April 2006

Liber Animus III

After a few last minute preparations like making sure I’ve got all of my gaming gear and enough clean underwear, as well as writing my army “fluff” which is the word tournament goers use for the background story for your army, I jumped in the old Commodore so Angela could give me a lift to the airport. She asked me “where are you going?”, and, “what am I going to do?”, and drove me anyway…

Saturday arvo and I got to Sydney Airport in sunny, 23 degrees weather to meet up with Bryan Cook and catch our flight to Liber Animus III. Two hours later we stepped off the plane into Melbourne Airport in overcast, windy, 11 degrees weather. I had to buy a beanie at the airport! At least it was perfect weather to spend the weekend inside playing 40K.

The tournament started at midday on Sunday and we set up for our first game. I was set up in a “grudge-maker” game against Dave Atkins, who won Liber Animus I in 2004. Dave was using a Tau army as well, so this would be the first time I would face Tau with my own Tau. We played the Beacon (Cleanse style) mission and:

• We both deployed fairly stand offish, hugging cover and staying back out of range, except I managed to sneak a squad of Kroot infiltrators into Dave’s deployment zone behind his lines and this forced him to think about those instead of focusing on my battle line.
• Dave’s unit of Kroot out shot my unit of Firewarriors plus my Commander, right where I was trying to move the beacon to.
• We ran out of time as we started late and we only got to finish 3 turns so on the third turn I deep struck with my unit of 2 Crisis suits into Dave’s deployment zone. They took a barrage of fire including Dave’s Commander, another Crisis suit, some Gun Drones and a Hammerhead with Burst Cannons and an Ion Cannon. I had to pass three 5+ cover saves in order to have 1 wound left, which meant I was still a scoring unit, which meant I contested Dave’s quarter, we each held a neutral table quarter with our beacons and I would hold my own quarter. If I failed one it would be a draw. I rolled the three dice and… 5, 5, 6. All three passed, first game a victory.

Second game I was up against the Emperor’s Children Chaos army of Bruce Manning. We were playing the Holy Grail mission, where there were six objectives on the table and one of them was the Holy Grail. The player who had a miniature in contact with the Holy Grail at the end of the game wins. So:

• I set up to push down both flanks and check the objectives down there while covering the middle of the table with a ton of guns to ensure if Bruce found it I could clean out the area and jump in with battlesuits and grab it.
• I sorted out the flanks, the big unit of Kroot being awesome defeating a unit of 6 Noise Marines, 6 Daemonettes, 6 mounted Daemonettes and shooting most of a squad of 6 Noise Marine Havocs, but…
• Bruce found the HG in the middle of the table with his Noise Marine Terminators so I proceeded to shoot them all and jump in my Battlesuits to grab it on my half of the last turn.
• Bruce had the very last turn as I went first and had to do some tricky manoeuvring in order to kill all of my Battlesuits in the middle and manage to get a chance to get the HG. In the end, he had a unit of 4 Daemonettes that had a massacre move after combat who were four and a half inches away from the HG. So we shook hands before Bruce rolled the dice, he needed a 5 or 6 to turn a draw into a win, and he rolled up a 6! Sacred number of Slaanesh, I don’t mind losing like that, great game.

Game three I was going into on 1 win, 1 loss, and we we’re playing the mission where we had to defend our objective while attacking and destroying the enemies. Cameron Auty and his really cool Skitari Imperial Guard army was my opponent and:

• Cam blew the hell out of my all important Crisis suits with his Basilisk, no jumping around cover and hiding from that!
• He sent waves of men at my objectives and defended his with a Demolisher and a Hellhound (2+ death and no cover save, aaargh I’m on fire….).
• I managed to hold of his waves of men except for 2 men left from one unit and my big mistake was to only shoot a smart missile system at them and not my railgun from my Hammerhead. I failed to kill the two guardsmen with my smart missile system and they jumped on my objective and smashed it.
• I tried for Cam’s objective with my stealth team but didn’t quite make through his firepower, a comprehensive win for Cameron and my second loss of the day.

Monday rolled around, just as cold as the other days, and I was looking for a bit more success than day 1. Ramon Saheed and his Grey Knights army was my next challenge and we we’re playing the Black Box mission. This one is all about who’s got the most scoring units close to the objective, but the objective doesn’t arrive until the middle of the game as it crashes in:

• It was a fairly conservative deployment again as we both waited for the objective to land but then Ramon courageously deep struck with a unit of 5 Grey Knights with an Incinerator (2+ death and no cover save, aaargh I’m on fire again…) right next to my lines. They did some casualties and then I rapid fired with 10 Kroot, 9 Fire Warriors hitting on 2+ and shot with 3 Pulse Rifles at them. In a flurry of armour saves Ramon lost 2 men! They then killed my Fire Warriors and half my Kroot before they finally died.
• My big unit of Kroot spent 3 round of combat with a Grey Knight Grand Master until they brought him down. Score enough wounds and eventually they fall.
• At the end of six turns we both had 2 scoring units in range, so a draw, but Ramon used an intelligence card to go another turn. After that turn we also had 2 scoring units each (different ones than the previous turn) and that was it. Draw.

The Hero was the mission for game 5 and I lined up against Alex Ozaane and his evil Dark Eldar:

• To start things off Alex rolled up +1 strength for his Reaver Jetbikes (wounding my battlesuits on 3+) and the 12” assault move for his 20 strong Wyche squad, both of whom would be emerging from a Warp Portal. Not much shooting at them then!
• I set up my two Crisis suit units, my unit of 10 Kroot, my Pirahana and my Hero on my extreme left flank to achieve the mission, as well as sneaking up a Pathfinder unit on the right. Alex pushed up the middle and had 2 characters each with a Warp Portal to deploy most of his army from.
• I actually had a chance to kill both of Alex’s Warp Portals before they got deployed. I shot away a Dark Eldar Warrior unit until his Dracon with Shadowfield was the closest target to my 3 Crisis suits, who did 5 instant killing wounds on her, but she passed all the 2+ saves. The other Dracon got hit by the blast of my Railgun Submunitions but I rolled a 1 to wound!
• In the end, I had my right-side Pathfinders and my Hero in Alex’s deployment zone, while Alex had his Wyches in mine. Alex had the last turn and charged my Hero with his Dracon, who had 1 wound left. He decided to use his Combat Drugs to get +1 Attack and Re-roll hits, but rolled a double and lost her last wound! A win for the Tau, 3 scoring units to 1.

Last game for the tournament and I was sitting on an even record, 2 wins, 1 draw, 2 losses. For the second time today I would face the Grey Knights, this time led by Dave Hansen. We we’re playing the straight up and down Seek & Destroy mission from the 40K rulebook, all about Victory Points. Dave only had 37 models in his army (11 Terminators, 24 Grey Knights & 2 Dreadnoughts) and:

• Dave started with only 17 models on the table, deepstriking his 2 5-man Terminator squads and 2 5-man Grey Knight Fast Attack squads. I deployed my entire army.
• Unfortunately for Dave I had learned what units should work with what other units in my army quite well over the last few days. I had killed his 15 deployed infantry (including his Grand Master) by the end of turn 2.
• Dave then got one of each of his Deep-striking units in turn 3, and the other two in turn 4, which meant I could again concentrate fire and take on one unit at a time.
• My 3 Crisis suit unit, which was joined by my Commander, was devastating on Dave’s high points, small units with their high strength, high AP weapons.
• To Dave’s credit, he never got despondent and ended the game with one and a half Dreadnoughts still alive. Our armies were a bit mismatched for this mission, with me having all the advantages, but Dave was a good opponent. A third win for the little green blokes.

So that was it, all the games done. I packed away the army to take home, helped pack away the tables and sat down to hear the results. Kane, the tournament organiser, runs through each person from the “down trodden grot” who comes in last, right through to the winner. I was a bit shocked when he got to the top ten and my name wasn’t read out yet. It had been a tough tournament and form memory I don’t think any 1 player won all of their 6 games. I think the best was 5 wins and a draw, and then 4 or 5 players with 5 wins and a loss. So my 3 wins, 2 losses and a draw wasn’t so bad.

In the end, combined with my scores for army, painting and sportsmanship, I got 5 th! That was tops. But then Bryan, my traveling mate, who had ended on 4 wins, 1 draw and 1 loss, won it. He had taken his excellent Death Korps of Krieg Imperial Guard army and taken over the title of Warmaster.

As a note, the top five places were all “non-power armour” armies, which is an often talked about thing in tournaments. 3 Imperial Guard armies (one including Witch Hunter allies), an Eldar army and my little Tau took the honours this year.

1st Bryan, 3rd Hagen, 2nd Pete	The travelers Luggage	Troy at the end of Raw Hobby

So that’s it, the end of my articles. I’ve attached a painting sheet which outlines all of the colour mixes I’ve used in the army for you. I’ve had a cracking time doing them and hearing the feedback from you about them. In just over 12 months I’ve painted about 2400 points and played 21 and a half games, including 2 tournaments and a 5 th place, with the Tau. I think 12 months is about the right amount of time to get the army done. It’s long enough that you can pace yourself but not so long that you get bored and don’t ever finish it. Not that the armies finished though!

As I write this last article, I’m painting up a second Pirahna and 6 more Vespid to add to the four I’ve already done. And keep your eyes on the White Dwarf…

Thanks for reading and see you in the Cities of Death.

PS. For anyone confused by the “fluff”, Oatbran and Honey is the type of bread I got the colour scheme from.