Ard Boyz 2010 Prelims
As I said previously, I decided to participate in the YTTH challenge for Ard Boyz when he posted a 'Nid list very similar to the one I had been considering for myself.
With a few tweaks to make it fit his challenge list (replacing a tyrant with another Tervigon, and using a 3rd unit of Hive Guard vs Deathleaper, I had this)
The list I took;
2x Tervigons (HQ)
3x3 Hive Guard
3x Tervigons (troop)
3x10 Termagants
3xScreamer Killer Carnifexes
2xTyrannofexes
(all with the option had Cluster Spines)
Scenarios on the GW site, so I’m not going over that dreck in excessive detail, just a quick rundown.
Scen 1 diagonal deployment; 5 objectives
Scen 2 Sprearhead; Victory Points
Scen 3 Pitched Battle; Kill Points (modified. 3KPs for any unit that can move more than 6” in a single phase. Broken scenario)
Opponent 1; Brian/Orks
Warboss Mega Armour
9 Mega-Nobz (battlewagon/deffrolla)
Warboss
11 slugga boyz(battlewagon/deffrolla)
12 slugga boyz(truk)
12 slugga boyz(truk)
11 slugga boyz(truk)
10 Burna Boyz(looted wagon/skorcha)
5 Rokkit Deffkoptas
20(ish) stormboyz
Objectives pretty much an X through the table.
He went first, little effective shooting.
I spawned (up to 108 gaunts in turn 1) and began to pile on objectives. Shooting from Hive Guard and T-Fexes chewed up 2 truks.
It pretty much repeats for two turns, massive spawning…little shooting (though most of his transports are dead by scrum time). Turn 3 we piled on the central objectives and consolidated on our own. Game ended due to time. We each made early game errors that were reparable, and proceeded to munch a lot of the enemy. I won, barely (minor victory). Brian is always fun, too bad he's in Cincinnati.
Opponent 2; Ian Necrons
2x Orb Lords
3x 15(ish) man warrior squads
10 man Immortal Squad
6(ish) base scarab swarms
2x 5 destroyers
2x Monoliths
I won the roll for first, he seized the initiative.
He shoots, I shoot. We danced like this for about 3 turns with few actual casualties. He got just a bit too close turn 3(ish) and I was able to assault. With some good rolling on my part, and some bad on his, the game ended with a Necron phase-out. It was just a SLIGHT mis-judgement on distance from his side that let me get an early assault, or it would have been a much closer game. My saves and toughness, plus a lack of easy target priority, made it hard for him. Not having an opportunity to teleport out of important combats (the units died before he could pull out) hurt his core tactic. I also did not allow myself to get sucked into trying to kill the ‘liths (except when there were no other viable targets for the Tyrannofexes).
Opponent; 3 Brice IG
Company Command Squad; melta/flamer/Hvy Flm (chimera)
Inq Lord; Mystics/P-Hood
6(?) vet squads; tri melta(2ish w/flamers) (chimera)
2 PBS squads; (chimera)
3x Vendettas; hvy bolters/lascannon
2x Colossi (battery)
2x Medusa (battery)
2x Hydras (battery)
(note: I did not reserve vs IG for a reason, not noob-itude. I was counting on so many similar threatening targets preventing me from losing any single key element)
He went first. Fire put a wound on a t-fex, killed a hive guard and some gaunts. I ran forward, shot down a Vendi and killed a chimera. He returned fire, nearly killed a t-fex and got another hive guard. I spawned some gaunts for padding, and killed another vendetta, a chimera and both medusa. Turn three, he killed a t-fex, put some wounds on a few Tervigons and killed off a squad of Hive guard. He got just a BIT too close in the center, and the Carnifexes got off the charge. We traded vehicles and beasts for two more turns, and nearly everything I had was then in his lines. CC and close shooting ensued for turn 5 and 6, but then ended. I finish with 4 Tervigons left, 1 Tyrannofex left and most of my gaunts left. He lost all his artillery batteries, half his chimeras and 2 of his vendettas (and 4 or 5 attendant IG squads). Massacre in my favor.
Afterward, I figured out the unmoded scoring. If it had been standard KPs I would have won by 2 or 3, but with the modified rules in the final scenario I beat him with 28(ish) kill-points to 12.
All my opponents were great fun, generous and pleasant. I was finally able to play Brice and Ian (hadn’t managed to arrange that yet) though poor Brian gets stuck with me EVERY tourney we play in together in the first round!
I can thank a whole lotta luck, gracious opponents, and a strongly favorable final scenario, for this win.
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Hunting the wild Goose….
(for those that understand me, this will be funny…if you’re PETA happy, well…I don’t shoot geese)
So, I wake up this morning…in my normal fugue state…and stumble downstairs to start the coffee for the spouse (yeah, she actually had to get moving before me this morn, what is the world coming to). In my rush to create the nectar-of-the-caffeine-gawds, I left my glasses upstairs. The results of this (normally) is simply squinting at the computer screen like a little old man trying to glean information from a technical manual on a particle-accelerator…that he has confused with the latest issue of (insert your favorite girly magazine here).
Today, the results were a little different. After starting the machine of black nirvana, I stepped out onto the porch to investigate the results of the 5am lightning strike (that sent the wife, the mentally-challenged cat, and the aforementioned wanna-be little old man, into a fit of apoplectic thrashing and sheet tangling) in the back yard. I stepped out barefoot, breathed deeply of the warm moist air, and began to squint…and squint…and squint.
The blur that had become my world snapped grungily into a vague semblance of focus (or swam lazily into a blur of green/gray confusion..whichever). As yet another sign of my decrepitude (failing vision…I think it’s a plot to make me feel old) stamped itself deeper into my conscious mind, I saw something large and gray(ish) in the ‘weed’ garden in front of my tool-shed. IT was back…the raccoon.
This raccoon has tasked me (since early winter) with its mangy fur, stubby tail, and audacious attitude. First seen waddling out from under the carport by my wife one dark and cold eve (making her squeal ‘it’s so cute, can I keep it') to leaving paw prints on the furniture my friend graciously ‘donated’ to my back porch (to make room for his new furniture…’but Mike, it’s NICE stuff’…that same 'nice' furniture a local charity later deemed too abused to pick up and take to the needy poor) to taunting us by climbing up the window of the shed from the inside while we sit at breakfast. This beast has left ‘sign’ on the hood of my car, and shared my disdain for yard work by leaving a ‘present’ on my lawn-mower.
The final indignity heaped upon me was this last Tuesday morning, as it sauntered up to the front door of the shed in the early morning light as I drank my coffee. I saw him, he did not see me (and proceeded to try to tear his way under the door to get in the old building). I grabbed my bb-gun and crept out the door. He saw me as I closed it. He stared at me as I pumped the weapon up and drew a bead. He looked singularly unimpressed, as though sensing a certain impotence on my part. I shot, he sauntered to the right of the building (twitching his stumpy tail in disdain). I crept after him, wondering how I could miss a simple shot of only 30ish yards. My wife, hearing the noise, looked out the upstairs window to see me creeping around the left side of the shed. She watched me take a second shot as I rounded the corner…he reversed direction. 5 minutes of this ‘tango’, back and forth around the shed, before he dove up a tree in the neighbor’s yard (flicking that damnable tail) and thus ended the hunt.
I couldn’t believe it…I’ve always been a good shot, how? How could I have failed to fell the vermin? Then I looked down at my ‘weapon’…and saw the empty reservoir. NO BBs…not a one. I had been blasting AIR at the bloody animal. I stared up into the sky, empty weapon at my side, shaking a fist at the uncaring heavens and roared “Coooooooooonnn”! (trek fans, you’d better get it)
So anywho, back to this morn. In the weeds before the shed, is the humped vision of blurry gray that I have grown to know and detest. It simply sits there, as before, and I creep backwards through the door and begin to paw blindly for the weapon of mass embarrassment that is the air-gun. I pull it up, out the door (closing it behind me to prevent the idiot feline I share a domicile with from bolting outside) all the while not once losing sight of my prey. I glance quickly down at the chamber, and reassure myself that there are projectiles to be had and look back up. ‘Good, good …he tasks me, he tasks me…I’ll chase him round the weeds of my she’…well, you get the point.
I creep to the bottom of the stairs (quietly pumping the weapon up to maximum lethality), bare feet treading the damp concrete…and he does not flee. To assure best accuracy, I begin to creep out from under the porch roof and onto the wet sidewalk…closer and closer…yet still he does not flee. He is absorbed, in what I do not know, to such a degree that he does not even look up.
As I get to a range where I begin to worry as to whether or not I could escape an angered Raccoon bent on revenge for being shot at…I begin to question data that has been accumulating. Why has this animal not raised an arrogant eye at my bumbling attempts to visit my wrath upon him? Why has his tail not popped up to taunt me? Why has he not begun the dance about the shed that brought him such joy, and me such frustration…why does his coloration now resemble that of a Canada Goose?????
(To make a shaggy dog story longer, a brief interlude…my grandfather always loved collecting/making duck and goose decoys. A hunter he was. He thought of them as utilitarian art, and was not wholly wrong. Some of these decoys are quite lovely, accurate, and very very realistic)
I stand, squint a bit harder (remember that the fearless hunter of this story has forgotten the glasses that have been forced upon him by a cabal of 20/20 vision personages, such a small and insignificant group bent on making themselves feel superior to the remainder of the peoples of this earth…the oh so smart and handsome visually challenged ) and the oh so long neck of the Goose decoy becomes visible….
I turn, I walk slowly back into the house. I set down my weapon, the emblem of my fast fading virility and youth, tromp up the stairs and collect my glasses. As I put them on my face, I feel the weight of age settle upon my head…and I raise my fist at an uncaring ceiling and shake it at the crushing sense of my own failure.
I have been outsmarted by a devious raccoon, and a plastic goose…oh the humanity.
So, I wake up this morning…in my normal fugue state…and stumble downstairs to start the coffee for the spouse (yeah, she actually had to get moving before me this morn, what is the world coming to). In my rush to create the nectar-of-the-caffeine-gawds, I left my glasses upstairs. The results of this (normally) is simply squinting at the computer screen like a little old man trying to glean information from a technical manual on a particle-accelerator…that he has confused with the latest issue of (insert your favorite girly magazine here).
Today, the results were a little different. After starting the machine of black nirvana, I stepped out onto the porch to investigate the results of the 5am lightning strike (that sent the wife, the mentally-challenged cat, and the aforementioned wanna-be little old man, into a fit of apoplectic thrashing and sheet tangling) in the back yard. I stepped out barefoot, breathed deeply of the warm moist air, and began to squint…and squint…and squint.
The blur that had become my world snapped grungily into a vague semblance of focus (or swam lazily into a blur of green/gray confusion..whichever). As yet another sign of my decrepitude (failing vision…I think it’s a plot to make me feel old) stamped itself deeper into my conscious mind, I saw something large and gray(ish) in the ‘weed’ garden in front of my tool-shed. IT was back…the raccoon.
This raccoon has tasked me (since early winter) with its mangy fur, stubby tail, and audacious attitude. First seen waddling out from under the carport by my wife one dark and cold eve (making her squeal ‘it’s so cute, can I keep it') to leaving paw prints on the furniture my friend graciously ‘donated’ to my back porch (to make room for his new furniture…’but Mike, it’s NICE stuff’…that same 'nice' furniture a local charity later deemed too abused to pick up and take to the needy poor) to taunting us by climbing up the window of the shed from the inside while we sit at breakfast. This beast has left ‘sign’ on the hood of my car, and shared my disdain for yard work by leaving a ‘present’ on my lawn-mower.
The final indignity heaped upon me was this last Tuesday morning, as it sauntered up to the front door of the shed in the early morning light as I drank my coffee. I saw him, he did not see me (and proceeded to try to tear his way under the door to get in the old building). I grabbed my bb-gun and crept out the door. He saw me as I closed it. He stared at me as I pumped the weapon up and drew a bead. He looked singularly unimpressed, as though sensing a certain impotence on my part. I shot, he sauntered to the right of the building (twitching his stumpy tail in disdain). I crept after him, wondering how I could miss a simple shot of only 30ish yards. My wife, hearing the noise, looked out the upstairs window to see me creeping around the left side of the shed. She watched me take a second shot as I rounded the corner…he reversed direction. 5 minutes of this ‘tango’, back and forth around the shed, before he dove up a tree in the neighbor’s yard (flicking that damnable tail) and thus ended the hunt.
I couldn’t believe it…I’ve always been a good shot, how? How could I have failed to fell the vermin? Then I looked down at my ‘weapon’…and saw the empty reservoir. NO BBs…not a one. I had been blasting AIR at the bloody animal. I stared up into the sky, empty weapon at my side, shaking a fist at the uncaring heavens and roared “Coooooooooonnn”! (trek fans, you’d better get it)
So anywho, back to this morn. In the weeds before the shed, is the humped vision of blurry gray that I have grown to know and detest. It simply sits there, as before, and I creep backwards through the door and begin to paw blindly for the weapon of mass embarrassment that is the air-gun. I pull it up, out the door (closing it behind me to prevent the idiot feline I share a domicile with from bolting outside) all the while not once losing sight of my prey. I glance quickly down at the chamber, and reassure myself that there are projectiles to be had and look back up. ‘Good, good …he tasks me, he tasks me…I’ll chase him round the weeds of my she’…well, you get the point.
I creep to the bottom of the stairs (quietly pumping the weapon up to maximum lethality), bare feet treading the damp concrete…and he does not flee. To assure best accuracy, I begin to creep out from under the porch roof and onto the wet sidewalk…closer and closer…yet still he does not flee. He is absorbed, in what I do not know, to such a degree that he does not even look up.
As I get to a range where I begin to worry as to whether or not I could escape an angered Raccoon bent on revenge for being shot at…I begin to question data that has been accumulating. Why has this animal not raised an arrogant eye at my bumbling attempts to visit my wrath upon him? Why has his tail not popped up to taunt me? Why has he not begun the dance about the shed that brought him such joy, and me such frustration…why does his coloration now resemble that of a Canada Goose?????
(To make a shaggy dog story longer, a brief interlude…my grandfather always loved collecting/making duck and goose decoys. A hunter he was. He thought of them as utilitarian art, and was not wholly wrong. Some of these decoys are quite lovely, accurate, and very very realistic)
I stand, squint a bit harder (remember that the fearless hunter of this story has forgotten the glasses that have been forced upon him by a cabal of 20/20 vision personages, such a small and insignificant group bent on making themselves feel superior to the remainder of the peoples of this earth…the oh so smart and handsome visually challenged ) and the oh so long neck of the Goose decoy becomes visible….
I turn, I walk slowly back into the house. I set down my weapon, the emblem of my fast fading virility and youth, tromp up the stairs and collect my glasses. As I put them on my face, I feel the weight of age settle upon my head…and I raise my fist at an uncaring ceiling and shake it at the crushing sense of my own failure.
I have been outsmarted by a devious raccoon, and a plastic goose…oh the humanity.
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