UK 40K GT Final and 6NC round up!

Hi all!

I'll be covering quick round-ups of all my games at both the 40K GT and the 6NC here- they were all a while ago and I didn't take pictures, but my memory is still pretty clear on them! These were my last games with the old Eldar codex. I'll try to do a brief comparison of the old and new book, which I think is best, and why!

UK 40K GT Final

This was at Sanctuary Games in the middle of March 2015, and was freezing cold!
I traveled up to stay with Matt, the Welsh Captain, and we were able to play a practice game- his Knights/Eldar vs my Eldar/Inquisition. It went well for Matt!

My list for the GT was (briefly):

Farseer, summoning stone, bike
3x 5 Dire Avengers, Wave Serpents, Scatter Lasers, Ghostwalks
5 Fire Dragons, Wave Serpent, Scatter Laser, Ghostwalk
2x Night Spinner, Ghostwalks
6 Hawks
5 Hawks
Wraithknight

Simple, but effective. The Wraithknight deals with any major threats, while the 6 tanks hopefully shoot the opponent to death! The farseer summons as much as he can, ideally incursion or summoning every turn!

Game 1 I played Miles with Grey Knights and Space Marines, with a Nemesis strike force, 2 dreadknights, and a mini centstar with iron hands (no tigurius) and draigo.
 I deployed fairly poorly and myles capitalised with some good deep strikes, nailing my farseer, a serpent, and immobilising another serpent.
My hawks harassed his scouts and I was able to whittle through the cent star, but eventually he wore through almost all of my tanks. I forgot about the Big Guns points counting to the primary and decided not to shoot/charge/kill his dreadknight with the Wraithknight, which ended up costing me a draw to a loss. 18-2 to Miles, very well played!

Game 2 I played Andrew who had lots of Wave Serpents (6-7) and some hornets. I won the roll off, deployed aggressively with cover and he castled behind terrain with hornets in reserve. I was able to get off a good alpha strike with loads of early pressure, killing 2 serpents and leaving another unable to shoot turn 1, then killing all the others over the next few turns. I only lost 1, and when the hornets came on they died quickly without doing too much damage. I was able to start summoning this game, which helped me box Andrew into the corner effectively. 20-0 to me.

Game 3 I played Max Barton (a reader of the blog), who also had 5-6 wave serpents along with a load of Hornets and no Wraithknight. I deployed aggressively into cover, while Max basically lined his Wave Serpents up without too much cover. I took turn 1, and killed 2 serpents. Max's return fire was dampened by my cover, and the summoned screamers just pushed the advantage. We called it turn 4 after his hornets arrived and killed the farseer only to be all but deleted by return fire. 20-0 again to me!

Day 1 finished, and sitting reasonably for a submarine finish (diving early but resurfacing later) on 42/60 points.

Game 4 against Scarab Farm- a terrible match-up for serpents, but I was able to go first and my opponent didn't notice the tall ruins in front of my deployment zone- I was able to land a serpent on each, which along with the barrage and Wraithknight shooting killed all the scarabs turn 1, before they can farm more or reanimate!
After this it was a slog through 2 units of wraiths and 10 Tomb Spyders, and the game finished turn 5 with me controlling more eternal wars and the tertiary, while my opponent won maelstrom. 14-6 to me.

Game 5 was against some Iron Hands and Eldar with forge world- hornets, sicaran, relic whirlwind, wraithknight, summonseer, gorgon-zola-chapter master, the works! I went second, and didn't lost anything to the alpha strike after deploying into cover well. I killed a hornet early game, and reserve 2 serpents and a Wraithknight. I got nothing turn 2, a serpent turn 3 and the other serpent and WK turn 4. Highlights included using the corner to avoid his fire while summoning and barraging his bikes, blocking them off with copious seekers! My opponent brought scouts into my backfield, but my farseer and 2 night spinners were able to kill both Land Speeders and both units in a single turn for some good maelstrom!
Eventually my farseer became a Lord of Change to shoot more stuff, and I was able to play the objectives well after all the Space Marine and Eldar Obsec had died. Finished 14-6 to me, for a 5th place finish!
Very happy, and up from last year's 10th place!

6NC

For the 6NC, I added another Wave Serpent full of Dire Avengers.

Round 1, vs England
I played their serpent player Josh, and unfortunately by inexperience with ETC scoring showed through. Although eternal war and kill points were close after a bad start from Josh's alpha strike, he hammered me on Maelstrom and win 17-3. He had triple Wraithknight, 2 fire dragons and 3 avengers. I forgot to take shriek on the farseer and couldn't roll a 6 with bladestorm Dire Avengers for 2 turns, both of which hurt.
Wales won reasonably on this round, which was a great start to beat team England!

Round 2 vs Scotland
I played Scotland's Cent Star, an awesome guy called Tim. I infiltrated with the warlord trait and went first, nearly killing tiggy and nailing both the dreadknights! I made a mistake in outflanking the wraithknight with the warlord trait, thinking this would be more beneficial than alpha striking...
After the alpha strike it was uphill for Tim, and although the centstar was able to slog through my tanks, he couldn't keep up with all the new units I was summoning and so I won 14-6 through a combination of Maelstrom and Eternal War.
Wales won quite big this round, although our wolf star picked up a loss against a Tau gun line when he couldn't roll above a 4" charge all game!

Round 3 vs Northern Ireland
I played a Wolfstar that used 4-5 characters with dogs that had Tigurius and joined a thunderfire cannon from a drop pod that comes down turn 1 to give the star T7!
Luckily I seized the initiative, and summoned seekers to block his movement turn 1! He joined the TFC anyway and couldn't assault them, which was maybe a mistake, before I summoned more seekers and the Wraithknight picked off the TFC, blocking his pile in moves with the seekers to ensure I died at the right time. For the craftworld!
My serpents cleared off his long fangs and various small drop pod squads, while piling more shots into the wolf star as and when. He didn't roll invisibility on tigurius, which was very big. If he had done, it could have been different, but without I won 20-0 with a Turn 6 tabling.
Wales won big this round, against possibly the nicest team you could ever play against. My opponent took the two turns of "what is this bullshit seeker blocking" like an absolute gentleman, laughing it all off and we had a great game.


Round 4 vs Republic of Ireland
I played Ivan's White Scars on Hammer and Anvil, and he outflanked everything. My master plan to block most of one board edge with seekers and hawks was perfect, lining up a big shooting gallery... until he noticed I'd placed a hawk just too far from a seeker, and tank shocked into the gap, allowing white scars to pour in! Not good!
However I was able to shoot down a load of troop bikes and his alpha strike wasn't great, so we pulled an exact 10-10 draw! My revenge for his tank shock was to surround his command squad with hawks and seekers, before performing a tank shock of my own onto his command squad! By covering all but a few models and leaving no room for those under the tank to be placed in coherency with the others in the squad and moving out of the way, I was able to kill 4 of the invisible storm shield grav gun guys! "Crunch"!
Wales pulled out a very close win, our Nids and Daemon player turning 13 points into 19 turn 5 to just get us over the line for a round win!

Round 5 vs Belgium
This round was for the grand slam. I played necrons, with 30 praetorians and 18 wraiths. I forgot to turbo boost my farseer backwards after moving up to summon turn 1, which cost me him. However my serpents were very dependable, nailing a unit and a half of wraiths and 2 squads of praetorians in the first 3 turns, while my Wraithknight slowed down the other units. The hawks harassed the immortals brilliantly, claiming maelstrom out from under them several times.
In the end it came down to some awkward objective placement, but I won 15-5.
Wales won again, completing the grand slam!
After a quick trophy pic it was a mad dash back to the ferry, and home again to the start of rumours of a new Eldar codex...

So those were my experiences of the UK 40K GT and the 6NC!
Thanks for reading, look out for the write up of the ETC and ESC soon, where my Eldar Rainbow Scatterbikes made their tournament debut!

SimonW

An update, and upcoming tournament reports!

Hi all!

A quick post with some updates:

It's been a long time since my last posts- with real life getting in the way, alongside preparation for the 6 Nations 40k championships and the ETC, I found I was playing less fantasy (not to mention Age of Sigmar), less warmahordes, and my 40k was either practicing for the ETC or on Vassal, with only occasional pick-up games!

So what's changed?

In 40k, Necrons got a new book first- with their Decurion, they ushered in a new style of army construction, and with their 4+ reanimation protocols they took attrition play to the next level!

Eldar also got a new book- Wave Serpents were nerfed as requested by some people everyone... but we got D weapons and scatter lasers everywhere! They also got a Craftworld Warhost, with some good benefits, and Wraithknights became Gargantuan Creatures with Stomp! I quite like the CAD over the warhost, unless it's got 50 Warp Spiders (see the ETC report for more details)!

There were also new factions (Harlequins, Skitarii, Cult Mechanicum), a new Knights book with Obsec Knights, a new marine book with free Obsec Transports and a new Dark Angels book with better Overwatch and awesome Ravenwing!

However I still got to use the old Eldar codex at the UK 40K GT final, where I came 5th, and the 40K 6 Nations championships, where I played for the Wales team and we won with a grand slam!

Brief roundups of the GT final and the 6NC can be found here as my list was essentially the same for both.

Then the new Eldar book arrived, and I was fortunate to get 20 jetbikes on eBay for a good price as soon as the scatter laser rumours broke. Some magnets and scatter lasers from the bits box later, I had my new army ready to practice, practice, practice with, ready for the premiere 40K events in the world: the European Team Championships and European Singles Championships! This year they were held in Prague, Czech Republic.

I was unbelievably excited to be able to go, especially with the Welsh team who are renowned as a great bunch of guys and also great 40k players. I kept the mantle of "Eldar player" with scatter bikes instead of Wave Serpents (surprise surprise), alongside a teammate who brought a kick-ass Eldar Seer Council with Dark Eldar primary.

The schedule at the ETC is quite demanding, as with the singles as well you play 11 games in 5 days, starting at around 0900 and finishing at around 2100... Not to mention the European heatwave that was underway, resulting in temperatures of 37-39 degrees outside the venue and over 40 degrees inside!
Still, I was keen to get into the action as soon as I'd bought some shorts (having forgotten to pack any...)! Brief reports of all the games can be found here. In the singles I finished 18th, and at the ETC Wales came 4th!

Hopefully going forward there will be more updates on my wargaming activity, although it will mainly focus on 40k- nothing like 4 of the most competitive events it's possible to play in within 5 months to get you back in the 40k zone!

My next tournament will be the Allies of Convenience GT, run by the Allies of Convenience podcast, a competitive 40k podcast set up mainly by players from the Welsh team. If you're there, say hello! I'll probably have my rainbow Eldar, although I'm not sure of the exact list- once the missions, comp and FAQs are released (hopefully similar to the ETC), I'll start putting something together. It's on the 7th of November in Warrington at the moment, and it should be great!

Look out for posts on the UK GT & 6NC, then the ESC and ETC soon!

Thanks!

Simon

Happy New Year, and the Future of Back In The Box!

Hello everyone! Just a quick update to wish everyone a (belated) happy Xmas and New Year!

I'm looking forward to lots of new hobby activity in 2015. I'll be:

• In Warhammer Fantasy, I'll be developing my Wood Elves into a full sized force and having some End Times Battles
• In Warmahordes, I'll be continuing to grow my Legion of Everblight force and continuing to improve my play (and maybe even win a game on scenario...)
• In 40k, I'll be attending the UK GT final in Mid March, then shortly afterwards I'll be heading off to Belgium to play in the 40k Six Nations Championship (6NC) with Team Wales, and in August I'll be off to the European Team Championship in Prague with them!
  I'm very excited to be off to probably the biggest 40k event in the world, and hopefully will be playing in the Singles Championship as well as the Team event. I'll cover some of the build up and, but unfortunately I won't be able to go into too much detail about lists and so on before the submission deadline.

Sadly this last point does mean that I won't be able to post many 40k battle reports or go into too much depth about my list, as they're kept quite secret until about a month before the event.
In addition, although the 40k GT and 6NC/ETC are different points values (1650 vs 1850 respectively), the missions are quite similar and due to the timing I'll be trying to use similar lists to get more practice.

So what does this mean for my blog?

Well fortunately I'm hardcore nerdy enough to play 4 different wargames, and I'll be sure to keep the blog ticking over with other battle reports- I've started flying my Imperials again, with Defenders and Bounty Hunters, so there'll be some battle reports there and some coverage of Scum and Villainy too- I'm very excited for the third faction to be released! I'll also be trying to play more Warhammer Fantasy with my Wood Elves, and Warmachine/Hordes with my Legion of Everblight, and might try to go to a local tournament if I'm available.
I'll also be covering all the new 40k releases, which seem to be coming thick and fast, with Necrons and Harlequins both on the near horizon.

Finally, thanks very much for reading once again and here's to a new year of Back In The Box!

SimonW