Conspiracy (aka TOWNCON) hosted the 2011 Irish Grand Tournament for 40k.  Attendance was quite good with nearly 40 players competing.  No forgeworld shenanigans this week, but it did have one particular distinction in its structure – namely the use of ETC style missions.  The ETC missions use a mix of killpoints, objectives, and victory points with different scores available for each.  For example the primary goal could be killpoints, a secondary goal of holding objectives, and victory point difference for the remainder.

It gives the game a bit more depth than the standard missions, and can reward a losing player for clever play to claw back some element of the mix while losing on another.

My list was my usual 1750 Chaos Marines as follows:

HQ1: Daemon Prince Mark of Slaanesh Wings Lash of Submission [155 Pts]
Elite1: 3 terminators 3x Combi-melta [105 Pts] in Transport 1
Elite2: 3 terminators 3x Combi-plasma [105 Pts] in Transport 2
Troop1: 5 chaos marines  [75 Pts]
Troop2: 5 chaos marines  [75 Pts]
Troop3: 5 chaos marines, Icon of Chaos Glory [85 Pts] in Transport 3
Heavy1: 3 Obliterators [225 Pts]
Heavy2: 3 Obliterators [225 Pts]
Heavy3: 3 Obliterators [225 Pts]
Transport1 : Landraider [220 Pts] Carries Elite1
Transport2 : Landraider [220 Pts] Carries Elite2
Transport3 : Rhino [35 Pts] Carries Troop3
[1750pts]

ROUND 1

MISSION Primary KillPoints, Secondary Capture and Control, Spearhead Deployment

My first game was against Dan Aherne and his Tau army.

After winning the roll to go first, and knowing full well that tau are past their prime,  I got overconfident.  I deployed my Landraiders as close as possible, and my Obliterators in the middle of my quarter in cover.  Big mistake.  Dan wisely deployed his many many broadsides as far as possible into the very back corner of the board.  He could outrange my lascannons and outshoot my obliterators.

What his railguns didn’t shred, his plasma armed deepstriking crisis suits finished off.  I did some damage in return, but my early error meant I amost got tabled.  To avoid total disaster, I managed to hold my last couple of marines on my objective, letting me draw the secondary, while losing everything else.

RESULT 3-17 LOSS

ROUND 2

MISSION Primary Capture and Control, Secondary Seize Ground, Dawn of War Deployment

Next up was Simon Fitzpatrick and his Space Marine army.

Simon’s excellently painted army, was a mix of medium mech, drop pods, and marines.  Unfortunately for Simon, this is exactly the kind of list that my army does well against.  I have lots of lascannons, meltas and plasma to deal with pretty much anything he puts up.  I have first turn again, and deploy my icon squad in a rhino, and my lash prince right in the middle of the table so I can get right up in his face early on.  He deploys a tac squad and a razorback.

Turn 1 I simply rush at him, and the prince eats the tac squad.  His turn 1 he brings on everything, focusing entirely on killing the prince (which he does).  But he’s focused so much on killing that one model that he’s left himself out of position.  Turn 2 my big guns start firing, and my deepstrikes are perfect.  By game end, there’s only about 10 men left on his side, and I’m holding all objectives bar one, (which I’m contesting)

RESULT 18-2 WIN

ROUND 3

MISSION Primary Capture and Control, Secondary Annihilation, Pitched Battle Deployment

Final game of day one was Nick Meade and his Blood Angels army.

I’d played Nick on table one at Itzacon earlier in the year.  It was a very tough game against his Space Wolves, but I just managed to beat him, and now he was keen for revenge!  This time he was running Blood Angels with two Land Raiders, two Storm Ravens, Mephiston, a snippy dread, THSS Terminators, and two min sized troops.

I deploy most of my forces, he puts down his entire army.  Thankfully first turn was mine, and I knew that I had to take out at least one raven in turn 1 to avoid getting smashed in the face.  His terminators are lethal and slow, whereas Mephiston is lethal and fast – so I figured the best bet was to focus on the termi raven as Mr Meph was going to get in my face regardless.  Lots of lascannons later the terminators were sitting in the wreckage with a long walk ahead of them.

As predicted, Meph and the snippy dread jump out, the dread chews up some terminators and Meph tries to pop open my Land Raider.  Luckily Meph merely stuns the raider (Nick’s luck against my Raiders was terrible all game, nothing but stuns!) and is left in the open.  Lascannons and plasma guns provide a rapid solution to the Meph problem, and Lash ensures those THSS terminators are going nowhere fast.  I stay ahead on Killpoints and VPs for the remainder, and try to gypsy a full win by getting my lash prince onto his home objective – but don’t quite make it.  I get the secondary and VPs but draw on the primary.

RESULT 13-7 MINOR WIN

ROUND 4

MISSION Primary Seize Ground, Secondary Annihilation, Pitched Battle Deployment

First game of day two was Donal Carroll and his Tyranids army.

Donal’s army comprised just under 40 Genestealers, two Tervigons, a Hive Tyrant, Hive Guard, Tyrant Guard, and some Termagaunts.  Donal wins the roll, deploys his entire force, with the genestealers infiltrating.  Yikes.

Similarly to Round 1, I fail to do some basic math, and set up to use my twin linked flamers on him as he rushes forward.  Unfortunately I forgot the Feel No Pain shenanigans, and so I effectively set up such that a big chunk of surviving genestealers will be getting a turn 2 charge.  Not good my friends, not good.

I do some damage to his stealers over two turns, but not enough, and they basically melt anything they touch.  By game end I’ve only rags left and can’t compete on the Primary, Secondary, or the VPs.  The only sliver of dignity is that I don’t get fully tabled.

RESULT 1-19 LOSS

ROUND 5

MISSION Primary Annihilation, Secondary Seize Ground, Dawn of War Deployment

Final game of the tournament was against my own club-mate Anthony Caragianis and his Deathwing army.

Anthony’s army consists of two squads of melta bikes with teleport homers, two attack bikes with multimeltas and teleport homers, Belial, and 25 THSS terminators with cyclone missile launchers.

I’ve faced this type of army a couple of times before, and the only way to beat it is to keep most of it away and focus fire on one squad until it’s dead.  I win the roll-off, but give him first turn as I don’t want him to be able to use his turn 1 deepstrike special rule to corner me in.  He deploys his bikes, I deploy nothing and have all my nasty things come in turn 1.  His turn 1 he chooses to use his Deathwing teleport rule to get three squads deepstriking in turn 1.  He puts them aggressively towards my table edge spread across the right 75% of the table.  This is exactly what I wanted to happen.

I roll on the left side as a refused flank, very close to his leftmost squad.  I unload pretty much my entire army into the squad, and they (just about) die.  As the game progresses I let one squad close in at a time, while keeping the others at bay.  Every time, whittling down his numbers.  Anthony kept having terrible luck throughout, and there were many points where he should’ve got to hit me a lot harder but simply bounced.

By game end he had three terminators left on the table and nothing else.

RESULT 19-1 WIN

OVERALL RESULT 14th

Not a great performance overall, but at least in the games I lost I could identify the mistakes I made, and what I would do differently if facing those situations again.

First place went to Jannik Rottgen from the German ETC team, who had an incredible looking spartan themed Eldar army (my photos do it no justice)

Second place went to the new captain of the Irish ETC team, Mike Tangney, who was also running an Eldar army…

Third place went to the the outgoing captain of the Irish ETC team, Richard Flood, who amazed us with a ridiculous number of razorbacks in his Grey Knights army.

A full set of photos is up on the WarHamSandwich Facebook page

P.S. “TOWNCON”