40K - The Long War 021.M3

The first of the 2021 Long War Series was held at the Warlords this weekend. The event was organised by  Sean Sullivan and attracted 16 participants.

THE LONG WAR CONTINUES

Going into the event, my major concern was my lack of practice with my new Death Guard army. I didn't want to curtail the experience of others by any slowness on my part. In the end we got through three turns in the first game, four in the second and five in the third......so an "Improving" grade.

Game One - The Scouring - Sam Whitt (Chaos)

Sam grudged me in the week leading up to the event which, for me, was excellent as he is my favourite opponent. His army was a mix of CSM and Daemons. Basically the game game down to a single set of die rolls. I had to make saving throws of 6 on three wounds and (of course, because I was on top of my game) i made them....oh how we lol'd. This denied Sam 10 Primary Points.

Win: 45-37

Game Two - Search & Destroy - Kent Jackson (Ultramarine Successors)

Key in this game was a 7 point Command Point dump in Turn One which allowed me to survive Kent's three Invictus Dread charge. I managed to get extremely lucky inflicting 6 Mortal Wounds from Curse of the Leper on a unit of Eliminators who were picking off my characters. As the game wore the Death Guard resilience won out.

Win: 78-62

Game Three - Scorched Earth - Aaron Wilson (Imperial Knights)

Going into the last round Aaron and I were playing for second place (except in the unlikely event of a draw in the other undefeated game). We had played with the same armies the previous week where I had managed a solid win. Aaron had learned the lesson from that game and tried to maintain range between the armies. It was a tight game of cat and mouse but effectively came down to poor placement of my Lord of Contagion, who was bearing down on a Knight. I failed three 9" charges which meant that I failed to kill a bracketed Knight. This allowed Aaron to reposition the Knight to shoot the Lord off the board. I had thought I was ok if I dumped 4 CP on Cloud of Flies but had forgotten that the strat doesn't work if you are still the closest. Really good game, and well done to Aaron.

Loss: 76-81

Wrap Up

I was pretty happy with the overall result given it was my first run with the army. I finished 6th out of 16 (between Kent in 5th [well done] and Sam in 7th). Aaron was 2nd.

My score was inflated by some pretty clutch die rolls - especially the one vs. Sam. I felt I had the best of the in-game dice but really suffered in pre-game. For the three games, I failed both the roll-off to pick deployment zone and for first turn......1.56% chance of that happening, thanks for asking.

My speed with the army is increasing and my knowledge of the various unit rules is better. Apologies to all three opponents for anything I got wrong. Certainly by game three my mind was a mush.

Great day. Thanks Sean.