Yesterday was the semi-final rounds of ‘Ard Boyz. Colin, Anthony, and I from Redcap’s/PAGE CC went out to the Adventurer’s Guild in Harrisburg, PA.

It was actually a pretty interesting and fun day. But, damn. Representative of the whole thing, the glue on a bunch of my models decided to spectacularly, improbably collectively fail and now I’ve got a Drop Pod in a dozen pieces and a whole bunch of Sternguard and Assault Squad arms and heads rolling around in their case(Heads? What the hell?). This is basically reflective of how I performed for the day. It was almost like everyone else showed up to play 40k, and I showed up ready for Tiddlywinks… Damn.

Scenarios

Scenarios are up on GW’s site. Basically they consist of:

• Spearhead deployment, with three objectives placed along the neutral diagonal. The neutral table quarters also have fog, applying Nightfighting rules.
• Pitched Battle deployment, with both players Deep Striking in two objectives anywhere on the table.
• Dawn of War deployment in an Annihilation mission with two objectives as bonus points & tie breakers, and each player having an entire short edge along which they may also bring in units.

All in all I thought the scenarios were pretty good. Not too crazy and mixed things up just a little. I also liked the strong emphasis on playing for objectives and table aspects, even with the Annihilation mission. GW and John Schaffer also get credit for quickly posting revised versions clarifying a number of questions that were raised.

The only part I thought was a little unfortunate was the fog mechanic in the first scenario. It’s a great scenario and a great idea, but I’m not sure how well it works in that competitive environment with a lot of emphasis on playing super fast. It seems easy to overlook various parts of it (applying the fog, rolling for it to lift in each quarter, measuring it out/determining LOS accurately, etc.). In my game I knew we were playing it slightly wrong (i.e., rolling for the whole table to lift rather than each quarter) but I let it roll because it just didn’t matter.

Game 1: Blood Angels

The primary reason it didn’t matter was because the game quickly came down to a lot of close range shooting and assaults. This was the first time I’d faced a new Blood Angels list, and it was crazy. The list was something like:

• Astorath with Death Company or Assault Squad
• Lemartes with Assault Squad
• Five or Six Dreadnoughts, mostly Furioso, some as Librarians, and some DC and regular, several of them in Drop Pods
• Three Storm Ravens
• Some other Assault Squads

Despite some premature and misplaced handwringing, the Furioso is incredible. At around a meager 125 points it’s a MEQ killing machine. Maybe not as strong against hordes and units with many weak models just due to the probabilities, but clearly awesome against smallish, more elite units; this is one of the main points the linked BoLS post missed, in addition to seriously overreacting to a single play. The Furioso has a built-in Meltagun for potshots at bigger stuff, but the real story are the free-upgrade Blood Talons. Stepping into assault with a pair of those, the Dread strikes simultaneously (I 4)—importantly, before any Powerfists—with 4 attacks (A 2, plus one for 2 CC, plus one for the charge), hits on 3s (WS 6), wounds on 2s (S 6), rerolls any failed wounds (Lightning Claws), permits no armor saves (Power Weapon), and then for every unsaved wound, it gets an immediate extra attack (!), which can then themselves be chained if they succeed (!!). And all of that is assuming it hasn’t rolled for the Red Thirst, which would give it Furious Charge (+1 Initiative and Strength). Plus, it’s armor 13 in front and a walker, so Krak Grenades can’t hurt it, Melta Bombs need a 6 to place with their single chance, Relic Blades can’t touch it, and even a Powerfist is going to have a hard time wrecking it. And, you know, remember they’re only 125 points…

Worse though, that’s assuming the Powerfist even survives to get its attacks. It’s not. The Furioso can easily, reliably wipe out a full squad of MEQs. Even Colin’s Plague Marines were annihilated by them. All in all, they’re a ridiculous nut to crack. Your only chance is shooting, but if they Pod in on top of you or drop out of a Storm Raven, you’re not going to get many chances to do so before it’s all over your guys, and it is in turn all over for them. Within a MEQ squad, Melta Bombs would have a pretty slim chance of taking it down in exchange for it simultaneously killing the whole squad, and that’s basically your only chance, as far as I can tell.

Beyond that, another Dreadnought could slug it out with a Furioso reasonably well in what would most likely be a pretty drawn out combat given the limited attacks. Demon Princes and probably some of the Greater Demons and main Demons are most likely the best killers though, with their higher Initiative and large number of 2D6 penetrating attacks.

I also had to upgrade my assessment of Stormravens. They pack a significant amount of firepower on their own, almost a ridiculous assortment of weaponry. Worse, they’re highly mobile firebases; between being Fast and having Power of the Machine Spirit (fire one additional weapon) they can move pretty far and still shoot a large portion of their weapons. Armor 12 is also no slouch, and with that mobility it’s hard to bring meltaguns to bear against them. Worst though, the Ceramite Plating on their hull removes the D6 bonus from Melta shots. That’s a problem for anti-vehicle forces built around Melta. The three Storm Ravens I faced here absorbed a fairly significant amount of shots that would have destroyed normal medium vehicles, and I only took one down in the end. As a side note, this BA player had really nice Stormravens, converted from Valkyries following the BoLS articles.

The plentiful rerolls to hit and to wound and Furious Charge traits granted by various characters spread throughout the army also mean that there are a large number of absolutely brutal assault units in the army, particularly combined with the large number of Power Weapons some of them can take.

All in all, I think really fighting Blood Angels is going to take some serious thought and specialization, or lots of mechanized protection and tons of firepower.

Game 2: Imperial Guard

Speaking of which, after getting shelled in Game 1, continuing my tour of the popular metagame, I faced a heavily mechanized Guard list, with something like:

• Two Company Command Squads
• Ton of veterans with meltaguns in Chimeras
• Ton of heavy weapons with lascannons in Chimeras
• Two Vendettas with lascannons galore
• Three Hydras
• Two Manticores
• Two Banewolfs

I rolled and chose to go first. I probably should have gone second and reserved everything, but it seemed unlikely I could go toe-to-toe in a shooting war with that army, particularly as the table was unfortunately almost completely wide open, with very little terrain available to block anything. Expecting him to then go entirely into Reserve, as he did, by going first I was hoping I could get most of my guys over onto his table side and pick them off at close quarters as they filtered in from Reserves.

In practice though it was a disaster. Almost everything he had except a Vendetta, Manticore, and maybe a Chimera came in on Turn 2. He rolled high enough throughout the Reserve rolls that it didn’t matter, but in hindsight an Astropath goes a long way to making that happen. So many tanks came on that they had to go cheek to cheek all along the line just to fit on the board. Immediately afterward, they poured a ton of shots into my half-exposed guys that was just crippling. Most emotionally devastating was the Sternguard who had come down in their Pod and set up near an objective in area terrain, fearing incoming Blast templates. Having never faced them though and allowing them to slip out of mind, I’d not taken into account the Banewolfs, which rolled on and obliterated them with their chemical templates. The screams of my Sternguard as they roiled in the chemical bath will haunt my dreams for some weeks to come.

After that it was just a long series of my guys getting pounded by shooting, with no viable way to really counter that many vehicles. I’d obviously thought about this kind of mech Guard list beforehand, but it just hadn’t really clicked with me exactly how many vehicles we were really talking about.

One thing I’ll note is that although they’re not flashy, Chimeras are no slouch, and an extremely valuable and relatively cheap unit. They pack a lot of firepower on their own, particularly when they get close and can apply their Heavy Flamers, and the Multi-Lasers are pretty good against a variety of targets. Their AV 12 front armor’s also very solid, and the weaker side flanks just don’t apply if there are so many tanks pressed up against each other that you can’t physically see any of the sides… Worst though, the large number of fire points provides an amazing bunker from which to shoot out. Combine that with the large number of specialty weapons available to the Veterans and other squads, and you’ve got the makings of a lot of ridiculousness.

Game 3: Tyranid

After all that, I went up against Anthony and his Tyranid monster list. This was a closely contested battle, refreshing after the previous horrible beatings. In the end we tied on Kill Points, with me killing more scoring units to take that bonus point, but he held his objective and I did not hold mine so he won the tie breaker. Tragically, if just one more Termagaunt had died under the heavy fire its unit received in my last round of shooting, I would have taken another KP and the victory.

This was a great, fluffy game, with many giant monster boards steadily rolling toward the Kingbreakers’ defensive line.

One thing that went well in the game was that I went second and put everything except my Drop Pods into Dawn of War, bringing it on in Turn 1. As I hoped, that permitted Anthony to extend too far, coming in well up on his short table edge as the mission rules allowed. I was then able to sweep in on top of those units with a lot of flamers and shooting, racking up early Kill Points.

However, one thing that permitted was that it gave Anthony the choice of table edge. Along the side I wound up with there were a bunch of big building and ruins pieces. It seriously cut down my line of sight, particularly across the long axis for enfilade and supporting shots, and funneled everybody into a couple fairly distinct channels. This was unfortunate as it provided a lot of cover for advancing ‘Nids, disturbing my fire prioritization and preventing my guys from ganging up shooting.

The other was that the Librarian came on very poorly placed. I just wasn’t thinking about it; I was pretty fried and most of my Tyranid games have been at low points without a lot of monsters around. In the event, Librarian Rorschach was not where he needed to be and it left a bunch of my guys very exposed to psychic effects and attacks from the Hive Tyrant and Zoanthropes, which promptly devastated a couple units, most notably my Sternguard.

Other Thoughts

One side observation that occurred to me is that I usually work out my army list in a spreadsheet and don’t denote all the stats. It’s not usually an issue for anyone because most people are familiar with Marines, but I realized that it’s really nice when an opponent gives you a list that has all the stats on it, particularly for more rare armies or lists with many different types of units. I’ll have to work that into my spreadsheets somehow.

Back to ‘Ard Boyz, one common feature in many matches seemed to be objectives contested or gained at the last minute by very small units, often swinging people from victory to defeat and vice versa. For example, in my first match, despite being absolutely slaughtered, my sole remaining viable unit, a single Landspeeder, managed to dash onto an objective at the very end and hold on to contest it, keeping my opponent to a Major Victory rather than a Massacre. Colin was on the reverse side of that in his first two matches, with opponents decimated and even tabled for all but a few models that just barely managed to move onto and contest or hold an objective at the last minute. I think this occurrence is mostly a product of missions with many objectives, which is great, and the sheer number of points involved (2500). With so many models around, there’s a good chance there’ll be some stragglers around who are likely to be near an objective and make a last minute grab. I also think this effect is also a product of people both choosing to focus on tabling opponents rather than play the objectives, and people still learning how to focus on objectives. I think many people, including me, still aren’t good at really bunkering down around objectives and creating a buffer zone that prevents it from being contested at the last minute. Similarly, target priorities probably need to be adjusted a bit to take out those units earlier that are most likely to be able to contest or hold, which may not be the units presenting the biggest immediate threats.

Looking around at the 11 tables in play, the list of armies was somewhat interesting. Beforehand I had predicted lots of Imperial Guard, Blood Angels, and Space Wolves, in that order. The first two were correct, mechanized IG and Dreadnought/Stormraven BA were all over the place, but there was apparently at most one Space Wolves player, which definitely surprised me. There were also only two Tyranids and two Chaos Marines, though the latter wasn’t a huge shock. Several varieties of vanilla Marines were present, including lots of Terminators, a couple Salamanders, and Shrike. Surprisingly, I had some trouble identifying who was who at the end, but I think a Khan bike army actually won the whole day. A single Tau and one Eldar player were present, though I did not see how they fared. Perhaps most surprisingly, there were absolutely zero Orks fielded.

Notably given ‘Ard Boyz’ reputation, there were a lot of great paint schemes and armies on display. Although somewhat more subtle than many, one of the best was Justin from Big Gunz’ Genestealer Cultist army made out of super converted Skaven Plague Monks and Tyranids. It didn’t really stand out from a distance like some of the bright, flashy Salamanders paintjobs and others, but when you really looked at the army it was great.

It also seemed fairly clear that the ‘Ard Boyz format of three matches is reasonable, and about all you could realistically manage within a single day at that points level, but it’s pretty random. I believe if you have 2^n players in a Swiss Pairs style tournament then you need n rounds to ensure the best players face each other at some point. I haven’t done the math, but it seems like the Battle Points scheme and the smaller groupings mitigates that requirement to some extent, but it’s surely still similar. Three rounds just isn’t enough to definitively settle everything out for the number of people playing in these things, so there’s a fair amount lot of luck involved in getting ideal matchups against your army, whether based on the factions, lists, or weaknesses of the opposing players.

However, good scenario design can help mitigate this by having distinctly gradated victory conditions, better differentiating players. For example, Scenario 3 in the Preliminary Round of this year’s ‘Ard Boyz probably didn’t accomplish this because if you won you most likely got a Massacre because the Kill Points thresholds between the different levels were set too close given how many were offered in the modified rules. However, the scenarios in this semi-final round probably did a good job at accomplishing the needed differentiation. The heavy focus on objectives and the tough requirements to pull off Massacres meant you really needed to be on the ball, and strongly better players could pull off better results than good but slightly weaker players. This kind of structure is something tournament scenario designers should really think about and try to build in.

In Closing

All in all, despite getting clobbered, I had a pretty good time. The atmosphere and armies were very different than at PAGE or Redcap’s, and it was very interesting—and soulcrushing—to go face real competitive Blood Angel or Imperial Guard lists. Although there seemed to be the expected rules lawyers and slight rising of tensions throughout the day, my opponents seemed like pretty good guys (except that jerk Anthony, obviously), and my impression was that nobody was too over the top.

Rich and the guys at the Adventurer’s Guild also did a great job setting up and running the event. I’d never been there before, but it seems like a cool store with good atmosphere and a ton of product. Things ran pretty much on time, Rich made sure no one had to sit out a bye when people (poorly) left early, and the whole atmosphere was just really solid. They also had a good amount of terrain on most of the tables, and a lot of it was actually really nice pieces. Good stuff all around.

Now the planning and scheming starts for next year. I’ll definitely have to make some time to start playing at Showcase and other area locations to get more exposure to anything like the sort of forces throwing down at this event. In the interim, on to planning for the upcoming PAGE Apocalypse/Planetstrike, Spearhead, and Kill Team events!

A few more photos and higher res versions are available in the Flickr gallery.