BBDave 2010 Arc Report, a new year, a new direction Options

[Bloodbrotherdave]

BBDave is still not a veteran...

As usual this “battle report” may or may not contain any actual truth. It is a jumbled recollection of a weekend that I look forward to with anticipation and dread. Mixed emotions at best.
This year was no different.
With plans in motion the Arc weekend was looking to be good. Friends coming in from near and far. Hosting duties covered more or less. Army completed to a good standard a few days before. All was in readiness. Had lunch with family and played some boardgames on Thursday. It was all going to plan. Helped out with a bit of painting with my friends army (which proved helpful as he got the same painting score as me, so all is good) and had the Geelong contigient turn up Friday nite for a few pre game drinks and bit of a chat (and finish off Josh’s army. A real team effort that one)
So with a few hours sleep less than requested, we get up and convoy over to Collingwood. Avoided the bridge and went via the city. It was an easy drive in and we got there on time and did the meet and greet whilst waiting for the line to die down and collect our rego.
I’m surprised that there actually was 200 players at arc 40k this year. That is massive. Big high five for WATT for getting that done.
Now things get off to a start (not much later than planned) and Mark rolls into the usual intro. All very cool. We have a Arnie theme this year. So all is good. I didn’t hear most of what was said. With about 150 people between me and front of stage, I couldn’t see or hear much. But im not that tall and a little deaf. So no real complaints. We get into a nice kill point game first up and I get to play one of the guys from Mt Gambier. Very nice guy had a blast.
For the more tacticly minded here is my list (and for Consto)

HQ – Cmd Squad. Power weapon, boltpistol. 2 Grenade launchers.
Elite – Sly Marbo (rogue trooper)
Troops –
Vet squad – Harker, 3 snipers, heavy bolter team
Vet squad – Demolitions, 3 plasmaguns, plasmapistol and PW
Vet Squad – Demolitions, 3 Meltaguns, PF, shotguns
Penal Squad.
Fast –
2 Valkyries in squadron. Both with rocket pod upgrades
1 Vendetta.
1 Vendetta.
Generally followed the same plan.
Harker and his squad infiltrated into cover, gave supporting fire and tried to be a target.
Everyone else mounted up in gunships and blew everything they can away, whilst the valk squadron (with both vet squads on board) closed in and got in range to decimate with melt/plasma/demo charges.
Im not going to say its a soft list. Ive played Dark Angels for the last 2 years and struggled to win games with a sub par army. But I don’t think this is the uber army of death. I never hit anyone in the first turn with scout move, disembark, demo charge you before you move trick. Its not much faster than my Ravenwing army, it does punch above its weight for damage output, but is a glass cannon to anyone with a bit of AT, or can engage the infantry after the disembark. But more on this later.

So Dan (Bam) with his Crimson fists with Kantor.
We had a nice little fight, got our painting judged during that as well.
End the game well infront. Killing all his stuff except for one rhino with a tac squad in it.
He killed Marbo. And 1 vet squad.
Probability of being pinged as unbalanced. High.
So we get some lunch and have a chat with some others. Everyone is happy and my girlfriend came in toward the end of the game so we have a wander around and look at the armys on display. Over all the level of the armies I thought was high. But maybe its just that after you have seen 200 armies its hard to pick any that really stand out (apart from Stu lasers to my eyes) there was so many good armies it was hard to pick. So i confess I went with armies I knew.
So off to another game.

Got one of the BadGaming crew, young Jack.
He has Orks. Usual stuff, wagons, battlewagon, shootas and some copters.
He is a bit pegged in the corner he had and I start to bring the pain. But hes a nice kid and is taking it fairly well, even though I have eliminated all his transports and ranged AT within a few turns. We get about half way through the game and Jack is starting to lose his happy. Its a bit of a shame but i try and keep him interested (and destract from the kicking he is receiving) and he mentions that he lost his first game. Thats odd, I think, but mistakes happen. Were well into the game at this point so we finish up not long afterwards and bring the point up with Mark. I leave it at that and I trust it was sorted. Jack mentions that he will have trouble after the game. I ask why? He says hes not sure how to mark my army if its unbalanced or not as he thinks we shouldn’t have played a game. I advise that he should talk to a Fez about it.
Result – win. Unbalanced – highly prob. (which is strange comparing it to the usual stuff Ive seen from Bairnsdale lads?)

So grab a snag and a drink and chat some more, few people are settling in and all is good with the world. Miss most of the briefing again (in the feedback section someone mentioned having the stage moved to the open courtyard for briefings. Sounds like an idea that)

Game 3 – Tim and his Squats(orks)
Tim is a old hand at the game and I like to see what ancient figures he feels like bringing out each year. He came to Bootcamp a few years back and he is a top bloke.
We get stuck into the game and he hasn’t played against an Air Cav list before. (don’t think anyone i played all weekend had) . I get stuck into blasting his orks apart, he only gave me one unit to shoot at, the rest were in reserve. So 3 turns of going to ground and he has only 1 figure left from a large shoota squad. His army arrives fairly piecemeal and is getting torn apart, as lascannons blast apart trucks and rocket pods finish off units. But then the most amazing thing happens. He destroyed one of the Vendettas. Then another.
Im making point of this as they are hard to destroy. But a few powerclaws did it without much hassle. Note that down ork players...
So we get to turn 5. Tim has me at a draw. We roll for turn 6. Keep playing. End of that turn, Tims down to his warboss and meganobz. And im winning. Fail turn 7 roll. End game.
So win to me. Chance of Unbalanced vote – low.

[Bloodbrotherdave]

So after an evening of inappropriate comments and movies. Who would have thought Blade and Shaft would be lowlights. So many complaints of vampires wearing sunscreen...

We head back into Arc with both cars and get ready for a big one.
Now I haven’t won 3 games of 40k in a while. Not at tournaments anyway, so all the mates are giving it to be a bit. Fair enough, but it gets a bit hard to defend against it when im usually the fluff bunny or just regular bunny. Shoes on other foots and all that.

Game 1. Wogl powerbuilder. Shrike alpha strike.
I should have given it to this dude. Should have hammered him. But i played cagey and that cost me the win. Im not going to say his army was the nastiest there. It wasn’t. But it was built to play hard and not to make friends. He deployed hard and aggressively. Setting up Shrike and his attached Chaplain and Assault squad a first turn charge if i was within 18 - 24”. Thats a big threat range.
So I swung around the other way. Picked at his scouts over there and dragged his ironclad in pod that I knew he would drop pod in point blank to the far right corner away from the battle. We danced around and I picked at the assault marines and scouts. Turn 5 he was winning (i was inches short of the objective) turn 6 draw. Turn 7 I would have contested his and unlikely he would have done the same to me.
But there was no turn 7.
Winning streak of the Air cav comes to an end. Chance of Unbalanced - high

Now I was a little rushed at this point and I quickly grab a can and a roll. But straight back into the game before I had finished. Quick hi to Bishop and kids. And miss most of the briefing again.

Game 5. Craig with his Demons.
This was a great game. Not going to call it anything else. Top bloke. Playing a good army. We played at a good pace and in great spirits. He smashed me as well. I played like a bit of a muppet, he made the right moves and had the dice.
This was a game that Arc is about (not that the rest were far behind)
Lost convincingly. Chance of unbalanced – low

Game 6. Aaron w/ Dark Angels led by Belial
Know Aaron for ages. Top guy and player. Mission shat on me. Might have had a chance if i could get the command squad into a gunship, but with them on the board and the flyers off, i had to last a turn. With nothing really blocking LOS. So I stuck a unit infront of them and hoped for the best.
My “Best” was having failing a bunch of saves, 4 guardsmen die, leaving the Major and him failing a moral check and fleeing off the board. Im sure my face told the story to Aaron at that point...
Personal thankyou to watt mission design at this point. Must deploy on the board my ass...
So I bring on the gunships and pound Belial and his Termi squad he was joined to. He goes to ground in bunker cover. Bunch of 2++ saves later. None dead. Repeat for 5 turns and i had killed 3 termis...
So lucky we finish up early and i can pack stuff up. Of course I drop my infantry tray and bust a bunch of figures. Get that “shouldn’t of gotten up feeling...” at this point. But clean that up, tidy up the table. Put stuff away, help with the packing up a bit. (Not as much as usuall, so hats off to those that did help out)

Say good bye to the guys heading to Geelong, as they head off before the awards. Awards about to start and I take a seat. The weekend at this point kicks me in the nuts a few times and rolls me for my wallet. Tip for the young players. Make sure you eat and drink something during the day.
It turns out my entire intake for the day was 1 can of softdrink, 1 Beer, 1 salad “roll” (a dinner roll with a shred of lettuce and ham). Thats not really enough for a days hard wargaming after a few late nights with mates you rarely see and little sleep.
So I was feeling crap. Mark calls me up. I pop up to the front, have a chat with Mark.
Mark and many of the Melbourne TO’s have been pushing the “Melbourne 40k Championship” Its something that has been rolling along since last year. The results from the tourneys during the year get taken and the top 9 get a few points and everyone that attended gets 1 point. Ive been keeping track of the points. So I was going to have a few words about that and mention who won and that the top 16 were invited to play at the Chuji- cup next month. But Mark took one look at me, gave me a bottle of water and told me to sit down. So I did.
The awards went on. I actually like the awards. Hour and 20min in full. I also expect them to take that amount of time, so maybe that helps. I like to hear the familiar names get called out and the straining of trying to hear my own. As it turned out I won something from the raffle too. The cool Arnocorps cd. But not space hulk im told...
I did ok in the end for a slightly unbalanced list (in the eyes of my peers and judges) with 45th (iirc)

[InvaderZim]

I know what you mean Dave, it is a draining weekend of mixed emotions.

I was a bit worried when I saw how you looked at the awards, glad that all it was was Arc day 2 burnout. We all know how that feels.

I would love to watch your army in action or to play against it soon. It sounds a little like what I wanted to achieve with the old armoured cav in terms of play style. Looks like the new dex and options make it possible to do so pretty well these days.

[blackwolf]

Good stuff Dave. 45th is damn good finish, well done. Was a bit concerned during the awards when you took ill, you didn't look too good at all

Anyway....



Pic of you during that last game with Aaron. Looks like you'r either..... a) thinking of how to kill that damn enemy HQ..... bummed cos your own HQ ran off....... c) bored as hell

[Bloodbrotherdave]

yeah, weekend catching up with me there and me thinking.

"WATT have ######ed me hard on this one eh?"

but stay posted... there is more to come.

The rant + WM from tuesday...

[Bloodbrotherdave]

now this is the ranty bit. if your easily offended, do not highlight the following post.

Now i dont subscribe to the net list bull######. I have a bit of a look here at people army lists, but not as much as i did. I dont read any other wargaming websites. My list was my list as far as im concearned.
I think that if people have an issue with it is also fine. im happy to put my hand up and say my army was tough. Mega unstopable. i doubt it. it was no Avatar + farseer (or Rick bane as i call it)

The Arc judging thing. Ive given them some stick in the past. but to their credit they got 200 players painting and comp done in 4-5 rounds. impressive by anyones standards.
My suggestion. Remove the criteria.
go to a more subjective criteria and dont give the scores to people untill the final results go up next week.
let the judges decide if its aceptable, table top standard, above standard, exceptional.
no discussion. players can point judges toward things to assist, but will not be given a score.
similar for comp. i have no idea why i got the comp score i got. i thought i had checked all the boxes and had a great theme. I was wrong. I was disapointed that it was not recieved that well. I like themes.

Asshats. im happy to say i played 6 good guys this weekend. but some of my mates were not so luck (much as i have been in previous years) People settle down. Its a game and if your short changing your opponent to squeeze out a few inches or points. then your a pice of ####. if its an honest mistake, then learn from it and dont argue the point. take the wins with the looses (i can say i looked like that in the photo above and that was the first turn) so sorry for not being more chipper aaron.

Greatest Tournament in the world.
now the bggest problem i have post arc is how do i control the girlfriends new need to make a tyranid army and how do people fund 2 plasticrack additions together...

Tuesday WM report to be cut and pasted in soon

[Bloodbrotherdave]

And here is the WM bit. worth skipping to the end for club mates!

was a bit supprised at the end. But also thankful it wasnt one of the outpost ferals as well... they may have come to wau to gloat ?!?!?!?

well it was a bit of a hodge podge list to be honest.
stuff i chucked in coz i like it, and some of it is cool and some was good.

eCaine
w- Ol' Rowdy
- Squire
Arcane Tempest Gun Mages
- Officer attachment
- JM- Hunter
Black 13th Gun mages
Alexia and Risen
Sam & Devil Dogs (max)
- JM - Freebooter
eEyriss
Anastasia Di Bray

think that was it. so plenty of lady lurve for Caine.
had a second list with Stryker but it was a dummy.

so Game 1 vs Erika and Harbinger led menoth.
she is a bit of excitted puppy. lots of talking. which was fine as i was just getting back into the game.
she moved some stuff up, i moved some stuff.
we shot some stuff. some stuff died.
she decided Alexia needed to die, so she moved up the Harbinger (leaving the devout behind to engage Eyriss) and zaps her with cataclysm (the auto hit pow 20 spell) but Alexia had a bit of a reply one of her new abilities makes spells cost double in her cmd range. so it cost her 8 focus! leaving her with none.
I think the hunter snapped of the kill shot and Caine holstered his pistols : )

Game 2 vs Daan and eThagrosh - Legion
Nasty all beast army with a few Forsaken and sheppards to help.
Again normal plan of move stuff up, he moved a bit. He charges Ol' Rowdy and the Freebooter trashing them both in turn 2.
I push and knockdown all the beasts between caine and Thaggy with the gunmages.
Hunter putts a crit brutal dam shot into thag. pull out a double 6 to hit, still have the JM boost in hand so boost dam. 4 dice armour piercing shot does 14 dam to Thagrosh. he transfers to shredder. pop it goes, he get 1 fury back. Caine steps up. pops feat. 8 pistol shots later (with increasing pow) thag does down...

So game 3 vs Matt w Skarre - cryx (hes the guy who runs outpost/owns the shop out there)
nice painted army, had plenty of toys and bits. bit lite on jacks (as was mine, but he had only 1 heavy and 2 arc nodes)
he cought me with my pants down a little early on. got backlash spell on rowdy and charged it with satixis and was doing 2 points of dam to Caine for each hit on rowdy, lucky for me rowdy went down (again) and left caine on 4 hits...
so a quick recharge of the power shield for a few points and a tactical retreat and extra move from his gatecrasher spell (to avoid the skarre bomb)
he moved up aggressive with the troops and cleaned out alexia and most of the devil dogs.
Caine feated and shot at the troops to remove them as a threat.
he was down to a unit of bloodgorgers, Nighmare jack and Skarre.
I had Caine, eryiss, black 13th, and a few gunmages who had ran away, but rallied and out of possition. still noone had any control points.
i had to make a move. took the last bonus focus off the squire.
Skarre was hidding behind the nighmare and in cover.
Caine moved up, gatecrasher (cost 3) into melee with skarre. 2 boosted shots to her head and I win.

tough game, nice guy to play.

Game 4. vs Rohan (Fizgig) eAsphixious
first turn into this one i Was sure Rohan would have me on this one. fluffed a few easy rolls early on with low rolls and ol Rowdy got smashed again.
tore up the banes fairly quickly. Gunmages accounting for themselves quite well.
rohan was quite cagey with aspy, so he wasnt coming very close at all. I made a dash for him, but dropped short.
he went for a counter and poped feat and charged Caine with 7 Bane knights and thralls. 9's to hit after being cursed by tarterus.
all missed.
i look at the clock I have about 2 min to get the kill im guessing.
Caine moves, gatecrashers into aspy. pop feat. opens ups.
3 shots and ive got him down to 4 points left. buy the 4th shot. hits. rolls the dice for damage. dice are in the air, ben calls dice down.
dice hit the table and kill aspy.
win on the buzzer.

At this point im on 4 wins. and noone else is.
the other table had a draw(therefore both count as lost)
ben says that there is a "clarification" he got after this happened at nats 2 years ago, that we play another round to see if i loose and someone can catch me. even though thats not what it says in the steam roller pack (if you look for it its on the 2nd page, the paragraph above how many rounds you pay with numbers of players)
So we play on. im a bit over it at this stage.

Game 5 vs James w Irusk
I decide to go for the kill on turn 2. make it short
I failed. missed shots at irusk and the ones that hit i didnt roll higher than a 4.
so he takes 6 points of dam, when he should have been dead on avg dice.
he moves some stuff around, kills alexia and tries to slam the freebooter onto caine to knock him down. he didnt know about lash. so Caine is still standing. but a couple of boosted bombard shots from the behemoth smashes caine to paste. apparently there isnt a screening rule anymore? so i thought i was def 19, (him hitting on 13's) but was only def 17 (hitting on 11's, which he did with both boosted shots)

he was stunned, he thought i was going to pants him like a little boy.

so that put me on 4 wins, 1 loss. along with 4 or so others.

i figured I was out of the running with the countbacks.

Roy and Mark got respectable equal 9th (with another dude) but I figure Mark has bragging rights with him winning their game they had.
they call 4th and im expecting my name. nope
3rd. nope
2nd Daan
1st - Me.

so with big shinny trophy in hand and a new plastic cryx jack prize. im a tired boy with to much wargaming crammed into one weekend...

[SandiDee]

how do you control "the girlfriend"?

yeah, let me know when you work that out

[mjb]

Yaaaay

[Chaplain_Fortis]

Bahahahahahahaha... Sandi found wau.

Good report, I didn't read a lot of it. But I liked the bit with the stuff.

On the rant, I think my opinion and to be quite frank the opinion that should surface after people have had a think about it is that the painting/theme differentiation is far too wide when the battle points are far too slim.

I'm all for a full hobby tournament, I'm all for the guy with the nicely painted #### beating the guy with ugly #### when it gets tight. What I don't like is gigantic leapfrogs due to huge variance in painting and theme. Particularly one of our guys who doesn't see the tournament scene much and doesn't pimp his stuff here at all got completely passed over on painting and theme where-as it seems like at arc being a bit well known is good for 6 or so extra points in some cases.

I feel for guys like Alun who came from SA with one of the most beautiful and technically difficult to paint schemes I've seen for a while and get completely snubbed in the scoring.

If each game is going to be worth about 10 points (7-17 win) then it is silly having only the top handful of guys get 27s and then plus 3 on top of that, and then usually 27s and plus 3 for theme as well. Lets say the next guy drops a couple of points through judging strangeness and gets a 25/25 then it's a 5 point drop for paint and a 5 point drop for theme, enough to put them one whole win ahead.

[Orgz]

I feel your pain from playing that Shrike list. Definite arse-hat list but the dude was a perfect gentleman throughout the game so it didn't feel so bad.

[Bishop]

Thanks for the report Dave. An enjoyable read as always with no smoke or mirrors.
Congrats on the WM/H win.
Welcome to WAU Sandi.

[Bloodbrotherdave]

Yep in the end everyone is happy and it was one of the best arcs ive been to for a while. Even if Mark did stiff me on my 10 year award. pft. play in 9 and help in one i thought adds up to 10. go figure?
and no offense is ment to Watt on that, just means I wont have a new army next year for my 10 year award. (still 4 armies over 10 years isnt bad)

But again i would like to thank all opponents all weekend (6 40kers and 5 WM/Hordes)
All played themselves in great spirits and even when I was doing well people still conducted themselves in good spirits.

might stick the list up in the army lists and get some more opinions on what i could do to make it more accpetable

cheers all.

and hi SandiDee

[Welsh Rarebit]

worth skipping to the end for club mates!

Will do....

1st - Me.

Awesome!

Nice reports Dave.

So when is Sandi's WSWA repping Tourney debut?

[cmdr_roy]

Sandi is on WAU, oh noes !
Better not tell her its not a blocked site at work....

Good battle reps Dave, i cant be assed writing one up so glad you have.
Still waiting for Stus though...

[Knight_of_Sanguinius]

Congrats on WM supremacy.

[Blade_of_Apollo]

so sorry for not being more chipper aaron.

No sweat mate