Report from Astronomi-con Vancouver 2011

I pretty much suck at detailed battle reports, so this is more of a summation of my weekend.

Along with SirTainly, I played in the Astronomi-con tournament here in Vancouver last weekend. There were 36 players, perhaps half local and the rest from the Interior of BC and Vancouver Island, Calgary and Winnipeg, Washington state and Idaho. It is an extremely well-run affair with very creative scenarios (some of which are on their website, all of which are available on CD), and it is always very popular.

If any of you ever get a chance to play in an Astronomi-con tournie, currently in Winnipeg, Vancouver, Toronto and Dallas each year, do it!

We played 1500 pts, and here is my list. I basically play whatever I feel like, I’m not too worried about maximum optimisation. I wanted to have a cheap HQ and decided to go with two Succubi to complement my Wyche squads in CC. The rest of the list I tried to balance between anti-armour and anti-personnel, with enough of a mix of different units that my opponents might not focus on one thing for too long. I also just wanted to keep it reasonable – nothing remotely cheesy, no big points sink, etc.

The other issue I had in mind is that it doesn’t matter what you might plan for your potential opponents, the Astro scenarios will then go and completely interrupt your best-laid intentions.

HQ
1 Succubus with Hydra Gauntlets
1 Succubus with two Venom Blades (yes, two. I have already had comments about that)

Both Succubi rode with a Wyche squad.

Elite
2 squads of 3 Trueborn, with 2 Blasters and 1 Splinter Cannon each
Each squad in a Venom with an extra Splinter Cannon and Nightshields

Troops
2 squads of 5 vanilla Warriors, each in a Raider with a Dissie and Flickerfields

2 squads of 5 Wyches with 1 Hydra Gauntlet, each in a Raider with a Dissie and Flickerfields

Fast Attack
2 squads of Scourges with 2 Haywire Blasters each

Heavy Support
1 Ravager with 3 Dark Lances

1 Razorwing with Splinter Cannon, Dissies, 2 Monoscythe and 2 Shatterfield missiles, and Nightshields and Flickerfields

In summary, I played Space Wolves twice, True Kin once, Orks, Grey Knights and Chaos Daemons, and while I only won one game overall, they were all close and I honestly did not have huge problems with any of them. I was able to hold my own in CC and at least match all of my opponents in shooting.

As I have said elsewhere, the Razorwing was solid gold all weekend, very durable (or lucky) and a very flexible gunship. I like the Dissies on the Raiders better than the DL’s for the greater volume of shots, and they are just as good against light armour. Nightshields were a waste of points given our scenarios. And my warrior squads were slightly too small to rely on for staying power, but they weren’t horrible, either.

I was incredibly lucky in that I rolled to go first 4 or 5 times out of the 6 games, and I kept the initiative every time. Phew!

Each game was 10-7-3 points for W-T-L, plus 3 potential single bonus points for certain conditions, and 3 potential minus points for other conditions (agony of defeat). So, maximum 13 points for a win, and 0 for a loss. I believe that I ended up with 36 points out of a possible 78, the winner of the Best General had 66.

Saturday
Game 1 (4 points)
Breakthrough, with Blitzkrieg. Victory points for units destroyed AND for crossing the enemy’s deployment zone and exiting off the opposite table edge. Versus the Space Wolves of the eventual winner of Best General for the weekend.

I started out with several vehicles in a big clump of trees on one side and we danced around for two turns trying to decide whether or not to stay and fight or run for easy points. He lit up several of my vehicles with rocket launchers (in the trees on the right of the photo), which left my squads to cross the table on foot. He used the absolute maximum distance for unit cohesion all the time, which negated the Razorwing’s missiles, but the Splinter Cannons didn’t mind.

Ultimately, he dropped two drop pods near my edge which each killed something before their contents reached my edge. I got the Razorwing and a Venom with TB off easily, plus a Raider and a foot squad eventually. I almost tied down a couple of his large squads with my warriors in CC long enough to keep them on the table, another had drop-podded into the trees in the left of the photo, but he killed them and got off on the last turn and had enough points to beat me score-wise. Possibly the biggest defeat that I had all weekend.




"Bring it on, mon-keigh!"

Game 2 (4 points)
Err Supply against Grey Knights. This was capture and carry the most number of randomly-located supply crates in a dense urban terrain setting, where the terrain in and around all of the buildings was dangerous and you were left with narrow, diagonal streets across the whole table.

I was Deep striking my Razorwing and Scourges all weekend, which I shouldn’t have here, but it turned out OK. We both rushed forward and captured three crates and then started to retreat with our treasure to a safe place, whilst harrying the opposition and trying to get them to drop their load. He had an assassin sniper and a twin-autocannon dread set up on the roof of a three-storey building at the far end of the table, and they whittled down my squads from long range until my too-small Warriors did drop one of their loads in the fourth turn.

One of my Venoms was able to pick off a terminator or two most turns. He eventually split off his HQ to deal with this annoyance, but I just flew over his head out of range again and shot a couple more termies in the butt. My Dissies didn’t have their lucky dice working against the Razorbacks transporting his loot, and I just could not quite finish off that damned Dreadknight, so it was able to harass me all game and cause me to drop and then pick up and drop again another crate.



Game 3 (2 points)
Orks, lots of them. Another supply crate scenario (ammo piles) where three of them are parachuted onto a hill in the centre (which we considered open terrain) after Turn 1, and then they are scattered. You have to control them as objectives. We lost one off the edge of the table, while the other two ended up on top of each other on one of the hill’s side slopes (not visible in the photo).

Deployment was diagonally-opposed quarters, so we both pushed up to the base of the hill and then swarmed over and around it on turn 1 and shot the crap out of each other for a couple of turns. He had large squads of 20 boyz and a Mek with a KFF, so even with massed splinter weaponry I had a hard time making significant inroads against any squad. He also had 3 Kans and a Dread that refused to die, and were able to tie up one complete side of the hill for most of the game.

I tried to blow up his trukks, particularly the one with his Warboss and Nobz in it, to no avail, and they swept aside one Wyche squad and Succubus with impunity at the base of the hill, before edging up the slope to the crates and getting into CC with the other Succubi and Wyches. These held fast and contested the objectives for a couple of turns before expiring. We went to Turn 6 and I still had plenty to shoot him off the hill, but I would have needed another turn to get back on the objectives myself, so I conceded.

My closest fought game yet, but my worst points-wise because I lost points (the agony of defeat) for a couple of reasons, no HQ left and no scoring troops left, I think.



Sunday
Game 4 (a win, 11 points, Yay!)
Chaos Daemons in the Truck Convoy scenario. There are six soft-top supply trucks in the centre of the table, with a supply crate in the back. You have to grab and control the crates, but first you have to wreck (and not destroy) the trucks so that you can get rid of the crew and grab the crates. Meanwhile, the trucks individually scatter 3D6 randomly at the top of each turn, and they shoot heavy stubbers at the nearest unit if they move less than 6 inches.

I ended up with two crates to his none because I almost tabled him and he conceded. I had played Daemons two weeks ago where I found that I could easily rough them up shooting and my Succubi could handle his monstrous creatures fairly well. So, I knew full well what I was capable of doing, and I did it again. Two Bloodthirsters and a Prince were softened up by sustained long-range fire over three turns before succumbing to close-in shooting and Succubi/Wyches in CC.

That then left me free to Splinter Cannon his troops into oblivion and get them off the trucks that they had possession of (they had allsomehow migrated to his side of the table). At the same time I scooped up canisters from two trucks that my Razorwing had earlier sniped. He only had a squad of Flamers left, completely out of range, so that was it.

[no photos]

Game 5 (9 points)
Vs. SirTainly’s True Kin in Lost in the Mist. Shooting was limited to 12 inches for all weapons unless you rolled a 5+. Only one FA slot and another of your choice could deploy to begin with, everything else was in Reserve or DS’ed. Advanced reserves could start coming on with Turn 1.
We each brought on units as fast as we could, but it was obviously very haphazard, and tried to shoot each other’s vehicles with our own while our troops ran forward to retrieve and hold onto as many supply containers as possible. It was quite a wide open shooting-fest.
As you can see from the smoke plumes in the photo, I had better luck taking out his vehicles and did so from an early stage, so they did not interfere with my container handling very much later on. The Razorwing lost some effectiveness due to the range limitation, which also meant it’s missiles could not use their BS modifier  Sliscus and his squad benefited hugely from that.
Simon conga-lined between two supply containers at the end and held on despite my unloading the sexy jet fighter, a Raider and my Ravvie at that squad. We essentially drew and then I gained a couple of the bonus points for that scenario.


SirTainly’s force is the purple units and they came on from the right side of the photo.

Game 6 (6 points)
Space Wolves in Midnight Patrol (nightfighting the entire game). Initial deployment was one troop squad only, sans transport, with everything else in reserve or DS’ing, using Advance Reserves again.
This was against a local player that I had never actually played one-on-one, but he’s often at my club and other local tournies, and is a big-time tournament player. I was still a bit intimidated, but because it was Game 6 I had lost a lot of my lack of confidence and relaxed and had a reasonably good game.
Again it was mostly a shooting affair at range, with one CC going on between his lord and one of my Succubi, and their respective retinues. Mine broke after two turns of the CC and ran near the edge and was counted as destroyed at the end, which cost me a point.
My Ravvie took out his Land Raider at the top of Turn 3, which let me breathe a huge sigh of relief. My Scourges DS’ed in close to his Predator but didn’t scratch the paint on it. Like a couple of other opponents, he then focused on wiping them out since he saw them as quite a threat. Whereas I have come to view them as almost a throwaway unit since they never live more than 3 turns it seems. They don’t seem to do much damage, I think that Scourge squads significantly bigger than 5 are necessary.
My Razorwing was stunned into inaction for three turns before coming alive and wiping out an entire squad of his, the lone survivor running of the table edge in fright. The amount of fire, it’s variety and strength, that I unloaded from it surprised him. It then died in the last turn.
We tied on victory points.


My Razorwing is finally shot down, the only time all weekend, and only at the very end after having blown a full squad of Grey Hunters away in one turn.

Cheers.

Nice writeup, I'll add mine a bit later, but alas I have no photos.

Great bat. reps! I'm a Winnipegger myself and I've only missed 2 Astros here since they started. It's truly a great event to go to.

Not surprising that your only win was vs Chaos Daemons, they have a very hard time vs DE.

Looks like you still had fun, I'm getting my DE ready for the next astro here. I hope I can finish in time!

Corb

That looked very fun - though that hill map is representative of my issue with most large tourneys. There's always that one sad-sack table you get stuck on that's like a flippin' desert.

At least you were fighting Orks on it - I would have been fighting gunline IG

Mech IG was the one army I beat...

Write ups still not finished - have been ill

Now I'm really curious to see the writeups from you - I demand them! Sickness be damned! (but, seriously, stay rested and liquified, I can wait...sorta)

I always do well versus Mech IG...usually it's a close game even with a loss. All colours of space marines whupp me though.

Results are up, http://www.mts.net/~xian/astronomi-con/websiteV2/2011/yvr/results.htm

I did way better than I figured going into my first Astro - thought I would get creamed a couple of times at least. Interestingly, the three DE players ranked next to each other overall - 21st (me), 23rd (SirTainly) and 24th (Alex Yuen.)

I was looking at the Astros from earlier this year and whereas both Vancouver and Winnipeg had three DE players each, out of 36 and 30 players respectively, Toronto had none out of their 51 entrants. Curious. The upcoming Foodhammer already has three out of the 18 registered so far playing DE, and that's with Alex and I not having officially declared yet.

West Coast phenom?

I'm pleased too, first Astro and I'm in the lower mid-field which is solid and has lots of room for improvement. From the breakdown looks like I got everything right - sportsmanship scores, painting and army list, I just need to win a bit more!

Here's my write up of my Astro battles. Sorry there are no photos, I was too busy playing to take them!
I have some of the armies I faced so I'll add them later if I remember.

My List was:

Duke Sliscus
7 Trueborn + Carbine
2 Trueborn + Cannon
Raider + FF

4 Trueborn + Blaster
Venom + SC

2 of the following Squad
7 Wyches
1 Wych + HG
1 Wych + S&I
1 Hekatrix + Agonizer
Raider + FF

2 of the following Squad
4 Warriors
1 Warrior + Blaster
Venom + SC

2 of the following
Ravager + FF + NS


Game 1 Trench Warfare (not sure on the proper name)


This was against a Nurgle CSM army, and the scenario and terrain were a huge benefit to my opponent. There were two parallel trenches running left to right in our deployment area, with "fingers" sticking out towards each other's deployment areas. The trenches gave a 3+ cover save and were only 2 figures wide. Also the area in between the trenches was called 'The Mire' and made any unit that took casualties take a moral check.

Opponents army was something like (I don't have the list with me)

2 Daemon Princes
3 Plague Marine Squads in Rhinos
3 Obliterators


I lost initiative and proceeded to have one Raider full of wyches not be able to move or shoot for a turn via premilinary bombardment. The enemy, with 2 squads having left their Rhinos advanced down finger trenches towards me with a Daemon prince each. The Oblits sat back on the end of one of my finger trench to provide fire support. My preliminary return fire wounded a DP and little else, so rushing my Raiders forward I pushed a wych squad into assault with a DP who was blocking the trench so I'd get 4 figures fighting him, and the plague marines behind him would be locked out. This wounded the DP but left him standing.

My Trueborn Venom and a Ravager dashed up the middle of the board and enaged his Oblits killing two, whilst on the right my Warriors' Venoms engaged the other squad of Plague marines and the other DP doing little due to FNP and the 3+ cover.

Next turn my engaged Wyches got assaulted in the flank by another squad of PMs dashing out of their Rhino, causing lots of wounds and destroying them. and on the right flank my other squad of Wyches, held back by the preliminary bombardment rushed forward to get the other PM squad and the DP but didn't quite make it. Luckily the Venoms managed to put enough hurt on his second DP to send it back to the warp. In the centre I wiped out the Oblits.

Turn 3 saw me losing my remaining Raider and Ravager on the left flank leaving me completely open there, whilst on the right the wyches delayed in turn one hoped onto the edge of the trench and shot up a plague marine squad with their pistols..amazingly these caused wound whereas all my venom shots did not (one venom had been detroyed so I was down on shots)! The PM squad was reduced to a single guy after the assault phase, and this guy just would not die, he was making saves like they were going out of style! On the left the PMs started to head towards my deployment zone as the victory conditions gave bonus points for ending in the opponents deployement zone.

Turn 4, we both start pulling away towards each others deployment zone, the wyches kill the last PM (massive overkill) and head back to their transport. My Ravager doubles back and pops a Rhino which had tried the same trick and failed to damaged my vehicles as the zoomed away.

Turn 5, we just finished moving into each other's zones, no combat was left to be done.

Game Over.

The scoring awarded the victory to the player with the most points in the other guy's deployment zone (it doubled the VPs for troops choices). Since 2 PM squads were in my zone I was outscored ( I had on 5 man warrior squad and 9 or 10 wyches).


What really hurt me here were the trenches, 3+ cover save for the PMs plus their FNP meant even lances weren't killing what they should have been. Also the design of them meant it was difficult to assault with Wyches and not be hit back by both a DP and a whole squad of PMs.


More soon!


PS Almost won again last night versus mech guard but got forced into a draw by some lucky shooting from the mon-kei on the last turn!

Game 2 was set in Indiana Jones/Tom Raider world.

We had 4 temples in the table quarters and an oasis in the centre. Each of the temples was a locked objective, so you had to stand troops on them and roll a dice each turn. On a 5-6 you unlocked the objective and it counted for your score and in addition gave you a cover save - you had unlocked the secret passages etc. On the roll of a 1 you lost a trooper. The oasis was a normal objective.

This mission used the reserve deployment method already mentioned, so I only had a couple of things on the table at the start of the game and gained more from turn on onwards.

Essentially I rushed most of my stuff up the middle to grab the oasis, but ended up in a grudgematch with 3 chimeras and 2 Leman Russes. I was damaging vehicles, and he seemed to just immobilise me before chosing another target, meaning I was able to keep firing the DL for most of the game. I can't remember the turns but early on I dropped 5 Warriors into the objective on my left and right while the guard player did the same for the 2 objecteives on his side of the table. I got lucky on one of the objectives early on, and thus took a lead, whilst the guard player didn't get one all game. He managed to outflank me with some penal legion troops and cleared me off the objective on my left, which I hadn't unlocked anyway, and despite throwing massive firepower at my troops on the unlocked objective couldn't kill them all. What swung the game for me was a cunning move by the Duke and his Trueborn who zoomed over the back of the objective on the guard player's left and instantly unlocked it (rolled well but an IC gives +1 to the search dice roll). Thus I had 2 objectives when the final turn rolled around.

In the centre a squad of wyches performed some heroics. There were popped out of their Raider next to the Oasis and were subjected to a ton of shooting leaving 2 of the girls left (1 hekatrix and and the Hydragauntlet operator). In their assault phase they hit an IG command squad who had jumped out of their Chimera to better shoot the Wyches and wiped them out, before consolidating back into cover!

This was my one win of the tournament, and I'm pleased it was against IG. Admittedly my opponent was not that experienced, but he had a pretty tough list which was similar to that run by one of the players at my LGS.