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Summer Clash 2011 I thought I'd document my first 40K tournament for posterity and as a guide to new players (and for my own narcissistic amusement). I took fairly shoddy notes, so my reports aren't super detailed (I get excited about the game and forget to write notes). For my old fans, this comes as no surprise. For anyone who is new . . . surprise. I took my now fully painted Nurgle Army; it's the one I converted after I left fantasy. I designed it around the fluff (7 in each unit, took Furies, Nurglings and my coolly converted Screamers of Nurgle). Here is what I took.
The Furies were a horrible idea. They gave away kill points in 2 out of the 3 games and were "tits on a bull" worthless. In practice games I hid them behind terrain etc. Two out of the 3 tables I played on made hiding pretty hard. If I had to do it again, I'd drop them, bump the Daemon Prince's up by 1 pt of strength (or give them noxious touch--have to think about it).
So, the Boyz and I set out for my old stomping grounds of Binghamton, to a place named Jupiter Games. Nice store with nice play space. I haven't really been back to the area since I graduated from B.U. (somehow the SUNY appellation has disappeared since 1994). Area has grown up quite a bit. I definitely have to go up and poke around for fun some time. [Pictured: Nick, John, James and I . . . a bit bleary eyed from early rising and a 2 hour trip with one McDonald's stop] We were playing the Nova open scenarios. They are fine, though the scoring is a little goofy. You might be better off losing the scenario but holding more board quarters and objectives. Game 1 vs. Ian playing Space Wolves Ian was playing: Njal Stormcaller (surprise!), wolf priest, scouts, 2 packs of hunters (10 with mark of wulfen, standard, power weapon) in rhino, 2 packs of claws, and 2 land raider crusaders. Thumbnail of Battle: Turn 1: I deep strike in conservative positions mid-field, hiding behind as much terrain as I can manage. Ian puts his 4 tanks on the board and kills 1 Plaguebearer with shooting. Turn 2: Everything I own deep strikes except my footslogging breath weapon daemon Prince and the Great Unclean One. He unloads a unit of bloodclaws and shoots and then wipes out in assault the Screamers. Being a rookie, I forget that Land Raiders can move 12 and still assault. He jumps the unit with Epidemius with his bloodclaw pack with the priest. Epidemius and crew weather it well. Throughout the tourney my Plaguebearers were very durable. Turn 3: I deep strike GUO and other Prince, drop 3 breath templates and double assault his Claws (and Njal) with 2 daemon princes. Good round for me. Turn 4-5: Slow grinding combats in center. I annihilate both blood claws. He jumps back in rhinos with his thinned hunter packs (from breath templates) now and rabbits away. Land Raiders, which I have a hard time dinging, kill GUO, a prince and Furies. Epidemius and his unit are killed slowly. Epidemius is killed at the bottom of 3, just before I get his 20 tally kicked in. I knock a gun off a land raider, but can't do much to score his stuff. Turn 6: One of my daemons randomly dies from bolter fire and I immobilize a rhino, which turns out to be irrelevant, as the game ends. Final tally: I lose on Kill points, though our victory points are fairly close (from 1/2 scoring other stuff). Good game and I learn some lessons about land raiders. Ian is quite clever in his placement of the rhinos, using them to block my Prince's from charging his troops.
Lunch Break: Vietnamese restaurant just around the corner from the store. Delicious! Game 2 vs. Dan (Westy) playing Chaos warriors of Khorne: 4 units of 8 khorne Berzerkers in rhinos, 2 daemon princes, 3 units of 3 obliterators and 2 units of 3 terminators. The bright side to the match is that Chaos will definitely win. :) Thumbnail sketch of battle: Turn 1: He moves up. With the angles he gets (and almost all 6 rolls on slow and purposeful, which I nick-name speedy and purposeful for the rest of the game) my deep strikes are tricky. I put most of my stuff to the left and some of my fast but useful stuff to the right (furies, screamers, nurglings) to ooga-booga (an old Myrkfaelin term for pretending you were going to do something and then running away). Turn 2: He unloads the Berzerkers and wipes out furies (who deep struck badly). My daemon prince with the gaze kills 7 of them, locking him in combat (which is good, so the obliterators can't obliterate him). I kill 1 obliterator with breath from GUO. turn3: He shoots then assaults GUO, causing 3 wounds. I cause 1. His 2 daemon princes charge my one. I take 2 wounds. The next assault neither of us do wounds and he takes one on each missing his fearless rolls. Princes slowly slaughter obliterators, as Obliterators slaughter Plaguebearers. 9 powerfist attacks leaves a mark. Turn 4: Daemon Princes resolve. I kill one of his, he kills mine. Nurglings charge in (see pic below). They actually kill a prince, as Epidemus' count is now at 20. My daemon prince charges in and rescues Epidemius from obliterator beat down. With the tally at 20 my guys are invincible. Turn 5-6: I take 2 objectives and fail to contest a 3rd, as my difficult terrain roll goes badly. Final Tally: A win for me. He has 2 khorne units left on board. Game 3 vs. Brian playing Space Wolves (incidentally positions 1,2,3, 4 : Dark Eldar, Space Wolves, Space Wolves, Blood Angels) Army: Drop pod spam. 6 Grey Hunter units. 10 w/ mark of Wulfen, powerfist and wolf standard. A dreadnought and 2 units of 3 Wulfen. Visually the battle was very cool. There was a forest of drop pods with a sea of blue clas warriors battling daemons in hand to hand. For the fluff and the visual it was awesome! Turn 1: He deploys 4 units and chooses to drop 4 empty pods later. I try and deploy cleverly and lose the GUO to the edge of the board. 200 points down before we start. Turn 2: He shoots a prince dead with mostly bolter fire; armor on princes seemed very variable all game. Alas, dice games are random. He locks up with me in hand-to-hand. Rerolling 1's with the banner and the extra rending attacks (Brian seemed to roll 6's all the time, though it turned on him later when I was pretty well done already) really beat me down. Turn 3: I make a wretched mistake; I try to shoehorn Epidemius and his unit in using the icon, but come within an inch of an enemy and end up destroying the unit. Now down 595 points to stupid deep strikes. I'll take it as a lesson to be more conservative with deepstriking. To make a long story short. At the end I have a unit of Nurglings and Screamers. I score about 600 points of his stuff. He scores over 1700 on me. Beating.
Overall impression: So, Jupiter Games had a good crowd and it was a fun tournament. I'm used to the fantasy crowd, but these folks seemed cool. I'll take my lessons from the day and get ready to play again. CA
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