Summer Skirmish - Day Two: Battle for the Golden Spoon

After winning 4 and losing 5 of the 9 games on Saturday I found myself in the bottom group for Sunday's games. Tim's brilliant pooling system had meant that I'd had some really enjoyable games and everyone was at the same level. Although I was far from proud to be in the bottom pool it did mean I'd have a shot of still coming away with some sort of prize. The group consisted of only 6 players (since there were 30 not the required 32 in attendance). The armies were Tau, 2x Necrons, Tyranids, an IG list (surprisingly) and myself. As I mentioned yesterday my first game was against Tau.

Golden Spoon Game 1 - DE vs Tau

Having lost so badly to Tau in the first game on Saturday I didn't exactly feel confident about winning. As I mentioned, my dark lances have been rolling as if I had BS 2 not 4 so I knew I'd struggle to deal with vehicles. Happily my opponent only had one devilfish full of fire warrriors, some sniper drones and two crisis suits. Luckily for me he elected to deep strike the suits so I'd get a turn or two to deal with the rest of his army. 

He got the first turn and managed to kill a couple of hellions but my raiders were happily unscathed. When he eventually killed one of them (I got lucky that few wyches died in the blast) he'd already disembarked his fire warriors (to finish off the hellions) allowing me to charge both them and the sniper drone team in the 2nd turn. The remaining dark lance couldn't hit the devilfish. The next turn the suits came in and hit their mark. With mostly anti-tank firepower they were only able to kill off my other raider and then suffered a charge from both wych squads. 

Despite the game being worryingly close for the first couple of turns the fact that the wyches stayed in combat for a while meant that the devilfish wasn't able to thin them out. It ended with one and a half wych squads and his devilfish on the table so I stole the victory.

Golden Spoon Game 2 - DE vs Tyranids

With a shocking sense of deja vu I found myself against Graham from Claws & Fists again. Having comfortably tabled him in the pool stages I felt confident. I was a little less confident when I found myself going second but knowing that Graham had to come to me meant I'd have a good chance of getting into combat early.

Sure enough, a devastating first turn's shooting and charge was enough to finish off all of his genestealers and I was left to mop up the raveners and zoanthropes. The hellions hung back since all of Graham's army was in cover and I didn't want to risk striking at initiative 1. The zoanthropes were pretty unlucky not to take out a raider with their shots scattering off target but with Graham's army having advanced so far I don't think it mattered.

Graham remained good humoured in the face of another tabling from me and I was left to find out who I'd be playing from the other semi-final which featured Guard and Necrons.

Golden Spoon Game 3 - DE vs Imperial Guard

I wasn't surprised to find that it was the Imperial Guard who had triumphed over the Necrons (despite me secretly hoping it was the other way around). I think he must've been pretty unlucky to be in the bottom group with guard at this points level so I just had to hope that luck would continue!

I won the roll off and deployed first. I made sure all my units were in cover though as I'd had the initiative stolen several times on Saturday (surprising when my army is I6 :P). Unbelievably, and I blame the commerorative tournament dice for this, my opponent took the initiative.

With his whole army at the back of the field he struggled to hit my raiders and luckily for me a passed a lot of cover saves. One raider lost it's dark lance which was frustrating but I was just happy not to have given up 70pts straight away. He advanced his rough riders up the middle.

I advanced the hellions up behind some area terrain in the centre and then moved up both raiders. One wych squad got out in the middle of the board and easily dealt with the rough riders claiming them a vital pain token. The other raider held on to it's passengers for now and stayed in cover. To my surprise I scored a penetrating hit on the hydra but could only stun it.

One of the chimeras came in the direction of the wyches and offloaded it's occupants. They proceeded to hose down three of the hellions who thankfully passed their Ld test. The wyches were subject to some rapid fire which cut them down a bit but FNP helped to minimise casualties. 

The hellions charged into the veteran squad and wiped them out but not before the helliarch found himself in a lonely position. The raider again failed to hit the hydra and the wyches managed to destroy the heavy flamer on the other chimera. Again I held my wyches in the other raider to minimise casualties. 

The helliarch went up in flames from the other chimera and now things were getting close. The wyches took a lot of fire from the remaining veterans and in my turn I retreated them back into cover hoping I could blow up the chimera and charge straight back out. 

What followed was a couple of turns of frustration and little else on my part. The occupied raider went down and I was forced to keep the wyches in cover until I could open up a transport. The other raider sat at the back of the field trying to hit something with it's dark lance but only managed to take another weapon off the already damaged chimera.

In order to seal what seemed like a certain victory the imperial guard advanced forward to try and finish off my wyches. The hydra incinerate the already dwindled squad and the remaining vets disembarked to line up some shooting on the rest. Fortunately no flamers were in range and I was lucky with my cover saves so they were able to charge straight out of the cover and cut down all of the veterans. 

In turn 7 my opponent just needed to take out a couple more wyches or my raider for the victory but opted for the wyches whose FNP meant they held on to half their number. With the remaining 5 wyches I got lucky and managed to take out the damaged chimera with plasma grenades securing an unlikely victory and the GOLDEN SPOON!

Conclusion

Massive thanks to Tim for organising this event. The sheer number of games meant that I got to play a good variety of armies (and Necrons for the first time). I was incredibly lucky to walk away with a prize and reward my Dark Eldar with a couple of new additions paid for with my store credit.

The tournament was fantastic and the pooling system worked really well. Thanks to all my opponents and I look forward to reading batreps from around the blogosphere.