Worlds Biggest 40K Tournament LONDON GT!
So the big weekend had arrived, I had 3 games of 40K under my belt and I was ready to dive into the worlds biggest Warhammer 40K tournament!
I’d managed to get 2 more games in against John at Entoyment gaming centre, 1 match against his dark angels and another against his chaos knights, which he was taking to LGT. I lost both matches but learnt a lot and knew where I had made mistakes. I was still being too cautious.
I had finished building my carry case from Greenstuff World (which I would recommend) and had magnetised all of my miniatures. I had the dice, the tape measures, I even had a chess clock!!
STOWED,SAFE,READY FOR WAR!!
I knew John was going to be there, so I knew 1 person at least, I was briefly a little nervous but then I reminded myself that no one expected me to even win a single game, my podcasting chums had said I might win a game out of a mixture of pity and trying to boost my confidence, only Steve thought I might win 2 games. I didn’t expect to win a single game, I felt I had it in me to perhaps sneak a win but I just wanted to have fun and learn. I already decided I would win the tournament next year so the pressure was off ;-)
I was more anxious about the admin side of things, how BCP works, how you register a result and I still wasn’t very good at using tabletop battles to keep track of the scores. Playing the actual game was going to be the fun part.
Arriving at the venue the queue was massive, hundreds of eager nerds ready to get started, I’m glad I hadn’t arrived too early, some people must have been queuing for at least half an hour. I had been to the venue the night before, so I knew the rough layout. I had also had a brief chat with Joe from WARGAMES LIVE, he was very friendly as you’d expect, I blamed him for me being there and having fallen back into the Warhammer whirlpool, he wished me luck on my first ever tournament and said “YOU’LL FEEL LIKE YOU’VE DRANK FROM THE FIREHOSE AFTER THE WEEKEND” and those wise words proved to be right.
EXCITED,NERVOUS,THE TENSION WAS BUILDING
GAME 1
I already knew I would be up against NECRONS!! my arch enemy before I’ve ever even played them and this chap was bringing 2 Wraith bricks and 2 doomsday arks with the silent king!!
I found my table which was something like 523, pretty much the bottom of the pile. My opponent was a friendly chap who seemed excited and nervous. My deployment was a little calmer than in my previous games, I wasn’t holding out much hope for this match but I thought I’d give it my best shot. I knew that keeping the Wraiths off objectives was the key and we were playing Terraform.
The game quickly developed that we had each taken our natural expansion objective and his Wraiths made a play for the centre. I knew it was all or nothing on turn 2 and so went all in to do the impossible and kill his Wraiths.
BY THE THRONE!!! WRAITHS! WE WOULD PUT THEM TO THE TEST!!!
OATH OF MOMENT
Wowza, I’d done it, thanks to the mighty power of Oath of Moment and bringing to bare the power of my heavy intercessors, the predator tank, a unit of terminators and a Brutalis Dreadnought aka Slaughter, we had wiped the whole unit in a round. This spooked my opponent and he played the rest of the game quite cagey afraid of the same thing happening again. The battle remained fairly nip and tuck without massive damage being done to either army. Turn 5 I had plenty of time but I dilly dallied and my opponent was strict and clocked me out before I had a chance to roll dice to kill a character which would have given me assassination and to kill another unit in his back field. I was a bit annoyed at myself for not speeding up. With last turn he was then able to score max primary and won the game 84-80. I can’t help but feel slightly miffed by the ending but it was a big lesson learned. I also learn’t that by not scoring myself, I really had no idea how well I was doing! I should have at least been asking for the score after each turn.
However, I felt positive, I had nearly won against a tough list and felt like maybe I belonged at LGT after all.
CENTRE FIELD IS OURS, GO HOME SILENT KING!
GAME 2
I just managed time to get some lunch and briefly chatted to a friendly guy from Finland who now lived in Ireland. I let him know I had just played only my 4th ever game and he nearly choked on his beef wrap! He gave me a high 5 and wished me luck in my next game, which would be against Custodes. (those damn gym bro lazy gits, where were you when the BIG E needed you man!!)
Next game, again a friendly chap who hadn’t played much with Custodes and was usually a NECRON player.
He did the usual do you know (insert faction) have you played them before……I didn’t want to start telling people I basically hadn’t played anyone before lol “ER YEAH BRO, ER JUST GIVE ME A RE-FRESH OF THE MAIN STRATS AND WHO HITS HARD” lol
We started the game and it seemed clear to me that Custodes don’t have many units and struggle to score secondaries. We were playing Purge the Foe and I quite quickly established dominance in holding objectives.
SHINY GOLDEN CUSTODES, THEY AIN’T SO PRETTY NO MORE!!
I actually remembered my strats to be able to pick units up for uppy downy and was also able to bring reserves well into his backfield. Again Oath of Moment was big and combined with my hard hitting shooting, I was able to kill and whittle down a lot more of his units than I think he expected, when my deep striked terminators charged onto his home objective turn 4 the game was over as I scored a massive 16 primary to his 4. I had also ben able to keep up my secondary scoring whilst his has dried up in turns 4 and 5. Again I hadn’t kept score but felt like maybe i was winning.
VICTORY!!! WE HAVE VICTORY!!!!! UNBELIEVABLE JEFF I had run out the winner 70-88 a solid victory in the end. My opponent seemed a bit down and I not sure he was enjoying playing Custodes but he was a really good opponent and I felt like we had a fun game and he was really good with rules and allowing a few mistakes and corrections on my part.
Well now I was buzzing! I’d achieved the dream of getting a win at LGT and indeed my first ever win playing 40K!!
HULK SMASH LITTLE GOLDEN BOYS!
GAME 3
I was starting to feel a bit weary now, although my win had boosted my energy and I was playing against TAU next. I kind of fancied my list against TAU but saw this chap had 3 RIPTIDES and I might find it tough to deal with those.
We were playing hidden supplies so getting some primary would again be important but as it turned out the first couple of turns were a little cagey with myself scoring 0 primary turn 2 and my opponent just scoring 5. I was worried about his Riptides but he was holding them back perhaps because my Lancer was lurking and I had my predator and Grimm the Ballistus covering another flank. Slaughter the brutalis decided to claim some central ground and I pushed hard turn 2 into 3 hoping I would have more targets than he could kill.
HONOURED BROTHER, LEAD US TO THE SLAUGHTER!!!
I’d killed his Kroot and Manta’s maybe faster than he expected and turn 3 and 4 I dominated taking 15 and 10 on primary and putting him on 0 for both turns. That had blown the game open and by that time 2 of the Riptides were pinned way out of position in his backfield, still worried about my predator and Grimm who had now pushed up to the midboard. The invictor warsuit shredded chaff and took down a skyray with the help of Slaughter. The Dreadnoughts really earn’t their keep this game and by having that big go turn with them and the brick of heavy intercessors lead by Captain Ajax the TAU just didn’t have an answer.
HEAVY BRO’S RIPPING UP THE BATTLEFIELD
Insanely it was another VICTORY!! 57-75, another good win. I could not believe it the dream beyond a dream of 2 victories now achieved before day 2 had started. I was walking on air, I could hardly believe that I had some how managed to win 2 games. I thought it was fluke but then had to give myself some credit, I hadn’t been lucky with the dice, I’d though about my tactics. I actually deserved those wins and it could have been 3 wins really.
DAY 2 REALITY BITES!!!
So I marched back into the centre after being on a high all night! I was facing off against space wolves and found myself up on table 96. Hmmmm perhaps my record had landed me in deep water, maybe deeper than I could handle!! I hadn’t realised but 2 good wins and a narrow loss had bumped me into the upper echelons of the competition lol
GAME 4
Just the deployment for this game had me foxed, I’m not sure why but I felt like I’d taken a step backwards before the game had even started, there just didn’t seem to be good places for my units. I knew his units were VERY VERY hard hitting, 2 repulsor executioners with lethal hits, 2 units of head takers with devastating wounds against their quarry targets and a bit brick of wulfen. Oh and Logan lurking ready to strike.
THE WOLVES WERE CHARGING, THE FISTS WERE IN DISARRAY
I made a couple of errors early, my opponent who was again very friendly and a really good sport pushed very aggressively and this caught me off guard and I ended up even retreating with some units. He used the Repulsors to bash forwards doing a lot of shooting but also claming the mid board and taking control by turn 2. I did genuinely get unlucky with the dice, he was making a lot of 5 and 6 up saves with his repulsors and 1 ballistus fired everything into 1 and missed every shot. A t one point the invictor was going to punch the repulsor to death and he needed to make 3, +5 saves out of 4 dice rolls and made it. These things would not have won me the game but they were big swings and cost me quite a lot of points (after the game he thought 15 points) I was getting flustered and tried taking on a repulsor with my heavy intercessors and charing in a unit of Temrinators, the tank was Oathed but it was a desperate move, when his Wulfen heroic’d into the Terminators, I made the terrible decision to still hit the tank and not the Wulfen. I ‘d become tunnel visioned and was being rocked by the space wolf power. Of course I didn’t destroy the tank and the 10 Wulfen then obliterated my terminators.
BRAVELY HOLDING GROUND, CAPTAIN AJAX WILL NEVER SURRENDER!!
From here, I had already lost too many resources, my Lancer was completely out of position all game and I hadn’t been able to focus fire and target key units like I had in the previous games. I had been overwhelmed and found wanting. I forget the final score but it was a crushing defeat something like 100 - 50.
After the game we had a good chat and discussed what I could have done differently, my opponent told me he was number 3 in Ireland and had a golden ticket for LVO. We talked about the hours he puts in on table top simulator and how he doesn’t really put enough time in compared to the guys on the Irish WTC team, which is why he didn’t play for the mational team this year. I let him know it was my 7th ever game and we had a good laugh. He was surprised I had been doing so well.
Although obliterated, I really enjoyed this game and meeting Elliot, he was a good guy and it was really nice to be grounded and see that jump between casual players who go to a few tournaments and people who target being number one on ITC rankings for their country!!
It was dawning on me that to make that jump in levels, you have to put serious time in!!
GAME 5 FINAL FIGHT!!
Now I was really feeling the fatigue, I was no longer on my cloud riding high, I was 2 wins 2 losses and had slipped into that dangerous feeling of contentment that now I just didn’t care. I wanted to win but I wasn’t at all bothered if I lost and just wanted a chilled fun game.
Back in the relative safety now of table 338 I was against Imperial Guard.
My opponent Matt had wild bushy hair and was wearing an orange convicts prisoner boiler suit and had a tool belt on filled with dice and measures. This was going to be fun!!
This was another battle which I had lost in the lists and in deployment, my inexperience meant, I ended up getting partly caged in behind the terrain in the centre and could really punch my way out.
Matt knew exactly what he was doing and was clearly a Veteran, playing take and hold, he could pop odd single models into the centre and hold the objective whilst having 2 unit of Bulgryn castled up behind. His other big units delpoyed quickly with advances and using transports and by turn 2 he had total board control and his 2 big Rogal Dorn tanks in position to kill anything I popped out.
I kept trying to do something about the middle which was a mistake and I ended up not really doing anything. I didn’t commit left or right and ended up slowly losing units in suicide missions in the centre. I eventually committed right and killed his 26 man!!! yes 26 man unit! for cull the horde and took an objective but it was way too late. By that point I had lost the left flank and he was able to get to my home on turn 5.
Going first sucked but I never felt I was in a position to win this game and looking back I really can’t see a clear route to victory, the masses of troops made it feel impossible for me to out OC him and he had the heavy hitting back up of the Rogal Dorns. In the Space wolf game I could see how I could have played it better and made it a close game. I felt I had the tools in my list to win but against this guard list, I felt up against it. Should I have taken a breath and tried to punch a whole somewhere, yes! But my deployment had been far too generalised and my resources spread out that I couldn’t get them back together to focus on a target without having to expose them to being blasted into oblivion. Perhaps I was just flagging and my concentration had slipped. I was crushed, only scoring 15 primary all game to his 50. final score 100 - 53.
So this was the least enjoyable game as it never felt close but I think that is just something which happens sometimes with certain match ups and if you’ve made a few wrong plays (which I had) you get badly punished for them. I was also thinking about my aching back and knees!! being 6’3” doesn’t match well with these low tables!
FINAL THOUGHTS
Overall this was an amazing weekend, when I got back to the hotel to head home, I was back on a high. I had won 2 games and considering my lack of experience, I’m chuffed with that. I’d met lots of great people, chatted to like minded nerds and just felt like I was in a nice welcoming community. I was leaving feeling positive about Warhammer, positive about the community and positive about the future for myself in the hobby. I was already desperate to play more and was already thinking about list changes lol @Blastedminiatures, fire up your airbrushes…..I’m gonna need a bigger tank :-)
