Over The Top 2012 - The robots go wild!

So this weekend just past was Over the Top 2012, and what a weekend it was!

After hearing nothing but good things about the BOTCH (Battle Of The Chumps) event over in the UK on www.40kuk.com I suggested the idea to the TO quite some time ago for something to consider. He loved the idea and latched onto it right away, and thus an escalation style event was born. Given that OTT runs 4 games on day 1, and 2 games on day 2, this worked out perfectly.

The event ran 2 games at 1000, then 2 games at 1500, followed by 2 games at 2000 points. This presented an interesting challenge, as now instead of coming up with 1 hard as nails list, you had to do it 3 times over, thrice the chance of mucking it up! It was also in line with NZ’s gradual move to no comp, I’ll let you be the judge as to whether or not lists got much harder based on what I played. There were also a couple of lists that I was very glad to dodge, will be interesting in the future to see what happens as I wind up running into the inevitable .

Round 1

Opponent: Doug Sainsbury – Grey Knights

Mission: Modified Killpoints – Pitched Battle

Points Value: 1000

Doug had:

Coteaz, 5 Purifiers with 2 psycannons in a Psyback, 5 man strike squad with a razorback in a psyback, 3 henchmen with 2 meltas in a psyback, 3 henchmen with 2 meltas in a psyback, and lastly 3 psyfleman dreads giving him a heap of anti-tank.

I had:

Lord in command barge with warscythe and Mindshackle scarabs, 3 Harbingers of Destruction with 1 solar pulse, 3x5 Necron Warriors, 6 Wraiths with 2 whipcoils, 5 Scarabs, 2 Annihilation barges.

I won the roll to go first, and set up quite centrally, joining a cryptek to each warrior squad. Wraiths and scarabs out front ready to go cause some calamity.

Doug set up boxed in an extreme corner , but not far enough away or back to stop me getting all my shots in.

In the first turn I pushed everything forward, but not within charge range, and boosted the command barge right up on my right towards the table edge Doug had cornered into. My shooting was fairly ineffectual, blowing up a few s6 heavy bolters, immobilising a razorback and wrecking the strike squads razorback.

In Dougs first turn, I made it nightfight, and managed to deny most of his army from being able to shoot. His purifiers pushed up and hopped out to shoot the wraiths however, but didn’t kill anything.

In my second turn I sweep attacked a dread, and failed like a boss. The wraiths went and killed all but 1 or 2 purifiers however, while the scarabs killed the purifiers transport. Some insignificant stunning and shaking went on with the henchmen’s psybacks.

In Dougs second turn, 2 of the dreads shot and bounced off the command barge, while the third went in to tie up the wraiths. Coteaz split off from his squad and punched the command barge out of the air, but the lord fell out and was A-O-K. The wraiths finished the purifiers but failed to harm the dread, 1 scarab base was killed from shooting and everything else pretty much just bounced.

In my third turn I forced Coteaz to ground, after shooting him with a s8 ap2 lance while he was in the open. Miraculously he survived with a 6, but this let my lord go kill a dread. The wraiths fluffed again but the scarabs went and killed another razorback. I also wiped out the strike squad with shooting.

In Dougs third turn the dread was dragged down by the wraiths, and 2 more scarab bases were killed.

In my 4^th turn coteaz this time was not so lucky and ate a lance to the face. The lord went and high-fived another dread in the face, the scarabs ate the remaining razor, the henchmen squads were wraithed and the game finished up 21 kill points to 1.

The kill points had been modified so that troop squads were worth 3, and troop dedicated transports were worth 2, so dougs army had 21 in total, while mine had something like 15.

All up I was quite glad Doug had grudged me for this round, as at 1000 points Necrons scale quite nicely, and get a decent amount of toys, while the grey knights don’t get their large volume of shots if they want to invest a lot in toys like purifiers and psyflemen. Couple this with a healthy killpoint lead on him, and I was pretty happy going into this. While my army isn’t tailored to beat GK’s specifically, it is designed around the concept of MSU transports and small squads, so anytime I run up against this I will generally be well off unless I screw up.

When the dust settled, I had achieved the primary (killpoints), achieved the secondary (kill Dougs General and not lose mine in the process), and all 5 bonus points, giving me 20, while I had reduced Doug to just 1 bonus point for killing one of my vehicles. Early in the rounds its important to minimise every single point your opponent could get, as if you drop a game in turn later, it all becomes about who between you got a bigger win or a smaller loss.

I’ll post up Round 2 later today and continue on in a similar fashion!