11 Mar 2013
West Coast GT was this past weekend, an inaugural event hosted by the boys from West Coast Hammertime Podcast. Fred and Bill are part of our local club (Club Capri!) and longtime warhammer players. The scoring system was largely aped from some of the more popular GTs out west here, most notably the Quake City Rumble, requiring a balance of generalship, sportsmanship, composition, and painting to win with, so bringing a beatface list was not going to carry you across the finish line unless you also were one of the most charismatic people ever to play the game who also paints exceptionally well, but you can duke it out with the other facerollers for best general if you wish. With that in mind, along with the close distance made this an excellent event to roll out my Night Goblins since they are gorgeous (not my work) but travel very poorly (too many fidly bits). While I will likely talk about this with the Hammertime guys on their podcast at some point, I will go over the highlights here for posterity.
My List (One Common Goblin)
Characters:
Goblin Lord w Fencer Blades, Potion of Strength, Talisman of Preservation
Night Goblin Lord w Cave Squig, Sword of Antiheros, Armor of Destiny, Other Tricksters Shard, Dragonbane Gem, Shield
Night Goblin BSB w Armor of Silvered Steel, Luck Stone, Great Weapon, Short Bow
Night Goblin Shaman, L2, w Hex Scroll (Froggy!)
Night Goblin Shaman, L2, w Dispell Scroll
Core:
40 Night Goblin Spearmen, Std, Mus, Nets, one Fanatic
30 Night Goblin Spearmen, Std, Mus, Nets, one Fanatic
30 Night Goblin Spearmen, Std, Mus, Nets, one Fanatic
30 Night Goblin Spearmen, Std, Mus, Nets, one Fanatic
30 Night Goblin Spearmen, Std, Mus, Nets, one Fanatic
20 Night Goblin Archers, Std, Mus
20 Night Goblin Archers, Std, Mus
Special:
8 Squig Hoppers
2 Spear Chukkas
Rare:
Giant
Giant
2 Mangler Squigs
Not much to look at, but a lot of bodies on the table and some cute tricks I like. Basically facing this army every game is like the Battle of Yonkers from World War Z. You smash a couple units but are eventually overwhelmed from all directions and brought down by raw
attrition of hundreds of sharp pointy sticks jabbing you. While there are a lot of lists this army just completely tanks against, I felt confident that with some savvy play I could pull in a 3-2 record with solid soft scores, giving me a solid shot at a high placement. Bear in mind also that the west coast GT paired people of similar comp brackets in the first two rounds, so I was going to get at least two reasonable games and likely a third if I got curb stomped at some point
Round One- wood Elves
This guy would go on to win the best army (comp award) for the event and his wood elf army was a nice all around representation of the book, with basically one of every kind of unit in it. His treekin unit was a tad small, but all of his other unit sizes are pretty solid. This game basically went according to plan for me, with my usual sacrifice a unit to draw people over fanatics and then counter flanking them. Highlights of the game were the squig lord rolling an entire flank by himself and the guy's treeman killing two blocks of spears and two giants. That damn treeman was Neo, passing four Initiative tests to avoid thump with club, including rolling a pair of ones on the same round I had debuffed his initiative. Game ended with his general and treeman being the only survivors and half of my army still on the board.
Round Two- Tomb Kings
This was a deceptively hard matchup, with his army basically being a pair of Sphinx, Horde of Tomb Guard, several Archer units, three scouting cav units, and a casket. The scenerio was meeting engagement, which dorked some of our deployment and resulted in a giant and a sphinx getting late to the fight and his scouters running behind my army the entire time. This game was basically a lot of back and forth manuevering with me not pulling out the win until the Sphinx and casket went down late in he game. Even then, it was still a very close game and this guy gave me the hardest tactical battle I had all weekend long. So, two games in and I am on target for my goal of 3-2.
Round Three- Mike Scaletti w Warriors of Chaos, Slaanesh Theme
Three chariots, three packs of hounds, some marauder horsemen, a Hellcannon, a Daemon Prince, a Block of warriors with a death wizard in it, and a unit of tzeench knights with a BSB in it was Mike's build. Mike is a solid general and quite honestly one of the best army builders in the entire country, with hand sculpting and masterful painting across his entire army. He pretty much wins best appearance in every GT he attends and he is really fun to play, to boot. In fact, he is probably in the top five Leadership two guys to face, in terms of generalship and sportsmanship. The scenario called for having banners on three small zones (called blankets in the scenario) at equal points across the middle of the board, which favored me thanks to having like 8 in my army. There was no way in hell I was going to beat his Slaanesh DP and I knew the hellcannon would be murder with the rerollable 8 LD bubble, so I tried to minimize the damage and focus on clearing his numerous chaffe units. Ultimately, his hellcannon did scare off my general and BSB, killing buckets of goblins in the proccess. The entire game was a massive bloodbath, in fact. My giants were the MVPs, with one terror bombing the warriors off of the table and killing a chariot and hellcannon in the process of pressing the center of the table. The other kept his knights far enough off the edge of a flank blanket that I was able to contest it on the last turn, as my squig lord managed to assasinate his bsb making him timid with that unit. The last turn ended with me claiming one blanket with two beat up goblin blocks and both of are armies heavily decimated. The scenario definately helped me, but I ultimately had more VP when all was said and done anyhow, so it is what it is. I finished round three undefeated with about half the bonus points.
Saturday Evening-
We went and hung out at the local bowling alley and got pretty tanked there (on top of the 8 or so marguirittas I pounded at the venue) and the L2 guys crushing our Capri guys at bowling. Since I lived close by and was in contention for a high placement, I made the rare intelligent choice of goign home to get some rest somewhat early. Man its great to sleep in your own bed during a GT.
Round 4- Dew Cox Ogre Kingdoms
Drew was a San Diego local and rocking a pretty average ogre list with a few unique elements. He had a Tyrant, L3 Death SM, BSB with Maw banner, L2 Butcher, 6 pack of Maneaters with GW, Stubborn, and Swiftstride, 12 Ironguts, 12 Bulls, 3 Leadies, and Ironblaster, and three Sabres. He also rolled pretty much the optimum spell selection for his army, including trollguts on the L2. I had numbers on my side, along with strong deployment options. The scenario was the old school magic flux, so kind of a wash there. My basic plan was to envelop his army and (after addressing the Sabres) make a massed run on the gutstar, which had three of his characters. Up until this game, the Frog scroll was a non factor in my games, but this was the one game that it paid off big time. On his first turn, I frogged his SM, effectively sticking him in his own deployment zone and granting me another full turn to set up my traps, which let me put his gutstar in a Kobiashi Maru scenario of either waiting for the manglers and squig lord to hit home or charging through the bulk of my fantatics into two trap situations that would leave him either facing down my general and some flankers or aa giant, the squig lord, and a flank unit. His fear of the Sword of Antiheros ultimately led him to charge face first through my fanatics and mangers and keep his LD bubble together. The carnage was awe inspiring, with the manglers and fanatics wiping out the entire Irongut unit and reducing all of his characters to half wounds before hitting combat. The maneaters did not fair much better, and while he did wipe out a block of goblins, it left me in perfect countercharge position, allowing me to literally crush his entire army in one turn, with my Goblin general quaffing the potion of strength and murdering his Tyrant to further rub salt in the wound. Drew was by far a great sport, despite the entire game conspiring against him and got my favorite opponent vote on the weekend, and he would go on to place in sportsman, but I forget what place it was. I was now 4-0 with perfect soft scores and I was pretty stoked, but I knew it was all down hill from here as I was going to finally hit something really rough. Even so, with a loss I could probably pull out a top three finish if I gritted my teeth and smiled while getting cornholed, so I started pounding booze in preperation for a good old fashioned round five reaming.
Round 5- Mike McTyre and 40k Eldar, I mean High Elves.
Giant block of White Lions with the Banner of Sorcery, 4 eagles, L4 with life and unkillable etherial guy combo, 2 Bolt Throwers, dude on a bird with the bolt thrower bow, and 5-6 ten man archer units are what I had waiting for me on table five. So yeah, one fighting unit that never left its deployment zone with an untouchable L4 Dwellers spammer sitting in it, surrounded by more firepower than most 40k armies. At least it wasn't one of the double magma chaos dwarf armies! Mike was a nice enough guy, if a bit light on personality, and we had zero rules concerns during the game, but I knew how this was going to go down and it went as expected, with him backing up the entire game and shooting me to ribbons while he six dice dwellersed every turn on whatever unit had the most important characters in it. Around turn 4, my general was gone and the BSB with him, ending any chance of picking up bonus points, but in the interest of being a good punching bag we played it out to the end. I rated him average on comp, because it was high elves but you could pretty much play it with a flow chart. I gave him descent marks for sportsmanship, at a 4.5 out of 5. I was worried that if Mike tanked me for some reason my horrific loss would put me out of the running for anything, but as it turned out everyone else who played him tanked him a bunch on comp, especially, probably more than I would even though his army was pretty tough. I packed up my gobbos and sat back and waited for the results of the weekend of goblin carnage.
Results:
Well, the virtue of not being a complete tool and running a soft list from a soft book is that people tend to give you max comp and sports, which I recieved all weekend for my efforts. As it stood, this put me over the top, despite the last round shellacking I took and Mike McTyre walked away with the Best General award. Unfortunately, our club could not overpower the juggernaught that was Leadership 2 and they easily walked away with the team trophy and more overall awards than any other club present, but they are after all the elite of West Coast Warhammer. So, I now have an overall this year and I did it with MSU Night Goblins. Huzzah! The reign of Night Goblin of terror is over, however, as I am going to try my hand at Wood Elves for the rest of the year while I work on my new lizardmen army. After the terrain was packed away (WCGT borrowed our clubs stuff for the event) we had dinner with John Bailey (who runs the Alamo) to discuss the finer points of Warhammer, running GTs, and Drunken Disorderly behavior. All in all, a really great weekend for me and it seemed like everyone had a great time at the event.
My List (One Common Goblin)
Characters:
Goblin Lord w Fencer Blades, Potion of Strength, Talisman of Preservation
Night Goblin Lord w Cave Squig, Sword of Antiheros, Armor of Destiny, Other Tricksters Shard, Dragonbane Gem, Shield
Night Goblin BSB w Armor of Silvered Steel, Luck Stone, Great Weapon, Short Bow
Night Goblin Shaman, L2, w Hex Scroll (Froggy!)
Night Goblin Shaman, L2, w Dispell Scroll
Core:
40 Night Goblin Spearmen, Std, Mus, Nets, one Fanatic
30 Night Goblin Spearmen, Std, Mus, Nets, one Fanatic
30 Night Goblin Spearmen, Std, Mus, Nets, one Fanatic
30 Night Goblin Spearmen, Std, Mus, Nets, one Fanatic
30 Night Goblin Spearmen, Std, Mus, Nets, one Fanatic
20 Night Goblin Archers, Std, Mus
20 Night Goblin Archers, Std, Mus
Special:
8 Squig Hoppers
2 Spear Chukkas
Rare:
Giant
Giant
2 Mangler Squigs
Not much to look at, but a lot of bodies on the table and some cute tricks I like. Basically facing this army every game is like the Battle of Yonkers from World War Z. You smash a couple units but are eventually overwhelmed from all directions and brought down by raw
attrition of hundreds of sharp pointy sticks jabbing you. While there are a lot of lists this army just completely tanks against, I felt confident that with some savvy play I could pull in a 3-2 record with solid soft scores, giving me a solid shot at a high placement. Bear in mind also that the west coast GT paired people of similar comp brackets in the first two rounds, so I was going to get at least two reasonable games and likely a third if I got curb stomped at some point
Round One- wood Elves
This guy would go on to win the best army (comp award) for the event and his wood elf army was a nice all around representation of the book, with basically one of every kind of unit in it. His treekin unit was a tad small, but all of his other unit sizes are pretty solid. This game basically went according to plan for me, with my usual sacrifice a unit to draw people over fanatics and then counter flanking them. Highlights of the game were the squig lord rolling an entire flank by himself and the guy's treeman killing two blocks of spears and two giants. That damn treeman was Neo, passing four Initiative tests to avoid thump with club, including rolling a pair of ones on the same round I had debuffed his initiative. Game ended with his general and treeman being the only survivors and half of my army still on the board.
Round Two- Tomb Kings
This was a deceptively hard matchup, with his army basically being a pair of Sphinx, Horde of Tomb Guard, several Archer units, three scouting cav units, and a casket. The scenerio was meeting engagement, which dorked some of our deployment and resulted in a giant and a sphinx getting late to the fight and his scouters running behind my army the entire time. This game was basically a lot of back and forth manuevering with me not pulling out the win until the Sphinx and casket went down late in he game. Even then, it was still a very close game and this guy gave me the hardest tactical battle I had all weekend long. So, two games in and I am on target for my goal of 3-2.
Round Three- Mike Scaletti w Warriors of Chaos, Slaanesh Theme
Three chariots, three packs of hounds, some marauder horsemen, a Hellcannon, a Daemon Prince, a Block of warriors with a death wizard in it, and a unit of tzeench knights with a BSB in it was Mike's build. Mike is a solid general and quite honestly one of the best army builders in the entire country, with hand sculpting and masterful painting across his entire army. He pretty much wins best appearance in every GT he attends and he is really fun to play, to boot. In fact, he is probably in the top five Leadership two guys to face, in terms of generalship and sportsmanship. The scenario called for having banners on three small zones (called blankets in the scenario) at equal points across the middle of the board, which favored me thanks to having like 8 in my army. There was no way in hell I was going to beat his Slaanesh DP and I knew the hellcannon would be murder with the rerollable 8 LD bubble, so I tried to minimize the damage and focus on clearing his numerous chaffe units. Ultimately, his hellcannon did scare off my general and BSB, killing buckets of goblins in the proccess. The entire game was a massive bloodbath, in fact. My giants were the MVPs, with one terror bombing the warriors off of the table and killing a chariot and hellcannon in the process of pressing the center of the table. The other kept his knights far enough off the edge of a flank blanket that I was able to contest it on the last turn, as my squig lord managed to assasinate his bsb making him timid with that unit. The last turn ended with me claiming one blanket with two beat up goblin blocks and both of are armies heavily decimated. The scenario definately helped me, but I ultimately had more VP when all was said and done anyhow, so it is what it is. I finished round three undefeated with about half the bonus points.
Saturday Evening-
We went and hung out at the local bowling alley and got pretty tanked there (on top of the 8 or so marguirittas I pounded at the venue) and the L2 guys crushing our Capri guys at bowling. Since I lived close by and was in contention for a high placement, I made the rare intelligent choice of goign home to get some rest somewhat early. Man its great to sleep in your own bed during a GT.
Round 4- Dew Cox Ogre Kingdoms
Drew was a San Diego local and rocking a pretty average ogre list with a few unique elements. He had a Tyrant, L3 Death SM, BSB with Maw banner, L2 Butcher, 6 pack of Maneaters with GW, Stubborn, and Swiftstride, 12 Ironguts, 12 Bulls, 3 Leadies, and Ironblaster, and three Sabres. He also rolled pretty much the optimum spell selection for his army, including trollguts on the L2. I had numbers on my side, along with strong deployment options. The scenario was the old school magic flux, so kind of a wash there. My basic plan was to envelop his army and (after addressing the Sabres) make a massed run on the gutstar, which had three of his characters. Up until this game, the Frog scroll was a non factor in my games, but this was the one game that it paid off big time. On his first turn, I frogged his SM, effectively sticking him in his own deployment zone and granting me another full turn to set up my traps, which let me put his gutstar in a Kobiashi Maru scenario of either waiting for the manglers and squig lord to hit home or charging through the bulk of my fantatics into two trap situations that would leave him either facing down my general and some flankers or aa giant, the squig lord, and a flank unit. His fear of the Sword of Antiheros ultimately led him to charge face first through my fanatics and mangers and keep his LD bubble together. The carnage was awe inspiring, with the manglers and fanatics wiping out the entire Irongut unit and reducing all of his characters to half wounds before hitting combat. The maneaters did not fair much better, and while he did wipe out a block of goblins, it left me in perfect countercharge position, allowing me to literally crush his entire army in one turn, with my Goblin general quaffing the potion of strength and murdering his Tyrant to further rub salt in the wound. Drew was by far a great sport, despite the entire game conspiring against him and got my favorite opponent vote on the weekend, and he would go on to place in sportsman, but I forget what place it was. I was now 4-0 with perfect soft scores and I was pretty stoked, but I knew it was all down hill from here as I was going to finally hit something really rough. Even so, with a loss I could probably pull out a top three finish if I gritted my teeth and smiled while getting cornholed, so I started pounding booze in preperation for a good old fashioned round five reaming.
Round 5- Mike McTyre and 40k Eldar, I mean High Elves.
Giant block of White Lions with the Banner of Sorcery, 4 eagles, L4 with life and unkillable etherial guy combo, 2 Bolt Throwers, dude on a bird with the bolt thrower bow, and 5-6 ten man archer units are what I had waiting for me on table five. So yeah, one fighting unit that never left its deployment zone with an untouchable L4 Dwellers spammer sitting in it, surrounded by more firepower than most 40k armies. At least it wasn't one of the double magma chaos dwarf armies! Mike was a nice enough guy, if a bit light on personality, and we had zero rules concerns during the game, but I knew how this was going to go down and it went as expected, with him backing up the entire game and shooting me to ribbons while he six dice dwellersed every turn on whatever unit had the most important characters in it. Around turn 4, my general was gone and the BSB with him, ending any chance of picking up bonus points, but in the interest of being a good punching bag we played it out to the end. I rated him average on comp, because it was high elves but you could pretty much play it with a flow chart. I gave him descent marks for sportsmanship, at a 4.5 out of 5. I was worried that if Mike tanked me for some reason my horrific loss would put me out of the running for anything, but as it turned out everyone else who played him tanked him a bunch on comp, especially, probably more than I would even though his army was pretty tough. I packed up my gobbos and sat back and waited for the results of the weekend of goblin carnage.
Results:
Well, the virtue of not being a complete tool and running a soft list from a soft book is that people tend to give you max comp and sports, which I recieved all weekend for my efforts. As it stood, this put me over the top, despite the last round shellacking I took and Mike McTyre walked away with the Best General award. Unfortunately, our club could not overpower the juggernaught that was Leadership 2 and they easily walked away with the team trophy and more overall awards than any other club present, but they are after all the elite of West Coast Warhammer. So, I now have an overall this year and I did it with MSU Night Goblins. Huzzah! The reign of Night Goblin of terror is over, however, as I am going to try my hand at Wood Elves for the rest of the year while I work on my new lizardmen army. After the terrain was packed away (WCGT borrowed our clubs stuff for the event) we had dinner with John Bailey (who runs the Alamo) to discuss the finer points of Warhammer, running GTs, and Drunken Disorderly behavior. All in all, a really great weekend for me and it seemed like everyone had a great time at the event.
668 The Neighbor of the Beast
