Chicago Field Report, part 2

Right On, Ladies and Gentlemen!  It's now time for the run down of the second game of 40k I played in Chicago over the summer.  The report you should have been able to read a few days ago, but my intro took on a life of it's own.

So, when we left off, I had just finished the blackest game of 40k with Hoagy.  After that, I took a break and watched what was going on at the other tables.  Talked some shop with the boys (mostly revolving around how revolting old pots of the citadel washes smell) and then challenged Frank(Evan) to a game of 40k after he finsished with DFM(Joe). Which ended up taking a while due to Joe's peculiar 40k qualities:  easy to maul, hard to kill off. 

After that it was time to finish of the pizza and move on to:

Ulthwe vs. Black Legion
Actually, now that I think about it, most of the games that were played that day created this kind of "none more black" theme.  Joe vs Evan was Dark Angles (heavy on the Ravenwing) vs what may may have been Black Legion.  Which then moved into the following Ulthwe vs. Black Legion.

This was another fun game against another great opponent. I've played against Even before in some Apoc games and he's a laid back cool cat of a dude.  Which is great for actual gaming but bad if you massively underbid your deployment time and have a full green tide to set up.  Ah, memories.

Again, it's been months since I actually played this game, so what follows is more a series of impressions about the battle.  It was a little late in the day, but we went with 2000 points since  we each had prepared army lists  We then proceeded to roll up capture and control (Or as Dethtron accurately described it after the fact: a two hour dry hump into a draw) with regular ol' deployment.

1) Evan Turn 1, part 1
Evan got to go first and split up his forces into two rough halves - each one covering a table half and kept his Chaos Lord with Terminator Retinue and a squad of chosen back for reserves and infiltration nastiness.  The Mawloc is a stand in for a defiler which had been woefully forgotton across town.  You can't see it yet, but there's a second, actual, defiler behind the blue building Hoagy tried to eat earlier.

2) Evan Turn 1, part 2
I'm sure there was a compelling reason to take two nearly identical photographs - but for the life of me I can't remember why.  In any case, there's plenty more to talk about.  The building in the background with Evan's phone has one objective being camped by some Plague Marines and the other Objective is behind the fule dump with the yellow security gate.  Notice how I'm not paying attention to it.  This will continue for most of the game and will cost me the win. Even was playing a mostly close range army so he ran up with all his Rhino's and popped smoke.  I think there may have been some Defiler shooting but nothing effective.

3) Eldar Turn 1... I think
Because I had grouped up all my forces on one side, I had enough weight of fire to trash both the Rhinos on the left (much to Evan's surprise) while my Fire Dragons Torched the maw-filer.  On the right side over there, some other parts of my army get ready to do some more de-meching.  So far so good, but this is the moment I start getting blood thirsty.  This will eventually lead to me loosing sight of my goals for the next 3-4 turns and almost losing.

4) Another Shot of the Same Turn?  Maybe?
I gotta be honest and tell you that I have no idea what the hell is up with my photo choices. It was late in a beer fueled day, so while I was trying to keep a good record of this game, I ultimately failed. Mostly because I don't remember why I was photographing things and because I mostly stopped after about turn 3.

5) End of Game - Objective 1
So, like I said, I got blood thirsty in this game after a couple of good turns of shooting and then lost track of the mission.  So at the bottom of turn 6, I had to declare a 24 inch tank shock with a fully loaded Wave Serpent into difficult terrain and into a unit with plasma guns.  Or lose right then and there. Thankfully, it worked out for me and I got the draw.  Weeee.  Had the game gone on, the Fire Dragons in the transport would have gotten out and tried (probably unsuccessfully) to push the marines off the objective. 

6)End of Game - Objective 2
AKA the one I forgot about.  I got, like, really focused on Evan's objective that it wasn't about until turn 4 when I realized that maybe I should,possibly, try and claim my own objective.  Which was right around the time Evan dumped some plague marines on it.  What you're witnessing below is my pitiful attempt to use storm guardians to push the objective.  Yeah, I was that desperate.

Lasting Impressions

Gettin' Along: As the game went on, Evan and I got more and more subdued and the table talk kind dropped off.  It was a loooong day and this game just seemed to take it out of us a bit.  It was kinda hard to judge how things were going socially as a result.  But props to Evan for sticking it our.  I felt like I was on some pretty good behavior and that Evan had fun, but I know I had a couple of near rules fascist moments towards the end involving Mind War.  Evan, on the other hand, was a perfect gentleman and a fantastic human being.  Really, anybody could learn a lot from either him or Hoagy about sportsmanship. 


My Critical Mistake:  I got way, waaaaay to focused on blowing things up.  I had a few really good turns of shooting and just got into this mindset that  steamrolling up the left side of the table and grabbing the objective would be 'easy' and an automatic win for me.  I just kept looking at my own objective and telling myself I'd get it when I needed it.  All the while ignoring the lesson about marines in hard cover from game 1. By the time I was ready to grab my own objective, some Plague Marines had set up shop and the bulk of my strength was still tied up in trying to get marines with a 3+ cover save and FNP out of a building.  Evan, being a lot more familiar with his own army, just held on, played it cool, threw some very nice distractions my way and let me fuck up.  Had it not been for his one Critical Mistake, he could have walked away with a 1 in the W column.  Instead, I had to gamble it all on a suicidal tank shock plus a suicidal guardian charge and hope for a draw.

Actually, come to think of it...  in general, getting caught up in a good run of shooting is a problem for me.  I can think of at least a few games with Dethtron where I made my own life harder because I wanted more explosions. 

Evan's Critical Mistake:  Evan's big mistake (and, as usual, hind sight is 20/20) came late in the game when he had a choice about where his Khorne lord and terminator retinue would come in.  At that point, both objectives were up for grabs and he had 400 points of killy death to plonk down to support one of them.  He chose the objective on his side and then mishapped out into the open with 400 points of guys.  Who then promptly disappeared in one turn of shooting under the weight of two squads of fire dragons and 2 guided Fire Prisms.  Had he dropped it on my objective (in range of his last icon) he probably would have been able to kill the shit out of my anemic weenies and sealed the game.  To be fair, his choice looked like a good one at the time (to me as well). After all, it was clear that I was really interested in taking the objective and, at that point, it wasn't even contested - so why not make sure it stayed that way.  Especially since he knew damn well that turret-less Wave Serpent and 13 eldar dorks weren't gonna be shifting his plague marine any time soon. Plus, there was just no way to see how bad the luck would be.

Things to Think On:

• Again, my lack of experience with the game and my own army was smoothed over by the surprise that fighting Eldar for the first time is. 
• ALWAYS REMEMBER WHAT YOUR MISSION IS.  This was not kill points, self.  
• After two games, I'm really liking Eldrad as an HQ.  He's just the right mix of tools and bullshit for my style.  
• I definitely feel like I've definitely killed off  my bad wargaming habits from back in the day with Warhamme Fantasy and Warmachine.  So good on me.  And if anyone feels the need to correct me on this one, please do it gently. :)
• Crap, I just used a smiley face.

So there, you have it.  Another fun game with another fun opponent.  If I had to mention one bad thing about the whole event, it would be just how homesick the entire experience made me. Curse you and your good times, Chicago!