West Coast GT 2014: Results and Games (Part #1)

Another year has passed, and another West Coast GT is in the books. This year 53 players faced off in a series of five games and at the end of the tournament, the winner was Leadership 2's Don Gilliland. I played well, missed some key objective points, and managed to finish 11th overall. I missed a top tenth placing (and the key invite for the West Coast qualifier for the U.S. Masters) by tie-breakers.

Below is a breakdown of all my games and scores, but full results are available here. This year I was playing a monster mash Dark Elf list and had a blast throwing tons of monsters and thunder stomps around the board. My scores for this year were: 71 battle points, 17 composition points (opponent judged), 24 sports points, and 29 paint points. I even swung a favorite opponent vote. The low portion of my score came from army composition (with 5 monsters on the board) and my poor battle showing.

As this year there was a 16 to 4 point spread based on the victory point difference, it was hard to get full 20 point wins each game. In comparison, it was much easier to get full draws or smaller 12 to 8 point wins/losses. And I managed to pick up several of these minor wins/losses/draws. My 71 points came from two wins, one loss, and two draws, as well as a general failure to pick up bonus objective points.

Now on to the games!

Round #1: Ed Phillips - Nurgle Daemons
For Round 1, Ed and I had grudged each other as it had been quite a few years since we had played and we both wanted a chance to yell at each other. Ed brought a nasty Nurgle Daemon list which included: Epidemius, the Blue Scribes of Tzeentch, a Herald of Tzeentch, 41 Plaguebearers with Standard of Discipline, a 14 man unit of Pink Horrors, 2 small units of Furies marked Nurgle, a 4 pack of Nurglings, two solo beasts, a six-pack of Nurgle Beasts, two units of 3 Plague Drones, and the evil Skull Cannon.

Ed and I were playing the Mickey scenario which meant that if we couldn't kill Mickey, neither of us would be able to pick up any of the four bonus objective points. Spoiler alert: we didn't kill the damn thing!

Ed (this sorry excuse for a Warhammer player), set up strong with plaguebearers and the six-pack of beasts in the center, drones and furies on the flanks, horrors in the back, and nurglings in my corner.

I set up opposite with monsters across from plaguebearers, fast cavalry on the flanks, and flyers looking at some awesome first turn charges. Unfortunately, Ed snaked the first turn and stole all my thunder.

The game progressed with the center units pushing towards each other while we maneuvered for better positions on the flank. In the early turns, I was able to take down the units of furies and move away from the nurglings while the Kharybdis took down one of the solo beasts. Ed, in turn, started pushing wounds with magic and shooting onto the warlock units. The cannon targeted the Kharybdis now free from the beasts and put four wounds on the creature.



In the middle of the game, I managed to destroy one of the units of drones and another solo beast. I even got the wounded Kharybdis into the horror unit, but was flanked the next turn by the six-pack of beasts. Half the horrors died, but so did the monster. As we pushed closer together I zapped the Blue Scribes with magic and shooting, but lost a unit of warlocks and a unit of dark riders before it died.

In the very center of the board combat was brought to bear against the plaguebearers when I mistakenly charged through Mickey. I lost the Dragon on the charge, but the hero survived and challenged out Epidemius. I was also able to charge with both hydras. This combat would last until the very end of the game.

The beasts, now on the flank, were unable to make it into any other unit for the rest of the game. With magic and shooting, I brought down the last unit of drones, but horrors would kill all the warlocks and a few more dark rider units.

In the massive combat, I would eventually commit my BSB and get a Manticore charge in the rear (after he killed the Skull Cannon). Ed would eventually roll double sixes on the bottom of Turn 5 to send the remaining 5 plaguebearers and Epidemius back to the warp, but I would end up losing my general and a hydra in the combat.

At the end of the game, Ed and I were within 200 points of each other, giving us both a solid 10-10 draw for Round 1. Unfortunately, neither of us were able to kill Mickey and so we would not be getting any bonus points. This put me at 10 out of a possible 20 battle points to start the tournament.

Round #2: Mike Scaletti - Warriors of Chaos
Round 2 I played Ed's teammate and fantastic painter Mike Scaletti. Mike was playing his standard hard-hitting fast warriors build. His list included: a Daemon Prince of Slaanesh (Level 4, and yes, he did get both Cacophonic Choir and Acquiescence) with Soul Feeder and a breath weapon, a Chaos Sorcerer of Slaanesh, Exalted Hero of Tzeentch on Disc (BSB), three chariots marked Slaanesh, two chariots marked Nurgle, three units of 5 marauder horsemen marked Slaanesh, three units of warhounds, a Chimera, and a Hellcannon.

Mike's list is fast, hard-hitting, and his magic absolutely wrecks people's ability to play the game. I still think Cacophonic is the best spell in the game as it completely prevents your opponent from being able to respond to the Daemon Prince if the spell is successfully cast.

Mike and I were playing the Real Housewives of the OC scenario. This gave us the table corner deployment. I won the roll off which allowed Mike to completely respond to my deployment. I would have much rather responded to his deployment and let him go first. Instead, as you can tell from the picture. He deployed back from the edge of his deployment line so that I was denied several of my better first turn charges.

In the early turns of the game I moved up with the fast cavalry and put some wounds on his warhounds, wiping one unit off on turn 1. I also managed to flank charge a Slaanesh chariot, but after some poor combat rolls, the chariot held and the dark riders were in turn flank charged by a unit of warhounds and destroyed. Mike then swung his monsters to the right flank and set up charges for the later turns.

In the middle of the game the BSB charged a nurgle chariot the same turn that the dragon charged the Hellcannon. The BSB destroyed the chariot and overran into the cannon.

In the ensuing combat, the dragon and BSB left the cannon with just a single wound, but were themselves stuck out in the open (I failed to roll anything higher than a single wound for the BSB's d3 wounds).

Mike took advantage of my poor dice and poor position and flank charged the dragon and BSB with several chariots. The BSB would eventually die. The dragon, in turn, would kill off the cannon and the chariot it was in combat with and fly over the other chariots to begin hunting down the Daemon Prince.




Over on the right flank, the Manticore and a unit of warlocks would take out the Chimera in combat, only for the Chaos BSB to kill the Manticore. The housewife would eventually take off the Tzeentch BSB's Talisman of Preservation, but it was too late to bring the BSB to combat.

At the end of the game, the Daemon Prince would take down a hydra and several dark rider models from Cacophonic. Eventually, he would also kill the Dragon after getting charged in combat (I did manage three wounds), but would eventually fall to the might of a Kharybdis and a unit of warlocks (it only had 1 wound left). At the end of the game, Mike and I had several smaller units left on the board and had ended the game in a 10/10 draw with only a 20 point difference.

I would emerge from this battle with all the bonus points as I still had a unit of warlocks left, depriving Mike of all my rares, but he destroyed both my most expensive unit and most expensive magic item. At the end of two games I was sitting at 24 out of 40 battle points.

To be continued in Part 2!