The Road to Britcon

It's time for another "The Road to" article series (they give me a reason to post). This time it is the annual Britcon tournament which we (MAWS) regularly attends, I haven't been for about 3 years now and am itching to get back there. Britcon was my first tournament that I attended and it was a great laugh and we have always had a good time each year, this year there will be a lot less competitiveness as the ETC is at a similar time and a lot of the British team attend Britcon so hopefully I can pick up a place.

Britcon is a 3 day event in mid august with 6 games, it was originally planned to be a farewell 5th edition tournament but has been changed to a welcome 6th. From the rules pack it looks like we won't be playing the Relic scenario (but this could be an early typo), and it will now be a 1999pt tournament rather than 2000pts.

Well I will be playing my first practice game on Monday and will be taking my Necrons running something a little like this:

HQ

Zahndrehk. 185

Destroyer Lord. 125
Septermal weave. 15
Mindshackle scarab. 20
160

Royal court. 95
Harbinger of the storm w/ ether crystal

Harbinger of destruction w/ solar pulse


Elites

Triarch Stalker. 150

Troops

15 warriors. 195
Night Scythe. 100
295

15 warriors. 195

6 immortals. 102
W/ tesla

6 immortals. 102
W/ tesla

Fast attack

3 wraiths. 105
2 whip coils. 20
125

3 heavy Destroyers. 180

5 Destroyers. 200

Heavy

Monolith. 200

That should be 1989 leaving me with 10 points spare.

The Destroyer Lord will be with the Wraiths in reserve to pop through the Monolith, Zahndrehk will be with one unit of 15 warriors giving out Special Rules and taking them away. The two Crypteks will be with the Immortals just hovering around and taking pot shots.

So, what do you think? So far I have had good results with this list in 5th and a win in 6th with a 2100pt version. I take Zahndrehk as he is 5pts more than a standard overlord with the same equipment but gets so much more. I will always take the Destroyers and Monolith as they are some of my favourite Necron units. The Stalker adds so much to the army and has become a big threat to some of my local group because of its ability to make my army twin linked. I have also found units of 15 warriors are much more reliable than 10 but a unit of 2o is just a points waste, 15 are around long enough, and cheap enough to just sit around taking pot shots.

So comments welcome, will write up my first battle report after tomorrow night!

Post-Britcon 2010

Afternoon all,

It's extremely quiet today, so I thought I'd use the time to post up my results and cover the aftermath of Britcon 2010. It's taken a fair bit of energy to actually get around to writing this up and I've not got my trusty notebook with me, so a lot of it will be from memory and what I can work out on the Results page of the BHGS website.

Round 1 - Space Wolves
So after a fair bit of family issues on the Friday night, combined with doing practically nothing all day, we headed off to the venue and got our gaming mode kicked in. I got paired up with a bloke called Tim who was sporting a Space Wolf army based heavily on Drop Pods and other Deep Striking Units.

The mission was Kill Points, with a twist that Elites and HQs were worth 2 Kill Points.

We played on a heavy jungle themed table, with lots of big LOS blocking objects. This was the first time I've played against Space Wolves with my Orks and I really struggled with killing off the units. I could weaken them, just not manage to finish it off.

Idiot Moment of the Game: Deff Rolla on a Dreadnaught and it getting blown up, whilst forgetting I did 2D6 if he attempts to Death or Glory.

All in all, was a good game and a really sound bloke to play against, just a rough game for the Orks. It ended up 13 - 9 on Kill Points, in favour of the Space Wolves.

Result: 0 Points*
* On reflection, the points may be incorrect since the first round was Umpire-less due to an emergency issue. I was happy to play it as this though, so were unable to clarify between results sheet standings and the rulespack standings.

Round 2 - Dark Eldar
I was REALLY looking forward to playing against the Dark Eldar, but unfortunately, I had mega problems on Saturday morning with my car. Ended up having to walk about 2 miles after dropping it off at the Garage before I could find the nearest source of public transport.

Thankfully, the guy I was due to play was really good about the situation and offered to call it a draw. With the frame of mind I was in, I was happy to get 0 points. It is a shame, since I can only ever remember playing against Dark Eldar once in what feels so long ago, it was a previous life.

Result: 16 Points.

Round 3 - Tyranids
So, after putting up with Angryman's Tyranid army every other week or so, I come up against a pretty similar looking list against one of the 5 Tyranid armies present at Britcon.

This list focused around Tyrant with Guard, Tervigons, Hive Guard, Doom, Trygon and Zoanthropes. So, the usual... We played a 5 Objective mission, with a massive Canal down the middle which split the board in 2, counting as Difficult Terrain, which immediately left me on the back foot.

In all, I just couldn't deal with the units coming in from reserve, on top of crossing over the Canal to get to the 3 objectives there. 4 Objectives held by the Tyranids, 1 they couldn't capture. I only managed to even hang on from being tabled from Turn 5, was because of some awesome LD rolling from a shoota Boyz squad beind harassed by the Doom.

Result: 0 Points

Round 4 - Imperial Guard
By this time, I'd slipped down the rankings away from the people who'd had a win and a loss and started playing some people who'd lost a few in a row. I was playing a guy called Richie, who had come down with the Space Wolf player from Game 1.

In his list he had a Valkyrie, Ogryns, Mortars and a few Leman Russes. Something a bit similar to my usual Imperial Guard army lists. Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures, but it was a really, really nicely painted force. Always something good to see on a Guard army.

The mission was 5 Objectives (again) but with a twist from the Battle Missions book, where buildings were rolled for to see if they were burning (dangerous terrain) or smoking (block LOS and +1 Cover save to units inside).

The Guard seemed to thunder on and shifted the Orks from holding most of the objectives, managing to whittle it down to the Guard holding 1 objective and the Orks holding 2. It was a really fun game, and glad we managed to get 7 turns of chaotic and ridiculous action in there.

Result: 20 points.

Game 5 - Slaanesh Daemons
I'd played against an extremely similar list on the Monday prior to Britcon. Keeper of Secrets, Herald on a Chariot, Herald on a Mount, Daemonettes, Fiends, big Seeker units, a Daemon Prince and 2 Soul Grinders.

The mission was a really interesting twist. For every unit destroyed by shooting (if you were within 18") you got a Slave token, along with if you WON an assault, plus a bonus one if you destroyed the Enemy. HQ units were worth D6 slave tokens.

I managed to pick off most units, thanks a lot to the Burna wagon going insane on Daemonette and Seeker units, but then slipped from a 32-0 winning position by sending Killa Kans into assault with a Soul Grinder. The Grinder kept doing 1 minor damage result on the Kans, meaning 1 Slave token. SO in all, I lost about 4 or 5 tokens just to this, before I could get anything near to help out.

Result: 24 Points.

Round 6 - Space Wolves (Wolf Harder!)
Considering I'd never played against Space Wolves with my Ork list, I ended up playing them twice within the space of a Weekend. This time the list was more heavy hitting than deep-striking orientated. It included dreaded Thundewolves (although really well painted), Wolf Guard in a Raider, 3 Grey Hunter Packs and a Long Fang missile launcher pack.

The mission was based off the Impacable Advance mission in the Battle Missions book. The twist being we played left to right on the board, so my footsloggers were having to a loooooong way to get to his home objective. Each unit was allowed to plant a flag, then move off and only other troops could remove that flag, with 3 objectives across the length of the middle of the board.

It was a really hard fought game, where I managed to forget you could Cap a Flag and then move on. It took the combined weight of a 20ish boy Slugga Mob (post-charge) and a charging Nob Biker unit with Warboss, to finally kill off the Thunderwolves, shifting them from the middle objective.

The Warbikers then zoomed off to destroy the Long Fangs holding my opponent's base, whilst any and all Ork infantry secured my home objective.

3 Points to me for capturing my opponents base, 1 point for holding my own, and 2 points to him for capturing the middle objective.

Result: 24 points.

Conclusion
9th Place overall. Not as good as I was expecting based on later year, but I got nilled twice, so it went pretty well and I didn't show up for a game. Behind Sanguinius by 4pts who had some really good results early on.

Again, it's made me need a break from playing Orks and 40k for a while, so I think I'll focus on building up my Squats and painting my Imperial Guard for the next month or so! Really enjoyed it (aside from the Car stress) and played some good, fun and action-packed games. I had more fun being in the bottom half of the table.

Top 6 was made up of Imperial Guard 1st and then Tyranid armies 2nd through 6th... so yeah... go figure. Either way, was good fun and it's made me think that maybe next year, I should actually think about a list, rather than go "That list did OK last year, let's do this, do that and leave it as it is!".

You can find the full results table HERE

Well done to those who won, and roll on Britcon 2011!

SB.

Britcon 2010 - The night before

This is my first effort at a non club or 'big' tourney and not sure how it will go. We will see !!! Few restrictions in the rules packs altered my list from what I would have preferred.

Finally posting the completed army after practically spending all week non stop painting the whole army. Not best idea for a tourney I know.

I decided to roll out a 'pure' Slaanesh list, named The Cabal of Broken Dreams, consisting of :

HQ

Keeper of Secrets

Herald of Slaanesh on Chariot

Troops

 

Daemonettes of Slaanesh (x4 units of 7 with chaos instrument -- 3 get the chop)

Elites

Fiends of Slaanesh (x2 units of 6)

Fast Attack

Seekers of Slaanesh (x2 units of 10)

Heavy Support

'Bash Brothers/sisters' (x2 Soul Grinders with phlegm)

Daemon Prince of Slaanesh

Objectives

3 warp gates

If I was serious about this tourney & bulked up on the daemonette squads & taken another 2 units, but I like my converted cold one models. A few of the units have upgrades, but I am not listing them here. Decided to go to Britcon purely to give me a kick up the bum to get some stuff painted, seein as I probably have probably 25000 points of 40k models, made up from various different armies, but only a fraction of it painted and an Emperors Children Army still to put together. Get bored easily & like to have a lot of choice in all my armies ---- But that's for a different post !!

Preparing For A Tournament?

Afternoon everyone,

With Britcon rapidly approaching, I'm starting to get geared up ready to go for it and I just thought I'd see how other people prepare in the run up for tournaments, and share a bit of info on what I go through to get ready.

This picture has nothing to do with the article... It's just cool.

Luckily, each time we go to tournaments, we play as a group of MAWS players and in the times we've been attending tournaments, I don't think we've been as a group of less than 3. It helps to know you've got mates playing alongside you... and it's also cheaper than everyone travelling separately!

So what steps do I personally go through in the run up to a tournament?

1. Read the Rulebook
It may sound silly, but I've been to tournaments in the past where I've not even played a game of 40k in months beforehand, let alone looked through the rulebook properly.

In the past few months I've played games and gone "Hows does that work again?", "Are you sure that's what it does?" and then the favourite... "Oh, I forgot that's how it works now...".

So for the past week or so I've been thumbing through the rulebook while sat around at home, or before going to bed, refreshing myself on the common things I forget about during games - such as vehicle movement distance, Grenades and charging in assaults.

2. Go through your Codex and Army List
Don't write your army list the night before the Tournament. This year I'm using a list I've been using practically for 14 months, because I've not had time to test out new ideas or variations, so I'm sticking with the familiar.

Likewise, examine the rules in your Codex, especially since you'll be (the majority of the time) playing new opponents, who may or may not have played against your army before. Personally, I'd also add to always make sure your opponent knows EXACTLY what the weapons, upgrades and units do, rather than midway through the game go "Did you not know Deff Rollas affect Vehicles now? What a shame..."

Also remember the holes in your army list. Last year I screwed up big time by spending 20pts on a Burna for my Ork Mek, not realising there were 15 others in his unit, and nothing capable of dealing with Walkers or big Characters. Lesson Learnt.

3. Organisation.
The weekend before, I like to get all my gear ready and packed up. There's nothing worse than rushing home from work the night before a Tournament, cramming all your rulebooks, codexes and dice into a bag with your models.

Likewise, sort out your transport and times in advance, allowing yourselves enough time to get a good night sleep, eat and take an ear bashing from the significant other.

4. Don't Stress
The final one is to simply calm down in the run up to the tournament, at the end of the day, it's an event about Toy Soldiers. Don't worry, enjoy yourself and have a good time with like minded people.

So then. What do you guys do in the run up to a tournament? Are you an organised type who likes to know everything and be well prepared? Or mostly just leave that to everyone else while you  have a few beers, write your list on a Napkin the night before and stay up all night playing Modern Warfare?

SB

[Orks] Road To Britcon 2010 - Game 1

Morning all,

It's that busy time of year again where everyone starts to rush around thinking about Britcon - what to take, which characters to use, how to play a mission and where will all our beer money come from?

This year is the first year I've decided I don't want to be painting anything before the tournament and I want to know my rules inside out, as opposed to in previous years where I've played new armies, new units and new configurations for the tournament.

One of the more notorious armies at Britcon has always been the Tyranids. They won in 2008 and have come pretty highly consistently. Now with 5th edition, people will moan and complain about "Meta-games" and "Nerfing" but I still think 5th Ed Nids are ace and a very dangerous army to face on the table.

So I've got my same army I took last year, knowing it pretty well and isolating the one silly weakness that cost me a game in the tournament - giving a Mek a Burna instead of a Power Klaw, along with a pointless Ammo Runt upgrade on the Warboss on a bike, he's now got a Kombi Skorcha to allow the bikes to deal with Hordes.

We played a Pitched Battle deployment in an Objectives mission. 2 being set up in my deployment zone, 1 being set up in the Tyranid deployment, 1 slightly further out.

I deployed with my 2 big Boyz mobs in the middle of the table, flanking a Burna Battlewagon with KFF Mek. The left boyz Mob supported by the Deff Dred, the right supported by Killa Kans. I set up a unit of 15 Shoota Boyz on my left objective, 17 Grotz on the right. I then kept my Warboss and Nob Bikers on the far right hand flank, able to utilise their Turbo Boosting and fast speed.

The idea was to be that my foot sloggers could hold the middle and go for a Tyranid objective each, with their respective support units and the Mek and Burnas for support where needed.

I didn't take notes, so I thought I'd just cover the major points of the game and give a conclusion in terms of the list and preparation for Britcon.

The Burna Boyz were, like last year, immense. They wiped out a unit of Tyranid Warriors, Alpha Warrior, Hive Tyrant and Tyrant Guard, Tervigon and Mycetic Spore, along with the help of their friendly Big Mek.

The Nob Bikers have a good showing despite getting thinned out pretty early on. They took down a Dakka Fex, Trygon Prime and the Warboss went after a unit of Hive Guard and wiped them out.

The Slugga Boyz as usual were steadfast. They killed when needed to and held firm most of the other times. The sheer amount of attacks they can put out is still horrible to any opponent.

The Shoota Boyz didn't do much at all, when faced with a unit of Gaunts they fled and continued to run off the board.

The Grotz... well, they set up and did nothing all game. Which means they had a good game!

The Deff Dred managed to destroy a Tervigon in close combat, thin out the Tyranid warrior unit and also destroy a unit of Gaunts via Skorcha attacks causing them to flee and destroy them by attempting to assault. Then clearing the Gaunts off the objective they were camping in, meaning a possible draw turned into a guarenteed win.

The Battlewagon showed BS2 isn't always so bad, taking out a Mycetic spore in a single shot, but it didn't manage to do much else aside from deliver the Burnas to the fight.

The Killa Kans managed to hammer the Doom of Malan'tai, but not without taking 2 casualties in return along with providing extremely valuable support fire for the rest of the army.

Conclusion

Overall it was a good 2 - Nil victory. I had a plan, stuck with it and the dice went my way. I crowded the park where it was necessary and played to the mission.

I just feel I need to work on my manouverability a bit more with the Boyz and try to keep them alive. In a 32 - 0 scoring scale, all the troops are important if I'm trying to aim for the top.

Peace,
SB