This is a continuation of Wednesday’s article. Sadly, I still haven’t been able to secure pictures from the event so you will need to use your imagination. The players we had at this event boiled down to the following list:
- Myself – Eldar – 2x Wraithknights
- Tau Player – Taunar and Suits
- Tau Player #2 – Taunar and 2x Stormsurges
- Ork Player – 5x Stompas and assorted Gork/Morkanaughts
- Ork Player #2 – 2x Stompas, assorted infantry and wagons, also assorted knights and a Porphyrin to balance points
- Knight Player – FW knights, Porphyrin, Castellan
- Guard Player – Many tanks no Superheavies
- Raven Guard Player – No Superheavies
- Another Marine Player no Superheavies
One of the first mistakes I made for this game was to split up the teams on a faction basis. Team A consisted of: Myself, the two Tau players, and the Raven Guard players vs the rest. I figured the output of the Porphyrins would offset the Taunars but I will discuss this in depth later.
Deployment went smoothly, the Orks grouped up in the top right facing myself and one Tau player. The IG, Raven Guard and other Tau player were in the industrial zone on the bottom right close to the mass of Knights and the other marine player. The first turn began. On turn 1 the Orks got caught in their own parking lot and edged close to an objective. Shooting was pretty deadly seeing one Taunar go up alongside other losses (I was very focused on my corner of the board). Return fire saw a number of wound go on the Ork vehicles but none blow up until the Guard player unleashed his Deathstrikes (I gave him a +2 to every roll to fire them). My side scored one objective and only a few players lost a nominated unit.
At the start of turn two, Team B placed their new objective and promptly wiped out almost all the superheavies on Team A in the shooting phase. The only thing that saved the last Taunar and Stormsurge was the fact that an effect from the Charadon rulebook limited the range of guns shooting towards the left side of the board to 24”. One of the limitations of our modified turns became apparent as Team B was able to both fire first and declare charges first which gave them a lot of initiative to dictate the battle. While this did hamper the Orks as the Tau and Eldar moved out of charge distance whenever possible it did also prevent them from being charged as well. Team A was able to thin out 1 Stompa and heavily damage the rest, while also killing a few knights, including one Porphyrin. Team B scored an objective and the turn ended with Team B having a small lead of 15 points.
Turn 3 continued to slant the board in favor of Team B. With most enemy superheavies dead, and other units hiding, they were able to move towards a few objectives. They used a few clever tactics to move-block Team A from getting on any objectives as well. Team A did manage to get some solid hits in killing 2 stompas and bringing the others down to single-digit wounds. The center of the board was swept clear of most non-knight units with my Yncarne getting killed by a knight but being avenged by Karandras. No team was able to secure any objectives this turn. It looked like Team B had widened their lead to 75 points when one Team B player reported that he had lost 100 points worth of marked units (ouch). AT this point it was 6PM and we convened to see if we wanted to get another turn in. A few people wanted to leave so we decided to call it there (for all its limitations the turn order has allowed me to get apoc games going 3-4 turns with ease). We spent the next hour tidying up the store and I was back home by 8PM exhausted but happy.
Thoughts:
I have a few ruminations from this event that might be beneficial to other game organizers.
- Don’t be afraid to split up teams not along faction lines. I should have split up the Tau players and the Ork/ Porphyrin players. Porphyrins are very powerful in games with many superheavies and they would have benefitted from dividing their firepower. The Knights fighting the Stompas would also have been more beneficial as well rather than grouping them all vs the team with fewer Superheavies.
- The board setup worked really well, the different theme of each board meant that bloody fights were taking placed in highly localized areas (the Eldar and Tau desperately holding off the orks, the Knights playing peek-a-boo with AM tanks). I wanted to create a board where important events were going on across the field that teammates didn’t know about adding ot the chaotic feel of the match. I think the diagonal set up prevents the formation of firing lines and makes it easier for teams to close into combat.
- The turn order needs to be adjusted. The current set up rewards armies that shoot as they can kill enemy superheavies before they shoot on turn 2 on-wards. They can also charge enemy close combat threats which heavily penalizes fragile armies like Eldar. I think in the future I will keep the current format for turn 1 but do one of two things:
- Option A: Give the team who is losing the opportunity to reverse the turn order at the start of each round. That way if the Ork players feel they can never assault anyone they can get a chance.
- Option B: as above but also reverse it so that if Team B shoots first, then Team A assaults first. Adds more drawbacks and doesn’t give one side all the initiative.
- Lastly, I don’t know if I will play in my own event again. As the organizer I had to make some calls that felt a little bad (they favored my team but I would have called them the same way regardless.) I think I could also have intervened earlier in shifting the turn order to maintain balance but I held back as it would have favored my team and myself.
Regardless of my own notes the players had a good time, and we got a lot of great stories from the event. The final result was swung by a big last turn, and I got some ideas on how to improve my events going forward. I would love any feedback you all might have (beyond: take pictures next time). Let me know in the comments!
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