Golden Throne GT overview and results:

Well, that was a crazy weekend...Car broke down on the way up to the GT and I got a speeding ticket, doh! But all of that aside, I made it to lovely Pleasanton and had some really great fun at this years Golden Throne GT and this post will give a general overview of the event and what the results ended up being.



A special thanks:
So first off, a special thanks to Rob and the Golden Throne crew for pulling off a very fun and smooth event. This was my first GT in a long time and it was as good as anyone could want though every GT always has room for improvement and growth. I definitely recommend going to this event next year and hope to make it out there again myself.

The terrain was sufficient to allow for strategic and nail-bitting games as were the missions. I especially liked the 2k point limit though I've never been a fan of FW. All in all, next year's GT is bound to be even bigger and better!


Winners:
So with that said, what happened and who won?
An official breakdown of results can be found here at the Golden Throne GT web page, check it out!

The top 4 armies were:

First: Adam (aka mortetvie on Dakka and other forums-and yes, it was me) with Eldar and Tau allies

Second: Reece (aka reecius) with Space Marines and Space Wolf allies

Third: Paul with Tau

Fourth: Frankie with Dark Eldar and Eldar allies

Worth mentioning is that 5th-8th were Liz, the Demon player who won the 2013 Bay Area Open (beaten by Reece); someone with the screen name "Ministry" playing Eldar and Tau allies (beaten by Frankie); Mike from Ireland playing Eldar with Dark Eldar allies (Beaten by Paul's Tau); A cool guy who's name I don't remember playing Nurgle CSM (beaten by me).

Army diversity:
Interestingly enough, this tournament had quite a diversity of players with a good mix of SM, IG, CSM, Demons with a splattering of Necrons and Nids...Oh and there were a ton of some combination of Tau, Eldar and Dark Eldar floating around.

Army lists:

My list can be seen here so I'll cover the other lists from what info I have available and I'll update this post as more info comes out as far as who had what in their list...

Reece brought the following:

HQ:
Lycander
Librarian w/ Force Axe, Gate of Infinity, Null Zone
Rune Priest w/ Force Axe, Jaws of the World Wolf, Storm Caller

Troops:
5x Scouts w/ Power Axe; 5x Scouts w/ Teleport Homer
9x Grey Hunters w/ Flamer, Power Axe, Wolf Standard in Drop Pod
5x Grey Hunters w/Flamer in Razorback w/ Assault Cannon

Elites:
10x Sternguard in Drop Pod
5x Assault Terminators w/ THSS
Iron Clad Dreadnought

Fast Attack:
Dreadnaught Drop Pod (some FW thing that lets you charge apparently)

Heavy Support:
5x Long Fangs w/ Missile Launchers
Land Raider Crusader.

The list is pretty solid and Reece pulled out some amazing wins with some crazy luck against Liz and her Demons as well as Frankie and his brutal Dual Force Org DE list.

Paul brought the following:

HQ:
Tau Commander w/ Fusion, Plasma, Target Lock, Drone Controller, Puretide Engram Neuro Chip; Iridium Armor
Commander Shadowsun

Elites:
Riptide w/ Ion Accelerator, Fusion, Skyfire, Interceptor
3x Crisis Suits; (1) had Multi Sensor Suite, Vectored Retro-Thrusters, Command and Control Node, Marker Drone; (2) had Fusion, Plasma, Target Lock, Marker Drone; (3) had Fusion, Plasma, Target Lock, Marker Drone
2x Crisis Suits w/ double Plasma and Skyfire
2x Crisis Suits w/ Fusion, Plasma
2x Crisis Suits w/ 2x Fusion

Troops:
6x Fire Warriors
6x Fire Warriors
6x Fire Warriors
6x Fire Warriors
10x Kroot w/ Hound
10x Kroot w/ Hound

Fast Attack:
3x Tetras

Heavy Support:
2x Broadsides w/ High Yield Missile Pods, Smart Missile Systems, Interceptor, 4x Missile Drones
2x Broadsides w/ High Yield Missile Pods, Smart Missile Systems, Interceptor, 4x Missile Drones

This was a brutal list with so much shooting and a devastating Death Star with the Commander/Shadowsun and friends...It didn't help that the mission I played Paul in was Big Guns either. Probably my one of the most tactical and tough-fought games ever and definitely the toughest of the tournament.

Frankie, as best as I can remember, brought the following:
6 Venoms, 6 Ravagers, Farseer, Wraithknight and some other random stuff.

He basically shot everyone dead and then shot them some more, dice fail against Reece didn't help him, though.

Some general thoughts on each of my games:
Overall, each game of mine taught me something new about how to play Eldar and against certain armies. Some of my opponents really threw me off and provided some unique challenges. For example...

My first game was against a GK list that involved the tactic of placing everything in a Fortress of Redemption/reserves so I had nothing but a huge pile of AV14 buildings to deal with. To top it off my opponent seized on me and blew away my Warp Spiders and Broadsides before they were useful. I had to overcome this by using the Wraithguard to roast whatever was inside the building with 5d6 S4 Ap2 shooty goodness and general solid play in making sure I got the objectives while my opponent did not.

My second game was against a Ravenwing army that involved my first turn having to deal with my opponent's army literally 1" from mine...Talk about an intimidating proposition, I had to just rely on good target priority/positioning and some luck to pull out a win here.

My third game was against a solid IG/DA army that had a lot of shooting so I had to make good use of positioning/target priority to limit enemy shooting while maximizing mine.

My fourth game was against a cool Nurgle CSM army that had a lot of solid and durable units with a player who made a lot of gutsy moves that kept me on my toes...Honestly a very close game where I had to deal with durable troops hurtling towards my objectives while Obliterators, Typhus and some Terminators were landing in my back field giving me heck...I basically had to make some gutsy moves myself and use smart target priority and ultimately the best part of the game was my Riptide charging Typhus and punching him in the face with a S10 Smash attack!

My fifth game was against a Tau player (Paul from above) and boy was it tough! The amount of shooting was ridiculous but I knew if I could eliminate his Markerlights I would be ok and that is what it came down to...taking out his Marker Lights and Commander unit was key to opening up the board to allow the Reapers to go to town on the rest of his army. I learned how important positioning is against Tau and if they go first how to minimize their alpha strike.

My sixth and last game was against Reece's Space Marines and I basically learned that no matter how much your dice hate you and how bad the game is going, always have a back-up plan in how to get the objectives and you will always have a shot at stealing the win from your opponent. In this game, as you will read in upcoming battle reports, Reece almost tabled me but I held some Jetbikes back behind terrain on the opposite side of the board where none of the action was happening and so come turn 5 Reece only had one objective, Slay the Warlord and Linebreaker while I had First Blood and Line Breaker and the opportunity to get an objective myself while denying Reece his only objective. So I made my move and prayed that the game wouldn't go on and well, it didnt! As long as you have something that can get you some objectives and deny your opponent his objectives at the end of the game, it really doesn't matter how badly the game has been going for you...Never give up and never surrender =).

So yeah, thank you to everyone who reads this blog, I'll be posting battle reports up shortly when I have time... I'm just in the middle of studying for finals and moving from one apartment to another =).