I love going down to
Dicehead Games for two reasons. One, the players there are really cool guys. Second, the caliber of gamers that you play is top notch. When I loose a game down there, I see what I did wrong in a big way. I can see what I did and learn to change how I play. So, as I tell you how me and
The Griz did in the tournament, The main theme will be "What I did wrong," and "What I should have done..."
Note: I am assuming if your reading this, that you read my previous post with our army lists in them. I suggest you read if before you continue on.
GAME 1: Orks and Blood Angels vs. Orks and Chaos Marines
The first game was a pretty easy win for us. The guys were new to the game. I think they said they both had been playing for about six months. They were great guys and it was a very enjoyable game. The mission was Seize ground, Dawn of War. Like most new Ork/ Chaos players, they assume the best thing you can possibly do is get as close to the enemy as possible. They went first and put a approx 30 man boyz squad and 10 Bezerkers with a Khorne Termy Lord in it on the middle of the field. We had everything come in on Turn 1. They ran every thing up. We assaulted there stuff on turn one. At the end of the day we were able to get the charge on every assault, which for ork and blood angels usually equals a win.
GAME 2: Orks and Blood Angels vs. Dark Eldar and Tyranids
Our opponent luck ran out after the first game. The next two games were against two of the best teams at the tournament. This was a really well built list. basically there were 3 or 4 Large Genestealer squads all with Broodlords, and the Dark Eldar vehicles had the grenade launchers on them. The point was to get all this cumulative -1 Leadership stuff up in your grill, then drop in the Doom of Malantia and just wreak havoc. The Mission was Modified Kill Points, Pitched Battle. I seriously think we would have had a chance here, if it wasn't for bad rolls.
The Griz loves to put his storm raven in reserve. It allows him to move flat out when it moves on, giving him the 4+ save and preventing it from getting shot down in his deployment zone. Sadly though, when you put a Stormraven, 10 Death company, a Master Reclusiarch, and a Death company dread on a single reserve roll, It was bound to happen eventually, and this game it did. He failed every. single. roll and it automatically came in on turn 5. Needless to say my orks were 'stealer chow by this point.
"What we did wrong...." letting The Griz roll his own reserves. My Grots came in on turn 3. Just sayin'
"What we should have done..." Hindsight's 20-20. And if the Raven would have come in we would be having an entirely different conversation. But it is safe to say, that against this opponent, getting shot down in our deployment zone wouldn't have been so bad if we could have kept the lootas alive to shoot down raiders. I guess in a KP mission mobility is not as much as an issue if you have fire power. It would have been best.
GAME 3: Orks and Blood Angels vs. Black Templar and Dark Eldar.
We played our third game against two gamers we are very familiar with. I don't like using people names on blogs without their permission so we will will refer to them as Sea and Youyou. Sea and Youyou have given me more whoopin's than my momma has. The Griz and I played them second round in the last team tourney we went to. On turn 3 when the painting judge got to our table, he had to ask us what armies we were playing, cuz they weren't on the board anymore! Last singles tournament at
The Barn, I and Sea played on the "final table" and he beat me to win the tourney...with Necrons!
Anyhow, I am happy to report that we have improved. At the end of the game we had a single Ork Loota on the board!!! YEAH IMPROVEMENT!!
"What We did wrong..." We put everything on the board during deployment. I also did a horrible job ad judging their army. I thought it was gonna be assault oriented just because it had BT in it. What I didn't realize is that due to the new FAQ they can be shooty as hell, not to mention all of the DE 12 poison shots on each of about 5 venoms. So it was a desert table, we were going second, and staring at a incredibly powerful shooting army, and what do I do? Because of the last game, I put every single model on the board. For them, it was like a turkey shoot. Looking back, I really see how I played like a complete and utter noob. After one loss, I completely shut my brain off and didn't play to the level I am capable of .
"What We should have done.." Reserve EVERYTHING!. The game was Capture and control, Spearhead. Reserving everything would have robbed them of 2 rounds of shooting. Then we could have brought everything on the far left of our long board edge, shortening our drive. Instead of try to hold our objective, we would have put the lootas within range of it and let them shoot everything off of it, then making an all or nothing play for theirs.
THE BIG MISTAKE: DEPLOYMENT:Griz and I have got to learn to read other people's list in order to discover what their play is. We are both very visual people and tend to dismiss our opponents list and assume we will figure it out once it hits the table. In fifth edition, deployment is one of the major tactical aspects of the game, and if you don't deploy correctly, it will loose you games, like it did for us.
CONCLUSION. The guys we played second round went to the "final table" were they won their game but only got 4 battle points. See and Youyou got 16 off of us and hence won the tournament.
