Tonight, I played Jonny65 from the Northern Wasters, a practice game for our Home Nations tilt at the crown (or not, lol) in July. First time I'd met the guy IRL, great guy (thanks again for the lift, lol!)Well, let's get this out of the way - he beat me, soundly. 2-0, in C&C. Now, the issue of the title comes in here...he didn't play flawlessly, though he did play well. He didn't have a fully optimised list that you guys would necessarily approve of...but it was a fairly solid list. Tweaks, rather than sweeping changes. The issue comes in trying to identify how much of the game was down to player skill, without wanting to seem ungracious - I don't want to pontificate here like some sort of 40k Alex Ferguson.
He deserved to win, because he played better than me - I went for a killer punch in turn 2, that, if successful, stood to leave him almost unable to contest my objective, and forced to castle up for the draw.
Hopefully, then, I don't sound like a sore loser when I say that although we both suffered from dreadful terrain (worst I've ever experienced? Almost certainly.) I suffered more, as I had more in the way of ranged shooting. The big 'fuck-off' LOS blocks in each corner was, in the end, worse than the board before we let Mark shift the terrain, sadly.
The mission, was the 'draw-mission' with VPs for ties, though I have no complaints whatsoever, about it - I mention it in the interests of transparency.
The dice? Well, on my first turn, things went swimmingly. Perhaps I did slightly better than average that turn, but, as I'm sure he will agree, I didn't really need to, I had clear shots on both those Oblits, and that Rhino. It perhaps sounds unfair and ungracious to say I rolled poorly most of the rest of the game - but I did. I don't think the dice being average would have been enough to let me win, but it would have made a significant difference to my play, and certainly mentality.
His tactics? Well, he made an error deploying those Oblits right in front of my guns, 4+ Cover or no, and I think he should have placed the DPs on the board from the start behind the left flank Rhinos, to force me to have a choice of which to kill, especially since my deployment wasn't as great as I thought at the time. I also think the GD maybe should have ignored the Serpent the turn it took the turret off (the second one) and gone for my Objective - but it worked out for him anyway, so it's very much a wash. Deploying the almost-useless Plasma squad, and the Vindicator there, was spot on. lol A nightmare for me to try and deal with - though I forgot they weren't Melta on my 3rd Turn, and should have gone for it - I was worried about the Oblits DS'ing behind my lines, and getting rear shots. I perhaps played to conservatively there.
My tactics? Well, this is it. Is it possible to say that I think I lost more because of what I did than the opponent's actions? That, despite his set-up being good, if I'd trusted to my guns I might have been able to do what I tried (and failed) to do? His list has a resilience that survives the loss of their Transports, especially when he gets to trade them 1-for-1 with mine. Mine really does not, and, for the first time in a long time, I think I'd have played those tactics better with Marines. Weird.
I think there are several reasons I cocked up, hopefully he will read this and comment on whether or not he agrees, lol.
- Too cocky on T2 following the destruction of his Oblits Turn 1.
- Overextension of my force, by trying to pincer despite you still being a good 24" or so from my objective - no need to be so aggressive on my left.
- Rolling 1s and 2s to hit with Fire Dragons, lol.
- Putting myself in a situation where I minimised my tank-fire against the smoked Rhino, forcing my Fire Dragons to have to try for both targets.
- Failure to castle, aimlessly zooming Grav Tanks with no target to get Cover against 2nd Oblit squad when they didn't even arrive...
- Overcommitting to the push on his objective - both Bright Lances would have been better employed in defensive roles.
- Failure to push on towards his objective early enough, too afraid of the Oblits that, in the end, where deployed somewhere I really should have predicted - near a flipping Icon!
I'll add some photos of the game to this post later - for now, I'm going to continue to run over the game in my head, and try and pick out mistakes to learn from.
Remember - there is only ever any shame in losing if you should have won convincingly. Losing sucks, and I enjoy it less than perhaps most people...but I always do my damnedest to be a good sport. I knew I had lost (way) before his final turn even began, and we were quite pushed for time, but conceding would have been rude. He played well, and fully deserved the result, he capitalised well on my mistakes, and forced my target priority* well. Especially with my rolling, lol. Maybe, if those DA Serps had had Stones, and/or if the fleeing Dragons had killed the DP...but if wishes were horses, we'd all be eating steak. Except me, I'm vegetarian...but even so. I'd be offered steak. Horse steak. With mint sauce. Um...what are we talking about? Oh yeah, me, my fav subject. lol
I lost, because I played worse than him, more than he played better, if that makes sense.
At least, that's how I see it - I may have my judgement clouded by partisanship, and I certainly hope it's clear enough that I not only mean no disrespect, but respect his ability to force the issue, and dominate the game in the end. The second half of the game was all him, no question.
I hope this comes across in the way intended. Feedback please guys.
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* - A quick note on forcing target priority, for the uninitiated - this is simply the practice of being in a dominant tabletop position, so that the opponent has no option about shooting things that are a greater threat to their long-term chances in the match than the thing they are going to shoot instead. This is why Lone Wolves, Mephiston, Zoanthropes, Chaos Winged DPs etc are so good (apart from the obvious...) - these units are usually killy enough that they simply cannot be ignored. If they get up into the opponent's face, they are put in the unenviable position of focus firing on these undesirable targets, while your own army gets to shoot whatever the hell it wants. Sadly, the Eldar don't have many options for this role...Harlequins, but they're costly and fragile in CC...and Seer Councils. I've stated my opinion on THEIR future already this week, so I refer you to the post below.
9 comments:
Hey TKE, thanks for the very enjoyable game. I'm impressed with how quickly you got your BR up and I think that it's a very fair representation of how the game went.
As you mentioned, the scenery was pathetic (2 toolboxes, 2 water bottles, some vyper bits and my dice box is not a proper battlefield), and it had far too much of an effect on the game (I’m playing in the tourney at TTN this Saturday, and I’m now pretty concerned about what the scenery will be like. I think I’d better bring some along just in case.) Having to put stuff in the open, and hoping to seize the initiative, is not my ideal plan for deployment. I suppose I could have started in reserve, but after waiting so long to get a table, I wanted to get my man-dollies into action asap.
I don’t think that you made any really bad mistakes in the game. Your fire dragons attack on my assault element was perhaps a bit ambitious. Though merely scratching my rhino’s paintwork and dropping one smelly marine, with 10 FDs and 2 WSs, is only going to happen when the dice gods take a massive dump on your head. With average rolling you would have done a fair bit more damage, but I don’t think it would have been enough to halt my advance there, especially as at least some of my reserves were likely to appear there in my turn.
I was a bit surprised that you didn’t mass a bunch of your tanks near my objective, and then pile in on your next turn. Granted you would have lost some stuff on the way, but a target rich environment like that would have been too much for my defence force to deal with. Unless the dice gods needed another massive dump, I think you’d have wiped my defenders out and taken control of my objective. With those guys gone, my remaining forces would have had little chance of hoofing it 4 or 5 feet across the table over to contest.
As for my mistakes, there were definitely more of them. Handing you my main obliterator unit was certainly the most retarded of them. They’re my main weapon against your flying tanks so giving you them, and a 225 point head start, was overly generous of me (doh!). I knew I was always going to be outmanoeuvred in this game, so I went with a very basic strategy. Namely sending most of my army bailing towards your objective, and trying to hold my own with what was left. I knew that I’d take losses along the way, but I reckoned my guys were solid enough to get there with enough bodies to split your attack. My main plan for stopping your tanks during this, was to simply ignore them and hope that they went away. Only finding out mid-game that my princes didn’t benefit from the icons was a bit dumb as well, particularly as that’s mainly why I brought the stupid flags in the first place. It was a bit annoying not to get much firing from my newly painted vindicator and plasma guns, but the area denial they brought was probably more effective anyway.
All in all I thoroughly enjoyed the game, and look forward to rematch on a proper battlefield. To be honest you’re the toughest opponent I’ve faced in Norn Iron, and I’m glad I won’t have to travel to Dublin now to find decent games. Not that I consider myself a great 40K player or anything (while I’m pretty handy at the square base, pointy stick game, I’m still a bit of a noob when it comes to rayguns. Luckily a lot of the skills transfer pretty well from one system to the other), but the people I’ve found to play against here are even worse.
No problem on the lift. I’m just glad that you made your train because I wasn’t relishing a trip home via West Bumfuck, Antrim or wherever it is you call home.
Damn, I’m a long-winded bastard.
Jonny65
West Bumfuck...Funniest thing I've read for weeks! My side literally hurts laughing!
I will reply more later, but I reckon it's time to sleep, getting up half 10-ish to go to GW and do more painting. One thing I forgot, I think I would have played more defensively Turn 2 if I had the correct guns on the models in question...seeing a S-Can on my turrets encourages me to go forward in a stupid (as it turned out) fashion. After all - when I'm effective at 36", why go closer?
I'm pretty chuffed that I'm the toughest player you've faced here - guess there's no chance of you regretting inviting me to Cardiff, lol!
Very interesting report, sucks about the dice rolls, though.
I do think this illustrates another important part of losing, though- talk to your opponent. Get his (her) side of the story and see what mistakes they picked up on. They may be right or they may be wrong, but getting their perceptions of the match can be a real eye-opener. Obviously doing this when you win is beneficial as well, but there tends to be more to be gained from analyzing a loss than a win.
Excellent buddy, it's good when you can point out your own mistakes.
Deployment can often make or break a game or have potential impact. Sometimes it is better to go second to counter your opponents deployed, I am starting to find going second a benefit, unless my army really requires going first like valkyrie/melta vets first turn alpha strike.
I won't say I 'love' the losses, but against the right opponent it can be fun. I've reverted back to 1500pts from 1850pt as I found it tended to turn into a massacre too quickly ... but that's a tangent.
It sucks when a good(ish) plan and execution goes to waste. I had a similar spanking from Drax on our first game ... when the dice ARE against you all you can do is play for the laughs, keep it light, and make furious notes afterwards.
Best post for ages. Nice to know I'm not the only spaceelfgeneral with bullet magnet gunboats.
A lot of the time, serpents seem indestructable. Occasionally, none of them make it out of the car park.
Discussion and analysis after the fact is where the learning comes from.
{^}
@ the same time Zzzzzzz tanks in general can just laugh. I remember one 1500 (ew) game of Eldar where all of my tanks bar a DAVU Falcon + Seer & 2 Prisms were shot down by T2 and I ended out eeking a win because those 3 tanks dominated the rest of the game against essentially 1500 pts of my opponent. Sometimes the dice favor you =D.
Good write-up TKE. Stop the complaining though =D (i Kid). We all lose sometimes, even with Fuegan!
I had the "pleasure" of playing on the same table beforehand and the terrain really did suck.
In an attempt to relieve some of Jonny65's fear for the tourney on Sat... there will be more terrain.
To TKE: Do you think a close combat squad with avatar backup would've held your objective or even made Jonny65's rush to your objective come later in the game?
Bob (Ice Blue Eldar guy)
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