Epic - Castle Assault 2023

Well, that was... exhausting.  Very enjoyable, and surprisingly I'm not entirely drained of Epic enthusiasm.

A two day event in Newcastle,  about a 2 to 3 hour drive north for me.

We had 6 tables and 12 players,  with 10k 28mm playing on the other side of the room. All the tables (terrain) were quite varied which is good, some wide open and others packed with buildings. Means that certain armies can't automatically dominate just through terrain on every table.

The event only has 5 games, with 3 on day one, and 2 on day two.  Six games is reeeeeeally be overkill for my concentration.

First game was against Orks on my favourite table (a tangential WIN without even rolling a dice!).  It's the most atmospheric table.

This was against one of the top tier players (placed 3rd), and is pretty much the only way I'm going to face one of the best players... which is kinda bad because I learn a lot from playing the better guys.

Anyway I managed a 0:1 LOSS and it was a fun match. I think I might have been lucky playing him while he was still getting up to speed  :)

Both of us were rusty on the rules, as was almost everyone at the event, but (enough) things returned surprisingly quickly.

Second game was against Knights, which I've fortunately used myself a while back, so I had an idea how they work.

The table was quite open which made it hard to hide, but basically I aimed to circle around the Knights main thrust toward my Blitz, hindering them along the way and then hitting late game from the side. 

I managed a 1:0 WIN, and again a fun match, with a number of fun confrontations on the battlefield that made it entertaining and memorable.

Third game was against Titans. Again, I've run these myself previously so I had some idea going into the match.  This wasn't a great table for hiding on for my army.

I managed a 1:0 WIN.  Kind of a tough match in so far as my marines have virtually no weapons capable of taking out the 2 Warlords (including BTS). So I aimed to peck away at the Warhounds and retain enough scrapped units to contest objectives at the end of the game.

No way was I getting BTS but I could possibly have extended the win ratio if I'd succeeded in breaking the more aggressive Warlords - sadly the dice were against me and I think I miscalculated the Damage Capacity of the unit - tried to break it off the objectives by loading it with blast markers.

But whatever, I'll take a scrappy win.

I ended up drive back to Sydney after the game, mainly because the hotel I know didn't have any rooms available.  No biggy.

Back in the morning and a bit tired.

Fourth game was against Imperial Guard and despite there being some cover I was not confident.  I have player this player and his army before and my estimate turned out to be bang on the money.

I lost my Warhound and Thunderhawk/Terminators immediately so I retired at end of turn 1.  He has massive, heavy hitting units that I have no counters for. I would just be running around the map getting killed for three more turns.

So a 5:0 LOSS, and we had time to relax, have a chat (the most compelling reason for going to these things) and wait for the next game.  Was pretty tired so not fussed by the result.

In hindsight I could have played on and kept my BTS alive and got a 4:0 loss but pretty tired by this stage and not enthused.

Fifth game was against Eldar.  Biel Tan - I have built an army of these for myself, so I know what the units are even though I haven't used them yet.

I did manage to take out a few units quite quickly while keeping some depleted units around, so I had options even if I wasn't putting out a lot of hurt by the end of the game.

Managed a 2:2 draw, which actually turned into a Win based on the number of points killed, approximately 2200 (me) vs 1700 (him) and you need 200pt difference to pull the win.

So a minor Win but a win none the less.  I'll take it.

I got in some successful Engage actions against the tank squads which was good, even if I only thought to do it later into the game.  Was a tough but interesting match, and a good way to end the tournament.

This was my final results.  3 wins, 2 losses mainly by minor margins.  Which is probably my best tournament results to date.

I still forgot some nuance stuff but in general I think I was playing 'more advanced' than I used to - thinking about breaking units with blast markers tactically (not usually foremost in my mind as a Marines player), trying to run good Engage actions with BMs before starting (even if I didn't manage to pull any combined assaults as I'd planned) etc.

The Terminators put in some very decent work. This was the 2x Thunderhawk + Terminator setup, so they could air assault in subsequent rounds.  Potentially they get my unit of the tournament commendation.

And that was that.  This morning I added the new battle colours to the models before boxing them away for next time.  This army has been "on campaign" 4 times now which is interesting... if only to me,  haha.

Technically I was running them as 'vanilla' Codex Astartes list, not my custom Black Templar specific list this time around, but... [shrug].

Some of the models have been in all jaunts (A) like the leaders and land speeders, while the rest haven't seem much (B) or any action (C) before this trip.

Managed to place 7th of 12 players, which is a decent enough result.  All of the top 6 players are next level with far more experience than... well, the rest of us.

I'm not suddenly enthused to start grinding Epic games/events again, but I did enjoy the games I played more than I'd anticipated.  Definitely keen to do it all again next year.  With Cancon probably not running Epic again,  CA2024 will probably be the next opportunity anyway.

Until next time... 

Orbital Battle Command - Second Live Test Game

After the first successful test run and my picking at the rules for a couple of weeks we got in a second test game.

I was not lazy and brought some terrain and effects to set the scene this time round, ha.

My game buddy ran Marines and I gave the Knight Household list a run.  We were running approximately 150-200pt and about 9 units a side.  

The mid-zone ended up quite sporty with transports zipping infantry forward (as intended).  Occurred to me that the transports run not entirely dissimilar to OPR transports.  The all reds vs all blacks card packs seems to work as well (or better) than single suit.

Infantry in cover worked as anticipated. The transports are... slightly unsatisfactory.  Possibly too resilient and can just sit on an objective where they end out slapping away at each other indefinitely... so a bit boring.  Going to need to have to contemplate this a bit more.

We ended up contesting each others base objectives.  The addition of destroying enemy units counting toward VP (optional objectives) made combat feel a bit more purposeful rather than just using it to get units off objectives.

There were several decent combat points aiming at the objectives.

There are no mechanics that cause units to flee (blast markers/breaking) which means you can get damaged units to stick around which I kinda like.  It actually bugs me that soldiers conditioned to get nom'd or fight to the death just run off.  Sure they lose effectiveness (have -1 card) but where do they think they're going to go.

And in the end it was a pretty decent, interesting battle. Didn't feel particularly one-sided or that anything was particularly over powered.  Our final VP totals 6:4 with me just ahead. 

I will still need to tweak points a bit, but the mechanics of everything still worked well.

Shields and Macro were a win in my opinion.

The question now is;  what to do with the game now?  not much really. It's a purpose built project and it's kinda done.  I've made it available but it's not something that can be made 'commercial'.  Anyone who wants to give it a try... well... enjoy.   I'll keep tweaking and contemplating as is my way and just to make it as best I can, but it's eminently playable.  Cards over dice is a fantastic adjustment.

Until next time...