, the other one ran towards the Ironclad and assaulted it.  Despite how the Herald is statistically favored against the Ironclad, the CC result in a wash.

SM

Only the regular Terminator came out from the reserve.  I combined their firing, and the the TFC and a bit from the Land Raider on one squad of BLs, reducing them to a mist along with 1 of the Herald.  The predator reduced the other squad of BLs to 4.

Turn 3

Deamon

Kieth’s last Soul Grinder and the Bloodcrusher unit (his trump card) finally arrived.  The Soul Grinder blew up the TFC and the Blood Crusher scattered on to the hill in the middle of the board, contesting the objective after losing 1 to dangerous terrain test.  The Skulltaker and a Herald assaulted the Terminator squad, annihilating them completely. Meanwhile, the herald and the Ironclad killed each other with the aid of a Soul Grinder.  The final assault was the odd one, 4 BLs assaulted the sniper teams, but managed to lose 2 in the process (due to lack of grenades) and killing only 3 and lost another in CR.

SM

All my reserve showed up.  The Storm dropped the close combat squad near the sniper team and helped to finish off the last BL.  The LR and the Speeders peppered Skulltaker and the herald to pieces and Kieth almost gave me a heart attack – when SGT Kephas from the drop pod was about to fire at one of the Soul Grinder.  Skipper pointed at the SGT and said “make a Ld check” and grinned at the fact that I totally forgot about the changeling.  I thought my luck had ran out when a “6″ turned out on the first die but indeed it was a close call as the second die read “3″.  Trying to slow down the Bloodcrusher’s advance.  I decided to assault them with the Assault Termies, thinking the best I can do is killing 2 or 3 and lose in 2 or 3 turns.  However, the end result blew both Skipper and mine mind.  We both expect the Assault Termies to surfer 2 or 3 casualties, but they instead only lost 2 and dealt 8 wounds to the Blood Crushers.  After CR, the Bloodcrusher got reduced to only 3 models with a wound on each of them.

Turn 4

Deamon

By now Keith only has one Soul Grinder, a squad of horrors near Sirius and Co. and his last 3 BL near the objective at B2.  He tried to move the Soul Grinder close to my Tac Squad, but failed the assault.  The 3 BL tried very hard to stretch out and score both the one in the middle as the one in at B2.

SM

There is not much left for me to do.  The Tac squad moved towards the objective, and Sirius wiped out the horrors.  The combat scouts load up the Storm and flew closer to the last 3 BL.  The Soul Grinder went down from the LR and the Speeders and the game is pretty much done.  Skipper gave me a firm hand shake and a “GG” with it.

Aftermath

I honestly did not think I was going to walk away with a win on this one.  Kieth had brought a lot of CC, more than my force could handle.  But thanked to his poor luck and my good ones (it seems to be a trend each time when I faced off against Deamons), my force prevailed.  Keith told me that he think his force should beat mine 2 out 3 games on paper and I do not disagree with him.  4 Heralds are very hard for me to deal with.  Still, I shared that I would’ve enjoyed our game a lot more had he brought a Blood Thirster instead (even though that would make his list a lot of tougher).  That way my in game strategy wouldn’t be a simple keep away and shoot them up one.

Continued to Round 5.

Well, since OFCC decide to do away with player’s choice award this year.  The process was quite tedious and often saturate the final score with unnecessary high soft scores.  Even though OFCC is a team oriented event, I still think individual effort should be awarded.  Since no one took the initiative for a player’s choice award, here is my vote for my favorite army.

Note I have very different criterion for an army to qualify to be my favorite from others.  Since I can paint somewhat and pride myself for an excellent converter/modeler, the army winning time for my cameras and my write up must be something I would never think of or execute.  The concept/theme behind an army is equally important to me as the executions.  I’ve been too many events and saw armies with so much promising theme soiled by half-assed execution.  I also seen well-presented army that are superbly painted but with a theme any 5 year old can think of.  Painting styles and technique are less an issue for me, for some times less is more.

What you are seeing now belongs to Devin Scheirman (aka Devo).  He is a Portland resident who devoted much of his free time to this hobby.  When I asked him where did he find the time to finish this and how long it took him to finish.  He gave me 2 month for paint and 2 years for conceptualizing for answers.  And the most important part – no TV.    so if any of us wants a kick ass army such as Devo’s, we must first swore off TV, then booze, then… well, maybe we can leave the booze part alone. 

Concept wise Devo wanted a 40K army that he can convert up and make it look like a steam punk army.  He first started with a small Space marine.  Chopped it up and reconstructed later to make it look like a robot.  But the idea did not grow on him.  So he left the models alone and started working on other projects.  One day, however, when visiting a watch shop (I think it was a watch shop), the turning gears and clock face gave him the vision for his army – a steam punk themed clockwork army!

Once his concept became sound, everything else was easy.  Light bulbs, marbles, batteries, pens, etc, all these normal household goods became little miniature soldiers in his eyes.  His hands then took flight as his mind raced, and before he knew it, he had most of the army finished and converted.  But Devo did not settle for that, while converting the models he decided to add a theme to the army – gears.  So instead of settling for well converted models on ordinary bases or pricy resin bases, he casted his own.  I think he only casted a few of the odd shape ones, the smaller ones were actually converted from some board gaming pieces with a lot of green stuff and cutting/filling.  The bases bring lives to the models and gave them a brand new sense of cohesion.

The final stage would of course been the painting.  Devo decided to go simple with the metallic, but contrasting them with layers of regular color by them.  I think this was a brilliant idea!  Metallic paint tend to make a model surreal and take away much the focus from the rest of the model, and layering an entire army tend to lose the pop effect makes one linger during one’s walk about.  The combination of the two, outlining gold with silver trims and detailed painting over the gears, pressure gauges and other paraphernalia made the clockwork army stood out among the rest of the armies.

Hopefully Devo would be able to make to TSHFT 40K this labor day so the local 40K crowd could have a chance to go “ooos” and “arhs” over this beautifully executed army.  It sure got my Vote.

My third opponent, Geoff is from team Borderland.  They were from central Oregon and were matched against us last year as well with hard lists and equally tough generals.  Though I would like to enjoy more chatting with my opponent, I spent more time diverted at the game, not something that I play OFCC for.  This year their team brought generally friendlier (when compared to last years’) and more of my teammates ended up enjoy their company as well as their games.  For that, I commend their captain for enforcing what OFCC stood for, good players attending an event which they can enjoy 5 good games.

Geoff brought his Mech Tau last year and dominated most of his opponents.  He decided to throw a change up this year and took his Necron.  In his own words, “I wouldn’t trade any army for my Necrons because they were my first list”.  His Necron is a MSU army, filled with small squads that are not convention of the normal 2 or 3 large warrior squad build.  I must say that I like it a lot.  And would enjoyed a game with him greatly had we played a normal game, but that will fill in later.

Goeff’s Necrons

HQ Necron Lord warsythe, DestrB, RezOrb

TP Warriors x 10

TP Warriors x 10

TP Warriors x 10

EL Pariah x 8

EL Immortals x 6

EL Immortals x 6

FA Wraith x 3

FA Wraith x 3

FA Destroyer x 5

HS Hwy Destroyer x 1

HS Hwy Destroyer x 1

Special

Okay… the mission for the 3rd round was unfortunately very special.  This mission was created by one of Ordo’s regular (a regular at my old store as well) Westrider/Pete.  The mission was supposed to represent the ongoing chaos on the surface side when 2 war barges were blowing the crap out of each other in orbit.  The troops of both ships (our units) will fall off the sky with their objective markers (2 each) And they arrive the game via deep strike only and would create a blast S6 AP3.  Joy.

Terrain

Forest (there were too many to count).  Neither Geoff and I realized how bad the mission would become when we chose the table.  The terrain ended up becoming a nightmare for Geoff…

Primary Objective

Control more objective than your opponent.

Secondary Objective

KP.

Tertiary Objective

Killing most expensive HQ selection.

Deployment (Special)

Everything that does not have scouts or infiltrate must arrive via deepstrike and all vehicles must roll a D6 (1. immob 2-3. stun 4-6 normal) when they land.  Reserve rolls started at turn 1 as well.

I outflanked the 10 scouts and the storm.  Deep striking everything else.

Turn 1

Necron

Geoff got pretty unlucky with his reserve rolls, getting only a squad of Immortal and warriors.  He also got an objective counter as well.

SM

Just when I was shaking my head and sharing a moment with Geoff over his bad roll, my troops arrived.  Or should I say Troop instead?  The Ironclad (mandatory) showed up with the TFC and scattered somewhere near C3-D3.

Turn 2

Necron

More of Geoff’s reserve showed up however, his luck did not.  He tried to DS his warrior squad near the objective, but scattered off the table instead.  One of the wraith also scattered on top of his Immortal as well.  Both units ended up destroyed.  So before I even shot a single shot, he had already lost a quarter of his army.

SM

Most of my important reserves showed up, the Land Raiders, Terminators, Speeders.  They put a lot pressure into his immortal squad and the destroyers, killing 1 each.

Turn 3

Necron

Geoff’s Immortal showed up and guess what – mishap.  He rolled a “3″ and I placed them towards a corner.  His other warrior squad showed up as well, trying to pepper the speeder squadron.

SM

All my reserve showed up.  I apologized to Geoff and told him that it was not my intention to phase him out nor did I think it probable since he has so many models.  But as luck had dealt us, the best actions for me would be taking the easy win by phasing him out.  Geoff agreed with my assessment and we went on rolling more dice.

I wont bother insult any of my readers intelligence by keep up with a play by play for the following couple turns.  The Necrons phased out at turn 5 and gave me an easy win.  What a melodramatic finish for otherwise a fantastic Saturday.

Aftermath

There weren’t much after our game.  The only thing I wished I did was stayed a bit and chat with Geoff, but I had a horrible headache and ended going back to the hotel catching some quick Z’s.  Though our game didn’t turn out as epic as I would’ve hoped, Geoff’s Necron list had made a great enough impression on me to change my opinions for them.

I ended up taking my team members for food in Beaverton afterward (the drive wasn’t very fun, it took us forever to find something nice).  Upon returning I learned our next day opponent would’ve been Team Better Lucky Than Good – the sister team of us from the same club… what?  Though disappointed at the decision, I decided to beat some Canadians at Small World while figured out the match up for Sunday.

Continued to Round 4.

My team’s second match up were the Wyld Stallyns.  They were a team of Eldar players.  Unfortunately the match up became a nightmare thanked to the fact that both teams had a Mech Eldar list and the fact each team had a hard match up list – a Necron list from my team and a harlequins list from the Stallyns.  In order to provide the member on the opposing them with the lowest rating list the best experience, I volunteered.

My opponent was Don Walton, a true gentleman in our hobby.  He goes by the handle Torg on the Ordo member so I’ll reference him with either name in the battle report.  He had been a long time Eldar player but had struggled a long time due to limited time allotted for gaming.  He is a very good painter, using a lot of soft blend for shadowing and highlighting for his models (my favorite fashion to paint).  I’ve seen his models and met him briefly during my last 40K TSHFT.  So I knew it is going to be a good time for finally able to play against a well painted army.

Don’s Cult of the Ice King

HQ Ice King (Autarch), w/ Jet bike, LaserLn, Mandiblaster, FG

HQ Frost Seer (Farseer), w/ Jet bike, Runes of Warding, Spirit Stones, WB, Doom, Eldrich Storm, Fortune

TP Spirit Warriors (Wraith Guards) x 10 Sprit seer Spear / enhance

TP Outriders (Guardians Jet Bike Squad) x 3 w/ Shriken Cannon

TP Outriders (Guardians Jet Bike Squad) x 3 w/ Shriken Cannon

FA Ice King Cadre (Shining Spear) x 4 w/ skilled rider, withdraw & Starlance

FA Vanguard (Swooping Hawks) x 4 w/ intercept, skyleap & Sunrifle

HS Ice Warden (Wraithlord) FL x 2, WS

HS Rear Guard (Night Spinner) W/ holo field, spirit stone, TL ShrCt

HS Zoat Terror Squad (War Walker Squadron) 2 x EML, 4 x ShrCn

EL Fire Dragon x 6 FirePike Crackshot

- Wave Serpent w/ TL EML ShrCn, SpStn

FA Warp Spiders x 7 w/ twinDeathspn, PW, Withdraw

HS Wraithlord w/ EML, BL

HS Wraithlord w/WS, BL

HS War Walkers x 3 EMLx6

Special

Vortex Grenade.  There was a good reason why this thing was removed from any type of serious plays, but OFCC mission seem to love it.  To be honest, neither last year nor this year had the piece of junk made any difference, but it force me to do a lot more reading than I want. (Zen no likey )

Night Fight.  Just like the normal ones except this one last forever!

Terrain

Hills (B1, D2~E2)

Ruins (A1, B3~C3, D4~C4, F1)

Forest (A3~B4)

Primary Objective

Single Objective in the middle.  Each side scores a point each turn it controls the objective, whoever has the most points wins.

Secondary Objective

Controls more Terrain elements than my opponent at the end of the game.

Tertiary Objective

Detonate Vortex Grenade

Deployment (Spearhead)

Don won the roll and decided to go first, he lined his squads near the hill at D2 and reserved both units of bikes and the Hawks.  The Ice Cadre lined alone the bottom edge of D and Death Spinner hid behind the ruins near F1.

Now I made several bad decisions this game (they somehow ended up helping me towards the end for some miraculous reasons).  I’ll list them below.

- I underestimated my opponent.  My business partner Paul and Don himself had said that he was not a very good 40K general.  But in fact Don was a quite competent one, a bit inexperienced maybe but his target priority had been very good through out the game.  I would even go as far as saying Don is a very good general (he was spot on regarding the rules and made quite a few good tactical decisions) but lace the assertions in game developed through playing the game.

- I underestimated my opponent’s list.  I got fooled by the Swooping Hawk and Shining Spear entries (two of the worst units in Eldar codex in my opinion) and immediately thought this would be an easy win for me.  I was thinking how not table my opponent too soon when in fact it was me that almost got tabled.

So with those 2 false assumption in mind, I deployed my TFC behind the ruins at C4 and parked the Predator behind the forest at A4.  I infiltrated the sniper team near the TFC and reserved the rest.

Turn 1

Eldar

This was a pretty uneventful turn.   Don moved/ran the rest of his army towards the middle of the board and fired some shots from his Night Spinners at my TFC.  Thanks to the 3D6 scatter (Night Fight), nothing hit my TFC at all.

This was also the turn that I suddenly realized my smart phone had a camera!  So I snapped some pics instead my memory failed.

SM

I made the first in game mistake by drop pod the Iron Clad near the Wraith Guards (which scattered quite a bit) instead of drop podding near the Harlequins and reducing their number quickly.  I guess in my mind I didn’t want Sirius and the Tactical squad murdered by the Shining Spear and the Harlequins in the following turn (which didn’t really matter as I found out later).  A fear of unknown I ended up paying with the lives of my Terminators.  Bro. Sotiris came down and blew up a Walker, barely reducing Don’s firing power at all.

Turn 2

Eldar

Torg advanced his army a bit more towards the center but his bikes did not come in.  He wasn’t able to run the Wraith guards far enough into the center, thus unable to claim any objective points.  His Vanguards arrived and shot bunch of shots into the TFC.  Luckily none of the shots mattered.  It was not until we finished next turn’s combat, Torg realized that he forgot to toss the Vortex Grenade.

SM

The Land Raider carrying 6 Terminator showed up along with the twin Speeders.  I cursed at my bad decision making on turn 1 since I was counting the drop pod would arrive by turn2.  The Speeders and the Land Raider joined forces, destroying one and stun the other.

I deployed the Terminator near the Wraith Guards since Torg over extended his forces.  I popped smoke on the Ironclad and ran it closer towards the Wraith Guards/ War Walkers.  Mean while, the TFC and the Predator made short order out of the Swooping Hawks, reducing them to nothing.  The assault phase, however, did not bold that well for me as my 18 PF attacks from my terminators killed only 3 Wraith Guards…

Turn 3

Eldar

None of Don’s Outrider squadron showed up,  he tried to destroy the speeders, only manage to shake both of them.  The Harlequin assaulted the Terminators, nearly wiping them out.  The Wraith Lord assaulted the Land Raider, manage to destroy it in 1 round of assault.

SM

My Drop Pod finally arrived, but by now the Harlequins were stuck in combat and their shots were wasted on the fortuned Ice Cadre.  Fun time… Only one Shining spear bit the dust after all of my firing, but I did manage to put a wound on each of the Ice King and his Frost Seer.  I moved flat out the Land Speeders to C2, hoping to take advantage of the night fight rule next turn.

I assaulted the Wraith Guards, Harlequin, and Terminators mess near D3, hoping this will tie down the Harlequins.  Only after did I realize that the Harlequins had Hit and Run and I watched as they escaped the combat and ran towards my sniper team after the combat.

Turn 4

Eldar

Both of Don’s Outriders showed up and between them and the remaining walker, my Speeders were shaken again.  The Outrider also jumped in with the Shining Spears and put 1 wounds on Sirius and reduced my Tac Squad down to 7 men strong.

The Harlequin and the Wraith Lord finished off the TFC and the sniper team respectively.  By now I am cursing myself for allowing the Harlequins to run over me since I had a chance to stop them.  Fearing the Dekka Predator, Don decided to hide in the 3+ CvS Ruin at C4.

I was humbled on the other side of the board.  The Ice King and his Cadre along with his Frost Seer assaulted the Tac Squad.  To my surprise, the entire squad went “poof” before Sirius even got a chance to strike a blow. Sirius managed to wipe out the squad, but not before taking another serious wound.  I must say I did not expect the Shining Spears to run through 7 SM like a hot knife over butter.

SM

One of my last reserve, the Storm, finally showed up and burned the Harlequins to a crisp (only 2 left).  I continue running my speeders away, now to A2.   The Assault Terminator also showed up and tossed a Vortex Grenade at one of the Outrider squad, missing it by a mile.

Sirius ended up falling to the Exarch’s PW before having a chance to strike back and the Ironclad continues his quest in reducing the Wraith Guards down to nothing (now 4).

Turn 5

Eldar

Don moved his bikes to C3, closer to the Storm that had caused much of the harm to his Harlequins.  He then fired everything at the Assault Terminators followed by assaulting them with Harlequins – killing only 1 Terminator in process.   Somehow, my biggest blunder in the game, holding Assault Terminator towards the end of the game instead of using them in the beginning ended up helping me as the SS proved to be much needed.

Don’s Night Spinner managed to get the S6 pie plate on the Terminator prior to the assault as well, but did not do anything  aside from making their next movement all through dangerous terrain.

SM

Realizing that I must kill both Jet Bikes to have a chance of winning.  I peppered the one at C2 with my speeders and the dekka Predator.  The result was encouraging as all 3 bikes went out in few valley.  I double assaulted the Wraith Lord and the other Jet Bikes at D2 and wiped them out.

Over at E3, where completely irrelevant to the game at this point (almost), Brother Sotiris killed the Spiritseer leading the Wraith Guards unit after the Eldar psycher struck a fatal blow to the Ironclad as well.  The mutual destruction had wiped out the last scoring unit from Torg.

I moved flat out the Storm and dropped it near the objective.  Luckily, I did not role a “1″ on dangerous terrain.  The game then ended with me the controller of the objective and the terrain piece as well.

Aftermath

I had a good game with Don.  I think he should have more confidence in his ability to play the game no matter what list he plays with.  I saw that he made less mistakes than I did in our game and the only reason that I came ahead were some distribution of dice towards the end of the game (and the fact that I lucked out with my speeders been intact).  The constant night fight rule was also slightly in my favor, since he had a bit more shooting than I did.

My only regrets was that I was caught in the middle of our game and forgot to snipe more picture of Torg’s beautiful army, but I am sure I’ll see it again in next year’s TSHFT.  Torg seemed enjoyed my antics during the game as well, and awarded me his favorite opponent’s pin.  Score!

Continued to Round 3.

Here is a quick crush course to BNF for those of you lazy buggers who dislike  searching the blog.  You simply divide the board into a 6×4 squares and each row will be noted by alphabets (1 to 6) and each rank noted by numbers (1 to 4).  This should be simple for anyone who had played chess before and noted each and every move.  The biggest difference is, instead of a fixed position as in chess, A1 will always be anchored by the left hand size of the player who has deployed first (not going first).

My OFCC list:

Surprisingly I brought the same list that I have been to every other tournaments to OFCC.  It is my U.R.T.H. ultramarine list and the roster is as follows:

HQ: Sirius (count as Vulkan)

TP: Sgt Kephas and 9 Tactical Marine.  MG, MM, PF, CombiM

- Drop Pod

TP: Sgt Maximus and 9 Scouts.  4 CC, 4 Snipers, 1 HB w/ Hellfire, PF

EL: Bro Sotiris in IronClad

- Drop Pod

EL: Sgt Ophelos and 5 Terminators. CML

EL: Sgt Aelus and 5 Assault Terminators. 5 TH, 1 LC.

FA: Land Speeders x 2. MM/HF

FA: Land Speeder Storm. HF

HS: Predator w/ HB

HS: TFC

HS: Land Raider w/ MM EA

My opponent is Will, captain of “The Guadians“, otherwise known as WillyD on the Ordo forum.  I have never met him before, but basing off our few past heated exchanges over the forum, I pictured him a skinny kid in his 20′s with an “I’m holier than thou” altitude.  The actual package, however, was a decent gentleman with an equally decent 40K army that caught both my eyes in painting and and his general ship.

Will’s Craftworld Lunah-Sahd Eldar

HQ Farseer Ainguswish

HQ Spiderlord (Autarch), PW, FG, Mandiblaster, WSJP

TP Storm Guardians x 10 w/2 FL.  WL w/ Destructor and Spiritseer

- Wave Serpent w/ TL BL

TP Dire Avengers x 10

- Wave Serpent w/ TL BL

TP Pathfinders x 5

TP Pathfinders x 5

EL Fire Dragon x 6 FirePike Crackshot

- Wave Serpent w/ TL EML ShrCn, SpStn

FA Warp Spiders x 7 w/ twinDeathspn, PW, Withdraw

HS Wraithlord w/ EML, BL

HS Wraithlord w/WS, BL

HS War Walkers x 3 EMLx6

Terrain

Well.. the terrain sucked.  This was one of the few tables the terrain was set up not suited for 40K play.  We had a ton of fences and buildings, but they are for WFB.  So a half of our board were covered with these terrain (A1 from C2 and D3 through F4 are 2 squares where the fenses had layed out).   We had some hills with hedges at B3, C4, D2, E1, and F2.  Aside from the few fences we decided to give us a 5+ CS, we have no other area terrain.

Primary Objective

3 Objective (one in the middle of the board, one in B2, and one in E3).  However, a scoring unit can only score them if they are accompanied by another supporting unit (which can be another score unit).  The similar goes for contesting as well in which the player must have 2 units to contest (which I didn’t pay attention to).  Dedicated transport does not count for either scoring nor contesting.

Secondary Objective

Destroy TP choice (the whole selection, transport included).

Tertiary Objective

Keep HQ alive

Deployment (Pitch Battle)

We exchanged some antics and gave each other what we thought of another’s list.  Will was surprised my list was rated a 2 (OFCC use rating system with 1 been the weakest and 3 been the toughest allowed in OFCC) when he could easily see I have a lot of filler points.  I won the deployment roll and as always, I decide to give the first turn to my opponent and rely on my Reserve Gambit strategy.

Will deployed around his corner.  He surrounded his walkers with his Serpents and deployed everything except his 2 Pathfinders squad.  I told him I’ll show him how I normally play since this is the first time we met and reserved/outflanked all my units except the TFC at E4 and the Predator behind a hill at A1.

Turn 1

Eldar

Will took his initiative and shot everything in range at the TFC.  Since I can’t bolste the defense any of the buildings (none of which were ruins), the TFC blew up in a heartbeat along with the trustworthy Tech Marine.  The Predator on the other hand, escaped defeat slightly by making quite a few cover saves.

SM

I decided to drop the empty pod between buildings near E3 and got a mishap instead.  Luckily I got a “5″ and send the box back to reserve.  I rolled a couple of dice for my Predator and got a pair of deuces.  Exciting turn!

Turn 2

Eldar

Fearing the unknown of my army’s reserve, Will moved his units only slightly up and bunkered down among his building structures.  More shots went over to the Predator and it avoided them with style, again.

SM

Well, here is one of the few instance where reserve gambit just paid off.  Everything but the empty drop pod showed up and no mishap!  Suddenly I have a pair of Speeders looking at his walkers at C2, a Land Raider (with Sirius and Tactical Squad) at E4, a Storm (with 5 scouts) in F4, Scout sniper team at E4, a squad of Assault Terminators at D2, a squad of Terminator at D4, and an Ironclad near B2 (the drop pod landed right over the objective, very important later).

And just when I thought my luck was amazing… my dice decided to correct my premature assumption.  Only one of the MM from the LS hit (with TL) and destroyed one of the walkers.  The Land Raider only managed to stun the ride for the Storm Guardian.  The terminator managed to only shoot down one Warp Spider.  The only one that did not failed miserably was Bro Sotiris in his Ironclad, and he only did it because he chose to pop smoke during the movement phase and ran instead.

Turn 3

Eldar

Will’s reserve all showed up, consisting both of his pathfinder squads.  After dooming my Thunder Hammer Terminators and guiding his Warp Spiders, he unloaded his fire dragons near the termies as well.  What followed was some good shooting and equally good wounding rolls between the Spiders and the Dragons.  But the emperor prevailed, I only lost 2 TH terminator in process.  Will moved his WL away from the terminators and peppered my Land Raider with more Bright Lance shots along with his Wave Serpents.  Miraculously, one of those shots penetrated the Land Raider and blew it up.. killing one tactical squad in process.

The walkers opened fire at the speeders as well, wrecking both.  The Spiderlord jumped away from the Warp Spider, immobilizing the IronClad.

SM

Will moved far enough with his spiders during the assault phase and were outside the assault range of my Assault Terminators.  Running out of options, I chose to run them closer to the Wraith Lord at C2, hoping that they will engage it next turn.  Meanwhile, the sniper squad put 2 wounds into the Wraith Lord with their ML.  The Ironclad at B2 put one wound into the other Wraith Lord.  The terminator squad tried to damage the walker squad but failed miserably.

Seeing that and how “well” my shooting had been thus far, I decided to take a gamble and assaulted the Wraith Lord and the Wave Serpent carrying the DA with Sirius and the Tac Squad.  I managed to stun the Serpent and avoid ID on Sirius by keeping him away from the Wraith Lord.  The combat ended up a wash, and I was forced to surround the Wraith lord with Sirius.  The game is not looking good for the space marines.

Turn 4

Eldar

The War Walkers and the BL reduced the Assault Terminator into a single LC.  Meanwhile, Will’s Spiderlord jumped closer towards the Tactical Squad and assaulted them after dooming them with the warp spiders.  Luckily, he only killed 3 in process.  After screaming “Vengeance!” a couple times, Sirius managed to strike down the Wraith Lord without getting killed, Kephas and the squad put another 3 wounds into the Warp Spiders.  Miraculously, I won the combat by 1 and both the Warpspider squad and the Spiderlord broke and ran away from the combat.

The Storm Guardian’s Serpent tank shocked the Terminators, only pushing them closer towards the center objective (by an inch or so).  The other Wraith Lord went to play with the IronClad, reducing it to a pile of ashes after taking one wound.

SM

The game suddenly turned slightly in my favor thanked to last turns assault phase.  I assaulted the stunned Wave Serpent (fearing for longer games and the fact I lost my effective range control over vehicles), killing it and the fleeing Warp Spiders in the ensuring combat.  The lone LC terminator decided to run towards the newly arrived Drop Pod, hoping to avoid annihilation and providing the support role for the scout squad.  The Terminator squad moved towards the center, finally managed to destroy another walker and reducing their effectiveness.  The game looked drawish…

Turn 5

Eldar

In his attempt to winning the game, Will’s bad luck turned the game around for me.  Since my drop pod was directly over the objective at B2, thus preventing his scoring unit from closing to 3″.  Will unloaded his FD and fired at it.  The drop pod ended up blowing up, killing 2 Pathfinder within 4″ of it.  The pathfinder then ended up failing their morale check and rolled a “12″ on fleeing distance.  Suddenly Will was looking at an Objective at the middle of the board surrounded by Terminators and the Objective at E3.

Will dropped the guardians from the turn prior and unloaded them near the sniper squad, fearing that I’ll remove enough models which will make him fail the assault.  He decided against burning me with flamers/destructor and assaulted me instead.  The sniper team fought back with valor and managed to survive with only a lone member, losing the combat but managed to stick around.  Will fired a couple LC shots at the lone LC, but the terminator managed to deflect the power beam with his lightning claws, hanging on his dear life.

SM

I moved my Tac Squad closer towards one of his pathfinder squad and assaulted them, wiping it out.  I also flew the Storm that had arrived on turn 2, but had parked behind the rows of buildings at F4 to F3, unloading the combat scouts near the guardians.  The ensuring combat did not go in the favor for the Eldar, and caused Will losing his scoring unit.  The terminator shot the back of the wave serpent of the guardian, reducing it to rubble.

Turn 6

Eldar

Seeing how he lost most of his supporting units, and all but one scoring unit (the one left in a transport on an objective) and I have both objectives, Will decided to pull my Tac squad off the objective by assaulting them with the Wraith Lord.  The combat was some what melodramatic, with Sirius struck the deadly blow against the Wraithlord before he even had a chance to fight back.  Will reached out his head and gave me a GG.

Aftermath

I must say I had an awesome game with Will.  Unfortunately I can’t detail every tidbits that went on in our game during the 2 hour of our game play in this battle play.  But playing Will’s Lunah-Sahd Eldar with my U.R.T.H. list made me realized a game between 2 good generals with lists similar in power level result in a very, very, rewarding game.  In fact, Willy enjoyed playing me so much he gave me his favorite opponent pin.  I think I’ll have a couple pick up games against Will during my next trip down South then.  (or play him after TSHFT this September).

Game wise Will had demonstrated the shooting prowess of an Eldar army, something that I never quite grasped.  But I’ve to agree with him in that despite how scary Eldar shooting may seem on paper, they are still guardians with a BS of 3.  It’s like playing with slightly expensive guardsmen with weapon that have less range.

Continue to Round 2.