This past weekend I drove up to the Sacramento area (and did a bit of site seeing on the way with my wife) and got to play in the 'Ard Boyz finals. It went pretty good all things considered so without a further adieu, here is a basic account of the tournament:
The Venue/Tournament overview:
My placement and games:
I ended up placing in 2nd overall, which isn't too impressive in an event of just 9 players but I'll take it. I get $200 in online vouchers and a ticket to the 2012 Throne of Skulls tournament. If it doesn't sound like I am too excited with the 'Ard Boyz final experience, it is probably because my games were either an exercise in clubbing seals or an endeavor of frustration-especially my second game, which was kind of both. The placements were DE 1st, my Eldar 2nd, IG 3rd.Game 1:
My first game was against a ringer CSM player who said his army was ah-mazing and cheesy and people would see it and go "dude, I don't want to play that." So I'm like cool, good fun challenging game lets throw down! Granted he was coerced into coming in to be the ringer and didn't feel good (he said he was up til late and didn't get much sleep) but then again, I only got 6 hours of sleep after 36 hours of no sleep and a 12 hour drive North so maybe I had the bigger handicap than him? Anyway, he concedes by turn 4/5 after most of his army is gone and I get full points. I hope he feels better, though!
His army had the following:
2 Demon Princes: 1 Nurge, 1 Slaanesh both had wings, slaanesh had whip power.
2 units of Khorne Berzerkers (put in Land Raiders)
3 units of Noise Marines (in rhinos)
1 unit of Nurgle Marines (in rhino)
2 Land Raiders
3 Oblits
The game boiled down to him hurtling at me with his Landraiders and everything else in tow while my Fire Dragons killed his Land Raiders and my Harlequins/Wraithguard killed his Berzerkers and Demon Princes and at that point the game was pretty much moot. I don't think he killed anything but a squad of Fire Dragons and a Wraithlord.
Game 2:
This was the only opponent/game that was lame and frustrating in all of the 'Ard Boyz games this year. Blackmoor played this guy in the semis and wrote about it here, so with that said I'll just give the details and you guys can draw your own conclusions:
-The game ended on turn 4, and because of that he got the major win and I got a major loss (thus him getting 1st and me getting 2nd). Looking at the timestamps for my game pictures, I took less than 10 minutes for my 1st turn, around 13-15 minutes for my 2nd and 3rd and maybe 30 for my 4th but that was because my opponent took forever to roll some dice/saves from shooting and in combat. I felt like he slow played the game. Now keep in mind, I was in position with my scoring units to move next turn to either get a massacre or major win myself.
-He also had the audacity to claim I was slow playing but after looking at the time stamps of the game on my camera, it was clearly him slow playing. Plus, he wasted time arguing about rules that didn't even matter that I ended up being right about and he also made what I would call very low and poor sportsmanship like rules lawyering issues out of things. For example, I forgot to roll for reserves in one turn so the next turn I said "hey, let me roll for reserves now so I don't forget" because of course, he complained about that last turn since he wanted an opportunity to shoot my easy to kill guardian jetbikes. So he says "ok", so I roll then he goes "dude, you just messed up, now you can't cast psychic powers" (since Fortune/Guide/Doom are cast at start of turn and reserves are at beginning of move). Really? I say Ok, fine and move on but the game was full of such lame-ness.Game 3:
This was against a Grey Knight army that didn't seem cheesy in any way and I am glad he did so well with his army in the previous rounds.
His army had the following:
Libby with lotsa powers/stave
Coateaz
large CC henchmen unit (went in LRC)
1 10 man terminator unit (combat squaded and put into 2 other land raiders)
2 5 man strike squad in HB razorbacks
3 landraiders, 1 of each pattern (regular, flamer sponsons, LRC)
The missions was DOW killpoints, I got to go first and both our dice were nothing special except one turn each Wraithlord killed a Land Raider and my Fire Dragons took out his Venerable Dreads early on so he didn't have much to retaliate with, so if nothing but due to some dice rolls, he was neutered and unable to put up much of a fight against my shooting. The game ended with max points for me.
So there you have it, the (not so) glorious 'Ard Boyz 2nd place victory! I will still put up some portions of my games in Battle Report format since I think they can be turned into a sort of tactica with certain Eldar units but overall the games were not terribly exciting IMO. I especially plan on working on a Fire Dragon tactica article and I have a Wraithguard one in the works so you can keep your eyes peeled for those coming up!
sounds like you had some bad-luck second game. still congrats on the result!
ReplyDeleteAfter getting through all three rounds of Ard Boyz, would you do it again?
ReplyDeleteI'm very curious about reading your FD tactica. I use them quite often (read: always) but would like to get a different perspective on how to best utilize them.
Congrats on placing 2nd. Always good to see an Eldar player doing well.
I would do it again, though I would handle my second game in the finals differently (IE be more firm about the time and keep the guy honest). Overall it was a really fun experience. I played against and had to fight through a really tough crowed at the semi finals and the preliminaries had some good players too so I feel like I really did accomplish something with the Eldar =).
ReplyDeleteI will get that FD tactica out within the month, there are ways to use them so that you don't have to throw them away =).