Masters 2012 Report Pt 4 (the finale!)

Right, better get on into it then!

In the build up to the final round, Daniel Hayden looked to be pulling a big upset and was in the process of destroying Pascal in Kill points. This was setting things up nicely for an epic finale, as this would have put me 16-17 points ahead of him, meaning if he could produce a big win against me he would slap me down and walk away with the whole thing. 

Clearly Dan's Flyrants were about to gift him the tournament...

Alas Daniel did what Daniel does best, and threw it all away at the most crucial moment, drawing to Pascal 6-7. This meant that mathematically, I could have spent the next 2 hours punching Daniel in the balls for a max sports hit, then gotten tabled, and would still be winning the event. However, that did not make the event a dead rubber, and we both went into the round hungry for a win; Daniel aiming to secure second place and prove a point, while I'm a colossal jerk and wasn't going to let anyone get a win against me if I could help it.

Onto round 7 then... Battle of the pregnant flying dinosaurs in space!

Any caption at this point would be redundant really.

 Round 7: Daniel Hayden
Mission: Purge The Alien
Deployment: Dawn of War

This was set up to be the round of the event. Dan had what I felt was
the most competitive list, and the best chance of winning going into
the tournament. Right up until the final dice roll of his round 6
game, it looked like this round would decide the event. Unfortunately
for Dave, an earlier draw against Haydn and now a draw against Pascal
meant he would be scrapping it out for 2nd.

Dan had 2 flyrants with 2 powers, 3 tervigons with 3 powers and all
the usual upgrades, 3 squads of gaunts to make them scoring and 4 hive
guard.

It's a dance party with psychic powers for music!

Dan won the roll for first turn, and gave it to me. Having looked at
how his army worked, it seemed like he would be hinging his gameplan
on enfeebling wraiths, and shooting them with the flyrants. Giving me
first turn was an effort to bring me inside enfeebles 24inch range at
the start of the game. Especially as every single MC in his army
rolled enfeeble, and 2 of them rolled Iron Arm as well!

I deployed as if I intended to push everything right down his throat,
and Dan deployed to match it, with gaunts and tervigons up front to
punish any t3 wraiths foolish enough to assault them. His flyrants
deployed at the rear to be outside of any t1 nastyness.


Turn 1 - me: I immediately moved my wraiths backwards and to one side,
turning my central deployment into a refused flank, and forcing him to
now come to me wading through 4+ turns of shooting before he would
reach me in piecemeal. My annihilation barges moved into range of the
iron arm tervigon, and once the whole army had shot, it was dead.

Turn 1 – Dan: Dan was now forced to come in, or risk continuously
bleeding killpoints. 2 tervigons spawned, with one having a wee
accident and clamming up. One flyrant iron-armed to t9, but did not
fully commit in pushing forward. The other had endurance cast on it
and pushed centrally.

Hive guard pen’d an annihilation barge, so the flyrant then blew up
its now AV11.

That jerk Flyrant did this to my poor vehicle.

Turn 2 – Me: Both flyers came in. Meanwhile the wraiths continued to
move backwards and sideways to be out of range of any enfeebling
rather than the 1 flyrant who was now target alpha. The first flyer
shot at him, doing 2 wounds, and grounding him, which did a 3rd wound.
Everything else then shot him, and did nothing, until the cheeky gun
on the bottom of the command barge took his final wound.

The warrior squads from reserve shot up a depleted termagant squad
that had suffered from the first ones death, and wiped it out.

Turn 2 – Dan: Dan pushed the second flyrant up into the same spot, and
a tervigon assaulted the command barge. Gaunts advanced up my right
flank, which was totally empty now, so were making the hard hike over
to me. Hive guard managed to pen the command barge, so the flyrant
again blew it up with his devourers. The tervigon charged him, but
promptly failed his mindshackle scarab test and was reduced to 4
wounds. A horde of gaunts were also in this assault, but a challenge
was protecting the lord from their attacks.

Turn 3 – Me: I pushed a wraith squad into these gaunts, while
everything else shot the other flyrant to death. As this turn I would
now have too big a lead, I pushed both other wraith units forward to
keep pressure on, knowning I would lose 1 but mop up the rest of the
game in the process. In the combat, the wraiths wiped the gaunts out,
but after passing his mindshackle test the tervigon hulk-smashed my
lord to death for only 2 more wounds in return.

Lest we forget....

Turn 3 - Dan: The last free tervigon enfeebles the nearest wraith
squad, spits out its last unit of gaunts with the last getting trapped
until an emergency C-Section can be performed, shoots the wraiths with
2 units of gaunts helping, before 1 unit and the tervigon make it into
assault. A couple of gaunts are killed, and a wound is pulled off the
tervigon, but the wraiths are reduced to just 1 wound.
In the other combat, the wraiths finished the tervigon that had killed
the lord, who got a big consolidate.

Turn 4 - Me: One unit of hiveguard are shot to death, and 9/10 gaunts
are killed in another unit, while the wraith unit that had killed a
tervigon multi assault another gaunt unit's remnants and the last of
the hive guard, wiping both out.
The fresh wraith squad assaults the gaunts who are locked with a
single wounded wraith and tervigon, wiping out the gaunts while the
tervigon suffers another wound dropping to 4.

Turn 4 - Dan: Dan now has a wounded tervigon in combat, a single gaunt
who has gone to ground, and a 9 man unit of gaunts pushing for my
deployment zone for linebreaker, successfully passing their
instinctive behavior roll in the process, so the turn is fairly quick.
The wraiths strip another 2 wounds for no loss.

Turn 5 - Me: The wraiths who beat up the hive guard breakdance in Dans
deployment zone, the 2 flyers force a moral check on the gaunts
closing in on my deployment zone, causing them to run, and the
tervigon is finished off along with the solo gaunt.

Turn 5 - Dan: Dan passes the rally check and heads back into my
deployment zone for line breaker, and the game finishes at 12-4 kill
points.

Win - 15
First Blood - 1, Tervigon
Line Breaker - 1, A Wraith unit
Slay The Warlord - 1-1, Flyrant, Necron Overlord

Dan had played fantastically to get to this point, and had 2nd place
locked in very tightly. In another mission where pulling back like I
did would mean giving the entire board control over to him, the game I
felt would have been a lot closer. Unfortunately as it stood, the game
was able to play out extremely one sided due to my significantly
better mobility, range, and decision to not just shovel units into
hungry open tyranid mouths.

I must say it was fantastic to see his tyranid list do so well all
weekend long, both in terms of further game development and variety,
and in terms of Dans development as a player. Dan has always had a
wealth of potential, just lacking enough polish to pull through some
of the higher pressure situations. With every event he seems to get
better and better, and seems to have improved greatly since the ATC
experience, which was the main aim in bringing him in the first place.
I look forward to seeing him stomp sucka's over the next tournament
season.

So, that was it! The masters for another year. When the dust had settled, the 2 people I brought with me to the ATC rounded out 2nd and 3rd places - which felt vindicating, and after a year of being separated from my precious I was able to reclaim the trophy and take out first place.

Awww yeahh!

I must admit going into the game I had had basically zero time to prepare, so felt pretty down on my chances, hoping on a few theories and a basic understanding from reading the book a few times without getting to put any of it into practice. As such, I had already resigned myself to finishing a little lower in the pecking order; staying competitive throughout the weekend actually came as quite a surprise for me!

Over the weekend I'll see if I can get some pics of my army up, as it's changed a fair bit since the last time I posted.
Until then!