Nova Open Game #2: Blackmoor vs. Stelek!

Nova Open game #2: Blackmoor vs. Stelek!

There have been a lot of rumors about what happened in our game, and up until this point only 2 people really knew what happened. So here is what happened: 

I am still haunted by my mistake.

So close to victory.

All I had to do is make my Interceptor squad scoring. I HAVE to make them scoring whenever the Objective mission is ahead of kill points!!! That brain fart cost me winning the final game.

Oh, and I said that I was felling really sick after game #6 yesterday? I found out why. It had rained in Washington when we were there and I had wet clothes that got mildew. I had a very bad hay fever/allergy attack last night and the start of it was yesterday. 

Oh, and I am really wiped out. No So Cal Smackdown for me.

Nova Open 2011

Well by now most of you know what happened at the Nova Open last weekend. I will write up some batreps and my general thoughts about the event in the coming week. I am a little burned out, and dead tired and I need some time to relax.

Right now I am sitting at the Atlanta airport for 5 hours waiting for my 10:00pm flight.

I had a lot of fun and met a lot of great people.

The 40K version of the Bataan death march

Past

July

So here I am in the middle of 40k hell. It started at the beginning of July when I drove out to Wargames Con for 11 games over 3 days. Then I had a couple of weeks off before the Bay Area Open where I got to play only 7 games.

Present

August

Now this is where things start to pick up…last week I broke my bad luck streak at the 'Ard Boyz and I came in 3^rd. Then this week I have a 3 game local RTT for 1750 points I can use to practice for the Nova Open Invitational.

Future

Late August –Sept.

Aug 26-28

 So next week I am working like a manic to get ready for the Nova Open. Not only am I painting like a madman, but I am working 12 hour days to take off of work early next week. Now this where I am going to die by 40k…so the Nova Invitational is 5 games on Friday followed up by 8 games over the weekend for 14 total games. I was going to take a late flight out on Monday, and see some of Washington DC, but I think I will try to take an earlier flight and get myself out of there to crash at home.

Sept 3-4

Then the following week there is the So Cal Smackdown in LA. If they get their act together and some of the better players in So Cal show up I will think about making an appearance.

Sept 10-11

Then it is on to a local GT. I get to sleep in my own bed!!! This is a 30+ player local GT that Empire Games in Mesa is putting on for their 3^rd anniversary.

Sept 17

“Ard Boyz Semi-finals. I am glad this is only one day and then I will be done!!!

Then I get to sit back and relax and work on my 4^th edition army and I do not have to worry about traveling or big GTs until Neoncon in Vegas in early November. Looking back that I would imagine that I am going to be so burned out that I will not pick up a 40k model for a long time.

Bay Area Open overview

While I am sitting around waiting for bases to dry I thought I would write some about the Bay Area Open. I have so many GTs this month that I can't write them all up, so I will so some quick postings.

Here is my list in case you forgot:

1850 Points of Grey Knights

HQ

Draigo

Librarian w/Warding Stave, Might of Titian, Quicksilver, Sanctuary, The Shrouding

Troops

10 Paladins w/4 Psycannons (3 Master Crafted), 2 Hammers, 4 Halberds (1 Master Crafted), 3 Swords (1 Master Crafted), Brotherhood Banner

10 Grey Knight Strike Squad w/2 Psycannons, Psybolt Ammunition

Fast Attack

9 Grey Knight Interceptors w/2 Psycannons, Psybolt Ammunition

Justicar w/Master Crafted Demmonhammer

Heavy Support

Dreadnought w/2 Twin-Linked Autocannons, Psybolt Ammunition

So there it is. 32 Models+ 1 Vehicle

The odd thing is that my first 3 games where all against guys named Josh.

Games #1 vs. Speed Freak Orks (Josh J. 63^rd Place)

Here he is getting ready to call the Waaagh!!! and assault my Paladins.

This is what he is left with after the assault.

 And then they all run except for the Ghazkull who makes about 18 no-retreat saves and will last just one more turn.

 After that it was just a mopping up action. 

Funny thing is that the Strike Squad on the lower left was tank-shocked by a Trukk and they failed their morale and ran off of the board. I see that my dice are still giving me some problems, but it was an annihilation mission and everything was well in hand at that point.

Game #2 vs. Crowe Grey Knights, Dual Dreadknight  (Josh S. 8^th Place)

Josh made a mistake and this is all he had guarding his objective in Command and Control

Draigo and 5 of his boys made quick work of his Purifiers, Crowe and the razorback.

 I knew all I had to do was kill his forward units and he would not be able to get to my objective in time. I did that, but he was running as fast as he could while his dreadknight was going through my army. The game ended on turn #6 with him just being outside of my objective.

Josh ended up on table #1 in the last round and ended up losing to the tournament winner. 

Another funny thing is that I bought new blue dice because my other dice roll so bad. So his first shots are a psyfleman dred at my Paladins and he rolls 3 wounds. So I roll my saves and this is what I got:

You will see 3 blue dice on the table all on the '1' dropping three paladins on the first salvo. Oh, dice how I hate you!

Game #3 vs.  Mech Blood Angels (Josh B. 15^th Place)

Seize ground is a tough mission for me, but Josh #3 skimped on the troops and I was able to win a slug fest. This is the end of turn #7.

Game #4 vs. Wrack and Grotesque Dark Eldar (Michael B. 6^th Place)

Here is the problem when playing capture and control...you do too well early on and your opponent will just retreat and turtle up on their objective. Here is a pic of the start of the game:

 Here he is on turn #3 with most of his skimmers wrecked:

Now here he is with all of his skimmers downed, and almost all of his infantry killed. All he has left is Vect, some Grotesques, and 2 small squads of Wracks for his troops holding his objective which is in that building in the back center. At this point he says that it is obvious that it is a tie, and that we should stop and check out the other armies, and relax. You can not see it very well, but I have my interceptor squad on the upper right corner. All I have to do is blow his 2 Wrack squads away and he is going to lose. So I tell him to let's keep playing and see what will happen. 

So after every turn I kill more Wracks and he tells me that it is going to be a tie.

Here is turn #6

 I could not get close enough to contest his objective. He had it on the top floor and I could not jump anywhere and not be within 1". So I just shot the heck out of him and he made a ton of saves. He went to ground, and had feel no pain and he just would not roll low. At the end of the game he had one Wrack left (those stupid things never failed a morale roll). He said at the end "See, I told you it would be a tie." Grrrr, he got really lucky to squeak that tie out.

So I think I am not going to adopt that move. Whenever I can't win a capture and control mission, and I might loose it I will try to talk my opponent into calling it a tie and quitting early. 

Oh well, I was 3-0-1 on the day and it was on to 3 games on day #2!

Some quick Wargames Con batreaps

Wargames Con Batrep #1 Grey Knight vs. Grey Knight!

Well it is time to get my batreps for Wargames Con Started. I will have pictures up until I had a meltdown during game #3 (more on that later). 

This is just a brief overview of what I did while I am taking a break from paining.

You can find the army I used here:

http://blackmoors40k.blogspot.com/2011/07/list-that-i-took-to-wargames-con.html

Basically a lot of terminators.

I get to my table and my opponent is John C’s  with his Grey Knights. His list is:

HQ

Librarian w/Empyrian Brain Mines(?), Teleport Homer, 3 Servo Skulls, Might of Titian, Quicksilver, Sanctuary, Shrouding

Librarian w/Empyrian Brain Mines(?), Teleport Homer, 2  Servo Skulls, Might of Titian, Quicksilver, Sanctuary, Shrouding

First off I have been saying for a while that I would not be surprised if we start to see more Grey Knight armies with 2 librarians. They are such huge force multipliers and the fact that the other Gk HQs are not that great. He also loaded up on servo skulls because he was planning on doing a lot of deep striking. Personally I hate deep striking because your units come in all staggered, and can’t do anything the first round. I will say that he has the 4 best psychic powers though.

Troops

Grey Knight Strike Squad w/Psybolt Ammo

Justicar w/MC Demonhammer

2 Grey Knights w/Psycannons

7 Grey Knights

Grey Knight Strike Squad w/Psybolt Ammo

Justicar w/MC Demonhammer

2 Grey Knights w/Psycannons

7 Grey Knights

Grey Knight Strike Squad w/Psybolt Ammo

Justicar w/MC Demonhammer

2 Grey Knights w/Psycannons

7 Grey Knights

Grey Knight Strike Squad w/Psybolt Ammo

Justicar w/MC Demonhammer

2 Grey Knights w/Psycannons

7 Grey Knights

Grey Knight Strike Squad w/Psybolt Ammo

Justicar w/MC Demonhammer

2 Grey Knights w/Psycannons

7 Grey Knights

Standard Strike Squad load out, and that is a lot of Strike Squads. I did not think anything about it at the time, but in hindsight it is a lot better build than I thought. That is a lot of wounds and firepower backed up by the librarians greatly augmenting them in assault.

Heavy Support

Nemesis Dreadknight w/Doomfist, Greatsword

Nemesis Dreadknight w/Doomfist, Greatsword

I personally never cared for Dreadknights myself, so now I will get to see if I was right in my assessment.

Note about missions:

They were set up so that you received battle points for achieving them.

Primary: 13 Points for a win/7for a tie/0 for a loss

Secondary: 10 Points for a win/5 for a tie/0 for a loss

Tertiary: 7 Points for a win /3 for a tie/0 for a loss

So if you win all 3, you get 30 points for a massacre.

Mission:

Primary: Seize Ground (5 Objectives)

Secondary: Annihilation

Tertiary: Table Quarters (Scoring units to hold)

Here is what happened: He started with some of his units on the board and for some reason he wanted to deep-strike his army and as he came down I took him out piece meal.

I get a couple turns of shooting to wipe out the units he has on the board

 Then I get to pick off the other units that come down

He is not doing to well

End of the game a massacre for me:

On to the Nova Open Invitational!

It looks like my performance at the Bay Area Open was good enough to get me an invite to the Nova Open Invitational Tournament.

So what is the Invitational Tournament? It is some of the best players who won tournaments that received an invitation to compete in a one-day, 5-round tournament that is on the Friday before the regular Nova Open.

So what did I have to do to play in this tournament? I had to change my flight which is a $78 charge for Airtran, and $30 for Orbitz, then I had to book an extra day at the Hotel which is $109 and the last thing is that I have to pay $50 for the tournament. So to add it up, to play on Friday I have to pay $267+ (That is not counting the flight and the hotel room for the rest of the Nova Open). Lucky for me the prize is $1000 so I better win it!

Oh, here is another funny thing. The Invitational starts its first game at 8:00am. So to get up and shower and to have some breakfast that means that I have to wake up around 7:00am. Now I will be flying in from the west coast the day before so that means that I will be waking up at 4:00am Pacific time. What you may not know is that I work evenings, and I normally go to bed at around 2:00am at night. So that would be like most people playing at a tournament at 3:00am in the morning. I am going to be tired!

Blackmoor goes to the Bay Area open!

So let’s start at the beginning. I signed up for this GT a while ago and I was waiting for the prices for Southwest to one of the 3 Bay area airports to go down, but they never went below $130 each way.

So I thought I would drive up there. Boy, was that a mistake. Not only am I driving the 6 hours to LA, but the 5+ hours to Antioch was unbearable. Add to this that I would have saved money since I paid so much in gas that flying would have been cheaper.

Well enough of my griping.

We get in on Friday night and check out the game store that was next door to the hotel, and they have some old models! They had box sets from 2^nd edition and even a ton of old rhinos. They even had a box of the old metal plates that was extra armor for those rhinos. Over all it was a very nice store. I think it was the Game Bunker or Gamers Guild or something. I kind of collect dice like women collect shoes, and they had these interesting dice that I bought for the Nova Open.

So here I am Friday night and someone was talking about it being a 1850 point tournament. I looked it up and sure enough I get it confirmed that it is indeed a 1850 point tournament. This is bad because I brought a 2000 point list!!! Well before leaving I dropped a razorback that I did not have time to finished painting, so I had 50 points to spread around into all kinds of upgrades. I ended up buying 5 master craftings for the paladins and other items that I did not need. Well, I now had to trim my list down another 150 point at the last minute. So what did I do? I just dropped a dreadnought that was 135 points, and the Strike Squad lost their Master Crafted Demonhammer. Why did I drop the Demonhammer instead of some of the Paladins MC? Well, the reason why was that I ran out of time to model it, so that made my army WYSIWYG. 

So here is my list:

Bay Area Open

Well, I just got home from the Bay Area Open. I am tired and will try to get some posts up soon.

I was so swamped with work after Wargames Con and I had to do a ton of work to take off time for the Bay Area Open I have not been able to do anything here, so I will see what I can do about that.

I met a lot of great guys like Magilla Gorilla but more on that later…

Just a quick bit, I modified my GK list that I took to Wargames Con and these are the armies I played against:

Battlewagon Orks

Crowe Grey Knights

Mech Blood Angels

Dark Eldar

Tau

Psycannon/Death Cult spam Grey Knights

Battlewagon Orks

In the last round I just missed out on playing the Mech Guard player that won the event. If I could have played him, it would have been a great collection of armies that I played against.