the army lists that we used (along with the fluff piece that we submitted with the army) can be found here
All in all, the team tournament was a ton of fun. I have always enjoyed team events in the past, but I never got the chance to play in a large team event. we wanted to do somethign for Adepticon, but that filled up way too fast for us this year. We had 3 very fun games, and got to play some interesting armies and opponents. The missions were very entertaining, and a lot different than what you normally see.
Mission 1 - Mittens and Twitch
unfortunately, for mission 1 we had to play another team from Austin. One of the best parts of going to a large event like this is meeting new people, so its always a bit of a bummer to play people you see every week. but we still had a very fun game.
the mission was a bit odd. we had a primary of sieze ground (5 objectives) and a secondary of table quarters. the kicker: to hold or contest, both teammates had to have a unit on the objective/quarter. turns out a lot of people misread this (including our opponents) which led to some very annoyed people. there were also some bonus points for holding a unit in reserves until turn 4, when they would come in automatically, but had to come from the table edge (no outflanking/deepstriking)
our opponents were playing with Orks/Eldar. I don't have a copy of the list the used, but it was something like:
farseer (runes of warding, guide, fortune)
fire dragons in a serpent (scatter lasers)
5 avengers in a falcon (holofields)
5 avengers in a serpent
6 dual scatter laser war walkers
mad dok
2 large boyz units (one with the dok for FnP
3 killa kans
deff dread
there may have been other stuff, but it didn't really affect the game if there was. they held one unit of avengers in reserve for the bonus points. we held one wych squad, and confirmed with the TO that they would be allowed to move in via Web Way Portal (Sweet!!)
Our game plan was pretty simple. our opponents were severely lacking in troops, as we hadn't been given any of the missions ahead of time. there was going to be a ton of S6 shooting coming our way, which was going to hurt. we had little to no chance of killing everything off, so we were going for objectives. all we had to do was kill off one set of troops, either 2 boyz units or 2 avenger units. Normally killing avengers would be easier, but they were well protected in a falcon and off the table. so we went after boyz.
it was a close game in the end. we took a metric ton of shooting in the face over the course of the game. we killed a number of warwalkers, but couldn't touch the skimmers. in assault, a large unit of wyches with the archon killed off the FnP orks easily, and then boxed the remaining orks in so they couldn't reach the objectives. we almost got pushed off of our own objective when we couldn't kill the deff dread even with fire dragons and trueborn shooting it. the skorcha and assorted S6 fire killed a large number of wyches. in the end, we had a single wych and the guardians hunkered down on one objective. We drew on table quarters, we just didn't have enough left to contest their quarter.
Mission 2 - Strictly Terminus
Our second round was against team Strictly Terminus - Brent from Strictly Average and Black blow Fly from Terminus Est! well that was one goal for my weekend (play against someone famous on teh internetz). this one looked like it would be a tough matchup.
The mission had a primary of kill points, but with another team twist! your killpoint score was the LOWEST of the kill point totals for the two players on the team. secondary was getting units into the opponenet's deployment zone (with dawn of war, so half of the table), and bonus points for having the most non-vehicle stuff near the center.
Our opponents were playing with wolves and grey knights, with a lot of nasty stuff comingour way.
Bro Captain (psycannon, grenades)
Librarian (warding stave, normal mix of powers)
2 X 5 terminator squads - psycannon, halberds, 1 hammer, psybolts in each
2 X rune priests (mix of lightning, jaws, hurricane between them)
2 X 9 grey hunters (meltagun, wolf standard) in rhinos
2 X Lone wolves with SS/Chainfist and 2 dogs each
2 X Long Fangs with missiles
Our strategy here was to avoid the terminators for as long as possible. with 3 MCs and a few fairly fragile skimmers, we knew we wanted those long fangs dead ASAP, then we would have a bit more free rain with the heavier hitters in the army to go after those terminators. Secondary would be easy with half of our army starting at midfield due to WWP and the lack of mobility in our opponents' list. Kill points would be the tough one. we had to make sure we spread out the KPs. If the Harlequins killed 7 KPs, but the craftworld killed only 1, we would lose. add the fact that there weren't a lot of easy KPs on the other side of the field, and it looked like it would be an uphill battle.
being DoW, the first turn was weak on both sides, with a few potshots and no real damage. turn 2 brought in one squad of wyches that went full bore after the long fangs. with a good run roll they pulled one long fang unit and a lone wolf into combat. the wolves and GKs ended up coming in split up, so it was easy to ignore the terminator flank. for the first 2 or 3 turns, there were very few KPs gained on either side. the lone wolf refused to die, and that blob of wyches wasn't going anywhere. shots were traded back and forth, killing a few units here and there. after 3 turns, my partner and I had a KP each (he killed a rhino, I killed a long fang squad) and they had 1 and 2 (I think the terminators took donw the guardians and the heamonculus, and the wolves took out the venom). suddenly in turn 4, things just started dying. the wyches killed 3 units (2 long fang units and a lone wolf), the trueborn took down a rhino, and my archon went bat-**** crazy, racking up a total of 6 KPs all on his lonesome! but my partner was having trouble killing stuff, so that didnt' matter one bit. finally in the last turn, he managed to take down the last rhino and grey hunters with the avatar and the bro captain with the wraithlord. our low KP score was 4 to Strictly Terminus's low score of 2.
We walked away with full points after a hard-fought game that ended up being on of the most fun games I had over the course of the 3-day event. It was close throughout, but once the pain tokens started flowing it went way better than I thought it could.
Mission 3 - The chicken and the Wolf
Our last round was against a team named Chicken and the Wolf. and interesting mix of chaos deamons and space wolves. it was a super tough combo of thunderwolves, bloodcrushers and the fateweaver. ouch. the mission primary was standard Capture and Control, with "reverse annihilation" on the side (fewest KPs lost won this objective). bonus points were gained for killing an enemy HQ with your own HQ.
our opponents were running the following:
Rune Priest (jaws, lightning)
2 wolf lords (storm shields on both, one claw and one hammer. the hammer had saga of the bear)
2 X 5 grey hunters with flamer
3 thunderwolves
Fateweaver
Khorne Herald on jugger
bloodletters
horrors
plaguebearers
5 BloodCrushers
One of the guys posted a nice blow by blow on Dakka here
(although I think its funny that they mention that jwolf told them we had been practicing. thanks for the vote of confidence, jwolf, but round 1 of the doubles tournament was the first time the two of us ever played a game together, as allies or opponents. haha)
I'll just give the summary from our point of view. we knew this one would be tough. Bloodcrushers are mean, and T-Wolves are mean. add in re-rollable saves and they are gross. we decided we were going to primarily castle our objective and try the good ol' tried and true eldar skimmer contest move. our objecyive was behind a bastion (actually counted as a AV14 building!) and theirs was on a hill in the very far corner. they deployed the wolf deathstar unit, and held everything else in reserves/deamon drop.
the first turn was great. we knocked wounds off of each lord, and a few wolves and got ready for the punch in the face. but on their turn 1, they got the wrong wave (no fateweaver for at least a turn!) and then managed 2 mishaps (killing one unit and putting the other way off in the middle of nowhere). we also had the portal placed in the exact center of the board to respond to potential threats. so after 1 turn it was looking sweet, we had a bunch of wounds on T-wolves and very few deamons to worry about. but then our luck turned. the wyches didn't come up yet (which would have really helped against the wolves. they had already taken a few wounds off the avatar), and all we got was the talos. we shot a bunch and got a wound on each wolf, but no casualties. then things went to pot. the wolves charged our falcon and avengers, wiping the avengers. then they managed to hit our speeding falcon and explode it through the holo-fields... and then the farseer and dragons inside ran! aaahh.
We brought in wyches with the archon to try to take ou the wolves. if they had come in one turn earlier we would have been in a much better position. the farseer tried to doom the wolves as he ran (stopped just short of the table edge and about 9" away from the wolves) but failed. should have brought runes of witnessing. the wyches did great, killing all three thunderwolves and only losing a single wych. of course they don't run. on their turn, the combat goes even worse. we do no wounds to the Lords (they made 7 straight 2+ and 3++ saves between them, including 3 against instant death on the claw lord...) and they kill 2 wyches. and the wyches break and run (even though they had 11 and an archon left... grrr). this one failed Ld test cost us a full unit of wyches, an archon, a farseer, and the fire dragons. yay.
after that it was just cleanup. we lost our fast contesting units when the fateweaver dropped in, and the Wolf Lords easily mopped up the last few defenders on our objective. it all came down to 2 Ld tests. had the fire dragons held when their ship blew up, or the archon's buddies had stuck when they lost combat we could have pulled an easy draw or possibly a win. them's the breaks.
To make matters worse, we found out afterwards that we had been in first place going into that game (first overall, there were a few teams with more battlepoints.) somehow we had managed to get full points on fluff/theme/painting, which I really didn't expect considering what I had worked on. our opponents went on to win best general, so that shows how close we were. we ended up pulling 6th. not bad, but always annoying when you come that close to the top only to fail at the last minute.
Overall it was a very fun tournament, and I hope to do it again next year. if I do, it is likely that the harlequins will make a repeat performance. they were a ton of fun to play, and really throw a wrench in the works if you haven't played against it before. even my partner had never seen them before, and said after that the web way portal is now his new favorite item in warhammer. I have to agree. :-)
coming soon, I am planning a tactics article on using a web way army. I'll be using my experience from the team tournament along with what I learned getting ready for Adepticon early this year. Stay tuned! (all 2 of you who read my blog...)
I'm pretty sure more than 2 people read your blog. :) I have you on my blogroll, if that helps (considering only like 5 people read mine, probably not, but hey, every little bit helps, right? :) )
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