Saffron GT 4-1 review!

Last weekend I attend the Saffron GT held by the amazing Lewis (Elmo Miniatures) who held yet another fantastic event in the beautiful Saffron Walden.

Like the last few events I carried on with the Belly/Thirster list.

HQ:

Be'lakor 

Pall of Despair, Shrouded Step

Bloodthirster 

Indomitable Onslaught, great axe

Warlord: Brazen hide

Relic: A'rgath 

Fluxmaster

Staff of change 

Bolt of Change, Infernal Flames 

Relic: Endless Grimoire

Tranceweaver

Delightful Agonies 

Troops:

10 Daemonettes 

10 Daemonettes 

3 Nurglings 

10 Pink Horrors 

Elites:

4 Fiends

4 Fiends

5 Flamers

5 Flamers

4 Flamers

Game 1 vs Guard

Secondaries:

Rebels-15

Despoilers-12

Warp Ritual-12

Games 1 I got Matt and his interesting guard list on the Scouring.

60 Cadians, 20 Death Korp infantry, 10 mechanised kasrkins, 10 scions, 5 rough riders, 3 sentinels, 2 russes, russ commander, commissar, finial command squad, straken, death korp commander, rogal dorn and a Chimera.

No key kasrkins or mortars made this a very comfortable match up with the terrain set up. I went second and didn't have to worry about getting shot for the first couple turns. I moved up Flamers, nettes and Fiends to the walls outside my deployment setting up for the next turn, done my actions and threw my nurglings out to tie up the cadians that moved towards the centre to stop it doing the scan action.

My turn 2 my Fiends charged both side objectives while Belly jumped to the middle and the thirster dropped in since the rest of the board was covered with remain vigilant bodies and I knew if I didn't take my one gap, I'd be pushed back.

My pressure overload approach worked as Matt spent to much firepower to start on the phase cap taking 7 wounds with the tanks, he used multiple infantry squads and the kasrkins to get rid of the squad of Fiends with Agonies on them while the other Fiends blocked his other squads getting onto an objective and managed to tank straken. The horses ran and bounced off Belly before being picked up by the dark master.

Turn 3 I ended up killing a russ, the command squad, 3 infantry squads and the kasrkins.

I had pushed Matt so far back and was getting 12 on primary while he was only getting 4, losing bodies and scoring low on boots.

Great opponent but his lack of mortars and key threat made this a hard game for him.

94-62 win

Game 2 vs Guard

Secondaries:

Rebels-15

Warp Ritual-12

Nourished-15

So my reward for beating Guard, was more guard! This time I got to play Tom who I've played multiple times in the past.

A much more meta guard list with 18 mortars, dorn, 2 russes and a tank commander, 2 command squads (one with finial), straken, 60 cadians, 20 Kasrkins (one with key), 10 riders (2 units).

We were playing abandoned sanctuaries though the two big terrain pieces with in the middle, so Belly had no where to properly hide.

Instead I set him up so Tom had to expose his units to get shots off.

Went second again and Belly had to take the shooting of the dorn, 2 russes and 10 key kasrkins, unfortunately for Tom he fell for the bait and didn't have the CP for the mortal stray only managing to take about 8 wounds off of Belly.

My turn 1 Flamers killed the kasrkins, and both units of Fiends ran up to the objectives on the flanks, clearing 5 rough riders and 10 guardsmen while jumping Belly to the otherside of the board to again force Tom to have to move his tanks foward to get any angles on the big guy.

The thirster dropped down and clearing the one infantry squad that didn't have remain vigilant in the middle. Both fiend squads run foward pushing Tom back, 1 single fiend proceeding to keep 2 russes tied up and killing one over 2 turns (admittedly Tom did help by taking 4 wounds from plasma).

The thirster is a real hard counter for guard when they have nothing around the finial, with Belly and Flamers pushing Tom into his deployment and keep both Tom's Boots and primary low.

Tom is a gentleman and had some poor rolls, but let the thirster and Fiends scare him to much by playing to passive.

97-52 win

Game 3 vs World Eaters

Secondaries:

Reality Rebels-15

No Prisoners-13

Despoilers-8

Game 3 I ran into Team Icelands Micheal and his really grim world Eaters list on tide of Conviction. Road of eight bloody steps invocatus, Prince, Master of executions, 8x5 bezerkers, 2 rhinos, 2x3 eightbound, 5 eightbound and 3 individual Spawn.

I went first moving the first onto the centre of one of my objectives while Belly hung around ready to jump on either side and teleported 5 Flamers up to the 5 eightbound that moved up to his far side objective, killing 2 while wound another and then the Fiend unit that ran up finished it off while only losing 2 in return to fights on death thanks to the feel no pain kicking in.

My other unit of Fiends that ran up to block out bezerkers got smashed to pieces by multiple zerker squads.

This game was a back and forth of zerkers jumping out to grab objectives while killing either nettes or Flamers while I killed then in the following turn. Turn 3 Belly killed the last eight bound on my far objective while the nettes behind him despoiled. I also used my other squad of nettes to despoil my other objective while I brought in one squad of Flamers in his back field killing more zerkers while my other 5 man already on the board jumped up to his objective in the open killing another 5 bezerkers. My thirst charged and destroyed a rhino and I decided not to tag either squad that jumped put so he couldn't get a chance to start on the phase cap.

In the next turn Micheal didn't attempt to stop either despoilers nor charge the thirster or Belly opting instead to kill a unit of Flamers not on an objective with bezerkers while exposing his invocatus and master of executions clear the other 5 Flamers.

My turn 4 the thirster had cleared more bezerkers on the far objective while Belly killed the invocatus and 10 nettes killed the MoE.

At this point I knew I managed to keep Micheal preoccupied in his table half with nettes, flamers and the big guys (especially the thirster who scared Micheal way to much).

Turn 5 I had both big guys sitting in the centre of his 2 foward objectives, while holding one of my objectives with the fluxmaster and the other with the horror squad that strung out from the back. In Micheals turn 5 he managed to get a big advance on his last unit of bezerkers who found the only miniscule space on the far objective the thirster was standing on that wouldn't invoke an intervention from the big guy. The Prince charged the horrors with 9 attacks, 4 of them rolling a 6 to explode and causing 3 mortals on the wounds. One brave little horror managed to somehow survive and then watch 8 of his 9 mates split in blue Horrors to stop Micheal grabbing some end game points.

A tense game with a very focused opponent that required me to have play my best game to get a result.

81-66 win 

Game 4 vs Orks

Secondaries:

Rebels-7

Nourished-7

Warp Ritual-3

So game 4 I got to go into the one match up out of the remaining I really didn't want! I played my 6++ teammate Aarron and his beautiful shark squig themed army!

Rocking the squig boss, Zagstrukk, 30 storm boys, 30 grots, 20 snagga Boyz, 2x5 Nobz, a trukk, 2 squig buggies, 5 hog Boyz and 2 kill rigs.

I instantly made the mistake of reserving the thirster and all my daemonettes while maybe deploying my Fiends abit to far foward as a screen. I went second, got Waaghed turn 1 and lost all the Fiends and Nurglings. While I did manage to kill 5 Nobz, 10 Storm Boyz and 5 hog Boyz in return, I got swamped again with the two characters, 10 Boyz and 20 more storm Boyz. Already at this point Aarron had all the board and even my own objective and while I again managed to clear what was in front of me, I went into turn 3 with just the Thirster, both small characters, 7 Flamers and 20 nettes. Aarron took advantage of my huge faux pa and tore to a new one as you'd expect from Orks.

Orks though are generally always a fun game and I got to have a laugh (even if at my own expense) with a team mate so it softened the very brutal blow!

97-48 loss

Game 5 vs Ravenwing

Secondaries:

Rebels-15

Warp Ritual-12

Retrieve-12

This was all too familiar territory going into round 5 at 3-1, I was determined I was going to overturn this Curse I was under recently and break the run of 3-2s though that shadow of self doubt was creeping in.

I got to play Matt who I played at the Peterborough Slam in round 5 a couple weeks before. I had made some early mistakes in that game having not gone into that match up in a long long time, and while I managed to keep it close, my mistakes made it too hard of a task to pull back. Matts was running two big 9 man black knight squads, a 3 man melta attack bike squad, 5 speeders, 2 Vengeances, a darkshroud, Apothecary, Azreal, chaplain and that damned talonmaster!

I like a squad of Fiends and nurglings up to block his bikes eyes on the stuff behind the big L in my back field, I did go first and sent the Fiends up to get the attack bikes. Unfortunately I left one on a wound which would heal back to a full squad by turn 3 thanks to the Apothecary.

In return I lost the all Fiends after I foolishly over exposed the other unit in an attempt to move block my deployment zone even though I had already block the bike squads with the first fiend unit. The nurglings also got blown up here but Matt had send out his Vengeance and moved one of his bike units away from the buffing characters.

Turn 2 I teleported Belly to the middle and locused the Thirster in 6" away from the bike squad on it's own. I lined all my flamers up to kill both Vengeances, made the charge with the thirster and Belly actually made the 9" on the squad (with a re-roll of course). Belly killed 5 bikes while the Thirster managed to drop 7 from the other squad!

This was a great turn and Matt knew he now had alot to do to salvage anything. Unfortunately 16 melta shots at the thirstee say 9 wound but I managed to roll 8 4+ saves and then the first proceeded to ignore 2 out of the 5 damage. Matt desperately threw Azreal in to try and slow the thirster but didn't do anything, after popping transhuman the thirster managed to take all but 1 wound from the chapter master. I did roll a 4+ on relentless carnage to take his last wound. 

Turn 3 I got the remaining bikes and 3 speeders but at this point the game had swung to much in my favour.

92-50 Win

A super fun weekend with great opponents as is always the case at Saffron. Managed to get that 4-1 and finish 8th/50 though I am quickly slipping down those UKTC rankings....

I think this may be the last event of 9th I run the big guys as I want to give a no monster list a real go, with my next event being the Gothic  Games GT in Canterbury next weekend.