Cowcon 2011 Report

So I headed back up to Rockhampton to catch up with friends and get in some games in the event that I used to run.  I had decided to take my Sisters as they took up less room in the car than the large Eldar case and so would be easier to transport along with a my desert table as the Pig Pen had to make another appearance (a 12" by 12" fenced off area filled with Ork boars that counts as dangerous terrain.  The boars accounted for an immobilised Rhino and Landraider along with two terminators in one game a few years ago).  Wonna picked me up from my parent's place on Friday night to help setup, but the old time dance went longer than expected and it was 11:30pm before we even started setting out the tables, leaving me to crawl into bed at 1:30am on the Saturday.  To help make sure things went smoothly, Wonna picked me up at 6:30am to head over to the hall and get ready for the day with last minute preparations.  The bugger had got himself a coffee on the way but it wasn't until midway through my first game that I finally got some caffiene into my sleep deprived body.

Game 1 versus Collin Donaldson, Eldar, Annihilation, Pitched Battle
Farseer
2x 10 Dire Avengers in Wave Serpents
5 Wraithguard in Wave Serpent
2x Fire Prisms

I've played Collin a few times, both at the club and at other tournaments.  I won the roll for first turn and deployed fairly standardly, but I made the first of many mistakes that game and forgot to blob my IG platoon together for less kill points.  On turn two I forgot to disembark two units with meltaguns to shoot at tanks before beginning the shooting.  I then forgot to charge an immobilised Fire Prism on turn three with my Seraphim.  That caffiene hit couldn't kick in fast enough for me apparently, and I lost narrowly 5 kill points to his 6.  I did however manage to pick up three out of four bonus points for table quarters and was 2.5VP's away from grabbing the fourth.  Gained: 9 BP's

Game 2 versus Callan Reah, Eldar, Milk the Cows (3 objectives, you get 1 point for each objective that you hold uncontested at the end of your turn from turn two onwards), Spearhead
Karandras
Autarch with wings
3x 10 Striking Scoprions
2x 5 Rangers
2x 5 Pathfinders
2 War Walkers
3 War Walkers

I again setup first and deployed aggressively to the fore, hoping to get onto the objectives and clear them off with flamers early on.  Callan then surprised me but outflanking his entire army except for the Autarch who deepstruck instead.  I pushed up and used the time wisely to run units into positions and bring my Exorcists into a protective circle near the central objective.  I made my guesses of ranges well and left my rhino transports just outside his charge range.

My Canoness ran interference until his units became bunched up and my Rhinos deposited flame weilding Sisters who removed Striking Scorpions aided by Divine Guidance with a vengance.

I did make the mistake of focusing too much on the primary objective and failed to get most of the secondary objectives, but instead won overwhelmingly with 12 tokens to 0.  Gained: 17BP's

Game 3 versus Luke Williams, Space Marines, Escape Capsule (Dawn of War, single objective that arrives near the centreline at the end of turn 2 or 3.  The person with the most VP's of scoring units within 6" wins with scaling for draw, minor and major wins.)
Chaplain Cassius
5 Assault Terminators (4 TH/SS 1 LC's)
Land Raider
Techmarine with Thunderfire Cannon
2x 10 Tactical Marines (PF, Lascannon, Plasmagun) in Rhinos
10 Scouts with Telion (Sniper Rifles)
Vindicator
Triple Las Pred with Chronus

Luke deployed first and put down his Techmarine with thunderfire, and the scout squad up in buildings.  I deployed my blobbed infantry squads and platoon command in building and attached my Canoness to cause havoc if an opportunity arose early on.  Luke's thunderfire cannon fired when the sun rose on the bunched up guardsmen and in one round killed about 2/3rds of the unit, Ouch.  In return an Exorcist popped out from behind a building and smashed the techmarine and his cannon into scrap metal.  I used my Exorcists on each flank to strike at his side armour on the Vindicator and Predator and quickly removed them from the game.  Luke's terminators were quickly dispatched by a combined charge or my Canoness and her Celsetian Retinue and the Seraphim, but after the Seraphim hit and ran away to engage other targets.  Chaplain Cassius soloed the Celestians for about three rounds of HtH before finally losing his last wound.  The objective crashed down on the side of the table where I only had one BSS squad and Luke jammed both of his tactical squads onto the objective via lucky deployment.  At the end of turn five I was looking down the barrel of a minor loss or at best a draw, but turn six and seven saw my other units bounce across the pig pen (safely) to the objective and my Jump Canoness and the remaining Celestians cleared the marines from the area.  Gained 19 BP's

Game 4 versus Dan Corkran, Grey Knights, Pitched Battle, 5 Objectives
Librarian
5 Paladins built for wound abuse
3x 5 Grey Knights (Thunderhammer and Psycannon) in Las/Plas Razorbacks
5 Grey Knights (Thunderhammer and Psycannon) in Psybolt Heavy Bolter Razorback
3x Dreadnoughts with twin linked Autocannons and Psybolt ammo

Before I left at the end of Day one, Wonna already had the draw up for day two which would see me face off against Dan Corkran.  Dan and I have played a few times at the local club but this would be the first time I would face him in a tournament.  He was fielding a tough Grey Knights army that I knew I would struggle to beat, and on top of that Dan had played my sisters before and lost against them.  His ability to analyze his losses and learn from them is pretty good so I decided I needed a plan to help me through the first game tomorrow.
Plan A: Get Dan drunk at the dinner that night.
This plan failed miserably when I found out that Dan wasn't going out and had head to bed by 9:30pm.

Plan B: Play differently.
I figured if I played in a manner different to how I normally would, I might through Dan off, which sounds simple, but is hard to do when you have mech sisters which really only play one way.  I decided that there was no way that I could smash Dan's army so I opted instead to play for the Minor Win/Loss or a draw.  I would advance and grab nearby objectives, and then stop and hold them staying just off the objectives so that I could move up and ambush incoming units.  Better than Plan A at least.

Dan of course won the roll for sides and stole the side with the best cover for his Razorbacks and Dreads which left me little cover for my tanks.  I made things worse by deploying one of my Exorcists right out on a flank and it proved to be just out of range and immobilised itself on the first piece of terrain it touched.  Dan's shooting knocked out two transports on the first turn so the sisters advanced on foot running between the limmited cover towards the objectives.  I beat Dan to three of the objectives (one near my deployment zone) and settled in to hold off the wave of firepower that began to knock me off it.  Thankfully my Jump Canoness held him up by assaulting units in his back lines, but I again forgot to give the Celestian invulnerable saves and most of them were killed by Plasma fire.  My Canoness went down when she failed her Ld test to get an invun save and was buried under power weapon attacks.  The game flowed back and forth around his back field, but his Paladins sat just outside my rapidfire range and tried to shoot my sisters off the objective.  I think Plan B worked as I would normally have pushed forward agressively and Dan wasted precious time before pushing up to contest after he realised I wasn't moving.  At the end of turn 5 I held 3 objectives to his two, but in turn 6 he contested two of the objectives whilst holding his two with only 1 and 2 Grey knights huddles out of site of my units.  A very close game that was great to play against a very skilled player.  Gained: 6 BP's

Game 5 versus Adam Bullmore, Nurgle Chaos Space Marines, Annihilation, Spearhead
Nurgle Sorcerer
Deamon Prince with Warptime and Wings
2x 7 Plague Marines (powerfist and two meltaguns) in a Rhino
7 Plague Marines (powerfist and two plasmaguns) in a Rhino
Vindicator
2x Defilers

I deployed first in an agressive posture, hoping to knock out his Defilers early and then dominate the game by picking off his tanks and out manuevoring him.  Unfortunately Adam positioned roughly the same so I knew things would get messy early on.  I remembered to blob my guardsmen this time though :)  I decided to switch things up and shift my forces to the right to bring him off balance, unfortunately my Exorcists decided to play a slow waltz or something and only rolled one's and two's for their shots most of the game.  I did however manage to bottle neck him around some central spires as he struggled to get around one of his Defilers.  I shot and charged units as they came through the gaps, staving off the bulk of his forces whilst conserving mine.  Combats dragged on however and my faith pool ran down quickly, especially once he turned one of my Canonesses into a giant bunny spawn (pictured above).  I just managed to finish of his units in the nick of time with only one faith point and my Jump Canoness on one wound and the Seraphim all but wiped out.  My lead however had been maintained and finished on 11KP's to 5KP's for a major victory.  Gained 18BP's

I slowly packed up my gear as I was chatting to a few of the Townsville guys, discussing various things and the awards started whilst I was still away putting my miniatures in their cases.  I had just walked over to the rest of the group when Wonna called out my name for second place.  What? Huh?  I thought I was going to be near the top but I certainly didn't think I was going to place after suffering two losses and only getting a smattering of bonus points.  I also got a Black Library book for bringing along my table of terrain so I was very happy when I finally got home on sunday afternoon.  Unfortunately the late nights and days of thinkings had taken their toll and I've gotten a bit of a cough which was very painful on the flight back to Brisbane.

Other shots from the weekend:

All in all, a great weekend with good mates and lots of laughs all round.  Next year Cowcon is expecting to increase the limit from 40 to 50 players which will cement it in as one of the largest events in Queensland with only Quarter Master and Orktoberfest currently larger.

Eltnot.

Inducted Guard Platoon WIP

I'm trying to get my I platoon which have languished in their base coated state for about two years now, up to scratch.  I need to get them to at least the same kind of level as my sisters which is painted to at least three colours with shading/highlighting, etc.  I've touched up some of the base coats and have all 25 of them washed with devlan mud, ready for the highlight/dry brush of skull white.

Thankfully I have Thursday off due to working the public holiday on May Day so I should have them smashed out for Quartermaster 2 this coming weekend and hopefully a few other bits and bobs done.  I also have a university assignment due on Friday that is calling my name so we shall see how it all goes.

In other news, I managed to get my arse handed to me by a local player at the club the other weekend.  I went down hard to his Blood Angels and was wiped off the board by about turn 6.  I made one tactical mistake bunching up several units that let him pull off a multi charge with his Death Company and also made the error of not discussing the terrain properly before the match.  This second mistake led to my guard platoon going down due to not being in cover.  It was a good game and Nick is a great opponent, so I shall look forward to further thrashings in the future.

Eltnot.

Battle Report Sisters of Battle vs Ulthwe Eldar

Last Sunday I managed to get in a game versus my mate Ross and his Ulthwe Eldar.  You can find his blog HERE.  I took some photos of the game with the intention of doing up a battle report, which I have done, but the following should be stated first:

Yes I know the lighting is bad, I will bring down more lights next time.
Yes my camera work is shaky, I will try using a timer next time, and failing that, fork out the cash for a tripod.
Battle Chronicler prefers a North/South engagement, not the East/West layout that I used which causes labels to switch constantly.
I will endeavour to get better starting photos for the map in the future.

With that out of the way, this batrep has been done using Battle Chronicler which I hope to use again in the future.  It took me a while to create the units and learn how to use it, but now that I've created my army, it will take me less time in the future.  The actual diagrams took less than an hour after I''d created the unit and map etc.

Armylists:
Witch Hunters - Sister of St Joseph
Eldar - Ulthwe

Deployment
Ross won the roll for choosing sides and opted for me to choose, I picked the side with the pig pen for some extra cover for my guardsmen.  I deployed with my armoured elements split into two groups backed up by an Exorcist each.  The Guard platoon deployed centrally to provide covering fire and to old the objectives located near my deployment area.  The Canoness and Seraphim deployed behind my North flank Rhinos to help push through onto the objectives there.  Ross deployed his War Walkers and Dark Reapers opposite my armoured forces on the Northern flank.  His Wave Serpents with the Storm Guardians, Dire Avengers and Farseer deployed centrally hoping to swing to either flank.  The Wraithlord, Wraithguard and Defender Guardians deployed on the Southern flank.

Ross' Ulthwe deployed.

Turn 1

 Ross failed to steal the initiative, so I began my first turn by rolling forward with my Rhinos, popping their smoke launchers as they went to reduce the impact of incoming fire (I will need to create some sort of smoke token for BC).  The Seraphim and Canoness jumped up behind the Rhinos, heading towards the Dark Reapers and War Walkers.  The Guard squad to the North pushed up into the first floor of the building, and the Exorcists manoeuvred for optimal firing positions.  I started by firing both Exorcists into each of Ross' Wave Serpents and in a wave of luck, wrecked the Storm Guardians' ride, pinning the unit, and exploding the other containing the Dire Avengers and Farseer (I also need some crater markers).  The guard unit then ran to the top of their building for a good firing position, and the Seraphim ran for some extra cover.  My Guardsmen failed to hit the Wraithlord with their missile launchers.

 With an abysmal start, Ross went to work on trying to bring the game back in his favour, pushing hard up on the Southern flank whilst the War Walkers ducked out from behind their building ready to fire on the oncoming transports.  Between the Wraithguard and Wraithlord, he managed to immobilise and stun one Rhino on the Southern flank, but the Walkers only managed to stop my Immolator from shooting next turn.  The Dark Reapers shot at the Seraphim but they were saved by Spirit of the Martyr.

 An Exorcist lines up the Wraithlord.

Turn 2

With Ross' forces now committed on the Southern flank, and looking at what I had to face them, I decided to pull back my forces to give my other units more time to whittle them down.  The second BSS squad's rhino pulled back behind the building whilst the first squad got out of their damaged vehicle and made a run for the safety of the building.  On the Northern flank I pushed up aggressively and disembarked my units ready to fire whilst the Seraphim jumped up behind ready to counter attack.  Between Exorcist two and my Guard platoon I was able to take out the Wraithlord threatening the Southern flank, whilst Exorcist 1 and my Celestian squad managed to either shake or weapon destroy all of the War Walkers leaving them defenceless for the next turn.  BSS 3 opened up on the Dark Reapers knocking them out with bolters and flamers.

The Sister Squad removes the Dark Reapers from the equation in a storm of fire and flame.

Ross was really under the pressure now, but kept on coming.  His Wraithguard moved up ready to assault the immobilised Rhino supported by the Dire Avengers and Defender Guardians.  His War Walkers also moved up along the with the Storm Guardians on the Northern Flank.  Shoot mainly consisted of trying to whittle down BSS 1 and fleeting with the Storm Guardians.  The Wraithguard charged the Rhino blowing it up meanwhile the War Walkers and Storm Guardians charged BSS 3 in a hopes to break it and remove a valuable scoring unit from that flank, however the sisters held.

 The charge of the Ulthwe.

Turn 3

In my turn I shot up the Wraithguard some more, hoping to reduce them with the Exorcists, but a timely fortune and their high toughness kept them strong.  On the Northern flank things went a little better with the Seraphim and Celestians charging the War Walkers bringing them down in a hail of Eviscerator attacks and causing the Storm Guardians to flee.

 Sisters push the Guardians back.

With not many options left Ross charged the Wraithguard into BSS 2 hoping to break them, but in a score of abysmal dice rolls neither side managed to score any wounds.  We decided to call it there as it was getting a little late and with the Wraithguard not likely to go anywhere any time soon, not much was likely to change.

Conclusion
I realised early on that I had made a mistake in my deployment, as my goal was to push through with the attack on the Northern flank, whilst using the Southern flank as a I diversion/optimistic attack designed to hold up the enemy or take a lightly defended objective.  However I only had minimal scoring units on the Northern flank and had the game not gone so well for me, I may not have had enough bodies left alive to claim the objectives.  As it was, BSS 3 was whittled down to only four members, and came close to being swept away.  Ross failed to use cover enough in his deployment which led to the loss of his mobility early on which really crippled him.  We discussed this after the game along with a few tweaks for the list, mainly to drop the Dark Reapers for either a unit of Jetbikes or some Rangers for taking down MC's.

Please feel free to leave any feedback on the format of the report or any suggestions on improvements for next time.

Eltnot.

Quarter Master IV 2010

I left just prior to lunch time on Friday and began the long drive down to Brisbane, unfortunately up this way we've had a lot of rain and the roads weren't roads so much as strips of bitumen filled with potholes large enough to swallow my "Shoebox of Death".  I eventually made it safely to my brothers house with just enough time to say hello and borrow their loo before driving across town to catch up with some mates at Lonestar.   Mmmmmm Cheesy Fries....

Saturday morning I got to the tournament and found out that I was the first one there, closely followed by Ross and Damo.  I got myself a coffee and the TO's got our first round under way which saw me face a rather nasty Space Wolf army.  This army got the lowest comp score at the event, and rightfully so.  I lost my game before even placing a model as we faced off in a Killpoint mission with Dawn of War.  He won the roll and choose to deploy first.  His three squads of Long Fangs, three las/plas Razorbacks and multimelta/heavy flamer Land Speeders tore me up as I tried vainly to cross a board with no line of sight blocking terrain.  So first game was a lovely major loss for me.  Only up from here.

 

On my second game I got to play against a nicely done Pre Heresy World Eaters army (using the Blood Angels Codex).  I enjoyed my game and it came right down to the wire in the end. He smashed me with long range firepower whilst I tried to hunker down on the objectives and managed to pull through with a minor win.

My third game was against Tyranids with a wide variety of units.  I opted to deploy second and managed to seize the initiative.  My refused flank approach smashed apart his army as I countered his fast moving units and whitled down his slower ones.  We ran out of time on turn four with me holding a minor win.  Had we had a further turn, I had a good chance of pushing it to a major, but such is life.

I went home from the first day with a major loss and two minor wins, it could be worse.

I was running a little late on the second day as I'd managed to sleep in, and people were already setting up there armies for display.  I didn't think I had time to setup the sisters so I got a coffee and spoke with a couple of people that I knew and placed my votes for best army.  Turns out I probably could have.  For some reason I didn't take any photos of the armies which was a shame as there was some lovely pieces of work there.

My fourth opponent was to be Saul, a friend of Adam's who I'd faced in round two.  He had a cool all biker army with no biker nobs.  Unfortunately for him the dice were against him and I pulled back my shell of rhinos whilst smashing unit after unit with flamers and bolters.  My canoness pulled off a lucky second turn charge that held up Wazdakka and his unit for most of the game and let me control the board and the flow of the battle.  I finished up with a very convincing major win.

For some reason I don't have any photos of my last game, probably because it went downhill so fast.  He had a tooled up ten strong biker nob squad which was fine by me.  But my Exorcists failed to roll higher than a 2 for the first two turns, letting them hit my lines almost untouched.  I tried hard to pull it back but they just crushed my units under weight of attacks.  In the end I conceded the match on turn four as he had already won and completed all of the bonus victory requirements when they called 20 minutes left.  We figured it was better to finish up and get packed up sooner rather than spend another twenty minutes of slowly trying to grind through sisters of battle squads.  He was a good opponent and pleasant to face, and I still enjoyed the match even if I was crushed to a pulp.

I finished dead middle of the pack in the end which wasn't bad considering my list.  I've decided that since I'm getting most of the points for painting now, that instead of pushing on, I'm going to paint up my guard platoon to replace the Storm Troopers and their Chimera.  I noticed my biggest problem was suppression fire when either my Exorcists were dealt with early on or failed to perform by rolling a high number of shots.  The guard platoon will help to counter this which will give me a better edge in my games next time.

Eltnot.

Madgrot 2010

So I played in Madgrot this weekend just gone up in Mackay.  We headed up on Friday afternoon and as we drove up I sat in the front seat and marked army lists for Higher Grounds in Adelaide.  We arrived their safely despite travelling up in Wes' newly arrived V8 Commodore and Wusty's Evo 8, checked into our motel and then went in search of food and alcohol.  A few beverages later and some last hour painting from me and we eventually turned in for the night, I paper, scissored, rocked Wusty for the fold out bed, ominously I lost.

Day 1 of the tournament we arrived nice and early and I setup my two tables of terrain.  I'm glad I brought them as the amount of terrain on the tables was lower than last year, and they gave at least a few people some good games.  Some of the Mackay players said that I must like terrain heavy tables, until I pointed out that they were only 25%, the recommended amount.

Damon put up the first round of matchings and I found myself against Tim, a local who I had played last year.  He'd brought his Space Marines again with a few changes.  You can see my deployment below.  I made one big mistake and bunched my Repentia up slightly to hide them better from his tactical squads behind my rhinos.  I realised my error just as I finished my turn, before he dropped in an Ironclad dreadnought in a drop pod and flamered the entire unit.  Only the priest survived who then ran and hid in a building for the rest of the game so as not to give up a further 125 VP's.  We battered away at each other and ended up in a draw in my favour.

My next game was against Adam Buckley and his Imperial Guard.  Damon had decided to try and steal my Milk the Cows mission but unfortunately in making his changes, also made it unbalanced.  Dawn of War deployment and Adam winning the roll to choose sides meant that he held two of the three objectives for two turns before I could even attempt to contest.  Coincidentally just under the amount of points that he won the game by.  It was still a close game and a lot of fun, especially my Canoness knocking a Valkyrie out of the sky on her first turn after it moved flat out.

Next up I played Stewart from Gladstone.  I deployed second and got lucky by seizing the initiative.  I rolled forward and popped smoke and from there started to destroy his army.  I screwed up again in this game, this time by deep striking my Seraphim near a fresh tactical squad and their rhino that was holding an objective.  Naturally they scatted onto the Rhino and were destroyed, handing away my minor win and pulling me back to a draw.

So I finished my first day with two draws and a minor loss, not great but not all bad either, tomorrow I would play against some of the lower half, and would hopefully pick my game back up.  That night Wusty, Dan and I went out for a feed, margaritas, more margaritas, various rum based concoctions and finally dancing.  It wasn't until the early hours of te morning that we crawled into our beds.

I woke up the next day feeling hungry and thirsty, we hit up Subway for breakfast and the Nightowl for some powerade.  I set my army up on the table and then started going around and taking photos of the other armies on display, it was at this point in time that my batteries ran out, so no more pictures of the actual games.

My next game was against another local who had a mostly foot slogging Eldar force with way too little anti tank to handle my wave of Rhinos.  I rolled forward and destroyed his entire army except for a Farseer on one wound and the last of a guardian squad.  Major win for me.

My last game was against Captain Steve from Townsville with his lovely Nurgle army.  He was a great opponent and we ended up playing musical chairs around a central building as our armies struggled to get to grips with each other.  I had some really bad dice rolls for acts of faith that caused me to give away some easy VP's early on and only managed to pull it back to a draw.

In the end I placed 7th overall out of 32 players which given that the games were mostly kill each other with some bonus points thrown in for objectives, I felt that I did fairly well.  Lastly I picked up a Citadel Battlemat from The Games Room.  I've been trying to hunt one down for ages as GW had stopped making them but it appears they're back on sale again.

Below are some more pictures of the event and armies.

Eltnot.