POWGT Tournament Review

Last week I attended my very first ITC event held right here in Winnipeg by guys I know!  The Plains of War crew ran a 5 game event using the Best Coast Pairings tournament system and the ITC rules package which ran pretty damn smooth.  The event was sold out with only 1 no-show for a total showing of 39 people.  Which is a pretty awesome for the size of the gaming scene in Winnipeg.

The location was a Holiday Inn conference room which is in a good area of the city and very close to the airport for the handful of guys that flew in for the tournament.  There was a good amount of room with each table being open ended and independent of each other which made it easy to transport your army from table to table without bumping into a dozen other people and awesome for the Hammer and Anvil deployment.  There is room for a couple more tables, but they will have to sacrifice their independent table setting if they grow much larger.

The one hang up with the venue was how underprepared the staff was for the lunch rush.  I had to get my lunch delivered to my table and eat during my game.  However the staff made up for it the next day by taking pre-orders and having the food ready for us at the break.  This shows a great willing to work with the event holders and keep the players happy which is amazing for a larger establishment to put that much effort into a relatively small event.

The Best Coast Pairings system went off without a hitch.  For anyone wondering how it works, you and your opponent input your game score into a device, in our case a tablet provided by the POW Team, and that’s it.  The system automatically generates the parings, scores, ITC points.  You can then use your own phone or tablet to check the pairings and table assignments.  They also had a projector displaying this info for those couple people who didn’t have smart phones.  It didn’t end there though as you could check out your standings, the standings of the player you were facing, who they played and how they did in their previous games, at any given time.  It was brilliant.

The ITC package was everything I expected it to be.  A well balanced and play tested system that catered to a competitive environment.  Nothing crazy or wonky, but certainly not boring either.  I only had one issue with the system and that was that you didn’t score the last turn of Maelstrom points.  I understand why, but it happened to cost me 2 games which left me disappointed both times because of it through no fault of anyone but my own.  The missions themselves work well and ran smoothly and are simple enough for a novice to grasp, but complex enough for a veteran to have to compete for.

As you probably know from reading my blog, I play Chaos Space Marines.  I was determined to make something work so I took a bunch of things I was familiar with and knew were pretty good.  Unfortunately a lot of individually good things with no kind of symmetry will only do so much.  I’ll just do a quick rundown of my list so you know what I had in it.

Typhus, Sorcerer(lvl3), Dark Apostle, Daemon Prince(Chaos Daemons), 2x20 cultists, 2x10 cultists, Nurglings, Heldrake, 2x Blight Drones, Relic Predator with Plasma Destroyer and heavy bolter sponsons, 2x Rapier laser destroyers.  The 2 big units of cultists and the Dark Apostle were the Crimson Slaughter formation “The Cult of Slaughter” where at the start of my turn each unit of cultists regains D6 models removed earlier in the game.

On to my games…

GAME 1 VS: CRAIG, WHITE SCARS

Craig was running a White scars biker list.  4 units of guys on bikes with Khan, 2 speeders, a Vindicator and a Dreadnaught.  He doesn’t play often and didn’t know how to play a Maelstrom mission, never mind an ITC mission.  We managed to make our way through the game with me pulling off a victory and learning a couple things along the way.

After his scout and turn 1 moves on my right side...

on my left side

Lessons Learned:  16 Cultists with MOK and a Dark Apostle will kill 7 bikers on the charge.  Stay away from a Daemon Prince with Fleshbane.  Vindicators are useless once they get immobilized.

GAME 2 VS: CHARLES, CRIMSON FISTS

Charles has a really nicely painted crimson fists army in the form of a Gladius Strike Force, so you know generally what was in it.  He upgraded one unit of Devastators to Centurions with 2 Grav-cannons and a Lascannon and his Assault quads to Speeders.  Rounding it off he had a Command squad on bikes to go with his tooled up Captain.  He had a bunch of Razorbacks, a couple Rhinos, and a Melta-gun unit in a drop pod.  The deployment was Hammer and Anvil, which helped him a lot as I have very little shooting to start the game.  My Prince went streaking up my left side where he summoned a unit of Khorn dogs and ripped up a handful of units including the Centurions before being dragged down by weight of fire.  His Command squad and Captain went streaking up his left side where he smashed into Typhus and 20 zombie cultists and eventually died.  Charles managed to sneak away with a win by smashing through a wall with his Flat Out move to get a Rhino within 3” of the Relic.  We drew the Maelstrom, but this was one of the instances I mentioned before.  I had scored “kill 3 units get 3 points” on the last turn which would have put me ahead, and I believe I had more tertiary points which would have won me the game.  Regardless, Charles is a great guy and I really enjoy playing him.

Deployment, before anything exciting happens.

Lessons learned:  Make sure you kill that one objective secured Rhino within 18”  of the relic even if you do have 3 units surrounding it.  Stay away from a Daemon Prince that causes Instant Death.  Typhus is a beast against anything that isn’t S10 or AV13(foreshadowing).

GAME 3 VS: MIKE, DARK ELDAR/ELDAR

Mike had a CAD of Dark Eldar and an Aspect host.  2 Ravagers, a unit of Talos, Dark Reapers in a Raider, 2 units of Fire Dragons (one of which was in a Raider with an Archon with WWP) and a handful of Venoms with warriors.  He also had a Void Shield Generator.  My tactic, I think, was sound in that I get all my fliers as close as possible and start dropping templates on the transports killing the guys inside.  It fell apart when all my shit got shot down.  I moved my Prince into fly mode for the first time that day and moved up to get a Stream of Corruption off on all of the Talos and the Raider with Reapers.  I wounded the Talos and killed 2 of the Reapers.  Mike then shot the Prince out of the sky and killed him with the Talos’s Hammer of Wrath hits.  When he said he was goind to charge me I was ecstatic because I had the Instand Death sword for my gift.  My fliers came in piecemeal and got shot down by Dark Reapers and Fire Dragons.  In the end I lost it all in a sound thrashing.

Got stuck on that hill for too long

Lessons learned:  The Blight Drones rely on Jink to stay alive, Dark Reapers ignore Jink.  Venoms don’t give a fuck if you’re artillery, they will kill you all the same.  Give your Prince armour.  Models that can't run or shoot are useless for too long.

GAME 4 VS: BYRON, TAU

I have never played Byron before, but I have chatted with him and seen him around at other events.  Byron is a nice guy.  He is very relaxed and typically plays themed games in a very easy going environment, which is why it surprised me when he showed up with some Tau shenanigans that blew my mind.  He had a huge unit of Crisis suits with Shadowsun and every USR in the book.  The Ghostkeel and Stealth suit formation where they can shoot at the rear armour of a vehicle.  Finally he had the Riptide formation.  The only thing that gave me a snowballs chance in hell was that Byron’s 2 Riptides with Ion cannons rolled 1 on it’s “Get’s Hot” check at least 4 times.  I also managed to sneak in a long charge that got significantly shorter when a couple Cultists regenerated closer to some Stealth suits turning a 10” charge into a 7”.  In the end it came down to 2 things, I couldn’t kill one more Drone to pull the Ghostkeel off of an objective, and because we don’t score Maelstrom points in the last turn, I couldn’t count the Kill 3 units score I racked up.  The game ended in a DRAW!  Straight up 50/50 split.

Lessons learned:  Tau get lots of really good formations and can shoot and kill anything, anywhere, any time.  Their Jet-pack move makes them really hard to get into close combat with.  Give your Daemon Prince armour.

GAME 5 VS: ALEX, RAVENWING

I’ve played Alex a couple times before.  Once was at a Astronomicon where our Orks battled it out.  Another time was at a Tuesday night battle night where we used the same armies, with slight variations to the lists.  This time did not go so well for me.  Alex started the turn off by Deep Striking 4 Drop Pods and his Stormraven right in my face and unleashing absolute bloody murder upon my army.  The first shot of the game was a Multi-melta that exploded my Predator and killed a dozen cultists and 3 of his own space marines.  The rest of his shooting was just a devastating.  My return damage was just a hellacious as Typhus, the Culists, and Daemon Prince reaped a bloody toll.  The turning point was when Typhus and my Warlord, each in the unit of Cultists, were assault by a dreadnought each.  I couldn’t kill the damn things and they just slowly killed the Cultist unit who couldn’t grow back faster than the Dread could kill them.  Eventually I was desperate enough to throw my Prince into one of the combats hoping to do a couple hull points.  Alex split the Dreads attacks and killed both the Prince and my Warlord.  The game ended and I had a single Blight Drone left.  Unfortunately I didn't get any pics of this battle.

Lessons learned:  Bubble wrap better.  I had 40 cultists, Alex should not have been able to get within 12” of my Predator.  Warp time on a Daemon Prince is scary.

All in all, I had a great time and absolutely look forward to next year, and more of the events the POW guys run.  I managed to come in 25th overall, 8th in painting, and 34th in battle points.  I was really hoping to break the top 50% but I guess my game play just wasn't up to snuff.  Hopefully with all the Chaos rumours out and about I will get a bit of a boost next year.

Head on over to the POW Facebook page for more pics of the event and the armies and results.  https://www.facebook.com/plainsofwar/

Until next time, keep them dice rollin.