Actually, I had an awesome time. There was some misinformation that had colored my view going in, and to be honest, I thought, more than once, of not even going. But Jules is my friend and I had already paid, so I headed down Saturday morning. And I am glad I did. While I mostly left the con as a whole to itself, where I did venture was awesome. I can't give any 40K or Infinity run downs. I could see Infinity from the Malifaux tables, but I never went over. I also didn't go anywhere near the 40K stuff, and avoided the Warmableh like the plague. I did see some notable 40K players(ex-40K?) over in the Warmahordes section, for what that may mean. Read on for the games.
After winning my Henchman tournament, sorry, no pics of that. Or games. I setup against the Henchman in charge Julian. Jules has been dodging me for a year, but now he was stuck. We had Squatter's Rights with corner deployment. I pulled out Tara, Karina, DE, Bishop, and three Void Wretches. He ran Misaki 10T, Ototo, Katanaka Sniper, Lone Swordsman, Malifaux Child, a Performer, and two Torakage. We both took Outflank and Plant Evidence. He announced both and I only announced Outflank. The game was fairly bloody.... for me. I sent Bishop and a Wretch up the left, the other two Wretches down the right, Tara and Karina up the center, with the DE in stowage. The Katanaka Sniper mauled Karina, and I didn't have the card or the flip, so no Nightmares turn one. The DE was properly placed to wreck face board center. On turn two, Bishop grabbed a Squatters, Karina died, and on her second activation Tara was able to get a second Squatter's. The Void Wretches moved toward their markers, and Jules beat on me some and healed his models some as well. Turn three saw me setting pretty with all but one Squatters, I had also begun to drop scheme markers for Plant Evidence. Jules had brought Torakage across, through my lines, to start dropping markers deep into my table half, basically in my deployment zone.
It was either this turn or next, the Lone Swordsman decided he could
take Tara, and with DE now dead and the aboms soon to follow, I was
rather light on hitters. Bishop was way off in a corner, having gotten
evidence in position, he was just waiting for Outflank. However, I had a
massive 7 stone pool to start this game, and used all of what I had
left to stop this from happening. I had also buried a slow Ototo, so
that didn't hurt. I had thought of bringing him out to use, but just
didn't want him on the board. I did try to use his Tatsuba from across
the void, but failed. In the end, due to failure, the Lone Swordsman
croaked, releasing Ototo, but at the end of the turn so he couldn't
activate. That must have been at the end of four, because in early five,
Jules called it and we went and ate lunch.
Having filled my belly, I came back, grabbed my Shaltari and headed for the Dropzone Commander demo table. The guy running it was Simon, who is one of the creators of the game. Not THE creator, that is David, but definitely up there in the DzC superstar list. He was kind enough to let me play my starter, and he took the Scourge starter, his army of choice. We played the first mission, using the two player starter board. I just ran the starter list, which isn't really legal in any way, but it gave me a good place to work from. He showed me some movement tricks to give my own guys cover and limit the targets he could attack in any given squad. I did my usual starting maneuvers, dropping one haven and leaving the other off to drop next turn. He went for a building and my Tomahawks started damaging it. On turn two he switched to the center building, I had shot the one to my right, and I took the other two. He started laying into my left building, beating it down, but unable to do anything to the Braves inside. I couldn't seem to do much of anything to his forces, especially since my AA can't even scratch his skimmers. So, I turned on the dropships and managed to actually so some damage. I did manage to take out his anti-tank, but his AA can still hurt my vehicles, even though they have a terrible time hitting them. His troops also had a pretty nasty gun and almost took down my building on the left. However, it was left at one DP, my Braves activated, rolled a 6 to search and ran like hell. He also got his objective, and headed off. My Braves on my right failed in their quest, but the other Braves joined in to help out. At the end of four it was tied 2-2, with whoever held the objective in the last building winning the game. I grabbed it, loaded it into an Eden and turned for my table edge. His AA of course knocked it out of the sky and then picked up the objective.
I was able to move my Tomahawks in and take out his tank carrying the objective. Having already activated his AA, and being short of vehicles on the ground, Simon took his dropship and straight plopped it on top of the objective. Being landed, I couldn't move under it and take the objective. This meant that Simon was looking at a draw. The dropship wasn't from the AA tanks' Battle Group, so he would have to move it, give me an activation, then move his AA onto the objective. All I needed to do was blow the ship and snag the objective. I won initiative. I activated my two remaining AA and a Haven Terragate that was beside the building on the right. I then used the AA to shoot the dropship, destroying it. My AA then moved over the objective, grabbing it. I put the one with the objective kinda behind the other, then moved the Haven in front of the other side, completely blocking LoS to the objective holding Kukri. Simon conceded, as there was no way for him to target the Kukri and the game would in at the end of the turn. I had won it. By a single point. It was an awesome game. If the dice hadn't turned back my way at the end, I'm not sure I could have pulled it out. I was sweating to the very end.
After that, I raced back up to Fort Collins to try and get my stuff before the store closed. I was too late, however. One of the guys did pick up my Command Deck for me. We then played some Dark Heresy. And during some down time, Nabors and I snuck in the start of a game. I was still running my starter, not really wanting to mess with my list, just yet. I think we did the first mission again, and I got to pull out all of my tricks. I also was able to use my Command Deck as we both just nominated a model to be the commander. This game was a lot of whiffing on my part. I didn't do a ton of damage, but due to my new tricks he wasn't able to target as much, and I survived a bit better. I did manage to get two objectives to his one as well, continuing my undefeated title.
On Monday, Nabors and I managed to squeak in some games. For the first one, I used my tweaked starter list. Using only models from my starter, I made a legal list that still had three battle groups.
My List
Skirmish: 576/600 points
Standard Roster
Gate Group [135 pts]
Haven: Haven [15 pts]
Haven: Haven [15 pts]
Eden Gates: Eden [45 pts]
Eden Gates: Eden [45 pts]
Haven: Haven [15 pts]
Swordpoint [249 pts]
Kukri Squad: 3x Kukri [135 pts]
Tomahawk Squad: 3x Tomahawk [114 pts]
Warrior Clan [128 pts]
Braves: 2x Braves [64 pts]
Braves: 2x Braves [64 pts]
Warrior Clan [64 pts]
Braves: 2x Braves [64 pts]
Previously I had thought this a good list, but going in I was worried about the only three Eden Gates. I was afraid I wouldn't be able to move around like I wanted to. This time we tried the second mission. We're branching out. This one was Recon, were every building has an objective. My extra troop and faster redeploy really helped out here. My terrible luck did not. We were both able to get into buildings really quick and began just moving up the board, clearing buildings as we went. However, those dishonorable PHR scum kept booby trapping my buildings, and Nabors took an early lead. Luckily, while they did serious damage to the building, my Braves were too quick and too smart to fall for such trickery and nobody was hurt. I ended up pulling three bad intels. However, I had three infantry units, so I was checking three per turn, while he was stuck at two. This meant I was able to get to the center, snagging the last two buildings while he was still clearing his four. However, the real kicker was that while I was dealing with traps, I also managed to find an objective, and I used an immediate gate out card to move it off the board. In hindsight, this may not have been legal, as I can't normally gate objectives. I am going to have to go look at the card. So, in the end, I had won before he had his last search, though if he had found an objective, he would have won. I guess thats what he gets for rolling all 2-5s.
After that we worked out 900 point lists. 900 points because my Jaguar hadn't come in and that is all the points I had.
My List
Skirmish: 900/900 points
Standard Roster
Gate Group [180 pts]
Eden Gates: Eden [45 pts]
Eden Gates: Eden [45 pts]
Eden Gates: Eden [45 pts]
Haven: Haven [15 pts]
Haven: Haven [15 pts]
Haven: Haven [15 pts]
Court of Elders [279 pts]
Coyote: Coyote(Elder) [171 pts]
Yari Squad: 4x Yari(+Light Ion Cannon) [108 pts]
Swordpoint [249 pts]
Kukri Squad: 3x Kukri [135 pts]
Tomahawk Squad: 3x Tomahawk [114 pts]
Warrior Clan [128 pts]
Braves: 2x Braves [64 pts]
Braves: 2x Braves [64 pts]
Warrior Clan [64 pts]
Braves: 2x Braves [64 pts]
This game was Land Grab, but due to the oblong table, we played table edges instead of corners. The Hades is a proxied Neptune, thank god. He did have more squads of Sirens in his list than was legal, but I thought I could get cover for my Coyote behind my skimmers. Nope, it is freaking huge. I played a little more cagey, trying to take down dropships to limit his movement, and his big hitters to protect my troops. It wasn't going stellar for me. With how the buildings were placed, each center line building was within range of two Focal points. As such, infantry inside would basically count twice. And of course they are both large, meaning 40 Dp. That's a lot, especially since my heavy hitter is the model that didn't come in. I did manage to strand a unit of Immortals and then impotently couldn't kill them. I rolled a lot of 1's this game. I also held my troops back for most of the game, but in the end put all 3 squads in the left building against the Siren squad. They are ugly in combat, but mathematically I would eventually win, through sheer numbers. However, I ran out of time before we could play it properly, though we did roll through the first round of combat just to see.
As far as the game goes, while it was largely still up in the air, I do think that Nabors would have won. He was very heavily stacked against me, while my lighter armor wasn't hold up. I still had a lot of points out there, with 6 squads sitting on two objectives, plus Edens to move in my commander and my full Yari squad. Points wise I was sitting fairly well, but my Tomahawks were down to a tank, and that left me sucking wind on hitting power. Three E10 shots don't usually strike fear in a foe. Another excellent game, and I have already demanded a rematch. Maybe not the same armies, but definitely the same scenario. It was fun, and I think it will be difficult for my army to compete.
I would like to say thanks to Jules, Simon, and Nabors for several great games and an awesome "three day" weekend.
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