I did it....
I did it! I can not believe I did it!
I did it... okay, yes I know, that is the third time I have written that (title, heading, now this) and yet... I can only hope you understand what this means to me!
For the purposes of keeping names out of this I will not name the opponents I played but you are free to do your own research, wont be hard.
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| Letting people talk about their armies helped warm them up to me |
Arriving on the day had me so nervous. This, as was stated to me and I have reiterated here was my last chance at being in this meta and my emotional energy was tied to this. Thanks to some AMAZING help from some members of Tabled Talk's discord server I was recommended to read/listen to "How to Make Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie. This was not the first time I had read it but over the last week I listened to it via audio book and applied what I heard. I think it helped a lot. Keeping a smile on my face, not arguing, letting people talk about themselves, things of that nature helped a ton!
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| Drop Pods? Seriously! |
Day 1 I played 3 great games!
I played against an amazing Salamanders Space Marine Army. He had me on the back foot up till his T2 (he was top of turn). I was seriously worried but I held my cool and did not despair and just had fun with it. I swear he was making 4+ saves like no ones business! What saved me was getting Abaddon into a Drop Pod after killing the Company Veterans and threatening to surf him into some Centurions, a Character, and later into the Land Raider! Sadly his Centurions failed a charge due to a Dread Test and were left in the open for the flamers to chip kill followed by my Knights. My opponent enjoyed the game so much that he gave me 2 stars on the Sportsmanship board... That... it made my day worth it right there. The confidence boost was IMMENSE.
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| Names on the Left are redacted |
Game 2 was against a team member of the Organizer and he was running a Khorne army with Belakor and 2 Skull Cannons! He got Top of turn but I was able to destroy Belakor that turn. Sadly he kept me locked in my deployment for too long and I made the mistake of forgetting his Reserves of Bloodletters which murdered my screening Flamers... This cost me the game. He was a fantastic opponent who could not fail 4+ saves as well after Belakor died. My choice to have the Helm of Warp Sight REALLY made the difference here I think. Being able to ignore hit and BS modifiers is a STRONG relic and while I missed the re-roll 1's to wound it was a trade that was ultimately worth it.
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| A Venomcrawler Sprue... Project Arachne is a go! See future blogs as I delve into its creation! |
Game 3 on Day 1 was against a Jacksonville Local Space Wolf Player. A VERY good player but space wolves are an army I have learned to deal with. I baited him where I could, hit back harder than he hit me, and ultimately nearly tabled him. Great opponent but sadly not a good matchup. My lack of wanting to get into melee meant that he had to struggle to get there and my Dread Tests were awful for him.
Overall Day 1 was a success. No one had complaints about me, I had 3 great games against 3 amazing opponents. It was a day I will remember for a LONG time!
Game 2 was versus Dark Angels. Specifically Deathwing, now while this is not an issue, I expect to get few kills, I expect the scoring to be tight, and I expect to have to make many sacrifices, what I did not expect was a built in Gotcha.
Now I was warned of this prior by another player. Dark Angels have a Stratagem that allows them to hide an Objective and they dont need to declare it until they score it. Well, one of those said objectives is to kill a character, there are additional things to do this but the combination of these two things means that it is a Gotcha designed and allowed by the rules. I dont like that, at all. In fact as I have stated, I HATE Gotcha's. To me they are detestable but if this is a rules allowed gotcha then so be it. It is not something I can control so it is something I washed my hands and played the game.
My first mistake was not asking him to physically write the target of his secondary down. My second was not asking a judge to check and verify the secondary prior just in case it was something that might impact me later. These are lessons a person will typically learn AFTER encountering this combo. So it is what it is.
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| Something about these make me happy... Don't know what it is... |
Now, during this game, the opponent asked questions about my Character Knight, Abaddon, anything but my two Demon Casters. Turns out that his target was the Changecaster. Now the game felt hostile to me. I was asking questions nicely, keeping my attitude up, giving my opponent break after break. For instance, I had 5 flamers, 2 in range of one unit, 3 in range of another. I shot the 2 flamers after showing range and such and opponent made no comment on it. After I shot the 3 flamers he made a comment on the first 2 and instead of arguing I just told him to take his model back and I would not shoot those 2 flamers. Several of these types of incidents occurred during the game. I had a few cases where the opponent replied back to me in an aggressive manner and I did not understand why. With the fact that I was on a short leash, worried about being sent home, and acting happy and up the whole time it set me into a state of worry. Thankfully a Judge was nearby and did not say anything negative towards my play so I was able to push through.
Overall, his T3 comes around and he catches my Changecaster in the open in a charge. He kills it and then declares his hidden Secondary. The points were close at that time, I thought I was denying him point, I figured I was able to swap sides with several knights, push his weak flank and make up primary later on with some late game secondary points if I could deny him his hidden secondary. Well, with how the game felt, him hitting me with a Gotcha that to my knowledge was not written down (he later said it was in his Notes on the ITC battles app but no one can confirm that) and the fact I don't tend to trust people, I conceded right then and there.
I was no longer in a mood to play that game and I feared I would spiral and be asked to leave, so in my mind, conceding was the best option. It allowed me to end on a note of my choosing and to chill out until the last game.
Initially I just walked off, talked to the organizer who spoke to the player and confirmed the secondary. My mind still is suspicious but that is why I learned those lessons I spoke about. I walked around the event for a bit and then recalled I had not shaken my opponents hand. Whether it was a game I was happy with or not, my opponent out played me and for that earned that handshake. So I walked back up, put a smile on and shook his hand and congratulated him on a good game. It was one of the hardest things I have done in some times. It sounds silly and I am likely too invested in this game but I still hurt over it and hated myself for conceding, it was still the right decision though.
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| Ghost Patriarch! |
Game 5, the last game was against Tau... Tau is one of those matchups that SCARES my knights. What made this worse... he had two Hammerheads and a Sunshark bomber! These typically MURDER my knights. Thankfully, through clever placement, and smart use of the way GW sets up Day 1 Terrain missions, there was an MVP that was not even part of my army!
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| Dense Area terrain? MVP you say? |
The Most Valuable Piece of this game was my Left Flank Dense terrain. Now I have talked (typed) applenty but let me explain a rule. When a Defending model is in Dense Terrain, the attacking model MUST draw a 1mm thick line from any part of hits Base/Hull to EVERY part of the Defending models Base/Hull. This means if you toe into the Dense Terrain (if moving you take the -2" if applicable) even on the back of your base, your opponent is taking a -1 to hit unless they ignore Dense Cover. Well this SAVED my War Dogs multiple times in this game. It was lucky but a good use of terrain. My opponent was AMAZING, he had many strong tactical plays and I won only by limiting his Primary score and one of his Secondaries.
Normally Knights would of been a walk for him but with me keeping him focused on the Left Flank and the right being open, I had clear access to holding points. A VERY memorable moment was when he lost 5 or so Fire Warriors to Abaddon, was in range of Demons and a Knight and failed his Leadership. This meant 1 fled bringing him below half, then because the Demons and a Knight were there his Combat Attrition went up by 2 so every 4+ another model ran. He needed 1 Model to stay for Secondary points but every model fled! It rarely happens but when it does, Leadership mechanics can be interesting.
This was by far the most fun game I had. We bantered, we joked, we had a blast and while I demolished the Tau player, I was never focused on points. It was all about having fun and playing my best game win or lose.
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| I dont know who gave me the red an blue star... |
Overall this GT was amazing. Not only do I have a method that works now. It is something I can improve and refine! I ended the weekend on 4 stars for sportsmanship, two were from my Round 1 Salamanders opponent but I do not now who the other two are from. Regardless, getting any is more than enough for me. This made my weekend, just seeing that people enjoyed me being there and gave me a star for it. 100/10 will be back in January!
Next big event is Warzone: Atlanta! Thanks to my friend Kevin I get to go! Will be a blast and I hope to have a display board AND Project Arachne done in time!
Thank you for reading my adventures. I will do better on the Game Pictures next time!
Have a great day, and remember, Victory over the Grey is in your reach!
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