Da Boyz GT 2015 Retrospective Part 1 – The Doubles
CanHammer
Hi Everyone,
Logan from 1 Plus Armour reporting in, just returned from the Da Boyz GT in Canandaigua, NY! I attended this event with several friends and clubmates from CanHammer and the Canadian ETC team and we had a great time.
There were two main events that we attended for – 40k doubles, and 40k singles. The doubles event was largely un-comped, other than only allowing a single Forgeworld unit and single Gargantuan/Superheavy Lord of War per team. The singles event was using Da Boyz’s own flavour of Highlander comp (duplicate troops allowed if all troops options are taken, no Battle Brothers, only 1 Forgeworld unit, and no formations or detachments composed of formations).
First things first – the Venue.
This was hosted at the Bristol Harbour Resort, which has an absolutely spectacular view, both from the rooms, but also from the tournament hall(s).
The rooms were a very short walk from the hall (maybe a minute), and were also wonderful. Tons of space, which is great if you want to cram 5-6 people into one, and completely spotless and well maintained.
Let’s talk about the Doubles.
The doubles event was on the Friday, with the singles on the following Saturday/Sunday, and it consisted of 3 2h30 minute rounds. As outlined briefly above, there was little comp for this (notably no comp on D or Invisibility), and past that the main requirement was just that both players must take a CAD.
I was running a Tau CAD with an Inquisitorial Detachment for those wonderful Servo Skulls, and my partner was running an Eldar CAD:
Vaul’s Wrath Support Battery – Warlock, 3x D-Cannon
Wraithknight – 2x Heavy Wraithcannons
Unfortunately, I do not have lists for my opponents in the Doubles, so I will have to go from memory.
Round 1
Our first round was against a similar list, on a team headed by Chris Lehsten from New York:
Buff Commander
Ethereal
Riptide – Burst Cannon/SMS
3x 12 Fire Warriors
3x Broadsides – HYMP, SMS
Farseer Skyrunner
5x Rangers
5x Windriders – Scatter Lasers
5x Windriders – Scatter Lasers
3x Hornets – Pulse Lasers
Wraithknight
Things went downhill pretty fast for Chris’ team, unfortunately, with us having bottom of turn and being able to very effectively counter-deploy. The end of turn 1 saw Chris’ team’s Hornets destroyed, a unit of Fire Warriors run off the table due to a failed morale test, and things continued from there for the rest of the game. Chris’ team ended up with no models remaining on the table at the end of turn 4. We walked away getting max points of 35.
Round 2
Our second round pitted us against Lewis Stolburg from Pennsylvania who was running solo as his teammate had missed his train and was unable to attend the event. Lewis was running a list that, on paper at least, does not seem extremely scary, but translates in an extreme style of attrition in gameplay through a combination of Eldar, Harlequins, and Dark Eldar:
Farseer Skyrunner
3x Windriders – Scatter Lasers
3x Windriders – Scatter Lasers
5x Warp Spiders
Wraithknight
Death Jester
Shadowseer
Solitaire
Archon
2x Venoms
Raider
5x Grotesques
The Harlequins were part of The Heroes’ Path formation, so they all had Stealth, Shrouded, and Infiltrate. Talk about target saturation with this much shooting! Because of the mission, our Wraithknight started in Reserves, which wouldn’t be a bad thing normally, but the dice gods are a fickle bunch… Turn 1 saw a Riptide brought down to 1 wound, 1 dead Broadside, 2 dead Missile Drones, and the Commander down to 2 wounds! From there, our Wraithknight came on turn 2, fired two D shots into Lewis’ Wraithknight and did a whopping 1 wound! We were able to pop the Raider full of Grostesques and the Archon, which was then charged by a Riptide in hopes of finishing the remaining Grotesque and Archon (after further shooting), however this ended up with the Riptide being stuck in combat for 3 rounds. Toward the end of the game, there was a slap fight between the Wraithknights, with both of them killing each other at the same time despite our’s having a 3W advantage at the start of combat. Mercifully, this game ended on Turn 5, and we walked away with 16 points out of a possible 35.
Lewis went on to place 6th (in battle points) in the Singles. Definitely a strong player!
Round 3
Our final game was against a double Nid list that I’m still pretty sure was designed to just frustrate anyone who played against it! This team was led by Jason Hager from New York, and consisted of more floating balls than you can shake a stick at…
4x Flyrant
Deathleaper
3x Lictors
Literally over 9000 Spore Mines, Sporocysts, and whatever the other spore things are… not really, but had to have been close to 40.
2x Mawloc
Things unfortunately got off to a bit of a bad start on this game, and I feel a bit bad about it… Jason’s partner had explained to us how the Sporocysts work (at least in this formation), and unfortunately gave us the wrong information which led to us flubbing part of our first turn by doing the opposite of what we should have done. They were great sports about it and decided to play it as they had described rather than RAW. Past that, turn 1 saw a Flyrant taken down to 1 wound, and a unit of Firewarriors killed. Turn 2 saw two dead Flyrants and another at 1W remaining, with a lot of ground left for the ‘nids to cover to get into combat.
Jason and his partner didn’t really want to proceed at this point, and knew they were walking into a bad match to begin with, and decided to call it a night (for booze and board games!) going into Turn 3. Will and I walked away with 35 points.
Jason’s partner, I believe, was Brian Horton, who went on to place 15th in battle points in Singles.
Overall Results and Thoughts for Doubles
Will and I took home a healthy 4th place overall, out of 34 teams, in the Doubles. 1st place went to Dan Platt and Mike Renno (Ontario guys), 2nd place to Ricky & Riley (Ontario guys), and 3rd place to Nick Nanavati.
The doubles format was a lot of fun, the scenarios were interesting, and overall we had a great time. The only thing that was a bit off with it was that the Best General award (usually given to highest battle points, but not counting sportsmanship/painting), was awarded to the person that had achieved the most kill points over the event and ended up going to the team in 6th place. This was a bit unexpected, but definitely did not detract from the fun!
Stay tuned for Part 2 which will talk about the Singles event!
