Adepticon 2010 - DTP @ the 40K Championship

It never fails that when you make plans life jumps up to change those plans for you. In this case, work jumped up to change my plans to post this yesterday, so here we go.

Sunday at Adepticon found the DTP headed down at an ungodly 7am for a full day of 40K championship. I brought along my display board and my army as pictured and listed in the earlier post. I was excited for the day and had a chance before the games started to walk around and snap some pictures of the armies. For those interested in checking out all/most of the 150 pictures taken over the weekend, check out my album here.

Here are a couple pictures of armies I did not play, before I jump into my game reports.



Sadly I did not get the chance to actually play any Tau at the tournament, but I grabbed a picture of this army while walking around.





A couple pictures of a great Tervigon model.



your eyes do not deceive you, that's Dave Taylors Blood Pact on the table. Its armies like this that look so good it makes you wonder why you try for best army appearance. Surprisingly, Dave did not win best appearance or players choice, but more on that later.





And here we have an Ork player with the "right" idea on how to win the tourney! I may have to try this next year.

Championship
That brings us to the three games I played on Sunday as part of the 40K Championship. I have to first point out that while I did not place well in the tournament, these were 3 of the best games of 40K I have had in a long time. All three of my opponents were a whole lot of fun to play. Their armies were very nice and fully painted. They challenged me tactically and I hope that despite giving up the primary objective each game, I provided the same challenge for them.

Game 1







Game 1 I faced off against Brandon from GMM Studio Pro-Painting. Brandon had an incredible army and ended up winning both Players Choice and Best Army Appearance. I have to admit it was well deserved. To top that, Brandon was a great player and an excellent opponent to start the day out.
Lets take a look at Brandon's list:

HQ

Daemon Prince (Wings, Mark of Slanesh, Lash)
Daemon Prince (Wings, Mark of Slanesh, Lash)
Summoned Greater Daemon

Troops

5x Plague Marines (Flamer, Meltagun, Fist, Combi-melta)
w/ Rhino (Combi-Melta)
5x Plague Marines (Flamer, Meltagun, Fist, Combi-melta)
w/ Rhino (Combi-Melta)
5x Plague Marines (Flamer, Meltagun, Combi-melta )
w/ Rhino (Combi-Melta)
5x Plague Marines (Flamer, Meltagun, Combi-melta)
w/ Rhino (Combi-Melta)

Heavy

3x Obliterators
3x Obliterators

The mission was as follows:

• Deployment - 12 inch "Pitched Battle" deployment zone
• Primary Objective - Annihilation: Kill points
• Secondary Objective - Elimination: Eliminate all of your opponents troop choices while having at least one of your own troop choices alive at the end of the game.
• Tertiary Objective - Victory Points: Player must score at least 250 more victory points than their opponent.
• Tactical Bonuses:
• +1 if your opponent has no surviving fast attack choices at the end of the game
• +1 if your opponent has no surviving heavy support choices at the end of the game
• +1 if your opponent has no surviving elite choices at the end of the game

I ended up losing the primary, drawing the secondary, and losing the tertiary objectives here. This was my first time facing the Lash, and I ended up facing a double lash list here. I have to admit that it really did not affect my game at all. Brandon kept much of his army in reserve so the Daemon Princes came in on separate turns. I was able to kill the first lash prince off prior to the second coming onto the board. In addition, the Eldar Runes of Warding and sticking inside my tanks truly limits the effectiveness of Lash overall. The game came down to a lot of ranged shooting and each of us trying to blow apart each-others transports and then dump shots onto the infantry inside. Over two turns my dice turned against me and I was unable to do any damage at all. In one of those turns Brandons smoked rhino ate every single shot fired at it without actually causing any damage.

Game 2

Game 2 I faced Brian's Dark Eldar. I realized after Adepticon that I did not get any pictures of his very nice looking Raider army. This was a great match-up as I have only had a chance to face Dark Eldar one other time and it is always a fun game. I have to admit that it can be a bit overwhelming to face 13 raiders across the table and realize that there is a load of lance shots coming my way. Brian was at Adepticon from Atlanta GA, coming up from the Warfan Gaming club, a club I have played against previously when I was traveling to Atlanta.
Lets take a look at Brian's list:

HQ

Archon (Agonizer, Shadow Field, Trophy Rack)
w/ 5x Incubi retinue
w/ Raider (Dark Lance, Torture Amp)
Dracon (Crucible of Malediction)
w/ 5x Warrior retinue (2x Dark Lance)
w/ Raider (Dark Lance, Torture Amp, Trophy Rack)

Elite

5x Wyches (2x Blaster)
w/ Raider (Dark Lance, Torture Amp)
5x Wyches (2x Blaster)
w/ Raider (Dark Lance, Torture Amp)

Troops

5x Warriors (Dark Lance, Blaster)
w/ Raider (Dark Lance, Torture Amp)
5x Warriors (Dark Lance, Blaster)
w/ Raider (Dark Lance, Torture Amp)
5x Warriors (Dark Lance, Blaster)
w/ Raider (Dark Lance, Torture Amp)
5x Warriors (Dark Lance, Blaster)
w/ Raider (Dark Lance, Torture Amp)
5x Warriors (Dark Lance, Blaster)
w/ Raider (Dark Lance, Torture Amp)
5x Warriors (Dark Lance, Blaster)
w/ Raider (Dark Lance, Torture Amp)

Heavy

Ravager (3x Dark Lance)
Ravager (3x Disentegrator)
Ravager (3x Disentegrator)


The mission was as follows:

• Deployment - Deployment was long tabel edge, up to 6" away from the center line. (18 inch deployment zone)
• Primary Objective - Seize Ground: Capture terrain elements, to claim a terrain element you must have a unit wholly in/on an uncontested terrain element. To Contest a player must have a unit wholly in/on the element.
• Secondary Objective - Elimination: Eliminate all of your opponents HQ choices while having at least one of your own HQ choices alive at the end of the game.
• Tertiary Objective - Victory Points: Player must score at least 500 more victory points than their opponent.
• Tactical Bonuses:
• +1 if you have a model from a scoring unit within the 3" of the center of the table and your opponent does not
• +1 If your most expensive unit is not fleeing or dead at the end of the game.
• +1 if none of your HQ choices are destroyed at the end of the game

I ended up losing the primary and drawing both the secondary and tertiary objectives on this mission. Against Brian I was simply unable to do enough damage to his mass of raiders and 6 troop choices to bring this out. We both spent much of the game knocking each-others skimmers out of the air and trying to pick apart the infantry that popped out. The highlight of the game was a face-off between Brian's Archon and Incubi retinue vs my Spiders plus Autarch. During the fight my Autarch chose the worse part of Valor and attacked the Incubi opposed to facing the Archon. In a fit of rage, the Archon carved his way through the spiders to pull the face-off with the Autarch. In a surprise move, the Autarch landed enough blows to break the unit and then ran down the Archon as the Dark Kin broke.


Game 3







Game 3 I faced off against Rex's Space Wolves. This was the last game and we were on the bottom tables. I had heard that Rex was a very competent Space Wolves general from Mike Brandt, who faced Rex during the first round. This was something to keep in mind, but I also have not had the same problems with Space Wolves that I have heard other people have.
Lets take a look at Rex's list:

HQ

Wolf Lord (Thunderwolf, Runic Armor, Wolftooth Necklace, Frost WEapon, Storm Shield, Warrior Born)
w/ 2x Fenrisian Wolf
Rune Priest (Wolftooth Necklace, Runic Weapon, Jaws, Storm Caller)

Elite

6x Wolf Guard (3x Combi-Melta, 3x Combi-flamer)
w/ Droppod

Troops

5x Grey Hunters (Meltagun)
w/ Razorback (Lascannon, TL Plasmagun)
5x Grey Hunters (Meltagun)
w/ Razorback (Lascannon, TL Plasmagun)
5x Grey Hunters (Flamer)
w/ Razorback (Lascannon, TL Plasmagun)
5x Grey Hunters (Flamer)
w/ Razorback (Lascannon, TL Plasmagun)

Fast Attack

4x Thunderwolf Cavalry (Fist)
4x Thunderwolf Cavalry (Fist)

Heavy

4x Long Fangs (2x Missile, 1x Lascannon)
4x Long Fangs (2x Missile, 1x Lascannon)

The mission was as follows:

• Deployment - Table Quarters
• Primary Objective - Objectives Markers: At the start of the game 1 player sets up 3 objectives, then the other player chooses one objective as the "Primary objective Marker". At the end of the game a player gets 11 points for control of the primary objective marker, 5 points for contesting the primary objective marker, 5 points for control of each secondary objective marker, and 3 points for contesting each of the secondary objective markers.
• Secondary Objective - Battlefield Control: Have at least one unit wholly in every standard table quarter at the end of the game. The unit need not be scoring nor can this objective be contested.
• Tertiary Objective - Victory Points: Player must score at least 750 more victory points than their opponent.
• Tactical Bonuses:
• +1 If your opponent controls no objective markers at the end of the game
• +1 If you achieved the secondary mission and all units used to control the quarters were scoring
• +1 If your opponent has fewer than 4 units left at the end of the game

I ended up claiming 1 secondary objective marker and contesting 1 secondary objective marker. Rex ended up claiming the primary objective marker and contesting one secondary marker. Rex won the secondary objective with more quarters than I had, and we both drew the tertiary objective. This was a very fun game with a chance for me to finally see what Thunderwolf Cavalry can do. I will admit they can take a boat load of shots and still stick on the table. They also move much quicker than I anticipated. Overall the game was challenging and it came down to bring a bit short on the last turn to contest the primary objective marker. I had waited a bit too long to pull my skimmers into position to make the 24 inch ramming move to claim or contest on turn 5.


Conclusion
Adepticon was an incredible experience and overall the DTP performed as expected. I certainly need to work much harder on my tactics if I expect to place well at a tournament. On the modeling and painting front, I do not feel bad at all on how I scored. I am unsure what the painting score chart looked like, but Brandon had a 45 overall for painting, while I cam in with a 26.  Not a score I am disappointed in. I think the only disagreement I have with the scoring at the tournament was with the sportsmanship award being given to the lowest battle points of the tourney. In my opinion, this turns sportsmanship into a consolation prize, which I think lessens the total award.