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| The tribe moves in! |
Hello friendly people
of our niche corner of the internet! Actually, it never ceases to
amaze me just how lovely Dropzoners are... I've digressed already:
Hello once more!
This post will begin
with two apologies. The first is due to the length of time this post
has taken to get up. Invasion was exhausting on body, mind and soul, and then
lumping near 50 hour weeks on top has taken a monumental chunk out of
my able-minded time. I have however found a moment of clarity, so
quit your whining!
Invasion was a straight
up hoot (and that's not a word I use lightly). Getting to play the
game I love all weekend, while chilling with the bros and hanging
with Team Hawk never gets old! I returned with my Shaltari once more
(click here to see my list), and was incredibly happy to retain my
title. This leads me onto my second apology. I had stated
the intention to bring Scourge this time around; well, have you ever seen the one
about the couple whose bank account comes under a sustained assault
from a giant food and dress shaped monster? It's called the Wedding.
Don't worry, I'll be one of the 50% with a happy ending. The Circus
Of Legs will be arriving in Invasion 2015, promise! Hell, I've
promised Hawk Dave and I got one of those “Really? 24 Prowlers? Is
that really necessary?” looks, and it'd be a shame to not get the
follow up “That mad bastard actually did it!” face.
This post will not be a
series of battle reports. I don't enjoy writing or reading them to be
honest (I always lose momentum halfway through), so rather I will be
giving a synopsis on the game, doing my best to remember the lists I
played, and giving my opinions on them.
The following lists are from memory, so if I have something wrong let me know!
Game 1: Military
Complex - Shaltari - 9-11 Loss
This was a weird one. I
was tired from the week of work, and achey from the previous nights footy, and then presented
with an army not to dissimilar to mine. When I say that, I mean it
was a Shaltari list with about 200 points of different units, and it
was also bright yellow. The table was so bright, looking at it was like staring into the sun!
This was the one game I
lost on the weekend. I won't be blaming this on the dice, but rather
my mind. When I first arrived I thought it was my body that was failing me (I hadn't played
five a side for the best part of a year), but it turned out to be my
brain too. I made mistakes with gate deployment in turn two which
cost me the ability to port Braves all over the board. On top of
this, one squad of Braves lined the walls and were promptly shot at
and wiped out (I'm still not sure if he rolled above average, the
maths is beyond me), letting my adversary become the occupier. All in
all it was a little frustrating, but a result that I will learn from
(“Why do we fall Bruce...”).
The army was similar to
mine as mentioned. The trade was the Firstborns, Yari's and two extra Tarantulas for a Dreamsnare and three Tomahawks. His heavy walkers
made a solid fist which was hard to penetrate, but by picking off the
softer peripheral units I was able to make sure I had more kill
points than him (kill points earn the victor more tourney points in
the Hawk tourney pack). I liked the army, as it had a bit more too it
than most which pack a Dreamsnare, but I still think the Snare is
restricting. It tempts you to clump units in one area which limits your width, which although didn't have a big affect in this game will
in others.
Game 2: Ground Control
- UCM - 17-3 Win
Ground Control is a
mission that I had not practised, but was against an opponent who I
have shared many a happy hour bludgeoning, and being bludgeoned by on
a Blood Bowl pitch. My good friend Folly is fairly new to the game,
and is the most aggressive UCM player I have played against! The
mission was to completely control a quarter, and it wasn't until the
last turn of the game that we both realised that you could not
contest them like a normal focal point. As such, Folly (very
cleverly) saturated my quarter with redundant dropships, forcing me
to expend my AA on them. I played a bit of a waiting game, and got
myself into a position to outflank him on turn 3. The game got brutal
quickly; my Firedrake blew most of a Sabre squad to pieces before
being ripped up by Rapiers, his Praetorians were incinerated in their
Raven, and one of my Jags met a nasty end to a couple of Gladius.
Come the end of the game and working out the scores, I was re-reading
the mission and had to clarify with a ref that you could not contest
quarters. This shifted a 13-7 win to a 14-6 for me (I owned three
quarters to his two), and with KP's added on it came out to a 17-3.
Possibly not what the game reflected, but once I had taken out his
Longbows I had free reign of the board.
This was another army I
liked. It had all the trademark UCM features; robust tanks, good AA
spread, and plentiful troops, but it also had four Longbows which I
think are an excellent addition to any UCM army. When I eventually
get around to playing the Uckem (they will be last, as they interest me
the least, but one day I am sure I will get down with the Humans!) I will absolutely be taking
four Longbows. The only thing that let Folly down was
his lack of experience in the game. There is always the chance that
you will meet someone who knows their army a little better than yours
in a toruney, and this just happened to be the case in this game.
Game 3: Take and
Extract - UCM - 20-0 Win
You know those games
where you do everything right, and then feel like you are taking
advantage of your opponent? This was one of those. Before the the
game had started my opponent had let me know that he hadn't really
played many games, he was using Dave's army deal, and that he wasn't
sure how he was in the upper mid-tables. I told him not to
think that way (sincerely of course), before the coffees consumed
during game 2 kicked in and I completed the transformation into
MEGA-BASTARD (Destroyer Of Dreams and Jenga Towers) by kicking him
all over the table. The first turn I set my Spirits up to storm one
of the buildings on his board edge, hoping for him to not find the
objective and not get his Archangels on. Luck went my way and neither happened, and my
Firstborns and Braves tore apart his Praetorians the following turn.
He positioned a Condor laden with two Gladius a bit in the open,
which was shot down by my Jags, destroying both heavy tanks. To add
insult to injury, I blew up a Bear in the open which was set to ferry a squad of Legionnaires of the board once the objective once found. The following turns
were the motion of turning the knife, and I ended up with 6 VP's to
his 0 (I happened to get hold of both his objectives, and failed to
find an objective in my medium sized building, rolling with two
squads on 2+ on the final turn. Snake eyes. It, luckily, didn't
matter in the end).
Not much to talk about
army-wise, it was Dave's army deal. Although not awful, it certainly
doesn't give you an optimised list. Investment in 2 more Ravens, and
maybe some Katanas would be a welcome addition.
This was the end of the
day, and I felt wrecked. It's what seven and a half hours of gaming
will do to you. By the time I got home from a comedy gig that night
(Jason Manford for a tenner; Cashback!) the world was spinning!
Game 4: Recon -
Shaltari - 16-4 Win
I was a bubbly glass of
refreshed on Sunday morning! A lovely sleep had done me the world of good. On the way to the town in which every
ugly person in London goes to die (seriously, walking the streets of
Croydon is like being in a zombie apocalypse), we were exchanging in low-brow mirrored floor banter (don't ask) and
were having a jolly good time. Until I saw the mission. Bloody Wanky
Recon. I have issues with this mission, and this game highlighted
most of them. Hawk have written a very good tournament pack with a
plethora, nay, a smorgasbord of missions to choose from, and they
pick the stinky cheese no-one really wants. As a stand alone
friends-and-beer mission it's a laugh. At a tournament where geek
pride is on the line, not so much. It is a mission where two or three
rolls of a six or a one will win or lose a game.
Out
of a possible eleven buildings on the board, six were booby trapped. My
poor opponent rolled four (yes, four!) and I rolled two. He levelled
the seventh building before I got to roll a dice for it, and all buildings on my board-half were A-ok. On looking at the armies, this is a mission that I should have (had
I been playing with my head attached) won easily. Quite simply I out
sped and manoeuvred his army in every way, but because he rolled ones
I wasn't able to get into his buildings and search for more intel.
In my four I found one
objective and three pieces of intel, and due to a mistake in troop
gating allowed my adversary to shenanigan into my buildings and claim
two intel points. Would could have been an interesting game was
somewhat out shadowed by appalling luck. Yes, six rolls of a one out
of eleven is outrageous odds, but this proves it happens, and it was
on table two meaning two gamers with a good chance of winning the
tourney could have been punished through no fault of their own.
On to the army. Oh yes,
the army. This was the meatiest, beastly army I had ever played in
Dropzone. He had brought eight warstriders. Yes, EIGHT. You try
killing a Coyote, a Dreamsnare, two Ocelots and four Jaguars. You
simply can't! I got one Jag, but the rest were bubbled so tightly I
couldn't risk go near them. After the tourney he told me that the
most points he had lost in one game was just over 600 (to Edchopp's
UCM I will add), which is basically nothing. The blew the
grav-vanes of boys! Having said this, he only had three units of
Braves, one Spirit and two Havens. This is why I knew I fared a
better chance than him. I used my Firstborns to engage and destroy a
Braves unit, and the other squads simply didn't have the means
to jet about quickly. You will beat 70% of opponents with his list,
but the experienced 30% will simply ignore the Strider bubble and get
on with the mission.
I will note that
despite rolling four booby traps, he stayed in good mirth, and that
in itself earned a sportsman award. I would have been throwing my
toys out of the pram!
Game 5: Secure The
Flanks – Scourge - 10-10 Draw
The grudge match was
on. Mega Mike and myself, last game, table one again, I was leading
the tourney by a meagre five points. I knew that this was going to
be a toughy! Mike was using Scourge, and has shown that through a calculated mix of cunning and sheer aggressiveness you can play competitively with
Scourge. This was immediately apparent when his army massed to my
right flank, and I lost both Jaguars by turn 4 to Prowlers... His
Minders provided an AA bubble around the middle building, but I was
lucky enough to play an Underground Monorail between my building and
the central one. We had a CQB running consistently from turn 2 in this building! By
the end of turn three I had thought the game was beyond me, and started to turn my thoughts to damage
control, but with a few cheeky manoeuvres managed to pull myself back
to a draw. In the end had I moved a single Eden in the opposite
direction in turn five, I would have won the game! In the end though
I think a draw was a fair result, and it was the hardest and most
enjoyable game I played all weekend (no slight to my other opponents
of course).
MM's army is a bit a
beast when it gets into motion, and I was lucky enough to bring down
his two Reavers almost immediately. He has a very good knack of
knowing where to place his units to be the biggest nuisance,
especially the Destroyers, and with the speed in which he can deploy
it often happens before his opponent gets a chance to react.
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| Tensions were high and faces were silly |
As the game drew to an
end, and word of tough, even battles all along the top four tables
spread I realised that I had lucked out a little and managed to
clinch the event by a slim 2 points. Had MM won the game by one
point, resulting in an 11-9, Edchopp would have won on kill points
(only one of two people to beat me on them I might add!).
I had a great weekend
and would like to thank each of my opponents for excellent games. You
really couldn't ask for a better group. Roll on Invasion 2015; hope
to see you there!
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