Battle reports from Montreux, ETC 2011 - DAY 2 - ROUND 4

 Here is the second instalment of my battle reports from ETC 2011. I decided to publish the battle reports of the second day separately, in thee separate posts, to make it more convenient for the reader.

  

The first game on Sunday was against Austria. I was placed against Space Wolves! Imperial Guard and Space Wolves with Long Fangs and razor spam are anti-lists for my list. Yet, on the 2nd day I would be facing only these opponents, as it would turn out.

Deployment: Dawn of War. Primary objective: Annihilation. Secondary objective: Seize Ground (3 fixed counters). Positioning the objectives : one objective is in the center of the table. The other 2 objectives are 24" from player's table edge and 6" of lateral table edges.

My opponent was Georg "Firstruleoffightclub" Auenhammer, the Austrian Captain. Another Captain for me. He had two Runepriests, 2 units of wolfscouts, 5 wolfguards with combi-meltas, 3 wolf riders, 4 units of grey hunters, two in rhinos and two in Las-Plas razorbacks, and (surprise!) 3 units of Long fangs – 14 missile launchers in total.

Georg "Firstruleoffightclub" Auenhammer, the Austrian Captain.
He pleasantly surprised me by knowing the meaning of his Greek-deriving first name!

I lost again the rol and he goes first. The table has very little cover. No line of sight blocking. Georg spread his force around the table in a more or less symmetric way. One unit of long fangs to the left, one at the centre, one to the right. One razor to the left, one to the right. The rhinos with the Runepriests somewhere to the middle- closer to his right. Little movement. My turn. I had a dilemma: stay back and shoot or do the classic Leon’s frontal assault. I had an eye contact with my friend Bilap who was playing on the table next to me and decide: I’ll go for the assault! All raiders flat out + eather sails, into his face, on my right. Ravagers 12 and placed for shooting the closest vehicles. I placed only one ravager on my left just to lure his infiltrating scouts. Two of the ravagers shoot and stun a razor and shaken the other.

The table after the end of Turn 1. I have pushed forward on the right side of my front.

Turn2

Minimum move and force rearengment from Georg. Shooting. One unit of scouts arrive on my left and go for the single ravager. He was rolling really bad. And my saves were amazing that first turn. I had 7 saves on flickerfield and 2 from cover! The luckiest turn I had on the tournament. Georg had split his shooting and he did not manage to bring a single skimmer down. My turn. I move the two right-side raiders on his table edge and place them side-wise, to block the entrance of the wolf riders (they were in reserve). He did not expect that. My wyches disembark and go for the left-side Long fangs and the razor. The other two are closing near the centre, but they run slow. The beasts are slow too. Shooting. One razor wrecked, one rhino shaken. Two long fangs dead. Double assault on his left side Long fangs. One is left! Georg says ‘I am having a bad dream’.

Turn 3.

2nd wolf scout squad comes on my left, same as the other one. Bad dice from Georg again. Back there they were useless. He tank shock the wyches that assaulted the razor but they stay. The wolf cavalry arrives. They move against the two closest raiders who stand on the edge of his deployment zone. Shooting and a ravager goew down, the other is stunned. Not good news. A raider gets immobilised and weapon destroyed. It has grisly trophies thought. On the assault phase I kill the last long fang and go for the centre. The other wych squad walks near the closest objective. My centre wyches get serious shooting – only 5 remain but they hold. He wrecks one of the raiders and does nothing to the second with the riders.

I move near the centre of his formation with 3 wyche squads and the closing beasts. The beasts were dissapointigly slow – something that will prove crusial at the end. I stunned the razor on his right. That razor shoot only once the whole game. Kill a long fang. Assault goes all wrong. The 5 wyches fail to reach the two remaining long fangs, another crusial costly point for me. Should I have got that kill point I would have draw the primary and draw the game.

At the begining of Turn 3.

Georg is very concentrated in marshalling his force.

At the end of Georg's turn of Turn 3. The alighned wyches have avoided a tank shock whereaw those on the right get stuck with two remaining Long fangs! Should I have cleared that assault, on my turn I could engage the riders with 9 Furious charge wyches, saving the 2 vehicles that went down by the wolf riders...

Turn 4

He does something with the scouts on the ravager, and he gets some wounds on the girls. He has no moving vehicle anymore, so he cannot reach any objective. The wolf riders assault the immobilised raider, wrecking it.

Beasts are forced to pass thought terrain and consequently loose the assault on the 7-man grey hunters squad! That judged the match. The wyches who walked from his left- side, those that killed the long fangs engage some grey hunters. They will stay entagled to the end. The last unit of wyches is walking to the objective but roll 2 on difficult terrain and 1 on the run!!

Turn 5

Not much to move for Georg.

The wolf riders herd the beasts further away.

I wreck the rhino that tank shocked my wyches and stun the one on the right. My centre wyches finally assault the long fangs killing one but the other stays. No kp on this one.

My walking wyches finally get the furthest objective, giving me 4 points on the secondary objective of the mission.

I finished my turn in 5,5 minutes. The game ended due to time restriction.

When we finished we were unsure who won, cause we lost count on the KP. Georg thought that he lost. When we measured the KP though, he got 7 and I got 6! 8 pts to Georg. I had one objective he had 0. 4 points to me. And he had +369 points of difference – 5 to him, 3 to me. Total 13-7 to Georg. And he was really happy about it.

Georg was by far the most unlucky of my opponents, at least for the first two rounds. He could have drop at least 4 of my skimmers on round 2 and 3. Yet he had done only minor damage and wrecked one. He went for the ravagers, and split his fire power, giving my raiders the chance to deploy easily at the whole length of the table. Yet he reassemble his strength and fight back like a real Space Wolf on round 4 and 5, on the 5th he was seriously lucky when he made two wounds on the assaulting beasts with his hunters against 0 of mine! That assault sealed his victory. His victory was narrow: 7 kp to 6. Those damned beast were skinned and roasted later on in Gommorah. For one kp, 8 points... But these are the rules, what can I say...

The final score does not reflect the climat of the game. The game was for the most part in my favour and I would describe it balanced. With another more turn I bet I would have drawn at least. At a certain point Georg ‘accused’ me for great fortune with the dice. He stopped when he saw my assault rolls. My aim was to mop his left wing and I did it for most part. His aim was to shoot me down early in the game.He did not manage mainly dew to his bad rolls and my saves on rounds 2 and 3. He did it at the end however. He brought down 6 out of 7 vehicles and the beast squad.

My opponent, Georg, was really composed and extremely accurate with his movement. He was explaining all his dice rolls. No grey points anywhere on the game. At one point I questioned the range on the move of the scouts and he showed me his point in a very convincing way. He is definatelly the player I would like to face again, not only on a tournament but on a friendly match. 

That was the first match on Sunday 21 / 8 /2011 at Montreux. Two more to come...