ANZAC Cup 2014 - The Games

As promised here is the run down on how my games across the weekend at ANZAC Cup went. Before I begin I’d like to take a moment to thank Ty again for a well-run and enjoyable event and all the players I met. I would recommend everyone to check out the WW40K site for information on the events they run. Check out my general overview of the weekend here.

Game 1:

Opponent: Dylan Close

Army: Tau Empire

Rough brake down: 3 x 12 man packs of Fire Warriors with supporting Riptide, Crisis Team with Commander, Broadside Team and Hammerhead Gunship.

Deployment: Dawn of War

Mission: Blood Feud – Primary; basically kill points, with bonus VP for every Infantry or Jump Infantry (other than Independent Characters) killed. Secondaries; Slay the Warlord, Fist Blood and Last Man Standing (the side with the most amount of units surviving gets an extra VP) No Night Fighting

Result: Lose (3/18)

Summary: Elements of Dylan's army did not need line of sight and/or ignored my cover saves it was hard to keep my units alive. I did make a few tactical errors causing me to turn over more VP then necessary. In the end an enjoyable a game as I can have against the fire power that Tau brings to the table. The upside I did manage to take his riptide out on turn 2, who then proceeded to stand by the side lines cheering on the Tau to victory for the rest of the game.

Game 2:

Opponent: Simon Golkovic

Army: Tyranids

Rough brake down: Tyranid Prime, Deathleaper, 3x Lictors, 2 Biovores, five teams of 5 x Genestealers with Broodlords all with support from a pair of Mawlocs.

Deployment: Search and Destroy (Table Quarters)

Mission: Shatter Strike – Primary; 2VP for each scoring unit in the enemy’s deployment zone at the end of the game. Secondary; Slay the Warlord and First Blood. Night Fight turn 1.

Result: Lose (1/2)

Summary: Lack of experience playing against Genestealers resulted in bad deployment. Throughout the entire game my battle tanks could not get a bead on Simon's Genestealers and I had hemmed myself in a corner expecting his forces to come on in his deployment zone and not infiltrate completely to my right. I managed to keep his Genestealers from having more than one scoring unit in my deployment zone but meant that I was not in a position to get to his. NOTE: after reading the mission while writing up this blog I can across this paragraph that I missed on the day: “Fog of War. After deployment and the placement of infiltrators, but before the game begins, each army can redeploy a single unit anywhere within in their deployment zone…” Well that just proves that you should always read the mission, if I had realised I could redeploy my Battle Tanks I think Simon would have had a harder time of getting into my deployment zone!

Game 3:

Opponent: Hamzah Simmonds

Army: Chaos Marines

Rough brake down: Chaos Lord, 10 Bikers, 15 Raptors 2 Vindicators and 2x 10 man Chaos Marines in Rhinos.

Deployment: Ambush (one side deploys in the centre and the other side deploys at either end with staggered deployment starting with heavy support and ending in fast attack)

Mission: Onslaught – Primary; one objective in each deployment zone, capturing the opposition’s objective 5 VP. Any enemy unit destroyed in the first game turn is worth 1 VP. Secondary; Slay the Warlord and Attrition (the army which has destroyed the highest number of enemy units at the end of the game gains an additional Victory point). Night Fight turn 1.

Result: Draw (6/6)

Summary: I deployed in the middle having my tanks face back to back to protect their sensitive rear armour and my squishy blob to the centre. Hamzah employed a pincer movement and deployed his Vindicators and Raptors to one side and his Bikers and Marine Rhinos to the other. In the first turn my Executioner decimated his bike to three models & my Devil Dog went on to taking out one of his Vindicators and later in the game my Melta Veterans taking out the other. My plasma Veterans made a beeline to his objective with the game eventually ending with each of us holding an objective and splitting secondaries.

Game 4:

Opponent: Peter Marshall

Army: Space Wolves

Rough brake down: Logan Grimnar, Wolf Guard pack in Terminator armour, 3 x Grey Hunter Packs, a Dreadnought all in drop pods and a Long Fang Pack holding his back field.

Deployment: Vanguard Strike

Mission: Dominion – Primary; D3+2 objectives each worth 3VPs (we had 4 objectives). Secondary; Slay the Warlord and First Blood. Night Fight turn 5.

Result: Draw (4/4)

Summary: After deployment Peter dropped a steady rain of drop pods on my lines. I managed to take out his dreadnought before it could do too much damage. His Warlord and Grey Hunters got into combat with my Lord Commissar and blob who held their ground, ended with both of us holding an objective and contesting one too and splitting Secondaries.

Game 5:

Opponent: Eddie Duncan

Army: Imperial Guard

Rough brake down: Command Squad with Master or Ordnance, 3 x Veteran Squads, 2 x Chimeras, 20 man infantry blob with Platoon Command Squad, Devil Dog, Leman Russ Battletank, 2x Leman Russ Executioner and Aegis Defence Line with Quad-gun.

Deployment: Search and Destroy (Table Quarters)

Mission: Extermination – Primary; variable ‘Kill Points’ with different force org slots having different VP depending on their importance. Secondary; Slay the Warlord, First Blood and Linebreaker. No Night Fight.

Result: Victory (5/4)

Summary: This was basically a mirror match and the layout of the board did not help much with movement. The table was known as the sky table and had impassable areas and bridges for infantry. Unfortunately we both came to the conclusion that our tanks could not cross the small bridges. In essence we sat in our corners and lobbed shells at one another until the game ran its course. Now this might sound like it wasn’t a fun game but on the contrary it was the most enjoyable game of the weekend. We were both reduced to the fundamentals of playing guard and relying on our long rang fire power to knock out the others units. In the end it came down to me taking out his battle tank that made the difference. I look forward to playing Eddie again back in Toowoomba.

At the end of the day I was very happy with my 6^th placing especially at the calibre of players attending on the day. Till the next event…

ANZAC Cup 2014 - As the dust settles...

On the weekend saw another big 2 day event done and dusted for me, this time a charity even in support of Soldier On, organized by Ty Casey from WW40K and ADFWGA with behind the scenes support by Tamara Casey, Dave Hill, Ben Clarke, Danny Whitehead, Aven Fletcher and Cathie Cantrell. The weekend rose over $2500 which was donated to Soldier On, to help injured returned servicemen and women. The folks at Soldier On do a fantastic job so head over to their website to donate a little to make a difference.

The day saw me face a multitude of armies and lists across a variety of terrain types and styles. The terrain itself was lovingly had cratered for each table, on most occasions covering more than the ubiquitous 25% table coverage. Each table had an easy to read cheat sheet with unique terrain traits, any house rules for the table, a run order for the game & a quick handy reference guide for rules that as players we rarely remember.

So first up as this charity event was run by folks with a military background you can imagine that there was a strong adherence to time keeping with a strict dice down after 2hrs on all games with no exceptions. Although as a relatively new player who plays a horde based army this did cause me a few issues on a couple of games but as a hole the ridged format gave the even punctuality, which was appreciated as on Sunday I was driving home to Toowoomba that evening.

As this post is going to be a touch long I’ll give a rundown on how each game went later next week, but I will mention that the missions used over the weekend where 30K missions tailored to fit 40K armies. This did result in variable victory points depending on what armies and table where matched up. I'm not sure if this impacted upon how rankings where factored, but knowing how methodical Ty was on the weekend I could guarantee that there was some behind the scenes number crunching to factor this in.

In the end I placed 6th overall out of 21 players (whom 4 had to withdraw on Sunday) with 2 losses / 2 draws / 1 win. And in the Best Painted Category I place 5th, which is my highest paint placing to date and a fantastic result for my first painted army!

This event is fantastic! I would highly recommend it for any level of player even though to me it looked like there where a few tough nuts to crack, and I’m sure there where a few, the majority of armies where of moderate strength. This moderation in army strength in conjunction with the level and quality of terrain resulted in 5 tactically driven games for me over the weekend. It wasn't a case of the best list wins scenario that a few non restricted tournaments have been subjected too over the last 12 months or so. It's looking like next year will see a combined IPMS Queensland Scale Model & War Gaming Model standalone painting competition which I’m certainly looking forward too if that's the case. If time permits I’ll be there next year and probably any other even that the guys from WW40K & ADFWGA run in the Brisbane area. They also run & support events in Northern Queensland which if they are anything like the ANZAC Cup would be fantastic to attend.

 

Eldar by Ben Clarke

Dark Angels by Aven Fletcher

Eldar by Michael Harrison

Death Korps of Krieg (Imperial Guard) by Eddie Duncan
came away with 2nd place in Best Painted

Dark Eldar by John Harington

Nurgle Daemons by Peter St James
came away with 1st place in Best Painted

Nurgle Daemons by Peter St James
came away with 1st place in Best Painted

Space Wolves by Peter Marshall

 Tyranids by Simon Gojkovic

Not only was there a weekend full of War gaming, whether it was 40k, Fantasy or Flames of War, there was also a display from the fellows from IPMS Queensland. They displayed their amazingly painted scale models of real world military vehicles as well as other modelling. They were also the chief scorers when it came to paint judging and on Sunday I took the time to have a chat to them about how to apply weathering. The tips they gave me where amazing and I will certainly be trying them out when I’m back at the painting table. Here are some of the models on display from the weekend.

Next event for me is the cheese filled Force Z coming up on the 3^rd May. Please leave any comments, questions or constructive criticisms. Always on look out for things to cover here & ways to improve.