Another March, another 40k TSHFT. I must admit to being super stoked that this year TSHFT got up to 50 registered attendees, though we had only 48 show up. Considering I know of at least 4 people who had to drop out at the last instant who hadn’t bought a ticket yet; I’m convinced the next one is going to be at least 60 or more. We’re well on our way to getting this thing recognized as an official indy GT.
Nothing against the Conquest folks, but it’s our intention for TSHFT to be the première tournament for the Seattle area, and I think with another quality event, Zen is on his way. Prize support was better while the entry was less. Despite a few grammatical hiccups, the missions were solid, interesting, and balanced.
I was also absolutely stoked at the wide-variety of armies that came to this event. The top 3 tables at the end of the tournament had 2 Space Wolves, Eldar, Daemons, Sisters of Battle, and Orks…
Also, I was really happy that we had a good crop of excellent players and generals. It was great to see some familiar faces and have a blast.
Alright, for those of you who don’t know. I’ve kept my list steady since early 2008. I haven’t messed with it hardly at all. Sadly, TSHFT is now switching to the more popular 2000 point limit for upcoming events, so my 1850 list that has served me so well is going to get shelved. Time to start fiddling again until I find a good list. This is always a fun process but also somewhat annoying… Anyway, list is below!
Big Mek with Kustom Force Field
15 Lootas
30 shoota boyz with 3 rokkits and a Nob with power klaw
30 shoota boyz with 3 rokkits and a Nob with power klaw
12 slugga boyz wtih Nob with power klaw, boss pole, in a trukk with reinforced ram
12 slugga boyz wtih Nob with power klaw, boss pole, in a trukk with reinforced ram
10 Gretchin and their minder
15 Stormboyz with Nob with power klaw and boss pole
2 Rokkit Buggies
1 Battlewagon with killkannon, 3 big shootas, reinforced ram, and ‘ard case.
3 Killa Kans with rokkits
3 Lobbas with 2 ammo runts
All killer, no filler! 😉
Game 1: Jeff and his IG
Mission: Kill Points, Short Table Edge Deployment, secondaries were to have more Fast Attack choices alive at the end of the game, tertiaries were to have the unit that got the most kill point kills and to have more VP at the end of the game.
This is one of Zen’s special deployments, you basically divide the table like Neapolitan ice cream. Whoever chooses sides picks a third of the board and their long table edge.
I have Jeff’s army list in my bag, and can edit this later with the specifics; but it was basically…
Company Command Platoon with Straken and two melta guns in Chimera
Infantry Platoon with 2 platoons on foot with autocannon and plasma guns; platoon command with Al Rahem in a chimera with meltas or plasmas
Infantry Platoon with 2 platoons on foot with lascannons and plasma guns, commissar; platoon command with autocannon and sniper rifle.
2 Vendettas, one had a squad of guys with flamers in it, I think it was a special weapon team
10 rough riders, sgt with power weapon
Basilisk
Manticore
Leman Russ with HB, no sponsons.
Marbo
Jeff had an awesome Tallarn theme and it was all old 2nd ed metal figs with a few exceptions for new models.
I won the roll and decided to go first. I deployed everything (though in retrospect, leaving a unit of 30 in reserve to come up would’ve been smart too, though the last two times I’ve done that they haven’t shown up to 5th, so I was leery…) except my trukks, stormboyz, and rokkit buggies, hoping to come on my long edge and flank him. I left my Killa Kans closest to his long table edge in case he left something in reserve to come in and attack on the side (mostly worried about the rough riders). Also, I had my lootas and lobbas pushed up as far as possible, because I was worried about Al Rahem coming in on the backside of my army and really dividing my attention.
Jeff deployed on a hill on his side and kind of all around it. Using the hills to give his vehicles cover. He left one Vendetta in reserve (with the flamers) and the rough riders, and of course Marbo and Al Rahem’s units. Jeff wisely tried to steal the initiative, but failed.
I moved up with my infantry running as I went. The battlewagon zoomed ahead, but he blew it up on his first turn (a theme!), while my lootas destroyed his basilisk turn one and Straken’s Chimera the next. His Manticore did alright at trying to hurt my lootas, but they were spread out and in cover, and I only lost 6 total in the game. Highlight was Marbo coming on, throwing his det charge on the lootas, watching it drift back on to him, wounding him, and failing his 3+ cover save and dying (strategy!). My fast stuff showed up in bits and pieces but it worked out. I was able to immobilize his leman russ with a lucky rokkit shot (6 to hit, 6 to glance, 6 on the result!), which helped me later. I was also able to keep the trukk boy squad alive even though they got shot to pieces by going to ground in the craters. Around turn 3 it was looking kind of hairy for me as he had a ton of firepower left and I had been running poorly and was at least two turns away still from combat most likely. However, I got my stormboyz in and they jumped far enough to engage the outflanking blob and straken in one. I wiped straken’s pals and won the combat by 6, Straken died from fearless wounds and the blob fled and was destroyed because it would’ve had to double back. The stormboyz then took the full brunt of his shooting and were finished off by the rough riders. But that lag in the shooting on my mobs allowed them to get in and take out his manticore and get in range to charge next turn. Also, my 4 remaining trukk boyz had a wild time assaulting the rough riders and wiping them out!
By turn 6 I was engaged across the board and Jeff only had a few units left (including his Vendetta for the secondary…CURSES!), but I had a pretty substantial win! Stormboyz for the win (a theme!).
Result: Orks win: 16 of 20 Battle Points
Game 2: Andy and his PINK Eldar
Mission: 4 objectives, Spearhead deployment. Secondary Objective kill HQ (bonus for uniques or SCs), tertiary objectives: have fewer kill points and something else…
I’m familiar with Andy from Ordo Fanaticus so it was nice to put a smiling face with a name on a screen! Andy has a lovely Eldar army (won best appearance!) that he had designed for Astronomicon in Vancouver BC. To that end, it’s designed for fluffy fun rather than hard as nails, though its plenty effective.
Andy’s army is roughly (again, I have the lists in my bag, but I’m at work!)…
Avatar
Farseer with only fortune
10 harlequins with the guy that makes them hard to see
6 fire dragons
9 dire avengers with exarch with bladestorm in Wave serpent with EML
9 dire avengers with exarch with bladestorm in Wave serpent with EML
10 pathfinders
1 vyper with dual shuriken cannons
2 fire prisms with all the fixin’s
1 falcon with all the fixin’s
I won the roll and opted to go second as this was objectives (overcoming my natural inclination to always go first).
Andy deployed all his army in a fairly standard manner, keeping his prisms behind cover in his back corner, his falcon, vyper, and one wave serpent up in the top middle of the board, his pathfinders in cover near an objective, and his harlequins, farseer, and avatar in the middle.
I deployed with my typical all in except trukks and rokkit buggies and stormboyz. I was fairly bunched up, and the only good area terrain on my board was a bit close to his deployment, so I put the lootas there. I figured they would be ok and could do wonders at knocking down those pesky Eldar vehicles.
First turn Andy moved his one waveserpent up and unloaded his dire avengers to bladestorm my lootas. He succeeded in doing a substantial amount of wounds, and I went to ground, figuring to survive and then come up in later rounds. I lost quite a few more than I expected (a theme!), but then lost even more when the pathfinders lit them up. The rest of his army just kind of danced around shot at me to no real effect. On my turn one I was able to blast the dire avengers with my lobbas and cut them in half, but that was about it. I moved up and assaulted the wave serpent that the dire avengers had come up in with my shoota boyz, but failed to do anything other than shake it. In his second turn, Andy killed enough lootas that they fled the board having never fired a shot (uh oh!) and wiped out my 30 strong mob with harlequins, farseer, and avatar. At this point I was more than a trifle worried! However, I got the reserves I needed, a trukk boy squad and the rokkit buggies. I shot the wave serpent down to immobilized and assaulted the remaining harlequins and farseer with my trukk boyz. I also shot down the other wave serpent with rokkits on the other side, who then were pinned! I wiped out the harlequins, but the farseer held.
Andy then moved his avatar at my killa kans who were moving up the board; the falcon immobilized my battlewagon and the fire prisms killed one rokkit buggy. He assaulted the killa kans with his avatar, but only took down one. The farseer survived again and the boyz held on.
My next turn my other trukk boyz showed up and moved up to assault the pathfinders; my other big mob blew up the remaining dire avengers in the crater, then assaulted the sole exarch and wiped him. The killa kans held up and the farseer survived again. I called the waagh and got my other trukk boyz into the pathfinders and wiped ’em out. With no troops left at this point, Andy switched to trying to get a draw. His avatar killed my kans and his farseer died, he shot my boyz, but no effect, and then stunned the repaired battlewagon with his falcon. I shot his avatar dead on my turn, moved to contest objectves with some units and moved to assault tanks with others. Didn’t do much but shook the tanks. On the last turn I was able to take out the fire dragons that blew up my battlewagon and knock down a fire prism with an assault as well as the vyper that was contesting.
Result: Win 20 of 20 battle points
Game 3: Mark (asugradinwa) and his Dark Eldar
Mission: 4 objectives (one in each deployment zone, two in no-man’s land), Echelon deployment (kind of that slanty deployment you see every once in a while…18″ up, 18″ over and then a long diagnol between, leaving 24″ between both triangle deployment zones…). Secondaries, bonus BP for every different type of Force Org type you kill; tertiaries were to hold all objectives in no-man’s land, and all objectives in deployment zones.
I know Mark from various internet places and obliquely spoke to him at previous TSHFTs. I was quite happy to have a game against him. I’m sure Mark can fill you in on the details of his list; but it basically was thus.
Archon with drugs and 2+ invul
Dude with incubi in raider
wyches with raider
wyches with raider
Raider squad dark lances, horrorfex
Raider squad dark lances, horrorfex
Raider squad dark lances, horrorfex
Raider squad dark lances, horrorfex
10 strong Warrior squad with dark lances and something that never fired
The shooty vehicle with dark lances and plasma cannon thingies
The shooty vehicle with dark lances and plasma cannon thingies
The shooty vehicle with dark lances
(Just so we’re clear, I don’t face dark eldar often enough to know the names of things and beyond that, I have an Ork-like mentality when it comes to keeping track of names and things! 🙂 )
I can’t remember if he won the roll and chose to go first or if I won and let him go first. Either way, he deployed first and set up a punch of spiky vehicles all over the place, but with an eye towards using the big terrain feature in the middle to hide behind. I set up with my lootas in terrain to the far right, my battlewagon and kans behind the terrain, and left the usual suspects in reserve.
Mark came at me like a big, spiky freight train and wrecked my battlewagon (I has a sad), but didn’t really do a lot of damage to the lootas (uh oh…). In my turn I shot down a raider with wyches and lobba-ed the survivors to death. I also believe I shot down another one with lootas. Mark then assaulted one of my mobs with his remaining wyches and incubi and wiped them out while taking down all but one of my kans. My trukk boyz came in and assaulted the incubi and wyches, killing his character, the incubi, and all but one of the wyches and the archon. I shot down another raider, lobba-ed the survivors of one of the raiders. He shot my lootas a bunch, but only killed one in his turn, I finished off his archon and wych. At this point, I moved up with my undamaged mob on the right (which had been stuck in terrain) to take the two objectives in no-man’s land, while my gretchin took the one in my deployment zone, while my trukk boyz assaulted vehicles and my stormboyz went after his warriors in his zone. In the end, I tabled Mark and had all the objectives. Had there been no cap on Battle Points, I would’ve had 22…
Result: Win 20 of 20 battle points.
So, at the end of Day 1, I had the most battle points and was set to play on table 1.
After hours, we had a challenge round where Seattle took on Tacoma and Bellingham. I played against a relative Ork noob with a hastily constructed green tide-style list. Ended up tabling him by turn 3… Hardly worth typing it up!
Game 4: Jayson and his Space Wolves.
Mission: 3 objectives (one in the dead center); deployment was standard 12″ in. Secondaries; kill units with elites choices, bonuses for troops; tertiaries: hold center objective and something else.
Jayson and I play regularly at Fire and Sword. In fact, this game was a rematch of the last Fire and Sword tournament with a ticket to TSHFT at stake. I won that game convincingly and won my ticket. I’d also like to mention my Orks had beaten his space marines like 15 times in a row since 5th edition came out and he only recently started having close games with his army when he switched it up to Space Wolves. When the matchups were set we were both kind of groaning because we play each other all the time and we knew we were both in for a tough battle. At this point, we were 1-1 vs each other, so this was the rubber match.
Jayson’s list is basically:
Rune Priest with JoWW and…Murderous Hurricane I think (he only cast JOWW)
5 or 6 wolf scouts with a melta gun
10 Grey hunters with 2 meltas led by Arjac Rockfist (grrr!)
5 Grey Hunters with melta and wolf guard with power fist in Razorback with HBs
5 Grey Hunters with melta and wolf guard with power fist in Razorback with HBs
3 Land Speeders with TML and HBs
6 Long Fangs with 5 MLs and a Terminator Wolf Guard with CML
6 Long Fangs with 5 MLs and a Terminator Wolf Guard with CML
Land Raider Crusader with Extra armor and Multimelta.
The obvious worry for me were the Long Fangs as they can just eliminate my light vehicles and then blast my units to pieces with frags. I won the roll and elected to go first because the terrain was so open that I needed to take the better cover save afforded to me by the one side. In retrospect, I should of elected to go second for advantages in late game objective nabbing; but I was more concerned about keeping my lootas alive to shoot at his long fangs (pew pew!).
I deployed everything minus the trukk boyz (though, in retrospect, I should’ve put them down as well as I needed to go all out at his long fangs and put him on his back foot early…ugh). My stormboyz hid behind this huge piece of terrain, and my lootas took shelter in this one ruin. I made a miscalculation, believing that by only bunching up 5 of my lootas and spreading the rest out on the three levels that I wouldn’t have to worry too much because he would probably scatter off the one group. I also killed one of his speeders with my lobbas.
Jayson deployed his forces with his long fangs on the table edge on either side of the big open area. The Rune Priest and Arjac and co were in the Land Raider on my right flank. He put his land speeders on my far left where they could threaten my lobbas and stay as far from the lootas as possible. He left his razorbacks in reserve as well as his scouts.
My turn started with me getting a lucky glance on his land raider, but I rolled a 1 and so it didn’t matter. Had I gotten that thing immobilized early, it would’ve been a very different game. My lootas also did well by taking out 2 long fangs and the wolf guard in one unit. I also jumped my stormboyz up nicely, but forgot to run with them (leaving them clumped up and also too far back: Mistake 1). On his turn, Jayson moved up and disembarked his grey hunters to blow up the buggies; he killed 6 stormboyz with the depleted long fangs; killed a killa kan with PotMS multimelta and a failed cover save (a theme!)…and then he got 6 hits out of 7 with his missiles on my lootas, to the tune of 14 wounds… I opted to go to ground to survive the blast and come back later. Alas, I failed 8 of the 14 3+ saves… And to top it off, the lootas failed their morale test and ran off. Arjac and the meltas failed to kill the buggies, assaulted them and blew them up, but were now all neatly clumped up. I admit to being really frustrated with the lootas dying and getting sullen; its a huge character flaw that I work hard to keep in check; but its hard sometimes.
I still felt like I had a chance, if I just got a good hit with my kill kannon on those grey hunters (the template was touching all 11…) and my stormboyz could get into combat with the Long Fangs, then I’d be ok. Unfortunately, the kill cannon veered off to no effect, and my stormboyz were an eighth of an inch shy of the charge. I also failed to do any damage to the Grey Hunters with my one shoota boy squad and my other squad’s rokkits bounced off the Land Raider, as did the rokkits from my kans.
Jayson then took out my remaining kans, killed the stormboyz and lobbas, and got his grey hunters back into the land raider and got his razorbacks on the board. At this point I had very little chance to win and started to sulk a bit (bad fluger!). I managed to make a game of it but got hampered by more bad luck (my trukk boyz assaulted the land speeders that had only moved 6″ and didn’t do any permanent damage other than knocking one of the TMLs out as well as continuing to fail cover saves) and also poor choices (stupidly forgot about the force weapon on the rune priest and took a wound on my Nob, who then died). I had a chance to get a draw on turns 5 and 6 and even on 7; but in the end, Arjac was by himself in the Land Raider (having survived a ton of damage) on an objective, and his last remaining GH squad was on another. My last unit of trukk boyz was on another one, but his land speeder contested it in the end.
A really tough loss and I was seriously bummed (keep yer chin up!); and I apologized to Jayson for being such a sourpuss. Jayson went on to win his last game to go 5-0 and win Best Overall. Good on him for his second Best Overall win at TSHFT (he won the first one with his Necrons in 4th edition), and no shame on my part to losing to him.
Result: Loss 6 of 20 Battle Points
Game 5: Todd and his Sisters of Battle
Mission: Modified Kill Points (bonuses for MCs and tough vehicles and vehicle squadrons) and Dawn of War. Secondary was to have your heavy support in your opponent’s deployment zone; tertiaries were to have none of your own models in your deployment zone and to not leave anythng in true reserve.
Todd brought a type of Sisters list that can give Ork players like myself fits. Specifically the horde o’ flamers and heavy flamers. He was also meched up to the hilt; which would’ve been a big issue in anything other than a kill point mission. His army was roughly…
Cannoness with nothing that I know of other than a retinue or soemthing in a flamer rhino thingy (immolator?!)
10 sisters with heavy flamer and melta gun and stubborn book in a rhino
10 sisters with heavy flamer and melta gun and stubborn book in a rhino
10 sisters with heavy flamer and melta gun and stubborn book in a rhino
6 better sisters (retributors? I forget names!) with 2 meltas in the flamer rhino thing
6 better sisters with 2 meltas in the flamer rhino thing
6 better sisters with 2 meltas in the flamer rhino thing
Exorcist
Exorcist
Exorcist
I won the roll and decided to go first. Dawn of war is my army’s friend as I can put my big mobs way up the field, bring on my fast stuff and catch up quickly and be in my opponent’s face on turn 2. That’s essentially what I did as Todd put nothing on the table to start and rolled on the table turn one, going all out on my right flank (as far away from the lootas as possible). He did very little damage to my boyz with the flames and because of night fight didn’t get any real shots off with his exorcists. I then proceeded to start blowing up rhino chassises. The lootas picked off the left most Rhino, while my big squad assaulted three immolators(I think that’s the name…). I also lobba’ed the ladies that were forced out of the wrecked rhino. I was able to rattle off a bunch of quick transport kills and my main boyz squad accounted for two full kill points and an immobilized rhino before being seen off. My stormboyz got a charge in on turn 2, turning one exorcist into a box, killing off a unit of better sisters and wrecking another rhino, but stayed stuck in combat (luckily, so I didn’t get shot!) with the last better sister of a different squad. Once he finally jumped out of his rhinos, I went to town on him with my lobbas (19 wounds on one squad with one barrage!) and trukk boyz. My stormboyz killed the last lady and took on another squad, that held up for quite a while, but eventually died; then they jumped and killed the last of his models, an exorcist on the top of 5. In the end, I had all 17/18 of his kill points and he had only 4 off of me (a trukk, both trukk boy squads, and a 30 strong mob). I had two of my Heavy Supports in his deployment zone but the lobbas were still in mine.
Result: Win 18 of 20 Battle Points
All told I finished with 81 battle points and even though I had the second most battle points to Jayson’s 88; he won Best Overall and I took Best General. That makes two TSHFTs in a row in which I’ve gotten best general despite losing to the Best Overall player (though I think I had more BP than Shawn in the last one…). Also, with the fact that my army is just painted enough to be tourney legal and is pretty much an eye sore; there’s no way I could get Best Overall, so Best General was the best I could hope for.
I’m super pumped about how TSHFT is growing, and I’m hoping we can get even more folks out for the next one in September (Zen runs two a year).
As an added bonus I took some video of the event that I would like to share with everyone. To make more sense of the whole thing here is some context to go along with the videos.
Game 1:
Here is my game against Jeff. I tried to do mostly panning shots to get a sense of what’s happening. It’s taken sporadically (trying to focus on winning not reporting!) so there are jumps here and there. For instance, you don’t see the Stormboyz showing up and taking out Straken’s unit and Al Rahem’s blob
Game 2:
This was the Game against Andy. Again, kind of sporadic, though I have a bit more fun with it and also tried to point things out. One thing that might be confusing is that Andy’s army was built for 4th, so there are no bases on any of the skimmers, so its tough to tell what’s happening with them.
Game 3:
This was against Mark (asugradinwa) and his dark eldar. Again, I tried to add a bit more commentary (initially I didn’t even consider that there was sound on these videos…). You can see the basic set up and terrain and also how it all kind of flowed as the raiders were shot down and the various units were killed.
Game 4 and 5:
I started out filming Ok for my game against Jayson, but as it turned against me I started to lose focus on filming as I was trying to get a draw at least. I do zoom in on my horrific cover save roll and also show the vacated ruin. Sadly, I was in enough of a funk after that game that I totally forgot to film my 5th game until it was over, giving it a quick pan at the end.