This weekend, I had the pleasure of attending ANZAC cup, a yearly multidisciplinary wargaming event held at the Australian Defence Force Academy (ADFA) by the Australian Defence Force Wargaming Association (ADFWGA) every April.
This event has run successfully for several years, and every time it passed me by on the calendar, I felt tremendous anguish watching the rest of the community play whilst I was stuck at home with half an army.
In fact, I was aiming to participate in ANZAC cup's sister event, Herocon, in late November, but I ran out of time and energy and fell short of my goal.
But with an extra five months of painting time and the decision to buy a ticket early and lock in, I finished the army by late march. Words could not describe my joy of realising that I had finally caught the car, and had a balanced 2000 point army.
Even a late balance dataslate which increased the cost of my Combi-weapon Lieutenant didn't slow me down.
For those playing at home, this is what I ended up taking to the event.
Bad and Mean (Bright) Green Machine - 1990 Points
Dark Angels
Stormlance Task Force
Azrael (125pts)
Lion El'Jonson (315pts)
Lieutenant in Phobos Armour (55pts)
Lieutenant with Combi-weapon (85pts)
5x Intercessor Squad (80pts)
5x Assault Intercessors with Jump Packs (90pts)
5x Assault Intercessors with Jump Packs (90pts)
5x Deathwing Knights (250pts): Watcher in the Dark
5x Deathwing Knights (250pts): Watcher in the Dark
5x Deathwing Knights (250pts): Watcher in the Dark
6x Inner Circle Companions (180pts)
5x Scout Squad (70pts)
Ballistus Dreadnought (150pts)
I even had time to finish up my four watcher in the dark markers:
I've been playing with this list or a variation thereof since I returned to the hobby at the midpoint of last year. My experimentation has taken me from Gladius, to Wrath of the Rock, before landing on Stormlance after some advice from Captain-General Tim.
Prior to ANZAC cup I'd had around 30 games with the army, so I had a firm grip on what everything did, what it was capable of, and what matchups I preferred.
With Stormlance giving my units the ability to advance or fall back and declare a charge gives the army a tremendous amount of tempo and gives your Deathwing Knight units some real pace.
And if you deploy correctly (which I almost never do) you can often setup a swing turn where all of your combat units make contact, giving you control of the tempo of the game.
So I showed up on Saturday morning, bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, and up since 0530 thanks to daylight savings time doing insane things to the internal body clocks of my children.
Game 1 - Ryan (Chaos Daemons) Linchpin, Search and Destroy
Ryan was playing Blood Legion with a Bloodthirster, Skarbrand, Bel'akor, Bloodcrushers, and some support units.
In particular he had a man with a skull for a face, who I affectionately referred to as "Jimmy Skullman", whose job was to point at one of my units and give them +1 damage.
Gulp.
With Ryan somehow having even less shooting than me, I took the opportunity to deploy aggressively, and really lean into the "fight pit" aspect of the matchup.
Things almost immediately went wrong as Ryan launched his Bloodthirster like a cruise missile into my deployment zone. Things went from bad to worse, as I got too high on my own supply with the Lion, and proceeded to Rapid Ingress him into heroic intervention range to protect my Jump Pack Intercessors.
Lionel, filled with righteous zeal, proceeded to heroically deal four wounds to Ryan's Bloodthirster - and I felt the hairs stick up on the back of my neck as Jimmy Skullman pointed at the Lion.
I had thought my dice had gotten me out of jail when the Primarch survived on two wounds - only for Ryan to tell me about his Bloodthirster's exciting extra mortal wounds ability - which killed Lionel.
Fuck.
Somehow, I managed to dig myself out of the hole I found myself in. My Ballistus, on a thirty game plus "do nothing" streak, decided he'd had enough of the Bloodthirster's bullshit and killed him in a single activation. Then, in a turn and a half, my terminator squad(s) killed Bel'akor, then Skarbrand.
This included a particularly hair-raising sequence of events where I failed five saves on my Deathwing Knights, only for The Prince of Darkness to roll five ones in a row, killing a whopping two of them.
With all of Ryan's greater Daemons dealt with, I found myself with control of the board, and the game quickly shifted to a mop-up operation as all my half-eaten terminator units and Inner Circle Companions were easily able to eat all his support hounds and Plaguebearers, and he ran out of daemons at the bottom of turn four.
Result - Salamander Win, 65-42
Here's where I go on a tangent.
When games of 40k rely on incremental scoring, and total battle points is weighted higher than strength of schedule, players are expected to play every game to conclusion to maximise their score.
By and large, this is fine.
Where things get messy is where there's a clear mismatch, resulting in one player running out of models before the conclusion of the game.
In that case, the player who still has models is expected to play out the remainder of the game, as if his opponent just wasn't there. And as someone who has been on the receiving end of that, it is an incredible feels bad moment.
So I asked Ryan what the end of game procedure was, knowing full well what the real answer was. When Ryan responded that he believed the game ended there and further scoring did not take place, I did not object, and opted to score the game as if it had ended in turn four.
I did not have the stomach on game one of day one to demand my opponent stand there for another five minutes whilst I played with myself - that would've been awful.
I told Andrew what happened, and he was ok with it, but I felt guilty knowing I probably should've been paired further up the order - instead I'd be playing against someone who barely scraped by in round one.
And wouldn't you guess what happened...
Game 2 - Alex (Grey Knights) Purge the Foe, Crucible of Battle
Alex had come all the way from South Australia to play - which is a pretty gutsy move for someone who had five games under his belt. Props to you, sir.
He was running Warpbane Task Force with thirty purifiers, Castellan Crowe, three Dreadknights (two Grandmasters), and two Brotherhood Librarians.
I later learned Brotherhood Librarians were changed when the codex dropped - so I spent the entire game sweating bullets about teleporting assholes dropping mortal wound thermonuclear bombs on me, when that was no longer possible.
The board was very open, but Alex's guns don't match up well into Deathwing Knights, and if you're in range to shoot Psycannons and Incinerators at me, I'm more than capable of charging you.
I bungled my initial engagement, only connecting with a single unit, and leaving two other units of Terminators exposed - I then got a bit greedy with the Lion, allowing him to take the shooting of two Dreadknights, which basically killed him.
Even with a second turn of movement, I then failed two charges to get with my second and third units of Deathwing Knights, which costing me time and momentum - I insisted in keeping A Tempting Target and Assassination, which were both very achievable if I had made contact, but as I didn't, I kept them far too long.
I was able to cash the Lion in to remove a block of purifiers - and with all of three wounds remaining, Castellan Crowe found the line and killed him in single combat.
The good news is that I had anticipated that, at least.
I was able to make contact with my Inner Circle Companions - making another positioning mistake by allowing Alex to pile in with two half units of Purifiers - because of where I had pinned them, off the objectives and thus unable to impact the game, the loss of all of my ICC didn't matter, as he had a handful of lads left, and no board presence.
Despite my losses, I had lost few complete units, which allowed me to score bulk points from Purge the Foe, and I had taken a commanding lead when time was called at the bottom of turn four.
Result - Salamander Win, 78-41
At this point being 2 from 2, the nerves were spiking, contemplating who I'd end up against next. I hadn't dominated either game, so my BP was going to keep me firmly at the bottom of the players who were 2-0.
Game 3 - Josh (Space Marines) Scorched Earth, Crucible of Battle
Josh was running Forgefather's Seekers. He had an Aggressor Brick in a Redeemer, two Impulsors each carrying a five man squad of Infernus marines led by Adrax and Vulkan, and the Vanguard Veteran hand flamer special with a Jump Pack captain.
Oh, and 9 Eradicators.
That's right, dear reader, it was the SalamanderBowl! Or, more accurately, it was SalamanderBowl II, as I did play Josh at Capital Clash last year whilst bye busting - which I lost.
Josh is a very experienced pilot, and has only gotten better since then, so I felt I had my work cut out for me.
The good news, is that I went second - which is pretty important for a mission which rewards actions that finish at the end of your opponent's turn.
The bad news is that without thinking, I deployed the Lion in such a way that Josh could drive the Land Raider forward and kill him in turn one.
Josh, ever the gentleman, even warned me it was possible - and then he drove his Redeemer onto the centre objective, and killed Lionel.
Uh-oh. Or, at least, that was what I had thought at the time.
With the benefit of hindsight, that trade was actually in my favour. In response, two units of Deathwing Knights staged in a ruin, charged out, and managed to kill it through Armour of Contempt.
Out of nowhere, Josh lost his primary overwatch threat.
From there, the game devolved into a green-on-green slugfest - he put his best lads in front of my best lads, and we beat the ever-loving snot out of each other.
In the space of two turns, both me and Josh lost almost everything brawling over the centre objective. When the dust settled, I was left with six Deathwing Knights across three units, four Inner Circle Companions and Azrael, and Josh kept his Impulsors and one Infernus unit with Vulkan.
I thought I had done enough to seal the game, but it turns out with +1 to wound on S5 Bolt Rifles, Inner Circle Companions disappear pretty quick - and losing two Terminators to overwatch from Vulkan's unit seemed to shift the pendulum back in Josh's favour.
Despite all the losses I sustained, I managed to keep control of enough of the board to punch in an objective burn, stop his burn, and score four meaningful secondaries to steal it at the death.
What a ride.
Result - Salamander Win, 79-71
I will say my last game I was a combination of wired and exhausted, and I played extremely sloppily. Josh was, and is, an amazing opponent, but even he felt he had to say something as I slowly tilted out as I thought I was going to lose.
If you're reading this, Josh, I'm sorry, and I will do better next time.
Somehow, I had come out of the first day on three wins. I knew it was a bit of a mirage - my matchups had been pretty favourable - I knew whatever game four had in store, it was going to be a step-up in difficulty.
As I cruised in on Sunday morning, I knew all of the games would be played on layout 8 - I have been told it favoured melee armies, but I wasn't sure why.
I was expecting to play Elliot (owner and CEO of the excellent Speartip Studio) and his Retaliation Cadre Tau, so I took some time to talk to Captain-General Tim about the matchup and general principles.
But I had suspected that there would be a repair as players would inevitably drop. There was, and my opponent ended up being...
Game 4 - Captain-General Tim (Adeptus Custodes) Hidden Supplies, Hammer and Anvil
Because the Council of Tims share a consciousness, both of them were playing the new Custodes meta hotness designed by some English blokes for Pyra Cup.
Three land raiders, six guard units, and three sisters units for backfield scoring. Simple, but brutally effective - and playing them in Talons lets you reactive move your units into your Land Raiders.
Having had a chat to Tim about the layout and deployment possibilities, being repaired into the person who had just given me advice on how to play the board was a little bit like the film "Broken Arrow".
Except with little toy soldiers. So, in fact, nothing like Broken Arrow.
As per usual of all of my games with Tim, he exerts a raw mental pressure that feels like his brain is going to crush mine. Don't get me wrong, I'd do anything for Captain-general Tim, but I could feel the disappointment radiating off him in waves as I made a series of crucial deployment mistakes that almost sealed the deal on the spot.
Almost immediately I discovered I had been lackadaisical in my Combi-Lieutenant placement, allowing Tim to kill him for free.
I loaded my left flank too much, causing a traffic jam where a unit of Deathwing Knights and my ICC both wanted to be in the same place at once, resulting in me feeding them into Tim's Land Raiders a unit at a time. It doesn't work in League of Legends, and it didn't work for me here.
I didn't allocate wounds to my Terminators properly, resulting in the Lion eating eight lascannons and falling over to all of Tim's shooting pressure.
I managed to put up a fight for about two and a half turns, before the two units of Golden Turd Guard showed up and shot me to death from the flanks.
I feel like I was pretty good here though, trying to play as smoothly as I could, and not tilting out when the game functionally ended at the bottom of turn 3, and we spent another half an hour going through the motions.
Tim did give me a hug afterwards though, so that was nice.
Result - Salamander loss, 31-80
So, I'd been punched in the mouth - now the challenge was to respond. Or so I thought.
My last opponent was a little bit worn out from the weekend, and I took the opportunity to receive a bye so I could get home early to see my family. I certainly wasn't going to hold that against him, because I was pretty run down too from a pre-event illness.
I'm not sure if I would've liked a fifth game or not - I will say that Stormlance v Wrath of the Rock is normally pretty Stormlance favoured - but the idea of forcing someone to play when they just want to go home is pretty rubbish - neither of us would've enjoyed it, of that, I am certain.
Adrian the TO was going to give me a big hundo, but I couldn't accept that in good conscience, so settled for a 75 as per bye procedures, which was good enough for eighth place - something I am very happy with, even if I feel like I didn't really earn it.
Overall it was a fantastic event - and I was so happy that I finally got to go. Indeed, until 11th invalidates my entire army, I will be able to go to events with a battle ready requirement - and colour me excited about what that means for me, and the future of this blog.
I also learned a lot - I don't think I played particularly well, like always, but have some very clear thoughts on how I want to improve going forward. As per usual it's around deployment, use of the Lion, and doing a better job being aware of the positioning of my units - but everything in due course.
That's all for me for now - I've got a few things in the pipeline, and I've been dribbling about 11th on my Facebook page - colour me excited for that!
Catch you next time,
Vulkan
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