Tournament report - Caledonian Uprising

Hullo

At the weekend I attended Cally Uprising, an event used as both a fundraiser and a selection event for the Scottish ETC team. This was only my 2nd proper competitive event - I have played at numerous Throne of Skulls events though and smaller tournaments - after the GT Heat 3 at Warrington in October where I used my Salamanders and managed to scrape into the finals .

For the weekend, I thought it unlikely that I would finish in the top four Scots (there were 86+ players there, but about near 20 Scots) and therefore automatically qualify, as I know many of the previous ETC team members and they are damn good players and were running Daemon or Necron spam lists but I wanted to give a good account of myself and enjoy it. And for the overwhelming majority of it, I did. Helped I only drunk beer solid for 3 days though.

So my list was:

Archon, power spear, venom blade, soul trap, combat drugs, ghostplate, shadowfield
Farseer, spear, doom, fortune, both runes

5 warriors blaster, venom x2 SC, NS
5 warriors blaster, venom x2 SC, NS
5 warriors blaster, venom x2 SC, NS
5 warriors blaster, venom x2 SC, NS
5 warriors, venom x2 SC, NS
3 guardian jetbikes

8 Eldar Harlies, Death Jester, Shadowseer, 6 kisses

Nightwing

Warp Hunter

Dark lance ravager, NS
Dark lance ravager, NS
Disintegrator ravager, NS

1st game

FIrst up I'm supposed to be playing mechanised space marines, but my opponent didn't show (was bad snow for the whole weekend) so I played the stand in guy, who was really cool. Sisters/guard

Was the Scouring with Vanguard deployment.

Celestine
CCS with lascannon, astropath and some other guff

8 or 9 seraphim with some hand flamers
30 man blob squad with jacobus

3 units of sisters, meltas and flamers galore
unit of HB retributors
Stormtroopers
Vendetta,
Griffin
Exorcist
Wall with quad gun

probably forgot a thing or two but that was roughly it
Pregame stuff and I'm going first and its night fighting. I think my opponent has actually a nice, comped list and therefore with NF I'm feeling pretty confident

Opponent rolls a 6 and steals

As I had set up like an idiot expecting to smash him with me going first, it goes downhill badly, as badly as only DE players who get siezed on can really know - other players don't appreciate how fast a DE army can die.

So Griffin - which I had targetted to be my first blood til he steals - rolls forward and pummels a DL ravager to paste. As it had actually targetted a Venom as its primary target it searchlights the Venom and the quad gun smashes that too. one or two other tanks get damaged but the details escape me. Celestine + girls fly towards me and thats about it.
My turn, and I try to doom celestine and the seraphim and they deny the witch!! Warp Hunter fires barrage at them, and scatters 8" and misses. Remaining DL ravager shoots the Griffin, penetrates, weapon destroys, randomize and... I blow off the heavy bolter instead of the big gun.. I kill most of the retributors and some of the blob squad with Venoms as I think I can ignore Celestine and crew for another turn.

His turn 2 and the vendetta and storm troopers arrive - ST's deep strike behind my warp hunter and doesn't scatter. Vendetta hurtles on and its obvious its going for my remaining DL ravager. Celestine and her ladies fly closer to me, but obscured from a lot of my army behind a big ruin. Shooting and his stormtroopers destroy the Warp rift cannon of the warp hunter... Vendetta blows a DL from the ravager and stuns it too. Autocannon from blob squad nails another Venom.
My turn 2 - no Nightwing. Celestine denies Doom again!!!! Guardian Jetbikes arrive though - as my opponent and I were laughing at my poor rolling by this point I actually shout 'Leeeroooy!' as they zoom on as a joke, then they get intercepted by quad gun and I fail 3 out of 4 3+ saves and they all die
I move harlies/farseer/archon towards the Seraphim/Celestine unit ready for an assault - I know this is fail before anyone tells me this but it was going that badly. Shooting doesn't really do much - I wittle the ST's down to only two, and the DE warriors who piled out of the wrecked venom move to assualt them to try and pick up a FNP token and hide on the nearby 4VP objective. Harlies roll to assault the Seraphim - I need a 6/7 to get a decent amount of them in - Farseer tanks a load of flamer wounds with Fortune, and I roll a 5. Reroll, and I roll a 5 again - this means only the Death Jester and the Farseer are going to be in, even after the 3 inch consolidation. So I declare a challenge with the DJ, to try and take Celestine away from doing a lot of damage. She hits the DJ 5 or 6 times and I think his goose is cooked, but he passes all his saves with fortune. Farseer wiffs on the squad and they wiff on him - the seraphim Hit and Run towards my remaining Venoms grr. In the combat of fail, 5 DE warriors - thats 10 attacks hitting on 3's and wounding on 4's - wiff on the 2 remaining stormtrooper guardsmen, one dies in return and they get run down wtf. ST's consolidate to move behind the Disintegrator Ravager, and one of them has a meltagun.

His turn 3, and the ST's move closer so as to not be out of melta range re NS's. Vendetta moves to shoot a venom, and Celestine and girls move so they can assault 2 more venoms. Disintegrator ravager and two venoms are subsequently destroyed through shooting and assault.
My turn 3 - NO NIGHTWING!! And I am not kidding - Celestine the arch troller denies Doom once more ! Though highlight of this turn was that a warrior one-shotted and exploded the Vendetta with his blaster. Harlies move to assault Seraphim again, but its the Archon at the front, and he fails his 1st shadowfield save. I kill some seraphim but then he tanks wounds onto Celestine and they are fearless, and hit and run away from me again.

His turn 4, and he is really mopping up here. We are both laughing at my poor luck (or some might call it poor decisions!!) and he was a good sport. I concede as I can't be bothered to watch him table my remaining helpless forces and I can't really claim any secondaries by this point, and on top of that as he's the stand in it doesn't really matter re scoring. So a 20-0 loss

I don't really believe in blaming the dice btw - in my opinion luck is the residue of design and if you constantly blame dice then you need to look at your tactics/armies. However I think I can put this one down to just one of those games. Had a great laugh though and even though it was my worst result of the weekend it was far from my least enjoyable game.

Will put another one up later tonight

lol this list looks kinda familiar... I dont know why though

sad to see it do so badly though, but we all have those games. When it seems like nothing you can do can change . Dont worry, they happen to the best of us, and all you can do is keep on playing and enjoying the game for what it is.

Game 2 - Since there was only 5 games and there are 6 generic missions, the TO's rolled the Relic and the Emperor's will into the one game, which I was a good idea. Deployment was

So since I got hammered in my first game, I was very low down the tables. Was playing against a friendly guy playing Vanilla Marines, his list was like this

LIbrarian, Null Zone & Gate
5 Terminators with an assault cannon

Stormtalon with assault cannon, typhoon
Stormtalon with assault cannon, typhoon

10 x tactical marines with plasma cannon, plasma gun, plasma pistol on sarge.
x 6

Ok, so 66 marines!

Pregame stuff, and my Archon rolls scoring for his warlord trait, and reroll wounds for his combat drugs. My opponent wins the roll and makes me go first. Nightfighting first turn. The relic is right in the middle of the board amidst a trench formation. My opponent's objective is behind a wall in his DZ, whilst mine is in the open (as he had placed it but then we had swapped sides before deployment)

1st turn, and the Harlies with archon+farseer move forward, then run into the trench formation. Ravagers + venoms make sure they are going to be out of PC range with their Nightshields in his turn, and along with the warp hunter they open up on the marines. Warp hunter kills 6 or 7, and the rest of the tanks kill a lot of marines.
His turn 1, he attempts Gate with the Librarian with the terminator squad, but both perils and fails. Otherwise, he either runs forward with marines or else shoots at the Harlies. Despite his heroics last game of fighting Celestine in a challenge and survivng on top of passing loads of 5+ saves, the Death Jester fails his first re-rollable 2+ save and dies. Think thats all I loose though.

My turn 2, and my Nightwing doesn't show but GJB's do. Harlies move forward and the Archon picks up the Reilc. Venoms and Ravagers once again make sure they are out of plasma cannon range and pummel more marines. I think by the end of this round the Terminators have only one guy left and the Librarian, and I've killed more than 20+ marines. GJB's boost into my opponent's DZ on the far left out of LOS from the main field of play.
His turn 2, a Stormtalon arrives and makes straight for the warp hunter which is fair enough as it is trolling his army badly. some of the further away tactical marines shoot at the harlequins and kill 3 of them, whilst the closer ones make for an assault. Shooting, and the Stormtalon scores 2 penetrating hits on the warp hunter, I save one with its 5+ jink and the 2nd.. only shakes it. Assault, and one full tac squad and a mauled ragged one assault the Harlies. Farseer tanks a load of wounds with his 4+ rerollable whilst taking 1 wound, Archon kills the full tac squads sarge in a challenge and the harlies kill a couple. I hit and run from them, and the marines consolidate.
My turn 3, Nightwing makes its 1st appearance this tournie!! Doom the larger tactical squad that the Harlies fought the last turn, and venoms and ravagers take up positions to really start turning the screw on the marines. Shooting, and the Nightwing scores its 1st ever air to air kill by downing the Stormtalon. Shooting kills a lot more marines, including the Librarian for Warlord and the last Terminator. Assault, and Harlies wipe out the doomed tactical squad.

His turn 3, and a tactical sarge thats already fought the harlies twice rallies and gets ready for the 3rd round! 2nd Stormtalon arrives and makes a beeline for the Nightwing. Few remaining scattered marines converge on the harlies. Shooting, and stormtalon fires at Nightwing, which does its OP 2+ jink and takes no damage. Other shooting whittles down the harlies more and farseer takes another wound. crazy sarge assaults again and a couple more marines charge in. Archon faces down mad tac sarge in a challenge.. and fails to do him in. remaining 2 harlies and fareer kill off other marines, and I hit and run away.

My turn 4 and he's tabled.

Horrible match up for my opponent I reckon, with a poor decision to let me go 1st in there. With NS on my vehicles he couldn't reach me. But his army was an all Dark Angels themed force with all plasma so kudos to the guy for the nutz to take an army like that to a competitive event.

So I've erased my 20-0 from the 1st round

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Game 3 - Daemons

Mission: Purge the Alien. Set up - Hammer & Anvil

Opponent's List

A nurgle herald
9 screamers
9 screamers
9 screamers

9 flamers
9 flamers
9 flamers

5 plaguebearers
5 plaguebearers
5 plaguebearers with icon
5 plaguebearers

So a luck in with no Kairos, but the most screamers and flamers I've ever seen on the board

Will finish this later