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.
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